Cowboy - Catalan Cook-Off

Before the Texans left Barcelona, my Dad whipped up a big pot of his Chili and my Mom made Texas Queso (microwaved Velveeta cheese with canned Ro-Tel tomatoes) - Yum! We wanted to show our Spanish friends how to eat Texas-style.

To bring a little Catalan flavor to the meal, my dear friend / language exchange partner, Caterina, prepared a regional delicacy, Crema de Catalana, which bears a strong resemblance to Creme Bruelee, but is "mucho mejor" (according to anyone from Catalonia). Both dessert and chili recipes are posted below.

Here are the dueling chefs:

No effort was spared in bringing the Texas to Barcelona, and everyone was impressed when the Velveeta log was unveiled:

Not to be outdone, Caterina busted out her grandmother's branding iron, which is used to to caramelize the top of the dessert.

We had our doubts, but surprisingly, Texas Chili and Crema de Catalana make a very good combo!

Crema de Catalana

Ingredients

8 egg yolks

1 liter of whole milk

200g of sugar

120g of white flour

80g of corn flour

1 orange peel

1 lemon peel

3 sticks of cinnamon

Put the milk, fruit skins and the cinnamon sticks in a pot to boil. In another pot, mix the egg yolks, two types of flours and sugar into a thick paste. If the mixture needs more liquid, add warm milk. Once the milk has boiled, add the egg yolk mixture and let it thicken, without heat but stirring it all the while. 

Pour the mixture into small bowls or into one large pan and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit in a cool place (or the refrigerator) for five hours.

Later, sprinkle sugar on each dessert and heat the top with an iron broiler or butane torch until the surface caramelizes.

Big Daddy's Texas Chili

Ingredients

4 New Mexico Chilis

4 Californian Chilis

2 red wrinkled chilis

2 smoked jalapeno chilis

3 white onions

5 cloves of garlic

2 or 3 pounds of beef stew meat

cumin seeds

dark beer

white corn tortillas

Cut beef into small chunks and brown in a pan without oil, working in batches. Rough cut 2 onions and garlic and sauté, also without oil. When onions are slightly brown, add the meat, one bottle of beer. a bottle of water, salt and pepper to taste.

While the beef is simmering, de-seed and de-vein all the chilies. Put chilies in a saucepan, cover with water and turn the fire on low. Then, toast the cumin seeds. 

After ten minutes, blend the chillies and cumin seeds and add to meat. 

Cut the tortillas into small chunks and add to the meat as well. Let the chili simmer for at least two hours. Serve over white rice and garnish with cheddar cheese, diced onions and tomatoes.

Enjoy!

Crashing the Calcotada

Here in Catalonia, it's calcotada season, the time of year when the Catalans feast on calcots to celebrate the arrival of spring. In case you are wondering, calcots (pron: cal-sots) are a local, sweet onion, with a taste and size somewhere between a green onion and a leek.

Not one to miss out on any Catalan traditional festivities, I scoured the interwebs, found a calcotada happening in the nearby neighborhood of Gracia and emailed the organization for tickets.

Upon arrival, we knew we'd found the correct location by the calcots roasting on the barbie outside:

Inside, we were welcomed with the typical Spanish appetizer buffet plus local vermouth in plastic cups:

When all the old ladies hurried to get a good seat in front of the telly showing last year's calcotada, we began to think we were perhaps a bit out of place. 

As it turns out, this was a semi-private annual party and we were the only strangers in the group. Fortunately, they were a warm bunch and treated us as guests to their neighborhood gathering.

We took our seats in the converted high school gymnasium as Jeremy and Guilia prepped for the onslaught of onions...

The calcots were bought to the table, fresh-off-the-grill, in bundles wrapped in newpaper...

To eat them, you first strip the outer layers...

Then, you dip the calcot into the fantastically-delicous romesco sauce (recipe below)...

And lower the onion into your mouth.

After finishing our 20 or so calcots, we thought that was it. But how wrong we were!

The calcots, at a calcotada, are only the first course. Next, comes plate after plate of various types of meat. First, the butifarra (sausage):

Next, the grilled pork and then, lamb chops. Guilia is on her fourth plate of pork and having a hard time stomaching any more.

They also brought many bottles of wine and cava....

...and wrapped things up shots of whiskey, dessert, mandarines and coffee.

Side note: the guy below was so impressed by our American friend Jeremy's Catalan, he offered up his is Barca season passes for a game (but that's another story). 

My favorite part of the calcotada was meeting this 94-year-old woman and finding out that her family owns the cava company of the cava we were drinking. She showed me a portrait from her youth on the cap:

It was a pretty fantastic event by all accounts. We met lots of really nice people, ate lots of delicious food, and left with the secret recipe to the romesco sauce. Score.

Catalan Romesco Sauce

*Delicious on salads, fish and chicken

4 ripe tomatoes

50 grams of toasted almonds

50 grams of toasted hazelnuts

head of garlic

slice of bread

2 hot peppers

chilli pepper

olive oil, vinegar, salt 

Put the three peppers in water and soak for several hours. Then, peal the skins off the pulp.

Fry the bread in olive oil and let drain on a paper towel. 

Roast the tomatoes and garlic in the oven until completely roasted. Then peal off all the skins.

Put all the ingredients into a blender, including the nuts, and blend until the texture is smooth. Add olive oil, vinegar and salt to your tasting. Enjoy hot or cold!

Wine Tasting, California-Style

We finally had an opportunity to share a bottle of Filial, the wine Ted makes with his brothers-in-law,

...with our Spanish friends and they were at first, not so impressed. They were like "Oh you made it. That's cool," as if making this fine bottle of Pinot Noir were like sewing a button on your shirt. 

