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~ culinary and horticultural life on a Spanish farm

Monthly Archives: March 2012

Green Aliolli

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by fincafood in Sauces

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Garlic Mayonnaise

Some French cooks have laid claim to mayonnaise being an invention of theirs, but there is no logic to this claim. Notwithstanding that Mahon, which is the origin of Salsa Mahonesa, and thence Mayonnaise, is a port on the Island of Menorca in the Baleriac Islands of Spain, but spanish cuisine is rich with oil based sauces. There are several types of Aliolli which is a sauce flavoured with garlic, then there is Salsa Romesco flavoured with dried peppers and garlic and thicken with almonds which is served with shellfish, plus a myriad of green sauces with different combinations of herbs, garlic and chillies that are used to enliven everything that can be grilled, from spatchcocked quail to lamb chops to ‘Secreto de Cerdo’ (the secret bit of pork) in the meat range plus every type of fish.

I would like to lead you through the range of Aliollis. I am not going to start with the most basic, which is made by pounding garlic cloves and salt in a mortar with a pestle, and then slowly adding extra virgen olive oil until you have a thick sauce, for the simple reason that at this time of the year the dry garlic has been in store for quite some time and is not at its best for eating uncooked. The best garlic at the moment is spring garlic, with which one makes a light sweet Aliolli that is a beautiful pale green colour.

This sauce uses all of the egg and sunflower oil rather than olive. If you have had Aliolli in a restaurant while visiting spain, wether it was made with green garlic or the while cloves, the chances are that it was made this way. The texture of this Aliolli is much more solid and light at the same time than when using olive oil.Image

The other key thing to mention before you get started, is that all your ingredients must be at room temperature or above for the sauce to thicken. It is impossible to make any sort of oil based sauce with cold ingredients.

GREEN ALIOLLI

4 Spring garlic

I large egg

pinch of salt

300 ml sunflower oilImage

Clean off the outside layer and any tough green leaves of your garlics and then wash them. Chop them into chunks and put into the food processor, then blitz them to cut them up.

Add the egg and the pinch of salt. Process to cut the garlics smaller and mix the egg well.

Very slowly add the oil. It is ideal if your processor has a tube where you can add the oil as the mixer is on. If the sauce looks thin at any time, stop adding the oil until it thickens again.

Eat your sauce with crusty bread instead of butter, as a dressing on plain boiled potato cubes, with fish, with pork chops, with………..

The Dinner that Started it all……

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by fincafood in Starters, Sweet Things

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Bitter Chocolate Sauce, Butternut squash, coffee meringue, ice cream sundae, ravioli

This is the meal that inspired my friend Gines to insist that I start to write a diary of what I cook, which then led on to this blog, so I thought you would be interested to see the menu and recipes for this dinner.

The starter was Butternut Squash Ravioli served with Lemon and Sage Butter. The tartness of the lemon in the sauce cuts thought wonderfully the sweetness of the butternut squash. In the photo I have garnished the ravioli with some fried artchoke slices – just in case you were wondering what it was.

After a soft textured and saucy starter the main course needed to be something crunchy. I always have a selection of salads in the vegetable patch, so a crispy green salad to accompany a nice fat piece of grilled fish, salmon in this instance.

For dessert a grown up sundae. Vanilla ice cream, bitter chocolate sauce, rum soaked raisins topped with a coffee meringue and maple syrup. I see no shame in using a good shop bought vanilla ice cream as the basis for this type of dessert. Buy a sample tub from each of your local supermarkets to see which you like best, it may not be the one you expect. My favourite comes from a well known German supermarket chain.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH RAVIOLI

For 4 people

The pasta – 40 grammes 00 flour

2 large egg yolks

good pinch of salt

The filling – Half a medium sized butternut squash

30 grammes butter

2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

an egg white

50 grammes grated cheese

Salt and pepper

Another egg white for sticking the ravioli

The sage and lemon butter

                   50 grammes butter

                   grated zest and juice of half a large lemon

                    teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage

To serve – finely grated parmesan cheese

Firstly make the pasta. Put all of the pasta ingredients into a small food processor and blitz until you have a lumpy dough that will stick together. Remove dough and form into a ball. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge until needed.

The filling. Peel and deseed the butternut squash and cut into rough cubes about 2cm square. Place in a saucepan with the butter. Cover and gently stew in its own moisture until tender, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking.When done put in the food processor and puree. Add the egg white, breadcrumbs and seasonings. Pulse to mix. Add the grated cheese and pulse again. Check seasonings. Put aside in the fridge for the breadcrumbs to absorb the moisture and bind the mixture.

Using a pasta machine roll the pasta in the usual way and roll into thin sheets – number 7 on my machine.  Cut into squares of the desired size – mine usually end up about 5 cm square. Put a blob of the butternut mixture in the centre of the squares, brush with egg white around the edges, put another square on top and gently squeeze the edges together. Dust liberally with flour and put in a tray in the fridge until needed.

