Showing posts with label Valencia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valencia. Show all posts

Saturday, April 29, 2023

WHEN YOU HAVEN’T GOT AN EEL

 
All-i-pebre means "garlic and pepper." It's a Valencian fish stew usually made with eel. This version is with monkfish.

Writing about the foods of València recently, I was reminded of my visit to the great Mercat Central de València where, amongst other fabulous produce, seafood and meats, I saw tanks of live eels. 


Eels are fished in the nearby Albufera, wetlands where rice is grown, not far from València capital. At Restaurante Matandeta in Alfafar, while waiting for our paella to cook, I sampled a dish of eels, prepared all-i-pebre

All” means “garlic” in Valencian lingo and pebre is “pepper,” in this case, specifically dried red peppers that are ground to powder—pimentón. Pimentón here is the same as sweet paprika, not smoked pimentón de la Vera. 

Eel is anguila, a fish that spawns in the Sargasso Sea between Bermuda and the Azores. The larvae migrate with the Gulf Stream to estuaries on the European continent. Tiny elvers, netted at this stage, are called angulas and are prized catch. The ones that escape capture make their way up rivers and spend the next 10 years growing into full-sized eels. 

Where I live, eel does not turn up in the local markets. But this simple fishermen’s stew can be made with almost any seafood. Monkfish (angler or, in Spanish, rape) is a firm-fleshed fish that is perfect. Rosada would also be a good substitute for eel.

Pimentón gives the ruddy color to the stew of fish and potatoes. A little hot chile adds pungency.




Monkfish with Garlic and Pimentón
All-i-Pebre de Rap

Vary the amount of garlic and pimentón to suit your tastes. This is one dish in which a dose of hot chile—guindilla—is used. Again, to taste.

Monkfish instead of eel.

1 pound 14 ounces boneless monkfish 
Salt
6 cloves garlic
Parsley leaves
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 pounds potatoes 
½ cup olive oil
Crushed dry red chile (to taste)
2 tablespoons pimentón (paprika)
4 cups water or fish stock
Chopped parsley to garnish

Cut the fish fillets crosswise into 2 ½-inch chunks. Sprinkle them with salt and allow to come to room temperature.

Peel the cloves of garlic, chop them coarsely and place in a mortar with a few leaves of parsley and the coarse salt. Crush the garlic to a paste.

Add pimentón to potatoes.

Peel and snap the potatoes into, roughly, 1- to 1 ½- inch pieces. Heat the oil in an earthenware cazuela or deep pan on medium heat. Fry the potatoes slowly, turning frequently, 5 minutes. The potatoes shouldn’t brown. Scrape the crushed garlic into the pan with the potatoes. Stir and fry 5 minutes more.


Add the crushed chile and pimentón to the potatoes. Add the water or stock. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce heat and cook 5 minutes. Add the chunks of fish and cook, turning the fish once, until it is cooked through and potatoes are tender, 10 to 15 minutes.  Let rest 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with chopped parsley.


More foods from Valencia here.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

A TASTE OF VALENCIA FALLAS

 While most of us are chugging along with routines, thinking of spring holidays to come, the city of Valencia is celebrating its two-week festival, the Fallas, which culminates tomorrow (March 19) with a grand cremà, the burning of the ninots, gigantic effigies, creative, often satirical tableaux erected in the streets of the city. 


Besides brass bands, fireworks and dancing, food is an important element of the Fallas. This article (Las 9 Comidas Más Tipicas en las Fallas de Valencia)  lists “The Nine Most Typical Foods for the Fallas of Valencia”, so, without the gunpowder and noise, here’s a little Fallas flavor of Valencia.






1. Paella Valenciana. No sausage, no shrimp in Valencia paella. It's made with chicken, rabbit, wide green beans and butter beans. Check out the recipe here.















Fartons are buns for dunking in horchata.




