Simple Spanish Food

Calçots, cebolletas a la barbacoa: Grilled Green Onions

Ana found a good video in the Spanish newspaper ABC on how to make this Catalan specialty. (If you don't understand Spanish, don't worry: the images make the process, which is simple, clear.)

Basically you just grill the biggest green onions you can find until they're charred on the outside. Take them off the grill,  wrap them up in paper or foil and let them steam five or ten minutes, then peel off the charred outer layer and enjoy them dipped in a good olive oil or romesco sauce (my easy romesco works well). The hot taste of the onion becomes sweet and rich during the cooking, and the texture is tender.

At the end of the video there is an example of the traditional way to eat these grilled onions (not with a knife and fork!)

 

Grating Tomatoes (tomate rallado): a Basic Spanish Technique

Grated tomato (tomate rallado) is used in many different Spanish dishes.  In Andalusia it is smeared on toast and drizzled with fruity olive oil for breakfast. In Valencia grated tomato is a main ingredient in sofrito, which is used to make, among other things, paella. You can use grated tomato in pisto, an old fashioned gazpacho (the texture is quite different than when made in the blender), or as a base for tuna in tomato sauce (bonito y tomate). In fact  you can substitute fresh grated tomatoes just about anywhere you would use canned tomatoes.  It's a great alternative for people on low-salt diets, since tinned tomatoes usually have a lot of sodium.

If you've never grated a tomato before, you'll probably be surprised by how easy and quick it is.  Just rub the tomato against a grater over a bowl.

The flesh, juice and seeds go into the bowl, but most of the peel stays in your hand. When you've finished grating, discard the peel or use it for making stock. 

Grated tomato is not quite as refined as tomatoes run through a food mill, but it is quite different too from tomatoes finely chopped.  

I will be honest: for a long time whenever a recipe called for "tomate rallado" I just chopped the tomatoes instead.  When on a whim I tried grating tomatoes, I realized it really does make a difference in flavor and texture, and just makes Spanish dishes more Spanish. And it really isn't any more difficult or time consuming than chopping. 

 

A Spanish Split Pea Soup, sopa de guisantes amarillos

This is an easy Spanish style soup that doesn't take too long to make. 

1 lb bag of yellow split peas

1 carrot, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces

1 bay leaf

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

2-3 teaspoons Spanish spice blend

fresh parsley and, if you like, cilantro

salt to taste (one teaspoon or less)

Pour the split peas into a large pot.  Look them over, pushing them around, and remove any bits of stones or dirt. Rinse the peas 2 or 3 times.

Add enough water to the pot so that the peas are covered by 2 to 3 inches of water.  Bring them to a boil. Simmer for half an hour. When the peas begin to soften, add the bay leaf and carrot and continue simmering.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic in the olive oil. Remove the pan from the heat and let the oil cool some. Add the Spanish spice blend. Stir. Add this mixture to the simmering peas.

Let the soup simmer until the peas are quite soft. Add salt to taste (It doesn't need much, thanks to the spices, making this a good soup for people on a low-sodium diet).  Just before serving, add handfuls of fresh chopped parsley and--for an Extremaduran or Canary Island touch--a handful of coarsely chopped cilantro.

 

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!

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.

¡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.

Horchata de chufa: Tigernut Milk, The Other Vegan Milk Substitute

In Spain horchata de chufa is a summer drink, especially in Valencia.  It is served cold, sweet, and thick, almost like a milkshake.  It is especially popular at outdoor cafes on hot afternoons. 

But there is no reason not to enjoy tigernut milk at other times of year. Think of it as a neat alternative to the usual vegetarian or vegan milks (soy, almond, rice, coconut, etc.). Tigernut milk can be used in all the same ways. You can make vegan hot chocolate with it, or use it as a replacement for milk in all sorts of recipes.  You could even make a smoothie out of it (I have). It's also fantastic on its own, sweetened with a little honey and spiced with cinnamon.

Here's a recipe for tigernut milk--really more of a leche de chufa than a true horchata de chufa (Check out  La Tienda's recipe if you want to try for a thick, shake-like horchata de chufa).   It is necessary to plan ahead for this, as the tigernuts need soaking twenty four hours, but other than that, it's  easy.

Here's how to do it:

Soak 1/2 pound of chufa nuts in water for 24 hours

After soaking the chufa should look like this:

Drain them. Put them in the blender (not a food processor) with one quart of water. Blend thoroughly. Let the mixture sit at least half an hour.

Line a colander with cheese cloth and place it over a bowl. Pour the chufa mixture through the strainer. When the milk has gone through, wrap the cheese cloth around the chufa solids and squeeze out all the milk you can.

Stir into the milk a heaping tablespoon of honey, or more if you like. Add a dash of ground cinnamon. Stir.

Chill the milk for an hour. Stir again, and it's ready.

Try to use the tigernut milk the day you make it or the day after, while it's still fresh.

No time to make horchata de chufa? La Tienda  sells a good brand of bottled horchata de chufa.

 

 

 

Caldo Gallego in Thirty Minutes

I've posted before on a vegetarian or vegan caldo gallego. Here's another version you can make in just half an hour.  I used chicken broth for this, but you can use vegetable broth if you want to make your caldo vegetarian or vegan. If you prefer your caldo gallego with meat, just add slices of chorizo during the last ten minutes of simmering.

Ingredients

1 small bunch of kale or collards, washed and chopped

1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed

2 cans of chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 potato, diced

a few cloves of garlic, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon of pimentón de La Vera

In a medium pot, fry the garlic in the olive oil. Remove the pot from the heat and let the oil cool some. Add the pimentón. Stir.

Add the broth, the potatoes, the greens, and the beans. Bring the soup to a simmer. After fifteen minutes, test one of the potatoes with a fork. If it's soft, the caldo is ready.

Serve in small cups for a tapa, or in soup plates for an easy one-pot meal.

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Spanish Cocktail Mix

Make this just as you would fried chickpeas (garbanzos fritos), with or without garlic and spices, but throw in a handful of nuts or seeds of your choice during the last few minutes of frying.  We usually combine fried garbanzos with almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, just to name a few.

You may wish to check out La Tienda's ready-made Spanish cocktail mix, as well as my post on dried fruit and nut shops (tiendas de frutos secos) for more information on this tapa and Spanish tradition.