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| There are fresh fava beans on the bar, and the sign invites you to help yourself while you have a beer (cervecica in Murciano) |
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
You know you're in Murcia when...
Monday, January 28, 2013
Dorada del Mar Menor a la Sal
Despite living on an island, I only made fish in Sicily once. Early on a Saturday morning I walked up Balestrate's single main road and stopped at the seafood truck parked across from the enoteca offering wine on tap. I was set on buying a whole fish but knew I only wanted enough for a single portion. (My friend, having lost her taste for the bounty of the sea following countless hours of mussel de-bearding at a local restaurant, had declined my dinner invitation.) I spotted a crate filled with a smallish species and when I asked for just one the vendor didn't even bother weighing my purchase. After handing over a euro I located the empty water bottle in the bottom of my bag and crossed the street to have it filled with white wine for one euro more.
That night, with the double doors opened onto the piazza, Italian music videos playing from the little TV and my apron securely fastened, I was imagining a perfectly executed fillet, accompanied by my bulk wine and enjoyed on the balcony. I knew that having the right knife is imperative for prepping fish, but while my apartment came fully-furnished, a well-honed, sturdy but flexible blade had not been included alongside the set of dull steak knifes. The last thing I remember thinking was "ah, it can't make that much of a difference, right?" and from there things quickly devolved into the culinary equivalent of cutting one's own bangs; a little more here, a little more there, until there's practically nothing left and a shamefaced scramble to remedy the situation ensues. After disgracing the creature with my hack job, I ended up with about three tablespoons of fish pulp, but thanks to my properly stocked Sicilian pantry I had lots of breadcrumbs and pine nuts on hand to help salvage the remains. By then it was too cold to eat outside but I set the table for my impromptu fried fish cake, decanted fifty cents worth of the wine from its plastic container and finished off my first and last foray into Sicilian pesce.
Upon arriving in Murcia I started to hear about the Mar Menor--a nearby saltwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow sandbar and renowned for its fish and scampi. The cookbooks and tourism pamphlets talk about it like the Land of Oz, describing the splendor of crystal clear waters where gray mullet, monk fish and sea bass dance and the fishermen bring these "gods of the sea" to market every day. One of the first recipes that caught my eye was for Dorada, another exalted species from the Mar Menor, and I was determined to try my hand at whole fish again. I also knew there was a shop nearby that proudly specified the illustrious origin of its catch.
One of my favorite things about Spain is that a lot of the butchers and fishmongers here are women, and this pescadería has an all-female crew. After receiving advice on which Dorada to select when baking them in a salt crust, as well as a surprise free lemon in my bag, I set off with very little time to spare before lunch. After rushing home I realized all of the recipes I had were very clear about the baking time (20 minutes on the dot), but none of my books actually stated the temperature at which to bake them. Luckily Google España provided the answer and willing the oven to pre-heat at double speed I laid the fish on their bed of salt. I poured the rest of the bag on top, nuked some potatoes for a hurried version of smashed spuds and grabbed the container of roasted red peppers I had been marinating in garlic from the fridge.
The front door opened with four minutes still on the clock and knowing that Yolanda had hardly any time to eat that day, assured her she'd have a fork in hand soon. My oven timer finally went off and I was brushing the salt away with much anticipation when I heard "que barbaridad!"- one of my roommate's signature exclamatory remarks. In the context I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing but when I looked back she was just peering over my shoulder intently to observe, never having seen such a cooking method before in her life. (When I first met her and asked if she had any favorite family recipes she replied that her mom's specialty was buying pre-made meals.) Trying to hide my concern that the fish would be completely over or under cooked (my recipes detailed cracking open the crust before serving and my grains of salt hadn't even formed a thin shell) I put out our plates and went to work finishing the potatoes. Yolanda, with hands in her lap, was still staring blankly at her fish. She looked up at me like a kid working on a particularly difficult story problem involving locomotive speeds and asked "so..how do I start?" Holding my breath a little I pulled back the skin and was relieved to find that the Mar Menor had indeed delivered up "simplicidad y exquisitez, imposible", just like the reverent cookbook authors had promised.
