RED PEPPERS, AS IN A DREAM

I dreamed I was roasting red bell peppers on a wood fire under an olive tree. In the dream, I told myself, “what a good way to do them, cut in half”. When a clap of thunder woke me, I thought I could still smell the smoky-sweetness of those charred peppers. 

Later at the market when I spotted a bin of brilliant red peppers, I figured I was destined  to roast them. 

But, not over a wood fire. I’m roasting the peppers in a convection (fan) oven. And, since I don’t have an immediate use for them, I will bag them and freeze the peppers for use another day.

Roasted red peppers have an infinitude of uses. They can, certainly, be used instead of canned pimientos or the slightly more piquant piquillo peppers as a ravishing garnish. Or they can star in sauces, salads, and braises.  

Roasted Sweet Peppers

Pimientos Asados

These peppers are big and fleshy, about ¾ pound each, and not exactly bell-shaped. In Spain they are known as pimientos de asar—roasting peppers. You can use ordinary red, yellow or green bell peppers. Splitting them in half means you do not need to turn them as they roast. An air fryer could be used instead of convection oven, though you may need to do the peppers in more than one batch. 

Wash peppers. Split them in half lengthwise. Cut out and discard stem and seeds. Place the pepper halves, cut-side down, on board and press to flatten them slightly. 

Place the peppers, skin-side up, on a rack. Set the rack over a rimmed sheet pan lined with foil to catch drips.

Preheat convection (fan) oven to 400ºF. Place the sheet pan and rack with peppers in the oven and roast them until they are soft and beginning to char on top. Remove the peppers and place them in a bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit until cool enough to handle.

Slip off the skins. To freeze the peppers, spread them in a single layer in one or two sheet pans lined with baking parchment. Place the pans in the freezer. Once frozen, loosen the peppers and place them in freezer bags. Return to freezer.

Recipes for using roasted red peppers:

Oven-Roasted Peppers with Meat Loaf 

Moroccan Roasted Pepper Salad

Lamb Stew with Red Peppers (Chilindron) 

Eggs Baked with Piperrada

Roasted Red Pepper Jam with Avocado Ice Cream 

Quail in Red Pepper "Slipcover 

Cod with Red Peppers, Bilbao Style 

Veal Braised with Red Peppers and Mushrooms

Mujamarra Red Pepper and Walnut Sauce  A Turkish sauce that's lovely with roast chicken or as a dip with vegetables.

 

This cookbook explores the fascinating story of the deep and lasting influences that Islamic culture has left on modern Spanish cooking. 

Author and Spanish cooking expert Janet Mendel tells the story of the Moorish influence on Spanish cooking through 120 recipes and photographs for modern-day dishes, from salads and vegetables to fish, poultry and meat to sweets and pastries, that trace their heritage to foods served in medieval times.  (Hippocrene Books)    

 Order on IndiePubs (USA) 

Use PROMO CODE HIPPOCRENE40 for 40% off on all Hippocrene titles at IndiePubs online bookstore.

***

Order on amazon (USA)

Order on amazon.es  (Spain)

Order on amazon.co.uk (UK)

Order on amazon.com.au (Australia)

(If you order on Amazon, please give my book a review!)

***

Order from Kitchen Arts & Letters

Order from La Tienda

Order on ark.no (Norway)

MILK PUDDING, TRADITIONAL COMFORT FOOD

 

Gachas, a milk pudding, is traditional for the holiday of All Saints' day.

Comes a rainy day or the holidays Todos los Santos (All Saints, Nov. 1) and Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead, Nov. 2), it’s time to make gachas dulces, a sweet milk pudding. 

Gachas, also known as poleás, is part of traditional poor folks’ cooking, known as far back as Moorish times (a version is mentioned in a 13th century Arabic-Andalusí cookbook). Then it was made from pounded grains such as wheat, barley, or sorghum or from legume flour from vetch or chickpeas. The flour was sometimes cooked in milk or broth and embellished with meat or vegetables. More often it was just flour and water porridge, sometimes sweetened with honey.

A humble food, gachas has come down to modern-day cooking in both the savory and sweet versions. Made with few ingredients, gachas is something filling to satisfy hungry children or a dish to be prepared for large gatherings, outdoors over a wood fire. Savory gachas are loaded with sausages and bacon.

The sweet version, made with milk, is a kind of wheaten pudding, traditional for tomorrow’s holiday of All Saints. (The smooth pudding appealed to me because, with a dolorous tooth abscess, I’m eating only pureed foods this week.)

Gachas are served sprinkled with cinnamon and topped with crunchy croutons of fried bread.

Or serve the pudding in dessert cups with miel de caña, molasses, to accompany it.

