Andalucian Eats

Spain has been a foodie destination for years. Some of the most exciting chefs in the world have been coming out of Madrid and Barcelona, exploring the outer reaches of molecular gastronomy with flavour infused foams and gases on their ironic food. Here's a quote by Ferran Adria about his food from his iconic restaurant, El Bulli just outside Barcelona:

"Decontextualisation, irony, spectacle and performance are completely legitimate, as long as they are not superficial but respond to, or are closely bound up with, a process of gastronomic reflection."

This concept, while interesting, has nothing to do with the food from Southern Spain, which is where we spent a week last spring. Food in Andalucia is very simple, very straightforward ,very traditional. And very lovely.

Our first meal in Spain was at a cafe across from the bus station in Alicante.

We had just arrived on a cheap flight from Germany (about 75 Euros for the two of us!) and had about two and a half hours to get from the airport located outside the city to the bus station downtown, where we would then hopefully be able to buy tickets to go to Granada, a four hour drive away. We took a transit bus from the airport which dropped us in downtown Alicante where we had a stressful time with our luggage on the steep cobblestone streets. We finally found the station, bought our tickets and still had an hour or so to find lunch.

This plate of tiny little fried sardines made everything better. We were now definitely back on holiday. I'm still a little unclear as to whether or not the heads were supposed to be eaten - Jeff ate his, but I left mine on my plate. The guys at the restaurant found us entertaining and gave us some complimentary cafe con leche at the end of the meal. All the stress melted away and everything seemed fun again. We caught our bus, had a lovely drive through the Sierra Mountains, and arrived in Granada without a hitch.

In Granada, we ate some more fried fish, or Pesca Frita, although we decided not to eat the head of this particular fishy monster.

A comment about eating in Spain - the food rhythm is very different from North America. They tend to have small breakfasts, huge lunches, and then EVERYTHING closes between 3:30 and 7:30. The streets are deserted, the windows of the restaurants are usually shuttered and there are few signs of life on the streets, apart from the other confused tourists. This particular meal was consumed in a completely empty restaurant - one of the few that we found open at 6:00. After we ordered our food our waiter went to the kitchen and soon we heard a woman yelling at him in an exasperated manner - I have a feeling she thought it would be another hour or two before she'd have to go back to work. Oops! I promise that the next time we'll train our stomachs to eat when the rest of the country eats.

Our favourite pesca frita experience was served in Tarifa a few days later. There were so many things on this plate - clams, shrimp, sardines, squid, chunks of cod and a few things we couldn't quite identify which were extremely tasty nonetheless. There were some roundish things (in the middle of the photo underneath the calimari) that were particularly tasty and particularly bewildering - they tasted like some kind of crab, or seafood pate of some kind in some kind of casing, mild and lemony. Underneath the breading there were tiny little veins running over the surface which made them look kind of like kidneys. We asked the waitress what they were in our broken Spanglish and she said something that sounded like huevos, which means eggs.

I thought I had misheard her but later we saw the same things in a tapas bar (pictured on the left) and confirmed that they were, in fact, marinated fish egg sacs. Cooked caviar! We also ate a lot of boquerones, tiny little anchovy fillets marinated in lemon, garlic and olive oil served with bread, (pictured on the right).

When we weren't in the mood for fish, jamon was definitely the way to go. These giant legs of air-cured, pressed ham were hanging in almost every bar we entered. In the picture above, we were in a bar in Granada where tapas are complimentary with a drink, and we got a few thick slices with some almonds and olives. One thing about this salty food - it gets you to drink more!

At breakfast, we'd try to find a churro stand where we got these amazing hot, unglazed spiral doughnuts that you'd dip in thick hot chocolate.

Piping hot!

Our best and worst meals in Spain were in the same city, about 8 hours apart on the second last day of our trip. We arrived in Cadiz quite hungry, and found a nearby restaurant in the square near our pension. The 'menu del dia' which included an appetizer, main, and dessert was really cheap, so we went for it. This soup pictured above was supposed to be chickpea stew. Sure, there were chickpeas, but there was a lot of gelatinous tripe and thick rinds of fat as well in a bland, greasy broth. Gross. I couldn't finish it. Jeff had a seafood soup that was just as bland and had almost no fish in it at all. How disappointing. Our second last day, and the food was awful!

We made up for it the same evening. Cadiz was kind of creepy during the dead hours of the afternoon, but everything came alive at night and was so beautiful. We found this little cafe down a little alley and shared this plate of pulpo. Lying on a bed of thinly sliced boiled potatoes, the octopus was tenderly cooked and topped with grainy mustard and olive oil. It was the most unexpected, rustic treatment of seafood I think I've ever had, and definitely was one of the best due to the freshness of the octopus.

