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| You find yourself making brownies in a paella pan |
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
You know you're in Murcia when...
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| You make up a big pot of winter stew for a hearty hot lunch, and end up rolling back the sun shade and eating outside |
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Doctor's orders
With a friend visiting from Andalucía we planned a weekend fiesta complete with crispy fried corn nuts, Murcian Estrella and big plates of paella. As lunchtime neared we found out one of our guests would be late, but another assured us there was no cause for concern. Andrés had brought red wine and jamón and with those provisions we could wait indefinitely. When he retrieved the goods from his trunk it was not a package of sliced ham from the butcher that he carried in with the bottles. It was a whole leg, from his counter to ours. When he removed the kitchen towel draped over the jamón's cutting surface I noticed it wasn't a carved out curve but a straight line from end to end.
A doctor at one of the local hospitals, Andrés told me he sees a huge spike in jamón-related injuries around Christmas time, when patriarchs everywhere are setting out festive spreads for their families. As he demonstrated, the slicing stance involves one arm dedicated to stabilizing while the other works away; it's all too easy for an exhausted cutting hand to accidentally jump its track and meet the other with full force. In order to avoid such incidents Andrés always notches out a deep right angle near the hoof, creating a vertical barrier to keep stray knife strokes at bay--a practice I was very thankful for when he handed the just- sharpened blade over to me.
 |
| All for calming restless party guests, staving off hunger and imparting jamón-slicing wisdom to enthusiastic Americans. But first, do no harm. |
A doctor at one of the local hospitals, Andrés told me he sees a huge spike in jamón-related injuries around Christmas time, when patriarchs everywhere are setting out festive spreads for their families. As he demonstrated, the slicing stance involves one arm dedicated to stabilizing while the other works away; it's all too easy for an exhausted cutting hand to accidentally jump its track and meet the other with full force. In order to avoid such incidents Andrés always notches out a deep right angle near the hoof, creating a vertical barrier to keep stray knife strokes at bay--a practice I was very thankful for when he handed the just- sharpened blade over to me.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Hake with Salsa Verde
When people here ask why I love food so much I tell them it's because my Mother is a chocolatier, my brother and I grew up watching the Frugal Gourmet and that our family lore often revolves around subjects like chicken stock.
When I was little, my mom didn't make her stock according to how many soups or stews it would yield but rather the number of small armies it could feed. She boiled up these big batches in order to freeze them and always opted for ice cube trays rather than large containers for the job. She's never been one to stand by waiting as something akin to a poultry flavored curling stone defrosted slowly on the counter.
For their third date, my mom prepared a homemade dinner for my dad. Trying to be useful, he set to work washing dishes and the ensuing tale involves very clean ice cube trays and not a drop of stock. When they realized what had happened they both burst out laughing and fell in love with each other even more.
From my mom´s signature stock cubes to getting quizzed on kitchen basics while working at a restaurant in Colorado, I have always thought of stock-making as a serious project. For me it calls to mind firing up a flame under an heirloom Le Creuset, quartering aromatics with a few clean chops and tying up a neat little sachet of spices. Then, lowering in the noble remains of a heritage chicken or wild fish and standing sentinel by the stove, wooden spoon at the ready to skim off foam at the slightest gathering of bubbles.
When I headed to the other side of Murcia for my first lesson in paella, my friend Maria del Mar explained that the very first step, and one of the most important, is preparing a pot of stock (caldo en Español) that corresponds with the principal protein in the dish. We were making a seafood paella so it would be our fish stock that lent an essential layer of flavor to the rice. But as crucial as a good caldo was, it turned out not to have anything to do with expensive enamel cookware, cheesecloth or textbook ingredients.
I've always heard that the cardinal rule for fish broth is to avoid oily species at all costs, but salmon is what Maria del Mar and her family had eaten the day before, so salmon scraps it would be. She added some other various bones from her stash in the freezer, poured in mineral water from a big jug on the counter, spooned in a little salt and that was all. No white wine, no bay leaves, no peppercorns or sliced leeks. As we prepped the rest of the ingredients she recommended dedicating freezer space to a fish bone collection of my own, culled from whatever dishes I happen to make. But, she told me, if I wanted to go for gold and simmer up the king of stocks, then it was monkfish I was after. When we wrapped up lunch at 7:30pm I reasoned that if a species normally blacklisted from stock pots had resulted in something that tasty, anything made with monkfish broth had to be stellar.
While paella is traditional all over Spain, another rice dish called Caldero is one of Murcia's most prized specialties. It too calls for caldo de pescado, and if I was going to attempt it, it would be with fish stock of the highest caliber. Maria del Mar said the fishmonger near her house always had bags of monkfish heads and bones available, but while a frozen variety pack sounded convenient I figured that if the skeletons were so sought after, the flesh was more than worth trying.