Milk Pudding

Gachas Dulces

The pudding is a thick cream while warm. Chilled, it sets up as firm as gelatin. 

Serves 2-3.

2 cups whole milk

Strip of lemon peel

1 cinnamon stick

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon aniseeds

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

Granulated sugar, to taste (about ¼ cup)

Ground cinnamon to serve

Croutons of fried bread (instructions below)

Molasses (optional)

Combine the milk, lemon peel, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Heat on medium until the milk begins to bubble. Do not boil. Remove from heat and allow the milk to cool. Pour the milk through a sieve, discarding the peel and cinnamon stick.

Stir until smooth.

In a clean pan heat the oil on medium-high with the aniseeds until seeds begin to sizzle. Stir in the flour until completely smooth. Cook the flour, stirring, until it is lightly golden. Add about a third of the milk, stirring to mix it with the flour. Add remaining milk, stirring hard to keep the mixture as smooth as possible. Stir in the salt. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until the pudding is thickened and smooth, about 8 minutes. Add sugar to taste (2 to 4 tablespoons). 

Immediately ladle the mixture into pudding bowls. Sprinkle generously with ground cinnamon. Serve the pudding warm or chilled, accompanied with croutons and molasses, if desired.

For the croutons: Remove crusts from day-old bread. Cut into dice. Place olive oil to a depth of ½ inch in a small skillet. Heat on medium-high and fry the bread cubes until golden on all sides. Skim them out and drain on paper towels.

Halloween (Oct.31) is a relatively new holiday in Spain, an occasion for costume parties, witches and zombies, and truco o trato (trick or treat). (This year most Halloween events are cancelled or postponed due to official luto, mourning period, for those killed in the recent collision of two high-speed rail trains.) 

Solemn traditional holidays are November 1, All Saints, (a national holiday), and November 2, Day of the Dead. They are a time of family reunions and visits to cemeteries to pay respects to the dead. Vendors set up along the road to the cemetery selling flowers, roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes, buñuelos (puffy fritters), typical for the holidays. See more recipes:  

Puffy Fritters

Grape-Juice Pudding (Gachas de Mosto)

Chestnut Season

Stew with Chestnuts

Sweet Potato Buns 

Pumpkin Compote with Grape Syrup (Arrope) 

Saints' Bones (pictured)

Flavors of al-Andalus makes a perfect holiday gift. This cookbook has menus and recipes for autumn/winter holiday meals. See below for where to order. 

 

This cookbook explores the fascinating story of the deep and lasting influences that Islamic culture has left on modern Spanish cooking. 

Author and Spanish cooking expert Janet Mendel tells the story of the Moorish influence on Spanish cooking through 120 recipes and photographs for modern-day dishes, from salads and vegetables to fish, poultry and meat to sweets and pastries, that trace their heritage to foods served in medieval times.  (Hippocrene Books)    

 Order on IndiePubs (USA) 

Use PROMO CODE HIPPOCRENE40 for 40% off on all Hippocrene titles at IndiePubs online bookstore.

***

Order on amazon (USA)

Order on amazon.es  (Spain)

Order on amazon.co.uk (UK)

Order on amazon.com.au (Australia)

(If you order on Amazon, please give my book a review!)

***

Order from Kitchen Arts & Letters

Order from La Tienda

Order on ark.no (Norway)

COOKBOOK CLUB: FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS

 

Friends gather in the kitchen to assemble dinner with the FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS. (Photo by Nadia Gil)

This Costa cookbook club chose my book, Flavors of al-Andalus, for their fall get-together. Each person selected a recipe from the book to prepare for dinner. I got to go along to join the fun in Nadia Gil’s kitchen. 

Cooks love feedback! I was excited to know what recipes the cooks would choose. And, I was very interested in their comments. The assembled guests, cooks and partners, said they liked hearing me give a little background to recipes, an addendum to the book’s historical notes.  

FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS, The Culinary Heritage of Spain (Hippocrene Books), includes 120 recipes of modern-day Spain which can trace their roots to Moorish Spain, an era before the discovery of the New World brought tomatoes, potatoes, and beans to European kitchens.

White gazpacho.

Here’s how the menu shaped up.

Starters: We had four selections from the Vegetable chapter, all from a section called “Gazpacho, Salmorejo, and Dunking Salads.” Yes, indeed, gazpacho with no tomatoes! 

Nadia made White Gazpacho "shooters" as aperitif, served with grapes speared on picks. This gazpacho variation, called ajo blanco, or "white garlic," is made with ground almonds. Nadia's version was very almondy, but subtle with the garlic. (The recipe for white gazpacho, ajo blanco con uvas, is here.) 

