Daily Dinner #5

We embarked on Shannon's challenge four weeks ago: post a month of daily dinners, not just the fancy stuff we do. We're still in Barcelona living in a flat that in its entirety is smaller than our kitchen at home; needless to say, cooking can be difficult. But we're up for it, and really like shopping at the markets frequently. We may not bother posting dinners we have out so there could be some gaps.

2015-08-09

After a weekend in London, we didn't have anything in the house so we headed out for something local, simple. We ended up on Paral·lel which has a ton of cafes, but many were too noisy to sit outside on a great night -- it's a main street. Just off, we found Cachitos which had an appealing menu.

First, I noticed the price of one of my favorite Spanish wines, a Muga Reserva at €24, which would be thrice that at a DC restaurant.

There was a starter that sounded odd, intriguing, so we got the Broken Potatoes Anna with foie gras. It didn't look like much, but imagine a pommes anna as grated potatoes fried together, topped with a soft-cooked eggs, then a sauce of foie gras.  Rich? You betcha.

Irene ordered goat (Espaldita de cabrito al horno hecho a fuego lento):

and I had a Spanish pork tenderloin that was delightfully flavorful.

2015-08-10 Fideuà

Everyone knows about Paella, the rice dish from Valencia, but we first had fideuà with local friends in Barcelona. It's similar, in that a starchy base is cooked in a tasty broth, with various vegetables and proteins added. But where paella uses short-grain rice, fideuà uses pasta, shaped like regular old straight spaghetti. The ones I've had used a fairly fine noodle, and they're always short, like an inch long. In paella, the the individual rice grains should be separate when cooked, not a creamy mush like risotto; fideuà is the same here.

At the grocery store, we found bags of three different thicknesses of the noodles, and we chose a fairly coarse one so we wouldn't accidentally over cook it.

We also had some dried cod roe from the Mercat that we'd been trying to use; it's intensely fishy, fairly salty, but had a somewhat wax-like texture. It seemed perfect to provide a big hit of flavor. We froze this to firm it up then grated it on a box grater. Ick, the color here's awful: picture a lime-green cutting board with dark rose colored shaved bits.

We cooked the fideuà in the last of the flagon of white wine we had, and a bit of liquid exuded from some tomatoes we cooked down. Then we added the grated roe once the noodles were al dente; below, it's turned a pale white color.  Fideuà is cooked in a low, wide paella pan, and broiled to finish to crunch up the top.  We only have a Teflon skillet and these can outgas toxic PTFE fumes when heated to very high temperatures, so no crust for us. :-(

 We served this sautéed Spanish peppers that act like Padróns but are long and slender.

2015-08-11 Butifarra and Mushrooms

Irene picked up some Butifarra (what a great name for a sausage!) that included mushrooms, and also some wild mushrooms. Sorry, no finished photos of the dish, but it was simple and very satisfying. 

2015-08-12 Monkfish and Leeks

Irene picked up some monkfish (here the name is "rape", pronounced RAH-pay) at the market on her way back from Spanish class.  This fish is exceptionally popular here, all the fish mongers and grocery stores carry it; it's usually displayed on ice without the head, because it's a bit ugly and fearsome.  It's got a good meaty texture and fine taste. Not the best photos here, the lights in our flat are pretty dim.

Irene sautéed onion then added the fish, then tossed in some leeks and their greens.

It was garnished with parsley the fishmonger gave Irene.

2015-08-13 Spinach, Raisins, Nuts

There's a simple classic Spanish dish made with spinach, raisins and pine nuts.  For some reason, only one of the vendors in market had it and it was pre-bagged; there were plenty of other fresh greens but we wanted something more tender than chard-like greens. We also bought some seriously huge raisins in hues from golden, through orange to russet. 

Instead of pine nuts, we picked up some Marcona almonds, a specialty of Spain to which we sometimes treat ourself at home. "Natural?" asked our fruit and nut vendor? "Si."  Oops, a mistake: "natural" meant undried and unsalted -- a yielding texture rather than a pleasing snap, and these really needed salt to make them interesting. I heated some water with salt to dissolve, then soaked the nuts in this for a few hours, then drove off the water in a skillet. Ah, much better: a crunch and a slight zing from salt.

We cooked the spinach simply, assembled the rest, and -- very untraditionally -- served it on some elbow pasta to give us a meal's-worth. The package seems confused: is it rooster (gallo) or shark (tiburón)??

A glug of good local olive oil and we're done. Not bad at all.

2015-08-14 Merluza, Green Beans, Potatoes

We hit the market on a Friday before a holiday here, and the place was packed with folks buying fish. We returned to the fishmonger from whom Irene had bough the monkfish earlier and asked her about a fish it seemed everyone was buying; she said it was merluza (hake), and gestured that it was line-caught. We asked her to filet and skin it which she did expertly with a scalpel-like knife the size of her head; it's a beautiful thing to watch.  We also got some deeply flavored black olives and chopped up some parsley.

We got a half kilo of attractive thin beans. Turns out a half kilo's a hell of a lot.  Our flat's tiny cooktop doesn't have enough room to cook the fish, the beans, and the potatoes we wanted, so we put them in a big glass dish and figured we could steam them in the microwave, covered with cling film with a couple vents.  Oops, the microwave's only big enough for a small pot pie.  We scrounged around the cabinets and found a smaller dish we could improvise.  Oddly, after steaming for about 15 minutes, the beans were still too crunchy; perhaps next time I'll finish them in a skillet.

 And the potatoes... simply sautéed in olive oil with salt and pepper.

I heated our good olive oil in the skillet, added capers and black olives for a briny flavor, then the merluza. I was able to get a slight crust on the fish despite the Teflon. Straight-forward prep, the fish was excellent.

2015-08-15 Chicken

We'd been seeing these beautiful, golden-skinned chickens in the market so we picked one up to roast on Saturday. It was supposed to rain all day so I figured we'd be trapped inside -- me working and Irene doing her Spanish homework. Surprise -- it turned out to be a beautiful day and we ended up walking a 10-mile circuit around the city, along the beaches, and by the waterfront. 

While I tried to focus on some nerd-work, Irene prepped and cooked the chicken.  We stole some rosemary from the plantings of a waterfront restaurant, and had a bunch of garlic that Irene stuffed the chicken with.

We found a skillet that we could remove the handle from and baked it in the oven. It turned out really well, a good flavor, a fine texture (not dried out and stringy), and a burnished skin. Sadly, the skin didn't stay crispy long and we missed the crunch it had when it first came out of the oven; professionals must have a technique to keep the crisp skin, probably involving unhealthy amounts of butter.