Simple Spanish Food

Candied Citrus Peel for Decorating Your Roscón

Roscones de Reyes, the traditional, wreath-shaped sweet breads sold in Spanish bakeries for King's Day (and increasingly throughout the holiday season) are usually decorated with chopped nuts, powdered sugar, candied fruits, and sometimes a glaze.  These decorations not only make the roscones look festive, they add a lot of flavor.  

An easy way to decorate your roscón at home is to make some candied citrus peel and arrange them, along with chopped nuts, onto a freshly glazed bread. Here's one we did last year:

Candying citrus peel is easy.  Just peel some strips of orange zest (or other citrus of your choice) with a vegetable peeler. Cut them into match sticks or other shapes if you like, or just leave them "abstract" (that's what I do).    Put them in a pot of cold water. Bring them to a boil. Drain them. Repeat.

Make a simple syrup:  Put one cup of sugar and one cup of water in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil. Add the citrus peels. Let them simmer in the syrup an hour or so. Remove them from the syrup and roll them in  sugar. 

These keep for weeks so you can make them ahead of time.

When you've finished baking your roscón  (see my easy recipe for roscón de Reyes to learn how), coat it with a simple glaze (again see my easy recipe for roscón de Reyes for the glaze recipe). While the glaze is still wet, arrange the candied citrus peels and chopped nuts of your choice on top.

The glaze serves as "glue" to hold the decorations in place.

¡Feliz día de Reyes a todos!

¡Batatas! Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Spanish Street Food

In his recent article in the New York Times, Mark Bittman praises the sweet potato. He says, among other things, that roasted sweet potatoes make perfect street food.  Spaniards already know this. Walk around just about any Spanish city in late fall and winter and you will find castañeras roasting not only chestnuts and corn on the cob over fires,  but also batatas--sweet potatoes. Like a bagful of hot roasted chestnuts, a roasted sweet potato not only tastes great, it keeps your hands warm when it's cold.

To enjoy roasted sweet potatoes at home, just wash a sweet potato, poke it with a fork a few times, put it in a pan (lining the pan with foil makes washing up easier) and roast it in a 375 degree oven for two hours.   You can eat it with butter, but it's wonderful just the way it is.

Chestnut Season Begins

We just ordered some Italian Marroni style chestnuts from Correia Chestnut Farm.  We've had them in the past and we've been very pleased. They're almost identical to the chestnuts we enjoy in Spain.  Can't wait to start roasting them!

Check out my posts on chestnuts to see different ways Spaniards enjoy chestnuts.

Bizcocho de chocolate: A Spanish Chocolate Cake for Breakfast or Merienda

Bizcocho is a type of cake Spaniards eat for breakfast, at the eleven o'clock coffee break, for the merienda (a snack at six in the afternoon or so), or even for dessert.  Though they resemble pound cakes in appearance, bizocochos are much lighter and less sweet.  Like magdalenas and so many other Spanish cakes,  bizocho is really meant to be dipped in coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or even a sweet wine. If you are unfamiliar with bizcocho, it's best to think of it as a sort of soft biscotti.

Bizcochos come in many different flavors--orange, lemon, coffee, coconut, and so on. This one is chocolate. I got the base recipe from the classic Spanish cook book Manual de Cocina, but I threw in some untraditional chocolate chips.

Here's how to do it:

Ingredients

6 tablespoons of butter (or substitute coconut oil for a coconut-y bizcocho)

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 and 1/4 cups of flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/3 cup of chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix the butter and the sugar until creamy. Stir in the eggs and the milk. Stir in the cocoa and the baking power. Stir in the flour a little at a time, and finally the chocolate chips.

Rub a loaf pan with butter. Dust it with flour.  Pour the batter in.

Bake it at 350 for 35-45 minutes.  Insert a toothpick. If it comes out clean, it's done.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Magdalenas: Spanish Breakfast Cakes

If you've ever had breakfast in Madrid, you've probably had magdalenas (aka madalenas), the Spanish version of the French madeleine.   Most magdalenas are flavored with citrus zest (either lemon or orange), but otherwise they can vary quite a bit.   Some resemble little spongecakes. Others are more like pound cake. The ones I made for this post taste a bit like powdered doughnuts to me, but Ana, who knows her magdalenas, says they are closer to bica, a Galician bizcocho. I will post about other styles of magdalenas, as well as sobaos and other Spanish  breakfast cakes,  in the near future.

Note: like many olive oil cakes and pastries, these magdalenas actually taste better the second day.  Hot out of the oven they will have a disappointing, "bread-y" taste, so plan ahead and make them a day before you eat them.   

