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CHAPTER 1
BASICS
Although tapas only officially appeared during the last century – they were first recorded in Seville – the tradition is part of a far older one: that of hospitality and the desire to honour a guest.
The question '?quiere algo para picar?' – 'would you like something to nibble?' – always accompanies the offer of a glass of sherry in a Spanish household or bar. It is a matter of pride. Tapas are essentially small bits and pieces: quantity defines them, with quality dependent on the most freely-available local raw materials.
If there are snails at the bottom of your garden, snails is the tapa you will offer your guests. If the fishermen have returned with more sardines than they can sell, the local bar will serve grilled (broiled) sardines as the tapa. If the housewife made a good chick-pea stew yesterday, an honoured guest will be served a little saucer of that.
As well as these small opportunist snacks, there is a repertoire of everyday tapas, usually based on larder stores, which can range from a handful of salty biscuits to a dish of home-cured olives, from a plate of salt-cured ham cut from the family's Christmas treat, to a bit of good fresh country bread with savoury dripping.
Pickled olives
Aceitunas aliñadas
Spain exports large quantities of table olives, specialising in ma chine-pitted green olives stuffed with strips of pimento, whole almonds, tiny onions, or anchovies. Home-cured olives, aceitunas alinadas, are the ones most frequently encountered in the tapa bars of the south.
Olives are a seasonal crop, gathered in the autumn in Andalucia when they are sold fresh, varying in size from fruit as large as a quail's egg to fruit smaller than a hazelnut, and varying in colour from bright green to pale mauve, depending on the degree of ripeness. In Spain, olives for pickling are harvested before they have a chance to ripen to black – the stage at which they are pressed for oil. The fresh fruits are cracked and soaked in pure water, or, if they are to be left whole, in water with lye (a leached solution), until they lose their bitterness. Then they are put in an earthenware crock with a loose wooden lid, to pickle submerged in a strong aromatic brine. Flavourings include herbs, garlic and wine vinegar, with sometimes a chilli or two, and maybe chunks of lemon or bitter orange to add flavour and piquancy. As the year wears on, the olives become sweeter and more pickled as they ferment, a natural process as with wine – by which time the next year's crop will be ready.
Those who do not pickle their own can select from a dozen or so different sizes and marinades on display in big plastic buckets in the market place. A passable imitation of home-cured olives can be made by marinating commercially-prepared olives for a week or two in a home-made brine. I used to pickle my own fresh olives every year in more or less the same mix: use the recipe as a guideline – add dried chillis for a little heat, thyme instead of fennel.
makes 10 tapa portions
500 g/1 lb can or jar of whole unpitted green olives
4 whole garlic cloves
1 lemon or bitter orange
1-2 sprigs of thyme
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 dried fennel stick, broken into short lengths
1 small glass of sherry or wine vinegar
Drain the olives and bash them lightly with a rolling pin. Carefully burn the garlic in a naked flame until the papery cover blackens, then crush a little. Cut a slice from the middle of the lemon or orange and reserve, then chunk the rest.
Pack the olives, garlic and chunked lemon or orange in a screw-top jar, sprinkling in the aromatics as you go, then add the vinegar and enough water to cover. Top with the lemon or orange slice to keep the olives submerged. You should not need extra salt – the conserved olives are usually salty enough.
Lid tightly and keep in the fridge for at least a week. Bring them up to room temperature before serving.
Spiced peanuts
Cacahuetes con sal picante
Salted nuts are a popular luxury on the tapa table, though these days almonds are often replaced by the cheaper imported peanut. Smoked pimenton, if you can get it, will deepen the flavour.
makes 4 tapa portions
250 g/8 oz/1/3 cups shelled peanuts (unskinned)
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon mild pimenton
1 teaspoon hot pimenton (or powdered chilli)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon sea salt Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2/150°C/300°F.
Roast the peanuts for 60-75 minutes in the oven. They take longer to roast than most nuts – the result should be golden rather than brown. Toss the roasted nuts with the oil and seasonings and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes, allowing the nuts to absorb the oil and the heat to develop the spices.
Serve them warm.
Salted almonds
Almendras con sal
The Moors planted Spain's almond groves with stock from the Jordan valley – they found the fertile plain of Granada ideal for the cultivation of their favourite nut tree. Almonds are used extensively in Spanish cooking, both whole and ground, in sweetmeats and to thicken sauces. Every feria has its almond-salesman, every spice-merchant his store of almonds. There is nothing like the scent of freshly roasted almonds – for that alone, it's well worth preparing them yourself. They make a lovely squeak as you bite into them. Liberally dusted with salt, they give a fine thirst for the accompanying drink.
makes 4 tapa portions
250 g/8 oz/1/3 cups almonds (in their skins or blanched)
a little oil (optional)
1 small egg white, forked to blend
1-2 tablespoons fine sea salt
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2/150°C/300°F.
Spread the almonds in a roasting tray and toss them with the oil. Roast them in the oven for 40-50 minutes until deliciously golden brown.
