Simple Spanish Food

Five Easy Spanish Meals, No Special Ingredients Required

Many of the recipes here at Simple Spanish Food call for special ingredients such as pimentón, Calasparra rice, or ultra high-quality Spanish tinned goods such as  Cantabrian anchovy fillets packed in olive oil.  But you don't have to have special ingredients to cook the Spanish way.  Here are five easy dishes you can make with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry and refrigerator--or at least at the neighborhood grocery.

The first, pictured above, is the Spanish omelet, or tortilla de patata.  All you need to make it are a few eggs, a potato or two, an onion, some olive oil and salt. That's it.  And it really is easy to make.  See my recipe for tortilla de patata for the recipe and flipping technique.

Eggs and tomato sauce, huevos con tomate, is even easier.  If you  have a can of plum tomatoes, a clove or two of garlic, olive oil, a little red pepper, and eggs, you can make huevos con tomate.  See my recipe for huevos con tomate for the recipe.

Empanadas are another one-dish meal or tapa you can make with things you probably already have in the house. Don't let the crust intimidate you. It's the easiest pastry crust ever.  Making an empanada requires only flour, an egg, some olive oil, water, a little salt, and the filling of your choice, almost all of which can be made from readily available ingredients. True, the Galician-style empanada calls for a little saffron. If you don't have any, just leave it out. Your empanada will still be good. See my posts on empanadas for several easy recipes.

Tuna in tomato sauce, or bonito y tomate, is what we make when we've been traveling and come home to an empty refrigerator.  Everything we need is already in the  pantry:  a can of tomatoes, a tin of tuna, a clove or two of garlic, a little hot pepper, olive oil, and rice. True, if you wanted to make a special bonito y tomate, you could use a quality Spanish paella-type rice and bonito del norte, but for an everyday meal, an ordinary short grain rice and a can of quality tuna will do.

 The Spanish "Russian" Salad, or ensaladilla rusa, is another great one-dish meal.  To make one you need only a potato or two, a carrot, a can of tuna (bonito del norte is best, but a decent can of tuna from the grocery will do), eggs, some English peas (frozen are fine) and a few strips of pimiento pepper--and some olive oil to whip up a Spanish-style mayonnaise dressing.

Ensaladilla rusa may be garnished with white asparagus and stuffed olives, but these are not strictly necessary. It's still good without them.   See my post on Spanish Russian Salad for the recipe.

Tuna in Tomato Sauce (Bonito y tomate): a recipe for a Simple Spanish dinner

Spain, like many Mediterranean countries, has its own version of the classic combination of tuna and tomato sauce.  You can make this as elegant as you like.  You could use a can of bonito del norte instead of a more ordinary tuna.  (Please see my post on bonito del norte).  Esperanza, my mother-in-law, will often make it with fresh albacore when she can find it at the market, and it's terrific.   When I have extra tomatoes in the garden, I'll make a fresh tomato sauce.

But usually tuna in tomato sauce is convenience food for us--something we can make when we haven't had time to go to the grocery, or when we're too tired to cook something complicated.  Everything we need is in the pantry, and we can relax and have an aperitif and a few olives while the sauce is simmering.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 28-ounce can of whole plum tomatoes, "Roma Style"

1/4 cup of virgin olive oil

5 or 6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced, or chopped.

hot pepper flakes to taste (usually between 1/4 teaspoon and 1/2 teaspoon, depending on the pepper and how much heat you like).

1 5-ounce can of tuna packed in olive oil

about 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley (optional)

1 cup of white rice.

This serves two generously as one-dish meal.

Open the can of tomatoes and have it ready by the stove. In a saucepan, saute the garlic in the olive oil.  When it's just taking on color, add the hot pepper, give it a quick stir, and pour in the tomatoes.  Be quick, or the pepper may burn.

Bring the tomatoes to a fast simmer. Break them up some with the edge of a wooden spoon. Let them cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and becomes velvety. This usually takes 20-30 minutes. The oil will begin to separate from the sauce.

In the meantime, cook the rice. You could use a Spanish rice if you like, but we often use Jasmine. We cook the rice on the moist side--2 cups of water for 1 cup of rice--for this dish. Just bring the rice and water to a boil in a saucepan. Add a dash of olive oil and a dash of salt.  Reduce the heat to low. Give it a stir. Cover, and let it steam for 20 minutes.

