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.
One of my very dearest friends, Donna came to stay in the summer, and she´s a chick who enjoys cooking and eating, even though she´s a tiny little thing who looks like she eats like a sparrow! On her first night I wanted to prepare something special for us all and one of the first questions she asked as I picked her up at the airport was “What are we eating tonight?”. When I told her I was making a fish soup I could see her little face fall, she looked so disappointed. I don´t know what she was expecting, but when I served a similar version to this recipe, she brightened up considerably and then gave me a good telling off for giving such a delicious meal such a dull name.
So that´s why it now has a “proper” name, and I have to agree, it does sound so much nicer than “Fish Soup”. Mind you, a lot of things sound so much more exciting when you say them in French.
For two hungry people as a main course I used a mixture of mussels (500g), prawns (250g), clams (250g) and a large squid cleaned and chopped into bite sized chunks.
You´ll also need an orange, half a bulb of fennel (however I used wild fennel), a pinch of saffron stamens or turmeric, a cup of chopped tomato, four fat cloves of garlic peeled and thinly sliced, a medium onion peeled, halved and thinly sliced, the juice and zest of a medium orange, a bay leaf, a dried chili (optional), a glass of white wine (also optional but if you prefer to cook without it you may need a little extra liquid) and some olive oil for frying.
Of course, this is not an authentic version of the Provençal fish stew which is served with a rouille, but my adaptation.
Start by peeling the prawns and covering the shells with about 600 ml of water. Then add the bay leaf and bringing to a boil. Turn down to a simmer for about 10 minutes and then strain, reserving the stock.
Clean your mussels well and rinse the clams two or three times to remove any grit.
Now lightly fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil until soft and transparent, and add the finely sliced fennel and cook for a few minutes more. Add the tomato and allow it to cook down for a few minutes. Now add the chili if using, season with a little salt and and few good grinds of fresh black pepper and the juice of the orange plus the grated orange zest, the fish stock and finally the wine. Simmer for a further 5 minutes then begin to add the seafood and shellfish. Start with the thickest first (in my case it was the squid) then after about 2 minutes when the squid had turned white I added the clams and mussels and covered with a lid. When they had opened I added the peeled prawns which were quick to cook, just a minute or two.
Finally, remove from the heat, taste and adjust seasoning and serve garnished with fennel tops, some grated orange zest and with plenty of crusty bread for those lovely juices.
For another, slightly different version with vegetables and fideo, take a look at this recipe.
This is a hugely popular and typically Andalucían tapas dish or starter. I have tried to find out the origin of the words Pil Pil and some say that it comes from an Arabic word felfel (I don´t speak Arabic so assume it has something to do with spice or chili). Others say it comes from the sound the prawns make sizzling in the hot oil. I don´t know if either are true – I like both stories, almost as much as I enjoy making and eating Gambas al Pil Pil.
If you can get hold of good prawns (or shrimp) then this is a very easy yet impressive dish to serve to your guests. If you have a terracotta dish to cook them in, well that´s even better as it does add something special to the taste and the prawns stay hot and sizzling for a few minutes as you bring the dish to the table.
Per person for a good tapas serving you will need
100g peeled prawns (defrosted if frozen)
1 dried hot chili and/or half a teaspoon of hot pimentón – this is down to personal taste – crumbled
A fat clove of garlic, peeled and sliced
A good pinch of salt
About 2 tablespoons of olive oil (if you are doing a large serving, just use enough oil to half cover the prawns)
Start by putting everything apart from the prawns into a frying pan or terracotta pot. Turn up the heat and cook until the garlic begins to turn brown at the edges.
When you want to serve your dish add the prawns and cook at a lower heat until the prawns are cooked through then turn up the heat until they begin to sizzle.
Serve with plenty of bread to mop up the delicious chili oil. If served in a large pot or pan, it is traditionally served as a sharing dish. Everyone has their own fork and “prongs” their bread into the juices.
Serve with an ice cold beer, a chilled manzanilla or a crisp cool white wine. ¡Buen provecho!
PS. No fear of me running out of chillis this coming year…the harvest is now safely stored and drying in the shed!
It´s a grey old Saturday in January here, with no particular plans for the day. I hear a loud “toot, toot” outside and my heart lifts. Fish Man is here. Although we live in an isolated part of the mountains, we´re not entirely cut off. In fact, food-wise we could probably survive without ever going shopping. We have our chickens and the vegetable garden of course. We have goatherds who sell us a goat for the freezer, or a lamb too come to think of it. Bread Man stops daily and leaves me a lovely crusty loaf, the grocery man comes at the weekend with all sorts of exciting things, even the man with gas cylinders stops at my door. But two or three times a week we have the excitement of Fish Man.