When Yolanda told me she had invited a friend over for lunch the following day, my ears perked up. Partly at the chance to practice "getting to know you" phrases in Spanish, but even more so at the prospect of tasting such a highly acclaimed fish and reaping a pile of its bones at the same time. No disembodied monkfish from the freezer case for me--I was going to buy one whole and take notes on procedure as the fishmonger broke it all down. After paging through three different Murcian cookbooks I landed on a recipe for monkfish cooked gently in lemon sauce. We had almost all of the ingredients on hand already, so I could devote my budget to the fish itself.
The next morning I made my usual rounds for fruit and vegetables at the weekly market, then joined a larger than average crowd in front of my favorite husband and wife charcuterie team. Isidro and Patricia gave me a primer on Manchego varieties during my first trip to the market and I've only had eyes for their mobile meat and cheese trailer ever since. At this point they know my standard order (five slices of serrano), my preferred ham to fat ratio and that when I´m really splurging I'll spring for 200 grams of Queso Murciano. The stand is always busy, but the extra wait-time traced right to an elderly couple selecting a whole leg of jamón from the rafters.
Their agreement on the final pick triggered an all out cured meat montage and I watched on, captivated. Following Isidro's multi-step process from my spot in line, I imagined Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" playing triumphantly in the background from start to finish.
With swift precision and even grace he shifted fluidly between two work surfaces, alternated between various blades and band saw settings and paused part way through to run a hunk of the jamón under his nose as if it were a Cuban cigar. When he was done, everything was set side by side on the counter: rough pieces chopped for sauce, a stack of discs portioned from the bone for stew, paper thin slices pre-cut for a party and the rest of the leg ready for mounting on the family ham stand and slicing at will. As the couple walked away with taught plastic bags full of neatly folded white packages and a sturdy cardboard box housing their jamón, I realized it was almost my turn to order. On 5€ a day and only two mouths to feed, I would be sticking with my five slices and nada más, but at least I would soon have the entirety of a monkfish in my possession, its various parts split up into little packages of my own.
I strode into the fish shop with that image in mind, but walking up to the ice packed display I realized that rather than being shaped conveniently in the form of three lunch-sized portions bookended by a head and a tail, monkfish are actually quite large. Coming to terms with the fact that carting home a sizable animal of any kind was not in my near future, I turned my attention to recipe advice. The fishmonger had never heard of the lemon sauce I had selected and decided to call in reinforcement, beckoning over a white-haired customer by name. With one look at the cookbook in my hand the woman decided I was in need of some real guidance and pivoted from her spot in line to stand next to me, elbow to elbow. First things first, she needed to know how many people I was cooking for. Three? In that case, it was hake I wanted, not monkfish-a point she made clear by gesturing between their two price tags. And if I really wanted to do hake justice, I'd dredge it in flour, cook it gently in a terracotta cazuela along with peas and tomatoes and finish everything off with a little white wine, of course. I nodded and smiled, but figuring I'd exceed my daily budget with the protein alone, I knew there would be insufficient funds for any extraneous ingredients.
Based on the price per kilo I realized that the only monkfish parts I would be able to afford were those without meat anyhow, so my future caldero would be made with frozen scraps after all. I was about to abandon the most basic element of the original meal, but at least my recipe research hadn't been completely in vain. The fish would change but the sauce would stay the same-lemons were only 10 cents a pop.
A block further down the road I stopped into a produce shop and when I handed over my single piece of citrus the young man behind the counter asked what big plans I had in store for my purchase. I flipped open my cookbook and slid it over to him with the preface that I had just switched species and he ran over the recipe with his index finger while reading the ingredients quietly to himself. He commented politely that my choice sounded like a nice idea, but while ringing up the lemon he leaned over the counter and said that when it came to hake, salsa verde was really the way to go. All it took to replicate his mother's go-to accompaniment was parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt, lemon juice and a sturdy mortar and pestle.
With that I let go of the last remnant of my initial plan, scrapped the bus ticket I'd been using as a placeholder and put the cookbook back in my bag. As I dug around for my coin purse the shopkeeper listed off the necessary ingredients again to make sure I had everything I needed and started gathering up a hefty handful of parsley. When I told him I had just bought some at the market he said "ah, we have too much anyway" and kept selecting leafy stems from the tall container near the register. It was clear I'd be taking the parsley but when I asked him for the price he hardly acknowledged the question. He had already shared his family recipe and let me offload a stack of one-cent coins for likely his smallest sale of the day, but he stopped me between "muchas" and "gracias", waving off my thanks with a smile. With an outstretched arm he urged me on, giving the green bouquet a shake in my direction. "Go on, take it!" he said. "It will give you good luck!"
I had given up monkfish for hake, scrapped lemon sauce for herb paste and our main dish was tepid by the time our guest turned up late, but the parsley proved lucky indeed--when everyone asked for a second helping, I needed every last leaf.
