BACK TO THE ROOTS

Look at these beauties! Purple carrots.

Carrots were not always orange in color. A vegetable from central Asia, carrots originally were purple-skinned. The Arabs brought the vegetable to Spain and, supposedly, the Dutch developed the orange cultivar in the 17th century.

Now the purple ones are being grown again in some areas of Spain. In Málaga province, the village of Cuevas Bajas is commercializing zanahorias moradas, purple carrots. I had seen them on TV, on my favorite chef program (Cómetelo, on Canal Sur). Then, the other day, there were purple carrots at my local market! Irresistible.

Purple carrots, washed but not peeled.

As you can see in the picture, the carrots are a dull purple color. Peeled, they reveal a bright violet color beneath the skin. Sliced, they show pale yellow flesh with a sunburst of purple in the centers. Wow.

Cut in half, the carrots reveal a purple rim, yellow centers.

Peeled, the carrots are a vibrant violet color.

The raw carrots are gorgeous in a salad. Cooked, the purple outer rings darken and somewhat stain the yellow interiors. Still interesting, but not as stunning as raw.

Sliced carrots and radishes with slivers of cheese in a salad.

The taste? The purple carrots are sweet and earthy, like any good carrot, but more so. Unlike regular carrots, the purple ones contain a powerful antioxidant, anthocyanin, also present in blueberries, black raspberries and other blue and purple fruits.

Cooked, the purple carrots lose some of the vibrant color, but taste wonderful

Carrots with Raisins and Pine Nuts
Zanahorias con Pasas y Piñones

Serve these carrots hot or cold.

Serves 4 to 6.

1 pound purple carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped onion
1 tablespoon pine nuts
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon raisins
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint leaves or parsley

Cook the carrots in boiling salted water until just tender, about 5 minutes. Drain and refresh in cold water. Drain.

In a small saucepan heat the oil and sauté the onion for 2 minutes. Add the pine nuts and garlic and sauté 2 minutes more. Add the carrots and raisins and sauté until the carrots are heated through. Stir in the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and add the mint leaves or parsley.

Cooked purple carrots with pine nuts, raisins, garlic, onion and sprigs of mint.

TRICKS AND TREATS

Black fondant spiders for Halloween, by Cati Schiff.

I had a Halloween with lots of tricks and treats. I attended a food photography class taught by photographer Julio Sevillano (he provided the tricks) at the Obrador Dulce & Salado (info@cateringcatischiff.com ), a pastry and catering shop headed by Cati Schiff (she provided the treats).

Cati puts the final touches on food to be photographed.

Cati, who trained as a pastry cook, was chef of Restaurant La Hacienda in Marbella after the death of her father, Paul Schiff, who started the restaurant in 1969. It was the first restaurant in Andalusia to win a Michelin star, with a menu featuring modernized versions of Andalusian dishes, and the first to source luxury ingredients in southern Spain. (I cut my “haute cuisine teeth” at La Hacienda—the first place I ever saw a whole, fat foie and ate lashings of it!). La Hacienda closed in 2011 and Cati has since opened the new catering shop in Fuengirola (Málaga). 

For our photography workshop (which took place on All Hallows Eve), Cati set up a table with an autumnal theme—pumpkins, raisins, chestnuts, walnuts, red peppers, sprigs of rosemary—several savory plates, lots of sweets, a few “scary” Halloween treats (those black fondant spiders and peaked witches’ hats) and classic Spanish Day of the Dead sweets such as huesos del santo, marzipan “bones.”

Huesos del santos--"saints' bones" of marzipan.

Julio Sevillano, a professional photographer based on the Costa del Sol,  got the juices going by showing us food photos by different photographers, including Francesc Guillamet, who photographed chef Ferran Adria’s creations.

Julio is not first and foremost a food photographer, but he showed us shots he made while on other assignments or in his own kitchen (including a series of tapas eroticas from Fuengirola bars). Some of his pics were shot with a cell phone! This is where photography is headed, he said, especially as the technology improves. All of the people attending the workshop had serious DSLR cameras, while I use a Lumix LX5 compact, set on “automatic.”

Photographer Julio Sevillano (left) gives the class some tips on lighting.

Then he set us loose in Cati’s kitchen, where the dishes were laid out on a marble counter. “Move around, pick up a dish, place it where you want, shoot it,” he told us. We started off with the existing kitchen lighting (florescent—not bad for food, I learned). Then he turned on powerful focal lights and showed us some ways to use them.

