The market

Dry cider

Fermented apple juice. In Normandy, Brittany and Asturias it's a cooking liquid as much as a drink — for mussels, pork, chicken and chorizo.

Knowing it

Where to buy
Dry, unpasteurised farmhouse cider for cooking; sweet commercial ciders make sauces cloying.
Worth knowing
Reduce it by half before adding cream, or the sauce will be thin and sharp.

Kitchens that keep it in

Asturias — the green mountains and coast of northern Spain, on the Bay of BiscayAsturianA kitchen of rain and mountains: big white beans stewed with smoked sausage, milk and blue cheese, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and cider poured from a height.7 classics