School of Tapas: Fried Padrón peppers

Have you ever heard about Padrón peppers? There's a saying that goes Pimientos de Padrón, unos pican y otros no (Padrón peppers, some are hot and some are not). This refers to the fact that most of Padrón peppers are sweet and flavorful, while only a few of them can be quite hot, which makes eating them a culinary Russian roulette. And not only a gastronomic pleasure, but a lot of fun too.

These little morsels of vegetable goodness originate in the northwestern region of Galicia, around the town of Padrón, hence their name. I have some kinfolk living there, so I visit often and have the chance to eat them at the local bars... delish. Padrón peppers are usually eaten fried in olive oil and with a sprinkle of coarse salt that not only enhances their flavor, but adds a nice crunch. No need for any other garnish, simplicity and quality food at its best.

Pimientos de Padrón

• 1/2 pound fresh Padrón peppers
• Virgin olive oil for frying
• Coarse salt or fleur de sel

1. Wash the peppers thoroughly and pat dry with kitchen paper.
2. Pour the oil in a pan to a depth of 1" approximately and put it on medium heat.
3. When the oil is hot, grab a handful of peppers and throw them into the oil. Use a lid as the oil will splash quite a lot. They should brown on both sides, but should not get too dark. Turn them over if necessary.
4. When done, take them out with a slotted spoon and sprinkle with the salt. Serve immediately while piping hot accompanied by a sturdy country bread.

For eating the peppers, you’ve got to hold them by the stem, bite into the flesh and pull, leaving the stem intact. You’ll end up with a nice collection of little stems on your plate. Fried Padron peppers are superb served with a chilled fruity Galician white wine like Ribeiro or Albariño.

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School of tapas: Mallorcan tumbet, a vegetable tapa

It’s spring, folks. The perfect time to get advantage of the seasonal produce available in the markets. Tumbet is a dish of roasted vegetables typical from the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, one of the most visited spots in Spain. The Balearic Islands, the archipelago to which Mallorca belongs, are known since the Roman times for its wonderful vegetables. That is why the native cuisine features quite an array of delicious vegetable dishes. This is one of them, a simple dish of sliced fried vegetables, stacked, topped with tomato sauce, then heated in the oven. Such an easy recipe needs of course to rely on the quality of its ingredients. And I tell you: Majorcan vegetables are some of the best in the world (to be savoured at the villas in Majorca... sigh).

In this dish the vegetables are first deep-fried individually, as they ask for different frying times, and then are thoroughly drained from the oil. The final dish must not feel oily at all. I am sure you will be wondering if you can roast the vegetables instead of frying them. Of course you can, but then you will have a different dish, not tumbet. The frying in olive oil gives the vegetables a distinct flavor and texture worth trying. And it goes without saying that the better the vegetables chosen, the better the result. Furthermore, it is essential to use a top quality tomato sauce. I usually have some homemade sauce of my own at hand. I use a lot of onion in making it to avoid adding sugar, that is why it looks so orange and pale in the photo. But I believe it is healthier. And I can tell you it is delicious, if I may say so myself…

One last piece of advice: the aubergines are fried last because they need a higher temperature than the other vegetables in the recipe. The higher the temperature, the less oil they will soak. Yeah, they like it hot.

Tumbet from Majorca

• 2 medium potatoes 
• 1 medium aubergine 
• 1 large zucchini 
• 1 red bell pepper 
• 1 green bell pepper 
• Tomato sauce to taste 
• Virgin olive oil for frying 
• Salt

1. First of all, slice the aubergine in 1/2 inch slices (without peeling it), lay on a colander, thoroughly sprinkle with salt and leave it for an hour to release its bitter juice. 
2. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and cut in 1/2 inch slices. Heat the olive oil and fry on medium heat, till slightly browned. While the potatoes are frying, slice the zucchini (without peeling it) and the peppers in 1/2 inch slices too. Set aside. 
3. Drain the potatoes and put them on a dish lined with kitchen paper to soak the oil. Fry the zucchini till browned. Drain them and put them on kitchen paper too. 
4. Fry the peppers and proceed as before. Pat dry the aubergine slices and fry them. Proceed as before. 
5. When all the vegetables are fried, thoroughly tender and drained from the oil, you can begin to arrange them in small stacks if you want to serve tapas, or in an oven dish. Begin by laying some tomato sauce on the base, then make the vegetable layers in the following order: potato, aubergine, zucchini and peppers. Add salt after finishing each layer. End up with some more tomato sauce for topping. You can sprinkle some herbs too if you fancy. For small stacks I use pastry rings to keep them neat. 
6. When done, heat the oven to 350-360F and bake for 15 minutes. Serve immediately, although tumbet can also be served at ambient temperature, especially when the weather is warm.

Buen provecho!

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School of tapas: Stuffed mini peppers with Spanish tortilla

Fine, now that you already know how to prepare a good Spanish tortilla we can move on and put that knowledge to good use on a different tapa, on some cute stuffed mini peppers with Spanish tortilla. This is a relatively recent twist on the Spanish tortilla with green peppers, where instead of adding the sliced and stir-fried peppers to the tortilla mixture and then concocting a regular tortilla, you make it totally the other way around: peppers outside, tortilla inside. Real fun. And yummy too.

