THE MANY WAYS TO FRY

 

Samfaina con pollo is a dish of sautéed summer vegetables with chicken. The dish calls for three ways of frying--sofreir, saltear and rehogar. Easy steps that develop a lot of flavor.

Vocabulary tells us a lot about culinary techniques. And Spanish cuisine has almost a dozen words for different ways to fry food. 

Freir is “to fry.” But, sofreir is to pre-fry, or fry lightly. Refreir is to refry. Then there are saltear, sauté; rehogar, to brown; dorar, to brown or “make golden;” sudar, to sweat in oil; sellar, to seal or sear; pochar, to poach in oil, and caramelizar, to caramelize. All of these take place in oil. Olive oil, of course. 

Frying is the cooking process in which the food is immersed in hot oil. The verb comes with its corresponding nouns and adjectives—frito is, you guessed it, a fried food. Fritura means a plate of fried foods, such as fritura malagueña, Málaga’s famous mixed fish fry.  Patatas fritas, fries, are cooked in deep oil. Breaded and battered foods are fried—think croquettes, shrimp.

Fritura malagueña is a mixed fish fry, best when the fish are fried in olive oil. See the recipe here.

For Spanish fries, the potatoes fry in enough olive oil to cover them.  The recipe for how-to make Spanish fries is here. 

Deep-fry croquettes in olive oil. Recipes for three kinds of croquettes, mushroom, ham and cheese-potato, are here. 

Gambas rebosadas, batter-fried shrimp, are a favorite in tapa bars. The recipe is here.

Yes, you can deep-fry in extra virgin olive oil. Heat olive oil to a temperature of 360ºF/ 180ºC. This is well below the smoking point of olive oil, 380ºF to 410ºF.  At this temperature a crust forms on the surface of the food, so the oil doesn’t penetrate it, but it doesn’t brown too quickly, allowing the interior of the food to cook thoroughly.

Sofrito, though, is more than the act of frying. Sofrito is procedure, technique and result. It means gently frying ingredients in olive oil to give new flavors and complexity to a finished dish. 

Sofrito usually begins with slow frying of onions, garlic, sometimes peppers, in just a little oil and often finishes with the addition of chopped tomatoes. The tomatoes, too, are “fried” until their liquid cooks away. Sofrito, if sieved, can become a sauce in its own right. But usually it is the first step in a more complex dish. Paella, for instance, starts with sofrito, to which are added chicken or rabbit, other vegetables, seafood. Rabo de Toro, braised ox-tail, starts with a more complex sofrito with leeks and carrots as well as the onion and garlic to which the pieces of meat are added.

Sofrito builds flavor for paella. Start with garlic and peppers, add vegetables, brown chicken or rabbit, then add tomatoes, rice, liquid. Paella, step by step, here.

Pochar and hacer sudar are subcategories of sofreir. Pochar is a word poached from English. In Spanish, the word for poaching an egg is escalfar, not pochar. Pochar is used specifically to mean cooking something, usually chopped onions, in oil at a very low temperature without letting it brown. Figure 20 minutes. It’s okay to cover the pan. Sudar is similar, meaning “to sweat” the onions in oil until softened. Not exactly frying, although it does take place in the medium of olive oil. 

This brings me to the subject of sliced or diced potatoes destined to be incorporated in the famous Spanish tortilla de patatas. While a Spanish cook would probably say, “freir las patatas,” I tend to say, in English, “poach” the potatoes in olive oil. Because, although the potatoes are immersed in lots of oil (which is drained off),  you definitely don’t want high frying temperatures. You want the potatoes to cook slowly and never brown. (Don’t worry, if you use olive oil, they do not soak up a lot of oil.)

Saltear just means sauté. Writing recipes in English, I invariably use the word “sauté” when I mean for you to fry cut-up food in some oil. Sauté comes from the French word, sauter, meaning “to jump.” The idea is to keep the food moving around in the frying pan. The Spanish equivalent is saltear, which doesn’t actually mean “to jump,” (that is saltar), but “to skip over.” If you’ve ever watched an experienced cook flip a pan full of chopped onions with a jerk of the arm, you know what saltear is. Salteado de champiñones is a sauté of mushrooms. Salteado de guisantes or habas is a vegetable sauté of peas or fava beans. Either could be topped with a huevo frito, egg fried in enough olive oil to nearly cover it.

Salteado de champiñones, mushroom sauté, is the perfect side dish with grilled steak. Recipe is here.

Salteado de guisantes, a dish of fresh peas sautéed with ham, topped with an egg.  See the recipe here.

The Spanish way to fry an egg, immersed in olive oil. Directions for how-to are here.

