Tapas for two

Tapas for two

I go on holiday to Spain in just over two weeks. Ten days of chilling out, relaxing on the beach and most importantly finding fantastic local places to to sample Spanish food. Will and I are staying at my parent’s apartment in Torrevieja, on the Costa Blanca. As with most Spanish towns on the south coast it has been attacked by tourists and many restaurants offer a strange selection of Paella and Spanish omelette alongside chicken and chips and gammon and egg. But Torrevieja still has some Spanish charm and this time I am determined to find some authentic places to eat and drink.
To get us in the mood for the holiday I decided to have a go at doing a little tapas evening, but although I make a pretty good Paella, that is about the extent of my Spanish culinary range. I found a couple of recipes; one for the classic Patatas Bravas and a chorizo and cannelloni bean concoction. To those dishes I added a favourite started of mine – melon with Serreno ham – then some rustic bread with fruity olive oil and some cheese and salad. It is a strange mix of dishes but that’s the thing about tapas you can’t really go wrong with it because it is just a selection of dishes to nibble at. Knock it back with a few glasses and young Tempranillo and you can’t go wrong.

Patatas Bravas
This was a recipe I found in a book by Simon Rimmer (regular chef on Something for the weekend) called The Accidental Vegetarian. I will leave the quantity for four people because often with tapas you will be making for a crowd. But as a pointer I think I cooked about 400g of potatoes, with half a can of chopped tomatoes, one fresh red chilli (because that was all I had in the kitchen) with an added tsp of dried chilli flakes, plus three small garlic cloves for two people.

Patatas Bravas

Recipe
Lots of olive oil
600g Maris Piper or Desiree potatoes, peeled and cut into one inch cubes.
400g tin of chopped tomatoes.
3 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
Lots of fresh chopped parsley to through over at the end.

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Heat a load of oil in a big roasting tray until really hot. Throw the potatoes into the oil, give them a shake, season well, and cook for about 10 minutes until they begin to brown.
2. Add the tomatoes, chillies, garlic and stir well to coat the potatoes. Put back in the oven for a further 25-35 minutes, until they are going crisp on the outside but are still soft and gooey on the inside.
3. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.
WARNING: These are very addictive: make sure there is enough to go round!

Chorizo in beer
This recipe came from a really good book I read recently called ‘3 ways with…stale bread (and 99 other things you will find in your pantry, fridge or freezer)’, by Ross Dobson, an excellent Australian food writer. It is a great read for people trying to cut down on food waste and save money. Ross offers three different recipes for each store cupboard ingredient, such as tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, rice ect.
Recipe
Stir-fry one finely chopped onion in some olive oil for a few minutes. Add one tablespoon of soft brown sugar and one sliced chorizo and cook for 2-3 minutes until the sausage starts to brown.
Add a 400g tin of cannelloni beans, 125ml of beer, three tablespoons of red wine vinegar and one bay leaf. Boil for 6-8 minutes until almost all the liquid has gone. Serve in a bowl with the juices so you can soak them up with chunks of bread.

A trip to foodie heaven

Quite frankly only true foodies will appreciate why I’m about to rave about my first ever trip to a Chinese supermarket to buy authentic Asian ingredients.
But being new to the foodie scene (at only 22 and just a few years experience of cooking) this was a real revelation. To be able to buy the authentic ingredients used for Chinese cooking instead of imitation products from the supermarket was thrilling.
Now if you have recently read the post below (The lost art of thrift) you will be wondering why blowing money on lots of new ingredients is in any way thrifty or money saving. But in fact it is the corner stone of saving money in the kitchen.
You see, what I bought this weekend was lots of store cupboard ingredients – sauces, marinades, curry pastes and dried goods. And with good store cupboard ingredients (which also includes dried pasta, canned pulses, spices, herbs, canned tomatoes ect) you can make a few left over scraps into a tasty meal.

Take for example last night. Languishing in the fridge was some broccoli, which I forgot to use earlier in the week. I found a few spring onions and some eggs, which are always hanging out in my fridge. All I had to do was buy a nice piece of beef and I had a Chinese meal straight off a take-away menu – but fresh and MSG free.
I made egg fried rice with some cooked Thai fragrant rice I had just bought in a 5kg bag at the Chinese supermarket (Wai Yee Hong, Bristol), with two whisked eggs for two people, a splash of soy sauce and a dribble of fragrant sesame oil. Just scramble the egg in your wok and set aside, add more oil and fry the cooked rice in the wok for a few minutes. Add the egg, soy and sesame oil – and some sliced spring onions if you have them. Then I made beef and broccoli in oyster sauce.
I marinated around 300g of sliced beef in 1tbsp Shaohsing rice wine and 1tbsp of soy sauce for 5 minutes, then fried it in a wok until lightly browned and tipped it onto a plate. I then fried one chopped garlic clove, a little grating of fresh ginger and three sliced spring onions in the wok, added the broccoli and stir fried for a few minutes. I returned the beef to the wok and added 2tbsp of oyster sauce and 3tbsp of water, plus a little drizzle of sesame oil and a small squeeze of honey for sweetness. Lastly I put the lid of the wok on and cooked for 2-3 minutes until the broccoli had cooked but was still crunchy. It was fresh, delicious and it certainly tasted authentic.

So although I spent around £25 on new ingredients I think they will pay their way by giving me many tasty meals at short notice. Next I need to find somewhere to get good authentic Indian produce. If anyone lives in the Bristol area and knows of a place – or any interesting delis – then please let me know.