Stuffed mini peppers with Spanish tortilla
Yields a tapa for 2 persons:

• 4-6 mini peppers
• 1 medium-largish potato
• 2 medium eggs
• 1/4 onion (optional)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt to taste

1. Start by preparing the mixture for the Spanish tortilla. Peel and slice the potatoes and do the same with the onion, if adding any. Heat as much oil as you need in a deep skillet or deep-fryer and deep-fry the potatoes and onions on low heat until thoroughly soft. Drain well and let cool. Set aside.
2. Break the eggs, put them in a bowl, add a pinch of salt per egg and beat. Add the drained vegetables and mix well, breaking the soft potato in pieces small enough to easily stuff the little peppers. Let the mixture rest a few minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 355ºF. 
4. Wash the peppers. Carefully remove the top of each pepper and set aside. Discard all seeds and membranes without breaking the peppers.
5. Place the peppers in an oven dish where they fit snugly, so that they keep upright. With a teaspoon, fill them with the tortilla mixture. Place the cap on top and brush the peppers with some extra olive oil.
6. Bake the peppers something in between 20 and 30 minutes, until the tortilla is set and the peppers are tender, but not browned.

If you use an earthenware little cazuela like mine, the dish will look utterly Spanish. Diced chorizo can be added to the tortilla mixture too, to give the stuffing some more spiciness. This kind of stuffed pepper dish is rarely prepared with hot peppers, but feel free to use jalapeños, for example. What I love about these type of stuffed pepper is that you can prepare them in advance only to bake them in the oven in the last minute. Mind my words: you'll love them.

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Pickled aubergines from La Mancha

No, I was not missing. I was on vacation. The summer is hot here in the Spanish plateau, so we always flee from here for at least a week and head north. To wherever north. But... to the point: this post deals with Almagro aubergines or berenjenas. Almagro is a beautiful village in the plain of La Mancha, packed with historic highlights and known for its lacemakers and yearly Classical Theater festival. But also for its pickled baby aubergines. I love them. In Madrid you can spot them canned in any good food shop or supermarket, but I had never found them fresh. Till last week. I entered my favourite greengrocer's and there they were. Plump and fresh, waiting for me. So I felt the urge to buy 4 pounds, just in case. In case I get a craving for pickled baby aubergines in the middle of the winter.




Almagro aubergines are a unique product from several villages of La Mancha. They are harvested while still small and unripe, and marinated in a dressing that normally includes vinegar, salt, cumin, garlic, sweet pimentón and olive oil in varying amounts, where they must remain up to a week before being eaten. They are sometimes stuffed with sweet red pepper. Like all things pickled or marinated, they are very easy to prepare, so their secret lies in the quality of the product and the seasoning. I especially love them on a bread slice, oozing their red sour juices. They are served as a tapa in the land of Don Quixote. I first tasted these eggplants an indecent amount of time ago, while visiting Almagro on a lacespotting expedition. I used to make bobbin lace before I had any kids. Sigh...

Being that Almagro aubergines are hard to find outside La Mancha, you can always try with any baby aubergines you might find.

Pickled aubergines Almagro style

• 4 pounds (2kg) baby aubergines
• 1 head garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp sweet Spanish pimentón
• 3 heaped tbsp salt
• 2 cups (500ml) cider vinegar
• Virgin olive oil to taste
• Water to boil the aubergines

1. Cut the stalk of the aubergines and half the leaves, and wash thoroughly.
2. Fill a large pan with water and bring to a boil. Cook the aubergines 5-7 minutes. Then drain and transfer immediately to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking. Do not throw away your cooking water because it can be used to be added later to the pickling mixture. (The poor aubergines lose their beautiful color the moment they touch the hot water and adopt a greenish-brown hue, but nobody is perfect.)
3. When cool, cut them lengthwise on one side.
4. Prepare the dressing by mashing the garlic to a paste, then add all other ingredients. You can put everything, except the water and the oil, in a blender or food processor. A few pulses and it's ready.
5. Place the drained aubergines in a clay pot (that's the traditional way) then add the pickling mixture. Top with the cooking water to almost cover the aubergines and then add a good glug of virgin olive oil. I recommend to try the pickling liquid, and add vinegar and salt if it is too weak, or water if too strong. Note that the pickling liquid should be on the strong side to impart enough flavor to the aubergines.
6. Let stand one week in the fridge, tossing from time to time. After four days you can try an aubergine to check the flavor and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
7. These pickled aubergines can be preserved; my recommendations for that are the following:
   
   • Fill the jars leaving the smallest top space possible, well covering the vegetables with the marinade.
   • Use good quality vinegar of at least 6-7%.
   • Use containers and lids of glass or glazed ceramic, which are unaffected by acid.
   • Always use a wooden spoon to remove the vegetable pieces from the jars.
   • It is not necessary to sterilize the jars as the antiseptic action of vinegar prevents the growth of bugs (in spite of that I keep my jars in the refrigerator, just to be on the safe side). They keep at least for a month.

Now I can face the end of summer sure that my family won't run short of aubergines in a while... Winter is coming.

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Potatoes sarladaises

How did I happen to make this French dish? Well, after eating a delicious piece of delicious duck confit I found myself with a bowl of delicious duck fat... If you have ever tried duck confit you know what I am talking about. And with the good intention to use up this very clean and beautiful fat I stumbled upon this recipe. Mais oui. Sarladaise potatoes are named after the town of Sarlat-la-Canéda in the department of Dordogne, Aquitaine region, southwestern France. Another one of the thousands of places where I would love to go. The peculiarity of these potatoes is that they are fried in duck or goose fat, which gives them a wonderful flavor and aroma... If on top of that they are accompanied by some delicious mushrooms for example (or Perigord truffles if you are very lucky)... you have a delighful dish, simple and sturdy for these still cold days, although the trees are already timidly poking their shoots.


