Chipirones en su Tinta (Baby Squid In Its Own Ink)

We ate this in a restaurant a few months ago and was delicious. I have been wanting to cook this dish since then. The ink gives the dish a salty taste of the sea and the “chipirones”  even came with their ink conveniently packaged in a small perforated plastic bag. Now that’s evolution for you.

Ingredients

• chipirones (baby squid) prepared
• the ink of the chipirones
• 1/2 onion
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 cup basmati rice
• tomato paste
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Fry the onion and garlic in olive oil to soften. Add the baby squid on a low heat.

Add tomato puree, and the wine and a little seasoning. cook in the pan for about 20 minutes on the low heat. At the end, stir in the ink and serve with basmati rice.

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Miniature English Breakfast with Quail’s egg

We had Jess and Sergio over for dinner the other night to repay them for the Catalan feast… Finding it difficult to think of a classic British starter, without the fresh ingredients that I grew up with readily available, I decided to serve a miniature version of an English breakfast as a fairly small opener. It worked really well. I would have liked to have done  something really fancy with the presentation, opting instead, due to a severe lack of  inspiration, to keep things simple.

Ingredients

serves 4

• 4 rashers of bacon
• 4 small sausages
• 4 quails eggs
• baked beans
• 2 tomatoes, sliced
• 4 slices of bread
• 10 mushrooms, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil

Method

Fry the tomato in a little olive oil at a high temperature. grill the sausage and bacon. Fry the mushrooms in a little olive oil with the garlic for about 15 minutes, heat the baked beans. toast the bread and cut into circles, finally fry the quails eggs in a little olive oil for a minute or so, until the white is cooked. Assemble and serve immediately.

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Escalivada

Escalivada is a traditional Catalan dish which is oven grilled vegetables in olive oil. The vegetables used can vary, but Sergio made red peppers, aubergine and onion. He served it with Pan Tumaca, which is basically, toasted bread with garlic and tomato. Truly delicious.

Ingredients

• 1 aubergine
• 2 onions
• 2 red peppers
• 2 or 3 tomatoes blended
• garlic
• salt

Method

Brush the vegetables with olive oil. Place the aubergine, onions and red peppersin the oven at a high temperature, about 200C for about an hour. The skins should start to blacken. Remove skins and cut into long strips. Cover with olive oil and serve with the pan tumaca.

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Spicy Garlic Marinaded Chicken Wings

Ok, I think I need to work on the name of this dish, but this is what I’m going with at the moment. I made it up last night, but it worked really well. Quantities are a little sketchy  but I will give you a rough estimate. Tasted really good and was really inexpensive. Also it’s a good one to make a lot of and then you have lunch the next day. I served it with a beetroot, red onion and pepper rice salad and sliced tomatoes.

Ingredients

• 1kg of chicken wings

for the marinade

• 4 tbsp of tomato ketchup
• 3 tbsp of  dark soy sauce
• 4 cloves of garlic (crushed with salt)
• 2 tbsp of brown sugar
• tabasco to taste

rice salad

• 1 cup of basmati rice
• 1 beetroot, cooked, diced
• 1/2 red onion diced
• 1/2 red pepper, diced
• simple olive oil, white wine vinegar and mustard vinagrette
• 1/2 tomato, diced

Method

for the chicken

Mix the marinade in a bowl, make it as spicy as you want… Then add the chicken, and stir with your hands. Leave the marinade for at least 30 mins in the fridge, but longer if you can. Cook them in the oven for about an hour at 200C or until they’re cooked.

for the rice salad

Prepare the rice as instructed on the packet. When it’s cooked drain and rinse with cold water until the rice is cold. Drain, then add the beetroot and other ingredients. Add vinagrette to taste.

