CELEBRATE SUMMERTIME WITH AL FRESCO SALADS

Pipirrana is a summertime al fresco salad.

What a gorgeous early summer we’re having here in southern Spain. Temperatures are below average and a fresh breeze (a levante, east wind) is blowing. Cooler weather means the garden is slow to produce. Tomatoes and peppers are still weeks away.

Meanwhile, I have pots of cherry tomatoes and freshly dug onions and garlic. Local markets have early crops of tomatoes, peppers and cukes. They entice me to make some of Spain’s great al fresco salads.

This one, pipirrana, in Andalusia is a favorite at tapa bars. It’s basically a chopped salad of tomatoes, green peppers, spring onions and cucumber. As a tapa it may be garnished with canned tuna, chopped serrano ham or hard-cooked egg. Without the garnishes, it makes a fresh side dish with fried fish or with foods from the grill (add pipirrana to your 4th of July menu). And, with water added, the pipirrana, accompanied by bread for sopping, makes a simple sort of gazpacho.

A salad served in tapa bars.

I’ve enjoyed the identical salad in Morocco, just across the Straits of Gibraltar from Spain, as an accompaniment to street food such as brochettes. There it is made with cilantro (coriander leaves) instead of parsley and with just a hint of chile.

With the addition of shrimp, mussels, octopus or fish roe (huevas), basic pipirrana salad is transformed into salpicón de mariscos, a fresh seafood cocktail, widely served in tapa bars (that recipe is  here).

Piparrana is the perfect accompaniment to fried fish. These are boquerones, fresh anchovies.

Pipirrana
Fresh Tomato and Pepper Salad

Chop all the vegetables in small dice. The salad is best made shortly before serving. Leftovers can be refrigerated.

Serves 6.

4 cups chopped tomatoes (about 2 ½ pounds)
½ cup chopped onion (preferably spring onions with some of the green tops)
1 cup chopped green bell pepper (about 1 pepper)
1 cup peeled and chopped cucumber (about ½ cucumber)
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3-ounce can tuna, drained (optional)
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped (optional)

Combine the chopped tomatoes, onions, peppers, cucumber and garlic in a bowl. Sprinkle with the salt, parsley and cumin. Drizzle with the vinegar and oil and toss the salad gently. Arrange it on a platter. Garnish the top with chunks of tuna and chopped egg, if using.

Rosado--the perfect al fresco wine.

THE GARLIC ESCAPADES

A tangle of garlic scapes.

Before the garlic come the scapes. Coiled, tangled and twisted, scapes are the flowering stems of garlic plants. I am growing the esteemed ajo morado, purple garlic, a hardneck variety.

We planted out cloves of garlic last December. Green garlic shoots, ajetes, appeared in April. I pulled up a few, thinning the patch, and used them in revuelto, eggs scrambled with green garlic shoots, mushrooms and shrimp (recipe).

A field of green garlic.

Ajetes are green garlic shoots with baby bulbs forming.

Now the garlic plants are sending up palotes, scapes. We cut them back, encouraging the bulbs to grow larger.

These pungently-flavored stems, if cut when young and tender, can be used raw, like scallions. The tougher ones can be chopped and sauteed, punching up the flavor of stir-fries, soups, sauces.

To see the final chapter in the garlic escapade, when the new garlic bulbs are harvested, see http://mykitcheninspain.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/garlic-harvesting-flavor.html )

Here’s a recipe from La Mancha (the garlic-growing capital of Spain) for potatoes mashed with garlic scapes. Look for scapes at farmers’ markets. They are, fleetingly, in season right now. If not available, substitute scallions plus additional cloves of chopped garlic.

Chopped green garlic scapes flavor mashed potatoes.

Palotes con Patatas
Potatoes Mashed with Garlic Scapes

Serves 6.

2 pounds baking potatoes, such as russets
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup chopped scapes, green garlic shoots, or scallions
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sweet pimentón
Red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Peel the potatoes, cut them into pieces and cook them in boiling, salted water until very tender. Drain the potatoes, saving 1 cup of the liquid.

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet and gently sauté the chopped garlic shoots and garlic for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the pimentón and red pepper flakes.

Return the skillet to the heat and add the drained potatoes. Chop and mash them in the oil until almost pureed. Stir in ½ cup of the reserved potato water, the salt and pepper. Keep stirring and mashing the potatoes, adding up to ½ cup additional liquid to make a mixture the consistency of mashed potatoes. It’s ok if potatoes have a few lumps.

