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According to the site, there's still time for delivery before Christmas.
There are several types of mantecados, polvorones, and other Spanish Christmas cookies on sale.
And turrones. . .
A churro maker . . .
There are also reduced prices on some Spanish ceramics.
They cut the prices on their authentic Asturian cider glasses, too.
I also noticed olive wood bowls, chocolate covered nuts, several cheeses, and much more, all on sale at La Tienda.
The original recipe for this cake comes from the classic Spanish cookbook Manual de Cocina. It's called tarta de chocolate a la inglesa, chocolate cake in the English-style. Maybe a reader who knows about cake history will be able to explain the connection. Whatever this cake's origins, it's nice.
I used natural brown sugar instead of white and virgin coconut oil instead of butter. The result was flavorful, but perhaps too coconut-ty for some tastes. Use butter and white sugar if you like a milder cake.
Here's how to do it:
Ingredients:
for the cake:
6 1/2 ounces of dark chocolate
1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter)
1/2 cup sugar (brown or white)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs, separated
for the icing:
3 1/2 ounces of dark chocolate
1/2 cup of sugar
6 tablespoons of water
First, make the cake.
Grate the chocolate.
Beat the butter (or coconut oil) and sugar. Add the yolks of four eggs (reserve the whites). Mix. Add the chocolate, and mix again. Mix in the flour bit by bit.
In another bowl, whip the egg whites to peaks.
Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Pour the batter into a buttered and flour-dusted cake pan.
Bake the cake in a 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes.
Insert a toothpick or knife point in the center. If it comes out clean, it's done.
Let the cake cool for fifteen minutes in the pan. Remove the cake from the pan and let it cool on a rack.
Make the icing. Melt 3 1/2 ounces of chocolate. Boil a half cup of sugar in six tablespoons of water until it becomes caramel. Stir the caramel bit by bit into the melted chocolate.
The chocolate will begin to clump and take on the texture of icing.
Ice the cake with the frosting, and there you have it.
This cake is fantastic with a dark, sweet Spanish wine. A Malaga or a Pedro Ximénex sherry would be perfect.
As I mentioned in a recent post, fish and shellfish (pescado y marisco) are extremely popular over the holidays in Spain. Generally, the better the quality of the fish, the simpler the preparation should be. It would be a shame to overwhelm the flavor of a fine fish with strong sauces or spices.
So when Ana found a whole red snapper with a nice bright orange eye and some fresh shrimp with the heads still attached at the fish market, I prepared the fish in much the same way Esperanza, my mother-in-law, does fresh lubina (sea bass) in Spain. This is one of the simplest ways to prepare whole fish that I know.
This technique would work well with many types of mild-flavored fish. (I would really like to try it with a fresh pompano). The important thing is that the fish is absolutely fresh.
Here's how to do it:
Ingredients:
a whole red snapper, or some other mild fresh fish of your choice
fresh shrimp
olive oil
parsley
wedges of onion
wedges of tomato
Kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
First prepare the fish. (The shrimp are cooked at the last minute).
Preheat the oven to 500.
Scale and gut the fish. Season it with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, including inside the cavity. Rub it down with olive oil. Place the fish in a cazuela or a casserole dish. Surround the fish with wedges of onion and tomato. Sprinkle chopped parsely on top.
Put the cazuela in the oven. I used our Kamado (Big Green Egg), basically a small wood burning oven (not an ordinary grill). It gives a great fire roasted taste, but any oven will do.
How long should the fish cook? It depends on how big it is. I use the "ten minutes per inch rule." This is to say, I measure the fish's thickness at its thickest point (right behind the head), and I cook it for ten minutes per inch of thickness.
If my snapper had been two inches thick, I would have roasted it for twenty minutes. However it was a small snapper, only one and a half inches thick, so I cooked it fifteen minutes.
While the fish is roasting, prepare the shrimp. This is easy. Don't shell them. Don't pull the heads off. They will have much more flavor if you leave them as they are. Just rub them with some kosher salt, black pepper, and a little olive oil.
When the fish needs to roast only five minutes more, put the shrimp in the cazuela with it.
