Sardinà: salt cured fish with peppers, onions and egg

Posted on November 3, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Every year our town has its local “fiesta” at the beginning of September. One of the traditional events is a big sardinà brunch served to whoever turns up by a gang of well-dressed, starboard-leaning ladies. We prefer to eschew the multitude and have our own small-scale celebration with a few friends instead. This year was a beautiful autumn morning, and Oscar was the most excellent chef.
What you need:1 salt-cured sardine per person
a few dried “capellà” (trisopterus minutus, or “poor cod”)
1 egg per person
3-4 onions
10-12 Italian peppers (green)
1-2 heads of garlic
oil
grapes and bread to serve

What you do:
First of all, get a fire going and let it reduce it to glowing coals. This is for the poor cod, which needs to be lightly charred just before you serve it. Prep your veg by cutting the peppers into halves or large chunks, separate the individual cloves of garlic but don’t peel them and roughly chop the onions.
Put a generous slug of oil into a large frying pan (we used a paella pan) and heat. Fry the peppers and garlic until softened and beautifully coloured – this will take a little while, so be patient and keep the beer coming for the cook.Transfer the peppers and garlic to a large serving plate. In the same oil, you are now going to soften the onion. Again, patience and lots of pushing about with the tongs to avoid bitter burning. Once that’s done, you have to lay the sardines in the pan and give them a few minutes on each side. Put the sardines and onions onto another serving plate and let your oil heat up to egg-frying pitch. I’m pretty sure you will know how to fry an egg, but I will say that here they like to sort of flick the hot oil over the top of the egg instead of flipping it; the white bubbles and gets slightly crusty, and the flavours that have infused the oil do wonders for the humble huevo.
The poor cod should be put on the coals at about the same time as you fry the eggs – it only needs a minute or two on either side. You might need an extra pair of hands to deal with simultaneous frying and charring.Now all you need to do is fill a plate with a bit of everything and pour some cold beer!

Serve with: grapes (which are at their best in September), bread and beer

Arros al forn d’estiu (summer baked rice)

Posted on October 10, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

The story goes that when my husband Oscar was a boy, the family would pack a carload of towels, sun shades, chairs, cousins, food and drink and head off to the beach for the whole day. Iaia would always take along a whole, tea-towel-wrapped, ceramic dish of Summer Baked Rice, especially for her eldest son, and he would come rushing out of the sea to demolish the whole lot by himself, washing it down with chocolate milk. It is still one of his favourite lunches!

The amounts here feed between three and four people. If you don’t have a ceramic dish, use a metal baking tray, but increase the amount of water slightly so that it is exactly double the amount of rice.

The black pudding sausage is optional!

What you need:
2 glasses (roughly 400g) Spanish rice
1/2 glass of olive oil
a whole head of garlic
three or four ripe tomatoes
a handful of flat green beans
a good-sized potato
150g white beans
a black-pudding sausage (botifarra)
parsley
1 tsp sweet paprika
saffron/orange food colouring
water

What you do:
Pop the oven on at 200ºC and prep by measuring out your rice and oil, grating one of your tomatoes, slicing the potatoes, breaking the beans into pieces and putting your water on to boil. The amount of water is directly dependent on the amount of rice you use and the type of dish you cook in. If using a metal tray, use two glasses of water for every glass of rice. For ceramic dishes, hold back half a glass or so of liquid. For this particular recipe, I used 750ml of water for 400g of rice.You will also need to make what we call a “picadillo”, which is a bashed-up clove of garlic with a small bunch of parsley and a bit of oil added. I use a mortar and pestle, but finely chopping is good too. Set this aside for a moment while you get on with the frying and assembling.

Place the rice into the bottom of your ceramic (or metal) dish and gently shake it so it settles evenly over the base.

