Green peppers and tender beef fillet

Posted on July 12, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

We grow these “Italian” peppers in the garden. They are longer, more interestingly shaped, and less fleshy than bell peppers. When cooked slowly like this, their flavour leeches into the oil and wraps itself around the meat most aromatically. At first glance, it seems as though you are using a ridiculous amount of peppers, but they cook down to almost nothing, so fear not!

What you need:
7 or 8 Italian (bullhorn) peppers
4 or 5 slices of beef fillet
a whole head of garlic
olive oil

What you do:
Remove the seeds from the peppers and tear the fruit up into pieces. Cut the fillet slices into comfortable bites and separate the garlic cloves without peeling them.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a large pan and tip the peppers, the whole garlic cloves, and a good pinch of salt in. Stir everything around to coat with oil and fry gently for about 5 minutes, making sure nothing burns. Cover, turn the heat down and let things steam and fry for another 10-15 minutes.
Once the peppers and garlic are softened right down, remove them from the pan and set aside while you deal with the meat, which needs to be browned and cooked to your taste in the same pan. As it is such a tender cut, there really isn’t much need to cook it for very long. High heat will give you a lovely colour and flavour in just a few minutes.
Put the peppers and garlic back in with the meat and mix everything up. You can either continue to cook gently on low heat for a few minutes more if you are not sure about the “done-ness” of the meat, or turn the hob off and let everything sit until it cools to room temperature.

Serve with: a tomato salad, some bread and a red

Llescat de pimentons i bacallà (peppers and salt cod)

Posted on July 10, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Summer gardens are full of bell peppers, and there are plenty of dishes to make the most of the glut. This one has semi-dried (or pre-soaked) salt cod in it. If you can’t find any, try it with a tin of tuna instead and add a small pinch of salt (which you absolutely mustn’t add with the cod!)

What you need:
1 large red pepper
1 large green pepper
a few strips of salt cod
(or a tin of tuna in oil)
a clove or two of garlic
olive oil

What you do:
Get your oven screaming hot (230-240ºC), lightly coat your peppers with olive oil and roast them for about 20 minutes or so until they blister, turning every now and then so they cook evenly. Take them out and let them cool a bit before peeling the skin off and tearing them into strips.

Chop your garlic up very finely and slice the cod into small pieces. Mix into the peppers.

Pour a generous glug of excellent olive oil over everything and set aside for an hour to infuse before dolloping spoonfuls onto pretty plates for a lovely starter.

Serve with: crusty bread and cold beverages of any colour

Arros caldos d’estiu (summer rice)

Posted on July 3, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

This recipe is a lot like the typical Valencia paella, but instead of being cooked in a caldero until the liquid is completely evaporated, it is cooked in a saucepan until soupy. It follows the same principles as Winter Rice, but uses different ingredients which are in season in summer. Iaia always uses organic, free-range chicken, which needs to be boiled for about 20 minutes on its own before you put the beans in. If you are using a normal chook, you can put the veg in when you add the water.
The last time I was in Australia, I tried to find a butcher who would saw some chicken up into paella-sized pieces for me, but it was impossible (mutterings about cross-contamination), so I made it with 2 whole drumsticks and cut the wings into pieces myself.
The quantities here are for four people, calculating about 60 grams of rice per head. Adjust this and the amount of water as necessary, remembering that you want a soupy finish, not risotto-like creaminess.

What you need:
600 g chicken
250g flat green beans*
100g fresh navy beans *
1 prune tomato, grated
125ml olive oil
250g short-grain rice
1 tsp sweet paprika
saffron or food colouring**
1200ml water

*Iaia has some things to say about these ingredients:
The variegated flat beans are tastier and go green upon cooking, so if you can find them, all the better. Otherwise, plain flat green beans will have to do. French runner beans don’t taste nearly as good but will also have to do if there really isn’t anything else.
If you use bottled navy beans, add them about 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time, or they will collapse into a floury mess.
**See my note in Winter Rice about food colouring