Close the oven again. Let the fish and shrimp roast for five minutes. Check them. The shrimp should turn pink. They should smell wonderful. If the shrimp haven't turned completely pink yet, leave them in the oven 2 minutes more. Be careful not to overcook them.
Now remove the cazuela from the oven. Serve your fish and shrimp with good bread and a glass of white wine.
The holiday season is also the beginning of the main citrus season, so here are five Spanish recipes that take advantage of the fresh oranges (naranjas) and tangerines (clementinas o mandarinas) that Spain is famous for. Just click the links below to see the recipes.
One: a light dessert of oranges with liqueur and spices (naranjas a la canela).
Two: a salad of tangerines and avocado (ensalada de mandarinas y aguacate).
Three: an easy main dish, Flounder with Orange Sauce.
Four: a rather festive-looking Salad of Radishes and Tangerines (ensalada de rabanitos y clementinas).
Five is so easy it's not even a recipe. Just buy (or pick) some fresh oranges and squeeze a glass of juice (zumo de naranja) for breakfast.
Coming soon: Spanish orange cake (bizcocho de naranja), trout with orange and almonds (trucha a la naranja), pork loin with orange sauce (lomo con salsa de naranja), and many more Spanish recipes for citrus.
With today's post I begin a series on little-known red wines of Spain.
Most of the Spanish red wines I've written about so far--Rioja, Toro, and (soon) Ribera del Duero--are world famous and, as a result, a lot more expensive than they used to be. Bierzos are getting pricey too.
It always works this way: when a denomination develops a following, the demand for its wines goes up and, along with it, the cost. Soon the wine is marketed and even judged by its origins rather than its quality. Lots of so-so Priorats and Riberas del Duero fill wine store shelves simply because they have "Priorat" or "Ribera del Duero" on the label.
So if you like great Spanish wine at bargain prices, one approach is to seek out not-yet-famous denominaciones de origen. Look for little-known Spanish reds.
Navarra is a good example.
Navarra is right next door to Rioja. Many of the new wines coming out of Navarra are based on tempranillo--the same grape used to make Rioja. And most Navarras and Riojas are made in about the same way.
So what does this 2010 Viña Rubican tempranillo from Navarra taste like?
You guessed it, a Rioja.
Or I should say it tastes like the Riojas we used to drink in Spain fifteen years ago, with a price to match: just under $10 a bottle. There are Riojas that cost four times as much that aren't as good.
Navarra was once known for a type of inexpensive rosé called clarete, but as in so many regions of Spain, modern wine-making techniques have changed everything. The Spanish food-, wine-, and mystery writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán calls Navarra one of the most successful of these transformations.
I don't believe these modernizations are entirely a good thing. Some of the traditional regional wines are being forgotten, and they shouldn't be. As much as I like the modern white Ribeiros, I still love the fizzy cloudy kind served in white bowls in Galician taverns (though more and more seldomly). As much as I like this Rioja-like tempranillo from Navarra, I would like to try some of those old-fashioned claretes too. I suspect those simple rosés would be the perfect match for the baby artichokes and fat white asparagus the region is famous for.
Why not enjoy the old and the new?
The on-line Spanish food store La Tienda has several new sales going on.
You can save 20% on a variety of Spanish meats. This sale lasts two days only.
Sliced jamón serrano is on sale for $7.95.
Through Friday, you can save 20% on Spanish red wines. La Tienda ships wine at a reasonable flat rate.
Keep an eye on La Tienda over the holidays. They seem to be having a different sale every few days.
In Spain, trout (trucha) is prepared in dozens of different ways. In this recipe the trout are fried whole and served with a simple purée of roasted garlic. The pairing works well, especially if you're using farm-raised trout. The garlic turns creamy and almost sweet during the roasting, but unlike actual cream or alioli, it acts as a foil to this usually fatty fish.
This is yet another recipe that Esperanza, my mother-in-law, clipped from Spanish magazines. (Neither the name of the magazine nor the author of the recipe is on the clipping, so I don't know where it came from). In any case, it's an easy way to turn ordinary farm-raised trout into something special.