Alternatively, dry-fry the almonds gently in a heavy frying pan or skillet until they take a fine roasted colour.
When they are done and piping hot, turn them in the egg white – they will turn glossy – and toss them immediately in the salt. The salt will stick to the almonds, giving them a salty jacket which dries in their heat.
Serve them fresh and warm.
Toasted hazelnuts
Nueces tostadas
Hazelnuts are a wild crop in northern Spain. They are sometimes crushed and used in Catalan cooking to thicken sauces – instead of, or included with, ground almonds. They are served as tapas either plain roasted or roasted and salted. I like the simple rich flavour of the unsalted ones.
makes 4 tapa portions
250g/8 oz/1 1/3 cups whole hazelnuts (skinned or unskinned)
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 2/l50°C/300°F.
Toast the hazelnuts in the oven for 50-60 minutes, till the meat turns a pale gold. Serve them warm. A dish of olives (page 12) and a plate of salty crisps (page 29) will complete a simple arrangement of tapas.
Cheese
Queso
Spain boasts a large range of cheeses, from the simplest of fresh curds to sophisticated matured blue-veined cheeses which can give Stilton and Roquefort a run for their money. Although there are many excellent local cheeses, only six have currently been granted Spain's official 'Denomination of Origin' which guarantees their quality. Any of these, served with bread and olives, make a delicious tapa. Manchego is the most widely available outside Spain.
Manchego, Spain's best-known cheese, is a mature hard ewe's milk cheese made on the high plateau of La Mancha in central Spain. It undergoes at least sixty days maturing, and the more expensive 'old' cheeses are left for considerably longer. The cylindrical cheeses weigh between four and eight kilos; they have a pale yellow rind flowered with a greenish-black mould when mature, and a characteristic plaited pattern round the sides. A whole cheese can be submerged in olive oil for further maturing, when it becomes exquisitely buttery and pungent: there is a tapa bar in Seville which specialises in such oil-matured cheeses, serving them sliced on bread, a background for the oily juices. To serve as a tapa, manchego should be cut in thin slices and arranged in a single layer on a plate, much like serrano ham.
Mahon, a cow's milk cheese from Menorca, can be eaten fresh or matured. Its preparation calls for draining in a linen cloth, a process which gives it its characteristic fold-mark on the upper surface as well as its square form with rounded edges. A whole cheese weighs between one and four kilos. Mahon cheese is served, in its home territory, cut in thin slices, dressed with olive oil and sprinkled with fresh or dried tarragon and pepper.
Idiazabal is, as its name suggests, a speciality of the Basque country. Made exclusively from ewe's milk, it is a whole cheese, cylindrical in shape with a golden rind and a compact pale ivory curd. Each cheese weighs between half and three-and-a-half kilos and is sometimes smoked over beech and hawthorn wood, giving the rind a dark brown colour and the crumb a smoky, nutty flavour. Serve it cut into thin slivers, with bread.
Roncal is a pungent ewe's milk cheese made in the Roncal valley of Navarra – a high mountainous region whose sturdy independent inhabitants played a major part in Aragon's resistance to the Moors. A cylindrical cheese with a hard, straw-coloured rind and firm, slightly aerated texture, it is matured for at least four months. Roncal is only manufactured between December and July. Serve it cut into thin slivers, with bread and perhaps a finely-sliced mild onion.
Cantabria is made exclusively with milk from Friesan cows in the Autonomous Community of Cantabria, where the climate is damp and the meadows are fertile enough to support the herds. The cheese is disc-shaped, with a soft bone-coloured rind and solid creamy texture. It is only lightly matured – for a minimum of seven days. Serve it cut into thin slices, with a few pickled gherkins as the accompaniment.
Cabrales comes from the high mountain valleys on the Asturian side of the Picos de Europa. Like its close cousin Picon – a cheese from the other side of the Picos – this is piquant blue cheese made with a mixture of whole cow's milk and small proportions of goat's and/or ewe's milk. Traditionally it's ripened in curing-caves carved out of the chalky mountainside, like those of Roquefort, for at least two months and came to market, in the old days, wrapped in the dried leaves of maple or plane trees. Locals sometimes mix the cheese with cider to make a powerful potted-cheese spread. To serve as a simple tapa, cut into small cubes and provide cocktail sticks for ease of handling.
Casero or 'household' cheese is a relatively new designation for the traditional semi-matured and matured goats' milk cheeses of Andalucia. If the intention was to store the cheeses from one year to the next, the cheeses were rubbed with olive oil and pimenton, a method which allowed traditionally-prepared home-made cheeses protection from insect-life when stored, as was usual in the old days, on a beam in a current of air. The treatment delivered a depth of flavour which commanded a premium in the marketplace. The texture is crumbly rather than elastic, with a pleasant sharpness and a purity of flavour which works well with fresh or dried figs or quince paste, membrillo.
