Tapas in Madrid

We went to Madrid last weekend. It's about 6 hours drive from where we live (nearer 7 if you count pee pee stops) and well worth the journey. Actually travelling up is part of the adventure however the place itself is fantastic. We stayed on the outskirts in a town named Alcala de Henares and travelled in to Madrid centre on Sunday evening to wander around Plaza Mayor and get something to eat. More on Madrid at another time but for now here is an observation and a piece of advice for the traveller thinking of visiting Spain's capital city.

Tapas in Madrid is free!!!

On the Costa del Sol and Costa de la Luz we get fleeced. You go into a bar, order a drink and then buy tapas at around €2 to €3 each which, considering the size of the dishes takes 3 or 4 tapas to fill you up. Not so in Madrid where you go into the bar, order your drink and then order the tapa of your choice. This is then brought to you along with your drink free of charge. This meant that we were eating out at a fraction of the cost we originally budgeted for. Superb! How do they do it? Who cares? Free food!!!

While there we watched Spain beat Chilli in the World Cup qualifier. I was quite surprised at one point when the team wearing blue kit scored and every one cheered. I had assumed the blue team was Chilli you see while the other team wore red (Spain's usual kit). Someone later explained to me that each team has two kits of different colours and on this occasion Spain wore blue. Anyway they won which was good as I now live in Spain and its not as England has got a team right now is it? But, what do I know, I hate football.

Back to tapas and here, in true spirit of this blog is one quick recipe for a tapa. More will follow soon. Just you try and stop me.

3 eggs
3 rashers of bacon (or 4 depending on how big they are or how much you like bacon)
About 4 good handfuls of green beans (well how else do you measure them)
2 measures of vodka
Half a glass of orange juice
Half a glass of cream soda
1 shot of Grenadine

First, chop up the green beans and put in a pan with salt and water. Bring the water to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Next, beat the eggs in a jug or bowl then throw them in a frying pan with some olive oil and fry them up until, well... fried I suppose. When fried break up into little pieces and leave in the frying pan.

Then, chop the bacon into little pieces and again throw into the frying pan with the eggs. Fry for about 4 minutes.

Finally, drain the green beans and add them to the frying pan. Cook together for about 5 minutes and then serve with fresh crusty bread as shown below courtesey of our new camera.

The observant of you will have noticed the extra ingredients listed but not used in the above recipe. For those new to 'Burning Down The Kitchen' there is a law first and foremost that must be obeyed as drilled into me by my friend and Executive Chef (who will remain nameless to protect his professional reputation) namely...never cook without alcohol within arms reach.

Get a tall glass and place it in you freezer for 15 minutes. Take it out and immediately fill it with the vodka, orange juice, lemonade and a dash of Grenadine. Throw in a couple of ice cubes and sit back and watch.

The Grenadine is for artistic effect as it sinks to the bottom of the glass and set against the orange juice gives the appearance of a sunrise. Very effective. Just as efective is the result that comes from placing the empty glass in the freezer before filling it, but I'll leave this to you to try.

Anyway, more tapas recipes are to follow and we still need to get around to that Italian feast.

Hasta luego

Steve 

High tech cooking

So were in our new place now and starting to settle in. There have been a few disasters along the way, like the car choosing the weekend we move house to finally die (beyond economical repair I believe is the correct term) and my camera to go missing hence the lack of photos on my blog. Never mind though, we're here and here to stay this time.

I finally began to calm down after the stress of the move and a recent Trust law exam (which I passed by the way - yeh me) and decided it was about time I set foot in the kitchen again. Actually, the kitchen in this place is great. Everything is new and high tech. We've got a touch sensitive hob with digital display and bleeping noises to remind you that you've left something switched on. The microwave doubles as a grill and the oven has so many settings we don't know what to do with them (especially as the instruction books are in Spanish). The oven even has network capability so I can hook it up and operate it from the PC and even my mobile phone while we're out. Not that I see the need really but you never know, it may come in handy one day.

Anyway, I decided to cook this weekend and with all the mayhem going on around here all I could think to cook with my new futuristic kitchen was comfort food.

The ultimate comfort food.

A huge fry up. Bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, fried bread... the works.

Now were on a month of de-tox and dieting.

Until next time, if I don't have a heart attack first.

Steve

A brief note on Spain

As the more observant of you may have noticed, it has been close to a month since my last post. The reason for this is due to a minor change in our living arrangements, namely a relocation. Before going into the whys and wherefore's (or whatevers) one needs to take into consideration the current economic situation in Spain and in particular our little corner.

