A tiny note on Basque Pinxos

There is a Basque bar in Barcelona where I love to eat 'pinxos', which are Basque tapas - mostly bits of something on bread ( as in the liplickingly good photo above). The Basque take their pinxos very seriously and at dinner time, conglomerate in numbers to eat these while chatting and laughing with their friends. They take their food very seriously too which is probably why most of the 3 star Michelin restaurants in Spain are in the Basque country.

The pinxo on the right is my all time favourite, Xistorra! I just need to look at it to get a cholesterol high! It is a paprika sausage and fried, sends you to that part of heaven reserved for those flirting with a heart attack but hey! a once a month delight can't kill me, right?

Burger Babblings

Burger with foie, Restaurant Raf, Barcelona

So, did you know that a burger is the generic name for a sliced roll with either a non veg or veg filling while a hamburger is one with a meat patty? Hah! I bet you thought a burger was the shortened version of the word 'hamburger'. Note that it isn't spelt like this : 'burger. In the UK, a burger can be just the meat patty on it's own. And no, the hamburger doesn't usually have ham in it BUT, originated from Hamburg, like 'frankfurter' from Frankfurt (duh) and 'wiener' from Wien or Vienna.

Such a pity that fast-food chains like McDonalds have vilified burgers for they can be nourishing and delicious meals ( sad, sad face), especially when served with salads or vegetables ( and why not, a glass of wine!). Happily, many restaurants have taken up the challenge to prove how healthy and delicious they actually can be, and, SUCCEEDED!

Ok, enough talk, here are some delicious burgers I have scarfed: 

Chilli hamburger in Déja-burg, Barcelona

There is a restaurant near mine which serves a wide variety of burgers, called Déja-burg - the word play doesn't make much sense but maybe the owners thought that the Frenchified name would make it sound chic? Who knows...Anyway, the chilli topped hamburger I had was quite good, messy but good! Warning: Definitely not recommended food on a date as you will be splaying out bits of chilli as you eat. Happily, I was with a close friend and she was splaying food out too! Phew!

Burger with foie and caramelised onions, Alba, Barcelona

In yet another restaurant, I had a hand cut sirloin steak stuffed with foie and topped with caramelised onions. Dee-lish-us! The accompanying mustards á l'ancienne and 'dijon' went so well with this - for there is an inherent chemistry of mustard with meat. In the background, you can see the delicious dish of roast veggies I had with this. McDonalds, eat your heart out!

Hamburger in Hotel Meliá Banus, Marbella

Sometimes, all my little heart wants is a simple hamburger with a salad, nothing more and nothing less. Am not a huge fan of doughy baps as they can be quite dry BUT, this hamburger was delicious and once I lavishly lathered on the mustard, ate it too fast for the bap to dry. 

Homemade hamburger

Have you ever done a burger party? I do it once in a while and what you do is either make or buy some good quality meat patties and on the side, chop/slice/peel/lay on a table, a variety of all the ingredients and condiments that could go into making Burger Bliss - lettuce, rocket, tomatoes, gherkins, herbs, onions, ketchup, mayo, ali-oli, mustard etc. Get your bbq ready and as your guests arrive, hand them the drink of their choice and cook their patty to their liking. They can then DIY their burger! Neat idea or wot!? This party is successful among adults and children alike so go on, summer is coming, start preparing...

Homemade burger

A very dear friend of mine, who didn't consider herself to be much of a cook, taught me one of the most delicious ways to make a burger that I know of:

A'S CARAMELIZED ONION BURGERS

Serves 2

Ingredients:

300 gm beef

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

Breadcrumbs as needed

1 egg

Salt n pepper

Chives/parsley optional

Method:

In a heavy base frying pan, fry the onions on low heat until caramelised - be careful to not scorch them! Once the onions are satisfactorily cooked and, cooled, add them to the other ingredients in a bowl and mix and then shape into 2 patties. Cook these to your liking in the remaining oil in the frying pan. ENJOY! 

Burger with onion marmalade, Cafe Charlotte, Barcelona 

A gem in L'Eixample?

