Garbanzos in Vinaigrette; Albondigas

Had to go down to the beach place for a few days and there's no connectivity down there so that was my excuse du jour for not posting.


It's from the camera phone so not too clear (a dirty lens maybe).
Basically Garbanzo salad - with a vinagrette of brunoised tomato, red and green peppers, chopped green onions, and some white wine vinegar. Simple, tasty. Leave to sit for a while to let the flavors blend. That's some crumbled hard boiled egg sprinkled on top.


These are simple meatballs in their sauce surrounded by superfine julienned potatoes, (deep) fried as straws.

That was lunch at El Cafétin. Oh, plus wine (tinto) with Casera and a bit of rice pudding for dessert.

Mojo Picón; Red Garlic Sauce

This red paprika & garlic sauce is the primary topping for Papa Arrugas. Ther'es a green variant too that uses cilantro (but no paprika)

Makes: 1 cup
Takes: 15 minutes
Equipment: A large mortar & pestle (large enough to hold the whole mixture), a stick mixer (batidora). Or, failing a mortar & batidora some equivalent mixing device (maybe a blender)

Ingredients:

• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 t cumin seeds
• 2 small dried chilies (deseeded)
• some salt
• 3 T breadcrumbs
• 1 T paprika (sweet [regular] or smoky [chorizo]) (pimenton)
  
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 4-5 T olive oil
• 1/2 C water, approx

optional:

• 2 T tomato sauce (tomate frito)

Instructions:

1. Using a mortar and pestle mash the garlic, cumin and the chilis with salt [salt acts as a catalyst for the crushing action).
   If you don't have a mortar & pestle add the vinegar now and use the stick mixer or whatever. The mortar is preferred because it gives a smoother flavor & texture.
   These are the main flavor ingrenients so mash then together really well. There will be no chunks of garlic and the cumin seed will have been pulverised; you might still see flakes of peppers (they do not pulverise well).
   
2. Add the paprika, vinegar, oil; continue to mash it around (you can switch to the batidora now if you like. For authenticity keep going with the mortar right until the end)
   
3. Add the bread crumbs; mash some more (it will be pasty)
4. Add 1/2 the water; mash
   
5. Taste. If it's too spicy add a tablespoon or 2 of tomato sauce to quiet it down. If it's bland add salt. If it's not hot enough add maybe add a chili sauce - something like tabasco)
   
6. Slowly add additional water until a saucy consistency is reached (think of a thin ketchup style). A consistency that's good for spooning over and sticking to the boiled potatoes (see previous recipe)
   

Done.

Papas Arrugas; Wrinkled Potatoes

Was just down in the Canary Islands for a week. The local potato dish is the tradicional recipe for small new potatoes cooked in a lot of salt water and that come out with wrinkled skin. Very fast and easy.

Best served with the traditional red paprika sauce (slightly hot).

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 1 Kg baby potatoes (new, yukon gold maybe)
• 1/3 C sea salt (don't be shy about it; use a 1/2 cup)

optional:

• lemon slices
• 1 cole leaf

Instructions

1. Put potatoes in a single layer in a wide pot.Add water to half way up the potatoes (not quite covering the smallest ones).
2. Add the sea salt (swirl around a little) (the traditional method used sea water; it was, after all, developed on an island)
   
3. Add 4-5 slices of lemon if you've got them
4. Bring the water to a boil and cover the pot with a tea towel (or a cole leaf to be traditional)
5. Reduce heat to medium (still boiling slightly, not just simmering), and cook until done (the water will evaporate a lot)
   - "Done" is when a fork can pierce them and pull out without picking up the potato {don't use a knife; it's not as accurate as a fork}
   «maybe 15 minutes»
6. - the skins will begin to"wrinkle" some; and will wrinkle more afer the next steps.
7. Drain by pouring the excess water out of the pot (don't use a colander; you want the residual salt in the bottom)
8. Turn off the fire (if using electric; else set to lowest possible heat), put the pot back on and dry the potatoes
9. Shake, swirl the pot every once in a while (30 secs?) to coat the potatoes with salt evenly
10. Serve with Mojo Picón (red sauce), eat with or without skins

Those freaked about the amount of salt involved can

1. use the minimum amount of salt
2. drain with a colander
3. peel the skin off before eating (it peels easily because it's been wrinkled)

The mojo recipe will come later. It's blindingly simple too.

