FRUTOS SECOS #1 - BREAKFAST

...and we’re back, after a few weeks, a trip, loads of work and well, yes! new recipes!

This time it’s all about one of Spain's biggest love affair: frutos secos!

And if you don’t get what i mean let me help you: remember all these tiny, mysterious nutshells lying everywhere in town? all those people eating and spitting super-small light-brown woodish thingies? Well... we’re talking about pipas :), the most eaten/spitted thing in the whole of Spain. Don’t ask me why Spaniards love them so much! They simply do.

Anyway, in the fabulous world of frutos secos there’s muuuuch more interesting stuff than pipas. You can check it out in the shops you’ve certainly seen out there, with a huge amount of chips lying in the window’ shop :). In there you’ll really find all kind of dried fruits/nuts: salted, unsalted, caramelized, with honey, peeled or not, toasted and raw. Yes! I really meant ALL-KINDS!! :).

Not to mention how healthy nuts are (i mean raw nuts, not certainly salted or caramelized :P)... I’m preparing different entries about frutos secos, related to all kinds of meals. Today it’s breakfast time and yes, granola is the answer! The lovely thing about granola is that you can basically use the nutshells you prefer, same for dried fruits and seeds. I suggest you to visit a good bio-shop to buy some good cereals and be inspired.

So, just grab your favorite ones and turn on the oven... :)


Granola:

160g mix of corn flakes, rolled oats and puffed rice

50g puffed quinoa

50g flax seeds

100g raw, peeled almonds

50g raw, peeled hazelnuts

150g dried blackberries

100ml sunflower oil

50ml maple syrup


Preheat the oven to 150°C. Place all the dried ingredients BUT the blackberries into a large bowl, then pour the oil and maple syrup over and stir until combined. Put into a large baking sheet or two and bake for 40 minutes, stirring every now and then. Let it cool, then add the blackberries.

Keep in an airtight box; it’s PERFECT with yoghurt, but it gets along very well also with a good cup of milk :).

LENTILS' SOUP WITH SOBRASADA

Here we go with some comfort food for these cold-cold days!
I chose 100% Spanish ingredients this time, to remind both me and you that I live in Spain :). Good thing is that you’ll easily find them in almost all groceries/markets :).

Ingredients

500g “pardina” lentils (they are a type of small lentils from Castilla y León)
2 shallots
3 tablespoons of sobrasada
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1,7 liters water
vegetable stock-cube
salt
pepper

Chop the shallots; heat the oil in a heavy large pot over medium-high heat and add the chopped shallots. Stir until they get softer, then add sobrasada and let it melt. Add the lentils, stir again, add the water and the stock-cube (I use this one, with herbs).
Stir and let it cook for at least 45 min. Make sure the water is enough; if not add another good ladle. Once the lentils are ready, puree them in a food processor or anyway blend until smooth.

Season the soup with salt and pepper and serve adding a tablespoon of sobrasada. They’re perfect with tetilla (typical galician cheese) “croutôns” :).

TUNA HOT POT

And now for something completely different, some Japanese food: I am joining Foodalogue’s Culinary Tour Around the World, with a traditional Old Tokyo Tuna-Belly Hot Pot recipe.

My source/inspiration/starting point is this awesome cookbook. Its awesomeness may be not so evident at first sight, as all those soups might somewhat look rather unglamorous, and certainly the ingredients are not always browser friendly - names like itokonniyaku, yuzu koshu, negi et cetera can be intimidating for non-experts of Japanese food. However if you read the book properly, taking the time to go through the introduction and having more than a cursory look at the glossary, you will be rewarded with a fascinating glimpse into centuries old traditions.

The hot pot is the physical center around which the meal is orchestrated. Since hot pots are often prepared directly at the table using portable burners, we could say that the act of cooking is actually part of the meal, there is no marked separation between cooking and eating. Not only that, but the diners participate rather actively in the cooking part: they sometimes place raw portions of their food in the boiling pot, and cook them as long as they see fit; or they take broth from the pot and use it to flavor their shime, a bowl of rice or noodles that is traditionally the closing part of a hot pot meal. A dinner like this can last quite long, and the authors talk fondly of epic evenings when they cooked oysters, then pork belly, then rib eye in the same broth.