As we ate I told Yolanda that a classic Murcian rice dish prepared with fish broth was on the docket for the following week and that our Dorada bones would make a perfect foundation. After listening to more of my seafood-based aspirations she gestured to the skeleton on her plate and with a sense of accomplishment said "y...al final!" showing me that despite her earlier hesitations about the large size of her portion she had picked it clean. I beamed, happy that she had enjoyed her lunch and that I was one step closer to boiling up my first fish stock. As she cleared the table I flipped open one of my cookbooks and thought wistfully about fish carcasses and bay leaves. A minute later the sound of the trash can popping open snapped me out of my daydream and I turned around just in time to see Yolanda absent-mindedly scraping the last of her Dorada bones into the bin. We both started laughing as she let out an impressively creative string of Spanish expletives, knowing how attached I can get to my endeavors in making local recipes from scratch. I taught her the phrase "no big deal" and began musing over the thought of a personal tutorial from the fishmonger, sorting through scraps with her and learning the best ones to use for my next dish from the Murcianos' salty little sea.
Dorada a la sal
Ingredients
1 Dorada (gilt-head bream) per person, about 14 oz each
Coarse sea salt
-Preheat oven to 335 degrees Fahrenheit
-Pour salt on baking sheet and pat down to form an even layer
-Lay the fish on top of the salt bed and use the rest to cover the fish completely
-Bake for 20 minutes, brush the salt off of the fish and serve
-Do not reuse salt
Roasted red peppers
Every recipe I've seen for roasted red peppers calls for placing them on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, but on a day when I had to use our one baking sheet for something else I found a couple of old ceramic dishes in a drawer and used those instead. Now I only use this method because it captures all the great juices from the peppers instead of losing them tragically to the foil.
Ingredients
2 red bell peppers
2 small cloves of garlic, sliced into very thin discs
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
-Preheat oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit
-Place the peppers in an enamel baking dish that holds them snugly
-Roast the peppers for 45 minutes to an hour, using tongs or two forks to make quarter turns as each side gets nice and blackened
-Put the peppers in a bowl and cover with a plate until cool
-Skin and seed the peppers
-Tear the peppers into strips with your hands and place them in a container
-Pour the accumulated roasting juices into the container
-Sprinkle with salt, add the garlic and pour in a little olive oil
-Stir all the ingredients together and keep in the fridge-the peppers are tasty right away and even better after left to marinate
 |
| Made this.. |
That night, with the double doors opened onto the piazza, Italian music videos playing from the little TV and my apron securely fastened, I was imagining a perfectly executed fillet, accompanied by my bulk wine and enjoyed on the balcony. I knew that having the right knife is imperative for prepping fish, but while my apartment came fully-furnished, a well-honed, sturdy but flexible blade had not been included alongside the set of dull steak knifes. The last thing I remember thinking was "ah, it can't make that much of a difference, right?" and from there things quickly devolved into the culinary equivalent of cutting one's own bangs; a little more here, a little more there, until there's practically nothing left and a shamefaced scramble to remedy the situation ensues. After disgracing the creature with my hack job, I ended up with about three tablespoons of fish pulp, but thanks to my properly stocked Sicilian pantry I had lots of breadcrumbs and pine nuts on hand to help salvage the remains. By then it was too cold to eat outside but I set the table for my impromptu fried fish cake, decanted fifty cents worth of the wine from its plastic container and finished off my first and last foray into Sicilian pesce.
