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~ culinary and horticultural life on a Spanish farm

Monthly Archives: October 2012

One Ham – Two Meals

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Nevenka in Main Courses, Starters

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We are having typical autumn weather for this corner of spain, quite cold evenings when you want the wood oven in the kitchen lit for some cosy and warming kitchen suppers, while during the day the sun warms so well that lunch on the terrace is the thing and you want to eat something light that reminds you of summer. With one ham I recently managed to create a meal of each type. Warm thick slices of the ham served with a mustard sauce and lentils for a snug supper, and then a couple of days later the same ham cold and cut into thin slices for a carpaccio with mustard viniagrette. Both dishes went down very well with my guests.

It isn’t possible to buy an uncooked joint of ham in this part of Spain, so we have to cure our own. I have some salts that were a gift from some lovely butchers in Ireland which I mix with brown sugar and black peppercorns to get a spicy joint of ham.

So the ham has been curing for five days and friends are coming for dinner this evening. This will be the first hearty type meal of the season and is very easy as it is all cooked in the one pot except for finishing the sauce at the end.

Ham with Mustard Sauce and Lentils –  For 4

Joint of raw ham

200 grams lentils – either puy or pardina

4 carrots

1 large or 2 small onions

Olive oil for frying

500 ml light stock

2 tablespoons whole grain mustard

2 tablespoons cream

Peel and slice the onions. Peel the carrots and cut them into cubes.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the carrots and onions for ten minutes.

Put the ham joint into a pan into which it fits quite snugly. Add the fried vegetables. Put some of the stock in the frying pan to take up the brownings in the pan and add this to the ham. Put more stock in the pan to just cover the meat.

Bring slowly to the boil. Add the lentils and cook very slowly for one and a half hours.

Once cooked remove the joint of ham to a carving board and keep warm. Strain the stock from the lentils and vegetables, but not until they are very dry, they still want some moisture in them. Put the vegetables in a warm serving dish and keep warm while you make the sauce and carve the meat.

To make the sauce, put some of the stock that the ham and vegetables have cooked in into a saucepan. When I made this last it was about half the stock or about 200ml. Add a tablespoon of whole grain mustard and a tablespoon of double cream. Mix in well. Slowly bring to a simmer. The mustard and cream should be enough to thicken the sauce to a creamy but pouring consistency. if it is a bit thin, then add more of the mustard and cream.

Serve the sliced ham with the sauce poured over.

Ham Carpacccio with Mustard Dressingcooked_ham_carpaccio

Left over cold ham cut into thin as you can slices. Arrange these on dinner plates covering the whole plate as one does for carpaccio.

Left over mustard sauce to which you add 2 tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Mix all together well and then spoon/drizzle over the ham.

Parmesan cheese which you shave over the plates of ham.

An Autumn Salad

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by Nevenka in Food for One, Main Courses

≈ 1 Comment

rainbow_saintYesterday I looked really hard for the pot of gold as I could clearly see the end of this rainbow in my neighbours orange grove, but alas, it eluded me. I didn’t let on to him how close he had been to being rich beyond his wildest dreams!

The rain was extremely welcome as I can’t order any irrigation water at the moment. In the recent storms and floods 14 kilometers of pipework that deliver water to all of us in the cooperative were washed away.

All this rain interspersed with warm sunny days has meant that the salads that can’t grow in the blistering heat of the summer here are green and tender and tasty. The asparagus is throwing up its autumn shoots and the herb bed hasn’t looked so healthy for quite a while. Here is a salad that glorifies these autumn offerings. grilled_beef_salad_mint_dressing

Grilled Beef and Goat Cheese Salad with Mint and Balsamic Dressing

Per person –

100 grams tender beef sliced very thinly

50 grams cheese – I used a fresh Goat cheese that I sell in the farm shop, but ricotta or mozarella work for this salad

6-8 spears of asparagus

Mixed salad leaves – mine were green and red lettuce, mizuna, pak choi, mustard greens, chives, basil and fennel fronds.

