Lobster hotpot
This sublime Menorcan speciality can be found in restaurants along the coasts of all the Balearic Islands. The spiny lobster, queen of the local seas, was once considered poor food, which only the fishermen who fished it off the rocky coast would eat. This hotpot is in the classic Catalan style – starting with a sofrito of fried onion, pepper and tomatoes and ending with a picada paste of almonds, garlic and parsley to thicken the sauce. Serve it with toasted slices of good country bread or baguette to dunk in the sauce. Offer lobster picks or skewers so people can extract the meat from the claws and legs, spoons for them to eat the soup with, and finger bowls with water.
I added monkfish fillets to the original lobster-only stew and there was just about enough for six. Buy your lobsters live and ask the fishmonger to kill and chop them for you. Discard the black intestinal vein and the green tomalley but keep any roe or coral.
Serves 6
onion 1 large, peeled and chopped
green or red pepper 1, deseeded and chopped
olive oil 3 tbsp
tomatoes 4-5 (350g), peeled and chopped
sugar 1 tsp
fish stock 1 litre
brandy or cognac 125ml
salt and pepper
fennel leaves a few sprigs torn into pieces (optional)
monkfish fillet 400g, cut into cubes
lobsters 2 x 700g lobsters (see note in the introduction above for how to cut them up)
For the picada
blanched almonds 12
garlic cloves 3, peeled
olive oil ½-1 tbsp
flat-leaf parsley a good handful, coarsely chopped
brandy or cognac 4 tbsp
grated dark chocolate 2 tbsp (optional )
To serve
country bread 6 slices, lightly toasted
In a large cazuela or casserole, fry the onion and pepper in the oil over a low heat until very soft. Add the tomatoes and sugar and cook until the sauce is reduced and jammy, then blend it to acream (a hand blender is useful to do this directly in the pan).
Add the stock and brandy or cognac, and season with salt and pepper. Add the fennel leaves, if using. Then put in the monkfish and the lobsters, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, for the picada, fry the almonds and whole garlic cloves in the oil over a low heat in a small frying pan, for moments only, until they are golden, turning them over once. Pound them to a paste with the parsley using a pestle and mortar, then stir in the brandy or cognac, or blend all the ingredients including the brandy or cognac in the food processor. Stir this mixture into the simmering sauce in the casserole. For a Catalan version, add 2 tbsp of grated dark chocolate.
Cook for 3 minutes more, or until the lobster shells turn a deep red and the meat is opaque, with a firm texture. Serve in bowls with toasted bread.
Pies with a tomato, pepper and tuna filling
Empanadillas are ideal to serve at parties and are good warm or cold. They come with a variety of fillings and different doughs. The filling here is the most common, and the dough is easy to make and to work with. The pies can be fried, but I prefer them baked.
Makes 16-20
For the pastry dough
olive oil 125ml, plus a little more for greasing the foil
warm water or dry white wine 125ml
salt ½ tsp
plain flour about 375g
egg yolks 2 large, lightly beaten
For the filling
red pepper 1, round or elongated
large onion ½, peeled and finely chopped
olive oil 2 tbsp
tomatoes 300g, peeled and chopped
salt and pepper
tinned tuna 100g (drained weight)
green or black olives 14, pitted and cut into pieces
flat-leaf parsley 2 tbsp, chopped
For the dough, mix the oil, water or white wine and salt in a bowl, beating with a fork, then gradually work in enough flour to make a soft, smooth, malleable dough that does not stick. Begin by stirring the flour in with a fork, then work it in with your hands and knead briefly. You may use the dough right away or keep it for as long as a day, covered in cling film. But it must be kept at room temperature and not chilled in the refrigerator.
For the filling, roast the pepper. Put it on a piece of foil on an oven tray and roast in an oven preheated to 190C/gas mark 5 for 30 to 45 minutes, until the skin blisters and begins to blacken. Turn it over once. Put the roasted pepper immediately in a plastic bag and twist it closed. Leave for 10 to 15 minutes to steam. When the pepper is cool enough to handle, peel it, remove the seeds, then cut it up into small pieces, about 1.5cm square.