What you do:
Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan that is big enough to hold everything and then chuck the seasoned chicken pieces in to brown. Once they are looking golden, add the grated tomato and fry for 3-4 minutes. Just before you add the water, put the sweet paprika in and stir it around for just a few seconds, making sure it doesn’t burn and go bitter, then pour in all of the water and bring it to a boil. If you are using organic chicken, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes before adding the beans, otherwise put them in straight away, add the saffron/food colouring and another pinch of salt, cover and simmer everything for an hour or so.
As with Winter Rice, you can switch everything off at this point and leave it ready to be heated up when you want to eat it. About half an hour before you do want to serve it, bring your stock to a boil, check the seasoning and add the rice. Don’t overcook or evaporate all the liquid!
Ladle into bowls and then leave it to cool while you have a pre-lunch drink and some nibbles, it will taste better, and you won’t burn your tongue.

Serve with: your favourite red

Llescat – another summer table dish to share

Posted on July 1, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Llescat, which means “in pieces” is also known as esgarraet, which means “torn” and that is because you literally tear oven-roasted aubergine, peppers, onion and tomato into pieces to make this fruity, garlicky summer supper dish. It’s may seem a bit fiddly to get the skin off everything, but as long as your oven is hot enough, it shouldn’t be a problem. Careful when you open up the peppers – the steam inside burns!

What you need:
2 aubergines (eggplants)
2 greenish-red peppers
2 onions
4 prune tomatoes
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
best quality, fruity olive oil
salt

What you do:
First of all, put your oven at about 220ºC and give it time to heat up. While it is doing so, wash and dry the aubergines, peppers and tomatoes. Peel the onions and chop them in half. They take longer to cook than the other veggies, so you will also need to wrap the halves in a bit of foil. That way, the steam they create is trapped and helps them cook through in time. Put the other veggies in a baking tray and use your hands to rub olive oil over them until they glisten. Add the foil-wrapped onions to the tray and pop them into the hot oven for about 45 minutes, turning everything over about halfway through. Charring is good for flavour, but you don’t want anything to burn dry.Once cooked, place the aubergines, peppers and tomatoes into a deep bowl and cover with plastic film to cool for a bit. Leave the onions as they are to keep steaming in their foil. After about a quarter of an hour, gingerly pull the veg out and peel the skin off – it should come away very easily. Drain any excess liquid off, and then use your fingers to tear the flesh into thin strips. Unwrap your onions and tear them up as well. Season with salt and very finely chopped (or crushed) raw garlic to taste. Pour a generous dressing of olive oil over everything and then mix gently with tongs or a fork. It’s best to let the flavours soak into each other, so we usually prepare this the day before it’s to be eaten. It’s fine to store it in the fridge, but worth taking it out and letting it come to room temperature before forking it onto thick chunks of crusty baguette and devouring.Serve with: a summer spread of ensaladilla, beer-battered aubergines, sardines…and heaps of excellent bread

Beer-battered aubergine

Posted on June 28, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Our little vegetable garden is now producing a crop of these beautiful, shiny, purple-black aubergines.
This evening I made one of Iaia’s best summer supper-table dishes, dark-rimmed eggplant slices in crisp beer batter. They’re great hot or cool, and very easy to cook. Two medium-sized aubergines make enough for a platter of about 20 slices.

What you need:
Aubergine (eggplant)
A glass of very cold beer
Plain flour (or tempura flour if you wish)
Salt
Oil for frying (I use olive for flavour)

What you do:
Slice and salt the aubergines, leaving them to leech out their excesses for about half an hour. Pat dry and set aside. Pop a couple of centimetres of oil into a wide, deep frying pan and start heating it up so that it is perfectly hot by the time you have battered.

Pour your glass of beer into a bowl and add the flour and a healthy pinch of salt, mixing it all to a gently fizzing, thick, paint-like texture. Make sure you don’t add too much flour at a go, or you will have to add a whole litre of beer, and then there will be a veritable bog of batter left over. Yes. I speak from experience.

