butterfly's Profile
May 2012 COTM: Food of Spain and Moro The Fish, Poultry, and Meat Thread
No saffron? In Spain, this dish is called fabes con almejas and it always has saffron, which works so well with the flavor of the clams--it really makes the dish (in addition to the fabes, which are huge white beans from Asturias). It is a very soupy dish always served with bread.
Strategies for Dining in Barcelona with a 10 Year Old
Of course you are free to make the comparison, I just don't happen to agree.
One (chufa) is only marginally edible after a day of soaking (and if you eat more than a handful will give you intestinal distress due to the tremendous amount of fiber (chufa is a home remedy for constipation). It's has a sweet, milky flavor that I would not describe as nutty (though if I were to compare it to a nut, I'd say it's closest to almonds flavor-wise. People allergic to nuts and legumes don't have a problem with chufa.
Strategies for Dining in Barcelona with a 10 Year Old
Chufa isn't really a nut... and it's nothing at all like a peanut... It's a very hard and fibrous dried tuber (of the sedge plant) that you soak and then grind up and strain to make the drink:
http://www.vaucanson.org/espagnol/cocina/cocina_horchata.html
Cuenca Recommendations?
Two other ideas... Both represent a more modern take on traditional Conquense dishes.
In Cuenca proper:
http://www.figondelhuecar.es/
And a bit outside of Cuenca (on the road that leads to the geological oddity Ciudad Encantada) in Villalba de la Sierra:
http://www.mesonnelia.com/
VALENCIA- brief report 2/11
Oh no, we were just in Valencia, but didn't make it there--I would have made a special effort to go before they closed had I known.
We did, however, go to Casa Jomi--mentioned above. This is a really solid, chowhoundish recommendation--thanks! The folks who run it are so accommodating, friendly, and serious about their salazones. Though I thought the sepia (cuttlefish sauteed in olive oil, garlic, and parsley) was the highlight. But really everything was prepared and presented with care and heart. Great neighborhood joint.
Strategies for Dining in Barcelona with a 10 Year Old
Hi--I'm the mom of a ten year old, albeit a Spanish-American one who has been tapeando on his feet since age two. I just wanted to point out that kids here eat a snack (merienda) around 5 or 6pm. Usually a little sandwich, tosta, fruit, pastries, churros, etc. You can get this kind of stuff at a cafe/bar (and even get it to go and take it to a plaza or on a paseo). It takes the edge off for the later dinner time (which is even later here in Madrid). Maybe you can make it fun by having him take photos and document of all the crazy stuff his chowhound parents eat. Of all the kids who visit us from the US, I have yet to find one who doesn't recognize the deliciousness of jamón ibérico--I think that's a sure thing.
Quaint little seafood restaurant in Madrid
The one way you could go wrong with Maceiras is if you are looking for a quiet, romantic meal... It can be an insanely loud, boisterous place (I say this as someone who has lived in the center of Madrid for a decent chunk of my life now and is used to the noise that accompanies life here). One quiet, low-key Galician marisquería in the central part of town that comes to mind is Xentes (Calle Humilladero 13).
Quaint little seafood restaurant in Madrid
Taking a total shot in the dark, but the nautical/shellfish scheme reminds me a bit of El Cucurucho del Mar:
http://cucuruchodelmar.com/index.php
It's on a smaller street off Calle Preciados, near the Gran Vía. Do you remember anything at all about which part of town in was in?
Asador Etxebarri Transportation, HELP!
Yes, that's the station: http://maps.google.es/maps?q=Plaza+Easo,+9,+san+sebastian&hl=en&ie=UTF8&hnear=Plaza+Easo,+9,+20006+Donostia-San+Sebasti%C3%A1n,+Guip%C3%BAzcoa,+Pa%C3%ADs+Vasco&t=h&z=18
You can see all the stops on that line here (your particular train may not stop in them all, so be sure to check):
http://maps.google.es/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=es&t=h&msa=0&msid=201319501371444821422.0004a25ffe8f94719fbc8&ll=43.255205,-2.396393&spn=0.230041,1.296387&z=10&source=embed
This is, I believe,the bus company:
http://www.pesa.net/pesa/horarios/ctrl_horarios.php?lang=en
You'll definitely want to nail down the bus schedule ahead of time, since a lot of small town service has been cut and weekends/holidays can also interfere.
General questions about reservations and Easter Week
Oops, I was out of town along with everyone else... Did you end up finding anywhere good to eat?
Lunch on the way to Andalusia
The Feria de la Manzanilla in Sanlucar is between the 15th and 20th of May and would be a great time to visit if you want a party. But you would need to reserve very soon. Some manzanillas to look out for: Pasada Pastrana, San León Reserva de la Familia, Aurora, Navazos. Aside from not keeping well once opened, manzanillas, sherries, and finos also don't tend to travel or store for long periods well. Unless you buy from a place that moves their stock very quickly, they are sure to taste better here.