Upon arriving in Murcia I started to hear about the Mar Menor--a nearby saltwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow sandbar and renowned for its fish and scampi. The cookbooks and tourism pamphlets talk about it like the Land of Oz, describing the splendor of crystal clear waters where gray mullet, monk fish and sea bass dance and the fishermen bring these "gods of the sea" to market every day. One of the first recipes that caught my eye was for Dorada, another exalted species from the Mar Menor, and I was determined to try my hand at whole fish again. I also knew there was a shop nearby that proudly specified the illustrious origin of its catch.
 |
| Pepper peelings |
The front door opened with four minutes still on the clock and knowing that Yolanda had hardly any time to eat that day, assured her she'd have a fork in hand soon. My oven timer finally went off and I was brushing the salt away with much anticipation when I heard "que barbaridad!"- one of my roommate's signature exclamatory remarks. In the context I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing but when I looked back she was just peering over my shoulder intently to observe, never having seen such a cooking method before in her life. (When I first met her and asked if she had any favorite family recipes she replied that her mom's specialty was buying pre-made meals.) Trying to hide my concern that the fish would be completely over or under cooked (my recipes detailed cracking open the crust before serving and my grains of salt hadn't even formed a thin shell) I put out our plates and went to work finishing the potatoes. Yolanda, with hands in her lap, was still staring blankly at her fish. She looked up at me like a kid working on a particularly difficult story problem involving locomotive speeds and asked "so..how do I start?" Holding my breath a little I pulled back the skin and was relieved to find that the Mar Menor had indeed delivered up "simplicidad y exquisitez, imposible", just like the reverent cookbook authors had promised.
 |
| With that |
As we ate I told Yolanda that a classic Murcian rice dish prepared with fish broth was on the docket for the following week and that our Dorada bones would make a perfect foundation. After listening to more of my seafood-based aspirations she gestured to the skeleton on her plate and with a sense of accomplishment said "y...al final!" showing me that despite her earlier hesitations about the large size of her portion she had picked it clean. I beamed, happy that she had enjoyed her lunch and that I was one step closer to boiling up my first fish stock. As she cleared the table I flipped open one of my cookbooks and thought wistfully about fish carcasses and bay leaves. A minute later the sound of the trash can popping open snapped me out of my daydream and I turned around just in time to see Yolanda absent-mindedly scraping the last of her Dorada bones into the bin. We both started laughing as she let out an impressively creative string of Spanish expletives, knowing how attached I can get to my endeavors in making local recipes from scratch. I taught her the phrase "no big deal" and began musing over the thought of a personal tutorial from the fishmonger, sorting through scraps with her and learning the best ones to use for my next dish from the Murcianos' salty little sea.
Dorada a la sal
Ingredients
1 Dorada (gilt-head bream) per person, about 14 oz each
Coarse sea salt
-Preheat oven to 335 degrees Fahrenheit
-Pour salt on baking sheet and pat down to form an even layer
-Lay the fish on top of the salt bed and use the rest to cover the fish completely
-Bake for 20 minutes, brush the salt off of the fish and serve
-Do not reuse salt
Roasted red peppers
Every recipe I've seen for roasted red peppers calls for placing them on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil, but on a day when I had to use our one baking sheet for something else I found a couple of old ceramic dishes in a drawer and used those instead. Now I only use this method because it captures all the great juices from the peppers instead of losing them tragically to the foil.
Ingredients
2 red bell peppers
2 small cloves of garlic, sliced into very thin discs
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
-Preheat oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit
-Place the peppers in an enamel baking dish that holds them snugly
-Roast the peppers for 45 minutes to an hour, using tongs or two forks to make quarter turns as each side gets nice and blackened
-Put the peppers in a bowl and cover with a plate until cool
-Skin and seed the peppers
-Tear the peppers into strips with your hands and place them in a container
-Pour the accumulated roasting juices into the container
-Sprinkle with salt, add the garlic and pour in a little olive oil
-Stir all the ingredients together and keep in the fridge-the peppers are tasty right away and even better after left to marinate
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
You know you're in Jaén when...