Hake with Salsa Verde
(Note: If you happen to be searching for hake in Spain, here it's called merluza)
Yield: Main dish for 4
Ingredients
For the fish:
Extra virgin olive oil
4 pieces of hake (about 200g each)
Salt
Flour
Pimentón
-Pat fish with paper towel to remove extra moisture and season with salt on both sides
-Dredge in flour mixed with a little pimentón
-Heat olive oil in a pan until hot but not smoking
-Cook fish for just a few minutes on each side, until flesh flakes apart easily
For the salsa verde:
2 large bunches of parsley, all stems removed and leaves roughly chopped (you may end up needing more)
2 or more garlic cloves, roughly chopped
Salt to taste
Lemon juice to taste (the shopkeeper said that here in Murcia, where lemons grow everywhere, it's typical to use quite a bit of juice, but use as much or as little as you like)
Extra virgin olive oil
-Add all ingredients except olive oil into a mortar and pestle and work until paste begins to form
-Drizzle in olive oil until you reach the consistency you like-I keep mine quite thick
(For a smoother paste, use the same method but with an immersion blender instead of a mortar and pestle)
-When the salsa verde is finished, transfer it to a bowl and swirl more olive oil around the inside of the mortar, using a spoon or spatula to scrape any remaining parsley or garlic bits into the oil. Reserve this infused oil and use it in dressings, on top of steamed potatoes etc.
When I was little, my mom didn't make her stock according to how many soups or stews it would yield but rather the number of small armies it could feed. She boiled up these big batches in order to freeze them and always opted for ice cube trays rather than large containers for the job. She's never been one to stand by waiting as something akin to a poultry flavored curling stone defrosted slowly on the counter.
For their third date, my mom prepared a homemade dinner for my dad. Trying to be useful, he set to work washing dishes and the ensuing tale involves very clean ice cube trays and not a drop of stock. When they realized what had happened they both burst out laughing and fell in love with each other even more.
 |
| Made this.. |
From my mom´s signature stock cubes to getting quizzed on kitchen basics while working at a restaurant in Colorado, I have always thought of stock-making as a serious project. For me it calls to mind firing up a flame under an heirloom Le Creuset, quartering aromatics with a few clean chops and tying up a neat little sachet of spices. Then, lowering in the noble remains of a heritage chicken or wild fish and standing sentinel by the stove, wooden spoon at the ready to skim off foam at the slightest gathering of bubbles.
When I headed to the other side of Murcia for my first lesson in paella, my friend Maria del Mar explained that the very first step, and one of the most important, is preparing a pot of stock (caldo en Español) that corresponds with the principal protein in the dish. We were making a seafood paella so it would be our fish stock that lent an essential layer of flavor to the rice. But as crucial as a good caldo was, it turned out not to have anything to do with expensive enamel cookware, cheesecloth or textbook ingredients.
 |
| Maria del Mar |
While paella is traditional all over Spain, another rice dish called Caldero is one of Murcia's most prized specialties. It too calls for caldo de pescado, and if I was going to attempt it, it would be with fish stock of the highest caliber. Maria del Mar said the fishmonger near her house always had bags of monkfish heads and bones available, but while a frozen variety pack sounded convenient I figured that if the skeletons were so sought after, the flesh was more than worth trying.
 |
| Cooking up seafood paella with fish broth |
When Yolanda told me she had invited a friend over for lunch the following day, my ears perked up. Partly at the chance to practice "getting to know you" phrases in Spanish, but even more so at the prospect of tasting such a highly acclaimed fish and reaping a pile of its bones at the same time. No disembodied monkfish from the freezer case for me--I was going to buy one whole and take notes on procedure as the fishmonger broke it all down. After paging through three different Murcian cookbooks I landed on a recipe for monkfish cooked gently in lemon sauce. We had almost all of the ingredients on hand already, so I could devote my budget to the fish itself.
The next morning I made my usual rounds for fruit and vegetables at the weekly market, then joined a larger than average crowd in front of my favorite husband and wife charcuterie team. Isidro and Patricia gave me a primer on Manchego varieties during my first trip to the market and I've only had eyes for their mobile meat and cheese trailer ever since. At this point they know my standard order (five slices of serrano), my preferred ham to fat ratio and that when I´m really splurging I'll spring for 200 grams of Queso Murciano. The stand is always busy, but the extra wait-time traced right to an elderly couple selecting a whole leg of jamón from the rafters.
 |
| Patricia and Isidro |
With swift precision and even grace he shifted fluidly between two work surfaces, alternated between various blades and band saw settings and paused part way through to run a hunk of the jamón under his nose as if it were a Cuban cigar. When he was done, everything was set side by side on the counter: rough pieces chopped for sauce, a stack of discs portioned from the bone for stew, paper thin slices pre-cut for a party and the rest of the leg ready for mounting on the family ham stand and slicing at will. As the couple walked away with taught plastic bags full of neatly folded white packages and a sturdy cardboard box housing their jamón, I realized it was almost my turn to order. On 5€ a day and only two mouths to feed, I would be sticking with my five slices and nada más, but at least I would soon have the entirety of a monkfish in my possession, its various parts split up into little packages of my own.