Prepare the sage and lemon butter. Put all ingredients in a saucepan. Cover until needed.

All the above can be prepared some time in advance. Shortly before serving bring to the boil a large pan of water to which you have added salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. When boiling add the ravioli – they will only need three or four minutes to cook. Meanwhile put the sage and lemon butter on a low heat and swirl regularly to combine the ingredients. You do not want this to boil, only heat enough to amalgamate the ingredients then turn off the heat. Drain the ravioli and add to the pan containing the butter and swirl around to coat the ravioli.

Serve on warm plates and sprinkle with finely grated parmesan.

SOPHISTICATED SUNDAE

 Vanilla ice cream, raisins soaked in rum, bitter chocolate sauce topped with a coffee meringue and maple syrup. This turned out to be an absolute wow with my guests. Remember to put your sundae dishes in the freezer to chill them down at least two hours before they will be needed. They look so pretty with the frosting of condensation on the cool glass and help keep the sundae from melting before it gets to your guests.

For  coffee meringues for four, beat 5 egg whites until really stiff having added about half way through the beating half a sachet of instant expresso coffee powder. To this I beat in 250 grammes of caster sugar.

To bake the meringues, heat the oven to 180 degrees F. Line your baking tray with baking paper and make mounds of meringue. This amount of mixture made 14 – more than was needed – but they do keep.

Once the oven is hot put in the meringues and turn the oven down immediately to 140 F. Bake for one hour by which time they should be crisp and crunchy on the outside and still a bit gooey on the inside. Let cool before removing them from the tray and using or storing.

It is very easy to make your own chocolate sauce and it gives you control over the sweetness or richness that you want for your dish.

For this sauce put a couple of heaped tablespoons of good cocoa powder – the unsweeted one – in a small saucepan and add black coffee bit by bit to make a thin sauce. At this stage add a dessert spoon of brown sugar. Heat slowly until the sauce comes to the boil. Continue cooking on a low heat for 20 minutes stirring regularly. The sauce will thicken and darken during this cooking time. If you think that it is too thick add a bit more coffee. Taste the sauce and add more sugar to your taste if you like but stir the sugar in well to dissolve it.

Once cooled this sauce will keep quite a long time in a jar in the fridge. It can also be frozen for an intense sorbet. If you want a richer sauce to serve hot you can add a knob of butter at the beginning.

To assemble the sundae start with a spoon of the vanilla ice cream, a dribble of chocolate sauce, a spoon of raisins with some of their rum. Repeat these layers then top with a coffee meringue and a drizzle of the maple syrup. Enjoy!

Artichokes with Ham

03 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by fincafood in Starters

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Put some extra virgen olive oil into a shallow pan and heat slowly. Finely slice the artichokes and immediately put into the hot pan in a single layer. Work as quickly as you can, putting each artichoke into the pan as soon as it is sliced before it has the time to discolour. Once you have all your artichokes in the pan start to turn them over and toss them. At this point the heat can be turned up a little to cook the artichokes more briskly. Add more oil if you think that the contents of the pan are too dry..

Have ready sliced and cut into bite sized pieces some Serrano or Parma Ham. Add to the artichokes and continue cooking. The artichokes taste best if they are allowed to brown a little and to crisp slightly round the edges. Check the seasoning and add salt as necessary. Serve on warmed plates.

Globe Artichokes

03 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by fincafood in Techniques

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I have Globe Artichokes in my veg patch, but mine are a late variety and so are not ready yet. Every year I say that I am going to put in a few plants of an earlier variety and every year I don’t get round to it. So as I am impatient to eat artichokes I will just have to go to the market and buy some.

Some of you out there are still quite fazed by this tasty and versatile vegetable, not helped by the styles of growing and preparing them being different in each country that grows them. I will take you through how to select, prepare and cook artichokes in the manner that is done here in Spain.

The part of the artichoke plant that is generally eaten is the flower bud. For these to be tender you want to select smallish tightly closed buds. If the buds are opening in the centre then the hairy choke has developed too much and does not make for pleasant eating. Another point to bear in mind is that the early season artichokes that are in the markets when the weather is still quite cold will be much more tender than the late season ones. As soon as the weather starts to really heat up then the artichokes will toughen to protect themselves against the heat.

When it comes to preparing the artichokes, you have to do it fast as any cut parts discolour quite quickly. You can put them into water acidulated with lemon juice, but if you are going to fry them as we are today, then you want them dry.

Firstly cut the stalk about a centimeter below the bud. Then start pulling of the tough outer petals from the bottom. You will know when you have pulled off enough and reached the tender part of the artichoke as the flesh of the petals changes colour to a much paler green as in the photo below.

Then you cut off the tips of the petals, again you will see where the colour changes from a darker green to a paler more yellow colour, this is the line where you cut. The artichokes can be either left whole or halved or quartered or sliced depending on your recipe.

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