Great side dish--garlicky mashed potatoes.

THE BEANS ARE BACK!

Just picked--a basket of beans.

I wrote about green beans on one of my first ever blog posts (recipe here).  Then, I was picking the last of the late-summer crop. Now I’m picking the first of the spring planting. Welcome back, beans!

Beans climb up caña poles.

I’m wild about beans. I cook up a mess of beans and store them, refrigerated, ready to add to different dishes. I heap beans onto mixed salad with tuna or sliced chicken for a satisfying lunch. I serve them, reheated, as a vegetable side, with only a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Beans go into potato salad with tangy lemon dressing (or, as in Ferran Adrià’s book, The Family Meal, with Chantilly-mayonnaise foam). I add green beans to stir-fries and to curries. I like beans with a sprinkling of toasted almonds, with bacon bits or with walnut pesto sauce.

In Spain, rarely do you find green beans served as a “plain” side dish alongside a meat or chicken main. Beans (known as judías verdes, habichuelas or alubias), as with other vegetables, are more likely to turn up as a starter, in place of a salad or soup, or as an ingredient in the salad or soup. Or, in paella. Flat green beans go into authentic Valencian paella.

Nor is “crisp-tender” part of the lexicon of Spanish home cooking. Beans are more likely to be cooked until quite limp. Slow-cooking is a fine technique for  mature beans that can be quite fibrous.

Timing? It sort of depends on the beans—small and freshly picked or leggy and mature—and the quantity. For crisp-tender, I cook a pound of beans, topped and tailed, in two quarts of boiling salted water for 4 to 5 minutes (timed from when water returns to a boil). After draining, I plunge beans in ice water to stop the cooking.

Both of the following recipes include vinegar—a tangy complement to beans. Add the vinegar dressing or sauce to the beans shortly before serving, as vinegar tends to turn the beans from a lively green to a dull color.

A jumbled salad of beans, potatoes, greens and peppers.

Green Bean Salad
Ensalada de Judías Verdes

You might add slivered salchichón (similar to salami) or minced anchovies to this salad. Flame-roasted bell pepper is best for this recipe, but, if not available, used canned pimiento.

Serves 6.

1 ½ pounds green beans
2 medium potatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 green onion, chopped
½ roasted red bell pepper, diced
¼ teaspoon crumbled dry oregano
Red pepper flakes, to taste
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup vinegar
Salt and pepper
Lettuce leaves
2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
Black olives

Top and tail the beans, but leave them whole. Cook in boiling, salted water to desired degree of doneness (crisp-tender or well done). Drain and refresh under cold water.

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until tender. Drain. Peel and cut the potatoes in lengthwise wedges.

Combine the beans and potatoes in a bowl. Add the garlic, onion, diced pepper, oregano, red pepper flakes, oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Combine gently. If desired, let the ingredients marinate at room temperature for 1 hour. The beans will lose their bright green color but absorb more of the flavoring of the dressing.

Place lettuce leaves on a serving platter. Arrange the beans and potatoes on top of the lettuce. Spoon over all the remaining dressing. Garnish with sliced eggs and a few olives.

Beans and peppers with a garlicky sauce--a great vegetarian main dish.

Green Beans in Garlicky Sauce
Judías Verdes en Salsa

Turn this into a vegetarian main dish by adding eggs—hard-boiled or poached—to the beans. Use a vegetable peeler to remove some of the skin from the red bell pepper before cutting into slivers.

Serves 4.

Peel the pepper's skin.

1 pound green beans, preferably the flat variety
1 slice white bread, crusts removed
2 tablespoons wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
½ teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika)
Hot pimentón or cayenne, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
½  cup slivered red bell pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
Hard-cooked or poached eggs (optional)

Cut the beans into 2-inch lengths. Cook in boiling salted water until crisp-tender (about 4 minutes). Drain, saving ½ cup of the liquid. Refresh the beans in cold water.

Sprinkle the bread with the vinegar and let it stand until softened. Place the bread, garlic, pimentón and ¼ cup of reserved bean liquid in a blender and blend until smooth.

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the beans with the slivered red pepper for 5 minutes. Add the garlic paste and the remaining ¼ cup of bean liquid. Cook 3 minutes more.

Serve with eggs, if desired. Serve hot or room temperature.

Here's my lunch after I took the photos--I dumped the bean and potato salad with peppers and strips of salchichón into a bowl. Delicious. I could eat beans at every meal. And, for a few weeks, I probably will!