2. Horchata con Fartons (Tigernut drink with Valencia sweet buns). If you like to dunk your doughnuts, you’ll love fartons. They are sweet buns—long and thick, like doughnuts gone straight. Fartons are perfect for dipping into a cup of thick chocolate or a tall glass of horchata. Horchata, or “orgeat,” is a sweet drink made with tigernuts (chufas). The recipe for fartons is below.








Puffy fritters made with pumpkin.






3.  Buñuelos de Calabaza (Fried Pumpkin Puffs). Sold at street stalls, but easy to make at home, these puffy fritters are real fiesta food. The recipe for the puffs is here.







Another Valencian rice dish.


4, Arroz del Senyoret (Rice for the Señoritos). A Valencian rice dish that’s not paella, cooked in flavorful fish stock with the addition of squid and shrimp. A version of it, arroz a banda, is here.









5. All i Pebre de Anguila (Eel in Garlic-Pimentón Sauce). I loved this dish in Valencia, but have never made it. No easy supply of eels. (Perhaps I will try the recipe with rosada.)


Fideuá, a pasta dish chock full of seafood.

6. Fideuá de Pescados y Mariscos. (Noodles with Seafood). While there's no seafood in Valencia paella, this pasta dish celebrates Valencia’s maritime tradition. Get the recipe here.

Bocadillo--a meal on a crusty roll. 



7. Esmorzaret (Snacks). This is the Valencian version of a segundo desayuno, or second breakfast, a meal between early breakfast and midday dinner. So important to keep a body going through days of festivities. Bocadillos, hefty sandwiches on thick bread rolls, eaten with draft beer or coffee, are typical. Street food or homemade. Here’s a selection of bocadillo ideas.



Churros with thick chocolate.



8. Churros con chocolate. (Fried dough strips with thick drinking chocolate). Street food for popular fiestas. Recipe for the drinking chocolate is here.


9. Cremaet (Coffee flambé). After all the burning, finish the Fallas with this concoction—rum, sugar and lemon peel flambéed in a glass to which espresso is added. Finale fiesta. And it didn’t rain!








Valencia Sweet Buns
Fartons

These sweet buns are perfect for dunking in coffee, drinking chocolate or horchata.



Horchata is a sweet and milky drink made by soaking ground chufas, tigernuts, in water (no dairy) and sweetening with sugar and cinnamon. 


Fartons have a light and spongy texture. 

For a light and spongy texture, use harina de fuerza, high-gluten bread flour, to make these buns. 
The buns are only slightly sweet, but a sugar-water glaze applied after baking adds to the sweetness. 


Makes 10 (7-inch) buns

1 ounce fresh yeast
¼ cup warm water
¼ cup sugar
2 ½ cups bread flour plus additional for rolling the dough
¼ cup sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup vegetable or extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon grated orange zest
1 teaspoon salt
For the glaze:
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1-2 tablespoons water

Combine the yeast, water and 1 teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl. Stir well to combine. Let the yeast activate until bubbly, 10 minutes.

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the remaining sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast mixture and the egg. Gradually mix the flour into the yeast and egg. Add the oil, orange zest and salt. Use one hand to mix and squeeze all the ingredients together until the bowl comes clean.

Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and knead it until smooth and stretchy, about 4 minutes. Form the dough into a smooth ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic film and leave in a warm, draft-free place until the dough doubles in volume, about 1 hour. 

Roll dough into balls.
Divide the dough into 10 equal pieces (each approximately 2 ounces). Working with one piece at a time, roll it firmly into a ball. Cover the balls of dough with a cloth and let them rest 15 minutes. 

On a lightly floured board, pat the ball of dough to flatten it, then roll it out thinly into a rectangle/oval approximately 7 ½ inches long and 5 ½ inches wide. Roll the dough into cylinder. 

Roll dough into a cylinder.


Place the rolls as they are shaped on baking sheet covered with baking parchment. Space the rolls about 1 ½ inches apart. They will spread during rising.
Let rise before baking.

