We love our citrus fruit here in Andalucía. Our lemon tree, after 3 years, now keeps us well provided in lemons all year round. We have planted 3 orange trees too, so in a year or two, we´ll be enjoying our own oranges.
In the meantime, we rely on the kindness of friends and neighbours who keep us well supplied in oranges from about November to March, which is when Andalucía is lit up in the colour orange. Fields of orange trees are a delight to the eye, and so too are the city streets lined with the trees of bitter oranges which are destined for England and its world famous Orange Marmalade. But more of marmalade another day.
I was inspired by a stunning recipe from Sawsan over at Chef in Disguise for a beautiful orange and avocado salad. Grilled fish was on the menu for lunch, but sadly I have no idea what it is called in English. As it´s a fairly oily fish, I thought that the tangy flavours of a citrus salad would complement the fish perfectly. I was right!
Ingredients for 2 people
1 large pink grapefruit and 1 large orange peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
1 ripe avocado peeled and cubed
Radish – our radishes here are HUGE so I only used one finely sliced, but use however much you like (or not)
Dressing: any juices that run off the fruit as you peel them plus a teaspoon of lemon juice, the juice of an orange and twice the volume (of the citrus juices) of olive oil, a pinch of sugar if your orange is sour, half a teaspoon of mustard powder, a grind of pepper and a pinch of salt.
Mix up the salad ingredients gently or layer onto a plate. Mix the dressing ingredients in a jar, taste and adjust seasoning if necessary and pour over the salad. Any remaining dressing can be stored in the fridge for use another time.
Now that we seem to have caught up (vegetable-availability-wise) with everyone who was posting squash and pumpkin recipes back in the autumn, I am finally cooking lots of warming winter dishes which include this fantastic ingredient. Having said that, it´s not actually very cold here at the moment, but it is Janaury, so I feel justified in making wintery food.
Although we didn´t put on any extra kilos over Christmas, no one could ever accuse either me or Big Man of being under weight, so recipes which are healthier and packed with vegetables are perfect for us.
A mild flavoured curry was on my list – Big Man doesn´t like them hot, and I can always add a little dried chilli at the end to turn up the heat in my own portion.
Ingredients(to serve 4 as a hearty soup or more as a side dish)
200g split yellow peas (the last of a stash bought over by visitors…so sad)
500g squash peeled and cut into slices
1 cup of tomato conserva or chopped tinned tomatoes
1 onion peeled, halved and cut into thin slices
1 head of garlic (you will be roasting this and only using half)
2-3 cups of vegetable stock or water
3 heaped teaspoons of your favourite curry mix (I usually make mine with ground turmeric, chilli, cumin, dried coriander, black pepper and cardamom seeds and then add a little fresh grated ginger when I cook)
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1 dried chilli crumbled (optional)
Oil for frying
Turn the oven onto a high setting and place the squash on a tray lined with foil. Sprinkle with salt and drizzle a little oil over. Roast for about 30 minutes until soft and brown at the edges. Put the garlic in at the same time, wrapped loosely in foil.
Start by dry frying the mustard seeds until they pop. Remove them from the pan. Add a little oil to your pan and fry the onion and garlic until they are soft, then add your curry powder and mustard seeds and fry until the lovely aromas start to come out, then add the split peas (or you could use lentils). Now add the tomato conserva and 2 cups of the stock or water plus the crumbled chilli if using.
Cook gently until the split peas are almost soft (you may need to add more liquid, just keep an eye on them). Remove the squash and garlic from the oven and cut the squash into smaller bite sized chunks. Add these to the split peas. Pop half of the garlic cloves out of their skins and add to the curry. Mash the other half and cover with a little oil, it will keep for at least a week in the fridge and can be used in other dishes or dips.
Add a drop more liquid to the vegetables if necessary, cooking the curry for about 10 more minutes until everything is soft and cooked through. You can mash some of the squash, garlic and split peas with the back of a wooden spoon, leaving some chunky. Add salt, you´ll probably find it can take quite a lot, but the choice is yours. Eat as a thick soup or a side dish and it´s lovely served with rice or naan bread.
