GAZPACHOS—PERFECT ON A FRIGID WINTER DAY

 

Gazpachos for winter? Yes, this La Mancha stew is called gazpachos. What looks like squares of pasta are pieces of torta, a thin, unleavened bread.

Here’s a robust and warming stew, perfect for these frigid late winter days. Yes, gazpachos. Take note, this stew is “gazpachos”—plural—not to be confused with Andalusian cold soup (though the origin of the name is the same, as "gazpacho" refers to fragments of bread). 

Gazpachos is an ancient dish, with its roots in the pastoral life of La Mancha. Shepherds tending their flocks far from villages cooked whatever small game they could shoot or bring down with a slingshot, such as hare, rabbit, partridge, dove. Sometimes foraged greens such as collejas, bladder campion; wild herbs such as pebrella, a kind of thyme, or wild mushrooms were added. The meat was stewed over a wood fire and embellished with torta cenceña, a round, unleavened campfire bread that thickened the stew and served as an edible dinner plate.

Tortas for adding to gazpachos stew.

Over the years, gazpachos has been “domesticated,” prepared in home kitchens with chicken and farm-raised rabbit, rather than game. A commercial version of the torta is sold in La Mancha today. It’s a crisp, flatbread, about 15 inches in diameter, that looks, for all the world, like matzah on steroids.  (Tortas cenceñas, pictured at left, can be ordered in Spain from Rincon de la Mancha.)

Homemade torta--flatbreads cooked on a griddle.

Homemade torta is soft and pliable when fresh off the griddle, but, it quickly dries into hardtack. Break it into pieces before adding to the stew, where it cooks up like pasta.

If you don’t want to prepare the homemade version, substitute other unleavened bread/crackers, such as Hebrew matzah or water biscuits (crackers).

I am using dark meat turkey instead of wild game for this stew. The bone-in turkey makes a deeply flavored cooking liquid. Once the meat is tender, it’s skimmed out and stripped off the bones. Instead of foraged greens and wild mushrooms, I’ve added chard and (cultivated) oyster mushrooms. 

Instead of wild game and foraged wild greens, I've added turkey and chard to the stew.

Chunks of meat, soft torta, mushrooms and greens make a hearty winter stew. Serve gazpachos with a D.O. La Mancha Tempranillo wine. 

La Mancha Gazpachos Stew with Tortas

Gazpachos Manchegos

Dark meat turkey lends this stew a slightly gamey taste, reminiscent of wild hare. It's a firm meat that won’t disintegrate easily in slow cooking. If you are substituting regular chicken or farmed rabbit, take care not to overcook the meat. It can be left on the bone or deboned as directed for the turkey. 

Use the same sofrito and tortas to make vegetarian or seafood gazpachos. 

 

Serves 6.

Debone the turkey after cooking.

3 pounds turkey drumsticks and/or thighs

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped red bell pepper

2 teaspoons pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika)

1 cup grated tomato pulp or crushed tomatoes

1 whole head of garlic

6 cups hot water

2 bay leaves

Sprigs of thyme

Sprig rosemary

Pinch of ground cloves

1 ½ cups sliced oyster mushrooms, sautéed in oil (optional)

2 cups chopped and blanched chard or other greens (optional)

6 tortas (recipe follows) or sheets of matzah or 24 water biscuits, broken into pieces

Sprinkle the turkey with salt and pepper and allow it to come to room temperature.

Heat the oil in a deep pan or cazuela. Brown the turkey pieces on a medium heat, turning them to brown all sides, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the turkey.

Stew turkey with garlic, herbs.

In remaining oil, sauté the onion until it begins to brown, 5 minutes. Add the two kinds of peppers and continue sautéing. Stir in the pimentón. Add the tomato pulp and fry a few minutes. Return the pieces of turkey to the pan.

 

Peel off papery outer layers from the head of garlic. Slice off the top of the head, leaving the cloves attached at the root. Tuck the head of garlic into the pan with the turkey. 

