El desayuno

I've started to shop with "Spanish" ingredients in mind and the result has led to some cool meals. Some have gone down well, others not so much. Anyway here's one for you to try if you like.

Omelette

Two eggs

Chorizo sausage (uncooked)

Green chilli

Mozzarella cheese

Rosemary

Garlic

and lemon to squeeze over

In a bowl I mixed the eggs and mozzarella with paprika and seasoning.

Chopped up the chorizo, chilli and broke off the rosemary leaves from their stalks.

Fried up the chorizo, chilli, rosemary and garlic in Spanish olive oil till the chorizo was cooked.

Poured in the eggs and mozzarella. Left until the edges started to brown slightly.

Popped it under the grill until it starts to brown slightly.

(you should turn on the grill as soon as you start chopping up the ingredients.)

There you go. I added some salad leaves with cherry tomatoes, green olives and some plain yogurt.

Now it needs a name. Any suggestions?

Basque Cider

In my first post I said I'd blog about cider (because of the whole apples thing) when we have lost interest in the blog and posting goes stagnant. I also said to check back in the middle of August as that was my prediction. Turns out I have the gift of prophecy. Here's the post about cider in Spain.

Cider has been made on the shores of the good old Iberian peninsula for some time now and has it's bearings deep in Basque Country. Asturias produces up to 80% of Spain's cider as well as consuming up to 54 litres per person a year. Another region of note is Gipuzkoa. During the Spanish civil war most apple orchards where abandoned and cider production almost became none existent except for the Gipuzkoa region. It was only until the 1980's that the production and celebration of cider came back successfully. The town of Usurbil started a day festival called Sagardo Eguna which promotes the drinking of cider and now special event is held in several towns throughout Basque Country.

There is an art to pouring the cider. The bottle of preferably one year old cider is held above the head and poured into the glass that you hold as low down as you can. It's a messy affair but necessary to oxygenate the cider and produce bubbles.

These guys have taken it further but this may very well have been a three o'clock in the morning idea.

This area also has a regional dish called Fabada made from mixed sausages, pork and butter beans. I may give it a try.

Here's something to tie it all up. Xabi Alonso comes from Basque Country.

He's famous for somethings as well.

La Tomatina

Well, I think that most of you would be familiar with this festival. It is rather epic by any standard and to top it off, this is one event that we may very well be able to attend. Much to my delight. I have always been keen for a food fight but it has to be worth it. You can't just waste food for any old reason and this one is certainly the greatest excuse. It has history, tradition and thousands of willing participants.

How this blessed event had it's origins is anyones guess and the stories I'm sure are endless. However we do know that it started in the town of Buñol around the 1940's and now encompasses other events including a Paella cooking contest. I should start practicing. It is also done in the honour of the town's patron saints: San Luis Bertrán and Mare de Déu dels Desemparats (Mother of God of the Defenseless) Ironic patrons to have since Bertrán apparently had no sense of humour and the other for the vulnerable village people. Many shopkeepers have to drape their buildings with plastic to protect them from the onslaught of about 150, 000 tomatoes. That's a lot of tomato sauce of which I can't help but calculate how many meals you could make from all of that sauce. It's also not for the self conscious because the dress code is white for woman and no shirts for the men. I now have an incentive for gym.

It's a human meat ball.

click for pictures

Percebes

El tres amigos had dinner with some folks on Tuesday night and happened to watch the BBC programme QI with Steven Fry. In the episode we watched they brought up the subject of gooseneck barnacles. Anyway, I descided to do a bit of research. Low and behold it turns out that the little crustaceans are a very popular dish in Spain and are called Precebes. They are boiled in salt water with lemon and bay leaves then served on a bed of curly lettuce. Apparently the taste is like an angel kissing on your tongue. They fetch quite the price so it's not a meal for the end of the month. But that's not all that's interesting about them. Back in the good old days folks believed these barnacles where the progeny of the barnacle goose.

Exhibit A:

You can see where they got the idea. This is before observational science progressed from “Hey, that looks like that,” to realising that birds migrate and have babies in other places. A trying to get his name in the books monk from the twelfth centuria claimed to have seen a precebes transform into a beautiful goose. Question on my mind is how did they reckon the goose “deposited” the barnacle? Other questions plague my mind. Is there a Princess Swan/Ugly Duckling parallel? Is this where we get the origin of the word “hard-ass”? I suppose we can't know everything.

Paella Valenciana

¡Hola! Soy Karlos and now it's my turn to add my major reason for travelling to Spain. No, it's not apples or cider for that matter of fact. Although cider has strong traditional value in northern Spain, they have festivals and everything...I might do a post for it when we lose interest in this blog and it goes dead for a few weeks. So check back in the middle of August and be educated.

Right, so as the title suggests and what you probably thought this post was all about but then forgot because I distracted you with apples, is actually about Paella. Paella Valenciana to be precise because although we have like the rest of the world jumped on the bandwagon of calling any throw together rice stew as Paella and then declaring it Spanish is in fact distorted. Fancy that. Spain recognises Paella as being a Valencian dish and it's fine citizens have embraced this proclamation with open arms. The other misconception about Paella is that it is exclusively a seafood dish but there are many versions and I am particularly interested in the meat one. It uses rabbit and chicken (or duck) with white rice, green veggies and beans. It also contains the magical credit card cancelling saffron and it's what gives Paella its distinctive yellow colouring.

That's all for me now but here's a video of how to make Paella. It's in Spanish so just pull a Pocahontas and listen with your heart.