Lunch on the way to Andalusia
Oops, sorry about that--I'm so used to people misspelling Spanish town names that I misread and assumed the worst.
Caserío de San Benito is right off the road and very country style with good rice dishes and porra antequerana:
http://www.caseriodesanbenito.com/
El Angelote and La Espuela (in the Plaza de Toros--a one of a kind setting) are two other options in Antequera.
Lunch on the way to Andalusia
Madrid to Cáceres takes around 3 1/2 hours, so you'll be getting to Cáceres right around lunch time. You could stop off in Trujillo on the way and check out the Plaza Mayor, the Pizarro house, and castle. There are several restaurants in the plaza--like Restaurante Pizarro, Corral del Rey, and Casa de la Troya--if you stick to the local carnivorous options and order a cheese plate, it's hard to go wrong.
Best Old Tabernas in Madrid
Here are some 100+ year old spots to add to your list. For the tabernas, you could easily string a bunch of them together if you wandered from 9-12pm.
Tabernas
Casa Ciriaco (c/Mayor, 84 near the Palacio)
Casa Paco (Puerta Cerrada, 11 in La Latina)
Vinos 11/Casa Dani (c/Calatrava1 11 in La Latina)
La Casa de las Torrijas/El As de los Vinos (Calle de la Paz, 4 near the Puerta del Sol)
Bodegas Ricla (c/Cuchilleros, 6 near the Plaza Mayor)
Bodega de Ángel Sierra (c/Gravina, 11 in Chueca)
El Comunista (c/Figueroa 35 in Chueca--sign just says "Tienda de Vinos")
Three old-school restaurants that specialize "cocido madrileño"--Madrid's heavy-duty winter dish.
Taberna Oliveros (c/San Millán, 4 in La Latina--mysterious schedule)
Malacatín (c/Ruda, 5 in La Latina--
Taberna La Bola (c/Bola, 5 near the Palacio)
Cafes
Café Gijón (Paseo Recoletos, 21--legendary spot that gives out its own literary prize)
Café Barbieri (c/Ave María, 45 in Lavapiés)
Círculo de Bellas Artes Café (c/Alcalá, 42 near Cibeles)
Café Comercial (Bilbao metro)
Chocolatería San Ginés (Pasadizo de San Ginés near the Plaza Mayor)
Hondarribia and St Jean de Luz, also Madrid
Yep, I'm a mushroom nut, but unfortunately don't get out to hunt for them as much as I'd like. (The last ones I found in the wild were the hallucinogenic variety growing on cow patties just outside of Madrid...) There is a micological society in Madrid:
http://www.socmicolmadrid.org/
They organize a few outings a year to the Sierra outside of Madrid and tastings and dinners--they may be able to hook you up with similar organizations in other parts of Spain. In the spring and fall a lot of restaurants have mushroom-oriented menus and specials. A quick search found this list of societies all over Spain:
http://www.micomania.rizoazul.com/enlaces%20sociedades%20micologicas.html
This guy seems to do excursions in the Basque Country.
* Micológica Excursionista Manuel Iradier
http://www.manueliradier.com/
Tel 946 70 69 01
Hondarribia and St Jean de Luz, also Madrid
El Cisne Azul is a tiny very, very informal little spot with five or six tables crammed in and a small bar where you can eat standing up. It can get pretty crowded, so go early if you want to snag a table, or prepare to wait a bit. Everything gets cooked on the grill. It's in Chueca, easily walkable from the Prado area.
Another good mushroom place is El Imperio. It's across town on calle Galileo 51, near Metro Quevedo or Arguelles. It specializes in Leonés food (from the region of León) and has a bit more varied menu. There's a bigger bar in the front and a small room of tables behind.
Both places regularly have five or six varieties from the Sierra near Madrid like boletus, rebozuelos (chanterelles), black trumpets, pie azul (lepista nuda), níscalos (in winter, Lactarius deliciosus), perretxikos (St. George's mushroom), angulas de monte (yellow foot), etc. In June you might catch the tail end of morel (colmenilla) season.
