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Vinaigrette mussels
Hello,
This is a very typical tapa in Spain (in Spanish, mejillones en vinagreta) and it’s a really nice recipe for sumer because you can eat them at a lower temperature and they’re still delicious, furthermore mussels are one of the cheapest seafood you can find (at least in Spain) making this recipe really a winner: rich, healthy, fresh, cheap. What else do you need? Of course it is also easy to prepare.
Ingredients:
- Mussels
- Sherry vinegar
- Spring onion
- Red pepper
- Green pepper
- Olive oil
Let’s start preparing the mussels, we will steam it. If you don’t have a tool to steam you can use just a pot, boil water and put the mussels in a metallic colander on top, cover the pot with a lid and maintain cooking for about 15 minutes. Use a tall pot in order to avoid water get off the pot, and be careful there’s always water in the pot otherwise you will burn it, and it’s not good to burn a pot on each recipe.
While the mussels steam we will prepare the vinaigrette, you need to chop more or less the same amount of spring onion, red pepper and green pepper, obtaining very smalll pieces. Then put all together in a bowl and add salt, sherry vinegar and olive oil (using 2 times more olive oil than vinegar). Mix well, if there is too much oil and vinegar you can reuse them later to dress a salad.
Discard those mussels not opened, remove half of shell, let cold and just add a coffespoon of vinaigrette over each mussel.
Music used in the video (Airport Lounge) and it’s rights belong to Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) who distributes it under CC-BY license.
Paella
Hello,
Paella is one of top typical dishes in Spain, present in lots of menus each thursday (thurday it’s like the paella day in Spain). It’s so spread it is difficult to find something like the “original paella recipe”, so it’s cooked on slightly different way on each kitchen. This is only one more possibility to cook the paella, hope you enjoy:
Ingredients (for 4 people):
- 400 gr rice
- 2 onions
- 8 garlic cloves
- 2 carrots
- Thyme and rosemary
- 2 sepia (cuddlefish)
- 12 muscles
- 12 prawns
- 5 small radishes
- Saffron
- 1 lemon
Peel the prawns and place the heads and skin on a big pot, add also one onion in quarters, 2 carrots, thyme, rosemary, 5 garlic cloves, 5 small radishes and 2 sepia. Add salt and olive oil, cover with cold water and let boil for about an hour. On this way you will obtain a nice broth and the cuddlefish will be tender. You can also add more vegetables to the broth, like pumpkin, celery, leek … the more ingredients the more taste.
Once the water has been boiling for an hour remove the sepia and drain to obtain the broth. Chop one onion. Add 3 garlic cloves on a blender cup, olive oil and parley and mix with the blender. Add this oil to a pan. When oil is hot add chopped onion, salt and move it; cook it for about 10 minutes. Then add the muscles (discarding those already open, because should be unhealthy), add also sepia cut in small pieces and the peeled prawns. Move frequently and cook until almost all muscles are open.
Add the rice, the saffron and mix it well. Now add broth to cook the rice, the rice must be cooking for 15 minutes until it gets tender. Add broth more times if needed; also taste it to check if you need to add more salt. You can server some lemon with it so people can squeeze it; lemon it’s a nice partner for paella.
Tumbet
This is a typical recipe from Mallorca, it’s vegetarian and it is simply delicious.
Ingredients (for 2 people)
- 1 eggplant
- 4 green peppers
- ½ half kilo ripe tomatoes
- 1 potato
- 1 onion
- A little bit of flour to batter the eggplant
We will start cutting the vegetables. Cut an eggplant in slices and then put it in water with salt for at least 20 minutes, this will remove the bitter taste of the eggplant.
Cut some green peppers in strips, I used 2 but it get little bit short, 4 would be nice for this recipe. Chop an onion; cut a potato into slices; and finally cut half kilo of tomatoes removing the hard part.
Dry the eggplant and and batter with flour. In a pan with hot oil fry the green peppers, remove and salt them. Fry the potato for about 10 minutes until it gets golden, remove and salt it. Fry the eggplant until it gets golden, turn the pieces some time while cooking, remove and salt it. To prepare the tomato sauce you need not too much oil in the pan, put the already cut onion and tomatoes and a bit of salt. Stir it frequently so it does not get stuck to the pan; after 10 minutes tomato it’s soft enough and you can crush it with an spatula, if you prefer not to find lumps of tomate, you can blend it with a mixer.
On a tray you will dispose the ingredients in layers, place one layer of tomato sauce; one layer of green peppers, one layer of tomato sauce, one layer of potato, one layer of tomato sauce, one layer of eggplant and finally last layer of tomato sauce.
Cook it in the oven for about 15 minutes at 350ºF (180º C) and you have the tumbet ready.
Patatas bravas
This was the recipe used to cook my mother in our bar, and it liked lot of customers. As there are a lot of different ways to prepare “patatas bravas”, this is not “the recipe” but just one of the possible ways to cook them.
Ingredients:
- Potatoes
- 2 cloves of garlic
- Oregano
- White vinegar
- Paprika
We will start cutting the potatoes but instead of using the knife to the end we will break it next to the end. On a pot put oil and let it to get heat, then throw in it the potatoes. Add salt, cover the pot and let them cook about 12 minutes.
While the potatoes are cooking, lets prepare the sauce. On a mortar put 2 garlic cloves and grind them with the pestle. Add oregano and continue grinding. Also add paprika, white vinegar, water to fill the mortar and mix it.
When you can puncture the potato with the knife they are ready, and you can extract them from the pot.
Now mix the potatoes with the sauce and enjoy!
I hope you like the recipe, see you next time.
Recipes from Spain 