TIME TO RETHINK HUMMUS!

Chef Charo Carmona

Having become ubiquitous, the party dip for every occasion, hummus perhaps is ready for its remake. I tasted a version this week that I’m trying out in my kitchen.

It was not called hummus, but ajo pimentón, “garlic-paprika”. It was a thick spread—what is called paté in Spanish—of chickpeas, garlic, pimentón and a good dose of cumin. The spread was served with crisp toasts as an appetizer before a stunning meal at Arte de Cozina, a restaurant in Antequera (Málaga), where Chef Charo Carmona is famed for her interpretation of local, traditional dishes.

 Charo’s mission statement: Recuperar sabores desplazados, investigar sobre elaboraciones ancestrales y conocer la mejor manera de aprovechar los productos de la zona son nuestras máximas.  (To retrieve forgotten flavors, to seek out ancestral recipes and to discover the best way to take advantage of the products of our region.)

 Charo generously shares recipes for the dishes served at Arte, nicely printed on index cards. But I forgot to ask her for the ajo pimentón, so I am winging it in the kitchen.

Ajo Pimentón somewhat resembles Ajo Colorao, a dish of potatoes mashed with bacalao and lots of pimentón. But it’s most like Middle Eastern hummus, without the tahini and with pimentón that turns it a ruddy red. Serve it accompanied with toasts, regañás (crispy crackers), or pita crisps for spreading or dipping.

This dip, called Ajo Pimentón, is a little like hummus, made with chickpeas plus lots of pimentón. 

Serve with toasts or crisps for spreading or dipping.

Garlic-Pimentón Spread

Ajo Pimentón

Use both sweet and hot pimentón.

1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas

2 teaspoons pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika)

½ teaspoon pimentón picante de la Vera (smoked hot paprika)

2 cloves garlic

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Chickpea cooking liquid or water, to thin the spread

Sesame seeds

Toasts or crackers  to accompany

Combine the chickpeas, two kinds of pimenton, garlic, cumin, oil, salt and lemon juice in a blender. Add enough liquid, about ¼ cup, to turn the mixture into a thick cream. 

To serve, place in a bowl and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with toasts or crackers.

Ajo pimentón is a smooth chickpea spread with pimentón.

Three dishes from Arte de Cozina. Clockwise from top left,  Chestnut Stew, Kid-Goat in Pastoril Sauce, and Olla Podrida, a soup/stew with chickpeas, chicken, pork, beef, pork belly, tongue, trotter, ear, tail, plus rabbit, partridge, kid, blood sausage, chorizo, turnip, cabbage, garlic, and saffron. Sprinkled with parsley. Intense flavors. 

The restaurant: Arte de Cozina.

Recipes from Arte de Cozina Season for "Spoon Foods."

Accompaniments to the dip:

Pita Crisps.

Sesame-Wheat Crackers (Regañás).

Saffron: Fool’s Gold?

 

Saffron threads.

Is this real saffron? Maybe not, as it was very cheap. I bought it because I trusted the labeling with the store’s trademark. It stated, “Ingredients: saffron. May contain traces of cereal with gluten, frutos cáscara (nuts?), mustard and sesame.” Was dye among the traces? 

The threads of saffron appear uniformly crimson, whereas my La Mancha saffron with denominación de origen shows variations in color. The cheap saffron has a very slight aroma, whereas “real” saffron is quite pungent—a warm scent of honey, hay and floral perfume that I think of as exotic. When I crushed the threads and added hot water, the infusion turned immediately bright yellow-orange. My authentic Spanish saffron takes longer to infuse. 

Saffron (azafrán) is expensive because it’s extraordinarily labor intensive to produce. It takes the tiny stigmas of 75,000 crocus sativus to make a pound of the spice. The mauve-colored crocuses must be hand-picked and the delicate stigmas plucked out by hand. Most saffron sold in Spain and globally comes from Iran, although it is not usually so-labeled. Iranian saffron is good quality and cheaper than Spanish saffron.

So much for my doubts. But, does it really matter? Saffron has long been an ingredient in special foods, those served on fiesta days, for weddings and baptisms. But, for ordinary day-to-day cooking, Spanish home cooks may use artificial yellow coloring.

La comida amarilla, the “yellow meal,” is beloved in Andalusia. Rice dishes such as paella, of course, but many other dishes as well. Yellow spice with green vegetables, with potatoes and noodles, in fish dishes, in stews with almond sauce. 

White fish, green peas and golden saffron sauce.

Serve white rice with the saffron sauce. Or, cook potatoes right in the sauce.

This dish of delicate hake in saffron sauce is quite elegant. It’s a refined version of pescado en amarillo, fish in yellow sauce, a Cádiz specialty. It can be made with any fish available—cazón (dogfish, a kind of shark), corvina, skate, bacalao. The Cádiz version usually has potatoes cooked in the sauce. If you want to prepare it that way, use double the quantity of liquid and cook the potatoes until tender before adding the fish.  

