COOKING FOR FAMILY

They stand head and shoulders over me! On the left is my son, Daniel, then his two sons, Nico, 15, and Lucas, 18. On the far right is my son, Benjamin, and next to him, his son, Leo, who is 19. All five are 6-foot or over. 

 Are these giant people really related to me? My two sons are six-foot and a fraction. Two of their sons are six-one and a fraction and, the tallest, six-five! It can’t all be genes (my sons’ father was not a tall man; the mothers of my grandsons are not especially tall women). 

Good nutrition? I grew up short, in Illinois, in the post World War II years. My kids grew up tall in the 70s on Spanish food. The grandsons are still growing, one here in Spain, the other two in Atlanta, GA. They’re all eating at my table this week. This is both a joy and a chaotic, frantic scramble to keep sufficient quantities of food on hand and to keep up with all the comings and goings of busy teens. 

Lunch: tuna-mac with Daniel and his wife, Eli. 

We are seven at table. “You never cook enough food,” said Ben, my younger son. “Cook twice as much as you think you need, then add rice, pasta and bread.” Here's how it's going.

Day 1. For lunch, a huge bowl of tuna-mac, pasta salad with tuna, but dressed with ponzu instead of mayo. For dinner, one of my go-to dishes, arroz con pollo, chicken with rice. I did the prepping while everyone was napping away their jetlag. 

Arroz con pollo.

Day 2. The whole gang spends the day at the beach. They send me pictures on WhatsAp of the grilled octopus and sea bass they're eating at a beach chiringuito. I’m allergic to sun, so I stay home and roast four chickens—with the air conditioning going during the hours when electricity rates are lowest (3-5 in the afternoon).  I vary the herb rub for the chickens. This time it is za’atar, lemon, garlic and olive oil. Once cooled, I slice the breasts to serve with pita bread, tahina and cucumber tzatziki.

I make sides of my favorite Moroccan eggplant dish, zeilouk (pictured at right),  and a heap of cous cous taboulleh.  For dessert, not-Basque burnt cheesecake, stored in the freezer because no one was here to eat it a month ago. 

Day 3. The family meets me in town after my aerobics class for breakfast at a café in the plaza. For lunch, I’m so glad when Ben steps up to make lunch—nasi goreng, a fried rice dish he learned to love on surfing trips to Indonesia. After spooning on super-hot sambal, they are all soon breathing fire. They have dinner at a friend’s house. I happily eat leftovers and enjoy the silence.

Day 4. Daniel does breakfast for everyone. Eggs fried in pairs, or in Nico’s case, threes, plus bacon, toast, tomatoes. They’ve just gone through more than a dozen eggs! I put eggs on the list. Eli cuts a watermelon into chunks for everyone to help themselves. Breakfast is late enough that it can serve as lunch.  And, off to the beach.

I’ve got the whole afternoon to make meatballs in almond sauce, albóndigas con salsa de almendras (shown at left), using almost 3 pounds of ground chicken thighs. I will serve them with rice as well as fries, a big salad and a side of chard with pine nuts.

Finally, the evening is cool enough to eat on the terrace.  From the left, Nico, Lucas and Leo, waiting for food to be served.

Day 5. Nico and I make poke bowls for lunch with tuna and wakame salad. Leo and Nico go off to shoot hoops in the late afternoon and Lucas goes to soccer practice with the local football team. (Lucas, a goal keeper, will play with the Amherst College team in the fall.) A heap of chicken legs and other leftovers will assuage hunger when they finally get home. 

Days 6 and 7. The family of four goes off to Sevilla, where Lucas will meet up with some friends from his high school. Nico, Daniel and Eli use the hotel pool and spa until late evening when the streets are cool enough for strolling. Sevilla reaches 42ºC—almost 108ºF in the afternoon! 

Day 8. Hectic comings and goings. Eli to Málaga for shopping. She  meets up with Lucas at the train station. He returned from Sevilla on the high-speed AVE train. I’ve planned a big taco dinner with pulled pork and chicken with homemade taco sauce, salsa with homegrown jalapeño, guacamole, beans, rice, etc. But I forgot about soccer practice. They return in shifts. I sit down to eat with the first round and leave all the food out for the rest, who don't return until after 11 p.m.

Day 9. After a week off, Ben returns to his job at Puerto Banus and shows the family around the marina. Daniel drives Leo back to his mum’s house in Sotogrande. I might not see Leo again before he goes off to Plymouth University next month. The family has lunch at a venta, a roadside eatery, serving a menu del dia—starter, main dish, dessert—for about €11.00. Not bad for Marbella’s Golden Mile.

Day 10. I am preparing turkey kebabs marinated in hibiscus BBQ sauce (recipe from New York Times Food) to cook on the grill. But, plans change. The family is off somewhere. Daniel grew up in this village and so has lots of friends to connect with. Lucas has one more soccer practice before he leaves. Ben and I eat kebabs.

Day 11. I make tomato gazpacho using ground almonds instead of bread as a thickener. We all sit down to lunch with gazpacho, kebabs, rice, salad, kidney bean-corn salad, sliced ham, fresh bread, watermelon. The AC is keeping us cool on a very hot day.

