GRAPES FOR A SWEET NEW YEAR

Happy New Year, everybody! It’s Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year (the year is 5774). This holiday came very early this year. It’s still summery where I live in southern Spain. No pomegranates or quinces, fruits so typical of this holiday, have come to market yet. We are still basking in late-summer fruits—luscious  ripe figs and grapes.

In Spain, the fruit most associated with New Year’s—the New Year that turns on January 1—is the grape. Twelve grapes, actually, one consumed on each strike of the midnight bells to assure 12 months of good fortune in the coming year. So, melding my customs a bit, I am serving grapes for the Jewish New Year.

Black grapes make a leafy arbor on my patio. The green ones, above, tumble over the sides of a terraced hillside. I'm told that this hillside was once completely planted in vines--before the phylloxera blight of the late 1800s.

 Spain has the most extensive vineyards on earth, most of them dedicated to the production of wine grapes. There are also large plantations of table grapes. The muscatel, in particular, is especially esteemed. Intensely sweet, these grapes are also dried to become famous Málaga raisins, pasas.

When grapes are pressed, they produce mosto—grape juice or must. Left to ferment, it becomes wine. The mosto can also be pasteurized to be served as a non-alcoholic beverage. Or it can be slowly reduced to a thick grape molasses, called arrope. Fruits and even vegetables are preserved in this intensely sweet syrup (see a recipe for pumpkin in arrope).

Chicken simmers in spiced grape juice, a lovely holiday meal.

Chicken Braised in Spiced Grape Juice
Pollo al Mosto

Where there are vineyards, there will be food cooked in the juice of the grape. This chicken dish is adapted from a renaissance recipe in a little book, Carlos V a la Mesa, by L. Jacinto García, describing culinary trends in the 1500s. The sweetness of the grapes and the aromatic spices make this dish especially appropriate for Rosh Hashanah. Perhaps it was served in this way in Toledo, pre-1492.

To make your own grape juice: Choose any variety of grape—red, black, green, gold—that tastes good. Remove stems and wash the grapes. Use a food mill, processor or blender to crush the grapes. Sieve the pulp, saving the juice and discarding pips and skins. You will need about ½ pound of grapes to make ¾ cup of strained juice. Add lemon juice to the fresh grape juice. Use the juice within a few hours or else bring it to a boil, cool and refrigerate to prevent it from beginning to ferment. Unsweetened bottled grape juice can be substituted for fresh grape juice in this recipe.

Serves 4-6.

3 pounds chicken legs and thighs
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped leek
¼ teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
¼ cup hot water
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon coriander seeds, coarsely cracked
Pinch of ground cloves
¾ cup grape juice
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Sliced butternut squash or carrots
2 egg yolks
Grapes to garnish
Parsley to garnish

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large skillet or sauté pan and brown the chicken pieces on medium-high heat, about 5 minutes per side. Remove them and reserve.
Add the leek and sauté until softened, 3 minutes.

Combine the crushed saffron with hot water and allow to infuse at least 5 minutes. In a small bowl combine the ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt.

Return the chicken to the pan with the leeks. Add the grape juice, lemon juice,  saffron water, and spices. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer the chicken for 20 minutes. Turn the chicken pieces. Add the squash or carrots, if using. Cook until chicken is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes longer.

Remove chicken to a serving platter and keep it warm. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl with some of the liquid from the pan. Stir the yolks into the pan and cook without boiling, uncovered, until the sauce is slightly thickened, 5 minutes. Spoon the sauce over the chicken. Garnish with grapes and sprigs of parsley.

Chicken with grapes and butternut squash.

PUMPKIN SEASON, BIG TIME

The Great Pumpkin, aka Calabaza.

Before I came to live in Spain (more than 30 years ago), I had never seen pumpkins, except the snaggle-toothed jack-o-lantern sort, nor eaten them, except baked in a pie shell with lots of sugar and spice. In Spanish markets I was amazed to find giant pumpkins (calabaza), dark green and grooved on the outside, bright orange flesh on the inside.

Market vendors carved off thick slabs to sell to individual shoppers. It would take a week or more to sell off a whole pumpkin.

I asked my neighbors how they cooked the pumpkin. Some of the replies: Added to a berza (stew with chickpeas, vegetables and sausages); in boronia, a vegetable stew; cooked with sugar and spices to make a thick marmalade to use as a filling for empanadillas (aha! Spanish pumpkin “pie”); “fried” with a touch of vinegar and oregano; candied in grape syrup.

Nowadays, pumpkins seem to come in smaller dimensions, rather like pie pumpkins. And butternut squash is also grown locally and used interchangeably for true calabaza.

 Pumpkin Sauté
Calabaza Frita

Fried pumpkin == calabaza frita.

“Fried pumpkin”  is the sort of frugal dish—pumpkin, bread and olive oil—that can be stretched to feed a family. Bread thickens the cooking juices, making a tasty sludge. Vinegar and oregano punch up the flavors. I have adapted the traditional recipe, using the bread to make crisp croutons to toss with pumpkin.

This makes a great side dish with roast turkey or grilled sausages. Leftovers can be pureed for a soup.

Serves 6 as a side.

2 pounds pumpkin
3 slices bread, crusts removed
5 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
½ tablespoon oregano
¼ teaspoon hot pimentón
½ cup water
1 inch piece of lemon peel, minced
½ teaspoon salt

Remove seeds and peel the pumpkin. Cut the flesh into 3/4-inch cubes. Cut the bread into ½-inch dice.

Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a cazuela or deep skillet. Fry the bread cubes and the whole garlic cloves. Remove them when toasted and golden. Reserve the toasted croutons.

 Place the garlic in a blender with the vinegar, oregano, pimentón and water and blend until smooth.

Add remaining oil to the pan. Add the cubed pumpkin to the oil and sauté it for 3 to 4 minutes, turning to brown the pumpkin lightly. Add the lemon peel, salt and garlic-vinegar mixture from the blender. Reduce heat, cover the pan and let the pumpkin cook slowly for 10 to 15 minutes, until tender. Add additional water if needed so the pumpkin is juicy.

Immediately before serving, toss the pumpkin with the crisp croutons.

 Fruit Compote in Grape Syrup with Pumpkin
Arrope

Pumpkin compote in wine syrup.

In wine producing regions, such as La Mancha, a very old way to preserve fruit is by cooking it in grape must (the juice extracted from grapes in the first step of wine making, before fermentation takes place). The must is boiled to a thick syrup, then fruits such as quince and apples and vegetables such as pumpkin, eggplant and sweet potatoes are cooked in the syrup.

This recipe is an adaptation. It is not a preserve, so refrigerate and use within a few days. It’s gorgeous with a dollop of crème fraîche or Greek yogurt to top the compote.

Use white or red grape juice with no sugar added. You can also use wine, but then you will need to add sugar.

Arrope is a wine syrup with fruits.

I used 4 cups of red mosto (grape juice); 1 cinnamon stick, 2 or 3 cloves; 1 slice orange, 1 slice lemon, 1 quince, 1 ¼ pounds pumpkin (about 3 cups cut up); ¼ pound figs.

Put the juice or wine in a pot with the orange and lemon, cinnamon and cloves. Bring to a boil, then simmer until reduced by half. While it is cooking, peel the quince, cut out the core and cut the fruit into bite-size cubes. Add to the grape juice.

When juice is reduced, add the pumpkin, cut in bite-size cubes, and the figs. Simmer until pumpkin is just tender, about 10 minutes more.

Discard orange and lemon slices, cloves and cinnamon. Cool the fruit, then store, covered and refrigerated.




©text, recipes and photos Janet Mendel