A word that doesn’t exist in Spanish is for Chinese stir-fry. The technique of quickly frying cut-up foods at extremely high temperatures seems, well, foreign. I think this is because expert wok frying really does reach the smoking point of olive oil. If this is your thing, use sunflower oil, aceite de girasol. I do a lot of stir-frying. I do use olive oil, but I keep the temperatures below the smoke point. Basically, a Spanish salteado with soy sauce. 

Rehogar means "to brown in oil." Chefs sometimes say to “sellar” meat or chicken in a hot pan with a little oil. Although sellar means “to seal,” what they really mean is “to sear,” to rehogar or brown the surface, which develops the Maillard reaction, converting proteins and starches to deep, savory flavors. 

Brown chicken pieces in oil--rehogar--with a few cloves of garlic before adding liquid to finish their cooking. (Recipe below.)

A refrito of garlic.

Other terminology for frying includes refrito, which means refried, as in that Mexican dish, refried beans. In Spain, a refrito often is a quick fry of garlic, perhaps with ham, that is added to a cooked dish as a finishing touch. Spoon it over cooked vegetables, baked potato, grilled fish or lentil soup immediately before serving. The recipe for garlic refrito is here.

The recipe below for Samfaina con Pollo, a Catalan dish of sautéed vegetables with chicken uses three of these frying techniques. It starts with a sofrito, continues with a salteado, or sauté, with eggplant and zucchini. The chicken is rehogado, or “browned” before being added to the vegetables. Each step contributes flavor and complexity to the finished dish.

Sauté of Summer Vegetables with Chicken, Catalan Style

Samfaina con Pollo (Samfaina amb pollastre)

Ready for the sofrito, salteado.

You can vary the quantities and proportions of the vegetables. 

2 medium onions (10 ounces)

3 cloves garlic

2 frying peppers (8 ounces)

1 red bell pepper (8 ounces)

1 large zucchini (14 ounces)

1 medium eggplant (14 ounces)

4-5 tomatoes (1 ½ pounds)

3 + 2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Red pepper flakes (optional)

Sprig of fresh thyme

For the chicken

½ chicken, cut up (1 pound 10 ounces)

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Thyme

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons Spanish brandy

Water, if needed

For the samfaina:

Chop the onions finely. Slice the garlic. Cut the peppers into ½-inch pieces. Cut the zucchini and eggplants into ½-inch dice. Remove cores from the tomatoes. Grate them, discarding the skins.

Stir or flip the onions.

Sofreir the onions and garlic.

Place the garlic in a skillet with 3 tablespoons of the oil on medium-high heat. When garlic begins to sizzle, but before it browns, add the chopped onion. Sauté the onions, stirring or flipping them frequently, until they are completely soft, 10 minutes. Regulate heat so the onions don’t brown. 

Raise the heat and add the two kinds of chopped peppers. Continue to move the onions and peppers with a wooden spoon or paddle until the peppers lose their liquid and begin to sizzle. Turn down the heat and continue sautéing until peppers are sofritos, fried until soft.

Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Stir in the diced zucchini and eggplant. Add about 1 teaspoon of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, if using. Continue sautéing on medium-high heat until all the vegetables are softened, 5 minutes. Add the tomato pulp and juices and sprig of thyme. Turn up the heat until tomatoes begin to splutter. Lower heat and cook the samfaina, uncovered, until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes more. 

Samfaina, ready to serve, is vegetarian. Add chicken to it, if desired. 

For the chicken:

Season the chicken pieces with salt, pepper and thyme. Allow them to come to room temperature. 

Heat a heavy skillet on medium-high. Add the oil. Lightly crush the garlics, without peeling them. Add them to the skillet. Place the chicken pieces in the skillet, skin-side down. Let them brown very slowly without moving the pieces around in the pan, about 5 minutes. Turn the pieces and let them brown on the reverse sides. When chicken is nicely browned, carefully add the brandy and cook until the alcohol is cooked off. 

Either add about ¼ cup of water to the pan to finish cooking the chicken or else transfer the pieces to the samfaina pan to finish cooking with the vegetables. 

Add chicken pieces to the samfaina vegetables. 

Samfaina is quite similar to Pisto, a summer vegetable dish that has appeared in various manifestations in this blog, vegetarian and with meat or fish added. Here’s one of them: Pisto with Pork.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN--

In my book, TAPAS—A BITE OF SPAIN (Santana Books, 2008), I have a whole chapter devoted to fritos, tapas from the frying pan. I've very nearly worked my way through the 24 recipes for fried foods in this blog—with three just in the past few weeks.