A very good book. Made these brownies from it.
Posted by

Vacation & Holidays

I've just returned from 3 weeks in Canada, visiting family; then suddenly had to go to Fuerteventura for a week's holiday (to rest up from my vacation I guess). I'm back. Maybe I'll post something.

Stewed Garbanzos; Chickpeas

Yesterday's garbanzo recipe. Always read the entire recipe ingredients and procedure before starting to cook

Short version
Sauté onion with cumin & garlic 'til lightly browned. Add other ingredients, boil briefly, reduce.

Ingredients
olive oil (for sautéing)
1 onion, fine julienne (slices)
1 t cumin (seeds, preferably; or ground)
1 clove garlic, minced
salt (sea or something chunky)

400 gr garbanzo beans, chickpeas, canned or jarred [14oz]) Do not drain the beans
1 tomato, roma, plum (meaty type), cubed to size of garbanzos
1 t paprika (red, not hot) or more, to taste
1 T pine nuts (piñones)
1 t honey (good stuff)

Procedure

1. 4-5 T of oil in the bottom of a sautee pan, heat until oil crinkles, just before smoking
2. add onions &
   cumin seeds
   - reduce heat
   - sautee, browning lightly (10 minutes maybe)
   
3. add minced garlic and
   some salt (1/4 t?) when onions start to brown
   I made mine onions quite thoroughly browned although not carmelized
4. Add garbanzos (including the liquid) and the rest of the ingredients.
5. Bring to a boil for 1 minute
6. Reduce heat
   Can be prepared to here hours (a day) in advance; in which case, remove from heat
   
7. Reduce liquid, on medium heat, to a saucy consistency
   

Hints

• The onions are sliced very finely in julienne
  
• Chop the tomatoes so that the pieces are about the same size as the garbanzo beans. It's one of the "tricks" of the professional kitchen to make the various ingredients the same size
• Add more tomato for more color
  
• A typical variant of this recipe adds a bunch of saffron in to the mix (with the paprika stage)
• The pine nuts are not very obvious in this dish; maybe I'll double the quantiy next time
  
• Add water if you don't have enough garbanzo juice to make it saucy. No need to be worried about adding water if you're reducing the sauce later.
  
• Boiling the garbanzo beans briefl seems to make the texture more "potato like" rather than the floury texture that they have right out of the jar.
  

Cooking for Family

Brocolli, Halibut, Garbanzos
Posted by willsong

The brocolli is steamed (in the micro). The skinless halibut fillet is sauteed. The garbanzos are cooked (or one might say stewed).

New Years' Day First Meal - Update

I never posted that picture I was meaning to; of the table as they served the coffee at the end of the meal. Here is one view of it:

Yes. that's 5 different wines (they took away the port and dessert wine after serving though, so the collection is incomplete). No, they are not all empty. A single glass (small) was enjoyed of each one with each appropriate dish (nor was the glass always finished). It really does make for a fine meal; Not the alcohol but the pairing of wine to food.

Spanish Omelet; Tortilla

Made with Onions and no potatoes. Atkins friendly.

I've done these before and shall do them again - lots. I prefer the onion version to the traditional potato one.

Croquettes

Those are croquettas, croquettes, krokets. More on them later.

I really must get back to blogging. There's been something of a pause since the big hard drive failure; which was somewhat depressing. Sorry to leave you, my loyal audience, at loose ends.

I've got quite a backlog to take care of and tomorrow I'm going on vacation for 3 weeks to boot. That should provide some interesting material and many low quality pictures from my camera-phone.
Today, by the way, is Charissa's birthday. Have a happy.

As for the croquettes... there's a place I go to for lunch every so often; El Cafetin, in the Carrefour shopping center down the road a bit.