In Spain pork lard or duck fat are hardly ever used nowadays. Doctors have outlawed them and olive oil is widely used for frying instead. But from time to time we can look back and use those two fats, very common in the cooking of the past. And all because now we spend the whole day sitted, instead of sweating and toiling in the fields. I could philosophize about the drawbacks of modern life and our sedentary lifestyle, but I don't feel like it today. Besides, I'm not a very sportive person myself... What I find really sad is that modern life imposes on us a reduction in the variety of our food and, above all, taking much less advantage of the produce around us. Instead, we love to eat cherries in winter, just brought from the other side of the world... but I will knock it off now, I don't want to bore you... again.

I stray from the subject. And the subject is that there are leftovers recipes that are at least as good as the ones in which all ingredients are brand-new. Like this one. Strongly recommended. For this recipe I risk clogging my arteries. And this fat can be easily frozen, divided into small containers to add them to dishes like these potatoes, also mashed potatoes, artichokes, beans... you name it. Above all, don't throw it away, please.



Potatoes sarladaises (from French Cooking, de Delorme, Boue y McLachlan)

For 2 servings:

• 2 large potatoes
• 7 or 8 heaped tbsp duck fat (or as much as you deem necessary to easily stir-fry the potatoes)
• 1 large garlic clove
• Some sprigs parsley

1. Peel the potatoes. Cut them in four lengthwise and then in 2mm thick slices.
2. Heat the duck fat in a skillet and add the potatoes. Stir-fry on high heat till they brown a little, then lower the heat and let them sizzle slowly, covered. Keep an eye on them to prevent them from sticking to the bottom, toss every now and then. The cooking time will depend largely on the quality of the potatoes.
3. In the meantime, prepare the persillade, a mixture of very finely minced raw garlic and parsley. When the potatoes are cooked, turn the heat off, season them to taste and sprinkle the persillade on top. Cover and let them stand 15 minutes, for them to absorb the aromas.

And there you have a great side dish or, as I said before, a great first course when accompanied by a more nourishing ingredient. The French, who are very wise, sometimes accompany them with truffles... but my budget for this month didn't allow for such feasting... In addition, I shouldn't spend more than necessary just to use up the fat... Was I not preaching frugality? Me?

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Soufflé potatoes with soft garlic

This month a fellow Spanish blogger was challenging us to prepare a soufflé. The name of this dish comes from the French and means literally blown up. I think I've prepared a soufflé only once in my life before this, back in the mists of time, and I barely remember it. Bad thing, because if it had been memorable, I would remember. But that means too that it was not a complete disaster. You know that soufflé is a classic dish in French cuisine, which can be sweet or savory, and when it is savory it is made almost always with a bechamel sauce base with egg yolks to which various flavorings can be added, then mixed with the egg whites beaten to stiff peaks, which are the element that gives the soufflé its lightness. Soufflés are baked in the oven, where, if well prepared, they greatly increase in volume. They have the disadvantage then that on cooling they can go down... deflate... demoralize... collapse. So, do not give them time. The best solution is just to devour them as quickly as possible... without warning.


Among the various preparation options we were given in the challenge, it was to prepare the soufflé with potatoes using their skins as containers. Good idea, nothing is wasted. Instead of the classic gruyére cheese, I decided to use Manchego cheese (you know of my liking for Manchego... or perhaps I should call it addiction), and to add just a little more spark, use some stir-fried soft garlic. And so I started out on a sunny January morning.







My source for the recipe is a beautiful video, here. And here goes my adaptation:

Soufflé potatoes with Manchego cheese and tender garlic
Yields four servings:

• 4 medium sized starchy potatoes
• 4 eggs
• 100g Manchego cheese
• 15ml virgin olive oil for rubbing the potatoes
• 30g butter
• 1 bunch of soft garlic (you can use more if you are a soft garlic lover)
• More virgin olive oil for frying the garlic
• Salt and pepper

1. We start by preheating the oven to 180ºC to roast the potatoes. Wash the potatoes thoroughly and dry them very well. Rub them with the oil and coat them in salt (for the skins to get crispy) and place them on a baking dish. When the oven is hot, roast the potatoes for an hour or as required. 
2. In the meantime grate the cheese as finely as you want. Set aside.
3. Clean the soft garlic, getting rid of the outer layers and slice finely; stir-fry with some olive oil on medium heat till wilted. Drain the oil and set aside too.
4. Crack the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Keep the whites in the fridge as they will be the last ingredient to be added to the soufflé mixture.
5. When the potatoes are thoroughly baked and soft (check by piercing them with a knife) take them out and let them temper a little, enough to avoid burns. Cut in half and hollow them with a spoon; put the potato meat in a bowl. Set the skins aside for later. Lightly mash the potato with a fork while still warm.
6. Raise the oven temperature to 200ºC.
7. Beat yolks lightly and add to mashed potatoes, mix well.
8. Add the butter, then the cheese and well drained garlic, then the salt and pepper. Check the seasoning, it should be on the salty side because you will still add the egg whites.
9. Whisk the whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, preferably with some electric appliance if you have it. Carefully mix with the mashed potato, slowly and carefully to deflate the whites as little as possible.
10. When thoroughly mixed, scoop portions of the mixture into the potato skins, just a little over the edge. After filling all the potatoes there will be leftover mixture enough to fill a small soufflé mold. Rub the mold with butter or oil, sprinkle with bread crumbs and pour the remaining soufflé mixture. The mold must be large enough to fit the surplus to a height of about 3/4. You can sprinkle all the soufflés with more cheese so that the tops brown nicely in the oven. Place the filled potatoes in a baking dish and bake everything around 15-20 minutes (the soufflé in the mold takes a tad more, as the amount is larger than in the potatoes).
11. Remove the soufflés from the oven and devour, without burning your tongue. If the potatoes were fine enough, they can be eaten whole, skin and all.

This is a succulent and fairly easy recipe and, at least in small doses it does not present a great danger of collapsing. And I like these dishes to which you can add a lot of different ingredients to make them more varied. Tell me, have you ever attempted to make soufflé? Now you have run out of excuses.