Delicious with a squeeze of lime juice and chopped coriander, but I didn´t have either of them so I just used lemon juice. If you like it even milder and more creamy, stir in a couple of big spoonfuls of thick creamy yogurt.
We had some leftovers, so the next day I added some more stock, yogurt and some finely chopped chard (you could use spinach, kale, cabbage) and warmed it through to make a delicious soup – I´m not sure which version I liked best!
The Spanish love sweet things. I don´t think I´m making too much of a generalization with that statement. Not that they´re greedy, but a little cake or biscuit is always most welcomed with a strong cup of coffee at the end of a meal, or a big bowl of milky coffee if it´s the start of the day.
Dealing with preparations for our unexpected lunch for 12, I was lucky that I had already made some of Spree´s gorgeous Mexican Wedding Cookies for an earlier family meal. The recipe makes plenty, and they were hugely popular. The only change I made to these, as I was in a rush, was to grind all the nuts (I used almonds and walnuts) and not chop half of them. Lovely, lovely little biscuits and I´ll definitely be making them again.
Another quick recipe which came to mind was for Chocolate Refrigerator cake. I made this the night before our lunch party and cut the cake into small squares the next morning. These went down well too, and it´s a good recipe to make with little children as you only need a (supervised) heat source for melting.
Here´s the way I made it, although you can chop and change (or even omit) the fruit/nut filling.
250g crushed digestive biscuits (graham crackers)
100g butter
2 tablespoons of golden syrup or honey
3 level tablespoons of cocoa powder
About half a cup of “filling” – I used the last of my drained boozy fruits and added the grated zest of one lemon and one orange
Melt the butter with the golden syrup and cocoa then add to the crushed biscuits and filling. Mix well until everything is well coated. If you leave some large chunks of biscuit/cracker, you will have some pretty speckles in the finished “cake”.
Pour into a tin lined with cling film, flatten and press it with your finger tips then cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight until firm.
Cut into squares – it´s very rich so I tend to do “bite sized”. And that´s it. Doesn´t get much quicker or easier does it?!
Ok, I know this is going to sound quite off putting for many people. Tripe is a scary old thing. But fear not, although the word “Callos” translates as tripe, I don´t actually put any into this dish (although you could). Confused eh?
Well, let me explain. The first time I ever ate this dish was at a Feria in a nearby hamlet. It´s tiny, probably only a dozen houses, but it belongs to our “Municipio” and puts on an amazing fiesta every year. One of the first of the summer in fact. They always seem to attract a good flamenco singer, they do a fantastic paella at lunchtime, and they always have plenty of good food apart from the usual pinchitos (kebabs) and montaditos (fillets of pork on bread). Hundreds of people attend, it´s a great event apart from the winds which whip down the mountain and make hairstyles, skirts, old people and small children blow all over the place.
So, Big Man ordered me a portion of Callos which was essentially a chick pea stew with tiny chunks of meat, chorizo and morcilla in it. I loved it and looked up the word when I got home and though “oh lord, I´ve been eating tripe”! During the almost six years I´ve lived here, I´ve only eaten it a couple of times a year as not many people make it anymore – it´s not complicated to make, but it takes time.
Of course, I recently decided that I wasn´t prepared to wait until next summer for my fix, I´d make my own. This is where the fun started. I asked the butcher to prepare me whatever I needed for this dish (meat wise) and that´s when I found out that her version would not include tripe.
Strange, I thought, but let´s crack on. She (yes, we have two butchers locally, and one is a woman who looks exactly like a lady butcher should look – big and jolly with fingers like sausages) got things ready. The goodie bag included (per four person serving):
Two pigs trotters split down the middle
Some finely chopped pork tongue
A finely chopped pigs ear
Some chopped pancetta or pork belly
Some finely chopped cooked pigs blood
See – not so scary after all (well, maybe apart from the blood)! I also had to buy some chorizo and morcilla and chick peas. I´m not giving measurements here as it´s a kind of “make it up as you go along” dish. I then asked about 20 different people how they made Callos. Half had never made it so were of no help at al. The others gave me 10 different ways of making it, each with their own little “twist”.