A handful of fresh mint

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Spread the beef out onto a board and season with the salt and pepper. If you are not sure of its tenderness, then give it some hits with a meat tenderising mallet.

Heat a hotplate or heavy based griddle pan.

Lightly oil the asparagus and put to cook on the griddle. Turn from time to time as it is cooking.

Wash the salad and arrange on a plate.

Cut up the cheese and arrange on the salad.

Make the dressing. Wash and roughly chop the mint, put in a bowl with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice and mix thoroughly.

When the asparagus is cooked al dente remove from the griddle and arrange on the salad.

Cook the beef on the griddle. This should only take 2-3 minutes each side. Remove to a board and cut into bite sized slices. Arrange on the salad.

Spoon the dressing onto the salad. Enjoy.

A Wedding Cake

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by Nevenka in Sweet Things

≈ 3 Comments

I was recently commissioned to make a wedding cake that captured the essence of southern Spain. The traditional white iced fruit cake was not the brief, but a cake that was pudding and cake combined but still looked like a wedding cake. The palette of colours were corals and oranges with leaf green as a contrast. It was suggested maybe a cake flavoured with oranges and decorated with crushed pistachios as a contrast.

There is a rich cake that is found all around the Mediterranean which uses only four ingredients, almonds, eggs, sugar and citrus fruits, no flour. I have made it using oranges, lemons, clementines and of course limes being on a lime farm, all of which work really well. I was served a version in Portugal that was made with a mixture of the flesh of Angels Hair Gourd and oranges. This flesh is quite sweet and when cooked separates out into strands, hence the name. You can buy it here in tins ready cooked with lots of sugar to preserve it. It is quite sickly sweet, but when mixed with other things or used as a filling in pies is rather nice. The cake was cooked to a wonderful caramelised  – not burnt –  crisp around the edges and deliciously rich. I have intended to try cooking this version myself but haven’t got round to it yet, when I do I will report back to you the method.

When I came to be describing the options of orange cakes to the bride, the description of the flourless orange and almond cake elicited a “mmmh” that told me it had to be the one. I was confident that the cake would taste good, but how to get a plain cake of a burnt orange colour to look glamorous and festive? Layers of cream were not an option as the temperatures here were still in the 30’s even though it was late September. Then one of my friends came up with the genius suggestion of edible gold leaf. I hadn’t used this before, so was a bit nervous about it, but the idea of cracked gleaming gold with a background of  burnt orange for the walls of the cake to contrast with the topping of deep green crushed pistachios, was irresistible.

The cake was served with a mascarpone and fresh cream mix, and a generous sprinkling of lime sherbert and more of the crushed pistachios.

For a 20-24 cm cake tin that will serve about 10 -12 people.

500 gms oranges, or other citrus

8 large eggs

350 grams ground almonds

275 grams sugar (300 grams if using lemons or limes)

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

If the oranges are large cut them into 4 or 8, likewise for lemons, for smaller fruit leave them whole. Put the fruit in a pan with just enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour until the skins are soft. Check from time to time that they have not boiled dry, adding a little water if they are too dry.

Drain reserving the liquid. Remove any pips and put the fruit into the processor and process until a pulp.

While this is cooking line the cake tin with baking paper or buttered greaseproof paper.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat enough to amalgamate.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients, the fruit pulp, sugar, ground almonds and baking powder bit by bit until all is well blended.

Pour the cake mix into the tin and bake for 40 minutes at 180 C then turn the oven down to 160 C and bake for a furthur 20 minutes. To ensure that the cake is cooked in the middle, a skewer or cake tester pushed into the centre should come out clean. if not bake the cake for another 10 minutes at 160 C and test again.

Let the cake cool completely in its tin before removing it and its lining paper. This is one of those cakes that is better at least a day after baking, so can be made a couple of days in advance of being needed.