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Gougéres with manchego cheese

This recipe is no sophisticated reprocessing of a classic recipe, but the change of French cheese in the original recipe for such a Spanish native cheese like manchego infuses the puffs with such a rich taste that I wanted to share it. For those who do not know about gougères, they are small choux dough balls, basically very similar to sweet choux puffs like profiteroles, but tiny, savory and with cheese. They are soft and very light, because they are almost hollow. They are typical from the Burgundy region and are usually had as an appetizer to accompany the wine, including in wine tastings. The French are genius when it comes to food, oh là là. Concerning my culinary tastes, I am quite a Francophile... Everyone has a dark side. And I assure you these little puffs, like all small bites, are eaten by the dozen. You could eat tons. Well at least I could...


I have used the recipe in the Tartine book, the ever famous pastry shop in San Francisco, that I have modified only slightly. If you do not know the book, I highly recommend it. All the recipes I have tried have turned out to be a success. Making choux dough may seem a bit scary at first, when you've never even attempted it, but I assure you it really is not difficult and the result is well worth it. And with my Thermomix it is a breeze. Lately I have been preparing these puffs quite often whenever we have had guests and they are always a hit.

Gougères with manchego cheese
Yields between 90 and 100 puffs

• 310ml skimmed milk (or a mixture of whole milk and water at 50%)
• 140g unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 140g AP flour (in fact I usually make them with spelt)
• 5 medium eggs
• 130g soft manchego cheese, coarsely grated
• Black pepper to taste
• 1 aditional egg for glazing
• Finely grated manchego cheese for sprinkling (optional)
• Some herbs for sprinkling (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC if convection type, some 10ºC more if only radiation type. 
2. To make the choux dough, put the milk, butter and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil (heat to 90°C in the Thermomix, about 5 minutes on low speed). Once the mixture is hot, tip the flour in all at once and, without removing the pan from the heat, stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough coheres into a ball and starts to detach from the walls of the pan, about a minute (Thermomix 20 seconds, speed 4). 
3. Turn off the heat, allow the dough to temper about five minutes and then add the eggs one at a time, stirring well to absorb each time before adding the next egg (in Thermomix speed 4, no time). You will have a soft, sticky dough. 
4. Add the cheese and mix with a spatula.
5. Line two baking trays with parchment paper. 
6. With a silicone spatula, transfer the dough to a pastry bag (you will need at least two batches) with a round nozzle of about 8mm. Close the bag with a clip and, keeping the pastry bag tip at 1cm above the tray, pipe small mounds about 4cm in diameter (you do not have to be very accurate, of course), and leaving 2-3cm between them (although they rise more than expand).(*)
7. Beat the aditional egg and gently brush the dough mounds. Sprinkle with more cheese or herbs, if desired. The last time I made them I did not brush them with egg, but just sprinkled with a herbed salt mixture from La Camargue... delicious.
8. Bake for 25 minutes, be careful not to let them get burnt. When done, transfer to a wire rack to cool.
9. If there is still dough left, keep baking for as many batches as necessary and remember that the parchment paper can be reused.

(*) Tips: If the dough is too runny, so much so that it pours out of the pastry bag when you lift it vertically, just let it cool a bit, until the consistency is thick enough to make the mounds. Getting the "feel" of this dough just takes a little practice. On the contrary, if the dough is somewhat thick, so that is a bit hard to pipe, there is nothing really to be done, but it does not mean the gougères will not rise (well, unless the dough has the consistency of cement). They will turn out equally succulent. I advise against the use of silicon sheets on baking trays for these puffs, at least in my case I think that once they prevented my puffs from rising up right. Using parchment paper they blow up divinely like little balloons.

I serve my gougères with various types of charcuterie, I do not know if this is too French, but it is a combination you will not forget...

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Gnocchi with shellfish sauce, seaweed and a winner

A Spanish blog was challenging us to prepare gnocchi this month. As I had already tried my hand at gnocchi in the past, in order to bring a little joy into my humdrum life, I decided to add a-not-so-common ingredient: seaweed. Because I have a confession to make: I like seaweeds. Not because I have tried them in sushi, I had tasted seaweeds before trying the ubiquitous sushi, (no, not before sushi was invented, I'm not that old). I must say sushi doesn't really thrill me, to put it mildly. However, some seaweeds can be really good when fried or boiled in a salad. So I added powdered nori to the gnocchi dough and ate them with an accompaniment of fried sea spaghetti. This is what I call an adventurous life... And my Italian readers, if any, will probably be shocked at my impudence.

Hmmm, and I'm also revealing the name of the winner of the CSN giveaway!


First to the winner of the CSN giveaway: Domestic Diva! I will soon give CSN your name and e-mail address for them to send you the code.



And... back to the recipe, for the gnocchi sauce we were free (whoops!) to make whatever we wanted, so I decided to do some refrigerator cleaning by using up some crab boiling juice that had been frozen since the Jurassic, and because this week seemed to be my improvisation week so far I devised a roux sauce of crab and saffron. The recipe for the gnocchi is the following:

• 1kg potatoes
• 300g pasta flour
  
• 1 egg
  
• Salt
  

1. Wash the potatoes, unskinned, and cook them in salty water until tender. Leave to cool a bit to peel them without too much suffering, skin and pass through a food mill. Cover the mashed potato with plastic and allow to cool.
2. Add the beaten egg along with salt to the puree in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix well. Then add the flour and knead until you get a smooth dough that doesn't stick too much to your hands and can be manipulated. I do not know if it is very normal, but I had to add much more flour than the recipe called for, for dough to be manageable, so that at one point I gave up weighing the flour. I am afraid my potatoes were overcooked. I know, it's not very technical nor professional to ignore the total amount of flour I added... how I miss those times when the recipes instructed you to "add as much flour as it can take on" and everyone understood. If you think this is a cookbook, you are mistaken, it's a therapy-blog. If I did not write here I would be seeing a therapyst or something. Note that I spend most of the day alone, working on my stuff, without any nice colleagues to make caustic remarks nor a jerk boss to criticize... and I'm forced to swallow all my desire to criticize, gossip and talk-bad-about-my-neighbor... this healthy and relieving habit. And all that repression ends up accumulating in my stomach. As soon as I start to feel it, I write a post. Or something similarly blameworthy.
3. I added a teaspoon of dried powdered nori to the dough, but it was hardly noticeable, maybe because of the loads of flour.
   