Fried foods are the irresistible stars of many tapa bars. They appeal to all the senses, go with every drink. Genuine crowd pleasers, fried foods are worth adding to your tapas repertory. So, here’s one more before I turn my attention to gazpacho and salads.

These are rolls of thinly sliced eggplant wrapped around jumbo shrimp. Fasten the rolls with toothpicks, dip them in egg and breadcrumbs and pan fry them until golden. Crisp on the outside, the eggplant makes a creamy layer encasing the shrimp. These savory tidbits are good with a sauce such as piquillo pepper sauce or garlic mayonnaise with saffron. Serve them as finger foods at a drinks party or as a starter.

Crispy rolls of eggplant wrapped around jumbo .shrimp, with piquillo pepper sauce for dipping.

Serve the rolls as finger food or, plated, as a starter.

In the pink--bubbly vino rosado, either cava or vino de aguja, is perfect with summer tapas.

Rollitos de Berenjena y Langostinos
Eggplant and Shrimp Rollups

Salting and draining the eggplant slices softens them so it's easy to roll them around the shrimp.

Don't let the oil get too hot when frying the rolls. You want to let the shrimp and eggplant cook through in the time it takes to brown the outside of the rolls.

Makes 12 tapas or 4 starters.

1 large eggplant, about 16 ounces
Salt
12 jumbo shrimp, peeled
1 egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water
1 cup fine, dry bread crumbs
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch of oregano
Olive oil for frying
Dipping sauce, to serve (optional)

Place shrimp on eggplant slice and roll it up.

Cut off and discard the eggplant stem. Slice the eggplant lengthwise very thinly (1/8 inch), discarding 2 outer slices with skin. You should have 12 slices. Place the slices in a colander and sprinkle liberally with salt. Allow to stand for 45 minutes.

Pat the eggplant dry with paper towels. Place a shrimp across the wide end of a slice and roll up the eggplant around the prawn. Fasten the roll with a toothpick.

Rolls fastened with picks are ready to be breaded and fried.

Ready for frying in hot olive oil.

Fry the rolls slowly so the shrimp cook in the time it takes for the exterior to brown.

When all the slices are rolled, dip them, one by one, into beaten egg, then roll them in bread crumbs combined with salt and oregano. Place on a tray in a single layer. (The rolls can be prepared up to 4 hours in advance and kept, refrigerated.)

Add oil to a frying pan to a depth of at least ¼ inch. Heat the oil on medium heat until it is shimmering, but not smoking. Fry the rolls, a few at a time, until they are browned on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes total. Remove and drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

Salsa de Pimientos Piquillos
Piquillo Red Pepper Sauce

Piquillo pepper sauce goes with fried and grilled foods.

This is a sensational dipping sauce or a dressing for vegetables or prawns. And it’s ever so simple. The flavor comes from those special peppers, tiny red piquillos from Navarra, that are sweet and piquant at the same time. They are roasted, peeled and packed in tins. All you have to do is open the tin or jar, put the piquillos in a blender with some olive oil. How hard is that? You can add a pinch of thyme or cumin or chopped chile, if you like it “hot. If you want a warm sauce to serve with hot foods, just heat the sauce gently in a small saucepan.

1 can piquillo peppers, drained (about 10 peppers)
1 clove garlic
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt

Combine the peppers, garlic, oil, vinegar and salt in a blender or food processor. Blend to make a smooth purée. Serve immediately or refrigerate, covered, up to one week.

To order TAPAS--A BITE OF SPAIN from Amazon España.

More recipes for fried tapas:
Mushroom, Cheese, Ham Croquettes.
Cheese Puffs (Buñuelos).
Marinated Fried Fish (Adobo).
Málaga Mixed Fish Fry.
Batter-Fried Shrimp (en Gabardinas).
Spinach Fritters.
Cod Fritters with Molasses.
Crispy Fried Chicken Wings.
Flouncy Fried Pork Rolls (Flamenquines).
Fried Ham and Cheese Sandwiches (Emparedados)
Fried Potatoes with Spicy Sauce (Bravas).
"Land Fish" (Fried Eggplant, Asparagus, Beans)
Stuffed and Fried Chard Stems.

FISH FRY, MÁLAGA STYLE

To eat fried fish at a chiringuito, a  beach-side restaurant, on Málaga’s Mediterranean coast is to experience a profound sense of place. Here, close enough to the sea to get your toes wet, where the fishing boats are pulled up on the sand, the fish are fresh. Where olive groves still cover the hills (admittedly, fewer, as resort developments have sprung up), olive oil is on its home turf. This is fried fish at its best.

Pescaíto frito, Málaga style mixed fish fry.

