Everyone cleared out and left me to my own devices. In cleaning out two fridges I found all sorts of foods that needed to be consumed or pitched. Unopened bags of Padrón peppers someone had bought when we were already inundated with green peppers from the garden. Three kinds of chorizo. Some cooked pasta. Half a jar of chickpeas. Leftovers from a photo shoot: carrot salad, meatballs and stale bread. Several egg whites left over from ice cream making.
The crisper was the most alarming. Besides those Padrón peppers, a carton of radishes and half a cabbage, still extant, vegetables from the garden were piling up. Zucchini, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.
The selection suggested my favorite summer vegetable dish, pisto, a medley of sautéd vegetables. Pisto, also known as fritada (Aragón), samfaina (Catalonia), tumbet (Mallorca), and ratatouille (France), can be freely varied, vegetarian or with meat or fish. I made a big panful of pisto, then turned it into four different meals.
Pisto ingredients. |
Carrot salad with raisins. |
Variations on the variations: Instead of chopped tomatoes, use tomato sauce or even leftover gazpacho. Choose your favorite herb: oregano, basil, parsley, mint, cilantro. Add chopped serrano ham or bacon to the basic pisto. I threw in a cupful of Carrot Salad with Raisins and Pine Nuts which were a real plus in this pisto mélange.
1. Pisto with Meatballs (Pisto con Albóndigas)
I just happened to have 72 fried meatballs in a Tupper in the fridge. I added a few to the pisto. The rest will freeze to see another day.
Reheat leftover cooked meatballs in the pisto. Season with favorite hot sauce. Serve with chopped parsley or cilantro. Or, add soy sauce, ginger, vinegar and Sherry to the pisto and make the dish sort-of Asian.
Basic pisto vegetables + carrot-raisin-pine nuts + meatballs. |
Leftover pasta gets resuscitated, served with pisto plus chorizo. |
Pasta, pisto and chorizo. Finish with fresh basil. |
Heat pisto in a skillet. Stir in 2 eggs (or 1 egg and 2 egg whites). Cook on medium while mixing the egg into the vegetables. Serve hot with fried bread.
Egg and vegetable scramble. |
4. Pisto with Chickpeas (Pisto/Alboronía con Garbanzos)
This is an actual dish called alboronía that, besides the sautéd vegetables, often includes pear or apple. Reheat the cooked pisto with the chopped fruit and drained and rinsed cooked chickpeas. Season with cumin, smoked pimentón (paprika) and a dash of vinegar. Serve it with pine nuts and, if desired, quartered hard-boiled egg.
More interpretations of pisto:
Fried Bread Crisps.
Pisto con Albóndigas sounds delicious, I was looking at meatball recips last night. Can you really have too much chorizo?
ReplyDelete