Add the water to the pan. Add 2 teaspoons of salt, pepper, thyme, bay leaves, rosemary and cloves. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook slowly until turkey is very tender, turning the pieces occasionally, about 1 hour.

Lift the turkey pieces and head of garlic out of the broth and reserve. Discard bay leaves and sprigs of herbs. When cool enough to handle, strip the turkey meat, with or without skin, from the bones, discarding bones and tendons. Cut the chunks of meat into pieces. Reserve. Squeeze softened garlic from the skins. Mash the garlic and return it to the broth in the pan. (The meat and cooking broth can be stored separately, covered and refrigerated, until the following day. Bring them to room temperature before continuing the stew.)

Add the mushrooms and chard, if using, to the pan. Bring the liquid to a boil. Break the tortas or matzah into approximate 2-inch pieces. Drop them into the pan. Reduce heat to a gentle bubble. Cook the tortas until they soak up some of the cooking liquid, 5 minutes. (If most of the broth has cooked away, it may be necessary to add water before incorporating the pieces of torta.)

Add the pieces of cooked turkey and cook until they are thoroughly heated, 5-10 minutes. Allow the stew to settle 5 minutes. The gazpachos stew can be served in the same pan in which it cooked. If desired, garnish with a fresh sprig of thyme.

Unleavened Flatbreads

Tortas Cenceñas para Gazpachos

Thinly rolled dough of flour, salt and water is cooked on a griddle until blistered and browned. 

Tortas can be made days before using in the gazpachos stew. They turn hard as they cool. Store them in air-tight zip bags. 

Roll the dough out as thinly as possible--cenceñas means "thin;" ácimas means "unleavened."

The tortas can be cooked—with no oil—on a plancha, griddle or cast iron skillet (I watched a YouTube video for homemade tortas where they were cooked on an upside-down skillet of rolled steel on a gas stove!) or baked in the oven. 

Break them up into small pieces to add to the stew. The pieces will soften in about 10 minutes of cooking in the liquid. You can also place a whole one in a bowl and ladle some of the liquid on top to soften it, then serve the stew over it. 

½ cup water

2 teaspoons salt

1 ¾ cups flour plus additional for rolling out

Place the water and salt in a pan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir to dissolve the salt. Pour the water into a mixing bowl and allow it to cool to tepid.

Roll dough into balls.

Stir the flour into the water gradually. Once it comes together as a dough, press into a ball and turn out onto a board. Using a little flour if necessary, knead the dough until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Gather into a ball, cover the dough with a damp cloth and allow it to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.

Divide the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. Roll them into balls. Keep them covered so the dough doesn’t dry out. Roll the balls out thinly into 8-inch disks. Stack the disks with parchment between them to make it easier to separate them. Cover again with damp cloth.

Cook the disks on a plancha, griddle or cast-iron skillet until they begin to blister and brown in spots, about 1 minute per side. Remove from the heat and allow the tortas to cool. They will harden as they cool.

Torta pieces for gazpachos.

Alternatively, the tortas can be baked (400ºF /15 minutes). Prick them all over with a fork so they don’t puff up in baking. If desired, they can be cut with a pastry wheel into squares. 

Store the tortas in an airtight zip bag.

Add torta pieces to the stew. They soak up liquid.

To use the tortas, cut or break them into pieces—any shape or size. Incorporate them into the gazpachos or other soup or stew during the last 10 minutes of cooking. They will soften, somewhat like pasta, as they cook and soak up cooking liquid. 

WHAT A BOAR!

Wildlife comes with the territory. Where I live, on a hillside at the edge of protected sierra pine forests, at the head of a steep arroyo where a trickle of water runs year-round, I have become accustomed to various sorts of birds and beasts. Foxes, genets, mongooses, martens, rabbits, an occasional mountain goat. Plenty of geckos. Oh, and to the distress of some of my guests, field rats that gorge on wild figs.

