Simple Spanish Food

Ready-Made Tapas: aperitivos en casa

Sometimes Esperanza, my mother-in-law, will prepare a special appetizer course,  such as steamed cockles (berberechos al vapor) to be served before the main meal, la comida,  but more often she will just serve some quality, ready-made tapas that require her only to  open a tin or a jar.

I emphasize the word quality: tinned goods are often looked down upon here in the U.S. (and in many cases deserve to be), but the foods I'm about to list here, though preserved in cans or jars, are deservedly appreciated in Spain (and, increasingly, the rest of the world).  The best Spanish tinned seafoods, for example, are artisanal products that are winning the respect of food writers and chefs  (see my recent post The Wall Street Journal Praises Galician Sardines) and, while not luxury items, they're not cheap.

Here are some of the instant aperitivos we often enjoy in Spain before the comida.

Fresh pickled anchovies, boquerones en vinagre, are one of my favorites.  See my post "All About Anchovies I" for more information.

Salt-cured anchovies (see my post Cantabrian Anchovy fillets in olive oil) pair incredibly well with  boquerones and are often served alongside them. ( See my post "Anchoa y Boquerón: A Classic Tapa.")

 

Banderillas--pickled vegetables on a skewer--are also a popular choice. (See my post on banderillas).

As I wrote in my last post, we also often throw together an easy salad of roasted peppers.

We usually have some type of toasted nuts.

And often we have sardines. (See my post on Spanish Tinned Sardines to learn just how different they are from most sardines available in U.S. supermarkets)

Olives are obligatory. (See my posts on "Olives, Aceitunas")

And on the table there is always a loaf of bread, usually a pan de barra (Spanish-style baguette).

Pairing a wine with these foods can be difficult.  We often have a simple red, such as a Valdepeñas.

Or a glass of vermouth on ice. See my post on vermut.

Or a fino. See my post on Tio Pepe Fino.

Or we just have a cold beer.

A Simple Salad of Roasted Peppers, Onions, and Olives: ensalada de pimientos, cebolla, y aceitunas

This is a salad my father-in-law, Andrés, used to throw together while we were waiting for the main meal, la comida.  We usually ate it as an informal, at-home tapa.

The main ingredient is fire-roasted peppers, so it is important to start with good ones. (I find most supermarket pimentos and deli  roasted peppers here in the U.S. to be disappointing.)  It's easy to fire-roast bell peppers and other types of sweet peppers at home (see my post on flame roasting peppers) and they work very well for this salad. Or use piquillo peppers from Spain, which are fabulous and easy.

Here's how to do it:

Ingredients:

Strips of fire-roasted peppers

thin slices of onion

good olives

good olive oil

a good wine vinegar 

Arrange the slices of fire-roasted pepper on a plate. Decorate them with onion slices and olives. Drizzle a good olive oil over it, and, if you like, some vinegar. (Andrés always liked this salad with vinegar, as does Ana, but Esperanza and I always take ours with just olive oil).

Of course you could add capers (as we did for this post) or anchovies

Serve it with bread, a fino, or even a beer.

Wine from La Mancha: Artero 2010 Tempranillo

Artero 2010 Tempranillo is yet more proof of the amazing versatility of the tempranillo grape.  It also costs less than eight dollars a bottle.

Go to the Spanish wine aisle in just about any wine shop and you are bound to see all sorts of wines--Riojas, Tarragonas, Riberas del Duero, and many more--all made with tempranillo or tempranillo-blends, but all completely different from each other.  Artero 2010 Tempranillo from La Mancha is no exception.  If anything, it's an even more unusual example of tempranillo than most. 

Riojas and tempranillo-based Navarras often combine a light, strawberry acidity with oak and vanilla flavors.   Good Toros, also based on tempranillo (though there is some debate about this) are powerful, extremely dry, but balanced. Then there are the oceans of tempranillo-based table wines that taste like ordinary table wines.  I find that many of the inexpensive Yeclas and Jumillas fall into this last category.

Artero Tempranillo from La Mancha lies at another extreme of the tempranillo spectrum.

It's almost sweet.

It's not overpoweringly sweet (like the new Spanish "moscatos" I recently posted about) nor is it dessert wine, but it has hints of dried fruits and at least some of their sweetness. 

This is the sort of wine I would have with nuts and cheese as an evening tapa, almost as though it were port.  It's certainly not port, but it is close enough to be enjoyed in a similar way.  With 14% alcohol, it's nearly as strong as port too. 