Maria's salad of eggplant, chickpeas, and cheese was a perfect contrast of textures with lemon juice providing a tangy note. 

Maria Steffensen made a terrific Roasted Eggplant dunking salad. "Dunking salads" are my name for moje, mojete, and remojón, salads served with bread for dunking in the juices. (Here's the recipe for Roasted Eggplant Salad with Chickpeas.)

Lemon Dunking Salad prepared by Ben Searl. (It was very colorful with lemons, radishes, and parsley, but my photo, unfortunately, needed better lighting.) The lemon salad can be served as a starter (with bread, of course), or as a relish (superb alongside roast lamb). 

I contributed Winter Gazpacho with Oranges. The recipe is very traditional in the inland Guadalhorce Valley where citrus is grown. Besides oranges, it has dried figs and chopped lettuce. I elaborated with garnishes, adding pomegranate arils and radish sprouts. 

Mains: All three were picked from the chapter on Meat, Poultry, and Game. 

Dubbed "show chef" by his wife, Ans, Nic Leeuwenburg declared he would perform live! Here he is in Nadia's kitchen, preparing Country-Style Rice in Cazuela with Rabbit. The dish also has mushrooms and fresh asparagus and a maja'o, or "mash", of garlic and almonds. The rice was cooked to perfection, very flavorful. The recipe could be made with chicken in place of rabbit.

Sonja introduces her contribution, Lamb with Prunes. (Photo by Maria Steffensen)

Sonja Van Blarcum was the only cookbook club member to consult me before the dinner. She chose to make Lamb Shanks with Prunes. She said she chose it because she loves lamb, although she had never cooked it! She wanted a challenge! But she couldn't find shanks! She substituted leg of lamb, cut off the bone. Sonja said she liked trying new spices--besides saffron, which she had never used before, the recipe calls for cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Her lamb in sauce was delicious. (A tip about the lamb shanks--every time I buy a leg of lamb, I get the butcher to separate the shank-end. I freeze it. When I have four shanks in the freezer, I make the recipe.)

Had none of the cookbook club members decided to make albóndigas, Meatballs in Almond Sauce, I knew that I would bring that dish. After all, it's portrayed on the cover of FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS. These photos are taken in my kitchen--above, the ingredients for the almond sauce and frying the meatballs. These are made with beef, although the recipe calls for beef, lamb, or chicken. (No pork in this cookbook, although today's cooks would probably use pork.) The meatballs can be made in advance and reheated, but they definitely needed more stock to thin the sauce in reheating. (The recipe for Meatballs in Almond Sauce is here, plus a short video of tapas for a party.)

Have you noticed a trend? There are almonds in three of the recipes presented so far and one more to come! Almonds are a defining flavor of Moorish Spain and are still widely used in Spanish cooking.

Three main dishes--meatballs, lamb, and rabbit with rice. Each cook said a few words about their dish and I added some background about recipes. What fun! (From the left: Ans, Sonja, Ben, and Cristian Gil. Throughout the meal Cris poured several natural wines from his cellar. 

Nadia serves dessert--an almond torte. (Photo by Maria Steffensen)

Nadia, who hosted the cookbook dinner, made a gorgeous Almond Torte Santiago for dessert which she accompanied with orange-blossom tea and pieces of halvah candy.  She and I decided this recipe for the torte should be scaled down. The recipe requires a 10-inch springform pan and serves 10-12, but not everyone has a 10-inch pan. (If baking in a smaller pan, you will need to increase baking time.) Here's a recipe for Almond Torte Santiago and a spicy quince sorbet to go with it. Or, find the recipe in FLAVORS OF AL-ANDALUS, as well as many more desserts, perfect for holiday entertaining. 

Flavors of al-Andalus makes a perfect holiday gift. This cookbook has recipes for both Christmas and Hanukkah cookies as well as suggestions for festive menus. 

 

This cookbook explores the fascinating story of the deep and lasting influences that Islamic culture has left on modern Spanish cooking. 

Author and Spanish cooking expert Janet Mendel tells the story of the Moorish influence on Spanish cooking through 120 recipes and photographs for modern-day dishes, from salads and vegetables to fish, poultry and meat to sweets and pastries, that trace their heritage to foods served in medieval times.  (Hippocrene Books)    

 Order on IndiePubs (USA) 

Use PROMO CODE HIPPOCRENE40 for 40% off on all Hippocrene titles at IndiePubs online bookstore.

***

Order on amazon (USA)

Order on amazon.es  (Spain)

Order on amazon.co.uk (UK)

Order on amazon.com.au (Australia)

(If you order on Amazon, please give my book a review!)

***

Order from Kitchen Arts & Letters

Order from La Tienda

Order on ark.no (Norway)