The campo (countryside) long the coast from Marbella down to Sotogrande has been desecrated by over development. Greedy developers have built scores of Urbanisations and apartment blocks all along the coast totalling thousands of houses, flats and apartments for which in the current climate there are no buyers. There is estimated to be around 120,000 empty properties in Andalucia. This situation has been compounded by the number of expatriates who, due to the fall of the pound against the Euro have found that their incomes, pensions, savings etc... are no longer sufficient to cover mortgages and living expenses. It is also noteworthy that property prices in Spain have been grossly inflated beyond what the properties are worth.

Since the 'global financial meltdown' property prices have now fallen to more realistic levels which has resulted in property owners having mortgages in negative equity. Mix this with the fall in value of the pound and you can understand why expats are simply handing their house keys back to the banks and moving back to their home countries.

This now brings us back to our current situation. We rented a property on an urbanisation (urbanisacion) in the campo. Our landlord owned five such properties he'd brought off plan for investment purposes at inflated prices. He has since decided not to pay the mortgage for the properties with the result that the banks have re-possessed them and evicted the tenants including us. Fortunately for us we have dropped on a new place and moved in a couple of weeks ago. As you can imagine things have been hectic and its taken a while to get t'internet back up and running but here we are again.

You will be pleased to learn that the olives survived the move and are well. The Italian feast will follow before too long. Please keep popping by.


Oh by the way if you do have some spare cash to invest, re-possessed Spanish property could now be a good buy. Prices have really dropped. There are rumors of two for one sales at property auctions and although Spain's economy is yet to see its worse (likely to have similar problems to Greece) eventually things will come round. Historically these things work in cycles. Boom, bust then boom again.

Sorry for such a serious post but then we did advertise a site with a bit of everything. Next one will be a bit more lighthearted. I might even throw in a few jokes about rudely shaped vegetables... ooh err misses.

Steve

Almost there...

Yes, there is just one more week to go before I can use the olives. I have also noticed that the water is no longer a dark red colour but a little pink. I'd show you a photo but there are only so many pics of the same few olives one can take (literally).

I now need to plan an Italian feast for Sunday evening so I can use my precious olives. If you have any recipe suggestions to challenge me with please write in. Or just ignore me like every other week.

Regardless, I'll keep on writing and hope there's somebody out there.

Tatar for now.

Steve

Quick update

It's now been 4 weeks and the olives are still turning the water dark red.

Will they be edible? Keep checking back to find out.

Steve

Giovani's chicken - 'eat it Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday...

We recently spent the evening with our friends Giovani and Carmena. Giovani is from Sicily hence the vague Godfather reference in the title. While we were there Giovani served home made ravioli and an amazing chicken dish. It was so good that I had to have the recipe. Needless to say, I now owe Giovani 'a favour'.

Anyway, here it is and it is simplicity itself.

4 chicken breasts
6 to 8 large closed cap mushrooms
200gm butter
250gm cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the chicken breast into pieces and peel and slice the musrooms. Place a large frying pan on a moderate heat and melt the butter. Once melted add the chicken and mushrooms. You should have something like this.

Fry the chicken turning occasionally (turning the chicken that is, not you because that would be silly) until done but not overdone. It should be just enough for any pink to disapear and for the chicken to turn white. Next add the cream and cook for a few more minutes, again turning the chicken in the cream to ensure all of it is covered. You should have something like this.

When the cream is bubbling away, add the salt and pepper and continue cooking to make sure eveything is thoroughly cooked but don't allow the cream to dry out.

Then serve with a side of your choice. Giovani served this with fresh bread and peas with a tomato sauce. I was pealess (is that a word?) and so made a brie and butter sauce (by melting brie and butter then adding a bit of cream) and mixed it with pasta. The results are below;

This dish takes about 15 to 20 minutes from start to finish and tastes fantastic. The only negative is that you wont be earning any gold stars at Weight Watchers. As for me, I have a party coming up in a few weeks for which I need to squeeze into a DJ I haven't worn for... a few years. With this in mind, the next few recipes are likely to be butterless.

Try out the chicken and if you like it give me some feedback.

Steve

Only three more weeks to go!

 As promised here is a quick update on the olive curing experiment.

If you recall (and if you can't - scroll down a post or two) I had described how important it is to cure olives rather than just eating them straight from the tree. The process involves soaking them in brine for about six weeks. Well were now on week three of our little test group and things seem to be going ok. I change the water and clean the bowl every week and have noticed how quickly the water becomes a dark red colour. The below photo (and yes I know its badly out of focus) shows the extent of the colouration. At this stage I can only speculate on whether this will continue or have ceased by the end of the experiment.

Check back next week for another update. Ooooh, I can hardly wait; it's just so exciting.