When I first tried this tempranillo from La Mancha, I was shocked. Once I got over that, I found that I liked it.

 

 

 

Pincho Moruno: A Spanish Shish Kebab

Pincho Moruno, a sort of Spanish shish kabob, is another tapa that can be found in tapas bars all over Spain, though it can also be enjoyed as a main course (as in the picture above).  Basically a pincho moruno is a lomo adobado that has been cut into bite-sized pieces, stuck on a skewer, and grilled.  So this is an easy way to create variety with the same meat and marinade. You can roast some of the lomo adobado for dinner, and use the rest to make pincho moruno another day.

Here's how to do it:

Ingredients:

One boneless pork loin, or use pork tenderloins

One batch of adobo marinade (click here to see recipe)

Cut  the pork into bite-sized pieces.  Put the pork  in the adobo and let it marinade for several hours, and up to several days.

Preheat the grill to 425.   Put the pieces of pork on skewers.

Put the skewers on the grill.

Pork loin is lean, so the key is to avoid overcooking.  You're aiming for an internal temperature of 145 degrees.  The meat should have a faint rose color at the center. I cooked these pinchos morunos a little less than 2 minutes per side, about 3  1/2 minutes total.

 

Put the pinchos morunos on a warmed plate and let them rest for a few minutes. Serve with a slice of good bread as a tapa, or as a main course.

Winter Sale at La Tienda

 

The Spanish food store La Tienda is having a winter sale.

Over 100 items are on sale,  up to 40% off.

Glancing over the list, I see lots of turrón candy. The holiday season is over, and they're cutting prices. 

You'll also see several varieties of traditional Spanish Christmas cookies on sale.

There are also cheeses (including several manchegos), a number of Spanish wines, ceramics, paella pans, Asturian cider, and much more.

Check out the Winter Sale at La Tienda.

 

Pork Loin in Adobo: Lomo Adobado

 

If you've spent any time in a Spanish home you've probably had lomo en adobo--pork loin that has been prepared with a pimentón-based marinade.   In Spain, butcher shops, carnicerías, and (more often nowadays) supermarkets sell the pork loins already packaged in the adobo. All you have to do is open the package, put the pork loin in a pan, add a little white wine and olive oil, and stick it in the oven. 

Here in the U.S. it's usually necessary to make the adobo, but it's not hard. The adobo recipe here is the same I used for venison in my first post on adobo. Again this adobo is based on a recipe from Janet Mendel's excellent book, Cooking from the Heart of Spain: Food of La Mancha.  

Here's how to do it:

Ingredients:

a boneless pork loin, or a pork tenderloin (I used the latter for this post)

olive oil

white wine

For the marinade (for 2 to 3 lbs of pork)

6-7 garlic cloves, peeled and minced.

2 tablespoons pimentón de La Vera  (I like picante).

2 teaspoons thyme

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon kosher  salt

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup of virgin olive oil

a few whole black peppercorns

2 bay leaves

First mix the ingredients for the marinade in a large glass or ceramic bowl.

Put  the pork in the marinade and turn it over a few times until it's well-coated.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the pork marinade for at least a  few hours, and up to five days.  Every day, give the meat a turn.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Place the pork loin in a cazuela or a casserole. Pour a glass of white wine over it, along with about 1/3 cup of olive oil.

How long to cook the pork loin depends on its size.  (I cooked this small tenderloin a little less than 20 minutes).   You should aim for an internal temperature of 145 degrees, no more, or the meat will dry out.  The meat should have a faint rose color near the center. 

Slice the pork loin and serve with its sauce. 

Esperanza, my mother-in-law, almost always serves lomo adobado with patatas fritas, French fries.

The New York Times' Eric Asimov Reviews Wines from the Canary Islands

In  his recent article for the New York Times, "Grapes Born of Volcano and Sea," Eric Asimov reviews eighteen wines from the Canary Islands, all of which are now available in the U.S. thanks to the Spanish wine importer José Pastor.

The most exciting thing for me about the article is that the list includes several malvasías, both sweet and dry--and even a sparkler! Malvasias are the old-style wines for which the Canary Islands are famous--the "Canary" Falstaff drank in Shakespeare.

Asimov also describes some modern whites, reds and (his favorite) a rosado, all from the Canary Islands. 

