#428 Curry Nights

#427 Sunday

You can't see L'Era Restaurant that we just came out of. Or the paella cooked on a wood burning fire that we just ate. Or our friends who dined with us.  . . . . . . .

#426 Fallas 2012

A few days before this years Fallas Fiesta in Denia the weather was good - up to 25c max.

However, on the day of the burning the temperature fell to v cold, then it rained, so we stayed at home.

#425 29er

Tom came to visit and also collect his new titanium 29er.

#424 Tapas

#423 Flu

#422 Cassoulet (My Way)

This is my Faux Cassoulet made from leftovers and a jar of white butter beans.

One jam jar of Tomato Salsa de la Casa*
One jar of Butter Beans
4 Rashers of Bacon
4 Sausages
4 Pieces of Black Pudding
Half a bag of Parsley
Olive oil.

Method
Fry the bacon, when crisp remove and continue using the bacon fat to cook the sausages then the black pudding. Dice all the meats into bite size pieces.

Heat a big pan and slowly warm the salsa and beans. After 5 minutes add the meats. Then gently stir in the parsley and maybe some olive oil. That's all.
 

Salsa de la Casa.
Fry a big diced onion until transparent, add 3 cloves of diced garlic.
Add one tin of tomato pieces. (In Spain I use Tomate Pelado Troceado).

Optional additions: 
A couple of spoons of concentrated tomato purée or some squirts of Heinz tomato sauce.
Chili pepper (fresh or powdered) or quite a few drops of Tabasco
One cup of stock or a glass of red wine
Sliced red bell pepper
Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Salt & pepper and two tea spoons of brown sugar.

Cook on a low heat for half an hour or more - until the consistency is not wet and the colour is a nice dark red.

#421 Crisis Menu

We went out for lunch, not something we do that often, but at 8€ how can you refuse?

To start we had a big plate of rice with pieces of sausage, black pudding, chorizo and rabbit. Then a very acceptable chicken dish cooked in herbs & beer with fries. It was all so delicious and copious that we refused the dessert (various flans or ice creams) and had coffee instead.

Included in the set price was bread, a bowl of olives and a bottle of red wine. Total bill for two 16€. . . . . .

When you go to a very expensive restaurant you have a level of expectation equal to the prices on the menu. Here there was nothing to spoil your buzz, even if the food and service had been crap for 8€ you wouldn't complain (too much ;-)

As we left, at about 3 pm, it was just starting to fill up, it was a bit like the old Les Routiers restaurants in France which served the working man and truck driver with good French food at economical prices. What ever happened to them?

#420 Brilliant Blumenthal

This is Heston Blumenthal's top tip for making consommé.
It is simple. It works.

You wonder why it's not common practice. Instead of boiling your pot of stock and then adding egg whites and stuff in a laborious clarifying process, Heston recommends just freezing overnight, then next day (or whenever) thawing in a muslin covered sieve. The clear consommé drips through and the gelatinous solids stay in the sieve. Simple.

He made his consommé a little more chi-chi by adding jasmine flowers, I didn't have any to hand but dropped in a jasmine tisane tea bag for a similar effect.

Even if I say it myself - it was all right :-)

#419 With Captain John Paul Jones.

Posing with Captain John Paul Jones
(and three months with new hip).

#418 More Soups

I'm in a Manic Soup Making Mood!
I've got stock pots on the go night and day.

Here is a Swede Soup, I got most of the recipe from a Gordon Ramsay link. But as you can tell, I added far too much cardamom, much as I like cardamom in my Hot & Sour Curry today's soup was over cardamomed.

(All my life I've been spelling and saying cardamon with a final N - spell checkers aye?)

#417 Jazz

There are a few dozen versions of Joaquín Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. A very Spanish classical version by Paco De Lucia, a really nice jazz track on Chet Baker & Paul Desmond's Together (which I can't find on YouTube) but this version by Jim Hall is 99% there. Enjoy!