For a less formal occasion than a wedding the cake can be decorated with a dusting of icing sugar just before serving, or it can be topped with crushed pistachios. Use some of the leftover orange cooking liquid. Heat a little with a couple of spoons of sugar to make a syrup. Let this cool and then brush the top of the cake with it before sprinkling over the crushed pistachios. These will absorb the syrup and darken nicely if left for a few hours.

To make lime sherbert (or lemon which is just as good), sprinkle a thin layer of sugar onto a tray. Take unwaxed limes and using the finest rasp on the grater, grate the zest onto the sugar. You need enough zest for a thin layer all over the sugar. With you finger gently rub the zest into the sugar. Spread it out as evenly as you can on the tray again and put in a warmish dry place to dry out.

As it dries it will do so in clumps, so break these up every few hours. Once it is totally dry it is ready to use as a zingy garnish on sweet dishes. It will keep for a couple of weeks if stored in an air tight jar.

Malaga Market

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Nevenka in Shopping

≈ 1 Comment

Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will have spotted that I cannot resist a market. The more bustle and colour the more I like it. The scents of the spices and olives, the colours of the fruits, the exciting expectation of finding something not found anywhere else. All these things make a market interesting to me.

The central market in Malaga is housed in a building inspired by Les Halles in Paris, which not forgetting its arab origins is in neo moharabe style and retains one of the tenth century marble towers as well as its nazari name from when it was the Atarazanas – the shipbuilders. When I first visited Malaga the market building was still suffering from the “improvements” done in the sixties, which included a mezzanine floor which cut out the natural light and made the hall feel dingy and sliced in half the stained glass window that fills one end of the central hall. Thankfully the former glory has been returned to.malaga_market_window

The stall holders then as now were the main attraction. Here are some of my new friends and their produce –malaga_market

Malaga Modern

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by Nevenka in Snacks and Tapas

≈ 1 Comment

As some of you may have seen on the news we have been somewhat flooded out here. Thankfully the farm is on its own little hill with good walls holding up the terraces of lime trees, so nothing wandered off. One of my neighbours did lose some of his oranges trees to the torrent. The internet and phone were lost for a few days though, so I am catching up now.

The cuisine of a country is like its language, if it stays the same, then it stagnates. The classic tapas of Spain are fantastic, but now with foreign influences and a move away from the heavier dishes that an agricultural society needed, young chefs are experimenting with new flavours and presenting us with some alternatives to the traditional dishes. Here are some of the dishes we tried in Bar La Plaza situated in the Plaza Merced, a couple of doors up from where Picasso was born.

Aubergine Caviaraubergine_caviar

This was a creamy puree of roasted aubergine mixed with chopped almonds, and flavoured with garlic, oregano, olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. The aubergine can be roasted in the oven or microwaved which is quicker. To microwave you must prick the aubergine all over with a fork to prevent explosions, then cook a couple of minutes on the top heat. Turn and cook again. Keep doing this until the aubergine is cooked and soft. Let cool before removing the flesh and mashing to make the puree.

The crisps that it was served with were interesting. I think that they were made from flatbread that was cut into bite sized pieces that were then dusted with the flavourful smoked sweet paprika  from Jarandilla La Vera, and then quickly deep fried until crisp. A perfect spicy foil to the creamy aubergine paste.

Sweet & Spicy Ribsspicy_ribs

Although not photogenic, these little ribs cooked in a sweet and spicy sauce were very tasty. The sauce was made with soy sauce, tomato puree, orange juice and white wine vinegar and flavoured with garlic, ginger, five spice powder, and brown sugar.

Lamb Tagine & Cous Couslamb_tagine_tapa

The classic Moroccan dish in miniature. Little cubes of lamb slow cooked with onions, garlic, cumin and coriander, a little chilli and raisins. Served with cous cous and a yogurt, mint and cucumber relish.

Seared Salmon with Anis Sauceseared_salmon_with_anis_sauce

A perfectly rare cooked miniature salmon steak served with a creamy sauce flavoured with Anis Dulce de Chinchon, Spains answer to the Pastis of France and garnished with fennel fronds.

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