This is what I eventually came up with, and I have to say it tasted as good as the Fiesta version, and Big Man thought it was better…modesty prevented me from saying that myself of course!
Soak the chick peas overnight and the next day cook slowly for a couple of hours with a few bay leaves, 4 cloves, and a dried chilli until completely tender. Don´t rush this, you´ll have plenty to be getting on with while they cook.
In a separate pot blanch the all the pork products, drain and put into fresh water. Now cook slowly for a couple of hours until really tender and drain again. Get those kitchen gloves on and pull all the tender meat off the trotters and discard the bones (or give them to your dog who will love you forever). Now add the chunks of meat to the cooked chick peas (still in their water). Add about 5 or 6 whole cloves of raw or roasted garlic, some saffron dissolved in water, ½ a teaspoon of sweet or hot pimentón, the whole chorizo and morcilla (which you will slice before serving) and cook for about 30 minutes. Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes before serving (but it´s even better prepared the day before) and remove the cloves, bay leaves and dried chilli.
Make sure you have a table full of very hungry people, don´t tell them what´s in it if they´re a bit squeamish, and enjoy. Now go for a lie down…you´ll need it!
Well, who´da thunk it?! The lovely Betsy from Bits & Breadcrumbs passed this fabulous award on to me. In true Blogging style I have to answer a few questions and pass the baton on. Thanks Betsy, I´d be honoured!
1. What, or who inspired you to start a blog?
It was two things. First of all my lovely crafty friend Florence over at Florence and Freddie started blogging on WordPress and encouraged me to go for it. Secondly, I had just finished writing City Slicka to Spanish Chica and wanted to try it out on a wider audience. Still unpublished, but oh what fun to write. And now I can say I have written a book, so I´m quite proud of that even though it needs a good edit. Anyone know any editors….?
2. Who is your foodie inspiration?
Lots of people, but I guess it started at home. My beloved grandmother was the queen of cakes and taught me how to bake. My mum was a 19 year old English girl who married an Italian and had to learn pretty damn quick. My parents still laugh that the first meal she made him when he visited his future in laws was severely over cooked Spaghetti with tomato ketchup on it. Fortunately she´s an amazing cook now and even ran her own catering company for many years. Chef wise I love Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and finally I am now inspired daily by my fellow food bloggers.
My beautiful grandmother aged 26
3. Your greasiest, batter – splattered food/drink book is?
It´s not a book, it´s a folder filled with recipes torn out of magazines, scribbled notes, print outs of recipes. I love it, but maybe I should get myself a new folder (ideally wipe clean) as it´s falling apart.
4. Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?
Oh, that´s hard, I´ve travelled a lot and eaten some amazing (and some revolting) meals. Freshly grilled fish on the beach in Bali, a papaya for breakfast in the Cook Islands, an amazing Seafood Feast in Watson´s Bay Australia, my auntie´s pasta in Calabria, an incredible Japanese meal at Nobu in Paris, fresh bread out of the village oven in Morocco….sorry, can´t make my mind up on that one.
Beautiful Bali
5. Another food bloggers table you’d like to eat at is?
Can I go to a few please? How about something amazing and vegetarian with Natalie over at Cook Eat Live Vegetarian, of course, cocktails with Greg & Katherine at Rufus Food & Spirits Guide, a long night of pasta and cards with Chgo John From the Bartolini Kitchens, tea, scones and a walk round the Farmy with Celi from the Kitchens Garden, a visit to pick supper from Claire´s allotment over at Promenade Plantings and shopping at Mad Dog´s butcher followed by dinner. Oh dear, I seem to have taken myself off round the world again!
6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?
Well, Christmas is long gone but ready for December 2012 I´d like to ask for something quite simple….an immersion blender. I have a knack of breaking things and this is probably one of the gadgets I use most in my kitchen. I´ve been in Spain 6 years and I think this is blender number 7 or 8 and is held together with Big Man´s electrical tape. Mind you, we now don´t have a handle on the fridge door and the oven doesn´t work well and I´ve always fancied a wine fridge….
7. Who taught you how to cook?
I´d love to say my mum and grandmother, and I suppose they did teach me the basics, but I am very much self taught. As soon as I left home I was off and experimenting (my poor friends) but I had great fun and built up my confidence to a point that I even taught a cookery class for a while.
