Valentine's Day 2011
Made great tapas for Valentine's last night. Used this recipe page. The spread looked like this. Here's what I made:
Gambas a la plancha: Fried prawns dipped in olive oil, lemon juice and rock salt mixture. Nice, but I made far too few. Once you de-hull them, and they've shriveled up from being fried, there's not much left even though I bought king size ones. I served them with freshly baked baguette, it was a Cuisine de France pre-made one from Dunnes that you lashed in the oven for 8 mins.
Patatas Bravas: I just cheated, these were regular frozen potato croquettes baked for 20 mins though they were very tasty. I served them with the homemade brava sauce in the recipe: mayo, tomato puree, tabasco, and Spanish spicy fish sauce - though I forgot to add garlic and herbs.
Marinated olives: Olives marinated in chili and spices, but I cheated and just got some shop-bought ones. To make them yourself requires several days!
Ceviche: I'd never tried this before, and it was interesting to say the least. Ceviche is raw fish "cooked" by pouring lime (or lemon in this case) juice over it. A chemical reaction "cooks" the fish. I cut it into strips, put it in a bowl, and filled up with a big jumbo-sized bottle of lemon juice that I'd bought especially. The verdict: It was nice, but some strips were raw in the middle. You needed to cut them very, very thin in order for the juice to penetrate the middle. Or maybe you really did need to use lime juice, which might have more citric acid in it.
Apple and Walnut Salad: This isn't especially Spanish, but it was especially nice. Apple, celery, walnuts, and mayo. The recipe calls for more, like scallions and raisins, but we just wanted the salad to clear the palate.
Meatballs in tomato sauce: I bought eight massive pre-made meatballs for this, which turned out to be way too much. They wouldn't cook in the middle, and blood was still coming out even after frying for 10 mins. We put half of them to one side for another day, and cut the remainder in halves, and finally quarters when even that didn't cook the middle. When they were finally cooked all the way through, I added whole tomatoes from a can, herbs, and a generous dash of red wine. The resulting portion was massive and was great with the baguette, though we couldn't finish it.
Rice-stuffed peppers: These were the most complex to make. You scooped out the inside of large peppers, keeping the stalk to use as a lid later. You then fill it with rice and meat and a few other things, but I kept it simple and just used brown rice, more whole tomato, and vegetable stock with a dash of saffron for colour and taste. It said to put the rice in raw and let it cook (through baking) using the juices of the pepper and stock, but I was afraid brown rice would cook incompletely so I parboiled it first. The baking time was very long, about 90 mins, but with parboiled rice I knew we could take it up after only about 45. Sadly, we forgot to take it up for at least 2 hours, and the peppers were looking pretty wrecked after that length of time. We were stuffed anyway, so left them for later. The next day, though, after adding the remains of the stock and baking for a little longer to heat them back up, they were surprisingly nice. The rice and stock mixture was tasty, and the walls of the pepper had melted into a kind of peppery mush which served as a good accompaniment. The only thing I'd say is that the rice probably needed the pork and onions that the recipe called for, but otherwise, it was A-OK.
All this was washed down with Spanish Faustino VII and some Oyster Bay from Kiwiland - and strawberries. Yummsy.
Gambas a la plancha: Fried prawns dipped in olive oil, lemon juice and rock salt mixture. Nice, but I made far too few. Once you de-hull them, and they've shriveled up from being fried, there's not much left even though I bought king size ones. I served them with freshly baked baguette, it was a Cuisine de France pre-made one from Dunnes that you lashed in the oven for 8 mins.
Patatas Bravas: I just cheated, these were regular frozen potato croquettes baked for 20 mins though they were very tasty. I served them with the homemade brava sauce in the recipe: mayo, tomato puree, tabasco, and Spanish spicy fish sauce - though I forgot to add garlic and herbs.
Marinated olives: Olives marinated in chili and spices, but I cheated and just got some shop-bought ones. To make them yourself requires several days!
Ceviche: I'd never tried this before, and it was interesting to say the least. Ceviche is raw fish "cooked" by pouring lime (or lemon in this case) juice over it. A chemical reaction "cooks" the fish. I cut it into strips, put it in a bowl, and filled up with a big jumbo-sized bottle of lemon juice that I'd bought especially. The verdict: It was nice, but some strips were raw in the middle. You needed to cut them very, very thin in order for the juice to penetrate the middle. Or maybe you really did need to use lime juice, which might have more citric acid in it.
Apple and Walnut Salad: This isn't especially Spanish, but it was especially nice. Apple, celery, walnuts, and mayo. The recipe calls for more, like scallions and raisins, but we just wanted the salad to clear the palate.
Meatballs in tomato sauce: I bought eight massive pre-made meatballs for this, which turned out to be way too much. They wouldn't cook in the middle, and blood was still coming out even after frying for 10 mins. We put half of them to one side for another day, and cut the remainder in halves, and finally quarters when even that didn't cook the middle. When they were finally cooked all the way through, I added whole tomatoes from a can, herbs, and a generous dash of red wine. The resulting portion was massive and was great with the baguette, though we couldn't finish it.
Rice-stuffed peppers: These were the most complex to make. You scooped out the inside of large peppers, keeping the stalk to use as a lid later. You then fill it with rice and meat and a few other things, but I kept it simple and just used brown rice, more whole tomato, and vegetable stock with a dash of saffron for colour and taste. It said to put the rice in raw and let it cook (through baking) using the juices of the pepper and stock, but I was afraid brown rice would cook incompletely so I parboiled it first. The baking time was very long, about 90 mins, but with parboiled rice I knew we could take it up after only about 45. Sadly, we forgot to take it up for at least 2 hours, and the peppers were looking pretty wrecked after that length of time. We were stuffed anyway, so left them for later. The next day, though, after adding the remains of the stock and baking for a little longer to heat them back up, they were surprisingly nice. The rice and stock mixture was tasty, and the walls of the pepper had melted into a kind of peppery mush which served as a good accompaniment. The only thing I'd say is that the rice probably needed the pork and onions that the recipe called for, but otherwise, it was A-OK.
All this was washed down with Spanish Faustino VII and some Oyster Bay from Kiwiland - and strawberries. Yummsy.