#416 Spring Clean

Bike spring cleaning time:
pic 1 - in bits
pic 2 - together

#415 eBay Pot

Back in the 1970's we supplied dairy products to Cranks Health Food Restaurant in Soho in London. Next door was a shop called The Craftsman's Potter Shop selling all sorts of nice hand-made pots and ceramic art and stuff. We bought most of our tableware there including half a dozen bowls, cups and mugs by a potter called Owen Thorpe and we still have most of the pieces in regular use to this day.

I don't know what succession of mouse clicks brought me to an eBay page selling an Owen Thorpe coffee pot, but being overwhelmed with nostalgia I bid and bought the pot (and a similar milk jug).

So, 40 odd years later we can make our coffee in a matching pot, jug and mug while we nibble on our organic nut rissoles :-)

Peace.

#414 Soups (various)

I just bought this super-duper new stock pot (as recommended by Raymond Blanc).

For its maiden voyage I filled a third of it with a mix of chicken bits, a selection of vegetables and some spices, another third with water, then simmered the lot for about five hours.

Result - a stock you could eat with a knife & fork!

Using the stock as a base I've made three soups:

Sort of Bortsch. Red Vegetables, including a Beetroot

Channa Dhal - seen here as thick lentils but it will be a smooth soup as well

Pea Soup (with a bit of Mint)

#413 Five Christmas Books.

Two Wheels over Catalonia by Richard Guise.
Blokey bloke rides round Catalunya and gives a bit of interesting local info on the side.

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.
I *think* I've read this many years ago, but I'll still enjoy it, I hope.

Born to Run by Chistopher McDougall.
Some American writers think they're Ernest Hemmigway, but still . . . .

Moneyball by Michael Lewis.
I know nothing about baseball, but this is a good read, apparently.

One on One by Craig Brown.
Picked this as a present from my Mum, so it better be good!

#412 Making Progress

First ride - 10km :-)

#411 Pieds de Cochon Farcis

Having nothing better to do after Christmas, I decided to have a go at making a classic French dish as described in (one of) my Marco Pierre White cookbooks. He says to allow three days for the preparation for Braised Pig's Trotters 'Pierre Koffman' - and he's right!

I laboured and laboured  but after two and a half days I came to a halt (I have to say I wasn't helped by my Spanish butcher slicing them on the wrong side). The feet are supposed to be emptied of bone and gristle leaving the skin to be filled with a mixture of sweetbreads, morels (I was using setas instead) and  chicken mousse. This takes a lot of cooking and cutting and slicing and dicing and blending and boiling and somewhere I went off course.

Setas and a big Sweet Potato

Anyway, I finished up making the stuffing into a passable meatloaf, the sweet potato planned as an accompaniment made soup (with a bit of ginger for luck) and I also have a litre or so of stock that you could use to stick back your broken bathroom tiles. I don't really know what to do with the remains of the trotters . . . . .

On the positive side the egg poacher from Father Christmas works a treat and makes a satisfyingly symmetrical egg, now all I need to do is get the bacon into nice straight lines :-)

#410 Crappy Christmas!

We are in Barcelona. We went for a walk down Las Ramblas and saw these Caga Tios for sale. Apparently it's a Catalunyan traditions for kids to have a Caga Tio, translated into English as Uncle Crapper!

It's a festive log with a happy face, held up on front legs and covered by a blanket. The idea is to feed it daily throughout December with sweeties so that on Christmas Eve the lucky children can beat it on the back, forcing it to crap a load of presents (cunningly concealed under the blanket).

We were a bit late to get one and feed it enough to excrete anything worthwhile, but we did go into the huge Boqueria food market and bought a kilo of fresh tuna for a mere 8€. It was delicious.

Continuing the crap theme, another Catalan tradition is to put a little figurine in their nativity scene of someone having a shit. All sorts of figures are made from President Obama to the entire Barcelona football team. It's not considered rude . . . . . . . I don't think - just a fecal thing.

pic from caganer.com

#409 This is London 2011

In Muswell Hill (London N.10) to pick up my Mum, on Friday we fly to Barcelona for Christmas.

Boxing Day we lunched by the sea, with Sally, Tom and Carrie, at restaurant Can Majó in Barceloneta.