4. Make little rolls of 1.5-2cm wide and cut them with scissors or a knife into pieces of about 2 cm. You can find an enlightening gnocchi-making video here. Each little dough pellet is crushed with a fork so that it gets the imprint of the well-bred gnocchi. Put them on a floured surface.
   
5. If you intend to cook them immediately, get plenty of salt water to boil. When boiling, but not rolling boil, toss the gnocchi in and when they rise to the surface, they are al dente. Drain them and serve with the sauce. If you're not going to eat the gnocchi right away, they freeze beautifully on trays, apart from each other so that they do not stick together. When frozen you can keep them together in freezer bags.

For the crab sauce (yields enough for 3-4 servings of gnocchi):

• 1 small onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 cup of crab, shellfish or plain fish stock
• 1 pinch saffron
• Water
• 4 tbsp virgin olive oil for the sofrito
• Salt
  

1. Dice the veggies and fry them in the olive oil on medium heat till tender.
   
2. Add the tablespoon of flour and stir-fry a couple of minutes.
3. Lightly toast the saffron (I put it on a piece of aluminum foil and use a lighter to heat it from underneath), crush it in a mortar and add it to the sofrito.
4. Then pour the stock, add some water if needed, puree everything and leave to cook on low heat until it thickens, around 5 minutes.
5. Try the seasoning and adjust if needed.

I know, if the sauce had pieces of crab or fish it would be tastier, but this is good enough for an improvised sauce.



For the sea spaghetti crisps:

• 1 bunch of sea spaghetti (himanthalia elongata)

In Spain seaweeds are sold dried or canned. I buy them dried, they last very long and you can hydrate them for use at any time. You take the dried seaweed and place it in a bowl with water, as long as directed on the package, to be well hydrated. Separate the stems and drain well. Then fry the strips in a deep fryer or skillet until crispy, about 2 minutes. Then you can add the seaweed to the dish in small bits, like you would add some shavings of toasted Serrano ham. And both ingredients have the umami flavor. Long live the umami. Oh, and you better try seaweeds and like them, because very soon they will be the only thing left in the oceans that we can possibly eat.

Then... plate the whole thing by heaping some gnocchi, pouring a generous serving of the steaming sauce and topping it with a bunch of crispy sea spaghetti... the assembly had a deep and delicious sea flavor.

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Spicy and savory butternut squash tart with a rye crust

Oh my , this is a long title. For a very uncomplicated dish. I thought I would be able to let the fall go by without making a squash recipe, but I did not succeed. It has been weeks already of squash hype in the blogs and I was feeling a bit stuffed. But as I wanted to try a new recipe for pastry case using some homemade fresh cheese that was decidedly past its prime, I decided to make a small quiche with a nice organic butternut squash I happened to find at the market. I confess I'm not a big fan of squash, I find it a bit... cloying, except when accompanied by a large amount of spices, as in this case, when it can turn out to be quite addictive actually. Still, the quiche did not quite blow away Mr. Winter Guest... but he is a bit of a picky eater. But fortunately I have other relatives who live nearby and are grateful recipients of my dishes. Nothing is wasted at the Winter Guest's household.


As I said, I think squash is an ingredient that cries out for vast quantities of spices, including hot, so it was an excellent opportunity to elaborate on my addiction to... you guessed it: ras-el-hanout. Although a good curry powder is too the perfect match for the sweetness of the squash. The result was excellent considering it was completely improvised just to use up the cheese in the pastry case.

Spicy and savory butternut squash tart with a rye crust
For the pastry case (yields enough for 2 tarts), adapted from The Nordic Diet

• 75g AP flour
• 160g rye flour
• 150g fresh cheese
• 50g butter
• 30g cold water
• 1 pinch salt
  

1. Weigh the flours, put them in a food processor and add the cold butter in small pieces. Pulse several times to obtain a crumbly mixture.
   
2. Add the fresh cheese and the salt and knead by hand or with the processor until the dough coheres. If it doesn't, start to add the water little by little, until you get a ball. The final amount of water needed depends on the consistency of the cheese and on the hydration of the flours.
   
3. Divide dough in half and spread one of the portions with a roller on a floured counter top (you can freeze the other portion for later use). Butter and flour a cake pan and lay the dough on it. Fit it well and prick the bottom with a fork. Put it in the preheated oven (180 ºC) 10 to 15 minutes to seal.

For the filling

• 400g butternut squash
  
• 1 medium potato
  
• 2 eggs
• 50g fresh cheese
  
• 50ml milk
• 1 tsp ras el hanout or curry
• Olive oil for roasting the squash
  
• Salt

1. Cut the squash into large slices and remove the seeds. Lay onto an oiled baking dish, add salt and brush the slices with more oil. Bake in the oven at 180°C covered with aluminum foil to avoid drying out, until tender, about 3/4 hour, depending on the quality and size of the pieces. You can cook the potato at the same time, though it will take a little shorter (I usually cook the potato in the microwave). You can vary the proportions, decreasing the squash and adding more potato, I find potato makes a great addition to this type tart.
   