Cover the rolls with a cloth and place in a draft-free place to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Place the sheet of rolls in the oven and lower oven temperature to 400ºF. Bake the rolls 12 minutes or until golden. 

While the rolls are baking, make the sugar glaze. Combine the confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice and water to make a thick slurry. Stir well to dissolve the sugar.

Remove the rolls from the baking sheet, separating any which have baked together. Place them on a rack. While they are still warm, brush the rolls with the sugar glaze. Allow the rolls to cool completely. If desired, brush on a second coat of the glaze and again allow them to dry completely.






Saturday, March 16, 2019

FIESTA WITH A BANG

It´s Fallas in Valencia! Fallas is a week-long spring fiesta ending at midnight on San José day (March 19), where the protagonists are fireworks, firecrackers and giant bonfires to burn the fallas, or ninots, effigies, usually representing satirical and allegorical characters. 


The Fallas were originally a pagan festival marking the Spring equinox, a time for cleansing bonfires as fields were prepared for sowing. Over the centuries they became a popular fiesta incorporated into the Christian holiday of St. Joseph (which, by the way, is Spanish Fathers’ Day).

Besides the noise of firecrackers and smell of gunpowder, the festival is full of music (brass bands at 8 in the morning!), thousands of feria lights and good things to eat. Being Valencia, of course there’s paella and other rice dishes. Street stalls sell sweets and holiday fritters such as buñuelos de calabaza.

Buñuelos de calabaza are puffy fritters of fried dough that's made with squash.

Buñuelos are small fried doughnuts made with a pumpkin batter. They’re delicious eaten out-of-hand or dipped in thick, hot drinking chocolate or, if the weather is warm, cold horchata, a sweet and refreshing drink made of tigernuts.

I am terrorized by loud bangs, gunshot, firecrackers and the like. So I have never been to the Fallas in Valencia. But I’m celebrating with some quiet buñuelos with friends and family and touring the fallas--tableaux of images that will soon be put to the torch--on TV.

Puffs of fried dough, sprinkled with sugar, are good dunked in thick, hot chocolate.


The squash gives the puffs a nice color; grated orange zest flavors them.

Puffs are spongy on the inside.

Serve the puffs any time of the day. Breakfast? With a fruit salad.


Fried Pumpkin Puffs
Buñuelos de Calabaza

I made this with pureed butternut squash. The directions for making the puree follow the recipe. You could also use unsweetened canned pumpkin.

This recipe makes a soft, squishy yeast dough—more of a heavy batter than dough, really. The dough is formed into balls and a hole poked through them. They are then dropped into hot oil to fry until golden. To form them takes practice. My first two rounds were just misshapen puffs. It wasn’t until the third batch went into the hot oil that I managed to get my thumb through the dough to make a hole in the middle. 

It would be easier to have two people to make these—one with hands in the sticky dough, the other to turn the puffs and skim them out when golden. 

Another option: forget the doughnut hole. Use two spoons dipped in (cold) oil to scoop up a ball of dough and push it into the oil.

Moderate the heat as needed so the balls don’t brown too fast, otherwise the dough will not be fully cooked.

Serve the puffs at room temperature. They are best on the same day they are fried, but are pretty good the following day for dipping in hot chocolate.

Makes about 45 puffs.

1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar + more to sprinkle on the puffs
1 envelope active dry yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
1 ½ cups unsweetened pumpkin or squash puree (see recipe below)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon grated orange zest
3 ½ cups plain flour
Olive or sunflower oil for frying

In a small bowl combine the warm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and yeast. Stir and allow the yeast to set 5 minutes until it becomes bubbly.

Put the pumpkin puree in a large bowl. Stir in the salt and orange zest. Beat in the yeast water. Use a large wooden spoon to gradually stir in all the flour. Use spoon or hands to thoroughly mix the dough until very smooth. The dough will be loose, more like a heavy batter than like dough. 

