DIPS, CONJUGATED

 Dips, dipping, dipped. I dip, you dipped, he is dipping. They will have dipped. In Spanish, it’s dipear, although the Real Academia Española—protector of the true language—says the correct usage is “mojar un alimento en una salsa,” “to wet a food in a sauce.” Thanks to advertising, dipear is probably here to stay.  

The dips in my fridge are past tense. I had all the neighbors for drinks last week (we were nine people, French, Swedish, Argentine and American-Mijeño). I served trays of dips and accompanying dippers: guacamole with tortilla chips, hummus with pita chips, olive-caper dip with regañás crackers and mojo verde, a green-chile salsa, with wrinkly potatoes for dipping. 

Future tense for leftover dips--as salad dressing, sandwich spread, sauce for fish or meat, even soup. 

After the gathering, I was left with dribs and drabs of all the dips. The avocado we finished the next day. It really doesn’t keep well. The hummus, of garbanzos and tahini, I stashed in the freezer. The olive oil-rich olive-caper dip and the mojo both keep well refrigerated. The oil rises to the top and makes a protective seal. I am happily recycling the various dips and sauces for this week’s meals. I will dip again. Here’s how it’s going.

Hummus--more than just a dip.

Hummus, made with a jar of chickpeas, tahini (sesame paste), lots of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil, with smoked picante (hot) pimentón. I served it as a dip accompanied by pita crisps. I froze the leftovers. 

Hummus makes a terrific dressing for salads and cooked vegetables. It's a good sandwich spread. Stirred into chicken broth, it makes a very tasty soup, 

For a vegetarian lunch wrap: Slice eggplant, dip the slices in beaten egg and fry them in olive oil on moderate heat until tender and browned on both sides. Drain on absorbent paper and sprinkle with salt. Spread the slices with hummus and tuck them into pita pockets. Add chopped salad, shredded lettuce, crumbled cheese, harissa hot sauce. 

Spread creamy hummus on fried eggplant slices and tuck them into pita pockets. 

Olive-Caper Dip (Olivada con Alcaparras). This is not unlike the Provençal olive-caper paste called tapenade. Here it is made with canned anchovy-stuffed olives. Use additional anchovies if you like it really briny.  (Recipe below).

As a dip, it was accompanied by crunchy regañás, an olive-oil and sesame cracker. The leftovers have many uses--dressing for tuna-macaroni salad, stuffing for hard-boiled eggs, sandwich spread, as a sauce for simple grilled foods.

Olive-caper sauce is a tangy complement to simple, pan-grilled lamb loin.

Green Chile and Cilantro Dip (Mojo Verde). 

I served this spicy dip in the classic Canary Islands manner, to accompany Wrinkly Potatoes, small, unpeeled potatoes cooked with lots of salt so that their skins get wrinkly. (The recipe for wrinkly potatoes and mojo verde is here.)

Leftover mojo makes a piquant sauce for fish. I served it with pan-fried fillets of pargo, a pink-skinned bream. 

Mojo verde is a Canary Island sauce with green chile and cilantro. For dipping, serve it with tiny wrinkly potatoes. Or use it to sauce pan-fried fish.

Olive-Caper Dipping Sauce

Olivada con Alcaparras

A smidgin of sweetness—a ripe fig—mitigates the saltiness of olives, anchovies and capers. Use a spoonful of honey if no figs are to hand.

1 (200-gram) can of anchovy-stuffed green olives (½ cup drained olives) 

3-4 anchovy fillets, drained (optional)

2 tablespoons drained capers

2 cloves garlic

¼ cup fresh bread crumbs

1 ripe fig (or ½ teaspoon honey)

1 tablespoon sweet wine (such as Muscatel)

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Pinch of fresh thyme

Drain the olives, reserving the brine. 

Place the olives in a blender or food processor with the anchovies, if using, the capers, garlic, bread crumbs, fig, wine, oil, pepper and thyme. Let set 5 minutes to allow the bread to soften. Blend until smooth, adding enough of the reserved olive brine to make a thick, creamy sauce. 