Julio moved around between us, passing along tips to each as we worked. He encouraged me to try new angles, use the zoom—aha! That is a useful trick!

Puddings in cups. Julio suggests trying different angles.

Definitely more appetizing from this angle.

Later, when I complained that my photos are often underexposed, he said, “Raise the ISO.” Uh-oh. You mean, I have to set the camera on “manual” operation? Julio took my camera, found the settings, showed me how and why (it increases the light sensitivity). Now I need to practice this in my own “studio” (kitchen).

Cuttlefish and potatoes with a sauce made with black cuttlefish ink.

Sardine and roasted red peppers.

After we had shot all the plates, in different lights, different backdrops, we returned to the table, where Cati served us tiny plates of the foods, sweet and savory, that we had been shooting.

Sardine and peppers in a tiny dish.

Candy kisses for the treats bag?

Unwrapped, the kisses are rosemary-scented goat cheese "creams" with a crackly sweet almond topping.

Witches' brew--definitely not the way to photograph fine red wine.

Not deadly, but delicious.

Some of these photos were retouched--made brighter--by Julio Sevillano. Maybe my next lesson will be in using PhotoShop?

FLYING THE FLAG--AT THE DINNER TABLE

Spanish national flag, la roja y gualda.

Spaniards love their national flag--la roja y gualda--the red and yellow (except, that is, for die-hard republicans who add a band of purple and for Catalan separatists who add an inset of a lone star on the red and yellow bars). The national flag waves at World Cup soccer matches and basketball championships, at the Olympics, at tennis tournaments when Rafael Nadal is playing.

Even at the dinner table Spaniards are said to love the roja y gualda. Foods colored red with pimentón or yellow with saffron are amongst the nation's favorite dishes.  La comida amarilla--the yellow meal--so appreciated everywhere in Spain, is best represented by paella, but there are many more yellow dishes. While the orange-red of pimentón is appreciated in many regions, it seems to be a basic color of life in Galicia.

Saffron is a spice of the Old World, known to the Romans and re-introduced to Europe by the Moors, who brought it to Spain. Pimentón, the dried and milled capsicum pepper, is a spice of the New World, discovered by Columbus who was after a fast-track to the Spice Islands.

About saffron. Saffron (azafrán) is like gold--precious and expensive. It's expensive because it takes the tiny stigmas of 75,000 crocus sativus to make a half-kilo of the spice. They come from a mauve-colored crocus that's blooming now, late October into early November.  The finest saffron comes from La Mancha (where it has denominación de origen) and Murcia, but cheap saffron from Iran is imported, packaged in Spain and marketed globally.

Denominación La Mancha.

Because it is so valued, saffron has long been an ingredient in special foods, those served on fiesta days, for weddings and baptisms. But for ordinary cooking, la comida amarilla is made with artificial yellow coloring.

Artificial yellow coloring.

The powdered yellow coloring is widely called azafrán, although it is not, or else by the most popular brand name, Aeroplano. Many bright-yellow paellas served up in ordinary bars and restaurants contain not a wisp of true saffron. Not to be substituted, however, is turmeric, another yellow spice, which has a powerful aroma of its own, used in many curries.

Real Spanish saffron is sold in natural threads (hebras) in sachets or plastic packets, weighing from a half-gram to two or three grams. One-half gram, about a teaspoonful of threads, is enough for two or three meals, whether paella, bouillabaisse or risotto. The good stuff has an aroma of honey, sweet hay, a little medicinal. It's color intensifies the longer it is soaked in hot liquid.

Store saffron in a dry place, protected from direct light. The threads should be pulverized before using in cooking. If they are crisp and dry, that's easily done in a mortar or in a teacup, using the butt-end of a knife. If the saffron wisps are limp, wrap them in a piece of foil or parchment and toast them in a frying pan for a minute. Then crush them.

Dissolve the crushed saffron in a little hot liquid--stock, water, milk--and allow to infuse for 10 minutes. Then add the saffron liquid to the food to be cooked. For a sumptuous gilding to a finished dish, scatter  a few wisps of saffron on top.

Pimentón de la Vera, smoked paprika from Extremadura.

Two types of capsicums dried for grinding into pimentón, choriceros on the left, and ñoras.

About pimentón (paprika). Not just a colorful sprinkle on the top of a dish, pimentón is used lavishly for both color and flavor. It is, arguably, the most important spice in the Spanish repertoire.

In Spain there are at least two types of pimentón--pimentón dulce, sweet paprika, and pimentón picante, piquant paprika, with a bite, but not as hot as cayenne.

