Simple Spanish Food

Summer: Time for Vegetable Paellas

 

Vegetable paella is one of our standard summer dishes. We eat it about once a week, and we never tire of it, partly because we use different vegetables for nearly every paella--whatever is fresh and in season goes in--but mainly because they are so good and so easy to make.  Once you have the technique down, you can make a vegetable paella in just half an hour.

To make a great vegetarian paella, you need three special ingredients.

Pimentón is essential: it gives the paella a rich smokey flavor.

Also essential is the right rice: Calasparra, Bomba, or a paella rice such as La Marjal. Or use Italian arborio.

You can make paellas with a good short-grain brown rice, too. See my post on brown rice paella for the technique.

While I would not say that saffron is essential--you can get away with colorante, yellow dye--it does add a subtle flavor that makes paella, paella.

Once you have these three key ingredients, you can make many, many different types of vegetable paellas in a snap.  You can choose nearly any vegetables you like.   What's in season is usually bonito, bueno, y barrato, as  Esperana, my mother-in-law, always says. 

We always start by sauteeing a chopped onion in about 1/3 cup of olive oil.  (Use a heavy skillet or a small paella pan.) We then add garlic (whole peeled cloves or chopped), a chopped tomato, and a handful of chopped parsley. 

We then add green beans, diced summer squash, peas, butterbeans or limas--whatever you find that you like at the market.  (One exception is eggplant, which I always prefer to cook separately and serve alongside the paella.  See my post on Spanish rice with eggplant).

Add a pinch of saffron , a teaspoon of pimentón, a teaspoon of salt, and one cup of rice, and stir.

Cook the vegetable/rice mixture a few minutes, then add 2 and 1/2 cups of water.

Bring the liquid to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 18 minutes.  Towards the end of the cooking time, check with a wooden spoon to make sure the rice isn't burning. A crust at the bottom of the pan is ideal. If it seems the rice will burn, turn off the heat and cover the pan.

After 18 minutes, remove the pan from the heat.  Decorate the top of the paella with a handful of chopped parsley and  pimiento strips or, even better,  roasted red peppers or piquillo peppers.

We usually have paella with that other classic Spanish summer standard, gazpacho.

 

If You Are Lucky Enough to be in England this July . . .

You'll probably want to check out:

Rioja Tapas Fantasticas 2012

A free festival celebrating Rioja wine, Spanish food and lifestyle

Find Rioja Tapas Fantasticas in
Potters Fields Park, Tooley Street/
The Queens Walk, Southwark, London, SE1 2AA
(map)
Nearest tube stations: London Bridge or Tower Hill station

Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th July
Entry 12-8pm Sat (last orders 7.30pm) and 12-6 Sun (last orders 5.30pm)
Free entry!

Famed Spanish chef José Pizarro will be conducting cookery demonstrations over the course of the weekend.

Boutique Sherries?

In his  recent article in The New York Times, "In Spain, Sherry Producers Learn to Think Small" Eric Asimov is somewhat misleading about jerez--one of my favorite styles of wine--but he also gives lots of information about where the world of sherry may be heading.

In the beginning of the article, when Asimov writes  "in a business largely built on selling vast quantities of inexpensive mediocre wine" he should make it clear that he is referring to the sweetened sherries bottled almost exclusively for the export market--NOT the sherries that Spaniards drink, almost all of which are dry and, as Asimov himself admits, "can be good."

Can be?

The wine writer Oz Clarke has included one of these sherries,  La Gitana manzanilla, in his "World Class Wines That Don't Cost the Earth" list for years.  Andrés, my father-in-law, knew his sherry, and loved La Ina. 

If you've ever tried a La Gitana manzanilla, you will know it is a truly fantasic wine, especially for the price: even here in the U.S. it costs less than $20 a bottle--when you can find it. 

But  Asimov's article is still worth reading.  It explains how the sherry industry has begun producing smaller batches of even higher quality sherry for the new sherry-aficionados. It has a pretty good slideshow too. 

How good are these boutique sherries? How much will they cost?

Asimov promises to tell us more in an upcoming article.

In the meantime, you may want to check out  La Tienda's selection of sherries, and also my other posts on jerez or sherry.

A Quick Tour of La Vegueta Market, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

La Vegueta, the old market in Las Palmas, is packed with stalls selling local fruits, vegetables, fish, meats and cheeses--much of it unique to the Canary Islands.

These rose-colored beans and thick stubby carrots are used in delicious Canary-style pucheros o potajes (stews).

The Canary Islands are famous for fruits, especially bananas, which are quite different in both flavor and texture from the South American varieties usually sold in U.S.  supermarkets. Bananas are used in all sorts of desserts, as well as savory salads. I'll post on both in the near future.

Papayas are another specialty. See my recent post on papaya con miel.

Many of the fish--viejas, sama, sargos--are completely different from those found in the  pescaderías of the peninsula.  I've never seen some of these fish even in Madrid's huge seafood markets.   See my post "Scenes from Spanish Fish Markets" for a comparison.

Have you ever seen clearer, brighter eyes on a fish?

We tried the cherne, gallo, and viejas pictured below, and all were fabulous.

We did not get to try the morena--eel--another Canary Island specialty. Maybe  next time. . .

El mercado de Vegueta also has many local cheeses, chorizos, morcillas, and other meats, both fresh and cured.

The Sweet Wines of Spain, Vinos Dulces

Pedro Ximénez, Málaga, and moscatel are the three main sweet wines of Spain, but there are many, many others. Together they are an too-often-overlooked treasure in the world of wine.  The vinos dulces of Spain are some of my favorite wines of all.