Now pour the half-glass of oil into a frying pan and get the heat on. Place the whole garlic head in the oil for a quick, oil-flavouring fry. Once it has been on for a few minutes, drop it into the saucepan with your water and let it simmer gently while you prepare everything else, this will help ensure that the cloves are all cooked through by the time you come to eat them.In the same oil, lightly fry your sliced potatoes. Remove and place over the rice, distributing the pieces evenly. Gently fry your green beans and when they look bright green and slick, add the grated tomato and white beans. Fry for a minute or two longer, then in goes the paprika for a quick swirl. Remove from the heat and pour over the potatoes and rice, spreading things evenly over the whole dish. Slice the remaining tomatoes thickly and place them on top of the other ingredients. Nestle the head of garlic in the middle and (optionally) place the sausage right next to it. Spoon your “picadillo” over everything. Sprinkle a bit of food colouring on top to get the Spanish yellow that people here prefer to white when it comes to rice.Now, hopefully, you will still have the right amount of water in your saucepan, and it will be boiling hot. If it looks as though some of it has evaporated, add a little. It’s important that the water be boiling when you add it to the dish so that the rice starts cooking immediately; otherwise, you might get a gluggy mess. So, carefully pour the hot water over your rice and slip it straight into your oven. Bake until the water has all been absorbed; depending on how hot your oven really is, this should take between 25 – 40 minutes.Let the rice cool for a few minutes before tucking in, or I promise you will burn the bejesus out of your mouth.

Serve with: sweet raw onion slices go beautifully on top, cold chocolate milk is a must for beach-goers, while at-homers could try a fresh young red.

Spanish Omelette (aka potato omelette)

Posted on August 10, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Spanish Omelette in Spain means potato omelette, with or without onion. Everyone has their own secrets for making one of the most fantastic omelettes ever, and discussions can get quite heated when it comes to whose is the best! Iaia always uses onion and can turn out a perfect tortilla with her eyes closed. I still need to keep mine open, especially with the flipping.
This dish is incredibly versatile as it can be consumed hot or cold, served as an appetiser, a main meal, a snack, in a roll, on a plate, in bite-sized squares on toothpicks, with tomato, with mayonnaise, with salad, at a picnic, a dinner party, as part of a buffet…need I go on?
The recipe here is for a large dinner-plate-sized omelette which will provide a good slice for 6-8 people. I used a stainless steel frying pan as it’s the only large pan I have, but I highly recommend using a non-stick pan instead.

What you need:
3 potatoes
1 onion
6 eggs
olive oil
salt
a non-stick frying pan

What you do:
Chop the potato and onion into chunky pieces, as you see above. Heat a generous amount of olive oil so that nothing sticks or burns (you can always drain any excess off before adding the eggs), and gently fry the onions for a minute or two before adding the potatoes. Iaia insists on covering the potatoes as they cook so that their edges become sort of fuzzy instead of sharp. This helps the egg stick to the totties later and gives you a much more attractive finish without any air holes between the potato and egg.Beat your eggs in a large bowl and add a good pinch of salt. Once the vegetables are cooked, but not falling to pieces, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the egg bowl. Drain any excess oil from the frying pan, but remember you will need a healthy coating to stop any sticking (even in a non-stick pan). Once the pan is well heated again, pour the whole egg and vegetable mix in and move it gently around (without disturbing the edges) so that the omelette cooks evenly, but take care not to turn it into scrambled egg. You can cover a very thick omelette to help with the cooking but don’t walk away!
After a little while, you will have a browned bottom and edge, and curd-like centre. It is time to flip (for photos of this see the Spinach Omelette recipe). Take your pan off the heat and cover it with a plate. Wrap a tea towel over the top and base of the pan to avoid burning yourself, and grip firmly from either side. Flip with conviction, so the omelette flops out onto your plate in one piece. Put your pan back on the heat and slide your now raw-side-down omelette back into the pan to finish cooking. I like to use a spatula to tuck the edges under a little because it gives a lovely rounded edge; this is especially important if you are cooking a larger omelette.
The trick is now to cook the omelette to the ideal point – neither runny nor rubbery. Practice will show you what it feels like to the touch when it is ready. Turn out onto a plate and allow to cool (or not!) before eating.