2. Once the veggies are al dente, let them cool till you can touch them and slice as you like. Arrange the veggies on the half-baked pastry case in a nice pattern.
   
3. Then mix the batter for the filling: eggs, cheese, milk and seasonings, and pour it on the veggies. Tap the dish on the counter for the batter to distribute evenly and bake half an hour at 180ºC. Enjoy!
   

My verdict about the pastry case was excellent, you save yourselves a portion of butter by substituting the cheese and the rye flour also gives it a different flavor twist that makes for a pleasant variation to the classical dough. I will definitely use it again.

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Trinxat, Catalan cabbage and potato dish

I like cabbage in various ways, in spite of its supremely stinky smell when cooking. I like it raw in salads, sautéed with pimentón and otherwise. But this preparation is one of the best I know. Trinxat is a typical dish from Catalonia, more exactly from the region of Cerdanya, humble and simple, a sort of non-egg omelette made with boiled potatoes and cabbage, then roughly mashed, stir-fried and accompanied by garlic and charcuterie. It is also tasty and cheap for these times, and accompanied by grilled fish or fried egg makes up a wholesome and delicious dinner. It is ideal too for a windy and cool autumn day. Trinxat even has a festivity of its own, celebrated at the town of Puigcerdá... It is well deserved...


I recommend this dish to all those who claim that they do not like cooked cabbage... like my partner. The first time I prepared this dish he said: you don't notice it is cabbage... So maybe you will also change your mind. It is never too late. And this dish can not be easier. Even a six-year old could make it... so bring a six-year old.



Trinxat de la Cerdanya
Yields 4 servings

• 1/2 large cabbage
• 3 large potatos
• 4 somewhat thick slices of bacon
• 4 garlic cloves
• Olive oil for frying
• Salt
  

1. Cut the cabbage into pieces, removing the thicker stalks, and cook in salted water along with the potatoes, skinned and cut into large chunks.
2. Meanwhile, chop the bacon into small pieces (or leave it in large rashers) and sauté in a skillet over low heat with the very fat it renders, until crisp to your liking.
3. Peel garlic and cut into slices, and sauté in the same bacon fat, add oil if necessary. When done, remove and set aside.
4. When thoroughly cooked, put the drained cabbage and potatoes in the skillet where you just fried the garlic. Sauté everything slowly while mashing it roughly with the side of a spatula. Stir continuously for the flavors to meld, until you have a coarse puree. Add salt to taste.
   
5. When you consider that it is well mashed and mixed with the bacon fat and oil, use a spoon or spatula to pat it into a sort of flat cake like a Spanish tortilla and let it get brown (you may need to add a little more oil), over a somewhat stronger heat. When done on one side, turn it carefully with a lid or plate, so that the other side browns too.
6. Serve it warm with the bacon and garlic on top. You can also make individual or small snacks and serve them as tapas... delicious. To make small patties you can use pastry rings or egg molds, which are placed on the pan itself.

And again, if you have not ever tasted it you will be surprised, because the mixed flavor of cabbage with potatoes, garlic and bacon is fantastic. This is what I call culinary sinergy.

And by the way, stop by lovely Nancy's blog, Spicie Foodie, for a great roundup of Your Best Recipe for October including a recipe of mine, enjoy!

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Sephardic veal stew

This dish has been a classic in my family for some time already. It comes from one of my favorite cookbooks, in my collection for over 10 years, The Sephardic Kitchen, by Rabbi Robert Steinberg. It's one of those cookbooks that reads like a novel, and brings us closer to the kitchen of a culture that keeps many ties with Spain. The writing is very entertaining and the recipes are mingled with Sephardic folktales. It contains lots of very healthy and tasty dishes, many of those I still have to attempt... This hearty stew is one of those cases where the result is more than just the sum of its parts. A paradigmatic representation of this is a good torrija (Spanish style French toast), which makes you doubt that its creamy interior can consist only of bread soaked in milk. The succulent sauce of this stew is a perfect combination of ingredients, without any dominating over the others, and in which they all combine to create "something else" beyond the mere mixture of red wine, vegetables, honey and spices. You see, this amazing sauce inspires me and brings out the poet in me... Mmm, yum. Olé to this sauce...


And now to some historical background (an excerpt from this site), because in Spain most people know what Sephardim are, but I doubt the same holds outside Spain:

Sepharad is the Hebrew word for the Iberian peninsula that includes Spain and Portugal. (...) Jews lived in Spain long before the Visigoth (Germanic) tribes invaded in 412, however after the Moorish invasion of Spain in 700, there was a large influx of Jews immigrating to Spain. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Spanish Judaism flourished under Muslim rule, producing poets, scholars, and courtiers - what is known as "the golden age of Jewry." By the mid-thirteenth century, however, the Christians controlled all of the Peninsula except for a small area from Granada to the Mediterranean. In March, 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Many Jews converted or left while others went to Portugal, where Judaism could still be practiced freely. But Portugal expelled its Jews in 1497, and the tiny kingdom of Navarre followed suit in 1498. Judaism could be practiced openly nowhere in the Peninsula. Driven from home, the Sephardim established their own congregations in such places as Morocco, Italy, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, the Land of Israel, and elsewhere.

Mr. Steinberg tells us about this sopado, original name of this dish in ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language:

It is a sweet and spicy veal stew, a typical Sephardic dish that was popular throughout the Jewish Mediterranean. The seasoning varies from one community to another. The recipe that follows is that used in Thessaloniki, Macedonia and northern Greece. Sopado reminds of Hungarian goulash, which only differs in the amount of onion and paprika employed.