After thinking about our culinary experiences in Southern Spain it's even more interesting that Spanish chefs are at the vanguard of the cutting-edge food world. The molecular gastronomists treat food as performance art and their four hour long tasting menus of 25 mouthful-size courses are meant to meant to confuse and inspire. This is so different than the food we experienced - everything was so connected to place, so connected to simple flavours rooted in the food's texture. Perhaps this simple food was the inspiration to explore the essence of pure flavour on a higher level. Whatever the connection, I dearly hope I'll get to experience it again.

Victuals of the Lowlands

I'm a lazy blogger. I have a full year's worth of food stories and photos that I just haven't gotten the kick in the pants to get them posted.

Ach, du lieber.

Without further ado, here are my tales of ...
Food of the Netherlands!

Last spring we went to Europe to celebrate Jeff's graduation and to visit some relatives. We landed in Amsterdam where we spent a week with my cousin Freek and the rest of the family acting as hosts and tour guides.

The most typically Dutch food I can think of has got to be fresh herring. When I was a teenager my uncle Peter tried to get me to eat herring and I absolutely refused since I was a pathetic wuss with a fearful palate.
This trip - I couldn't get enough of this stuff. So lovely. For a euro or two you could get a few chunks of raw herring covered in raw onions at little vendors on the street. Tasty, even though it did leave you with pretty skanky breath.

FYI, Eating it on the street with a toothpick is a good idea. Taking it on the train and eating it in a closed compartment is a BAD idea. Live and learn, people.

Another typical Dutch eating experience - Indonesian Rijstaffel.
Dutch food is very simple, but they've held on to yummy things from their colonial history like the Rijstaffel, which is a huge selection of little dishes of curries and stirfies and crazy spiced hard boiled eggs and other delicious things.
This is celebration food - the occasion here was my cousin Christa's 30th birthday. It was so great to get to share this day with the family!

One of the funnest discoveries was on a chilly day in Rotterdam. We were walking down the street and saw a guy outside a little restaurant with this giant cast-iron grill with little indentations. About 40 seconds after pouring the batter, he flipped them over with a fork to cook the other side. Another 40 seconds, and he would whip them out of the grill onto a waiting plate which would then be covered in slices of butter and mounds of icing sugar. They were like hot little puffy, eggy pancakes. Poffertjes! So good!

Not too much explanation required here - this is a piece of bread covered in butter and chocolate sprinkles. For some reason, chocolate sprinkles or hagelslag is a standard bread topping often eaten at breakfast. I remember being VERY impressed with this as a 10 year old visiting the Netherlands for the first time... It was like having Easter paska every day. Jeff liked it too.

And the best is saved for last....

Vla.

Pudding in a carton. Lots of flavours. Good for breakfast, good for dessert. Enough said.

Treats from the Teutons

... Otherwise known as food from Germany.

After leaving the Netherlands, we headed over to my lovely cousin Lina's place near Stuttgart in Germany where we spent a few days visiting her family and exploring the old Schwabische towns and castles. Lina fed us incredibly well at her place, but apparently I actually showed some restraint in keeping my camera in its bag instead of introducing it to her family's dinner table.

This post reflects our eating on one particular day visiting the town of Bietigheim-Bissingen close to Lina's place.


Breakfasts were amazing in Germany. There were always mounds of meats, cured sausage, cheese, breads... I would normally consider these dinner food but they were a yummy way to start the day.
The top photo was Jeff's brekky - four different cheeses and four different meats. I think he also got some eggs - hardboiled, maybe. My breakfast consisted of mounds of prosciutto with sliced tomatoes smothered in pesto topped off with mini bocconcini balls. There was also a basket of assorted breads on the table with a half dozen different types of breads. This was also the kind of thing that Lina served us at home -this wasn't just a restaurant experience.



After several hours of walking around and exploring the town on very full stomachs, it started pouring rain. Although we still weren't too hungry after the enormous breakfast, we popped into this place called Brauerei zum Rossknecht.
(wanna see the menu? http://www.rossknecht.net/upload/226588_rk_speisekarte_web.pdf)

Jeff had schnitzel, I had the kasespaetzel and the micro-bier. We shared the salad.

This kasespaetzel was basically a high-end version of mac and cheese - lots of green onions and ham, topped with loads of carmelized onions and sooooo cheesy. Just thinking about it is making me drool. Even though I wasn't too hungry after the breakfast we had eaten, I still ate every single bite of this stuff.
This food is RICH food. I think I may have felt like dying later in the evening... a glutton's life is not always a comfortable one.