In a large frying pan, fry the onion in the oil over a low heat until very soft, stirring often. Add the tomatoes and cook over a medium heat until the liquid has disappeared and you can see the oil sizzling, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the tuna, shredded with your fingers, and the roasted peppers, olives and parsley. Mix well and leave to cool.
To make the empanadillas, divide the dough into 4 or 6 pieces. Roll each piece out thinly and cut circles in the sheet with a 10cm round pastry cutter. You do not need to flour the surface or the rolling pin since the dough is very oily and will not stick. Collect the dough off-cuts and reserve them. Roll them into a ball at the end, then roll the ball out thinly and cut it into rounds. Do not waste any dough. Fill each batch of pastry rounds one at a time. Paint around the edges with a little egg yolk (this helps to stick the pastry). You can use cotton buds or your little finger to do this. Put a generous tbsp of filling in the middle and bring the two sides of the pastry up to meet over the filling, making a half-moon-shaped pie. Pinch the edges together, then lay the pies down and press around the edges with the prongs of a fork to seal the empanadillas.
Place the pies on a baking sheet linedwith foil lightly greased with olive oil. Brush the tops with the remaining egg yolk mixed with a drop of water and bake in an oven preheated to 180C/gas mark 4 for 30 minutes or until golden.
Grilled lamb cutlets with potatoes
The nearest we have to the tiny, ever-so-tender chops of very young lamb you get in Spain are the small cutlets from a rack of lamb. Serve them on a bed of sautéed potatoes with onions. Prepare the potatoes first as they can be reheated before serving. This dish is wonderful as it is, with no adornments, but you might like to try it with alioli or garlic mayonnaise.
Serves 2
rack of lamb about 6-7 cutlets
olive oil 1 tbsp
salt and pepper
For the potatoes
onion 1 large, peeled, halved and sliced
olive oil 4 tbsp
waxy potatoes 500g, peeled and cut into slices about 7mm thick
salt and pepper
chicken stock 125ml
Cook the potatoes first. Fry the onion in the oil in a large frying pan, covered with a lid, over a low heat and stirring occasionally, until soft. Then add the potatoes and sauté over a low heat, stirring and turning them over with a spatula, until both the potatoes and onion are lightly golden – about 10minutes. Add some salt and pepper as they cook. Pour in the chicken stock and simmer, covered, for about 15minutes until it is absorbed and the potatoes are tender.
Cut the rack of lamb into cutlets with a heavy knife or cleaver. Brush them all over with olive oil. Heat an oiled plancha (flat griddle) or heavy frying pan and cook the cutlets briefly over a high heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side until they are brown on the outside but still very pink and juicy inside. Do not overcook them. Cut into one to check whether it is cooked – the cutlets are best eaten medium-rare. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot, beside or on top of the potatoes.
Quail with caramelised onions and brandy
In Homage to Catalonia, written in 1937, George Orwell described the way peasants spread outnets over the grass at night and lay down making noises like female quails. When male quails came running they got entangled in the nets. Although European rules have made it illegal, it is a Mediterranean custom to catch migrating birds that fly over the sea in big nets, though most of the quails you find nowin Spain are farmed, as they are in Britain.
The onions take a long time to caramelise, and are delicious with added brandy. Serve the quails on fried or toasted sliced bread that will soak up the sauce. You will need to pick up the birds with your fingers when you eat, so provide finger bowls.
Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a starter
quails 4
olive oil 5 tbsp
onions 2 large, peeled, halved and sliced
salt and pepper
brandy 125ml or to taste
firm white bread 4 large slices, crusts removed, fried in oil or toasted
Pull off any remaining feathers or singe them off over a flame, then rinse the quails and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Heat the oil in a wide, heavy frying pan or casserole and add the onions. Cover and cook slowly over a very low heat for about 30 minutes until they are very soft and beginning to colour, stirring often.