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| Your host orders fried bull's tail (tastes like chicken), and tells you it's a lot like the tried and true recipe she whips up at home |
Monday, January 21, 2013
Pastel de Carne :
Murcia's Culinary Crown Jewel
After spending two weeks in Granada with Yolanda and her family I've started back up with my Murcian routines-going to the market, attempting to read news articles in El Pais and stopping at the Espinosa Confitería before teaching English lessons in the Barrio del Carmen
The last time I went in one of the barmen greeted me with a half grin, said the equivalent of "ah, here you are-I thought we'd lost you" and asked what I'd like to drink now that I was back. I recalled a pre-holiday visit when an older patron sat down at the counter next to me, placed his order in a mumble and was served a little glass of tea, a packet of sugar and a bottle of whisky. The man took out the tea bag, emptied the sugar, tipped in half a jigger and slid the bottle back towards the waiter, who collected it nonchalantly on his next pass by the bar. I looked on and tried to recall any other time I'd seen that kind of serve yourself liquor
set-up. While tempting, I decided a "TéWhi" might not be the best decision before going over conditonal verb conjugations with my students.
During that same visit I had made my way through the hoard of people ordering trays of typical Christmas cookies like mantecados made with lard and almonds and roscos flavored with anise and sweet wine. Presiding over the hussle and bussle was Espinosa's mustachioed owner who always wears pressed shirts and peers over the tops of his glasses and looks like a character right out of a Tintin comic (perhaps as a seemingly stern banking
mogul who proves surprisngly helpful when the young reporter needs him most). Stationed in the open kitchen he was smoothing bright blue "FRAGILE" stickers onto boxes of holiday treats to be sent through the mail, some so big he had to lift with his knees to pick them up. At the same time the bakers were parading out a steady stream of pastries right from the oven, raising the trays above their heads to make their way through the narrow space leading to the display case.
Anticipating an onslaught of sugar in Granada I decided to go the savory route and ordered one of the foods Murcianos are most proud of--their version of the Pastel de Carne. The waiter slid a freshly baked one onto a small white plate and even from two yards away I could hear the glorious sound of paper thin pastry shattering as he cut it into quarters. Underneath all of those crispy layers is a tender crust filled with a finely chopped mix of veal and chorizo that's been seasoned simply and topped with slices of hard boiled egg.
By the time I was done I had amassed an impressive pile of crumpled napkins and managed to eat almost all the little pastry shards left on the plate without blatantly licking it clean. Next time I plan to go after my class so I can tuck into a Murcian meat pie along with that whiskey, and a little glass of tea.
The last time I went in one of the barmen greeted me with a half grin, said the equivalent of "ah, here you are-I thought we'd lost you" and asked what I'd like to drink now that I was back. I recalled a pre-holiday visit when an older patron sat down at the counter next to me, placed his order in a mumble and was served a little glass of tea, a packet of sugar and a bottle of whisky. The man took out the tea bag, emptied the sugar, tipped in half a jigger and slid the bottle back towards the waiter, who collected it nonchalantly on his next pass by the bar. I looked on and tried to recall any other time I'd seen that kind of serve yourself liquor
set-up. While tempting, I decided a "TéWhi" might not be the best decision before going over conditonal verb conjugations with my students.
 |
| Pastel de Carne Murciano at Espinosa |
mogul who proves surprisngly helpful when the young reporter needs him most). Stationed in the open kitchen he was smoothing bright blue "FRAGILE" stickers onto boxes of holiday treats to be sent through the mail, some so big he had to lift with his knees to pick them up. At the same time the bakers were parading out a steady stream of pastries right from the oven, raising the trays above their heads to make their way through the narrow space leading to the display case.
Anticipating an onslaught of sugar in Granada I decided to go the savory route and ordered one of the foods Murcianos are most proud of--their version of the Pastel de Carne. The waiter slid a freshly baked one onto a small white plate and even from two yards away I could hear the glorious sound of paper thin pastry shattering as he cut it into quarters. Underneath all of those crispy layers is a tender crust filled with a finely chopped mix of veal and chorizo that's been seasoned simply and topped with slices of hard boiled egg.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
You know you're in Spain when...