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Salmorejo

Over Easter we were in Cordoba, the home of Salmorejo (it’s on every menu), and I defy anyone on return NOT to attempt to make it. This really is peasant food at it’s best. The over ripe tomatoes that are no good for salads, stale bread, some garlic which is in abundance everywhere in this country, off cuts of jamon as a garnish (optional) some olive oil (not peasant food where I’m from in south east England, but in Spain, Europe’s largest producer, it is!) and a dash of wine vinegar. It just tastes so fresh and if you get the right tomatoes, you get this wonderful salmon colour in your bowl. Good luck, this is really worth having a go at.

Ingredients

• 500 g  ripe, red tomatoes
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 1 stale loaf, crust removed (spanish/french stick is perfect)
• 1 tbsp spoon vinegar
• 4 tbsp spoons of olive oil
• big pinch of rock salt
• jamon, chopped to garnish

Method

Put all of the tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and salt in a bowl. or blender and, you guessed it, blend. Then Slowly add the bread to make a thick soup. Garnish with bits of chopped jamon and a drizzle of olive oil. Refrigerate and serve cold.

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Chicken Tama Rice

Spanish food overload lead me to a small Chinese grocery store near our house. I easily found all the ingredients listed in this recipe from a Wagamama cookbook. Wagamama is a chain of restaurants in England that serves Asian food. I ate there in February and enjoyed every bite. It makes just enough for 2 people. Can I just say that this isn’t an advertisement, we just borrowed the Wagamama cookbook.

Ingredients

• 200g (7oz) Japanese or short-grain rice
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• oil (vegetable or otherwise)
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• salt and pepper
• 1 tsp fresh ground ginger root
• 1 large courgette, sliced
• 2 tablespoons shaoshing rice wine
• 150ml (1/4 pint) water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon cornflour
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil

Method

Cook rice until tender then set aside. The recipe recommends grilling the chicken, but I don’t have a grill, so I sauteed it in oil for a few minutes on each side until cooked through. Set the chicken aside.

In a wok or large pan, heat a few tablespoons of oil. Add the garlic and ginger and stir fry for 10 seconds. Add the courgette, wait a minute, then add the wine and water. Bring all the ingredients to a boil and add 1/2 teaspoon salt, the sugar and the oyster sauce.

In order to thicken the sauce you need to mix the cornflour in a cup with a few drops of cold water. It should turn into a paste. Take 2 tablespoons of the liquid in the pan and incorporate it to the cornflour paste. Then put the cornflour paste in the pan with the vegetables. Bring mixture back to a boil. At this point you should stir in the sesame oil.

Serve the rice on two plates. Cut the chicken into strips and place the strips on top of the rice. Pour the sauce on top and enjoy! Below are some pictures from the restaurant taken on our recent trip to London…

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Lentejas (Lentil Stew)

This is a really famous Spanish dish. It literally translates as “lentils” in English, but clearly this is a lot more than just lentils. I’m not sure where the dish comes from, but it is always on the menu at the six million restaurants here in Madrid, by the way that’s about a  ratio of approximately two restaurants per person…

They call these types of dishes “spoon food” for obvious reasons. It is a kind of soupy dish really although apparently traditionally “lentejas” was served not like a soup but with very thick stew like consistency, so I think that means that they would have cooked the lentils for longer.

The lentils used here are dried, but the kind that you actually don’t have to leave soaking over night. Many thanks to Tatiana for the recipe!

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 onion (diced)
• 2 leeks (finely chopped)
• 1 green pepper (diced)
• lentils (smallest kind) 1 small coffee cup per person.
• 2 medium sized potatoes (halved)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 2 tbsp of tomato purée
• 2 cloves of garlic very finely chopped or puréed
• chorizo (optional)
• spicy paprika
• 2 bay leaves
• water
• vegetable stock
• 1 tsp salt
• olive oil

Method

In a large pan fry the onion and the green pepper in some olive oil for about 5 minutes, then add the leeks and fry for a further couple of minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and cover with 1/2 water and 1/2 vegetable stock. be quite generous, so that means double the amount of liquid to the rest of the ingredients. Cover with a lid and simer for an hour. About 5 minutes before the lentils are cooked, add the chorizo (halved) and cook for about 5 minutes longer. Serve with crusty bread and red wine.

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