Push the onions to one side, put the quails into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Turn up the heat to medium. Keep turning the quails to brown them all over – around 7 or 8 minutes – and stir the onions so that they brown evenly. Add the brandy and cook, covered, over a low heat for 25 to 30 minutes until the onions are caramelised and the quails are done. Pull the leg of one ofthe quails – if it moves easily they are cooked. They should still be a little pink. Serve them on toasted or fried sliced bread.
Whole bream baked in coarse salt
Bream cooked encased in a sea-salt crust is deliciously moist and flavourful. You can cook sea bass and grey mullet in the same way. It is a traditional fishermen's cooking method in areas where there are salt pans. They bury thefish in dampsalt crystals inside wooden boxesand take them to be cooked in the local bread oven. I had trouble producing a firm crust that comes away cleanly taking the skin with it, as many recipes tell you it should do. An Andalusian gourmet, José María Conde de Ybarra, told me that the salt must be wet enoughto stick together and that you need thick layers three fingers deep on top of and below the fish. I found it easier to make a crust that comes away relatively cleanly by mixing the salt with egg white. If the skin does not come off with the crust it does not matter. The scales will come off.
Ask the fishmonger to gut the fish through a small incision, so that the salt does not get inside, and to keep the scales on – this is very important. You must use coarse sea salt that draws out moisture from the fish, not fine salt, which would be absorbed. The dish is served with new boiled potatoes and alioli or garlic mayonnaise.
Serves 2
coarse sea salt 2kg
egg whites 3 large
whole bream 2 x 400-500g, gutted but not scaled
To serve
extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling
lemon wedges 2
alioli or garlic mayonnaise 150g
Line a baking dish, large enough to hold the fish, with a sheet of foil. In a bowl, mix the salt thoroughly with just enough egg white so that it feels like wet sand. Using about a third of this mixture, make a bed for each fish on the foil, and place the fish on it. Then cover the fish entirely with a thick layer of the rest of the salt mixture, moulding it firmly around the fish with your hands so that it is completely covered, and making sure that the opening in the belly is closed so that the salt does not get in. You can leave the tails uncovered.
Bake in an oven preheated to 200C/gas mark 6 for 25 minutes. The top layer of salt will form a hard crust. To serve, crack open the crust along the centre with a heavy knife and carefully remove it. The skin may come off with the salt crust but, if it does not, brush off any remaining salt, then peel away the skin. Gently lift off the top fillets and transfer them to your plates. Then pull out the backbone and lift off the remaining fillets. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, accompanied by lemon wedges and the alioli or garlic mayonnaise.
Seafood pasta
In Valencia I ate a seafood pasta cooked in a paella pan with short, thin, curved macaroni. Another I had in Catalonia with a vermicelli-type pasta was especially memorable. They were both delicious, with glorious-looking seafood. This recipe, called fideuada del señorito ("of the young gentleman"), isless messy to eat because the seafood is peeled or out of its shell.
Serves 6
olive oil 6 tbsp
monkfish fillet 400g, cut into 2cm cubes
salt
baby squid 4, cleaned and the bodies cut into rings (your fishmonger will clean them for you)
raw peeled king prawns 12 or more
bay scallops 12
garlic cloves 4-5, peeled and crushed
tomatoes 3, peeled and chopped
pimentón dulce or sweet paprika 1 tsp
saffron threads a good pinch
fish or chicken stock about 1.25 litres
fideus pasta size 1 or 2, vermicelli nests or thin spaghettini 500g, broken into 3-4cm pieces
flat-leaf parsley 3 tbsp, chopped
lemons 1½, quartered, to garnish
To serve
alioli or garlic mayonnaise about 350ml
Heat 4 tbsp of the oil in a 40-45cm paella pan. Put in the monkfish, sprinkle with salt and cook over a medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, turning the pieces over. Add the squid and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes. Then put in the prawns and scallops and stir, turning them over, until the prawns are pink and the scallops just seared – about 1 or 2 minutes. Transfer all the cooked fish and seafood to a platter. Keep the liquid aside to add to the fish stock for extra flavour.