Everything—potatoes and fish—submerged in the yellow sauce will turn yellow. If you want the fish to stay white, cook it on top of the sauce and lift it out carefully. 

Hake in Saffron Sauce

Merluza al Azafrán

If possible, buy a whole hake and use the head, bones and trimmings to make a flavorful fish stock. Add shrimp heads and shells, if available, for added color and flavor to the stock. If you've got a cooked carrot from the stock, mash a piece of it and add to the saffron sauce.

Crush saffron threads, infuse them in hot water.

Serves 4.

4 (4-ounce) fillets of hake

Salt

¼ teaspoon saffron threads

¼ cup hot water

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 slices cooked carrot, mashed (optional)

¼ cup white wine

1 tablespoon flour

1 ¼ cups fish stock

1 cup shelled peas

Chopped parsley to garnish

Sprinkle the fish lightly with salt and let it come to room temperature.

Crush the saffron and add the hot water to it. Let the saffron infuse 5 minutes.

Heat the oil in a cazuela or skillet and sauté the chopped onion on medium heat. Do not let it brown. Add the garlic and continue sautéeing, 5 minutes. Add the carrot, if using. Add the wine and cook off the alcohol. Stir in the flour. Whisk in the fish stock. Stir until the sauce thickens slightly. Add salt to taste. Cook the sauce 10 minutes, adding the peas during the last 3 minutes. Sauce can be prepared up to this point in advance of cooking the fish.

When ready to cook the fish, heat the sauce. Place the fillets in the sauce skin side up. Cover the pan and cook on moderate heat 4 minutes, or until fish flakes easily. 

Spoon some of the sauce and peas onto serving plates. Lift the fish out of the pan with a spatula and serve a fillet on each plate. Garnish with parsley.

More recipes with saffron:

Saffron Ice Cream.

Chicken with Saffron Rice.

Yellow Potato Casserole.

Orange-Saffron-Sherry Olive Oil Cake.

Potatoes in Garlicky Saffron Sauce.

THE SECOND LIFE OF BREAD

 I wound up with a whole loaf of bread and nobody to eat it.  Often, I save chunks of stale bread in the freezer for adding to gazpacho. Bread emulsifies the olive oil, making a thick and creamy soup. But, it’s many, many months until gazpacho season. Migas, another good use for stale bread, is really meant for a big family gathering. Not what to cook for one.

Having recently signed on to the Sin Desperdicios (No Waste) movement, I thought I’d better come up with some good use for this bread. I turned the whole loaf into fried bread crisps that—if I don’t keep munching on them—will last up to a week. The crisps are perfect for adding to soups, crumbling into salads, or using as dippers. Sprinkled with sugar or drizzled with honey, fried bread makes a satisfying breakfast. You can even dunk the crunchy bread into coffee. 

Thinly sliced bread fried in olive oil makes crispy toasts that will keep for days. 

Fried bread for breakfast, with sugar or honey, fruit and jam. Dunk it in the coffee or hot chocolate.

Better than crackers! Serve fried bread with soups of all kinds. Here bread crisps are shown with Fish Soup with Sour Orange (Cachorreñas). More about bitter oranges and a recipe for the soup are here.

Crunchy fried bread goes with salad.

Fried bread is the base for store-bought partridge pâté with pickled onions, olives and red wine.

Ladle garlic soup over slices of fried bread, top with a poached egg and strips of ham. Recipe for garlic soup (maimones) is here.

Crispy Fried Bread

Pan Frito Crujiente

Barra loaf makes 24 slices.

Make fried bread with any type or shape of bread, sandwich loaf or baguette, a big, round hogaza or a bollo (crusty roll). Cut into dice, fried bread becomes croutons (costrones). In strips, they might be called picatostes. This version is made with slices,  Slice the bread thinly (¼ inch), with or without crusts. The fried bread can be seasoned with herbs or spices, if desired. Salt or sugar for savory or sweet.  Extra virgin olive oil is the essential ingredient.

24 slices day-old bread

½ to ¾ cup olive oil

Salt (optional)

Sugar (optional)

Place oil to a depth of ¼ inch in a skillet. Heat the oil on medium-high. Add a crust of bread to the pan. When the crust begins to sizzle and brown, the oil is hot enough to fry the slices. Place them in the oil in a single layer and fry until golden-brown on one side, about 30 seconds. Flip the bread and fry the reverse sides. 

Fry bread in olive oil.

Remove the slices with a spatula, letting them drain briefly. Place in paper towels to absorb excess oil. Continue frying remaining slices, adding more oil as needed. Sprinkle with salt or dust with sugar while still warm. 

When crisps are completely cool, store them in an air-tight container or plastic bag.

More ways with fried bread:

Sweet and Crunchy Fried Bread (Picatostes).

Fried Bread Crumbs (Migas).