Claudia Roden, in The book of Jewish food, tells us about Sephardic cooking:

What we call Sephardi cooking today is the cooking of Mediterranean and Oriental Jews. There are four broad styles. Judeo-Spanish, which is Turkish and Balkan, is the cooking of the Jews of Iberian ancestry who went on to live in the Ottoman heartlands. North African or Maghrebi Jewish cuisine includes Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and Libyan. Then there is Judeo-Arab cooking, which is at its best in Syria and Lebanon, and the Jewish cooking of Iraq and Iran. (...) Sephardi cooking is sensual, aromatic and colourful. It makes use of anything that gives flavour - seeds, bits of bark, resins, pods, petals, pistils and flower waters. The Sephardim had a sunny, hedonistic nature (...) good eating has always been part of their traditional Jewish life. Their cooking is of a kind that lifts the spirits. The warm and sunny world they lived in had something to do with this, as had their way of life and historical experience.

Sephardic veal stew

• 1,5kg veal or beef for stewing, cut into large dice
  
• 8 scallions
• 500g onions
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
  
• 2 tsp Spanish sweet pimentón
  
• 1/2 tsp Spanish hot pimentón (if the stew is aimed for children as well, you can ommit this and add the same amount to the sweet pimentón)
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 heaped tbsp honey
• 2 cups tomato sauce
  
• 1 large glass red wine
• Olive oil for frying
  
• Salt to taste
  

It's an easy dish to prepare:

1. Season the meat and heat the oil in a saucepan with a lid to medium-high heat. Stir-fry the meat in batches to seal (I use a cocotte or Dutch oven, which works great for this task). Set aside.
   
2. Cut the veggies and stir-fry in the rendered meat fat. When the vegetables are thoroughly soft, add both pimentones and fry the mixture for another 2-3 minutes, but not longer otherwise the pimentón can get a bitter taste. Add the allspice and ground cloves and sauté another minute.
   
3. If you are making the sauce in a pan, at this point add the broth and deglaze the bottom. If you are using the Thermomix, also add the stock and at this point you can process the sauce to smooth. I prefer it that way, like a thick, velvety sauce, but I leave it to your taste. Although I do it, the original recipe does not calls for processing.
   
4. Then add all remaining ingredients: cinnamon stick, bay leaves, honey, tomato sauce and red wine. Stir well.
   
5. Return the reserved meat to the pan, cover well and cook over low heat for about two hours, it may be longer or shorter depending on the toughness of the meat (for example, the last time I cooked this dish one and a half hour was enough). It is not usually necessary to add more liquid, as the mixture of wine, stock and tomato is usually sufficient for a suitable consistency.
   
6. When the meat is tender, add salt, further heat for a couple of minutes for the salt to mix and dissolve and check the seasoning. Adjust if necessary. The original recipe calls for a quarter cup of lemon juice at the end of the cooking, but I never add it because I don't quite like the idea and don't miss it in the finished stew.

Like most stews, this stew is more tasty the next day, when all the flavors have developed and permeated the meat. For that, and because it is delicious, it is a dish that I cook often whenever I have guests, because I can prepare it the day before. Accompanied by a good rice or baked potatoes with herbs it makes a real fiesta dish.

Like a Sephardim would say: Berajá i salú...

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Magras con tomate, a tapa of Spanish ham on tomato sauce

I recently won a pack of Spanish extra virgin olive oil in a food photo contest, of four different varieties. So I decided to make an oil tasting with some homemade bread, a sourdough one, now that the weather is not so hot and I can use my oven without suffering a heat stroke in my own kitchen. Besides the time has come to stop publishing foreign and sweet recipes and make something Spanish to the core, as well as simple and nourishing, to put my new oil to good use: magras con tomate... before I go on a diet. Yes, my dear little children, I've repeatedly commited the sin of gluttony along the past summer and this summer in particular has placed me in the launchpad to hell. So I compulsorily need to lose some body bacon before the next great culinary orgy: Christmas. That's the story of my life... inflating and deflating.




The bread recipe isn't relevant here. Only the magras recipe is essential for mankind. Magras con tomate are typical from Navarra and Aragón, two historic regions in Northeastern Spain and they consist of some large Spanish serrano ham slices of varying thickness, lightly fried in oil and then eaten on some large bread toast with a sugary-winey sauce and tomato sauce on the side, or simply heated in the tomato sauce after frying, without the bread and the wine sauce. I prefer the first version. By the way, don't mistake serrano ham for Ibérico ham. The latter comes from a native breed of pigs and it's more expensive (and succulent) than simple serrano ham. For this dish regular serrano ham can be used. No need to buy a very expensive ham, as you're going to fry it.





For making these magras con tomate I recommend to use a nice, thick, homemade tomato sauce. The net is packed with recipes, so just choose the one you prefer. And homemade bread is a good addition too. If you're not willing to make your own bread, buy a good one, but not whole wheat bread. The whiter the better.



Magras con tomate
Yields 4 servings:

• 4 large slices of serrano ham or more, as needed to cover the bread slices
• 4 large bread slices, not too thick
  
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 glass white wine
  
• Extra virgin olive oil
  
• Thick tomato sauce to taste

1. Serrano ham gets very salty when fried, because of the water loss, that causes the salt to concentrate. This can be avoided by soaking the slices in tepid milk for 10 minutes before frying. Then drain and pat dry with kitchen paper. I don't mind the saltiness, so I don't do it. Pour a couple tablespoons oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the slices on low heat. No need to overdo it, just let them change color, then take out of the pan onto a plate. Cover to keep them warm.
   