My mum teaching Big Man how to cook a suckling pig...
8. I’m coming to you for dinner what’s your signature dish?
Oh, that´s tough too. I guess it would depend on what time of year you came as I´d try to use as much of our own produce from the vegetable garden, our own eggs, perhaps our own chickens. Ok, as we´re in Spain I´ll do a lovely seafood platter to start, a chicken paella cooked outdoors, you can digest, take a walk or a dip then we´ll have whatever fresh fruit is in season with honey and almond ice cream, little cups of coffee and some of my cantuccini biscuits.
9. What is your guilty food pleasure?
Now that one is easy. Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps. And no, if you buy me some, I won´t share!
10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?
I´m a trained and practising Psychometric Profiler as well as a (sort of ex) Human Resources Consultant. I think I used to scare people off (especially potential suitors) as they thought I was analyzing their every word or gesture. And I probably was a lot of the time! Finally…tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions…like a hot baked potato…pass it on.
I think many of the people I have already mentioned have already been tagged, but I´d like to mention a few new (to me) discoveries, the lovely blogs over at Ang Sarap, IamSimplyTia, FrugalFeeding, PeasePudding and SimpleSpeedySnacks. They should all feel free to join in or not….but I do enjoy reading their blogs and hopefully you will too.
Pepitoria – what a great word! However, I couldn´t find a decent translation for it. The dictionary comes up with “hodge podge” or “fricassée”. I don´t think either of those translations suit the sophistication of this beautiful looking, wonderful tasting but oh so easy to prepare dish.
It´s often cooked for celebratory meals – probably because of the luxury of the ingredients (saffron and almonds) and the fact that it can be prepared for a large number of people in advance. It seems that it´s a year since I published my first post here on WordPress. Wow, what a journey it´s been! From no readers 😦 to a lovely group of new blogging pals who comment, support, encourage and inspire. I thank you all, it´s great to have you along for the ride.
So, back to the food. Don´t be put off by the word “luxury”, it´s actually luxurious in terms of quality and not cost. Most recipes suggest using free range chicken or even an old hen or cockerel for long slow cooking and an amazing taste. I used our old black cockerel who was no longer doing it for my lady hens…he had a great life, fathered many little chicks and was treated splendidly after his demise in this gorgeous dish. Ok, on with the cooking.
You´ll need (for approx 6 people depending on the size of your chicken)
1 large chicken cut into portions and floured
Olive oil
About 20 blanched almonds
1 thick slice of day old bread
6 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced in half lengthways
About 1 heaped tablespoon of chopped parsley
½ teaspoon of saffron stamens (or you can use ground turmeric which will add a little flavour of a different kind, but it´s a good substitute)
¼ teaspoon of ground cloves
Fresh black pepper for grinding and salt (I used Maldon)
About ½ litre of chicken stock
2 large glasses of dry white whine
1 bay leaf
2 hard boiled eggs
Start by putting a few good slugs of olive oil in the bottom of a heavy based pan that has a lid. Brown the almonds and garlic and remove. Now fry the bread until browned and remove. Put the bread, almonds, garlic, parsley and saffron in a jug with about half a cup of stock and blend until you have a thick smooth mixture.
Fry your chicken pieces in the same oil (add more if necessary) until browned on both sides then pour over the almond and saffron mixture, one glass of white wine, enough stock to cover the meat, the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper. Pour yourself the other glass of wine and drink while waiting for the pot to come up to a gentle boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook gently for at least an hour and a half. I cooked mine for three hours as it was an old cockerel (bless him) and check every so often that the meat is covered with liquid. If not, add a little water or chicken stock.
When the meat is tender, remove from the sauce and turn up the heat to reduce slightly. Check for seasoning and add the mashed yolks of the 2 hard boiled eggs to further thicken the sauce. Once it has reached the consistency of a thick pouring sauce, put the chicken back into the pot (or pour the sauce over your chicken if you are going to use a serving platter) and sprinkle with the chopped whites of the hard boiled egg and finely chopped parsley. Serve with fresh lemon to squeeze over, rice, fried or mashed potatoes and ¡Buen Provecho!