When the tomato sauce is ready, add the tuna, along with olive oil from the can. Break the tuna up as you stir it in.  Add the parsley. Let it simmer for 2 or 3 minutes--not long--and serve it spooned over rice.

A simple, light red wine goes well with this. Tuna and tomato sauce  is usually garnished with halved boiled eggs.   I often eat it with toasted nuts (see my post on toasted nuts).  It's also good with toasted garbanzos, or a bean salad, and anchovies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spanish Sardines (Sardinas, Sardinillas)

Sardines, both fresh and canned, are taken seriously in Spain.  Today I'll focus on the canned sardines, or  sardinas. While canned sardines are comfort food in Spain,  enjoyed mainly at home, they don't have anything like the lowly status they suffer from in the United States. I think it was the Spanish writer Julio Camba who once said sardines would be considered luxury food if they only cost more.   At least part of the reason for this attitude is that Spanish sardines are so good.

The best sardines are from Galicia, in the northwestern part of the country. They're packed in virgin olive oil.   The texture is firm, never mushy, and the sardines have a brilliant silvery skin. 

The taste is clean, never strong or fishy.  Even better are sardinillas, or little sardines, also from Galicia.  Esperanza, my mother-in-law, gave me this advice: always look for sardinillas with a count on the can. That way you know you're getting the smallest (and usually the best) sardines possible. Look to the bottom left hand corner of this box of sardinillas:

The "16/20 piezas" guarantees you that there will be at least sixteen little sardines in the can.

And my absolute favorite are  sardinillas picantes,  with a hot pepper, or guindilla.  Unfortunately these spicy sardinillas are still difficult to find in the U.S.

In Spain it would be nothing unusual to serve a dish of sardinillas alongside toasted nuts, olives, roasted peppers, pickles, and other simple appetizers just before the comida, or main meal.  

They also make a great simple Spanish meal. Serve them with a salad, good bread, and an albarino, or maybe a Portuguese vinho verde. Both are perfect wines for sardines.

There are other reasons to eat sardines. They are extremely good for you, with their omega 3's and calcium.  They're low in mercury.

Sardines are also a relatively sustainable fish, much more so than the farmed raised salmon so often found in our fish markets.  In his New York Times article "A Seafood Snob Ponders the Future of Fish,"  Mark Bittman writes, "Myself, I’d rather eat wild cod once a month and sardines once a week than farm-raised salmon, ever."

 

Super Easy Spanish Pasta Recipe

This is a Spanish version of the classic Italian recipe for spaghetti dressed simply with olive oil, red pepper flakes, and garlic.  I just replaced the red pepper flakes with pimentón de la Vera, which adds a new depth of flavor, along with a hint of smoke.  (You can learn more about pimentón de la Vera here, or click on "Spices" in the sidebar and read all about it). I often make this dish when I haven't had time to go to the grocery store.

Ingredients

About 1/2 pound (1/2 a box) of any thin pasta (angel hair, spaghettini, etc.)

1/3 cup of virgin olive oil

2 or 3 garlic cloves (or more) thinly sliced

1 teaspoon (or more)  pimentón picante de la vera

1/2 cup of the water in which you have cooked the pasta

salt to taste

 

Bring a big pot of water to a rolling boil.  Add the pasta and cook until just al dente (6 or 7 minutes, or less, depending on the pasta). During the last minute of cooking, dip out about half a cup of the pasta water and reserve.

Drain the pasta. You can prepare the sauce in the same pot, if you like.  Saute the garlic in the oil.  Remove the pot from the heat just as the garlic takes on a little color, or even sooner. When the oil cools a little, add the pimentón and stir. (It's important to let the oil cool, or else the pimentón will burn).  Add the reserved pasta water immediately. Add the pasta and salt to taste.  Toss over high heat for a minute or so--and it's ready.

Though you can eat this just the way it is, it's even better with a tablespoon of chopped parsley tossed with the pasta at the last minute.  And if you would like to make a more substantial meal of it, you can top the pasta with all sorts of things--cooked shrimp, grilled eggplant, pine nuts, or just a fried egg.  You could also saute a little sliced chorizo along with the garlic.