Ingredients:

1 egg

1 cup of sugar (plus more for sprinkling)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup yogurt

1 cup of spiced olive oil (see my post on how to make Spiced Olive Oil, aceite desahumado)

3 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon of grated orange zest

First make the Spiced Olive Oil.

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar well.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a separate bowl.

Mix the milk and yogurt in a cup.

Stir a little of the flour mixture into the eggs and sugar, then stir a little of the milk mixture in.  Keep alternating, and stirring, until it's all combined.

Stir in the spiced olive oil and zest.

Put the batter in an oiled muffin pans or papers. Sprinkle each muffin with a little sugar.

Bake them 15 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the biggest magdalena. If it comes out clean, they're done. 

Cool the magdalenas  on racks.  Again their flavor and texture will be much better the second day.

Serve them for breakfast, for a mid-morning coffee break, or for the merienda.

A Simple Recipe for Pestiños, a Traditional Spanish Olive Oil Pastry

There are many varieties of pestiños.  Some include sesame seeds or ground nuts and various spices. (These types overlap with another traditional fried pastry, borrachuelos.) For this post I'll focus on a simple pestiño of the sort I wrote about in a recent post. It contains nothing but flour, spiced olive oil, wine, honey, and a little sugar. 

One of the great things about pestiños is that they keep beautifully. They will taste even better the second day and will last several days if kept in  a tin at room temperature.

Here's how to do it.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of olive oil spiced with orange zest and cloves (see my post on aceite desahumado)

1/4 cup white wine

1 cup of flour

Olive oil for frying

for the glaze

1/3 cup of honey

2 tablespoons of water

granulated sugar

Put the wine and  spiced olive oil  in a large bowl. Add the flour. Stir until it forms a dough. Knead the dough a minute or two. Shape it into a ball. Let the dough rest half an hour.

Roll the dough out until it's about as thick as a quarter. Cut the dough into rectangles, 2 inches wide and five inches long.

Fry the pestiños in batches, a few of the time, in hot olive oil. The oil should be at least 1 inch deep.

Fry them a minute per side, or less. They will puff up as they cook. When they turn golden, remove them from the oil. 

 

To make a traditional honey glaze, just boil a 1/3 of a cup of honey with 2 tablespoons of water.  Drizzle this mixture over the pestiños.  Then sprinkle them with sugar.

If you prefer you can skip the glaze and dust them with powdered sugar. (Either method is traditional).

Pestiños: a Traditional Spanish Olive Oil Pastry

Pestiños, an old fashioned Spanish pastry, were the favorite dessert of Ana's grandmother.  I love them too. I try to eat several whenever we go to Madrid.  This week I'll post about how to make pestiños. Today I'll just give a general introduction to the pestiño.

Like churros, pestiños are a simple dough fried in olive oil. That said, pestiños have a  different texture, flavor, and appearance.

Pestiños more closely resemble the  sopaipillas or sopapillas of the Southwestern U.S. In fact pestiños and sopaipillas are probably cousins. According to Wikipedia, "the word sopaipilla is the diminutive of sopaipa, a word that entered Spanish from the Mozarabic language of [the] Muslim Iberian peninsula."  

 Pestiños are made with only flour, wine, olive oil, honey or sugar, and (sometimes) spices.  They are quite different from butter-based pastries, but just as delicious. They're rich, to be sure, but with good fat, and they have zero cholesterol. 

Pestiños vary quite a bit even in Madrid. The pestiño pictured at the top of this post, for example, is a giant from the old Madrid pastry shop Casa Mira.  It was golden brown, quite crisp, multi-layered,  rich, and sticky with honey--a truly great  pestiño.

Here's a pic of a very different style of pestiño at a Madrid bar called El Anciano Rey de Los Vinos, along with traditional sweet wine from the village of Tomelloso (a perfect pairing for pestiños).  They're also great with tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

This pestiño was crisp, light, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and spiced with anise.

Pestiños are easy to make, and in a near-future post, I'll give the recipe.

Is Your Roscón Ready?

Tomorrow, January 6th, is King's Day, or Día de Reyes, when the ring-shaped holiday breads called roscones de reyes are enjoyed all over Spain.

If you would like to celebrate Reyes the way the Spaniards do, it's still not too late to make your own roscón. See my post on roscón de reyes for an easy recipe and more information about this traditional Spanish holiday bread--including the prizes inside.

Also see my post "Ten Spanish Ways to Enjoy the Holidays #10" for more pictures of roscones de Reyes.

¡Feliz día de Reyes a todos!