Tag: Eggs

Huevos Revueltos con Gambas y Setas – Scrambled Eggs with Prawns and Mushrooms

Chica Andaluza54 Comments

This is a bit of a “non recipe” recipe, as scrambled eggs are not really so tricky to do.  And as for my photos of the end result – well, not so appealing.  I know that many of you out there can make them look creamy and gorgeous but it was a case of “snap ´em quick as we don´t want to eat cold, dried out scrambled eggs”. Sorry.

Funnily enough, these are such highly prized dishes here that scrambled eggs (in different variations) often appear on restaurant menus as starters and top chefs demonstrate the art of cooking them on TV cooking programmes.  I do find that a little odd, as scrambled eggs was the first thing I was “taught” to cook by Sister Sylvia in my convent school cookery lessons.  I had already been baking and making meals at home so was a little insulted when a tiny chain smoking nun who wore high heels and a very elaborate hair do told me off for not getting into the corners of the pan with my wooden spoon.

When I told her that round saucepans don´t have corners (and between us convent girls we all knew she bought cigarettes and sherry with our cookery money) a wary truce was established but, much to my family´s surprise, I loathed cookery lessons at school. I was quite a bratty and opnionated 13 year old as you can see…

So, I digress.  Back to a quick and tasty and very Spanish supper dish for two.

Ingredients

  • About a cup and half of mixed mushrooms (they sell very good bags of mixed frozen mushrooms here which, when defrosted, are perfect for this and other dishes)
  • A cup of peeled prawns (shrimp) – or keep it vegetarian by leaving these out
  • One clove of crushed garlic
  • Four eggs (free range if possible)
  • A splash of milk
  • Seasoning
  • Olive oil or butter for frying (we use oil and I sometimes stir in a knob of butter to the eggs at the end)
  • A heaped tablespoon of finely chopped parsley,

Beat the eggs, milk and seasoning together and put to one side.  Now slowly fry the garlic and mushrooms until the mushrooms have given off their juices and are tender. How long this takes will depend on your mushrooms. Now turn the heat up, add the prawns and stir fry until pink.

Keeping the heat at medium, add the eggs and scramble to your liking (don´t forget the corners!). When they are a few seconds away from being done, stir in the parsley and serve with crusty bread or toast and a glass of something gorgeous.

Vegetable Fried Rice

Chica Andaluza39 Comments
Crispy and Vegetable-y

With the hot weather we´ve been having, the desire to cook has been low.  But…a girl and her Big Man have to eat, so the other night we decided on some grilled langoustines with some vegetable fried rice to accompany it.  Fried rice is an alien concept to most Spaniards, so Big Man had visions of me deep frying individual grains of rice or making some sort of croquette.

To his relief, and mine (due to the heat), it was a simple dish with only the smallest amount of oil and frying involved.

I boiled some rice (I used brown, but the choice is yours).  While this was cooking I fried a finely chopped onion and two crushed cloves of garlic in a very small amount of oil in a non stick pan until it started to look brown at the edges.  Then I added finely chopped courgette and a long thin green pepper and continued to stir fry them.

In a separate pan I made the thinnest omelette known to man!  Whisk one egg and pour into a lightly oiled pan- almost as if you were making a crêpe – and make a very thin omelette.  Flip it over to get both sides lightly browned and slide onto a plate to cool a little.

When the rice is cooked, drain well and add to the vegetables.  There´s no need to add more oil if you have a good pan as you will now almost dry fry it.  Season with salt and pepper and every few minutes give it a stir until the rice starts to brown.

Are those prawns ready yet?!

Roll up the world´s thinnest omelette and cut it into fine shreds.  Sprinkle these eggy shreds over the top of your rice, mix gently and serve.

Roasted Tomato Tart with Chard and Home Made Curd Cheese

Chica Andaluza51 Comments
Beware the Giant Fork!

The great thing about writing a blog and reading other blogs is that inspiration comes from all around you.  Not so long ago I got into a dialogue with ChgoJohn over at From The Bartolini Kitchens about cheese.  He makes all sorts of cheeses and has posted a fantastic recipe for ricotta.  It reminded me that I hadn´t done this for quite some time, although my version doesn´t use cream.  Unfortunately we just can´t get anything other than UHT whipping cream or a chemical mix which masquerades as single or cooking cream here.  A shame, but that´s how it is.

A freezer clear out to make room for all my lovely beans that are growing, rewarded me with a packet of filo pastry.  Time to get making something tasty.

Here´s how I made my curd cheese.

Bring one litre of milk (I used semi skimmed) almost to the boil (when little bubbles start to appear round the edges).

Bubbly milk

Turn off the heat then add citric acid, lemon juice or white wine vinegar (about 2 – 3 tablespoons but add it gradually) whilst stirring with a wooden spoon.  Once curds start to form, put a lid on the pot and leave to stand for about 10 minutes.

Beautiful Curds

Drain and leave for a few hours or overnight. 

The Waiting Game

Stir in salt to taste and you´re done! Don´t forget to save that whey for making soda bread.

