Each culture has it’s own thingy wrapped in dough: jiaozi in China, momos in Nepal, pierogi in East Europe, ravioli in Italy… Spain has got empanadillas. This is classical savory yet easy to prepare finger food; and Teba excels at it.
Back at home, in the Basque Country, Unai’s father is who does the cooking, and he doesn’t like fish. So when he is not around, his mother always takes the chance to prepare this simple, yet delicious typical Spanish dish.
Clean the clams and cut the hake into large pieces.
Put a sliced garlic clove in a large pan covered with 5mm of olive oil at medium heat, then remove garlic when brown and leave oil to cool.
Chop the parsley and two garlic cloves, add two tbsp of flour, a cup of water and process until homogenous.
Coat the hake cuts with flour, only the meaty part, leaving the skin clean. Place them in the pan with oil, skin facing down, sprinkled with a handful of chopped parsley.
Set it to medium-low heat and cook for about 15 min, continously agitating the pan so it doesn't stick, keeping the oil at a slight boil, until you see the meat is almost cooked.
Add the sauce, sprinkle with salt, add the clams, and keep agitating on medium heat until most clams open.
Salmorejo is typical from Córdoba, and I am familiar with this recipe because I have friends with family of the south. It’s perfect for the summer, because is light, healthy and very easy to prepare.
Peel the tomatoes. It's easier if you dip them half a minute in boiling water before.
Put the peeled tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients into a blender and blend at max speed for less than a minute. The texture has to be smooth, thick enough as to qualify as a cold soup and not as a juice. Taste and correct vinegar and salt.
Enjoy extra-cold, garnished with hardboiled egg and ham shavings!
Jorge bids farewell on his last Thursday in the office with an all-Venezuelan (with a pinch of Cuban) arepada, to the music of Reynaldo Armas and cold Estrella Damm quintos.
In a bowl, put in the water and salt, and then add the flour while you squash and mix with your hands to avoid crumbles. Keep adding flour until the though is not sticky.
To make the arepas make a ball of the size of a paddle ball, and craftily convert it into a kind of UFO. This part is tricky.
Cook them on a pan at medium-high until they are golden on the outside and patting them makes a hollow sound, and store wrapped on cloth.
For the filling
Peel and cut the yuca and boil it until soft, about 10 min.
For the yuca to be even softer, you can optionaly put the cut pieces of yuca on the freezer overnight. Allow more time to cook in that case.
Finely cut or squash the garlic and mix with squized lima juice and a pinch of salt. Sprinkle the cooked yuca with this sauce.
Cut the banana into oblique, 1-inch pieces and fry in a pan with half an inch of oil until crunchy on the outside.
Cut or slice the rest of the ingredients conveniently to fill in the arepas.
Preparing the arepas
Cut open the arepa bread on one side.
Fill in with the desired filling.
Enjoy with Venezuelan music (Reynaldo Armas) on the background!
1 big potato (or even better, sweet potato), cut into ~1cm rounds
1 1⁄2 teaspoons olive oil or coconut oil, melted
Fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup frozen shelled edamame, thawed
1 medium carrot, julienned
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1⁄4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped (optional, we didn’t had this)
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon hemp seeds
1⁄2 cup sprouts
FOR THE ORANGE-MAPLE MISO DRESSING:
3 tablespoons (45 mL) light miso
2 tablespoons (30 mL) rice vinegar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon (15 mL) tahini
1⁄4 cup (60 mL) fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon (5 mL) maple syrup (we had no maple, but you can use agave sirup or honey)
1 teaspoon (5 mL) water
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the potato rounds on the prepared baking sheet and drizzle them with the oil, rubbing it on both sides to coat. Sprinkle the sweet potatoes with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, then flip the potatoes and roast for 8 to 10 minutes more, until tender and lightly browned.
Meanwhile, combine the quinoa with 1½ cups water in a saucepan and bring to a slow boil. Turn the heat down, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
To assemble, divide the cooked quinoa evenly between 2 plates or bowls and season it with salt and pepper. Top with the roasted potato rounds, the edamame, carrots, green onion, cilantro, the sesame seeds, hemp seeds, and sprouts.
FOR THE ORANGE-MAPLE MISO DRESSING:
In a mini or regular food processor, combine the miso, vinegar, sesame oil, tahini, orange juice, water, and maple syrup and process until well combined.
Drizzle with Orange-Maple Miso Dressing and enjoy!