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| Two minutes after walking in the door you're offered chocolate milk and little cakes, and then a plate of jamón |
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Where there's only one way to fry
Menorahs aren't so easy to come by here but with a bag full of votive candles I made do for Hanukkah this year. After stumbling through an explanation of the miracle of lights in a combination of hand gestures and faltering Spanish (not too many vocab drills out there on biblical keywords), my roommate managed to gather that "Jewish Christmas" has something to do with oil. When I told her the festive foods revolve around frying, she was all for hosting a latke party.
I put Yolanda to work prepping homemade applesauce and filling bowls with Yogur Griego (subbed in for sour cream) while I started on the potato pancakes. I wanted to give her the full Hanukkah experience so I took her through the grating, the squeezing and the mixing. When I looked over and saw she was pressing on valiantly with the onions despite the burning tears in her eyes I decided not to tell her that I actually think latkes made from Manischewitz box mix taste better than homemade.
If it was going to be a party we were going to need dessert, and the obvious choice was traditional Hanukkah Sufganiyot-doughnuts filled with jam and rolled in sugar. After dinner I found some forgotten sunflower oil in the back of the cupboard, poured it into a big pot and starting cutting out circles of dough that had been rising on the counter all evening.
Yolanda came in to wash a stack of plates, saw the empty bottle and was physically taken aback. In the same endearing way she responds (as if the English language has personally betrayed her) when I try to explain that despite her years of education to the contrary, we don't actually say things like "queue" or "rubbish" in the USA, she threw up her hands and shook her head, dumbfounded.
With an unintentionally melodramatic flourish she knelt down to haul out the 5 kilo plastic jug of extra virgin olive oil her father replenishes when she visits home and set it down in front of me. The notion that I, or anyone else for that matter, would use oil from sunflowers rather than olives to fry with was completely baffling to her ("it's very strange to see this, do you know?!") but I was able to talk her down with the promise that I would never prepare doughnuts in such an heretical fat again.
A couple weeks later we went to see her relatives in Granada for the holidays, and just like coming downstairs to see your parents showing embarrassing baby pictures to your middle-school boyfriend, I realized she was recounting the episode to the entire table while I was getting more napkins from the kitchen. They all had a good laugh over my preposterous frying habits and then her dad leaned over and give me a good-natured pat on the back, just glad to see that I had been converted.
I put Yolanda to work prepping homemade applesauce and filling bowls with Yogur Griego (subbed in for sour cream) while I started on the potato pancakes. I wanted to give her the full Hanukkah experience so I took her through the grating, the squeezing and the mixing. When I looked over and saw she was pressing on valiantly with the onions despite the burning tears in her eyes I decided not to tell her that I actually think latkes made from Manischewitz box mix taste better than homemade.
If it was going to be a party we were going to need dessert, and the obvious choice was traditional Hanukkah Sufganiyot-doughnuts filled with jam and rolled in sugar. After dinner I found some forgotten sunflower oil in the back of the cupboard, poured it into a big pot and starting cutting out circles of dough that had been rising on the counter all evening.
Yolanda came in to wash a stack of plates, saw the empty bottle and was physically taken aback. In the same endearing way she responds (as if the English language has personally betrayed her) when I try to explain that despite her years of education to the contrary, we don't actually say things like "queue" or "rubbish" in the USA, she threw up her hands and shook her head, dumbfounded.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
You know you're in Valencia when...
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| They request that you call ahead to order your paella, and it's because they're doing this |
Monday, January 14, 2013
You know you're in Valencia when...
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| Roasted pumpkin, completely unadorned, holds top billing in the pastry case and you can order as much, or as little, as you like |
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
You know you're in Spain when...
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| You meet three generations of a family over the course of a tapas route and even the toddler is eating jamón at 2am |
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