Just like on a first date, I get very excited when a new restaurant opens up - it won't get better than this, I tend to think! The chef will be wanting to prove her/himself and therefore she/he will be full of motivation and ideas, the waiters will be inspired with the newness of the project, the place will be bristling with freshness and the food...ahhhhhh, the food....

Let me introduce you to Alvart, a small restaurant which recently opened up in my neighbourhood. I went in Feb, a few months later. The chef is around 26 but has an impressive resumé of having worked in some of the best restaurants of Barcelona but this is his first restaurant as owner and chef.

I went in with a friend to try their lunch menu. This is what we had:

A hummus aperitif which was beautifully presented in one of those cans which seem to be such a popular way to present food nowadays. Lovely mouthful which definitely made us eager to try more!

My first course consisted of a pea soup - the peas were so lovely and sweet! with a poached egg topped with laminates of pancetta. I must say that the pancetta with its fatty flavours, though looked beautiful on the plate, didn't add much to the flavour. But the soup itself was wonderful!


My main course was divine - hake pan fried to perfection, lying on a bed of mashed potatoes, with a demi-glasse sauce poured over. The flakiness of the fish was complimented with the lovely sauce and you know that mashed potatoes go well with any protein. And finely chopped chives are a compliment to fish dishes...



I suck at eating desserts - the sugar makes my face scowl unhappily so it's a once monthly ritual which has to do with the tides of the moon. It so happened to be that time of the month and so I tried the dessert and was so very disappointed! Just a normal vanilla ice cream over some sort of orangey tangy, demerara -sand mix (scowl scowl)..

Hmmmmm....so what do I think? This chef is like a nerd chef - he knows ALL his lessons very well -  but, definitely needs more time to let himself loose and stops trying to show off what he knows vis-a-vis what he can create out of his own imagination.  I will go again soon and see whether he has become more creative but my instincts say that he will!

Oysters

Oysters! Oysters! Oysters!

Oysters; well known for their aphrodisiac qualities though personally, apart from a slight indigestion when eaten in industrial quantities (as you might well imagine), have never seen any such effect either on me or others that I know of. Let me know if you have :-)

Oysters in Fish shop, Barcelona

I LOVE oysters though there are many who scrunch their face in disgust at the idea of eating, what they imagine is, something slimy or a live being. In fact, if not alive, to be well avoided, like all bivalves, as stale seafood is particularly noxious. And slimy? NO WAY! The actual flesh is fresh and melts in your mouth, almost without having to bite or chew.

Did you know that the oysters of the American pacific coast are hermaphrodite? How cool is that? No need to flirt or make any effort to get a mate as their reproductive organs contain both the sperm and the eggs!

There is a saying, which is a great guide, about when to eat oysters - in the months with an 'R' in them - which, if you do your calculations, are the cold months. Now why is that, you may ask? Is it because there is less chance of them being stale? Maybe, but the reality is that oysters abstain from sex in the cold months and therefore their bodies are made up primarily of glycogen and salts which makes them fat and tasty, just as we like 'em! In the summer months, an insane 80% of their bodies become sex organs....and watery and tasteless. Now you know!

I know that the purist thing is to quaff an oyster without anything, maybe a drizzle of lemon juice (watch how the animal slides away from the acid) but I personally love it with a teaspoonful of this easy to make, 'mignonette' or sauce:

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

90ml red wine vinegar

2 small eschalots, very finely chopped

Salt to taste

Method:

Combine everything in a bowl. Set aside for 15 minutes for the flavours to develop. Serve with your oysters 

Portobello bar, Madrid

And with your favourite champagne or cava.....Bon Appetit!

Jamón, Jamón!

Andreu Xarcutería en L'illa, Barcelona

The only thing stopping me from being a vegetarian is ham. And not just any ol' ham but Spanish ham or jamón. And not just ANY ol' jamón but the jamón ibérico de bellota- star of hams and NEVER to be confused with its Italian cousin, the 'prosciutto', on pain of death via stoning or flaying, you choose. I could eat this for breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner... God bless Spain!

This website will tell you all that you never knew you wanted to know about jamón. 

