Restaurant Review - Time For A Break! - Comments

Time For A Break!

Poster: Gillaine Hathaway 01/09/2006

GILLAINE HATHAWAY SUGGESTS SOME NEW WAYS TO SAVOUR SPAIN'S CELEBRATED CUISINE.

All that shopping, preparing, cooking and serving can take its toll. So let's forget the supermarket queues this month, and look into our store cupboards and make life that much easier. Though I have often stressed that the traditional Andalucian housewife used what was outside her door, she was also a great preserver. Natural enough when you feed your family on seasonal produce but, of course, winter really is approaching and preserving food for the winter was also of great importance.
Just look at the variety of olives, a great local staple, in jars, tins - anything. Fresh anchovies would be preserved in salt, as were many other seasonal products. That special Christmas leg of cured ham would have been carefully kept hanging in the kitchen to be used later in year too. But nowadays tins have taken over from those sterilised jars and bottles, and make life so much easier.
How about using one of those tins of baby broad beans, originally preserved in oil and now abundantly found in tins on the supermarket shelves. Combine that with some cured ham and, with the assistance of an onion, you have a perfect starter for two or tapas for many.

Habas con jamon
(baby broad beans with jabugo ham)
Ingredients (serves 2:
400gr tin of beans
1 medium onion, finely sliced
100gr of good-quality cured ham cut into dices (or 90gr packet from the supermarket of tirados de jamon)

Drain the oil and put two or three spoons into a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium heat. (Keep the rest of the oil in a jar in the fridge and use for cooking other dishes.)
Add the chopped onion and cook slowly for about 20 minutes until soft but not browned.
Add the ham pieces then stir in the beans and cook until hot.
Serve with fresh crusty bread.

The following salad makes a great main course. It is often prepared in a bowl and simply mixed together, but I prefer to set the ingredients out on a serving dish so that people can make their own mix. After all, some people don't like all of the ingredients and this way they can please themselves. Remember too that other tinned fish such as herrings or kippers can be used instead of the standard tuna.

Tuna fish salad
Ingredients (serves 2):
2 112gr tins of tuna
1 small lettuce
3 or 4 ripe tomatoes, finely sliced
2 or 3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 large red or green pepper, finely sliced
2 eggs
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into dices
3 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of vinegar
1 lemon

Place the potatoes and eggs in a saucepan of hot water.
Bring to the boil and simmer for seven minutes.
Remove the eggs, cool, peel and cut in half.
Continue cooking the potatoes until soft, then remove, drain and cool.
Chop up the lettuce and spread over the middle of the dish.
Cover with the flaked tuna.
Put the potatoes on one end and the sliced tomatoes and peppers on the other.
Arrange the eggs on the dish.
Sprinkle the onion over the tuna.
When ready to serve sprinkle the oil over, then the vinegar, and finish with a squeeze of lemon juice.
If you happen to have some growing in a pot or in your garden, sprinkle finely chopped chives as a garnish and for added flavour.

We all have rice as a standard store cupboard ingredient, and I am sure tucked away at the back of the cupboard is a tin of evaporated milk that will probably soon be out of date. Yes, that old faithful of days gone by, when no milk was available, makes a delicious rice pudding.
The following recipe comes from my Gibraltarian mother-in-law. The Gibraltarians, due to so many sieges and border closures over the centuries, became masters at coping and adapting recipes using tins and dry products in abundance if fresh was not available. Note too that in this old, old recipe, the measures are just basic kitchen utensils.

Rice pudding
Ingredients (serves 2):
4 teacups of water
12 teaspoons of sugar
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1 teacup of round rice (SOS)
1 tin of Ideal milk

Put the water, sugar, grated rind and cinnamon stick in a pan and boil together for a few minutes.
Add the cup of rice and cook for a further 15 minutes.
Now add in the tin of milk, stir well and cook for a few more minutes before serving with a sprinkling of cinnamon on top.

Wine, wine and more wine...
Let's have a special bottle of wine to go with this month's menu. September is a great month for finding new wines. Many towns and villages in Andalucía hold their annual fairs based on the "vendimia", in which a great deal of wine-tasting goes on in the midst of all the fun of the traditional fair - as the partying combines the harvesting of this year's grapes, which are brought from the countryside to be blessed, followed by the treading of the grapes.
In Cádiz the September Wine Fair in Jerez de la Frontera is a magnificent event. Nearer to hand, for Costa del Sol residents, Manilva celebrates the harvesting of wine at the beginning of the month with a fair that is full of drinking and partying.
Viñuela and El Borge in Axarquia pay tribute to their source of revenue with a raisin fiesta. This includes the traditional grape treading to launch the new harvest season, with a sampling of the first new local wine and its raisins.
Other towns celebrate their fairs paying tribute to the wealth of fruit that grows in their particular area and which is now in abundance: peaches, pears, apples, etc., are at their best and oh so tasty.
Remember too that Málaga province is famous for its sweet wine. Try cooking any firm fruits with Málaga wine instead of port and, combining it with a good-quality drinking wine, you can prepare the following delicious Andalucian dessert.

Peaches in red wine
Ingredients (serves 4):
1 kilo of peaches or nectarines
1/2 bottle of red wine
200ml of Málaga wine
4 tablespoons of honey
100gr of caster sugar
1 cinnamon stick
thinly pared strips of orange and lemon rind

Cut the fruit in half and carefully remove the stone.
Pour the red wine and Málaga wine into a large saucepan. Stir in the cinnamon, honey, sugar and citrus peel.
Add the fruit to the pan and bring to the boil.
Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until tender.
Remove from the heat and place the fruit in the liquid into a serving dish, draining really well to remove all the juice and removing any skins that come loose from the fruit.
Take out the cinnamon and citrus peel and bring to the boil.
Cook rapidly for 10 minutes until thickened and reduced by half.
Pour the reduced syrup over the pears.

Delicious warm or cold with or without a spoonful of cream!

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