Manitoba Quinoa

As I was perusing the offerings of my favourite plant and seed store last spring, I discovered some seed packages for Cherry Vanilla Quinoa. http://www.herbs.mb.ca/en/on-line-shopping/seeds/all-seeds/quinoa_cherry_vanilla_seeds.html

Quinoa seeds! How preposterous! I want some!

Somehow I assumed that quinoa would be an exotic warm weather plant like everything else that's tasty in the world, but it was first domesticated up in the alpine plains of the Andes. It doesn't like weather much above 30 degrees and it prefers cooler nights. It's actually currently being grown commercially in Saskatchewan, so I figured it should do just fine in downtown Winnipeg.


I had planted a bunch of new things in this part of the garden so I wasn't sure which plants were weeds and which were my seedlings. The arugula was spindly, the frisee was non-existent for the first week or so and all I could see where I planted my quinoa was pigweed. On the other hand the spinach was gorgeous due to the colder weather.
After a little investigation online I found out that quinoa does, in fact, look exactly like pigweed which made it a little difficult to separate the good stuff from the bad stuff at first - but it kept getting taller and taller and taller...



This clump of greenness shows the garden at the end of August. At this point the tallest quinoa plant was about 5 foot 7 or so - definitely taller than me. Officially this stuff isn't supposed to grow this tall, but it seemed as though our weird weather last summer made it shoot straight up instead of staying shorter and producing big seed heads.


The plants started drying up mid-September, so I cut off the seed heads and left them to dry in a big vase on my kitchen table for the next few weeks.

Once they were dry, I had to figure out some way of removing the seeds from the chaff.
I thought of using screens, or of using a fan to blow away the undesirable stuff, but the seeds are just so small that I had to think of something else to try.


I started out by rubbing the seed clusters into a big bowl, and then painstakingly hand-picked all the green stuff out of the bowl. Because the flowers hadn't developed that well, there was a lot of fluffy stuff that kind of looked like it should have contained a seed but hadn't matured properly. After a bit of experimenting I found out that this fluffy stuff FLOATED.

So a routine developed... Add water to bowl, swish around vigourously, whisk away the stuff that floats to the top. Inspect the removed portion for errant seeds. Repeat.
I must have rinsed out that damn blue bowl a dozen times....
The good thing about this technique was that home-grown quinoa requires vigourous rinsing since it grows with a bitter coating which is usually already removed in commercially available stuff.

After all the rinsing, the quinoa was left to dry on a cookie sheet in my dining room. After about a week it was totally dry and it went into the jar pictured at the top of this post.

All this work created one cup of quinoa. ONE CUP!

How do you honour ONE MEASLY CUP of home-grown quinoa?

By making quinoa salad with oranges, mint and sun-dried black olives for all your friends at a potluck, that's how. I hope they enjoyed it.

More on growing quinoa in Canada: http://www.saltspringseeds.com/scoop/powerfood.htm

Happy New Year!

It's not really New Year's without portzelky.

After getting burnt out by a very Christmas season this year, I knew I had to take it easy on New Year's Eve. No parties, no fireworks, just staying at home and watching DVDs. (Run, Lola, Run and SCTV Christmas specials, for those who are interested) My plan was to do a lot of NOTHING.
However, my plans of decadent laziness were thwarted when a friend mentioned on Facebook that very afternoon that her mom had just brought her some Portzelky. I was immediately motivated to get going on a nice big batch, since MY mother was recovering in bed from back surgery and needed ME to bring HER some portzelky! Or perhaps I just wanted to eat some yummy dough deep fried in lard and then covered in sugar. (...And then could gather brownie points by bringing the leftovers to mom's the next morning!)

Portzelky are basically raisin fritters that are topped with copious amounts of icing sugar. The Dutch call them Oliebollen, my sister-in-law from Montreal said they were like tiny little Dutchies. Whatever you want to call them, they're YUMMY, and the Mennonites of Manitoba like to eat them on New Year's Day.

I used a yeast dough that was very hard to scoop up and even harder to place in the hot fat without splattering. I used lard for frying, which I don't think I've used before for these, but I think it worked out really well. I've never had such an easy time maintaining temperature on my crappy stove. These things can be a little tricky because if you have it too hot, the outside will get burnt while the inside will still be gooey. This time, all was golden.

I think the sticky dough is part of the magic of the misshapen ball - I think if these looked pretty, they'd somehow lose most of their charm. They're SUPPOSED to look irregular and misshapen.

Top warm portzelky with icing sugar with more on the side for dipping, and you've got yourself a fine way to start the new year.