MADRID... NEED HELP
Michelin doesn't do a great job in Spain. Here's the list from the Spanish equivalent (Guía Repsol, formerly known as the Guía Campsa) for Madrid--all of the places with 2-3 "soles" (suns):
DIVERXO (Madrid) 3 SOLES
LA TERRAZA DEL CASINO (Madrid) 3 SOLES
RAMON FREIXA (Madrid) 3 SOLES
SANTCELONI (Madrid) 3 SOLES
SERGI AROLA GASTRO (Madrid) 3 SOLES
ASTRID & GASTÓN 2 SOLES
CASA JOSÉ (Aranjuez) 2 SOLES
COQUE (Humanes) 2 SOLES
EL BODEGÓN (Madrid) 2 SOLES
EL CLUB ALLARD (Madrid) 2 SOLES
EL OSO (Madrid) 2 SOLES
GOIZEKO WELLINGTON (Madrid) 2 SOLES
HORCHER (Madrid) 2 SOLES
KABUKI WELLINGTON (Madrid) 2 SOLES
LA TASQUITA DE ENFRENTE (Madrid) 2 SOLES
O'PAZO (Madrid) 2 SOLES
RODRIGO DE LA CALLE (Aranjuez) 2 SOLES
RUBAIYAT (BABY BEEF) (Madrid) 2 SOLES
SACHA (Botillería y Fogón) (Madrid) 2 SOLES
VIRIDIANA (Madrid) 2 SOLES
ZALACAÍN (Madrid) 2 SOLES
These places have one sun--which in many cases is more a reflection on the space or service, not necessarily the food:
ALDABA (Madrid) 1 SOL
ARCE (Madrid) 1 SOL
ARS VIVENDI (Majadahonda) 1 SOL
ARZÁBAL (Madrid) 1 SOL
ASIANA (Madrid) 1 SOL
CASA D'A TROYA (Madrid) 1 SOL
CASA LUCIO (Madrid) 1 SOL
DANTXARI (Madrid) 1 SOL
LAVINIA (Madrid) 1 SOL
MANZONI (La Moraleja) 1 SOL
NIKKEI 225 (Madrid) 1 SOL
NODO (Madrid) 1 SOL
99 SUSHI BAR (Madrid) 1 SOL
PEDRO LARUMBE (Madrid) 1 SOL
PIÑERA (Madrid) 1 SOL
RAFA (Madrid) 1 SOL
REALCAFÉ BERNABÉU (Madrid) 1 SOL
SANTO TOMÁS (Alcalá de Henares) 1 SOL
SANXENXO (Madrid) 1 SOL
SUDESTADA (Madrid) 1 SOL
TABERNA GAZTELUPE (Madrid) 1 SOL
TEATRO REAL (Madrid) 1 SOL
VIAVÉLEZ PUERTO (Madrid) 1 SOL
EL PARAGUAS (Madrid) 1 SOL
EL PESCADOR (Madrid) 1 SOL
DON GIOVANNI (Madrid) 1 SOL
EL CHAFLÁN (Madrid) 1 SOL
EUROPA DECÓ (Madrid) 1 SOL
GOYA (Madrid) 1 SOL
JOCKEY (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA BIBLIOTECA DE SANTO MAURO (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA BROCHE (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA DORADA (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA MANDUCA DE AZAGRA (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA PALOMA (Madrid) 1 SOL
LA TRAINERA (Madrid) 1 SOL
Any good food at Barajas airport?
Sibarium has the best stuff. It's a little gourmet store/deli where you can get sandwiches made or buy cheese, ham, olives, and other D.O. products from around Spain. There's one in the "zona de embarque" in T4 and according to this, it's also in the other terminals (though I haven't seen those):
http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?Language=EN_GB&SiteName=LTDA&antc=LTDA_FA&antcid=1237551572146&antidairport=1198751718465&antidentity=1198751719890&antidterminal=1198751718668&buscadorLTDA=s&c=Page&cid=1198671740415&pagename=LTDA%2FLTDA
12 Days of Spain
Keep in mind that most of your time in Spain is going to be during Semana Santa--the week leading up to Easter. Not necessarily a bad thing, but this means that many people will be on vacation and some places may be closed or have different hours--so you'll need to plan ahead with travel and reservations more than usual. The train trip from San Sebastian to Provence would be quite an odyssey--but, as far as I know, it's not so easy by plane, either... From a logistical standpoint, doing it in this order San Sebastian-->BCN--> Provence--> Paris might make the connections simpler (pray there are no strikes). Or even Paris-->San Sebastian-->BCN-->Provence--> Paris.
Madrid itinerary, dining hours help
Most of the spots on the Cava Baja are not open past 12 for food, especially in the winter or weekdays (schedules in the summer or holiday weekends tend to slide a bit later). Here in Madrid, most people start dinner around 10-11ish. If you get there after 11:30--even if the restaurant is full of people--you could be told that the kitchen is closing if you wanted to eat anything that isn't sitting out on the bar. Get there at 9pm or 1pm for lunch and you will likely find a restaurant just opening (or worse yet not open at all) or empty for a while.
If you want to squeeze in an extra bite to eat, around 6pm is the merienda, snack time for a sandwich, pastry and coffee, or churros.
Outside of restaurants, there are cafe-bars (cafeterías) all over the place that serve sandwiches (tostas, montados, bocadillos, bocatas), ham, cheese and other snacks all day long. Fast food, Madrid style.
