Tag Archives: Spain

Method

Preheat the oven to moderate oven (190°C/375°F/Gas 5).

Heat the oil in a suitably sized saucepan. Fry the bread cubes until lightly browned. Stir in the paprika and chopped garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer the soup, covered, for 10 minutes. The bread should almost disintegrate into the soup. If not, help it along with a balloon whisk, potato masher or some such.

Pour the soup into serving bowls and break an egg into the middle of each. Pop the bowls of soup into the oven for a few minutes to poach the eggs.

Adjust the seasoning with salt, garnish with the chopped fresh parsley and serve.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.

Oil a small roasting tray with half the olive oil. Wrap a half-slice of serrano around each asparagus spear stem leaving the tip naked. Place the wrapped spears in the oiled roasting tin and brush them with the remaining olive oil. Season the spears with pepper.

Just before you are ready to serve, roast the asparagus and ham in the oven for ~10 minutes, depending upon thickness, until tender but still firm.

[A little aioli for dipping would not be wasted, if you fancy it.]

Method

First, sweat the onion, together with a pinch of salt, in the olive oil until soft and translucent. Toss in the chopped garlic and fry for two minutes more making sure that the garlic doesn’t toast. Set aside to cool.

Top each slice of baguette with some of the sautéed onion and garlic together with a little of the pan oil. Arrange two slices of goat’s cheese on each.

When ready to serve, warm your assembled treasures in a 160°C oven for a few minutes to soften (but not toast) the cheese.

Method

The caramelized red onion. In a small frying pan, melt the butter with one tablespoon of the olive oil and then sweat the finely sliced red onion for five minutes until soft and translucent. Pour in the red wine and sherry vinegar, then add the sugar and a pinch of salt. Simmer gently until the liquid has evaporated (~20-30 minutes).

The Pedro Ximénez. Boil it to reduce by 50% then allow to cool before use.

Cooking and assembling. When you are ready to serve, fry the chicken livers in the remaining half tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat leaving them slightly pink in the middle. Top each slice of baguette with some of the caramelized red onion and sit a chicken liver on top. Drizzle over a teaspoon or so of the reduced Pedro Ximénez.

Method

Rinse the asparagus tips then cut them to a length of about 5cms/2ins. Steam them for 2-3 minutes (depending upon thickness – go for an al dente finish). Let them cool then tie them into four bundles of three spears using the chive stalks.

Spread the baguette slices thinly with a little mayonnaise. Fold a half slice of salmon attractively on top of each baguette slice and top with a bundle of asparagus spears.

Method

Deftly chop together the crab meat and prawns before mixing it together in a small glass bowl with a couple dollops of mayonnaise. Season to taste. Handle the piquillo peppers very gently as they can be frustratingly fragile. Open the peppers and support them in one hand while you stuff them with the crab and shrimp mixture using a teaspoon.

Just before serving, top the bread, if using, with the stuffed peppers (do not do this too early ‘cos the bread may go soggy). Either way, sprinkle over a few drained capers.

[A decorative squiggle of Marie Rose sauce on each pepper wouldn't go amiss if you happen to have some in the cupboard/refrigerator.]

Method

In a small glass bowl, mix together the finely chopped egg, olives and anchovies. Moisten the mixture with some of teh reserved anchovy oil to make a pleasing consistency. Season with a few turns of black pepper – you won’t need salt because of the anchovies.

Invert the tomatoes so that they stand on the stalk end. Cut a cap off the round end of each tomato and hollow it out carefully with a teaspoon. Slightly over-stuff each tomato with the mixture and sit a cap back on top to pretty it up.

[If you can get a mixture of red and yellow tomatoes, you're really cooking on gas - or not.]

Method

Roast the peppers in a blisteringly hot oven (230°C/450°F/gas 8), turning a couple of times, until they are, well, blistered all over (~25-30 minutes). When nicely blackened, put the peppers into a bowl and cover them with cling film. Let them steam thus for ~15 minutes to help loosen their skin.