Keep the sauce, tightly covered and refrigerated. Serve cold or room temperature.

The olive-caper sauce served with grilled lamb, potatoes, zucchini sauté.

More recipes for dips and dippers:

Sesame-Olive Oil Crackers.

Pita Crisps.

Crispy Beet Chips.

Romesco Sauce.

Creamy Goat Cheese Dip.

Cucumber-Shallot Dip.

Yogurt Dipping Sauce.

Tuna-Piquillo Pepper Dip.

Tartare Sauce with Seaweed.

Salmorejo Dip.

Spicy Tomato Dipping Sauce.

Mujamarra Red Pepper-Walnut Dip.

Greek Garlic Dip (Skordalia).

FLASH IN THE PAN!

The heat is on and I can’t get too excited about slaving over a hot stove. So I go for foods that cook in a flash, foods like boneless chicken breast, fish, shellfish, pork tenderloin, lamb chops or kebabs, ground meat, eggs, cooked ham.

Fast foods--pan-grilled fish steaks, blender soup, quickie olive sauce. Potatoes and beans cook in the same pan.

I add salads and quick-cooking vegetables, ready-to-serve starters and side dishes, fast and flashy sauces and, for dessert, either fresh fruit or store-bought ice cream, cake, pudding.

I couldn't cook without a blender and/or food processor, which make short work of smooth and cool summer soups; grated or sliced veggies for salads; fast-chopped ingredients for  sauces.  A microwave also saves time and, better yet, keeps a cool kitchen. 

Precooked foods save time at meal times. For example, in the summer, I like to keep on hand potatoes, boiled in their skins and well-chilled.  These can become instant potato salad, Spanish potato tortilla, fast fries, or, be slathered with garlic and olive oil for grilling.  Cooked rice, macaroni, green beans, garbanzos and other legumes are equally useful, hot or cold.  When you grill, take advantage of those dying coals to roast peppers, leeks and eggplant to be served, marinated, with the next day's meal. 

Summer meals needn't be served hot, hot.  Cook the food and let it set until folks are ready to dine.  Add sauces, garnishes and side dishes at the last minute.  If food gets cold, don't sweat.

I put together three flash-in-the-pan meals, ready in 30 minutes. My menus are inspired by Mediterranean foods and, especially, by what’s in my garden right now—terrific tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and green and yellow beans.

Menu #1: a starter of chilled cucumber soup, fish steaks with olivada sauce, potatoes, beans and garden tomatoes.

1. Chilled cucumber soup; grilled albacore steaks with olivada sauce; potatoes, beans and sliced garden tomatoes.

2. Tomato-cheese salad, pasta with shrimp and zucchini.

3. Watermelon salad, breaded chicken cutlets with red pepper mayonnaise, cous cous taboulleh, microwave zucchini.

Ready, set, cook! Ingredients for a starter (cucumber-yogurt soup), main (pan-grilled albacore with olive sauce) and sides of beans and potatoes. All ready to serve in 30 minutes.

Menu 1. Cucumber soup, grilled albacore tuna with olive sauce, potatoes, beans and tomatoes.

Bring a pan of water to a boil. (You can save a little time by starting with hot tap water and covering the pan. Add salt once the water boils.) Add 4 medium potatoes (one per person). Cook them, covered, until almost tender, about 18 minutes. Add ½ pound green beans to the pan and cook until they are crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Drain the potatoes and beans and refresh with cold water.

Once the potatoes are cooking, make the cucumber soup. Then start the albacore tuna steaks. While fish cooks, use blender to make the olive sauce.

Serve the cucumber soup as a starter. Peel and slice the potatoes. Serve with the tuna, beans, sliced tomatoes and the olive sauce.

Cool as a cucumber! Chilled soup is garnished with fresh mint.

Chilled Cucumber-Yogurt Soup

Serves 4.