Dinner out tonight! We go to a nearby venta converted to a grill restaurant, Los Condes, with extended family we're a table of nine. We enjoy everything from salmon, to lamb chops to ibérico pork to duck breast to entrecôte. 

Day 12. Packing. I fix breakfast for Lucas and Nico. Roast chicken again tonight for whomever is home. It’s sure going to be quiet when they leave! I wonder how much they’ll grow before I see them again?

On a previous visit, in 2013.

Same guys, 10 years later, summer 2023. (From the left, Lucas, Leo, Nico, Ben and Daniel.)

More cooking for family:

2010 Food Critics, Junior Division.

2013 Kid Stuff.

2016 The Churros Gang.

A FAMILY-STYLE FISH SOUP

Emblanco is a white fish soup with vegetables, perfect as a starter for a family meal.

“Hoy, voy a poner un emblanco,” said the woman next to me at the village fish market. “Today I’m making ‘white fish soup’.” Emblanco is one of those everyday dishes in the pueblo, the sort of easy and economical dish that mothers might serve to children.

Typically, the main meal of the day, when the family sits down together, is served around 2 pm in the afternoon. (Yes, this custom is changing, as shops, offices and schools change to hora intensiva, not closing for the midday meal and long break.) La comida, the main meal, consists of primer plato (starter), segundo plato (main course) and postre (dessert). A light fish soup such as this one is the perfect starter for the comida. A main course with more substantial protein (fried fish fillets, meat or poultry) would follow.

The soup starts with a whole pescadilla, small hake. The head and spine are cooked first to produce a flavorful broth, then the fillets are added to the soup with vegetables. It's easy to remove any remaining bones after the fish has cooked. 

The best way to make this soup is to start with a whole, fresh fish. Use the head, bones and trimmings to make the caldo, the broth. Cook the pieces of fish in the broth, skim them out and, using your fingers, carefully remove all the skin and bones. This makes the soup kid-friendly. Cook the vegetables in the broth, then return the cooked fish to the pot, y ya está—that’s it.

Potatoes, carrots, onions, peppers and tomatoes cook in the fish broth. 

If you can get it, use a skinny Italian frying pepper in this recipe. Cut it crosswise into rings. Otherwise, cut green bell pepper into thin strips. Cook the tomato and onion whole. Before serving, slip the skin off of the tomato and break it and the onion into a few pieces and return them to the soup. My version has sliced leek instead of onion.

Some versions of this recipe call for the vegetables except for the potatoes to be pureed in a blender, then stirred back into the soup to thicken it (and perhaps disguise their presence from children). I like the original, with pieces of fresh veggies.

Start with a white-fleshed fish such as hake (merluza or pescadilla) or one of hake’s close relatives, such as cod, haddock, whiting or forkbeard. Also good are the flavorful, but bony, rockfish (cabracho, gallineta, rascasio).

If using a fairly large fish (more than 2 ½ pounds), it’s possible to cut 6-ounce fillets from the lomo, center, of the fish to serve as separate meal.

I separated the two 5.5-ounce fillets on the left to serve as a separate meal. I had about 9 ounces remaining for the soup. If you put all the fish in the soup, it easily serves 6. 

White Fish Soup
Sopa de Pescado Emblanco

Serves 4-6 as a starter.

Whole white fish (2 ½ pounds), filleted, head and bones reserved; fillets cut into 3-inch pieces
10 cups water
1 lemon
Sprigs of parsley
Salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium potatoes (12 ounces)
1 carrot, sliced
1 leek (white part only), sliced
1 small green pepper, sliced
1 whole tomato
Parsley to garnish

Place the fish head, bones and trimmings in a soup pot with the water, 1 slice of lemon, parsley and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil. Cook, uncovered 10 minutes. Lower heat and add the fish fillets. Cook until the fish flakes easily, 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the fillets from the soup. Reserve them.

After cooking, use fingers to remove any remaining bones.

Pour the soup through a strainer. Discard lemon and parsley. When cool enough to handle, pick any flesh from the head and bones. (There are dollops of flesh in the "cheeks" and flaky bits on the "collar.")Discard the bones. 

Return the soup to the pot. 

Cut the potatoes in quarters lengthwise, then slice them crosswise. Add them to the soup with the carrot, leek, green pepper and tomato. Bring the soup to a boil and cook, uncovered, until potatoes are tender, 8-10 minutes. 

Remove the tomato with a slotted spoon. Slip off and discard the skin. Cut the tomato into several pieces and return them to the soup.

Immediately before serving, heat the soup thoroughly. Break the cooked fillets into pieces and add them to the soup with any reserved bits of fish picked from the bones. Add 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the soup or else serve it with sliced lemon for diners to add at the table. Garnish with parsley.

So many more Spanish fish soups!

Seafood Bisque.

Seafood Soup.

Mediterranean Fish Chowder.

15-Minute Fish Soup.

Broth with Fish and Clams.

Fish Soup with Sour Orange.