The downside is that we´re pretty much the last stop on his route, so he often doesn´t get to us until about 1pm. Sometimes he´s sold out of most things, but if I ask him for something specific, he saves it for me. Usually that´s Pulpo (Octopus) or Raya (Skate) which we love. The upside is that he´s usually keen to get back to Malaga, where he lives, for his own lunch, so prices come down so that he can shift the last few things, or he throws in a few goodies for free. He gets up early and heads off to Malaga fish market then sets off up the mountains to the villages around where we live.
Weekends in Spain are not about the weekend roast but about Paella, which we all know and love. In Andalucia, they just call it an Arroz, a “rice” which is just like Paella but often served with more stock. A soupy Paella, if you like. Otherwise it´s a Fideua, which is exactly the same but made with short, thick noodles, called Fideos. This morning I bought half a kilo of small prawns and eight medium sized squid. I grabbed a small packet of mussels (removed from the shell and frozen) from my freezer and a couple of small fillets of hake which were also in the freezer. Because it´s a bit of a trek to the supermarket, and of course there are things that can´t be bought our of the back of a passing van, I tend to keep my freezer pretty well stocked with things I can grab in the morning and defrost quickly.
I asked Big Man what he fancied – Paella, Fideua, Seafood Soup, Stew? A stew, it was decided, so I started to get things ready. What you need for four people with “normal” appetites, or three “greedy guts”, or two “greedy guts” with enough leftover to turn into a soup that evening with a drop more stock, is:
About 2 cups of peeled prawns (keep those shells, we´re going to make stock)
About 500 grams of cleaned squid cut into chunks
A cup of mussel meat
A medium fillet of white fish, cut into chunks
Half a red pepper, finely diced
A stick of celery, finely diced
Half and medium onion, finely diced
A third of a courgette, finely diced (optional)
Three fat cloves of garlic, crushed
Half a tin of chopped tomatoes
About a litre of fish stock. Either cover the prawn shells with water, add a few bat leaves, a chunk of onion and boil for about 8 minutes or use a cube
You can use any fish or shellfish you like really, and if you don´t have a lot of fish, you can thicken the stew up with a few noodles, or serve it as a soup with plenty of stock. Otherwise you could use rice and turn it into a paella – it´s up to you!
So, you start by sweating the peppers, onion, celery, garlic and courgette. Again, if you have other vegetables you want to use, feel free. Peas or broad beans are good, but best thrown in at the end with the fish as they don´t need much cooking.
Beautifully Chopped!
Add your tomatoes and continue cooking gently for a few minutes. I usually cook this in my favourite pan – a large, deep, non stick frying pan.
Now add your stock. It will look rather dull and unappetizing at this point, rather like watery tomato soup. Fear not. Now you´re going to boil it, but not too fiercely, for about ten minutes and reduce it by about a third. Pour yourself a glass of wine if you don´t already have one in your hand. If not, why not? If you want to serve this for guests, prepare it to this point, even the day before (but keep it in the fridge) and forget about it.
...with tomatoes...with stock
When you´re ready to eat, heat the stock to a simmer and put all your fish in. Start with the squid as it will take about 30 seconds longer than the rest. Simmer gently for about 3-4 minutes and then serve.
If you think it´s not going to be enough to go round, or you fancy something a little more “robust” add your noodles before the fish and when it is almost cooked through, add the fish. About a mug full would be good for this quantity leaving you with some soup and some thickness to the finished dish. The temperature has dropped here, and we´ve lit the fire, so we´re going with some Fideos today for a more filling meal.
If you want to make a paella (although the courgette is not very traditional, but hey, it´s your dish, you can do what you like with it), add the rice before the fish and cook for about 20 minutes. A mug and half would be good – you want it drier than the soup, but keep an eye on it and add a little boiling water if it looks like it might dry out before the rice is cooked. Add the seafood, stir, lower the heat and cover with a lid and leave to simmer for 3-4 minutes. Turn the heat off and then leave to “rest” for about 5 minutes.
Action Photo!
Serve in large, deep bowls with plenty of fresh lemon to squeeze over and a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Crusty bread and a salad are all that you need to go with this. Delicious. The Mediterranean in a bowl.
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 