So the recipe is basically just the starting point, and recreating this sort of food sharing social event is half the fun. Keeping this in mind, I decided to try the Tuna Belly Hot Pot recipe for a very practical reason: I don't have a portable burner, and this dish allows at least some sort of tableside cooking even without it.

Timing:

1 hour for the broth to be ready, then maybe 20 mins for the preparation of the actual hot pot.

Ingredients for 4:

(note that if you are in Madrid you can get pretty much all the special seasonings you need at Tokyo-ya)

*20cl mirin - a sweet cooking liquid brewed from rice. I also saw it at El Club del Gourmet.

*20cl soy sauce

*2 pieces of kombu - this a kind of dried kelp, or algae. Can also be found at El Corte Inglés supermarket.

*40g  hanakatsuo or kezurikatsuo - shaved bonito flakes. This is used to prepare the base broth, it is maybe the only thing really hard to find, and it is very expensive here: you might easily spend more than 10 euros at Tokyo-ya for such a small quantity. Personally I think some shrimp heads and shells would be an acceptable replacement, as you can use them to prepare a light fish stock. Not the same, but not bad either. Or you can use this.

*150g noodles - I used rice ones.

*2 scallions, with most of the green leaves

*200g napa cabbage - called col china (Chinese cabbage) around here. Found at the supermarket.

*100g tofu - again found at the supermarket.

*500g tuna belly - in Spain the season for ventresca is the summer, so I just replaced it with "plain" sushi-grade tuna, works very well.

How to:

Put 2 liters of water in a pot; throw in the kombu and let it rest for half an hour. Then place the pot on medium heat, and as soon as the water boils remove and discard the kombu. Add a couple tablespoons of water, throw in the bonito flakes and stir only once. Let the liquid simmer for 5 minutes, removing any foam that forms on the surface, then turn off the heat and leave the pot to rest for another 15 minutes. After that, filter the broth through a fine sieve, without squeezing the bonito flakes. Discard them, add mirin and soy sauce to the broth, reserve.

(as I was saying, I think you can basically replace the bonito flakes with shrimp head and shells, you will get something more similar to a traditional fish stock. In that case you will have to boil the broth for longer, probably half an hour. Make sure you are left with at least 1 liter of liquid before adding mirin and soy sauce; if not just add some extra water. Also, if you want to replicate at least partially the smoked aroma of hanakatsuo/kezurikatsuo, you might throw in a pinch of smoked salt)

While the broth is boiling you can start preparing the veggies: wash the cabbage and the scallions, then cut them in bite size pieces. If you want to do it properly, cut them on a sharp diagonal, as per Japanese tradition; this way the pieces will absorb more flavor and will also look nicer.

Wash the tuna, then cut it in small (around 2cm) cubes. If you already know your guests will like it, sprinkle them with some seasoning like pepper and/or shichimi togarashi.

Place cabbage, scallions and tofu in a pot, arranging them in separate neat bunches and leaving some space on a side. Pour in the reserved broth, bring to a boil, then add a bunch of noodles where you have space. Don’t stir, the ingredients should stay separate. Once the cooking time of the noodles have passed, turn off the heat.

Now you can throw in the tuna cubes, which will be cooked to medium-rare in maybe 2 or 3 minutes, then serve the ingredients with the broth in small bowls. Or, for a more interesting alternative, if you can find some way to keep the soup hot (for example with a candle and something simple like a fondue kit) you can serve the raw fish in a separate plate, and place the hot pot at the center of the table; then your guests can just help themselves, grabbing some fish and cooking it to their liking.

You can also cut the pieces more finely, sashimi style, so it is ready more quickly. Or you can throw in some variety, and serve sushi-grade salmon along with the tuna.

Itadakimasu!