Your oil should be pretty warm by now –
drop a tiny bit of batter in, and if it sizzles satisfactorily, you are ready to go. I use tongs to dip the aubergine slices into the batter and coat them well. Drain off a little mixture before transferring to the hot oil. Cook for two to three minutes, depending on how thickly you sliced the fruit, then flip over with care and give them another minute or two. Remove to a paper-clad plate for draining and continue until all of the eggplant is beautifully battered and fried.

Serve with: Beer and whatever else is on your supper table – ensaladilla rusa, sardines, esgarraet…

Pork, tomato and green peppers for dunking bread into

Posted on April 26, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

With the weather warming up, we are slowly moving out of stews and soups, and into the realm of the Valencian mullate, which is Iaia-speak for a dunker. These are hearty, chunky dips that require forks, knives and hunks of fresh bread to dunk in and soak up the flavoursome oils and sauces left on your plate after you’ve scoffed the solids.

The first one I made this season was a typical Iaia mix of pork, tomato and green peppers. Delicious.

What you need:
about 600g of pork fillet
400g tin of tomato
3-4 green Italian peppers
several cloves of garlic
olive oil
salt

What you do:
Separate your garlic cloves but don’t peel them. Cut your fillet into finger-thick slices. Remove the stalk and seeds from your peppers and tear (or cut) them into bite-sized pieces.
Pour a generous tablespoon or two of olive oil into a deep frying pan and heat to moderate, non-screaming warmth; pop your garlic cloves in and let them fry gently in their jackets for a few minutes before adding the pieces of the fillet to brown on both sides. Remove the meat, but leave the garlic and as much of the oil as possible in the pan. Add the peppers and give them a five-minute swirl to soften slightly before pouring in the tomato to fry and reduce. Once the tomatoey mixture is bubbling gently, turn the heat down and put the meat back in the pan. Season to taste, cover, and finish cooking over very low heat for about 20 minutes.
This dip is not meant to be eaten hot, so you will need to let it stand for at least an hour or two before serving. Of course, like all meaty mixes, it is even better the following day. We particularly like it inside a baguette for brunch!

Serve with: bread, fennel and green-leaf salad, and summer beers.

Bunyols (pumpkin doughnuts)

Posted on April 5, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Easter weekend almost always includes buñuelos, or pumpkin doughnuts, for us. Oscar’s auntie Herminia is the resident expert, and it is her hands that you can see doing all the hard work in this recipe.
I am not a huge fan of the little orange balls; without sugar, they are a bit bland and biting into granulated sugar sets my teeth on edge. However, they are a very popular treat here and most certainly part of Iaia’s year in the kitchen!
This recipe made about 90 little doughnuts, which sounds like a barbaric amount, but isn’t, especially when served to a table full of Valencians. Short work was made of these little blobs of pumpkiny, sugary sweetness on Easter Monday.

What you need:
800g boiled and drained (or roast) pumpkin flesh
about 80g fresh yeast
1 egg
about 750g plain flour
the cooking liquid from the pumpkin (or warm water if you use roast pumpkin)
1½ litres sunflower oil for frying (most of which can be reused later)

What you do:
In a large (really large) bowl or bucket, hand mix the crumbled fresh yeast, pumpkin and beaten egg. Add about 300g of flour and start working it into the orange pulp with energy. Once the first addition of flour is mixed in, keep adding bit by bit, alternating with small splashes of the cooking liquid until you have used about 750g of flour.The finished dough is really very soft, so you will end up adding quite a bit of liquid. There is no specific measurement, but the texture before the dough rises is similar to thick mud – the kind that squelches most beautifully between your toes. Cover the bowl with a tea towel (Iaia has asked me to point out that hers is from the Australia pavilion at the 1992 Expo Seville, before Oscar had met me) and set it aside for a couple of hours. You will be amazed at how much the mixture rises, all bubbly and spongy with the yeast!

And now comes the complicated bit…

Heat the oil in a large, deep pan. It can’t be too hot, or the doughnuts will burn on the outside and be gluggy in the middle, but it has to be hot enough to fry them quickly, so they don’t come out disgustingly oily. Herminia says that when you drop the test blob in, it should rise immediately to the surface and bubble satisfyingly without spitting. Easy to say – you’ll have to practice a bit to get it right!

