Daily Dinner #3

Our friend Shannon challenged us to post about our regular meals, not just the eloaborate ones we sometimes to. We're trying to do a weekly post.

2015-07-26 Sunday

I find rolling pasta therapeutic: after a long day of coding, it  helps me relax.  Irene makes the dough with half and half all purpose and a coarser semolina for texture and bite. You need to let it rest to hydrate, and it can happily live in the freezer.  I divide the dough into a manageable size and start running it through the roller, folding it over itself several times on the widest setting to knead it.

Then pass it through successively finer settings to thin it and stretch it out. Dust with flour if it tries to stick to the rollers.

For fettucini, we run it down #7; if we were doing spaghetti, I'd only go as far as #5 to give it some body.

 Dust the sheet well with flour and run it through the cutter.

We sauced it with a pesto made from garden arugula.

Irene made a salad of different varieties of garden tomatoes that have good acid, and some sun-dried tomatoes as a counterpoint, with bright tomato juice, some good oil, Maldon sea salt, and sumac.

2015-07-27 Monday

Irene's riff on a Salade Niçoise including the last of our cold-smoked pork loin and a soft-boiled egg, beans and tomatoes from the garden.

2015-07-28 Tuesday

Packing for a trip, we raided the freezer for whatever we could find: home made meatballs, garden tomatoes, shaved parmesan, and (not home made!) spaghetti. The  tomatoes, fresh off the vine, had an intense flavor.

2015-07-29 Wednesday

Our stores are depleted so we went out to Kapnos in Arlington. Cocktails, the one in front was Don't Worry About It with rye, fernet and spices was a bit ... well, sweet-spicy for summer, the other, The Hannibal was  a mezcal marguerita with spots of harissa.

We've rarely seen navajas (razor clams, in the US called jack-knife clams) in the states so jumped on these. The were outstanding: fresh, vividly flavored, with a great texture. This was the stand-out dish of the evening.

Lamb tartar with smoked egg yolk, but we really couldn't discern any smokiness; the lamb was brightly seasoned, a good texture, and refreshing. Unfortunately, the grilled bread felt a bit stale, like it had been sitting around too long.

Octopus was tender was pleasantly charred, but not as flavorful as we would have liked.

2015-07-30 Thursday

My parents, who are staying at our house while we're away, took us out to Water and Wall (our choice) in Arlington and we were underwhelmed by the menu: the description of the dishes was intriguing but the food didn't live up to the promise. It was short but had two chicken dishes, and many were inappropriate for the season. The porchetta came with cold ramen, but it wasn't integrated into the dish in anyway. The duck confit was the only other adventurous dish on the menu, but too heavy for a hot July day. The steelhead trout was overwhelmed by a spicy sauce. 

On this quiet night, with less than half the tables occupied, the service was way too slow. We finished our cocktails and sat around for 10 minutes before the waitress returned to ask if we'd like another round of drinks: no, we'd like the appetizers, please! I can't imagine how this restaurant would fare on a busy night.

2015-07-31 Friday

Airplane food, baby!  An overnight flight from Toronto to Barcelona offered the usual "pasta or chicken".  My Mac and Cheese was OK, I figure pasta's a safe bet on an airplane: it had a bright sauce base, and was cheesy enough. Irene's chicken came with Israeli couscous studded with fava beans, sweet corn and carrots. The chicken was tender and juicy in a sweetish tomato sauce. The bread, as always, was too cold and gummy. The salad was made with cabbage rather than the usual iceberg lettuce, and the tomatoes were surprisingly flavorful. We were separated by 16 rows and I had to pay for my wine but Irene got away without paying. :-)

2015-08-01 Saturday

We picked a flat in Barcelona with a roof-top terrace and are really enjoying it. We hit the Mercat de Sant Antoni, about 5 minutes from our place, and picked up some sausage, and stopped for a liter of wine right from the cask and some bread for an alfresco dinner; since our body clocks were confused, we needed a pre-dinner much earlier than the Spanish 9-11pm time.

Since we'd spent the morning roaming the east side of Las Ramblas, we decided to wander the west side before returning for a dinner near our flat; that never happened :-). After drinks at a couple gothic bars (no, not the type with goth kids), we stumbled upon Bar Celta; this was a delight as it's the first place our friend Ann took us to on our first visit to Spain.  We knew it was a fish tapas place, but didn't realize it specialized in octopus (pulpo, so it's a pulpería).

So of course, the first dish was an outstanding octopus. They bring out steamed octopus, whole, and let them cool on the counter. When you select it, they take it back to the kitchen where they cut it up, sauté in good olive oil then anoint with lemon juice, garlic, and pimentón (smoked paprika). 

Woo hoo, we're in Spain, we can get razor-clams (here, called navajas). These were grilled in their shell, and were smoky and a little crunchy, again with good olive oil, garlic and lemon. They had a definite sweetness and a taste of the sea. 

More octopi, baby ones this time, cooked whole. They had a crunch to them, a little chewy, but not like rubber bands: a really pleasant toothsomeness then a yield as we bit through them. They also waited in the cool display case, and were grilled from raw (not pre-steamed) to order.

For a little variety, we rounded out the meal with a garlicky chorizo (sausage), redolent with pimentón. It was somewhat dried then sliced and cooked to order, it had an engaging chew to it.  Irene can't resist croquetas, so we had bacala (Catalan, "bacalao" in Spanish, salt cod) "fritters": creamy on the inside, with a thin shell -- not bad but not as stunning as the seafood dishes; something we should have expected from a pulpería, I suppose.

We ordered a couple glasses of a local rosé wine: you order a glass and they put the bottle on the bar and you fill up as needed; at the end of the meal, you're only charged for how much you drink. Of course we finished it. :-)

This was an outstanding casual meal, a steal at about $50, and I really enjoyed closing the loop with our first visit to Spain.