1 large cucumber (12 ounces), peeled
1 ½ cups plain Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Mint leaves
½ cup ice water

Cut the cucumber into chunks, saving a few slices for garnish, and place in blender or food processor with the yogurt, garlic, oil, ½ teaspoon salt, pepper, lemon juice and a few mint leaves. Process until smooth. Taste and add more salt, if desired. Stir in ice water.

Serve garnished with thin slices of cucumber and chopped mint.

Slather the olive sauce over tuna, potatoes and beans.

Albacore Tuna with Olive Sauce
Bonito del Norte con Olivada

Have the albacore (bonito) steaks cut at least 1-inch thick. I used three good-sized steaks, weighing more than 2 pounds, because I wanted leftovers for making Niçoise salad for lunch the next day. 

Tuna steaks (4-6 ounces per person)
Salt
Pepper
Thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil

Flash in the pan! Thick steaks of albacore tuna are cooked medium rare in the time it takes to brown them on both sides. Cook them whole and remove skin and bones to serve.

Sprinkle fish steaks with salt, pepper and thyme. Heat oil on high heat in a large, heavy skillet (such as cast iron). Add the steaks and cook until browned on the bottom, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook until medium-rare, about 4 minutes.

(More recipes for albacore tuna here.)

Cooked medium-rare, white albacore tuna stays moist.

Quickie Olive Sauce
Olivada

This sauce, which is somewhat like tapenade, is super quick to make. Slather it on the grilled fish, the potatoes, the beans. (Another version of olivada is here) Wild fennel is blooming near my garden patch, so I’m sprinkling some of the pollen on this sauce. (More about fennel pollen  here ) This sauce needs no additional salt, as the brined olives with anchovy contribute the seasoning. If you wish, thin the sauce with some of the drained olive brine.

By the way, if you’ve never tried anchovy-stuffed olives, you really should get some right now! They are totally addictive. (Here’s a mail-order source in the US .)

1 (350-gram/ 12-ounce) can anchovy-stuffed olives, drained
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Fennel pollen (optional)

Put all the ingredients in a blender and process until fairly smooth. Keeps, refrigerated, for up to a week.

Tune in next week for Menu #2. 

 

More of these to come from the garden!

PARTY TIME!

Look what I’ve got! An ibérico ham. Time to invite some friends over to share this deliciousness.

 Using the lavishly illustrated book, Slicing Spanish Ham by Pilar Esteban, as reference, my son, Benjamin Searl, broaches the ham, a pure ibérico de bellota (acorn-fed) from Los Pedroches (Córdoba) with more than 36 months curing time.

The ham is sweet and nutty; the fat is soft and melting.

For my Sunday afternoon Open-House-with-Ham party I made a pot of black-eyed peas to get a jump on good luck for the New Year. That recipe is in my January 1 blog last year. And, hot from the oven, a cazuela of patatas a lo pobre, potatoes cooked with onions, peppers and tomatoes in wine (recipe).

Also on the buffet table, a bright winter salad of cauliflower with capers instead of the olives shown in the photo (recipe),

I also made olivada, a garlicky olive paste, good with quail eggs or bread sticks for dipping. I bought a heap of empanadillas de batata, little fried pies filled with sweetened sweet potato paste, and made a batch of carrot-raisin-apricot-fig cupcakes to serve with mandarins from my trees.

How many guys to turn a ham?

With good ham, I love fino Sherry. I also served red and white wine and beer. Most guests seemed to favor beer for an afternoon gathering. The sun was shining and we all sat on the terrace until sunset. Glorious winter day.

Olivada is a garlicky olive dip.

Olivada
Olive Spread

My home-cured and pitted manzanilla olives lost their crisp texture, so I turned them into this tasty spread. Serve it as a dip, sandwich spread or sauce to accompany hard-cooked eggs, roast lamb, fried fish or sliced tomatoes.

Makes  ¾ cup.

1 cup drained and pitted olives, black or green
½ cup fresh breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons dry Sherry
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until smoothly pureed. Serve cold or room temperature.

New Year's luck--black-eyed peas.

¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!    HAPPY NEW YEAR!