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in a warm place to rise for 1 ½ hours until doubled in bulk. (Dough can be prepared a day in advance of frying the puffs. Refrigerate it without rising. Remove from fridge and allow to rise before forming and frying the puffs.)

Place oil in a deep skillet or pan to a depth of at least 2 inches. Place on medium-hot heat. Place a bowl of water (for dipping fingers) near the pan. Have ready a skewer and/or heat-proof skimmer for turning and removing the puffs. Place a sheet pan covered with paper towels close at hand. 

Squeeze out ball of dough.
With the left hand, scoop up a handful of dough. Squeeze the squishy dough in the fist, extruding a “bubble” of dough (about the size of a walnut) from between the thumb and forefinger. Dip the right hand in water and pinch off the ball of dough with the fingertips. Stick your thumb through the center of the ball. Let it stretch slightly as you (carefully) drop the dough into the hot oil. Continue forming the balls and dropping them into hot oil. Don’t crowd the pan.

Skim puffs out of oil when they are golden-brown.
When puffs are golden-brown on the bottom, use a skewer or skimmer to turn them. Remove them when browned on all sides and drain on paper towels. Regulate the heat so the puffs don’t brown too fast, or the dough will not be cooked all the way through. Continue frying puffs in batches until all the dough is used.

Sprinkle the warm puffs with sugar. 

Sprinkle sugar on warm puffs.


Squash Puree
Puré de Calabaza

Hard-skinned pumpkin and winter squash are difficult to pare. But it’s easy to strip off the skin once they are cooked. I sliced the butternut squash and cooked it quickly in the microwave. You could also cook it in a little water or roast in the oven. 

To make 1 ½ cups squash puree:
1 butternut squash (approx. 1 ¾ pounds)

Sliced squash is easy to peel after cooking.
Cut the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds and fibers. Cut the squash crosswise into 1 ½-inch slices. Place them in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on “high” for 5 minutes. Stir the slices to redistribute them. Microwave on high for 5 minutes more or until squash is very tender. 

Slice away peel.

When the squash is cool enough to handle, slice off and discard the skin. Drain any accumulated liquid. Mash the squash with a fork until smooth. It’s now ready to use in the puffs.


Only about a third of my buñuelos have holes! It takes some practice to poke a hole in the dough and drop it into the hot oil.


More recipes for fritters/buñuelos:

For dunking the buñuelos:

Also for dipping in drinking chocolate: Sweet and Crunchy Fried Bread.

Another recipe for San José day:

More about Valencian horchata.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

GET YOUR BACALAO SOAKING NOW!

The first processions of Holy Week are already in the streets. The faithful are fretfully checking the weather forecasts for the coming week, hoping and praying that their favorite pasos, images of Christ crucified and the grieving Virgin Mary, will not be prevented by rain from leaving their sanctuaries.


So, people, it’s time to put your bacalao to soak if you want to serve it for Viernes Santo, Good Friday (this year on March 30).

Bacalao—dry salt cod—is the traditional food during Lent, the weeks preceding Easter, and, especially for Holy Week when the religiously observant abstain from eating meat. Of course, all fish and shellfish as well as legumes and dairy foods make up Lenten meals. But in olden days, before refrigeration made fresh fish available inland from ports, long-keeping salt cod was about the only fish available. For that reason, it continues to be the favored food for the season.

Chunks of bacalao cook with saffron rice. White beans, peas and olives make a "cobblestone" effect.

This year I’m preparing a bacalao dish with rice from the eastern regions of Valencia and Murcia. It’s called arroz empedrado, or “cobblestone rice,” because fat white beans look like cobblestones on the surface of the rice. (See the links at the end of this post for more bacalao recipes from other regions of Spain.)

Once fairly inexpensive, bacalao (from Scandanavia—there is no cod in Spanish waters) is pricey. I paid €9.00 for a piece of about 500 grams ($11.00 for one pound). And that was not bone-free fish!