Heat the remaining oil in the paella pan, stir in the garlic, and when the aroma rises and before it begins to colour, add the tomatoes. Add the pimentón or paprika, saffron and a little salt, and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until much of the liquid has evaporated and the oil is sizzling through.
Meanwhile, bring the stock and the liquid from cooking the seafood to the boil. Add the pasta to the sauce in the paella pan and cook, stirring, so that it is well coated. Pour in the boiling stock and arrange the monkfish and seafood on top. Cook until the pasta is al dente – this can take from 2 minutes to about 10 minutes, depending on whether you are using vermicelli or spaghettini – adding a little more stock or boiling water if the liquid dries up before the pasta is done. It should still be moist.
Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley and garnished with lemon quarters. Accompany with alioli or garlic mayonnaise.
Burnt cream
This creamy custard with a crisp caramel topping is found everywhere in Spain as crema catalana, but in Catalonia it is known as crema cremada, which means "burnt cream", and crema de Sant Josep, because it is served to celebrate Saint Joseph's Day on 19 March.
Serves 6-8
cornflour 4 tbsp
whole milk 1 litre
lemon 1, the peel cut into 1 or 2 long strips
cinnamon stick 1
egg yolks 8 large
caster sugar 150g, plus about 4-8 tbsp for the caramel
In a cup, dissolve the cornflour in 4 tbsp of the cold milk (the cornflour will prevent the egg yolks from curdling). Heat the rest of the milk in a large saucepan with the lemon peel and cinnamon stick until it just begins to boil. Beat the egg yolks and 150g sugar to a pale cream in a bowl, then beat in the cornflour mixture. Now beat in a ladleful of the hot milk. Remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick from the hot milk, and add the egg and sugar mixture to the pan, stirring vigorously as you pour. Bring to the boil slowly over a low heat and continue to cook over a low heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture thickens, then pour into 6 or 8 small clay cassoles or large ramekins. Let cool, then chill.
Just before serving, sprinkle the top of each custard with 2 to 3 tsp of sugar and gently shake the ramekin to spread it evenly. Caramelise the sugar with a mini blowtorch, or use a red-hot salamander as they do in Spain, until the sugar turns a dark amber colour.
Almond cake
This is a splendid cake which is normally made in a wide cake or tart tin and comes out low, but it is equally good as a thicker cake.
Pilgrims and tourists who visit the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, where the relics of the apostle Saint James are believed to be buried, see the cake in all the windows of every pastry shop and restaurant, decorated with the shape of the cross of the Order of Santiago. I have watched the cake being made in many sizes, big and small, over a pastry tart base at abakery called Capri in Pontevedra. This deliciously moist and fragrant homely version is without a base.
When I suggested to a man associated with the Galicia tourist office that the tarta was a Jewish Passover cake, he dragged me to a television studio to explain all. The presenters liked the idea. The Galician city of A Coruña is on the Jewish tourist route. There is a synagogue and an old Jewish quarter there. Jews from Andalusia, fleeing the Berber Almohads' attempts to convert them, came to Galicia in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Serves 10
blanched almonds 250g
eggs 6, separated
caster sugar 250g
orange grated zest of 1
lemon grated zest of 1
almond extract 4 drops
butter to grease the cake tin
flour to dust the cake tin
icing sugar for dusting the cake
Grind the almonds finely in a food processor. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar to a pale cream with an electric mixer, then beat in the orange and lemon zest and almond extract. Add the ground almonds and mix very well.
With a cleaned mixer, whisk egg whites until stiff and fold into egg and almond mixture – the mixture is so thick you need to turn it over quite a bit into the egg whites. Grease a spring-form cake tin around 28cm in diameter (preferably non-stick) with butter and dust with flour, then pour in the mixture.
Put the cake into an oven preheated to 180C/gas mark 4 for 40 minutes or until it feels firm. Let it cool before turning out. Dust the top with icing sugar. If you like, cut the shape of aSantiago cross out of paper and place it in the middle of the cake before dusting with icing sugar. Then remove the paper shape.