Portuguese love cod (bacalhau). And Bacalhau à Brás is arguably the most common bacalhau dish in Portugal. João is Portuguese, so he loves Bacalhau à Brás. And he shared this love with us. ❤️
Chop the onions and garlic to small pieces and mince the cod.
In a deep pan, sweat the onions and garlic until golden, then add the pieces of cod, and cook for a few minutes, until it soaks up the oil.
Then add the potatoes and stir whilst adding the beaten eggs with salt and pepper to taste. (Remember: the chips and the cod are already salty enough!)
Stir for a few minutes, until the chips moisten but before the eggs become an omelette.
I have lived for a long while in NYC and also spent some time in London. Both cities, NY especially, have a deeply ingrained culture of street food. One of my favourite forms of street food is the taco. In NY and many other cities in the USA you can find a plethora of tacos for sale from street vendors… anything from tongue, to chicken, to grilled meat, to… fish! There is a Baja style fish taco which uses deep fried fish. My version is less fussy and quicker using grilled fish instead. For me the key ingredient that makes or breaks a fish taco isn’t the fish, it’s the chipotle mayo — for me it’s an essential component. Finally, the ultimate taco is all about the garnish: you want colour, texture, and flavour to all complement each other.
Ajiaco is a hearty soup from the cold mountains near Bogotá, Colombia. Charles learnt this recipe from his wife’s sisters during one of his visits, and shared it with us in the office.
8 small yellow or white potatoes, cut into quarters
2 onions
1 chicken cut into eighths
1 liter water
2 maize, cut into thick slices
2 cloves of garlic
2 avocados as a complement, diced
400 ml cream
coriander
guascas (or bay leaf)
capers (alcaparras)
rice on the side
oil for cooking
Instructions
Heat a bit of oil on a casserole and fry chicken, onions and garlic until golden.
Add potatoes and guascas to taste, fry for 5 min, stirring so it doesn't get stick.
Add the maize, coriander to taste and water until covered. Cook for 40 min. The starchy potatoes should disintegrate but the other ones should be well-cooked without disintegrating.
When cooked, serve on soup bowls and add 100ml of cream, half avocado, and capers to taste.
This is supposed to be a big thing in the region above the Mura river in north-east Slovenia —”the head of the chicken.” This is Tina’s grandmother’s recipe.
Mix all of the ingredients but rather quickly as not to make the dough too warm and soft, refrigirate it before use.
“PULLED” DOUGH
Be careful to use warm water so the ingredients bond more firmly and make the dough softer.
Mix all of the ingredients into a firm ball and rest for 30 minutes under a kitchen cloth (you can halve the dough so it will be easier to strech it thinly later on). Then role out the dough into about a fingers width of a sheet and spread oil over the surface to prevent tearing.
Strech the dough over the surface of the table as thinly as you can (make sure you put a cloth underneath with lots of flower so it wont stick to the table). Cut the dough into about ten sheets that are slightly larger than the base of the baking dish.
CAKE
Role out the base dough into a thin sheet and spread it over the bottom of the baking dish, fold and lift the ends of the dough and press them against the walls of the dish making a bowl.
Then put a sheet of “pulled” dough over it and spread your first filling - the poppy seeds. Spread a modest amount of the sour cream topping and sugar.
Then come the next sheet and the grated apples which you season with cinnamon (grandma used to have a heavy hand when it came to this but use as much as you see fit) and sugar.
Now comes another layer with the walnuts and then cottage cheese. You cover both with the cream topping but don’t hold back with the cottage cheese, make sure that bad boy is nice and moist. Also you can mix the walnuts with the cream beforehand so they’ll be easier to spread.
Repeat all four layers and cover the whole thing with two sheets (spread the butter and some cream carefully between the layers so they won’t get stuck into a single hard sheet).
Before putting it in the oven generously cover the top with, you guessed it, more cream.
Slowly bake for about an hour (this part is really vague so I guess at around 180 degrees).
Mix the flour and salt in a big bowl, then, using your fingertips, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Add enough of the cold water to mix to a firm dough. Let rest in the fridge for an hour.
Roll out three-quarters of the pastry on lightly floured surface. Grease a 20 cm pie dish with butter and fill in the pastry.
Fill with the apples peeled and cut to dices and sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar.
Roll out the remaining of the pastry and use to cover the pie, moistening the edges of the pastry base to seal on the lid. Cut a vent or pinch the top and brush with milk.
Bake in a preheated oven at 200º C for about 30 minutes until pastry is golden.
Serve with whipped cream.
Pro tip: use brown muscovado sugar instead of brown sugar, and add all spice besides the cinnamon, just a hint.