2. Lightly fry the bread slices in the rendered fat, set aside and keep warm too.
   
3. Without turning off the heat, add the sugar and stir to caramelize. If the bread has soaked all the fat, you can add some drops of oil. When the sugar is toasted, turn off the heat and add the vinegar and wine; cover the pan as the liquids will splash a bit. Then put on low heat again and reduce the sauce while the caramel dissolves in it, for 2-3 minutes.
   
4. Place the ham on the bread slices, drizzle with the hot wine sauce and serve with the warmed tomato sauce on the side, as a dip. Enjoy!
   

I think the sweet-sour sauce on the salty ham makes a fantastic combination. And don't think my tomato sauce is radioactive, its orange color comes from a lot of onion and carrots I use in the making.

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Balsamic tomatoes and carrots salad

I like to confit tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and salt, at a low temperature in the oven. It's very convenient when you find yourself in the middle of a tomato surplus, for example, when you buy 4 kilos of cheap tomatos and forget that you already had another 3 kilos sitting in the fridge... that can happen... and maybe you don't feel like drinking 3 liters of gazpacho. Making the tomatos in confit allows you to still eat a lot of them, but in a different way. And they keep for long in the fridge. By the end of Winter, when you already start to find edible tomatoes at the market (unlike the disgusting insipid things you get in December) here in Spain, it's a very good way to eat tomatos. I find it hard to swallow cold salads in the middle of the Winter. And they're very versatile, you can serve them as a side or accompaniment to almost any dish, either cold or warm. This technique can be applied to other vegetables, like carrots in this case.




This salad couldn't be simpler, sprinkled with some virgin olive oil or basil cream... easy and delightful. And of course, some other veggies can be "confited" as well. Just take into account the different cooking times.

Salad of tomato and carrot en confit
These are the approximate amounts per person:

• 1-2 tomatoes, depending on size (plum tomatoes or any firm flesh tomatoes are best)
• 1 tender carrot
• Balsamic vinegar (of not too bad quality...)
  
• Virgin olive oil
  
• Salt

1. Preheat the oven to 150ºC.
   
2. Quarter the tomatoes if they're not too big (cut them in 6 or 8 if needed) and lay them on an oiled oven dish, skin down. Drizzle each piece with balsamic vinegar (if you have spray bottle, use it) and sprinkle with a good pinch of salt. You can add some more oil too if you like. Bake them for 3/4-1 hour, depending on size and type of the tomatoes, or even on how soft you like them.
3. Peel and cut the carrots in thick sticks and season them in the same way, plus add 1 cm of water to another oven dish. Bake them covered around 3/4 hour. Unlike tomatoes, which are very watery and need to dry in the oven, carrots are much drier and would dry excessively if you don't cover them. Prick them to test for doneness, as it depends very much on the carrots freshness.
4. When the veggies are cooked, let them cool. Then lay them on a pretty dish and drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil or this basil cream.

Tomatoes en confit are delicious, they seem to unleash all their sweetness. But many people, like D., dislike overly soft tomatoes. So refrain from preparing this dish if you're one of those people.



By the way, the blog will be closed for some time... I deserve some vacation time too! We're making a trip through Germany, Denmark and The Netherlands by car. I must carry an extra suitcase with me, just to bring back all the special ingredients and kitchen gadgets I will surely buy... goodness. Take care of yourselves. Read you soon.

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Peach gazpacho and a giveaway!

This year I'm in the mood for fruity gazpachos or so it seems. I happened to have some delicious peaches which were almost past its prime and I had seen an interesting peach gazpacho recipe by famous Basque chef Martín Berasategui, so I set to work. Just to compare with the cherry gazpacho I made recently... I should innovate, because at home we have gazpacho and salmorejo every other day. The only house inhabitant who doesn't eat gazpacho is my youngest boy. He says he doesn't like it. But he's never tasted it... does it sound familiar?

And... I'm announcing a giveaway!


Again, CSN stores have been so kind to consider me for a $80 gift certificate to give away to my readers! First of all, I should say finding readers out there every day is such a thrill... because it still feels unexpected to me! Although CSN pretty much have everything you can think of (bed being one of the items) I've been browsing through their cookware site and I wouldn't find it hard to choose something for my kitchen... I never have enough gadgets and I know most of you have the same illness!

So, what to do to enter the giveaway? Nothing too difficult, making it complicated would definitely be beyond my skills. Just start dreaming about what item you'd choose at CSN websites and leave a comment about it here, including your e-mail address. And one more thing: in order to count your name twice, I just kindly ask you to visit Kiva's site, check if it speaks to you in any way and leave me word of it. That's it.

The giveaway is open to any person living in the USA and Canada, and the deadline is Monday 28th, 11pm GMT. I will assign a number to each comment and use this site to generate a random number. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 29th.

Back to my point, this gazpacho has such a balanced flavor that when I first tasted it I could distinctly make out every ingredient: the peaches, the tomatos, the green pepper... And that doesn't happen often, but maybe my palate is not sensitive enough. The color was beautiful, salmon-like, iridiscent-but-like-riding-into-the-sunset... ahem.



Peach gazpacho

• 500g peaches, peeled and pitted
  
• 500g tasty tomatos
• 15g green sweet pepper
• 40g onion
• 1 small clove garlic
• 30g cider vinegar
• 50g virgin olive oil
  
• Salt to taste

1. Weigh the peeled and pitted peaches and set aside. Cut the tomatos in chunks. Cut the pepper and the onion. Peel the garlic clove.
   
2. Throw everything, except the salt, together in a food processor. Process to a very smooth puree. Pass it through a food mill or a sieve if you want it really fine. Add one teaspoon salt, taste and adjust if needed. Saltiness is a very personal matter, so I only give a starting point.

I wish you luck for the giveaway!

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