Here in Spain there's a big restaurant business to be done in inexpensive sit down lunches. A starter/salad, main course with vegs, dessert/coffee and wine - a package deal. Typically about 9 Euros around here.

Anyway, this modest restaurant is run by a fellow who's obviously serious about producing good food and not just slinging steaks. The point is not the croquettes themselves but that they're presented on a plate with superfine string potatoes, fine shredded carrot and a cherry tomato. Way more than is strictly required; and it turns out that the carrot slivers and the fried potato strings are really tasty together. A special effort. And part of what keeps me going back.

A New "Stage"

I've also been busy the last few weeks doing a new stage (essentially, working for free, for experience).

I finished off at the old place (which was way far away) and now have a gig in a restaurante in Madrid. I'm doing only the nightly service (open hours are the typical Madrid hours of 9:00 to 12:00). So it's 3 hours or so, six nights a week.

The regular mix in the kitchen is the Sous, Salsero, Entremetier and a Garde Manger; plus me.
Thursday to Saturday (closed Sunday) they add 2 more for the cold station and an assistant for the fires. That's 8 (plus the dishwasher) in a small, center of the city, kitchen. It's shoulder to shoulder in there.

Baked Trout with Pisto

Made a couple one of these the other week. Packed one up in a vacuum food bag and froze it. Then thawed it the other day and did the boil-in-a-bag thing (bain marie); just 10 minutes and it was ready! And still delicious after freezing. The pisto was a tad watery around the edges and ¡the seam of the bag failed! At exactly the moment that I got the bag out of the water, placed it on the counter, then was picking it up again to cut it open - - the bottom edge of the bag opened spontaneously. The fish & salsa exited gracefully all on its own (although not onto the plate).

Trout: Clean, dehead, trim tail, butterfly it open, remove the spine & bones from the inside. Leaving you a complete looking fish with 2 filets still attached to the skin and each other.

Pisto: large brunoisse: 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 3 shallots, olive oil (x-virg)
You want to have distinguishable pieces of everything once the pisto is cooked so cut the pieces evenly, equally sized, about 1cm [1/2"] is what I did.

Preheat oven: 180C

Instructions:
Oil into the pan
Cook onions slowly (do not brown) until starting to get soft
Add shallots & garlic once onions have started releasing some juices.
Add the various peppers and cook over medium heat; stirring from time to time
At some mysterious moment the volume will suddenly start to shrink in the pan. This indicates that things are getting cooked. Maybe after 10 minutes or so.

Remove from heat; the pisto will not be quite finished yet. It will finish in the oven.

Put the trout in an oiled ovenproof pan and fill with some pisto, fold closed; place excess pisto around fish.
Oven it for 10/15 minutes; until fish is cooked (internal temp of 60)

If, like me, you are preparing this for reheating later, leave the fish under-done (internal temp of 50) so it can be "finished" when it's reheated.

Back in Business

The machines are working again. I have some catching up to do.

ThinkPad Now Working; So the Maxtor External Drive Broke

So I put the new 100GB drive in the ThinkPad; load Windows, Office, Firefox and so on; do a whole mess of updates.
And while reorganizing what litte I had saved the Maxtor 200GB external drive takes a dive. No, not on the ThinkPad; it's connected to the home desktop computer. No, it's not a virus; these machines are well protected. It's just dumb bad luck.

Thus I have spent that last 2 days debugging the problem and basically the drive is trash. Low level formats/erases don't help (not for long anyway - the drive errors again after an hour or 2 of activity).

Tomorrow I'm off to the shop for a new one. Hopefully I've managed to backup the whole drive and won't lose too much.

So, I won't be writing about the suckling pig I'm also cooking.

Hard Drive Recovery in Process

So the (replacement) drive arrives yesterday at noon. I had the recovery disks (from the time before last when this happened). Install, install, install; update, backup, update.
All in all, about 1 Gigabyte of updates so far! Now I'm installing the 2 version of Office that I use. Which means more updates shortly. Then it will be time to start installing actual applications!
I'll be at this for a while. Wish me luck.