Hold each pepper over a clean bowl and snip a hole in its base (the pepper’s, not the bowl!) gently squeezing the juices out. Peel off the blackened skin (a blunt knife can help with this and let’s face it, most people’s knives are blunt). Remove the stem, core and seeds before slicing the flesh of each pepper into thin strips. Arrange alternating coloured strips of pepper on a serving plate.

To the reserved pepper juices, add the olive oil, sherry vinegar and crushed garlic. Whisk together seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Cut each olive lengthwise into 2 or 3 pieces.

When ready to serve, drizzle a little dressing over the pepper salad, then scatter over the olive pieces, capers and chopped marjoram/oregano.

Serve as part of a mixed spread of tapas , preferably with some dry sherry as is traditional.

Method

Marinade the chicken. Remove the legs, breasts and wings of the chicken. Skin the breasts (including the first part of the wing) and legs. Leave the skin on the middle part of the wings. The Spanish would leave the bones in the legs but I like to bone it for my guests: two chunks of meat from each drumstick and two from each thigh. Separate the fillets from beneath the breasts and cut each breast into, say, four chunky pieces. Put the chicken pices into a suitable glass bowl. Skin four of the plumpest garlic cloves, crush them and, with a tablespoon of olive oil, massage them into the chicken pieces. Leave it to marinade, stirring it occasionally, for three hours, if possible, but at least an hour in any case.

Heat the remaining 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet or frying pan – you want all the chicken to fit in one layer. Gently fry all the remaining garlic cloves, skin still on, until lightly browned than remove them from the pan and set aside. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and cook them, turning occasionally, until golden all over. The chicken should be barely cooked through; the breast pieces should need ~10 minutes so rescue them before they overcook and leave the leg pieces to cook for about 5 minutes more. Increase to a high heat and add the sherry, bay leaves and browned garlic cloves to the pan, scraping the gooey bits off the base. Return the breast meat to the pan and bring it all to a boil. Reduce the heat a little to keep a moderate boil going to reduce the liquid, turning the chicken pieces in the sauce occasionally. Reduce the liquid to about a quarter, agitating the pan to help form an emulsion with the olive oil. Adjust the seasoning to taste (without drinking too much of the juice!).

If you’ve got a cazuela instead of a skillet/frying pan, I’m sure that would add an air of authenticity. I must get one!

Method

The octopus. I’ve heard that octopus should be cooked either very rapidly or very slowly if it is to be tender. The original recipe fried it briefly then cooked it in the stew for 15 minutes or so. That sounded neither rapid nor slow to me so I followed Rick Stein’s guidelines and precooked it long and slow. Put the octopus in an ovenproof pan with a tight-fitting lid together with a few glugs of olive oil. Cook it in a 150°C/300°F/gas mark 2 oven for 2 hours. Let it cool and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Reserve the cooking juices – another benefit of precooking. (This is definitely not necessary for squid – just cut them into rings & tentacles.)

The picada. This is something the Spanish use to flavour and thicken the stew. In a large skillet (one that has a lid), add enough olive oil to thinly cover the base, then gently fry the almonds, garlic and slices of bread (on both sides) until all look lightly browned. As they brown, remove them, either to a pestle and mortar or to the jar of a food processor. Either way, smash them together to a paste with a little more olive oil. Stir in the chopped parsley.

Making the suquet . To the pan and oil that cooked the picada ingredients, add the onions and fry until soft. Stir in the tomatoes and cook until broken down and a lot of the juices have evaporated. Stir in the white wine and reduce it by about a half. Add the fish stock, the reserved octopus cooking juices and potatoes. Simmer the potatoes for 7 or 8 minutes until almost cooked. Add the fish and simmer for another 3 minutes. Borrow a spoonful of the cooking liquid to slacken off the picada. Now stir in the octopus (or squid pieces) and prawns together with the picada. Place the mussels on top, cover teh pan with its lid and cook for another 3 minutes or so, just until the mussels open. (Remove any mussels which do not open.)

Let the dish rest, covered and off the heat, for 5 minutes before serving. A fresh green salad is all this needs, if anything.