Spain produces a lot of wine, more than the region north of San Francisco, "the

 Wine Country" as it's called, but wine mania hasn't taken over here like it has back home. 

In California, we sip, swirll, savor, chew, mull over, ohh and ahh over every possible flavor and then describe that taste with an unexpected phrase such as "freshly sharpened pencils". This, of course, says much more about us than it does about the wine.

  

But I have been shocked to discover how differently the Spanish value wine. It's what you drink with food, not something to fuss over. Sometimes you even mix it with fizzy water (gasp!) or Coca-Cola (double gasp!) 

Recipes for these non-traditional cocktails listed below.

So, our friends didn't really get what it meant to be drinking a bottle of Filial: that Ted's Dad had grown the grapes,

 that Ted and his brothers-in-law had made the wine, 

that Bethany and Ed had hand-delivered only four bottles from San Francisco to Barcelona and that this was one of those bottles!!!

Then our friends started drinking the Pinot and were suddenly surprised. "Ooooh, this is good!" And then, "This is really good." And then,  "So you made this?  Really? Look - his name is even on the label!" 

Finally someone, calling on their inner-Californian, yelled out, "This tastes just like Christmas!" 

I was so pleased,

 both for the spontaneous cultural exchange (they understand us!) and for the glowing international review Filial 2010 had just received.

As promised, here are the Wine Cocktail Recipes:

Calimocho

(popular in the Basque Country)

half red wine

half Coca-Cola

Ice

Tinto de Verano
(popular in summertime or anytime)

half red wine

half gassy water

ice

Sopa de Galet

Sopa de Galet is a deliciously rich soup Catalans eat for Christmas Eve dinner.

It's not typically served in restaurants because of course, your mother already made it for you for Christmas Eve dinner.

In other words, if I wanted to try this soup, I had to make it myself.  And so I did.

And you can too, if you can find galets - large, snail-shell shaped pasta. I'd put money on global capitalism that both Berkeley Bowl and Central Market in Houston carry this speciality Catalan pasta.

Nailing down the recipe was a bit of an adventure.

Before Christmas, I had asked so many questions about the traditional Catalan soup that my Spanish teacher, Anna, called her mother in the country for the recipe. Anna, a fabulous teacher but apparently not a chef, gave me instructions for something, but not a soup.

So I decided to wing it using the ingredients list from her mother.

Fortunately, the beef butcher at the market gave me a few tips. Then the pork butcher added her two cents, including her family's secret ingredient:

Not sure what that is, nor do I want to.  Moving on....

After getting more tips from the chicken butcher and the vegetable vendor, I pretty much figured out what I was doing.
So, my recipe below represents a combined effort of at least five different Catalan families. 

Sopa de Galet is very easy to make but requires two days. The caldo (stock) is better the second day and the stuffed galets need to chill in the freezer for at least 24 hours.

Ingredient List
Bag of Galets
Quail eggs (if you're feeling fancy)

Galet Filling:

250 grams of ground beef

250 grams of ground pork

a hunk of dry bread, put in a bowl of milk

two eggs

chopped parsley

minced garlic

salt and pepper

Caldo:
one beef bone

one ham hock

parts of chicken including bones

sausage (preferably blood sausage)

several turnips

some celery

one onion

some carrots

one leek

water and salt

To Make the Soup

Day One:

Put all the caldo ingredients into a large pot. Cover with water and let boil for at least an hour but no more than one day.  Then, strain and reserve the liquid "caldo".

Next, make the galet stuffing by mixing all the ingredients together.

Pour yourself a glass of wine, turn on some nice music and begin the process of filling each uncooked galet with a bit of meatball mix.  I found using a teaspoon helpful.

Galets now go into the freezer. And you are done for the day.

Day Two:

While the galets are thawing, boil quail eggs in water for a few minutes.  Then, peel the eggs and put them aside.

Heat the caldo and when it boils, add the frozen filled galets. Boil for 20 minutes.  Just before the galets are tender, add the quail eggs.

Enjoy!
Our buddies Maria (left) and Nuria (right) seemed to think the soup turned out okay:)

Recipe: Pisto

Being in Spain reminds me of the time I walked the Camino de Santiago, a 600 mile / 30 day pilgrimage across northern Spain with my sister and childhood pal Matthew. We walked through vineyards, across farms, through cities with festivals, along highways and on small, picturesque paths all the way from southern France to Santiago de Compostela in western Spain. It was a fantastic and life-changing experience.

This is me upon reaching the cathedral in Santiago.

And this is us a few moments later...

By the way, I'm getting to the recipe part of this entry.....

At night, we stayed in alburgues, public dormitories run by either churches or local governments. Alburgues cost 1 or 2 Euros / night and only allow pilgrims with a pilgrim passport to stay.

When luck would strike, the person running the alburgue would cook a traditional dinner. So being in Barcelona has given me a major hankering for Pisto, a healthy and easy-to-prepare dish that we ate often on the Camino.  I found a recipe here and made it for Ted:

Pisto


1. Dice 8 tomatoes.  If you have the time / energy, peel and deseed.

2. Dice one red pepper, green pepper, large onion, zucchini and two carrots.

3. Using low heat and a fair amount of olive oil, saute the onion and peppers until the onions are transluscent.

4. Next, add the carrots and zucchini.

5.  Once all vegetables are tender, add the tomatoes and a bay leaf, if you have one.  Throw in a pinch of sugar to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes.  Adjust with salt and pepper.

6.  Reduce heat and cook for an hour or more, depending on how much water the tomatoes have.

7.  Serve pisto over pasta or rice and if you like, put a fried egg on top.  Enjoy!