To form the doughnuts, grab a fistful of lovely, squishy mix and squeeze it so that a walnut-sized blob spouts from between your thumb and forefinger. With the two first fingers of your other hand, which you should wet slightly with the leftover cooking water (or any warm water) to avoid sticking, scoop the blob off and immediately plunge the thumb of the scooping hand into the middle of the ball to form the hole. As you twist your wrist around, the mixture will threaten to drop off your fingers, but before it does, you will have deftly, and gently, spread your index and ring fingers and drop it into the hot oil. Repeat until the surface of your pan is full of bobbing buñuelos. You will get quicker as you practice.

Let the doughnuts brown for about 30 seconds before flipping them over. When they are evenly golden, they are ready to be removed from the oil with a slotted spoon and drained on kitchen paper. When draining, make sure you don’t pile them up on top of each other because they will stick and squish.

Once you’ve finished cooking (Herminia took about 20 minutes to do the whole batch), serve warm or cooled with a bowl of sugar for everyone to dip into. The cooked doughnuts can also be frozen in single layers and defrosted when needed. Microwave reheating is also possible if, unlike me, you have the technology.

Serve with: coffee

Ensaladilla Rusa (a not-altogether-Russian potato salad)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

About 10 years ago, a Russian girl called Lana came to stay with someone in the family as part of an exchange programme. My mother-in-law proudly served up a huge batch of Russian Salad to make sure Lana felt at home and was amazed when told that it was about as un-Russian as a salad could get! It seems that our Lana had never eaten at the Hermitage in Moscow circa 1860, where apparently this style of salad was first created by head chef Lucien Olivier. Now Ensaladilla Rusa is a canon of Valencian culinary tradition and another one of those staple nibbles that are plonked on the table before, or during a large family gathering.
It is best eaten the day after prepping and should be served quite cold. Nothing beats homemade mayonnaise, so I am including the (very easy) recipe here. The quantities make enough for 8-10 people to have a good serving-spoon full each, with leftovers.
What you need for the salad:
1 kg old potatoes (old means less water content)
1/4 kg carrots
1/4 kg French beans
4 hard-boiled eggs
2-3 tins of tuna, drained
50-100g of little gherkins
What you need for the mayonnaise:
1 egg
a pinch of salt
sunflower seed oil
a splash of white wine vinegar

What you do:
Peel and chop your potato into large chunks. All the vegetables need to be boiled but not to total softness – Iaia insists that they need to be al dente so that the whole finished salad doesn’t degenerate into mash. I put the potatoes into cold water, and once it came to a boil, put the egg timer on for 10 minutes with good results. As soon as the totties are cooked, drain them and spread them out in a wide, shallow dish to cool completely. Now boil your carrots and beans, refreshing the latter with cold water once cooked so that they stay a nice bright green instead of going a grisly grey. Let all the veg cool right down before continuing.
A lot of people chop their potatoes and carrots into pretty dice, but Iaia says it’s easier to roughly mash, so that is what I do. You do need to chop the beans, gherkins and eggs into little bits. Mix all of the ingredients together, adding salt to taste and then you are ready to make mayonnaise.
There isn’t any real mystery – you just need a stick blender and a steady hand. Crack the egg into a deep cup, add a pinch of salt and about 1/2 glass of sunflower seed oil (olive is possible, but it makes a very strong-tasting mayo). Start blending, and as soon as you see the mix turning creamy white and thickening, pour a thin, steady stream of oil in as you mix, until you have enough mayonnaise. Add a splash of vinegar to taste at the end, and there it is!
Now you need to spoon your mayonnaise over the salad and mix well until it is evenly gluggy. Iaia uses quite a lot more than I do because I tend to get mayonnaise headaches. Nobody believes me, but it’s true. Pile the salad up into an Uluru shape and spread a thin layer of mayonnaise over the top as if you were icing a cake. Iaia grates a boiled egg yolk over the top to decorate, but I ran out of eggs and so couldn’t. Leave the salad in the fridge until you are ready to eat it. Yum.