Here's how to do it:
Ingredients:
whole trout (one per person is more than enough, unless you want leftovers to make escabeche).
whole heads of garlic (two per person)
Olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
good toast (see my posts on bread for recipes)
Loosely wrap some whole heads of garlic in aluminum foil. Again, you'll need plenty of garlic--about two heads per person. Roast them in a 375 degree oven for about an hour. Test them with a knife. The point should go in easily. It should be soft and creamy inside.
When the garlic is done, let it cool some.
Now prepare the trout. Gut them and cut the heads off. Rinse them and pat them dry. Sprinkle them with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
You may want to cut them into pieces, depending on the size of your frying pan.
Dust them with flour and fry them in about 2 inches of hot olive oil.
(Spaniards fry fish much the way Southerners in the U.S.A. fry chicken. It's actually somewhere in between a saute and a deep fry, so oil 2 inches deep really is enough. Don't worry: thanks to the olive oil, the trout come out crispy).
Turn the heat down to medium. (Farm raised trout burn easily because they're so fatty). For medium-sized trout (about an inch and a half thick and their thickest point) I fry them 8 minutes per side. They should turn golden brown on both sides, so adjust the heat, turning it up at the end if you need to.
Squeeze the garlic cloves, one by one, over a bowl. The garlic should come out of the papery skins already quite creamy, almost a purée. When you've squeezed the garlic out of all of the cloves, smash the garlic with a fork until it's fairly smooth. Stir in a few drops of olive oil and a little salt.
Serve the garlic purée alongside the fried trout, with toast.
When Ana and I were in Granada a couple of years ago we had an interesting salad at the restaurant Taberna Salinas. It was basically a variety of local dried fruits and nuts simmered in sweet Pedro Ximénez sherry--in short, a compote--served over young salad greens.
To tell you the truth, the salad at Taberna Salinas was a bit overwhelming. Pedro Ximénez sherry is thick and sweet as it is, and when simmered and reduced in the compote it became too syrupy for our tastes. But I liked the idea and played around with it until I came up with the following recipe. It's still a sweet dressing, but it pairs well with slightly bitter, cool-season salad greens like escarole and a touch of salt. Actually for this post I used baby spinach, and it was good too.
Here's how to do it:
Ingredients:
One cup (or more) of my easy compote of dried fruits, nuts, and Pedro Ximénez sherry
Virgin olive oil
kosher salt
salad greens of your choice
Make the compote ahead of time. You can keep it covered in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 days. It will only improve.
Wash and dry your salad greens. Toss them with just enough virgin olive oil to coat the leaves. Sprinkle with a little kosher salt, and toss again.
Make a bed of greens on individual plates, or a large platter if you like. Spoon the compote on top of the greens, and there you have it.
Spaniards celebrate the Epiphany (día de los Reyes, or Reyes) with a wreath-shaped holiday bread called roscón de Reyes, a.k.a rosca de Reyes, but increasingly roscones are eaten throughout the holiday season, and beyond.
In every roscón there is a tiny prize (usually a porcelain or plastic figurine), and whoever finds the prize in his or her slice of roscón is supposed to have good luck.
Here are some prizes from roscones de Reyes we've eaten over the years:
In Spain roscones de Reyes vary from bakery to bakery. Some roscones are yellow and brioche-like, while others are white, like a sweet roll.
Many roscones in Madrid are flavored with anise, a very popular spice in old fashioned Spanish sweets. The toppings will differ from day to day--and from roscón to roscón--even in the same bakery.
Some are sprinkled with sugar and walnuts. Others have decorations of candied fruit and almond slivers. I've seen them with powdered sugar or a glaze.
When we're celebrating día de Reyes here in the U.S., I make a roscón de Reyes at home. See my post on roscones de Reyes for a recipe and more information.
If you have a hispanic community in your area, it's often possible to find a baker who will make a roscón de Reyes for you, especially if you order in advance.
The Spanish on-line food store La Tienda has several sales going on.
Today only they're offering up to 20% off on 25 different artisan cheeses. They say you have to order by midnight.
Through Friday, they're also selling whole Spanish hams at up to $150 off.
Check out their Holiday Sale Page for special offers on lots of other Spanish products, including some Spanish ceramics (a great gift idea).
If you don't see anything you like now, you may want to check the site again next week. La Tienda has been having lots of one-day and one-week sales lately.
Link: La Tienda Home Page.