If you buy boneless lomo, the center “loin” of cod, you will need less than if you are cutting a piece from a whole or split that has fins and spines.

Bacalao needs to be soaked in several changes of water to rehydrate the flesh and remove the salt, usually 36 to 48 hours. Thicker pieces may need longer soaking; thin pieces and scraps need less. (It’s ok to taste uncooked cod to decide if it’s sufficiently de-salted.) If cod is de-salted sufficiently before you are ready to cook it, drain it, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

The rice is paved with"cobblestones" of white beans, green peas and purple cuquillo olives.

Like paella, rice with cod and vegetables is cooked "dry," not soupy.

Rice with salt cod is typical for Lenten meals, but is a delicious dish any time of the year.

After soaking and gentle cooking, dry salt cod is moist and flaky.

Rice with Salt Cod and “Cobblestones” (Beans)
Arroz Empedrado con Bacalao

Two or more days before cooking the rice and cod:
Wash the cod under running water. Place it in a glass bowl and cover with fresh water. Cover and soak the cod, refrigerated, for 36 to 48 hours, changing the water every eight hours. Each time you change the water, rinse the cod and squeeze it gently before adding fresh water. 

This piece of cod has been soaked 48 hours.

Use a boning knife to cut away any bones or dark membrane—but don’t remove the skin. The skin will keep the pieces of cod from disintegrating while cooking and gelatin in the skin gives consistency to the finished dish.

You can use the bones and trimmings to make a very simple stock in which to cook the rice. Cover them with 6 cups of water. Add parsley, sliced onion, a strip of lemon peel and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes. Strain the stock and reserve 4 cups of it for the rice.

Use cooked or canned white beans, well drained. This recipe has chard, but other vegetables such as cauliflower, artichokes or green beans can be used instead. I’ve added green peas and purple-black Valencia cuquillo olives for some cobblestone color!

This rice dish is cooked “dry,” like paella. If you prefer, use more stock or water and make it meloso, somewhat the consistency of risotto. However, don’t stir the rice after the bacalao and beans have been added. 

Fresh chard leaves, de-salted cod, tomatoes, onions, cooked white beans, cuquillo olives, green peas, medium-round-grained rice and saffron are the ingredients for this rice dish that is cooked like paella.

Serves 4-6.

12-16 ounces dry salt cod, soaked for 48 hours in several changes of water
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup (packed) chopped chard, leaves only
1 tomato, grated
2 cups medium round grain rice
1 teaspoon pimentón (paprika, not smoked)
4 cups fish stock or water
¼ teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
¼ cup peas, fresh or frozen
2 cups cooked or canned white beans, drained
Salt to taste
Cuquillo olives to garnish


Cut the cod into 6 to 8 chunks. Pat them dry. Heat the oil in a paella pan, large skillet or flat-bottomed wok. Place the pieces of cod skin side down in the oil and fry them about 1 minute, without turning. Remove and set aside.

Add the onion, garlic and red bell pepper to the pan. Sauté on medium heat for 3 minutes. Don’t allow the onions to brown. Add the chard and the tomatoes. Sauté for 3 minutes more. Stir in the rice. Add the pimentón. Add the fish stock or water. Add the saffron. Bring the liquid to a boil. Cook the rice on medium-high heat for 5 minutes.

Add the pieces of cod to the pan, skin side up. Add the peas and beans. Taste the liquid and add salt if necessary. Lower the heat and cook the rice without stirring until it is almost tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 14 minutes. Rotate the pan over the heat and shake it occasionally to keep the rice from sticking on the bottom. (Add a little additional liquid if necessary.)

Scatter olives on top of the rice. Remove from heat, cover with a dampened cloth and allow the rice to set in the pan 5 minutes before serving.