Check out the article, and look for these unique wines!

 

 

Instant Tapas: canapé of smoked salmon, pincho de salmón ahumado

Many tapas are practically ready made. 

Take for example canapés of smoked salmon (pinchos de salmón ahumado), which are served in tapas bars all over Spain.    If you want to make a tapa of smoked salmon at home, all you have to do is drizzle some quality olive oil on a piece of good bread, top it with a slice of two of Norwegian or Scottish smoked salmon, and you have a first class tapa.

If you like, you can toast the bread first. You can also rub the bread with a crushed clove of garlic, or mix a little chopped garlic into the olive oil before drizzling it onto the bread. All of these methods are traditional. Smearing the bread with cream cheese  is not, though smoked salmon is sometimes combined with traditional Spanish cheeses, most successfully with mild ones like queso de Burgos (see my post on the old Madrid bar La Dolores). 

It is important to start with the right smoked salmon.  I've had the best luck with Scottish and Norwegian smoked salmon.

I'm rarely happy with the smoked salmon from Alaska or the Vita stuff. "Hot smoked" salmon, which is cooked, just doesn't work for tapas.  It's too dry, too hard, too sweet, and too salty

Often in Spain, tapas of smoked salmon will be served with other types of cold-smoked fish, usually trout or anchovies. These will be the subjects of future posts.

 

An Elegant (and Simple) Watercress Salad: ensalada de berros

Like canónigos, watercress (berros)  is a gourmet salad green in Spain.  There are many ways of using it. This is probably the simplest.  This salad has three ingredients: olive oil (see my posts on Spanish olive oils), a dash of salt, and watercress. 

Of course it's important to start with good, fresh watercress.  If your market doesn't carry it, grow some. Nothing could be easier. Just fill a pot with potting soil, sprinkle some watercress seeds on the surface and pat them down (don't bury them).  Keep the pot's saucer filled with water, and in a couple of months you'll have watercress. 

Now for the salad.

Wash and dry the watercress. (Pat them with a clean towel or use a salad spinner: you want the leaves as dry as possible).

Remove the coarse stems.  Toss the leaves with just enough olive oil to coat them. (An hojiblanca would be perfect). Sprinkle the salad with a little salt, and there you have it: ensalada de berros.

 

The Moscato Menace

In her most recent article for the Wall Street Journal "Why You'll be Drinking Moscato This Year," Lettie Teague predicts that moscato will be "the hottest wine of 2012." She notes that "sales of Moscato grew by a mind-boggling 78% in 2011."  The wine industry experts she interviews ominously compare the trend to that of white zinfandel and even the wine-cooler craze of the 80's.

Spain grows a lot of moscatel, as moscato  is called in Spanish.  The Spanish wine industry is trying to take advantage of the grape's new popularity.  This should be a good thing because Spanish moscatel can be outstanding. 

Traditional Spanish  moscatel is usually a fortified dessert wine, enjoyed much like Pedro Ximénez or Málaga.  (Some Málagas are based on moscatel.)   There are also dry versions of moscatel. (Torres has one.) I will be posting about a traditional Spanish moscatel in the future.

Unfortunately the new Spanish "moscatos" I'm seeing here in the U.S. are not traditional Spanish moscateles at all but imitations of the popular inexpensive brands like Barefoot Cellars and Yellow Tail.  They even have the Italian/world-wine name "moscato" on the label rather than moscatel.

La Ardilla, pictured above, is from Valencia and it is made with moscatel grapes. But the label says  "moscato," and the wine has nothing to do with traditional Spanish moscatel.  It's probably  a concoction for the American market.  It's full of artificial fizz and tastes strongly of saccharine, like Alka Seltzer cold medicine.

Lulu B., another non-traditional "Spanish moscato," reminded me of an inexpensive pseudo-riesling,  complete with petroleum overtones.

If you see a wine from Spain labeled "moscato" (rather than Spanish  moscatel), be wary. A picture of a little animal on the bottle, a girl in a beret, or something similarly cute, is also a bad sign: see my post "Judging a Spanish Wine by its label."   There is a good chance that the wine in question is not a traditional Spanish moscatel at all, but rather an attempt to get a foothold in the lucrative new moscato market through imitation of its worst examples.

On the other hand, if you are lucky enough to find a Spanish moscatel at your local wine shop, it's certainly worth a try.  

La Tienda's Sherry Page has a selection of several good moscateles.