Pedro Ximénez is the most famous of Spanish sweet wines. Pedro Ximénez (usually) comes from Jerez (it is considered a type of sherry) or Montilla-Moriles.   Unfortunately, as with many famous things, it can be difficult to find a really good Pedro Ximénez, and when you do it is almost always pricey. 

At its best, Pedro Ximénez can be incredibly rich and complex--with all sorts of candied fruit and herb notes--but most of the ordinary stuff (such as the Osborne pictured above) tastes simply of raisins and, to me, is rarely worth the $20-and-up price. 

Wine writers often succumb to the cliché of comparing Pedro Ximénez to blackstrap and mention that it can be served over ice cream.  The truth is that Pedro Ximénez, while thick, is never anywhere near the consistency of molasses, and believe me, if you ever have a good glass of this stuff, the last thing you will want to do is pour it over ice cream.  The trick, again, is finding a good Pedro Ximénez, which is not easy, even in Spain. The best we've ever had was in Córdoba--Montilla-Moriles, a region that specializes in Pedro Ximénez. Even there it was far from cheap, but it was a truly amazing wine. I will never forget it.

Málaga is  not so well known as Pedro Ximénez, but it can be just as good, and it is nearly always a better bargain.   It is everything that Pedro Ximénez should be (but often isn't) at a fraction of the price.  Even brands of  Málaga carried in Spanish supermarkets, such as the roughly-named Quitapenas ("takes your cares away"), are quite good, and prices start at just seven or eight euros a bottle.  A steal.

Málaga is often made with the Pedro Ximénez grape and it can be put through a barrel system much like sherry, but it may be made from other grapes, as well as other ingredients (the reduced juices of other grapes), which makes it a different style of wine.  In my opinion Málaga is always worth trying.

Moscatel is a sweet wine you will find in just about every neighborhood bar in Spain.  Like Pedro Ximénez and Málaga, it is a traditional, fortified wine (or vino generoso), but it's lighter, usually a shade of gold in color.  (Please do not confuse traditional moscatel with the new "moscatos"  Spain has recently begun to export to compete in the  world-wine moscato market: the bottle should say "moscatel," never moscato.) Though sweet, moscatel can have a twang of acidity,  like a Madeira, and it may be served like some madeiras, with savory foods. 

In the picture above, taken at the old-school restaurant and bar  Lhardy (one of my favorite places to go in Madrid), moscatel (the gold-colored wine) and Portuguese Madeira (the dark one) are served with a cup of rich consomé and little lettuce sandwiches--a beautiful combination. 

There are many other sweet wines in Spain. Many little towns will have their own recipe, and most of the time you have to search out the town itself to try them. There are exceptions. The Madrid bar called El Anciano Rey de los Vinos serves a vino dulce de Tomelloso, an old fashioned sweet wine from the village of that name. 

Obviously, Spanish sweet wines are perfect for dessert.  (It is often said that a glass of Pedro Ximénez is a dessert in itself). But traditionally these sweet wines are also enjoyed at the merienda--the evening snack, around six p.m. or so--often with old-fashioned Spanish pastries like pestiños.

See La Tienda's Sherry Page for a selection of Spanish sweet wines. 

 

 

 

 

Dried Fruits and Nuts Shops (tiendas de frutos secos y variantes)

 

All over Spain, in nearly every neighborhood of every city,  there are little shops that specialize in dried fruits, toasted nuts, seeds, and other traditional Spanish snacks. These places are called tiendas de frutos secos or sometimes tiendas de chuches (especially when they have a big selection of caramelitos, sugar candies), or fábrica de patatas fritas, because these stores also often make the best potato chips you've ever eaten--freshly crisp-fried in olive oil. 

If you've ever had a tapa of fantastic potato chips in a Spanish bar, chances are they came from the fábrica de patas fritas around the corner.

The dried fruits and toasted nuts are also of the highest quality.

Dried fruits and toasted nuts are  the oldest kind of Spanish road food, the sort of thing Don Quixote and Sancho Panza would have nibbled while wandering across La Mancha. These snacks are still perfect for traveling today.  When we take the bus to Granada or Córdoba or wherever, we always bring along a few bags of dried fruits and toasted nuts to munch on. They also make great instant tapas.

There is way too much variety in the typical tienda de frutos secos to list everything they carry, but here are some of our favorites.

Marcona almonds (they come toasted, fried, salted and not, caramelized, you name it, all delicious).

Habas fritas, fried bean chips. They're a little like fried green plantains.

Dátiles en rama, creamy sweet dates, still on the twig they  grew on.

Various sorts of toasted and fried garbanzos.

And, one of my favorites, toasted corn, maiz tostado o kikos. 

These shops also often carry chufas (tigernuts) for making horchata (see my post on horchata de chufa) and castañas pilongas, dried chestnuts, a truly ancient snack.

Andrés, my father in law, always used to set aside a few fresh chestnuts and let them dry, which makes  them slightly sweeter,  spicier (sometimes with faint cheese notes), but also harder.  The castañas pilongas at most tiendas de frutos secos  are quite hard and best for cooking (though I admit I will sometimes pop one in my mouth and eat it as I would a jawbreaker, carefully, taking my time). 

I could go on and on listing--toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas), dried apricots and other fruits, big plump raisins with the seeds still in. . .

Some of these snacks you can make at home. See my post on toasted nuts for some examples.   In the future I will post on toasting garbanzos, corn, and other things. 

You may also like to check out La Tienda's almond and frutos secos page.