The fish used for a mixed fish fry are small ones--four-inch fresh anchovies; sole that measure only six inches; baby hake, called pescadilla; tiny red mullet, arguably the tastiest of Mediterranean fish; rings of squid. All are dusted with flour, fried golden in bubbling olive oil and served piping hot, heaped on a platter with nothing more elaborate than lemon to accompany them.

. Some of the fish typical of a Málaga fish fry, clockwise from the left are pieces of pescadilla (small hake), salmonetes (red mullet), calamares (rings of squid), langostinos (large shrimp) and boquerones (fresh anchovies). Pictured are fish to serve two.

How to translate this Mediterranean fish fry to other shores?. You will need three or four different whole small fish. Some fish I found in American markets that could be used include small flounder, sand dab, Boston whiting (very much like pescadilla), herring, tiny mackerel, smelt, butterstar, small white snapper. Fish on the bone hold together better than fillets, though certainly fillets or crosswise slices of fish could be substituted for whole ones.

Fish should be gutted and the heads removed. Sole or flounder are usually skinned. Slice any fish that are more than 8 inches long into 2-inch segments. Squid should be cleaned and cut in rings. After cleaning, leave the fish in a colander so it doesn’t sit in leaked liquid.

Dredge fish in flour.

Use a sieve to shake off excess flour.

Have a large bowl or tray of flour ready. Dredge several small fish or a handful of squid rings in flour, then transfer them to a sieve and shake off excess flour. Spanish cooks use a flat-bottomed coarse sieve with a wooden frame. Removing excess flour prevents it from falling to the bottom of the pan and burning.

The oil is important. Olive oil is best and traditional. It’s why fried fish is so popular in Andalusia. But, truth be told, most of those chiringuitos and fry shops don’t use real olive oil, because it’s expensive. Cheaper vegetable oils such as sunflower are used instead.

But, if you use extra virgin olive oil, the results will be astonishingly good. Forget any old wives’ tales about olive oil and low smoking point. Olive oil is very stable at high temperatures. Foods absorb less of the oil in frying compared to those fried in other oils. In any case, you don't need to heat it beyond 360ºF.

Fish frying in bubbling olive oil.

A deep-fryer is handy because it allows you to fry a larger quantity of fish at one time than you can in a frying pan. The frying basket makes it easy to submerge the fish and then remove it. Plus, electric fryers have thermostatic controls so you can regulate the temperature.

However, you can prepare great fried fish without any special equipment. You will need a deep skillet or heavy sauté pan with sloping sides. A flat-bottomed wok would work too.

The oil needs to be only deep enough to completely cover the largest pieces of fish. In the case of this fish fry, a depth of 1 ½  inches is probably sufficient. Depending on the size of the frying pan, you will need 4-6 cups of oil. Don’t fill the pan more than one-third full.

Use a deep-frying thermometer if you have one. Heat olive oil to 350-360º.  At this temperature, it takes a cube of bread about 25 seconds to brown. Olive oil is not heated to temperatures as high as other cooking oils (usually 375º). For this reason, combining two kinds of oil is not recommended. The coating of flour on the fish immediately forms a crust, so the oil doesn’t penetrate. The food will fry to a nice gold, not dark brown.

Fry each type or size of fish separately. Fry the larger and thicker ones first. Use a long-handled skimmer or spatula to carefully place the floured fish in the hot oil. Add fish in one layer, without crowding. Sometimes moisture escapes from the fish and causes the oil to splutter, so stand well back.

Drain fish briefly on paper toweling to absorb excess oil.

Let the fish fry until golden. Timing is everything and this takes experience. Small pieces of fish will be cooked in the time it take them to turn golden, 2-4 minutes. Use the skimmer to remove the fish. Place it on a tray lined with paper towels. Salt it lightly.

When all the fish is fried, serve immediately.

The oil can be cooled, strained and stored in a dark place to be used one or two more times.

Serve the mixed fish fry with any fresh salad—greens, roasted red peppers, a chopped salad such as pipirrana or tangy gazpacho. Traditionally, the fried fish is accompanied by only lemon. No sauce is needed.

Fresh salad is the best side with fried fish. This is pipirrana (link to the recipe is below).

Fish fried in olive oil is golden and crisp.

Mixed Fish Fry
Pescaíto Frito

In Spain you can buy special flour for frying, harina para freir. Some brands are just coarse wheat flour. Others are a combination of wheat flour and chickpea flour or wheat flour, cornstarch and cornmeal. Some cooks like to add fine bread crumbs or fine semolina to the flour to give the coating a little extra crunch. But plain, all-purpose flour is fine.