The Spanish are brilliant at cured meats especially from pork - a very European food tradition coming from the yearly 'matanza' where a pig or pigs were killed and the whole family partook in making sure each and every part of the animal was either cured or cooked to last a whole year till the next killing season. 



Yup, you will see legs of hams hanging blatantly in many eateries and carving a leg is a particular art form with competitions too! The really good places will always hand carve their jamón, ALWAYS. 

Pau Claris, 190, Barcelona

Most, if not all bars and many restaurants will serve jamón but, don't be fooled as it will be a very mediocre sort of jamón, which is usually drier, harder and with very white, solid fat and a slightly bitter aftertaste. When you eat a good quality jamón, the taste is SO different; the meat is juicier, the fat will be semi transparent and it will coat your mouth, retaining the wonderful flavour until you take a sip of your wine/ beer/cava...

You can have this jamón with beer........                    

Mauri, Barcelona

 ....with a cold glass of wine..

Ven Ven, Barcelona

 ...in a delicious baguette...

Enrique Tomás, Barcelona

    ...on, a coca ( a Catalan bread)

The purists will argue with the Catalans that jamón, if to be served on bread, must have the bread ONLY drizzled in olive oil- basta! The Catalans will ignore this and proceed to put the jamón on bread with tomato or 'pan amb tomaquet' and only then drizzle it with olive oil. Which do I prefer? I am all for 'pan amb tomaquet' but if the jamón is a damn fine one, I really don't want to be tasting tomato - just a good crunchy bread, the almost bitter taste of a virgin olive oil and the jamón - mmmmmm 

Here is a funny thing about the Spanish :-D For many years, I taught English and it always amused me how my students just couldn't differentiate the words 'jam' and 'ham' - understandable as their 'j' is pronounced like our 'h' but with a rasp. 

It rains in 

The Plains

of Spain

where people eat ham

for breakfast

and Jam

for their main

Tuna-Mayonaise

Avocado tuna-mayonaise on toasted rye bread

Tuna-mayonaise: quintessential British bastion of nutrition - in sandwiches, on roast potatoes, in a salad, on pasta...there is something SO comforting about this mix of 2 basic ingredients - tinned tuna and mayonnaise. Cheap, cheerful, nutritious, easy to make COMFORT food.

For those who don't know how to make this, make sure you always use tinned tuna in sunflower or olive oil. Tuna in water or brine is just way too dry, flakey and tasteless. Also, there is no point using a really high quality bonito as you can't appreciate that delicate taste when it is mashed with mayo and garnishes. 

BASIC RECIPE: Just take a tin of tuna, drain it, add a tablespoon of mayonnaise and with a fork, give it some good ol' elbow grease. This is your basic tuna-mayo for one.

Once you have mastered the basics of a tuna-mayo ( 5 minutes should do the trick), you can let your imagination run wild and add some interesting ingredients- parsley, coriander, basil, chives, finely chopped rocket, spring onions, onions, shallots, capers, olives, sun dried tomatoes, avocado, any seeds ( do toast these first except chia seeds which don't need toasting) or nuts... go on, be brave! What is the worst that can happen?- that you don't like it! That is ok, you can try again. 

AVOCADO TUNA-MAYO:
Serves 2
Ingredients:
2 tins of tuna
2 tablespoons of mayo
1/2 an avocado
A small bunch of coriander, chopped
A teaspoonful of any: finely chopped spring onions/onions/chives
Salt and Pepper
Method:
Scoop the avocado from its skin and mash it with a fork. Drain the tuna and add it and all the other ingredients except the pepper and mash away till you are happy with the consistency. Some like it roughly mashed while others like it creamy - up to you. Scoop over your favourite carb - steamed? boiled? roast? jacket? potato or pasta or rice or quinoa or.... Also yum on a salad. Mill your pepper at the end and just as you are about to take your first bite. Mmmmmm

Tuna-mayonaise on steamed potato

I sometimes make a basic tuna mayo and either add truffles or truffle oil over the top and Oh My, gourmet heaven is achieved. 