I strode into the fish shop with that image in mind, but walking up to the ice packed display I realized that rather than being shaped conveniently in the form of three lunch-sized portions bookended by a head and a tail, monkfish are actually quite large. Coming to terms with the fact that carting home a sizable animal of any kind was not in my near future, I turned my attention to recipe advice. The fishmonger had never heard of the lemon sauce I had selected and decided to call in reinforcement, beckoning over a white-haired customer by name. With one look at the cookbook in my hand the woman decided I was in need of some real guidance and pivoted from her spot in line to stand next to me, elbow to elbow. First things first, she needed to know how many people I was cooking for. Three? In that case, it was hake I wanted, not monkfish-a point she made clear by gesturing between their two price tags. And if I really wanted to do hake justice, I'd dredge it in flour, cook it gently in a terracotta cazuela along with peas and tomatoes and finish everything off with a little white wine, of course. I nodded and smiled, but figuring I'd exceed my daily budget with the protein alone, I knew there would be insufficient funds for any extraneous ingredients.
Based on the price per kilo I realized that the only monkfish parts I would be able to afford were those without meat anyhow, so my future caldero would be made with frozen scraps after all. I was about to abandon the most basic element of the original meal, but at least my recipe research hadn't been completely in vain. The fish would change but the sauce would stay the same-lemons were only 10 cents a pop.
 |
| With that |
A block further down the road I stopped into a produce shop and when I handed over my single piece of citrus the young man behind the counter asked what big plans I had in store for my purchase. I flipped open my cookbook and slid it over to him with the preface that I had just switched species and he ran over the recipe with his index finger while reading the ingredients quietly to himself. He commented politely that my choice sounded like a nice idea, but while ringing up the lemon he leaned over the counter and said that when it came to hake, salsa verde was really the way to go. All it took to replicate his mother's go-to accompaniment was parsley, garlic, olive oil, salt, lemon juice and a sturdy mortar and pestle.
With that I let go of the last remnant of my initial plan, scrapped the bus ticket I'd been using as a placeholder and put the cookbook back in my bag. As I dug around for my coin purse the shopkeeper listed off the necessary ingredients again to make sure I had everything I needed and started gathering up a hefty handful of parsley. When I told him I had just bought some at the market he said "ah, we have too much anyway" and kept selecting leafy stems from the tall container near the register. It was clear I'd be taking the parsley but when I asked him for the price he hardly acknowledged the question. He had already shared his family recipe and let me offload a stack of one-cent coins for likely his smallest sale of the day, but he stopped me between "muchas" and "gracias", waving off my thanks with a smile. With an outstretched arm he urged me on, giving the green bouquet a shake in my direction. "Go on, take it!" he said. "It will give you good luck!"
I had given up monkfish for hake, scrapped lemon sauce for herb paste and our main dish was tepid by the time our guest turned up late, but the parsley proved lucky indeed--when everyone asked for a second helping, I needed every last leaf.
Hake with Salsa Verde
(Note: If you happen to be searching for hake in Spain, here it's called merluza)
Yield: Main dish for 4
Ingredients
For the fish:
Extra virgin olive oil
4 pieces of hake (about 200g each)
Salt
Flour
Pimentón
-Pat fish with paper towel to remove extra moisture and season with salt on both sides
-Dredge in flour mixed with a little pimentón
-Heat olive oil in a pan until hot but not smoking
-Cook fish for just a few minutes on each side, until flesh flakes apart easily
For the salsa verde:
2 large bunches of parsley, all stems removed and leaves roughly chopped (you may end up needing more)
2 or more garlic cloves, roughly chopped
Salt to taste
Lemon juice to taste (the shopkeeper said that here in Murcia, where lemons grow everywhere, it's typical to use quite a bit of juice, but use as much or as little as you like)
Extra virgin olive oil
-Add all ingredients except olive oil into a mortar and pestle and work until paste begins to form
-Drizzle in olive oil until you reach the consistency you like-I keep mine quite thick
(For a smoother paste, use the same method but with an immersion blender instead of a mortar and pestle)
-When the salsa verde is finished, transfer it to a bowl and swirl more olive oil around the inside of the mortar, using a spoon or spatula to scrape any remaining parsley or garlic bits into the oil. Reserve this infused oil and use it in dressings, on top of steamed potatoes etc.
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