Mediterranean cuisine to Catalonia and Murcia along Spain's Mediterranean coast. It comes in many versions, and may contain a mixture of chicken, pork, rabbit, or shellfish, sautéed in olive oil in a large shallow pan, with vegetables, and typically round-grain rice (often of the local "albufera", "arròs bomba", "sénia" varieties or similar) cooked to absorb the water and coloured with saffron. The dish may be varied with artichoke hearts, peas, sweet peppers, lima beans, string beans, or sausages. Anise is used around the Mediterranean to flavour spirits including French "pastis" and "absinthe"; Greek "ouzo"; Bulgarian "mastika"; Italian "sambuca"; Spanish "anísado"; Turkish "rakı";
The Flavour Thesaurus the best books for Christmas 2010, called it "Original and prodigious in range", and wrote " its recondite market (cooks drawn to outré combinations) has been broadened with lively writing, but the section on oysters is more fallible than might be expected from a reference work." "The Flavour Thesaurus" has also been reviewed by "The Sunday Times", Foodtripper, Good, "Library Journal", "BookList", "Michigan Quarterly Review", and "The Globe and Mail". In addition to the UK and US editions, "The Flavour Thesaurus" has been translated into fourteen languages, including French, Russian and Japanese. The Flavour Thesaurus The Flavour Thesaurus: Pairings, recipes