Serve with: breadsticks

Arròs a banda (fisherman’s rice)

Posted on March 30, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Another rice-based dish for feeding a crowd, this Arròs a banda is my father-in-law’s specialty and he cooked a beauty for us yesterday for the Good Friday family get-together. There were 16 of us plus Luka, our dog, and not a grain was left over from 2 kilos of rice.

Traditionally this rice was cooked by fishermen who sold off their good stuff but kept some stock-worthy bits for themselves, to be boiled up with rice and scoffed with gusto.

The stock used here was made with about a kilo of morralla which is bits of crab, tiddly little fish, fish heads (the monkfish heads left over from the Caldereta de Rap are particularly prized) and so on. We used just over 5 litres of it for the 2 kg of rice.

Funnily enough, although this rice is cooked in the same type of pan as the Paella, it is never eaten directly from the dish. Apparently, this is because if you leave seafood rice in the caldero it quickly takes on the metallic taste of the pan itself. So once cooked, everything gets piled up in the middle to keep it warm and served onto plates.

I am not putting quantities of prawns and mussels because you can put as many or as few as you like. I suggest that to avoid arguments, use at least one of everything per person!

What you need:
2 kg of (Spanish) rice
5-6 litres of good fish stock
Raw prawns and langoustines
3 cleaned cuttlefish, chopped into small pieces
4 onions, finely chopped
1 whole head of garlic, finely sliced
8 pear tomatoes, grated
Mussels (optional)
Olive oil
Salt
Sweet paprika
Black pepper
Orange food colouring (or saffron)

What you do:
This recipe is very similar to the Fideuà, so if you have cooked that, you will have no trouble with this! Oreto decided to gently fry 2 of the onions with the cuttlefish before putting it into the main dish – this is unusual, but it does save the crazy, violent, oil-flinging spit that cuttlefish always has as it gets dumped into a hot, open pan.

Once that is done, heat your pan and pour a good half litre of oil in to heat up. Eduardo always fries the prawns and langoustines first to flavour the oil. They only need five minutes or so, then you should take them out of the pan and reserve them for later.
Onions and garlic get fried next, moving everything about so there is no burning. Once they have softened slightly, pour in the tomato and cook until some of the liquid has evaporated. When it looks nicely done, stir in the mussels and the cuttlefish. Then it is time to fry the uncooked rice a little. This coats it with oil and helps stop any clumping. Give it about 5-6 minutes, moving it around constantly, so it doesn’t catch.Just before you put the stock in, remember to add a good spoonful of sweet paprika to the pan. It is really important not to burn this spice – 30 seconds or so is enough, and then you need to pour your stock straight in.
Check for salt, add the colouring or saffron, give everything a gentle push to evenly distribute the rice and bring to a boil. When you have a lovely rolling boil going, place the prawns and langoustines on top and stand back. You may need to add a tiny bit more stock if you see it evaporating faster than the rice is cooking, but other than that, leave it alone.Just before the stock has disappeared, get a healthy pinch of ground black pepper and sprinkle generously over the rice.

Serve with: allioli and bubbles

Allioli (garlic mayonnaise)

Posted on March 30, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Traditionally served with Arròs a Banda, this garlic mayonnaise is also amazing with barbecued lamb cutlets. However, my favourite way of eating it is on toasted baguette slices with a spoonful of grated tomato – a fab starter for any meal.

What you need:
1 egg
5-6 cloves of garlic
Sunflower seed oil
A pinch of salt
A stick blender (or, if you are a purist, a mortar and pestle, in which case I wish you good luck and strong arm muscles).

What you do:
Put the egg, salt and garlic into a deep, narrow container (stick blenders usually come with one) and pour in about half a glass of oil. Start blending. Once you see it thickening and turning white, add more oil in a tiny stream, while you continue to blend.

This can be done by one person, though it might be easier with two. Keep going until you have enough!

Iaia's kitchen

Traditional recipes from my Valencia mother-in-law

Author Archives: lisajaneroberts