Incredible Cookies from Lousy Ingredients and Pedestrian Recipe
Thanks so much sunshine842! I need to dig around my mom's kitchen drawers, because I know we had a whip like that. I forgot those existed. It's a little work of art!
Incredible Cookies from Lousy Ingredients and Pedestrian Recipe
Have you posted her angel food recipe anywhere? I would love to learn to make it. So many sweet midwestern memories, but no one in my family made it.
Kosher in Andalucia (Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba...)
Also, here's the site for Madrid's synagogue, Beth Yaakov:
http://www.cjmadrid.org/
It's mainly Sephardic, but there is also an ashkenazi Rabbi that they can put you in touch with.
Kosher in Andalucia (Sevilla, Granada, Cordoba...)
I think this will really depend on how you define kosher... I would recommend getting in touch with the Casa Seferad to see if they have any advice. I believe they also have a forum where you could ask:
http://www.casasefarad-israel.es/es/
http://www.casasefarad-israel.es/en/ (in English)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000446553480&sk=wall
Asador Tierra Aranda
I haven't been this fall, but Tierra Aranda was definitely open this summer... Give them a call: 914 01 38 26
I've been to the Asador de Aranda on Preciados (it's near Plaza Santo Domingo). I thought the food was fine (though not as good as Tierra Aranda, they do have a wood oven). The atmosphere is ceratinly over the top--a sort of mash up of ye-olde-asador with an 18th century chapel-library. My favorite part was the coloring book they gave my son that had a maze where kids could trace just the right path to get a cute little lamb from the pasture to the oven in the asador.
Incredible Cookies from Lousy Ingredients and Pedestrian Recipe
Could he have put a bouillon cube (caldo) in with the water when it boiled? A lot of people here in Spain cook pasta this way and those cubes are ubiquitous in kitchens (and much tastier than their generic American counterparts).
Incredible Cookies from Lousy Ingredients and Pedestrian Recipe
One variable--I think a lot of people don't take into account the loss of heat from an oven when you open it (and/or have ovens that aren't accurate temperature-wise). Since they bake so quickly, I think it's important to set the temperature a bit high for cookies before you open the oven door to account for the loss of heat (I usually turn it back down the last five minutes then crank it up again after I take the cookies out to get it ready for the next batch).
The other more intangible factor is that when you bake a lot of cookies, you know what the consistency should be and learn to make very minor (practically subconscious) adjustments to the cookie size, flatness, baking time, dough coldness, velocity at oven-opening/closing, etc. to get the results you want. Making cookies small in size is another very easy way to make them taste better, in my opinion--more of that golden crispy surface area, less potential for cakiness (which I abhor in a cookie!).
What is side meat?
Wow, talk about reactivating lost parts of my brain... I haven't heard anyone call that a granite dishpan in over thirty years (probably because I live in Spain, where oddly enough we still use "granite" all the time: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1385702360118&set=a.1221428853383.2034684.1158786905&type=3).
I always associate that particular kitchen material with the granite canner my mom slaved over at the end of the summer canning tomatoes and making jelly.
That was quite the pornographic description of the wilted salad. I have to make this very, very soon for my pork loving Spanish friends. Thanks for sharing your mom's process.
What is side meat?
I'll look for it the next time I'm in my mom's kitchen and report back. I know my parents also used the Foxfire books quite a bit to learn about living off the grid and off the fat of the land in the country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire_%28magazine%29
I highly recommend foraging, mainly because it gives Chowhounds a chance to be out in the woods and fields with the added fun of a culinary quest. And as kids we loved being sent out to hunt all day for things like violets and blackberries.
Stuff we regularly found in rural Missouri (and much of which I often later found in DC, even in the middle of the city): sassafrass leaves and root (soup, sodas, teas, and according to my mom, nature's xanax), hickory bark (for soaking in water for barbecue).
Greens like poke, lambs quarter (which is particularly good), dandelion, chicory, thistle, mustard, nettles (here in Spain I've had them battered and fried), watercress (grows in spring fed water), fiddleheads, wild leeks/garlic.
Edible flowers like violets, honeysuckle, elderberry blossoms, linden flowers (a popular tea here, too), goldenrod (the leaves), beebalm (for tea), wild rose hips (tea), camomile, queen anne's lace, dandelions
Mushrooms like hen of the woods/polyporus, shaggy mane, sulfur shelf mushrooms, chanterelles, and morels.
Walnuts, hickory nuts.
And blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, paw paws, persimmons, sumac berries (we added them to lemonade or lemon tea for vitamin c), may apples, even wild ginger and ginseng on rare occasions.
What is side meat?
Yes, that's just how we did it and no one ever got sick. Where I grew up, it was an invasive weed.