There are further distinctions. Several regions of Spain are renowned for the quality of their pimentón--Navarra, Extremadura and Murcia, in particular. Some even have denominación de calidad--a designation of quality.

One of these is Pimentón de la Vera, paprika from the La Vera region of Extremadura. Sweet and piquant peppers are slowly dried in oak-fired kilns, which give them a wonderful ruddy color and dusky, smoky flavor.

Pescado en Amarillo

Fish in Saffron Sauce

Sea bass fillets en amarillo, in a saffron sauce.

Use a solid-fleshed fish in this dish. Good choices are grey mullet (lisa), conger eel (congrio), monkfish (rape), cuttlefish (sepia), dogfish (cazón), sea bass (lubina) or swordfish (pez espada). The sauce is usually thickened with bread and/or ground almonds. Potatoes may be cooked right in the sauce. Any dish cooked en amarillo, yellow, is usually garnished with green peas and parsley. 

 I didn't thicken the sauce, but reduced it. I used sea bass fillets, pan-frying them separately and placing them on top of the sauce. 

4 (6-ounce)fillets of sea bass
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed
1/4 cup hot water
2 tablespoons olive oil plus more for frying the fish
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon flour plus more for dredging the fish
1/4 cup white wine
1 1/2 cups fish stock
Cooked potatoes to serve (optional)
Cooked peas or broccoli florets, to serve
Chopped parsley to garnish

Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Place the crushed saffron in a small bowl and add the hot water. Let it steep for at least 10 minutes.

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until softened, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and fry a few minutes longer. Stir in the teaspoon of flour. Add the wine, fish stock and the saffron water. Simmer the sauce, covered, for 20 minutes. Puree in a blender and, if desired, sieve it (to remove any tomato seeds or skin). Return the sauce to the pan.

Dredge the fish fillets in flour and pat off excess. Heat oil in a large skillet to a depth of 1 inch. Fry the fish, flesh side down, until golden. Turn and fry, skin side down, until golden. Remove and keep warm.

Reheat the sauce. Divide it between four dishes and top with the pieces of fish. Add cooked potatoes and peas or broccoli. Garnish with parsley.

Pescado en Pimentón

Fish in Pimentón Red Sauce

Chunks of fish cooked in a red pimentón sauce. The recipe is here.

Cazuela de Patatas (Rojas y Gualdas)

Potato Casserole, Red or Yellow

Potatoes--rojas (pimentón) y gualdas (saffron).

This cazuela dish can be cooked red or yellow. At the Spanish table, it might be served as a first course, instead of a soup. It's also good as a side or, add meat, fish, shellfish or poultry and serve it as a main dish.

The yellow version is especially good with the addition of fish (even canned sardines or tuna), clams or mussels. It can be thickened with ground almonds. Again, green peas, peppers and parsley are usually added, but other green vegetables are fine. 

The red pimentón potatoes make a great side with grilled or roasted meat. Add mushrooms, bacon or ham to ramp up the flavor. I used a mixture of pimentón--1 teaspoon hot (picante) pimentón, 1 teaspoon smoked pimentón de la Vera, and 1 teaspoon ordinary sweet pimentón. 

Use "baking" potatoes, such as russets. They soak up the flavors of the sauce.

2 pounds potatoes, cut in 1-inch dice

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, not peeled, lightly crushed to split them

1 small green pepper, chopped

1/2 cup water or stock

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Bay leaf, thyme or rosemary

Pinch of ground cumin

For the yellow potatoes:

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed

1/4 cup hot water

For the red potatoes:

1/2 cup chopped tomatoes added to the sofrito of onions and peppers

4 teaspoons pimentón (sweet, hot, or smoked)

If preparing the potatoes in advance, cover them with water until ready to cook. Drain them before adding to the pan.

If preparing the yellow potatoes, place the crushed saffron in a small bowl and add the hot water.

Heat the oil in a cazuela (earthenware casserole) or heavy skillet. Sauté the onion, garlics and green pepper for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and fry 5 minutes longer. (If preparing the red potatoes, add the tomatoes too.) Add the water or stock, salt and pepper, bay, thyme or rosemary and cumin. (If preparing the yellow potatoes, add the saffron water.)

Bring the liquid to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer. Cook, stirring frequently, until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Allow to set 10 minutes before serving.

Cazuela patatas en amarillo.

Cazuela de patatas en pimentón.

Just for fun, la roja y gualda, made with potatoes.