Salt-cured ham
Jamon serrano
Jamón serrano, 'mountain ham', is the most valued of flavouring ingredients in Spanish cookery. A whole haunch complete with trotter is often to be seen hanging alongside the obligatory string of dried red sweet peppers and the plait of garlic – although in poorer households this might only be at Christmas. There is always a stall in the market which deals in salted pig products, with a use for every little bit of the precious beast. The best cuts of ham are sliced off very finely to be served just as they are. The well-flavoured chewy little bits from near the bone are used to flavour soups, sauces and croquettes, or they might be fried with eggs, or go to flavour a tortilla; while the bones are sawn up to add richness, along with a piece of creamy yellow ham fat, to a bean stew.
A few rural households still keep a pig or two every year, to eat up the scraps and forage for acorns, roots and berries on the surrounding mountain slopes. I used to keep one for my own family when we lived in Andalucia. Slaughter is usually in the autumn, and if the pig-owner lives in a damp area by the sea, the hams will be sent up to a cousin or friend who lives in the mountains, to be cured in the cold dry air. From this custom has developed a commercial ham-curing industry, with certain mountain villages achieving particular fame for their product.
Jabugo in Huelva, Trevelez in Granada, Montanchez in Caceres, Sotoserrano and Candelario in the province of Salamanca are all wellknown for their fine hams. Spain's Ministry of Agriculture has currently granted 'Denomination of Origin' status to the hams of the province of Teruel, and to those of Guijuelo, south east of Salamanca.
The ancient Iberian breed of near-wild pig, the Iberico or patanegra – black foot for the colour of the trotter – is the original hampig of the peninsula and the meat, once cured, was known as serrano or mountain ham, a product in which flavour and density is more important than tenderness. The 1970's saw the introduction of domesticated breeds of pig, larger and more amenable to corralling. These days, the hams of the lean, grey-skinned hump-backed Iberian pig – a distinctive breed with black or reddish bristles – which has been allowed to fatten on acorns and chestnuts in the wild goes to make the prized pata negra. The cheaper hams are made with the meat of the larger imported beasts – Landrace, Duroc, Large White – some of which have recently been successfully cross-bred with the native pigs.
Spanish serrano, as pata negra, is salt-cured and wind-dried without the application of heat or smoke: its closest equivalent is Italian prosciutto. The initial dry-curing of the hams in salt lasts about ten days. After that they are hung up for the winter months in the rafters of an airy attic to cure in the cold dry winds of the sierras. When the weather turns warmer, the hams start to bead with buttery juices, and they are moved to a cool cellar to finish developing their characteristic flavour and texture. Free-range Iberian hams take longer to cure than those from corralled pigs, and are consequently much more expensive. They have very little exterior fat, a beautiful rich marbling of creamy fat throughout the meat, a wonderful deep red-wine colour and an incomparable wild-game flavour.
makes 16 tapa mouthfuls/ allow 50-75 g (2-3 oz) per person as a starter
250 g/8 oz jamon serrano
8 slices of country bread
Wind-cured ham should be very finely sliced – almost transparent. Use a razor-sharp, long, slender, flexible blade such as those used for smoked salmon. The more freshly-sliced, the better it will be. Protect the cut surface of a ham, once started, with strips of its own fat (or greased tinfoil) so that it does not dry out. Serve with bite-sized pieces of bread – either separate or with the ham laid on as a topping.
Paprika sausage
Chorizo
At a rural pig-killing those meaty bits of the household pig which do not go for ham or bacon (tocino) are minced (ground) to make this garlic and paprika-spiced, all-meat sausage. Wind-dried and (sometimes, but not always) lightly smoked, chorizo is often prepared commercially in tandem with jamon serrano. These sausages are still made, along with black puddings, by rural housewives as part of their provision for winter. The rinsing and scrubbing of intestines for stuffing is one of the more leisurely activities of a country matanza (pig-killing) – ingenious cooks, in my time some thirty years ago, used a hose-pipe instead of relying on the current of the stream to rinse out the insides of the long tubes.
The housewife makes her chorizo with roughly-chopped lean and fat pork. The meat is seasoned with salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, dried coriander, garlic and red wine, with maybe a bit of chilli or oregano. The mixture is stuffed into sausage casings, and then hung up to dry and cure with, perhaps, the addition of a little light smoking. When making a Spanish stew, these seasonings, plus a length of all-meat pork sausage, will help to reproduce the flavour of Spanish chorizo.
Chorizo can be finished as single lengths, long loops, or knotted into short links of about 25-50g (1-2 oz) a piece. When the chorizo is well-cured (firm and dark) it is often sliced and eaten raw, like Italian salami. The softer, less-cured sausages can be grilled (broiled) whole or sliced and fried as a deliciously piquant tapa. Well-cured tiny ones are delicious flamed in a little warmed brandy, which just singes the skin.
Other such speciality sausages include regional delicacies such as the rosemary-flavoured longaniza, and the Catalan butifarra and Valencian blanquets which replace the chorizo's paprika with cinnamon and nutmeg.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Tapas"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Elisabeth Luard.
Excerpted by permission of Grub Street.
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