Fish, potato, then rice.

A stew in two courses

Bullit de peix reaches the table in two parts, and the first is not a starter in any small sense. A wide dish arrives with potatoes, pieces of fish and a broth coloured with saffron and paprika. Bread and alioli come with it. When the fish and the potatoes are gone, the dish is carried away and the same broth comes back as rice. Two courses, one pot, and no gap in the logic of the meal.

The name is plain Catalan: bullit, boiled, and peix, fish. Nothing about it is decorative. It belongs to the family of western Mediterranean fish stews, cooked in a heavy pot with what the boats landed and what the market did not take. Ibizan cooks build the base as a sofrit of tomato, onion, garlic and parsley, softened slowly in oil before any liquid goes in. The pot was never a display of wealth. It was, and is, a way of making a modest catch feed a table.

What goes into the pot

The fish changes with the day and the season. A bullit is built on rockfish and other firm, bony fish that give flavour to the broth instead of flaking away to nothing. Groupers and scorpionfish are common, and so are the darker fish that would never be put on a grill. Potatoes go in whole or in thick slices and are cooked until they just hold together. Saffron, sweet paprika and a picada of almonds and garlic finish the pot.

Quantities are a matter of judgement rather than of recipe. Every kitchen has its own proportion of fish to potato, its own moment for adding the paprika, its own view on how far the broth should reduce before the rice goes in. That is why two versions of bullit de peix cooked a few kilometres apart can taste quite different, and why nobody who cooks it well treats the question as settled. The constants are the pot, the fire and the two courses.

• AnfósGrouper, firm and white, gives the pot its body and its sweetness.
• Cap-roigScorpionfish, added for flavour rather than for the fillet.
• MorenaMoray eel, dark and rich, a traditional addition in island kitchens.
• CongreConger eel, cut thick and cooked until it softens into the broth.

A dish from the working port

Ibiza's cooking comes from a coast that had salt, fish and little else in quantity. Salt from the pans in the south preserved what the boats brought in, and the boats brought in a mixed catch: fish of several sizes, some prized and some not worth selling. A stew is what a cook does with that. The dish is not a restaurant invention. It comes from kitchens where nothing was wasted and the pot had to feed a household.

Boats still work out of Eivissa, Sant Antoni and Santa Eulària, and the shape of the day has not changed much: out early, back, clean the fish, sell, mend the nets. Bullit de peix belongs to that rhythm. In the island's own telling, the dish is what fishermen ate once the valuable fish had gone to the market and the rest had stayed at home. The story is hard to prove and easy to believe, because it describes how the pot works.

The dish is what fishermen ate once the valuable fish had gone to market.

The rice that follows

The second course is not a separate dish. The broth left in the pot, with the potatoes eaten and the bones taken out, is measured and used to cook rice. The name for it is arròs a banda, rice cooked to one side, with the fish held back. The grains take the colour of the sofrit and the taste of everything that has been in the pot before them. Nothing else needs adding. It is the same meal, continued.

This is the part that catches people out. After a first course of potatoes, the rice arrives as a second full plate, and it is usually the one that finishes the table. Cooked properly, the grains stay separate and the liquid is absorbed rather than left standing. A kitchen that rushes the rice, or uses too much broth, produces something closer to a wet risotto. That is not what the dish is meant to be.

Where to look for it

Bullit de peix is on menus across Ibiza, but not everywhere and not on the same day. It is a dish a kitchen commits to, because the pot is made in quantity. The port villages and the smaller coastal settlements are the obvious places to look, and family kitchens inland cook it as well, often at weekends. A short fish menu is a better sign than a long one. Look for it at midday, when the kitchen has time.

Portions are usually built for two or more, and some kitchens ask for the order in advance so that the pot is not made for a single table. If bullit de peix appears on a menu and the room is quiet, ask whether it is being cooked that day. Menus follow the season and the catch, so the fact that a dish was there last summer says little about this week.

• Ask firstConfirm the dish is being cooked that day; the pot is made in quantity.
• Two or moreMost kitchens prepare bullit de peix for a minimum of two diners.
• MiddayA long meal sits better at lunch than at a late dinner.
• The catchAsk which fish are in the pot; the answer changes through the year.

The meadow behind the fish

The fish in the pot grew in water that is protected for a reason. Posidonia oceanica, the seagrass that fills the sea between Ibiza and Formentera, is a flowering plant and not a seaweed, and its meadows run from the shallows to about 30 or 40 metres down. They shelter young fish, hold the sand in place and keep the water clear. The fishery and the meadows are the same argument.

Anchoring over the meadows is regulated under a Balearic decree, and mooring buoys have been laid in some bays for the summer. A scar cut by an anchor chain can take decades to close. The practical version for a visitor is short: use a buoy where one is provided, anchor over sand rather than over the dark patches, and check the current rules with the natural park office. Dalt Vila and these meadows share one World Heritage listing.

Ordering and eating

The meal has a shape worth knowing before sitting down. Bread, alioli and perhaps a plate of tomatoes or olives come first, then the bullit, then the rice. It is not a quick lunch. If the rest of the day matters, eat earlier rather than later and do not plan a long drive straight afterwards. Water on the table is normal, and so is a glass of dry white wine. Nobody will hurry the table.

Alioli deserves its own paragraph. The island version is garlic pounded with oil and salt, thick and strong, meant to be spread on bread and eaten with the potatoes and the fish. Some kitchens loosen it with lemon or a little milk; the idea is the same. Used sparingly at the start, it lasts the whole meal and does more for the broth than anything else on the table.

• One potOrder for the table, since the dish is cooked to be shared.
• BreadKeep some back for the broth and for the alioli.
• AlioliSpread it thinly on bread rather than spooning it into the stew.
• PaceLeave time between the courses; the rice is cooked to order.

A dish for cooler months

Bullit de peix is cooked at home through the year, but it sits best in the cooler half, when the sea is around 14 or 15 °C and the island is quiet. That is also when many kitchens are shut. In summer the same dish turns up on beachside menus and is eaten in the heat, which is a heavier pleasure. Both versions are honest; they belong to different months. The dish does not change; the day around it does.

Out of season the island's own cooking comes back: rice, stews, vegetables from the garden and the winter fish. If bullit de peix is the one fixed point of a trip and the visit falls in winter, telephone ahead and be prepared to be told no. In June or September it is easy to find and the tables are fuller. In any month it is a shared meal before it is a menu item.