Lovely Curd Cheese

To make the tart I lined a loose bottomed tart tin with four sheets of filo which I brushed with olive oil (but you could also use butter).

I put in a layer of chopped, wilted chard (with all the water squeezed out) which I had mixed with two beaten eggs, 3 tablespoons of grated parmesan and seasoning. You could substitute the chard with spinach or beets.

 Then I added a layer of curd cheese and then a layer of halved roasted tomatoes.  You could also use thinly sliced raw tomatoes.  Finally I folded over the filo sheets and added two more to the top, brushed the whole thing with a little more oil and baked for 30 minutes at 180ºC.

Lots of flaky, crispy crumbs!

It was delicious warm, but just as tasty (although not quite so crunchy) cold the next day.

Breakfast On The Beach

Chica Andaluza34 Comments
Better than a Breakast Bap!

Big Man and I decided that we would have a little day away from mountain and head down to the beach.  We would go for lunch in a local restaurant we know near the spot we like, but decided to have breakfast on the beach.

For once, we were organised, and made this plan the night before, so I decided to prepare something ready for the morning.

I defrosted a sheet of puff pastry and folded the edges over to create a little rim.  I baked this in a hot oven for about 10 minutes until it was just starting to turn brown.

For a filling I beat two of our free range eggs with two tablespoon of milk, seasoning and a cup full of chopped wilted chard (just the green part) with the excess water squeezed out.

I poured this into the pastry “case” and baked for another 10 minutes or so until it was set.  It looked lovely when it came out of the oven, but I didn´t take the snap until the next morning when it looked a little less crusty and flaky.  Nonetheless, it was delicious cold and we didn´t even get any sand in it!

PS. Bet you´re glad I spared you a photo of us eating it on the beach…

Potato and Broccoli Tortilla

Chica Andaluza26 Comments
A tasty tortilla

Now, I´m not laying claim to this being the most authentic of Spanish tortillas. For a start, the most famous is the potato one, sometimes with onions added.  Secondly, the potato is cooked from raw in a fairly significant amount of olive oil, very slowly until tender. It´s wonderful, but when I´m at home I try to cut out a few calories and this is how I make my tortilla. To be honest, no one seems to have noticed the lack of oil!

For a Spanish tortilla to be successful, i.e. to be able to turn it over half way through cooking without ending up with an eggy mess all over the kitchen floor there are a couple of things which I have found help in the process:

  • A large quantity of filling in relation to egg – the egg just binds the ingredients together
  • A deep high sided pan (you´ll see from the photos that mine is very old and battered but it´s perfect for making a one person/two egg tortilla and I won´t throw it away!)
  • A very, very low heat
  • A lid to put over the tortilla in the first stage of cooking
  • Slow cooking, it takes patience, this is not a speedy French omelette

So, for one person, this is what I use, just multiply the ingredients for more people and of course, use a bigger pan! This makes a tortilla large enough for a decent supper or light lunch, served with salad, bread and of course a glass of wine.

  • Two eggs
  • Cold cooked, peeled potatoes
  • Any other vegetable, cooked, that you want to use in your tortilla
  • Salt and Pepper
  • About a tablespoon of olive oil
  • A tablespoon of milk

Start by putting the oil into the frying pan and then chopping your potato into small chunks.  Also add the vegetables if using. You want the potatoes and vegetables to fill the pan almost to the top.

Warm them through turning them over gently so that they are all covered in the oil for a few minutes.

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In a bowl beat the eggs, seasoning and milk with a fork then add the potato mix to the eggs and mix it all in gently with a spoon.

You should have a little oil left in the pan, but if not a tiny splash extra will be sufficient.

Pour the egg and potato mixture into the pan, turn the heat down to the lowest setting, put the lid on the pan and then leave the bottom half to cook slowly.  Depending on how large your tortilla is, this could take a while.  The two egg tortilla takes about 10 minutes.

Every so often, press gently on the sides with a wooden spoon or spatula to see if it is browning underneath. When it is a lovely golden brown and the top is set, it´s time to flip it over!

You can use a plate, or two plates (tip out onto one plate, invert onto another and then back into the pan).  I have a plastic tortilla “flipper” which has a small handle underneath.  You turn the tortilla onto it then slide it back into the pan.  A flat saucepan lid would work just as well.

Now turn the heat up a little, leave the lid off and cook for about another 4-5 minutes until the bottom has turned the same lovely golden brown.  Leave it to stand for a minute or two once it is cooked, then turn it out onto your plate and enjoy.

Thanks go out to JamieAnne at A Dash of Domestic for her wonderful tutorial on how to insert a slide show!

Chickens and Funky Eggs

Chica Andaluza10 Comments
Normal Egg, Pointy Eggs, Tiny Egg

When I was a child I used to go with my beloved Grandmother Olive to visit my Great Grandmother Minnie. Minnie lived with one of her daughters who ran a children´s home and had her own little cottage in the grounds. There was space for them to grow vegetables and keep chickens and as a child born and brought up in London, I was fascinated by this little piece of country living.

