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";
Ouzo effect Ouzo effect The ouzo effect (also louche or spontaneous emulsification) is a cloudy ("louche") oil-in-water emulsion that is formed when water is added to ouzo and other , such as pastis, rakı, arak, sambuca and absinthe. Such microemulsions occur with only minimal mixing and are highly stable. The ouzo effect occurs when a strongly hydrophobic essential oil such as "trans"-anethole is dissolved in a water-miscible solvent, such as ethanol, and the concentration of ethanol is lowered by addition of small amounts of water. Oil-in-water emulsions are not normally stable. Oil droplets coalesce until complete phase separation is achieved at macroscopic