As I was mostly quite a good girl last year, Secret Santa gave me a beautiful cookery book packed full of delicous Tapas recipes. Thanks Giovanna at BlueJellyBeans!
After having a good old read of it, I decided that the first recipe I wanted to make from it was one that I often order in bars or restaurants but had never made at home. The stuffed piquillo peppers (sweet, red and shaped like a little beak which gives them their name) are sold here in tins or jars. If you can´t get hold of them, I won´t tell anyone if you adapt with full sized peppers or perhaps the tips of some long sweet peppers. You´ll need to roast and peel them first though.
I adapted the recipe a little to use up some salt cod (bacalao) that I had left, but the filling is up to you. It could be cream cheese, mashed potato, tuna, vegetables, béchamel sauce….let your imagination go wild!
Ingredients to serve 2 as a starter
4 pimientos del piquillo
Half a cup of mashed potato plus half a cup of cooked, flaked bacalao (or a cup of your preferred filling)
A tablespoon of chopped parsley
Black pepper (no salt with bacalao as it is already very salty)
For the sauce – half a cup of tomato conserva, 2 tablespoons of single cream, 1 tablespoon of tomato purée blended together with an immersion blender and seasoned to taste
Mix the potato, fish and herbs together and season with pepper. Carefully fill the peppers using a small teaspoon. Put them into a small frying pan and cover with a lid. Warm through on a very low heat, turning them over after about 2 minutes. I didn´t use oil but if your pan is not non stick, then use a very small amount. Now pour the sauce over and warm through very gently.
Place the peppers on your serving plate and cover with the creamy, tomatoey sauce. Gorgeous, tasty and really rather cheffy looking!
We´re very lucky Up The Mountain to be able to get hold of fresh fish, even though we live 45km from the coast. Having said that, I do keep fish in my freezer and cleaned squid is one of those things that keeps well and seems to suffer no ill effects from freezing. We don´t get a visit from Fish Man on Mondays, becuase there is no fishing on Sundays, but this morning he drove up, and this is what we bought.
One of the effects of little Alfi´s run in (literally) with Fish Man´s van is that when he hears him approaching and bipping his horn, he runs and hides under the nearest table, shaking and looking very sorry for himself. Whilst I don´t like to see him frightened, at least I know he has learned a very important lesson as far as cars and dogs go.
Today I´m going to give you a super easy way of cooking squid, which I know can be quite scary looking. I´m also going to tell you how to clean them if you ever do get lucky enough to get hold of fresh squid for either cooking that day or freezing for another day.
Feeling brave? Come on then, get those kitchen gloves on and let´s get cracking.
First of all you need to grab hold of that squid like you mean business.
Now pull the legs and anything that comes with them out and put to one side for the moment.
Now pull out the spine which looks like a sliver of clear plastic. Sorry this is a bit blurred – Big Man was in charge of photos and was excited about eating squid!
Rinse the body (including the inside) and go back to the legs which you will pull or snip away from any mucky bits in the middle just below the “eyes”. Still blurry, still excited!
From the centre of the legs (which are really tentacles!) pull out the hard centre core (or beak).
Rinse the legs and contemplate your bowl of lovely clean squid. Well done!
Now you can either cut the squid up or leave it whole. For battered squid rings (covered in flour and deep fried) “A La Romana”, you´ll need to slice. Today we´re just going to keep it very simple.
Sprinkle with salt and olive oil and put onto a hot griddle or into a frying pan (no oil needed as you have already put some on the squid). Keep the heat high, they´ll need a couple of minutes on each side depending on their size. When the flesh is no longer opaque but a good white colour, turn and continue to cook.
Remove from the heat when done and either drizzle with salsa verde and lemon juice, or add some finely chopped parsley, garlic and lemon juice. Serve with plenty of delicious crusty bread to mop up those amazing juices.
And if you can´t get hold of fresh squid, oriental stores often sell packets of squid tubes frozen which are very good!
So, 5th January, the night before our celebration of Los Reyes or The Three Kings. Big Man and I sit quietly contemplating the last few celebrations that lie ahead over the weekend.