I was allowed to go to the chicken shed and collect eggs and I remember always taking great pride and pleasure in this.  The smell, the warm eggs under a broody hen, the clucking – it fascinated me and I always dreamed of owning a few chickens.

When Big Man and I moved to our home, we also ended up with a small olive grove with about 30 trees.  We talked about one day getting a few hens so that we could enjoy free range eggs.  And then one day, my dream came true.  Big Man came home with a hen and five tiny chicks.  The chicken empire has grown and grown since then. The chickens have moved from a small lean-to shack at the end of our vegetable patch to what we now call “Chickenopolis” in our olive grove. 

Chickenopolis is a complex structure, made entirely of recycled bits and bobs we have either found or been given.  It has a rather grand chicken house, given to us by some friends, along with six of their hens when they moved and couldn´t take them with them.  Attached to this is a sheltered run for when it´s raining and they don´t want to go outside.  Having said that, although I´m very fond of all my chickens, they´re not the brightest creatures in the world and will happily stand out in the pouring rain all day as long as there is something on the ground to peck at.  Adjoining this, rather like a terraced house in a Victorian street of London, is where the Fat Boys live. 

The Fat Boys, turn away now if you´re squeamish, are all cockerels and a different breed which grow quickly and are bred for eating.  Rather than buy 6 week old chickens which have been pumped up with chemicals and hormones, we buy the chicks and give them a happy (and chemical free) life for about 4 months.  They grow fat naturally, and then when their time comes, they are dispatched quickly and as pain free as it´s possible to do and enjoyed in delicious meals.  Once the freezer is full, the next batch of Fat Boys starts off again.

Our chicken population varies, but we have space for about 20 fat boys at a time as they have to be kept separately from the others.  We currently have 10 hens and 2 (very happy) cockerels.  We are just about to put a broody hen to sit on some eggs, so hopefully once she settles we´ll have a new clutch of chicks 3 weeks later.

Last Spring´s Chicks

Our hens can roam free around the olives and take themselves off to bed when the sun goes down.  They´re quite bright in that respect!  The olive grove is dog and fox proof, but every now and then you´ll lose one – it´s sad, but a fact of life.  One of our neighbours traded us three of his hens a few months ago.  We thought they were mature, but realised this week that they were probably younger than we thought as it looks like they have just started to lay eggs.  We know they must be those responsible for the Funky Eggs, as all our hens are over a year old and have been laying for some time now.

When a hen first starts to lay, it sometimes lays a really tiny egg.  Our new hens have clearly not read the manual about what shape they should be either, as we are getting the funkiest conical eggs at the moment too.

Never mind, we love our chickies, they make us laugh, and in return for what they give us, we hope they enjoy their lives in our little olive grove.

Chicken, Egg and Bacon Salad

Chica Andaluza4 Comments
Shame there were no leftovers...

I´m not sure that this one can exactly count as a recipe, as it´s more a “chuck it together and enjoy” kind of dish.   Here in Spain the main meal of the day tends to be at lunch time.  Even in cities where people work in shops and offices, there is still a tradition to shut at 2pm and then re open at 5pm.  Lunch is taken very seriously!  The evening meal is rarely eaten before 10pm, which was a bit of a struggle for me at first, even though I usually ate at about 8pm in the UK.  Over time I´ve got used to it, especially now that I´ve realised that the evening meal is generally something very light.  A soup, or salad perhaps.

Of course, there are times when the evening meal is something more elaborate, but that tends to be related to an event, in which case you wouldn´t go to bed early (that´s around midnight here!) but more like somewhere between 3am and 7am…crazy hours.  Of course, that gives you time to digest dinner, dance it off, and perhaps even indulge in a breakfast of hot chocolate and churros before going to bed to sleep off the festivities.

Last night was just a regular night.  We fancied something light but filling, so I made one of our favourites –  Chicken, Egg and Bacon Salad.

Ingredients are rather approximate – use what you have to hand.  We used:

  • One lettuce heart roughly chopped
  • Two small-ish potatoes (boiled in their skins then peeled and roughly chopped)
  • Two hard boiled eggs, quartered
  • One large chicken breast, griddled
  • 4 rashers of streaky bacon (griddled)
  • 1 small packet of anchovies in olive oil
  • Olive oil
  • Lemon juice
  • Seasoning

I also made an extra dressing, which make enough for another salad

  • Half a small tub of natural yogurt (half a 125 tub)
  • The same quantity of mayonnaise
  • The juice of half a lemon
  • A tablespoon of milk
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

There´s no method to this, just combine the salad ingredients, season and dress very lightly with olive oil and lemon juice.  You can leave this out if you like lashings of the yogurt and mayonnaise dressing.  It´s entirely up to you.  For the dressing, just put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until you´ve got a smooth, fairly runny sauce and drizzle over the salad.

Other ingredients which are good in this salad, which I guess has a touch of the “Chicken Caesar” about it, are avocado, croutons, grated hard cheese….go on, give it a go!