Simple Spanish Food

Quick Spinach in Adobo, espinaca adobada

 

This is a modern twist on the traditional Spanish preparation of spinach or chard in adobo.    Basically, it's a quick stir-fry.

It is important to carefully dry the spinach before cooking it or else there will be too much liquid in the dish.  Otherwise this is easy, and the spinach retains a pleasant bite that boiled spinach lacks. 

Ingredients

1 bunch of spinach, or a bag of fresh spinach, washed and carefully dried

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2 teaspoons of wine vinegar

1 clove of garlic, sliced

1/2 a teaspoon of pimentón de La Vera

salt

In a large pan, saute the garlic in the olive oil.  Before the garlic takes on color, remove the pan from the heat and let the oil cool some. Add the  pimentón and stir.

Add the spinach. Sprinkle it with salt. Toss it with the olive oil and garlic until the leaves are coated.

Return the pan to high heat.  Stir-fry the spinach until it's just wilted.

Put the spinach on a serving dish. Toss it with the vinegar.

Serve spinach in adobo as a side dish or as vegetarian tapa.

Grilled Scallops with Watercress, vieiras a la parrilla con berros

Ingredients:

scallops

olive oil

salt

pepper

watercress salad (see my recipe for simple watercress salad, ensalada de berros)

Sprinkle the scallops with salt and black pepper. Rub them with olive oil.

Grill them over hot coals, a minute or two per side, depending on the size of the scallops.  (Or, if you don't have a grill, cook them in a hot iron skillet.)   Be sure not to overcook them. They only need searing. They will continue to cook when you take them off the grill.

Arrange the grilled scallops on a bed of watercress salad for an elegant tapa or first course.

Anthony Bourdain Raves about Tinned Seafood from Spain

 

I'm always trying to convince people just how good Spanish tinned seafood can be--and how it has nothing to do with the canned seafood available in most U.S. supermarkets.  In Spain a can of cockles or mussels can be a near luxury item.  Together with good bread and wine, they make elegant tapas.

I go back to the topic again and again: see my post on Cantabrian Anchovy fillets in olive oil, or bonito del norte (albacore tuna in olive oil), or Spanish sardines (sardinas y sardinillas).  I'm aware that many people who have never tried these and other kinds of canned seafood from Spain are skeptical, so I link to experts whenever possible. (See my post The Wall Street Journal praises Galician sardines). 

Recently I saw an episode of No Reservations at my sister's. The celebrity chef and host Anthony Bourdain was in Spain,  raving about the tinned seafood--mussels, razor clams, cockles, and much more. He and his translator go on to explain how Spanish tinned seafoods at their best can be even better than fresh.

Click here to see Anthony Bourdain talking about how good Spanish canned seafood can be.

The video begins with a rant (the profanity is bleeped out).  He begins to talk specifically about Spanish tinned seafood around minute three.  

Check out the Spanish tinned seafood selection at:

Esperanza's Escabeche

This escabeche is tangy, spicy, and even slightly smoky, as it contains pimentón picante de La Vera. It's a great way to turn leftover fish into something special.  When I see good fresh fish on sale (see my last post about the Spanish way to select fish) I will often buy a little extra just so I can make this escabeche.  It keeps in the refrigerator for several days, and, unusually for fish, the flavor will only improve.  

Esperanza, my mother-in-law, uses mainly "blue" fish for this escabeche, such as mackerel or sardines. But you can use any fish you like, including freshwater fish, also traditionally used in escabeche.   Even catfish would work. For this post I used trout.

Here's how to do it:

Ingredients:

a pound (or so) of fried or sauteed fish (leftover from dinner is perfect)

6 tablespoons of virgin olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 teaspoon  pimentón picante de La Vera (please see my post on pimentón de La Vera).

1 bay leaf

3  tablespoons of vinegar

Kosher salt to taste

Saute the garlic and bay leaf in one tablespoon of the oil. Remove the pan from the heat before the garlic takes on color. Wait for the oil to cool slightly. Add the pimentón. Stir. Add the rest of the oil and vinegar. Add salt to taste. (Keep in mind the fish may already have salt.) 

Place the fish in a non-reactive container.   Pour the sauce over it. Cover. Let the fish marinade in the fridge for 1-2 days, spooning the marinade over the fish now and then.

Serve at room temperature.

Escabeche is great with bread and a salad.  For this post we had it with a veggie paella

 

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.

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.

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.

 

The Wall Street Journal Praises Galician Sardines

For a recent article called "Tin Tin!",  Katherine Cancila and her colleagues at The Wall Street Journal tried  "dozens" of different brands of tinned sardines, including Pacific and Atlantic varieties, "preserved in everything from Scandinavian dill-flecked mustard to fiery Portuguese piri-piri sauce."

Six brands were standouts. Two of these were from Galicia, the region in the northwest of Spain, and two more were from neighboring Portugal. (The other two were from Brittany and Norway).

Of the six, small Galician sardines, or sardinillas, received the highest praise of all. While the other types of sardines are recommended for pasta, sandwiches, and fritters, Cancila suggests serving the Gallician sardinillas  just as they are "to best appreciate their clean, pure taste."

Check out my post on Spanish Tinned Sardines for more information.

The on-line Spanish food store La Tienda carries both tinned Galician  sardines and sardinillas.

 

 

Salpicón de Mariscos: a Spanish Seafood Salad

In my last post, Esperanza Cooks Bogavante, I wrote about the Spanish way to boil lobster. Today I'll focus on salpicón, a salad-like mixture that's great combined with boiled lobster, as well as many other types of fish and shellfish.  

Once again, this recipe is from my mother-in-law, Esperanza.  Her salpicón is a mixture of chopped boiled egg, parsley, onion, olives, and pimentos, dressed with olive oil and vinegar.  It is then combined in various ways with the lobster, or whatever type of fish or shellfish is being served:  salpicón is also great with crab (nécoras o cangrejo), poached hake (merluza), or even just boiled potatoes.

Here's Esperanza's recipe for salpicón:

Ingredients:

2 flame roasted red peppers, cut in small slivers  (piquillos are wonderful, or see my post on flame roasting peppers)

one small onion, chopped

pitted olives, quartered

3 chopped boiled eggs

a small bunch of Italian parsley, chopped

1/2 cup (or more) virgin olive oil

white wine vinegar to taste

a dash of water if the mixture is too thick

salt to taste (the olives are often salt enough)

Toss the above ingredients together.

Serve the salpicón with boiled lobster or other seafood.

Presentation varies. If the lobsters or other shellfish are served in the shell, then use the salpicón as a side dish, or better yet just pass around the bowl.  The guests can combine their lobster and salpicón as they like.

If you are serving the lobster shelled, you can spoon the salpicón on top as you would a sauce or a garnish, or you can mix it all together to make a salad, salpicón de mariscos.  

Salpicón and lobster on toast makes a fantastic tapa.