A family get together at our house the next day. Yes, we´re ready for that. Saturday a lunch with 10 friends in a nearby restaurant. Oh yes, we´re definitely ready for that. No cooking, no clearing up, and hopefully a lift there and back so we can kick back and relax. And then Sunday, a meal with 10 other friends in one of their Cortijos in the Campo. Cooking a celebratory goat. It should be fun, the host is a butcher and a grower of grapes and producer of wines. A recipe for a thoroughly good lunch.
Big Man gives our butcher pal a call to finalise the arrangements for Sunday and I can tell by his face and the conversation that something is amiss. He gets off the phone and says “you know we thought we were going to Rafael´s Cortijo…” Mmm, yes I think, where is this going? “Well, it seems everyone thinks they´re coming here”.
Oh dear. Oh well. Here we go again. Big Man does a mad dash on Saturday morning for the extras we need, I crank up the oven and get baking, and it all turned out fine in the end.
No recipes today, more of those in a later post, but I thought you might like to share a little in the celebration…and our exhaustion today.
We enjoyed a lovely ham and cheese board with Spanish curado and semi curado cheeses, tetilla (do click on the link if you share my childish sense of humour), a gorgeous stinky stilton my parents bought over, and an amazing hard cheese (rather like a fresh parmesan) which is rolled in rosemary.
We ate home cured olives which the Spaniards were most impressed with. They thought Big Man had made them as they didn´t think a “guiri” or foreigner could make them taste so good…huh!
A chicory (or endive) salad with walnuts and blue cheese dressing lightened things up a bit.
Our butcher pal, Rafael, got to work in the garden doing his job. He looks fierce, but he´s really a gentle giant.
Look at the size of his hands – he couldn´t have been anything BUT a butcher!
Jointing the meat.
Working on the ribs.
Another pal took charge of frying the goat pieces in olive oil, bay leaves, chillies, peppercorns, garlic and white wine.
We tucked into a plate of Rafael´s “embutidos” – chorizos and morcilla.
Of course we ate desserts too, but more of those another day as I´m feeling full up again just thinking about what we ate.
And drank. A very messy but happy table by the end of the day.
Not so much a recipe as a prescription. After the excesses of Christmas coupled with a bad stomach virus, it was time for a cleansing soup.
Like all the best soups it was made from whatever the fridge had available. Having said that, we had some beautiful stock made from the carcass of one of our home bred chickens, a cabbage given to us by one of Big Man´s family and the star of the show, a beautiful Green Striped Cushaw Squash grown by Big Man´s lovely cousin Raphael.
Now, I´m not usually so knowledgeable about Squash (or should that be Squashes?) as I have even called it a pumpkin in the recipe title. It just so happened that Claire over at Promenade Plantings posted a gorgeous Winter Panzanella Salad recipe recently, and there showing off in a fabulous photo was MY pumpkin. Or squash.
I used about 400g of chopped squash, 2 medium potatoes peeled and cubed, 3 large carrots peeled and diced, an onion peeled and sliced, half a red pepper cut into chunks, 2 cloves of garlic peeled and thinly sliced and four large savoy cabbage leaves which I shredded finely. Along with the broth I also added a cup of tomato conserva. For a vegetarian version, use water or vegetable stock.
I sautéed the squash, carrots, pepper, onions and garlic for a few minutes in a little olive oil then seasoned with salt and pepper and poured stock and tomato over to cover. I bought it all to the boil and then reduced the heat to a simmer. After about 10 minutes I added the potatoes and when the vegetables were all tender, I added the cabbage which I only cooked for a few minutes.
Instead of cheese or croutons, we served it with freshly squeezed lemon juice which gave it all a lovely lift. Filling but comforting. Perfect for a post Christmas detox. With a glass of wine of course!
For another gorgeous pumpkin soup recipe, check out Raymund at Ang Sarap who inspired me with his Chunky Beef and Pumpkin Soup.
So in 2016 I turned 50. I was in Italy for my 21st, 30th and 40th. To keep this birthday tradition going I always knew I'd be in Italy for my 50! This blog starts with my 5 week adventure in Puglia but my love affair with Italy continues.....
Chica Andaluza 