¾ -1 pound cleaned small fish and squid per person
Flour for dredging
Olive oil for frying
Salt
Lemon wedges for serving   

Pour oil to a depth of 1 ½ inches in a deep skillet. Heat it to 360ºF.

Dredge fish in flour, shake off excess and fry in hot oil, a few pieces at a time, until they are golden. Remove and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt.

Serve the fish hot with lemon wedges.

Provide plates for bones and tails. Fried fresh anchovies can be eaten, bones and all, discarding only the tail.

Salads to serve alongside fried fish:

Fresh Tomato and Pepper Salad (Pipirrana).

Tomato-Cucumber Relish (Piriñaca).  

 Andalusian Gazpacho. 

More recipes with fresh anchovies (boquerones): 

Fresh Anchovies Marinated in Vinegar.

Anchovies in Orange Escabeche.

Field "Anchovies" and "Land Fish."

BRAVA, POTATOES!

Patatas bravas--golden cubes of fried potatoes with a spicy sauce.

These are “hot” potatoes. Hot, as in spicy. Cubes of potatoes are fried until golden and served accompanied by salsa brava, a chile-spiked sauce. They are the patatas bravas that supposedly originated in the Madrid tapa bar, Café Brava, but are crazy popular in tapa bars all over the country.

No one “authentic” version seems to exist. Every bar has a “secret” way. Most  versions of salsa brava are basically a smooth tomato sauce with enough cayenne or Tabasco to add heat. Others contain no tomato whatsoever, but are ruddy-red with pimentón, both sweet and hot. The sauce should be about the consistency of ketchup. Some bars serve the potatoes with both the brava sauce and alioli, pungent garlic mayonnaise (recipe ).

As for frying the potatoes. Olive oil, preferably extra virgin, is the best frying medium. Yes, really. Not your most expensive olive oil, as it loses its prized organoleptic characteristics at higher temperatures. But any good supermarket olive oil is fine for frying.

Add oil to the skillet to a depth of about ¾ inch. The quantity of oil depends on the size of the skillet. Heat olive oil until shimmering, but not smoking. If you have a frying thermometer, that is between 350º and 360º F (180ºC). Fry the potatoes in small batches, never crowding the skillet.

Carefully turn the potatoes in the bubbling oil. A crust forms on the potato cubes so the oil doesn’t penetrate, but they don’t brown too quickly. This way the interior of the potatoes cooks thoroughly. Then reduce the heat to medium and continue frying until a potato cube when tested is tender (about 6 minutes). The potatoes will not be browned yet. Either raise the heat again to high and fry them until golden. Or, skim them out of the oil onto paper towels. Shortly before serving, heat the oil again until shimmering-hot. Add the potatoes and fry until golden.

Serve patatas bravas with beer.

Patatas Bravas
Fried Potatoes with Spicy Sauce

For the spicy bravas sauce
Pimentón picante is spicy-hot paprika. If not available, substitute a pinch of cayenne. For the sweet pimentón, use either ordinary sweet paprika or smoked pimentón de la Vera.

Makes about 1 ½ cups of sauce.

Spicy salsa brava.

6-8 plum tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika), smoked or not smoked
1 teaspoon pimentón picante (hot paprika)
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon flour
½ cup water
1 teaspoon vinegar


Cut out stem ends of the tomatoes. Cut a slit in the skin of each and place them in a microwave on high for 1 minute. Turn the tomatoes and microwave 1 minute more. Allow the tomatoes to cool. Slip off the skins and break up the tomatoes, saving the juice. There should be about 1 ¼ cups of pulp and juice.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan and sauté the onions and garlic until softened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the sweet and hot pimentón, cumin and salt. Return to the heat and add the tomatoes. Cook, stirring, 2 minutes.

Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then purée it in a blender with the flour, water and vinegar. Sieve the sauce and return it to the pan. Cook, stirring, until the sauce begins to bubble. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. The sauce will thicken somewhat as it cools. It can be stored, refrigerated, for several days, but bring to room temperature before serving.

For the fried potatoes

Serves 6 as a tapa or side dish.

2 pounds baking potatoes, such as russets
Olive oil for frying
Salt
Chopped parsley, to garnish

Peel the potatoes and cut them in cubes of more or less 1 inch. If preparing the potatoes in advance, cover them with water so they don’t darken.

Heat oil to a depth of ¾ inch. Drain the potatoes of water and pat them dry on paper towels. Fry them in batches in hot oil, as described above, until tender on the inside and golden on the outside.

Skim out the potatoes onto paper towels. Sprinkle with salt immediately.

Serve the potatoes in a bowl with the sauce dribbled on top. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Patatas bravas, a favorite tapa dish.