Tomato jam

Posted on July 23, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Our tomato plants are giving us a bumper crop this year – the gorgeous plummy fruit is coming thick and fast. What better way to conserve it than in this luscious, sweet jam. Iaia makes pots every year, but I have pipped her at the post with a small batch for you!
A kilo and a half of toms made almost 5 jam jars full of ruby red yumminess. The cinnamon and lemon are optional. Iaia leaves her cinnamon in and pots shards of it up with the jam, but I hate finding little barky bits on my toast or between my teeth, so I pull it out at the last minute. The lemon gives you a lovely tangy surprise from time to time, and I really recommend including it!

What you need:
At least a couple of kilos of plum tomatoes
A kilo or so of sugar
Zest of one lemon
A cinnamon stick

What you do:
Scald and peel all of the tomatoes. Weigh the lot and put them into a large, heavy-based, non-reactive pan. Run a knife through them to break them up a bit before weighing your sugar and adding it to the tomatoes. Traditionally the recipe calls for equal weights of tomato and sugar, but both Iaia and I find that far too sweet. For this batch, I used a kilo of sugar for 1600g of tomatoes, and the jam set well and is sufficiently sweet without cloying.
The sugar will immediately start to draw the liquid out of the tomatoes, so you can turn on the heat and stir things gently without fear of burning. While the tomatoes are heating and the sugar is melting, use a potato peeler to zest the lemon and cut the strips into smallish pieces. Add to the pan along with the cinnamon stick and bring everything to a jolly boil. I allowed this lot to boil hard until it was reduced by about half, then poured it into sterilised jars.

Serve with: breakfast toast and a cuppa or as part of one of our favourite summer canapés: a slice of tangy goat’s cheese with a dollop of jam and an anchovy sat on top.

Fresh tuna and sweetly softened onion

Posted on July 20, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

A rare and special treat, this tuna dish is one of my absolute favourites. Buy the freshest, reddest, most beautiful tuna steaks you can find and eat at room temperature or cooler, ooping the oil off the plate with lovely soft fresh bread. Mmmm.

What you need:
Finger-thick tuna steaks
seasoned flour
3-4 onions
olive oil

What you do:
Chop the tuna into large chunks and pop them into a plastic bag with the seasoned flour. Shake things up until the fish is evenly coated. Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan and brown the floured fish on both sides. Don’t overcook, or it will go dry on you – best to err on the undercooked side. Take the browned fish out of the pan and set it aside while you deal with the onions. Slice them reasonably finely and fry them gently in the oil you used for the fish (add some if necessary). You don’t want to caramelise them, but you do want them to be cooked through – Iaia tells me the onion has to be “atabollaeta“, but when I asked her what that meant, she shrugged and said, “you know…done just to the right point”. Hm. Inspection of a dictionary provides “ripe coloured” in reference to fruit, so I suppose in this oniony context, it means soft and gently coloured. That works for me, anyway!So, once the onions are atabollaetes, turn the heat off and send the tuna back into the pan with the onions to mingle for a while. We like this at room temperature, or even cold from the fridge.

Serve with: bread and a chilly white – summer essentials!

Cuttlefish, tomato and “pebrella”

Posted on July 19, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Fresh cuttlefish pre-cleaning

One of Oscar’s favourite mixes for stuffing into a brunch roll or ooping onto great crusty lumps of bread is this cuttlefish, tomato and pebrella mix. This last is a herb found locally. Its grown-up name is Thymus Piperella, and if you search online, you might find a supplier – it has a really distinctive flavour, and although oregano could be used as an alternative, it hasn’t got the same special kick.
For the fishy part, I dragged Iaia along to the Valencia markets yesterday to help me choose the best critters and then she walked me through the recipe step by step. It’s best to buy fresh (oh-so-ugly) cuttlefish and get your friendly fishmonger to do all the cleaning for you. You will probably still have to cut off the tough wings and pull out a beak or two, but the worst part will have been dealt with by abler hands (than mine, at least). Oh, and stand back when you put the cuttlefish into the pan – it spits!

