Market day

From week one, when Isidro gave me a quick discourse on Spanish cheeses while laying out thin slices of jamón on wax paper and Paco offered pickled caper stems to try, I've been loyal to my charcutería and olive vendors.  I've also landed on my man for marcona almonds (I could have gone either way until he showed up last week with an endearing salt and pepper beard and also seemed to recognize me) but I'm still in the midst of trying out different fruit and vegetable stands.

This week's haul

For the past few weeks I've walked by a vendor who with grey hair, black mustache, rugged plaid button down and all beckons market goers to his stand with a deep, resounding call that would be the pride of any rhetoric teacher.  He's been selling mostly cauliflower lately, but since I had Yolanda's at home for a recent coliflor al horno recipe, I haven't had any need.  I had noticed a lot of recipes in my Murcian cookbooks calling for ajo tierno, and via vocab charades Enca was able to explain that they're what we call green onions.  When I passed by the booth this week it was piled high with them and I stepped right up, but since we're leaving for Granada this weekend to celebrate the holidays I knew I didn't need much.

Made these..

I should have known from the vendor's steady bray of "uno, un euro-uno, un regalo!" (one for one euro and one as a gift) that he means business when it comes to offloading his bounty.  As I was attempting to ask if I could get two bunches rather than the standard four tied together at the top, the old woman next to me was actually handing back the extra celery the vendor had put in her sack, but gave up when he responded with the equivalent of "no, no, take it, it's for your boyfriend!"  She smiled over to me when she realized what I was hoping for and with a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head confirmed that there was no use in in trying.

With this..

At that, the vendor had swept up the four bunches in front of me, ripped off the tops with a flourish and thrust them into a plastic bag. He handed them over with  the wide smile of a used (or rather "pre-owned") car salesman that left no room for asking "could I just take half?"  When he handed back my change I realized that I was so conditioned to his one euro refrain that I hadn't checked the price on the ajo tierno.  Turns out they were twice as much, and on a very strict 10 euro market day limit, being out 2 euro right off the bat felt like a crushing blow to my reserves.

But after some very selective purchasing, I had picked up what I needed for lunch plus a little Manchego from Isidro and a small container of spicy green olives with garlic from Paco, a few ounces of marconas and the cheapest apples I could find. I then passed by an underclothes vendor who was pulling a pair of tights over both his beefy arms and up to his chest, gesturing to a potential (and very pregnant) customer with his girded hands and showing her just how stretchy his wares could be. With the lure of cheap leggings at my back I pressed on to my last stop.  When I held forward a single lemon the vendor looked down and asked "algo mas?", puzzled at the notion of someone coming to the weekly market and only getting enough citrus for one day. When I shook my head no and then tried to pass him some coins, he held up his hand, leaned back on his stool and replied to my "oh, gracias..Feliz Navidad!" with a little nod and a faint grin.

and that

For lunch I got through more of our chickpea surplus and a red pepper that was starting to get wrinkly by using them in a salad with herbs and the olives I got from Paco's stand last week.  As that stood on the counter to marinate, I cooked up Yolanda's extra mushrooms and soaked the dried ñora peppers I had bought in my first week here, without any idea of exactly how to use them.  The peppers aren't spicy at all-just sweet and meaty and I realized what the recipe was getting at once they softened and I could scrape out their brick red flesh onto the cutting board. When Enca got home and saw what I was making she said her ex-boyfriend used to drop ñoras into stews for flavor and then spoon out their pulp and spread it on toast with a little olive oil.  I had an urge to defrost a slice of bread and fish out pieces of the pepper right there, but I kept cooking everything down into a glossy sauce for the mushrooms instead.

We all sat down and went to work finishing off the chickpea salad--leftovers weren't an option.  I'm continuing to make my way through our excess garbanzos and there are more destined for the stovetop today.

Champiñones Murciana

Yield: Side dish for 2
Ingredients
1 ñora pepper
Hot water
Extra virgin olive oil
1 1/4 inch thick slice of chorizo, finely diced
1/2 of a small onion, finely diced
6 cloves of garlic, ends cut off, smashed with the flat side of a chef's knife and peels removed
About 8 large white button mushrooms, sliced
Salt

-Cut the ñora pepper in half and place in a small bowl
-Pour hot water over the pepper just to cover and let soak for about 20 minutes
-Heat the chorizo in a pan and when some of the fat has rendered and the pieces have crisped up, add a bit of olive oil
-Add in the onion and cook with the chorizo until the onion has browned, then set aside the chorizo and onion
-Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in the same pan and add in the smashed cloves of garlic, cooking over medium-low heat until they start to brown
-Add in the mushrooms and cook for a couple minutes, then add back the chorizo and onion and continue cooking over medium-high heat for several minutes, until the mushrooms have released their moisture and have browned well
-Meanwhile, remove the ñora peppers from the water, but do not discard the soaking liquid
-Remove the stem and seeds from each half and then, using the back of a butter knife or spoon, scrape out the now soft flesh from the inside of the pepper and then run your knife through the pulp a few times
-Reserve about half of the soaking liquid for another dish and add back the pepper flesh into the remaining water
-Pour into the pan to deglaze and continue to cook until the water has almost all evaporated

Chickpea salad

Yield: Side dish for 3
Ingredients
A small handful of finely diced green onion
A small handful of chopped parsley
A small handful of chopped fresh mint
A small handful of small black cuquillo olives (or other black olive variety), chopped
Juice from half a lemon
Zest from half a lemon
Salt
Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
1 16oz. can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, (if using dried chickpeas, soak about 8oz. for 12 hours, then     boil with a bit of salt for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until tender)
1 red bell pepper, roasted, with skins and seeds removed, liquid reserved and cut into thin strips

-Mix all ingredients together in a bowl (including the liquid reserved from roasting the pepper)