Tales from the Sea - Part 3

Grilled bonito with stir fried vegetables

Fish, Fish ♪ 
♪ Glorious Fish

There's nothing quite like it to ♪
make a yum dish
so follow me follow me ♪
down to the hollow
and there we will wallow in
Glorious FISH ♪
(Very free translation of the hippopotamus song)


I am going to be honest with you, I just DON'T get how people can classify ALL fish into one ridiculous statement, "I HATE fish". My question to them is always, "WHICH fish do you mean?" There are SO many and they all taste SO different ( am clutching my hair in frustration at this point usually). For when we think of meat, we put it into so many different categories like beef, pork, mutton, venison, boar etc so why not with fish? How can you compare a steaky tuna to a flakey cod or a firm fleshed monkfish? Or an oily sardine to a rainbow trout which keeps repeating throughout the day? Burp!

Salmon tataki with salad and black olive tapenade

And do you mean fish which is raw? cooked? smoked? semi-cooked like a quick seared tataki? marinated? dried? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU IGNORAMUS!" Huff, puff, Grrrrrrrrr.... Take the above, a lovely salmon sirloin absolutely oozing Omega 3s, which has been pan seared and then cut into thin slices and served under a salad. Will you honestly say it is the same as the below? 

Grilled hake with mashed potatoes and a demi-glace sauce

Here you have a wonderfully firm but flakey, white fleshed hake which has been pan fried to perfection, lying on a beautifully mashed bed of potatoes and with a wonderful demi-glace sauce poured over. Sluuuurp. There is NO comparison! Each fish has its own taste and firmness. Here is a wonderful pdf which shows you the categories of fish - basically round, flat and others including crustaceans, shellfish, squid and octopus. 

Cod ravioli, Can Ros, Barelona

Here above is a ravioli made of cod - would you seriously say you hate 'Fish' if you got faced with one of these? 

Braised plae with lobster sauce, Café Duus, Keflavik, Iceland

One of my abiding memories of Iceland, apart from the awe-inspiring landscape, is the great fish you get there. The chef who made the above, obviously knew how to make the fish just right, he must have added some mild 'garam massala' to the flour before pan frying it. The lobster sauce was yummy and I made sure to dip my delicious bacon tossed baby potatoes in it.

Grilled scallops in Seagriffin, Reykjavik, Iceland

And then there is the 'Saegriffin' in Reykjavik where you chose your fish/seafood and they grilled it to perfection and served it to you. Awesomeness itself!

Steinbitur

The Icelanders also eat something I found a bit odd but had a very mild and more-ish taste, dried Catfish! A great source of protein plus a handy snack as long as you don't mind its fishy smell! 

Malaysian snack, ikan bilis

South East Asians are great dried fish lovers - they use em for a variety of amazing dishes and here, while wandering in Malacca in Malaysia, we had some 'ikan bilis' or dried anchovies which were a salty snack - keep a bottle of water handy, though!

Salmon tartare Thai style, Bamboo rice, Le Blanc, France

Here is another versatile way to make fish - raw and in a tartare. Chop your fish up and add chopped onions, capers, herbs.. Here is a yummy and easy peasy recipe. The above was made in a Thai resto and had corander, lemongrass, onions, chilli and soya sauce and was HEAVEN. 

Cod confit with stuffed cabbage and grapes, Coure, Barcelona

Then you have something called a confit which is basically cooking a meat like duck, in its own fat at very low temperature and over a long period and then preserving it. Cod doesn't come with blubber but this confit had been slow cooked in olive oil and just melted in your mouth. 

Stuffed smoked salmon

I LOVE smoked salmon and usually have some in my fridge. It's a great way to eat fish without ANY cooking and very versatile. The above dish is REE-AH-LEEEE simple:

Serves 1
Ingredients:
100 gms of smoked salmon
Half a courgette grated
Tartare sauce
Chives
That's it!
Method:
Grate the courgette
Add as much or little of a good tartare sauce you like
Add a heaped tablespoon in the centre of 1 salmon sheet and roll. Repeat with the others
Sprinkle chives on top
Voilá

Steamed sea bass with ginger and onion, Shanghai 1930, Barcelona

Mmmm, steamed fish. I wont say more....