What you need:
3 medium-sized cuttlefish
a healthy kilo of pear tomatoes
2 onions
olive oil
black pepper
pebrella (thymus piperella)
dried chillies

What you do:
Chop the onions and cuttlefish into smallish pieces. Grate the tomato and put some oil in a deep pan to heat. The cuttlefish is the first to go in as it takes quite a while to cook. It spits horribly when it hits the oil, so be really careful! Let it sizzle gently for about 15 minutes before adding the onion to fry and soften for another 10 minutes or so. Pour in the tomato, add some salt, the herbs and the chillies (Iaia uses a tea strainer to be able to fish them out before it gets too hot) and let everything bubble away quietly for about an hour, or until you see the tomato losing most of its wateriness and becoming thick – like a really great pasta sauce. Remember to test for flavour and remove the chillies when you notice a bit of heat.

Take off the heat and allow it to cool completely before serving. We like to leave it overnight and put spoonfuls into a crusty roll for brunch.

Serve with: Cold white wine and lots of bread.

Crema de carabasseta (courgette soup)

Posted on July 17, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

The first time we decided to grow courgettes, we planted about 8 little seedlings, then watched in awe as they took over the whole vegetable patch and started sprouting dozens and dozens of courgettes. I battered courgette flowers, made courgette soups, baked courgette cakes, grilled courgettes, roasted courgettes, spaghettified courgettes, used courgettes on pizzas and still had leftover fruit to give away to friends and family. It was a veritable courgette-fest! However, one can only really enjoy so much of a good thing, and so we have limited ourselves to 2 plants per year since then.
One of Iaia’s favourite courgette dishes – this soup – is also one of her easiest and most flexible. I make it here with the basic ingredients but you can add any number of things – almonds, cheese, cream, leek, potato…whatever takes your fancy. A kilo-and-a-half courgette gives you about 2 litres of soup. Any monster marrows (above 2kg) should be peeled; their skin becomes pumpkin-like and doesn’t break down in cooking.

What you need:
1½ kg courgette(s)
1 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
half a glass of water
salt

What you do:
Put a few tablespoons of olive oil into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat gently. Roughly chop the courgette, onion and garlic, and chuck in the pan. Stir everything so it gets a light coating of oil, and add the water to stop anything from catching. Salt lightly and cover tightly. Allow to steam/fry/boil for about half an hour, or until the vegetables are all cooked through. While still hot, blend (I use a stick blender, but a conventional blender will give you a smoother soup). You can serve this soup hot or cold – it’s lovely either way!

Serve with: bread, cheese, a dollop of cream or sour cream…

Gazpacho andaluz

Posted on July 16, 2013 by lisajaneroberts

Summer gluts of tomato mean two things around here – cold Andalusian gazpacho and pots of thick tomato jam. Today I am making the first of these for our supper. This is very much a Iaia version rather than a faithful reproduction of the traditional soup – I would love to hear your own recipes, especially if you are reading from down south!
We like to drink our gazpacho from glasses and so add some ice-cold water to get the consistency just right. If, on the other hand, you eat yours from a bowl, it’s usual to add a handful of finely chopped pepper, onion, tomato and/or croutons. The recipe here gives you about a litre of soup.

What you need:
1½ kg ripe plum tomatoes
a chunk of cucumber
a small green or red pepper
half an onion
a clove or two of garlic
olive oil
your favourite vinegar
a pinch of salt
water (optional)

What you do:
Peel the tomatoes using whichever method you prefer – I use a sharp knife and do away with the whole boiling water palaver. Chop into chunks along with all the other ingredients and toss into a blender. (Note: we also peel the cucumber to save sensitive tummies from indigestion).
Once all the veg is in the blender, pour in a happy glug of olive oil, a generous splash of vinegar and a perfect pinch of salt (all of which you can tweak to taste as you blend), and press the “on” button. Add water if it seems too thick, more salt if it seems too bland and more oil or vinegar if you think you need either – this is not rocket science.
Refrigerate until ready to serve. Easy? Delicious!

Serve with: croutons, bits of chopped ingredients, and a summer table full of nibbles…

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

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

Iaia's kitchen

Traditional recipes from my Valencia mother-in-law

Category Archives: summer