Simple Spanish Food

How Are Your Guindas?

Back in July when cherries were in  season I put away some guindas al licor, cherries in aguardiente or brandy.  

Here's what they looked like then:

Now after five months maceration, they look like this:

The aguardiente (a type of pomace brandy similar to grappa) has taken on a rich cherry flavor and color, and the cherries are now spicy with aguardiente.  These make a great dessert and digestif just as they are, but you can also use them in some traditional Spanish sweets--hopefully the subject of a near future post.

See my post on guindas al licór, cherries in aguardiente or brandy for more information.

 

A Glimpse of a Madrid Fruit & Vegetable Stand in Winter

 I love the tiny fruit and vegetable shops that can be found in every neighborhood of Madrid.   The produce in most of them is top notch, even in winter (when these photos were taken)  and always arranged beautifully out front, enticing you to come inside.

Here's a display of thick white asparagus, all sorts of gorgeous wild mushrooms, chestnuts . . .

And yet more wild mushrooms, setas.  Late fall is the season for them in Spain. (See my posts on grilled stuffed mushrooms and a spicy mushroom empanada.)

Here's a fruit stand, frutería, which is somewhat famous in Madrid because the royal family shops there.  The fruits tend to be so perfect at this place they don't look quite real.

Pomegranate with Yogurt, Granada con yogurt

Back in the fifties, Esperanza (my mother-in-law) and her family used to enjoy a delicious dessert with just three ingredients: fresh pomegranate, sugar, and milk. The milk was whole, raw milk, rich with cream, brought to the house by the lechera.  In this version, I substitute Greek yogurt for the milk.

Here's how to do it.

Find a good pomegranate.

Break it open.

Remove the seeds from the white parts.

Add sugar.

Add some Greek yogurt.

Stir. Taste. Add more sugar if you like.

Let it sit in the fridge a few hours.  The pomegranate will thicken the yogurt slightly.

Serve.

 

A Canary Islands Breakfast Drink: zumo de naranja y papaya, Orange & Papaya Juice

Ana and I had this in a neighborhood cafeteria in Las Palmas.  Nothing could be simpler. Just squeeze the juice of a couple of oranges into the blender, add a few chunks of papaya. Give it a whir, and you have an authentic Canary Islands breakfast drink. 

 

And Yet Another Easy Canary Island Dessert: plátanos flambeados, Flambéed Bananas

This is an easy, elegant dessert we had in the Canary Islands.  The original (as prepared at the restaurant El Padrino outside of Las Palmas) contains Canary Islands bananas (quite different in both texture and flavor than the usual "Chiquita" type bananas we get here in the U.S.),  an old fashioned (and sadly somewhat out-of-fashion) Spanish herb-and-spice liqueur called Licor 43, sugar, and a little fresh squeezed orange juice. However, you can substitute rum (or some other suitable liquor)  and little "apple bananas" or other gourmet bananas  for this dessert, and the results are pretty good.

Here's how to do it.

Peel a few apple bananas and slice them longways. In a heavy pan, heat up 1/3 cup of rum, a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, and the juice of half a small orange.  When the mixture is steaming, add the bananas, give them a stir, and--CAREFULLY--light the pan with a long match.

Toss the bananas about in the flames.  (Again, careful, the alcohol flares up as it hits the sides of the pan). When the fire goes out, serve.

Another Easy Canary Island Dessert: papaya con zumo de naranja, Papaya with Orange Juice

In the Canary Islands papaya is a major fruit. It is often served as dessert, sometimes drizzled with wild honey (see my post on papaya con miel) but also with a simple dressing of orange juice. That's right: just papaya with orange juice, nothing else. 

This is one of my favorite ways to eat papaya. The two fruits combine beautifully.

Peel a papaya. Scrape out the seeds. Cut the flesh into bite-sized pieces.  Squeeze an orange or two over the papaya.  (You may want to reserve a few orange slices for garnish.) And that's it: you have a tasty (and authentic) Canary Islands dessert.

Piel de Sapo: La Mancha's Famous Melon

When we're in Madrid, Esperanza,  my mother-in-law, serves us at some point a piel de sapo melon, usually for dessert, though I will sometimes eat a slice with jamón serrano for the cena.   

Piel de Sapo melons are a specialty of La Mancha, especially the town called Villaconejos, which supposedly produces the best melons of all. Nowadays you can find piel de sapo melons in supermarkets and fruit stands everywhere, even here in Central Florida.

Piel de Sapo may also be sold under the names "Christmas melons," "Santa Claus melons," "camouflage melons," among other things. If you find a light green, football-shaped melon with a hard rind and dark green spots, it's probably piel de sapo--and definitely worth trying.

Piel de sapo translates literally to "toad skin," but to me these green speckled melons look more like the skin of frogs than toads.  Whatever you call them, the flavor is outstanding: mild and fresh, like a honeydew, but much sweeter. 

Another good thing about piel de sapo melons is that they keep a long time, supposedly into winter (we always eat ours way before then), thanks to their hard rinds.

So if you're looking for a super-easy La Mancha-style dessert for summer (or autumn or even winter), all you have to do is cut open a piel de sapo melon.

 

 

A Canary Island Style Salad (ensalada canaria)

While in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, we had a beautiful salad at the traditional restaurant El Padrino in the mountains overlooking the city.  This salad is easy to make, pretty, and a meal in itself. One thing I like about it is that it is not "tossed": the many ingredients are arranged separately over the bed lettuce so that you can appreciate each one.

We had this with crunchy anise-scented Canary style bread.

Ingredients:

romaine lettuce

sliced tomatoes

sliced sweet onions

sliced red bell peppers

sliced radishes

half an avocado, sliced

florets of steamed cauliflower, tossed with a good olive oil

a good banana (small "apple bananas"  make a good substitute for Canary-style bananas)

sprigs of watercress

grated carrot

a tin of good tuna packed in olive oil

halved boiled eggs

steamed corn

sliced cucumber

tinned white asparagus spears

a good olive oil

salt

Wash and dry the lettuce. Make a large bed of lettuce on a platter, and arrange each of the ingredients separately on top. Place a bottle of good olive oil, vinegar, and salt on the table.  Guests can pick what they like from the salad, and dress it as they like.

Like to try another neat Canary Island salad? Check out my post on a Canary Island salad of avocado and tangerines.

 

 

 

 

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.

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.