From my kitchen window. Much wildlife in the steep arroyo below me--including wild boar.

But recently I have had a new invader. Something digging up the damp earth under a woodpile, trampling the vegetable garden, even overturning big flower pots on a side patio. This was something considerably larger than your standard mole or marauding dogs.

One night, just outside my bedroom window, I heard loud grunting and snorting sounds. The next morning I discovered my plot of newly-planted onions had been rooted up. My invader was a wild boar. Maybe several of them. They root for grubs in damp earth beneath stones, woodpiles and in gardens. (But, they don’t eat the plants!)

Boar have become a real nuisance in this region of southern Spain. They’ve left their wilder habitats to forage in greener pastures, in the lush golf courses of this resort region. Organized hunting and trapping help to control the populations. Unfortunately, these swine have migrated to my hillside.



Initially, I was a little fearful of coming face-to-face with a wild boar in my garden. But it seemed to roam only at night. My son constructed a trap, a pit covered with brush, but we caught not a thing. I hate to think what we would have done if one had been ensnared!

While shopping recently at HiperCor, the supermarket of El Corte Inglés, I found a selection of wild boar meat. Fantasizing the demise of my neighborhood boar, I bought a chunk of lomo, boneless loin. Pretty expensive, €24 per kilo ($11.50 per pound).

Boar loin braised with wine and onions is tender, but not juicy. The onion sauce is fantastic.

Boar meat with a side of parsnips crushed with olive oil. Chestnut puree would be good too. A reserva red wine.

How to cook it? Red wine and autumn wild mushrooms? Sweet-sour flavors (Sherry vinegar and PX sweet wine)? Chestnuts? In memoriam of my destroyed onion patch, I decided to cook it encebollado, in a red wine-onion sauce.

Wild boar is somewhat like pork, but a little gamier and a lot leaner. Tender cuts such as loin and tenderloin can be cooked quickly and served slightly pink, while cuts from the shoulder or leg need long braising.

I maybe made some wrong choices. After marinating, I slow-cooked the loin. Although it was tender, it was awfully dry.  I probably won’t buy boar again. I used the rest of the delicious onion sauce to cook a chunk of pork loin. Delicious! And, should I ever catch a boar, I’ve got some recipes waiting.

The meat I bought had been soaked in a salmuera, a light brine, so it would keep, refrigerated, for a longer period of time. For this reason, I did not add salt to the marinade. If using fresh meat, add about 1 teaspoon of salt to the marinade.

Loin of Boar in Onion Sauce
Lomo de Jabalí Encebollado

Serves 4.

1 ½ pounds boneless loin of wild boar or pork
1 ½ cups red wine
2 slices orange
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
2 cloves
1 teaspoon juniper berries (enebro), optional
1 sliced leek
3 large onions
¼ cup olive oil
Flour
1 carrot, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped

Red wine and herb marinade for wild boar.

Place the loin in a glass or earthenware bowl just large enough to hold it. Add the wine, bay, orange slices, peppercorns, cloves, juniper berries and sliced leek. Cover and refrigerate 12 to 24 hours, turning the meat at least once

Remove the meat and pat it dry. Strain the marinade and save the liquid. Discard the solids.

Cut the onions in half, then slice them crosswise. Heat the oil in a heavy pan. Add the onions and cook slowly, stirring frequently, until they are deep golden brown, about 15 minutes. Tilt the pan so the oil drains to one side and lift out the onions and reserve them.

Slowly brown sliced onions, then brown the meat.

Lightly dust the meat with flour on all sides. Place it in the pan and brown on all sides. Add the carrot, garlic and browned onions. Add the strained red wine marinade. Cook the meat, covered, turning occasionally, until it is tender, about 1 hour. If liquid cooks away, add a little water or meat stock. The onion-wine sauce should be quite thick, almost jammy.

Let the meat rest 10 minutes on a cutting board. Slice it crosswise and serve with the hot onion sauce.