More recipes with bacalao:

Saturday, August 18, 2012

SUMMER COOLERS, VALENCIA STYLE

Summer coolers--leche merengada and horchata.
Stop at an heladería—ice-cream parlor—anywhere in Spain to find all the usual options—helados (ice creams) in dozens of flavors, sorbetes (sorbets) and granizados (granitas or slushy ices). Cold and sweet, they are summertime treats.

But, in Valencia, beautiful port city in eastern Spain, besides heladerías, you can enjoy some different summer coolers at an horchatería, where horchata and leche merengada, meringue milk, are served.

Chufas (photo courtesy of La Tienda).
Horchata is an exotic summer drink that makes me think of Arabic souks and cushioned harem rooms. This is the orgeat of the Moors, originally sweetened almond milk. Today it is made with the chufa, tigernut. (The word, orgeat, derives from the word for sweetened barley water. Horchata in Mexico is processed from rice or different seeds, not tigernuts.) The sweet, milky drink has a pleasant flavor of coconut, tropical nuts and lemon. It’s commercially  bottled, but can easily be made at home with either chufas or almonds.

Tigernuts, also called earth-nuts, are not actually nuts, but the tubers of a kind of sedge (Cyperus esculentus), a plant introduced to the Valencia region, along with rice, by the Moors. Like potatoes, chufas grow underground. After digging, the chufas are washed then dried. The desiccated  nuts, about the size of almonds, are hard and dark brown. (Photos of chufas growing in the fields and being processed can be viewed on the web site of Chufa de Valencia http://www.chufadevalencia.org/.)

Icy-cold horchata, made from chufas.
To process for making horchata, the chufas are first soaked in purified water for 24 hours to rehydrate them. They are then ground with fresh water, allowed to soak briefly, and pressed through a fine sieve. The resulting “milk” is sweetened with sugar, sometimes aromatized with lemon, and thinned with cold water.

The chufas, once soaked and softened, can also be eaten as snack food. They are often sold at ferias, alongside sliced coconut, as street treats. They have a crisp texture, somewhat like raw almonds.

A recipe for preparing horchata appears on the La Tienda   website, where you can order the authentic chufas, imported from Valencia.  

Horchata is served icy-cold as a drink; partially frozen and blended, as granizado, slushy ice, or soft-frozen as ice “cream”.

The other Valencian cooler is not nearly as exotic as horchata, yet still has the inimitable Spanish flavors of cinnamon and lemon. Leche merengada, or meringue milk ice, like horchata, can be served as a cold drink or soft-frozen. In restaurants, I have tasted rich versions of leche merengada, in which the milk is reduced by half, then enriched with cream. But, it’s delicious without the enrichments.

Soft-frozen meringue milk ice.
Meringue Milk Ice
Leche Merengada


My original recipe for meringue milk (in MY KITCHEN IN SPAIN, the book) calls for 1 cup of sugar. Today, that seems much too sweet to me. I suggest you start with ¾ cup sugar, then taste the sweetened milk and add more sugar if you want a really sweet version.

This recipe contains uncooked egg whites. If raw eggs are a possible health hazard in your area, use pasteurized egg whites.

Serves 6.

4 cups milk
¾ cup sugar
Peel from 2 lemons
2-inch cinnamon stick
1 clove
3 egg whites
½ teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Put the milk, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon stick and clove in a pan. Simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Strain the milk into a metal bowl. Chill the milk.

Place the milk in the freezer until it is soft-frozen. Stir it occasionally to mix the frozen and liquid milk.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until they hold stiff peaks. Beat in the lemon juice.

Beat the soft-frozen milk at high speed until smooth. On low speed, beat in half of the egg whites. Fold in remaining egg whites by hand, mixing thoroughly.

Serve the ice meringue milk immediately or return it to the freezer to freeze slightly longer. It should be the consistency of soft-freeze ice cream. If allowed to hard-freeze, remove it from the freezer about 40 minutes before serving, so it begins to thaw.

Spoon the milk ice into goblets and sprinkle each with cinnamon.