Spain

I made food for Spain back in March, which feels like ages ago. Even in the early stages of a pandemic lockdown, I was luckily able to get all the ingredients I needed to make a 5-plate tapas meal. Not that many people were stocking up on fresh artichokes and manchego cheese, I guess.

The first dish I made was an incredibly simple but tasty dish called pa amb tomàquet, which just translates to "bread and tomato" in Catalan. It's so simple, in fact, that I don't have any pictures of the process. But you don't need them, because all you do is toast some nice crusty bread (I used a baguette from a local vegan bakery) then rub it with garlic. Then you take a tomato, cut in half, and rub that on the toasted bread so you get bits of tomato all over it. Then, drizzle some good quality olive oil and hit it with a pinch of salt! You can also doctor it up with some ham, olives, anchovies, etc, but I think it's perfect just as it is.

The next dish was also very simple; no cooking was required for this one. These little skewers are called banderillas, which is also the word for the darts that matadors stick into the backs of bulls (yikes). There's no one recipe for these, it's basically just all the pickled things you want on a stick. I used gherkins, manzanilla olives, marinated artichoke hearts, and pepperoncinis. Anchovies are a common addition, which I found to be the case for most of the recipes I researched for Spain.Mine weren't very colorful, but I'm okay with that. Most of the recipes online are all green with the exception of one little pop of red/orange. But I think the olive stuffing counts there. Also, I must say that I love all of the ingredients involved--but I'm also just a fan of pickled things in general.

Now time for probably my favorite dish of the evening! Cigrons amb espinacs, aka chickpeas and spinach. It's another Catalan dish, and again quite simple but delicious. It starts with sauteed onions and garlic. A lot of garlic. There's quite a bit of garlic everywhere in this meal. This dish is also popular in other regions of Spain (called espinacas con garbanzos in Spanish) but the version I made is specifically described as Catalan.

Then you wilt some spinach down in the pot and add the secret ingredient: raisins. I would have never thought to put raisins in a dish like this, but they are apparently traditional in Catalan dishes. I think they definitely added the right touch of sweetness.

Next come the chickpeas. I usually just buy the regular store brand can of chickpeas (or make them from dried) but due to the whole pandemic thing they were starting to become scarce. Luckily the Goya brand chickpeas were offered as an alternative on Instacart. You get a smaller can but man these chickpeas were huge! Even when cooking dried chickpeas I've never seen them so plump and juicy.

The dish is finished with some smoked paprika and a nice drizzle of olive oil (of course). I'm not sure why I loved this so much. It was so simple but was just packed with flavor. I cook with chickpeas quite often, so I definitely appreciate them, but I think in this dish each ingredient was allowed to shine but it all still melded together really well.

Next up to the plate we have our patatas bravas! There are probably two most popular potato-based tapas dishes: this and the Spanish tortilla. I didn't want to do both because that would be way too much potato. The tortilla is basically a deep dish potato frittata. The main ingredients are literally just potato and egg. I've had it, and while it's tasty, I wanted to go for something a little more interesting. I've had potato and eggs in many different ways, but I'd never made bravas sauce!

It starts with frying the potatoes. The recipe I used called for cooking them in a pan for just a few minutes on low, then popping them in the fridge then cranking the heat up and frying to cook them the rest of the way. This mostly worked well because I had to cook mine in batches, so allowing some of them to cool while I was cooking the rest of them was useful. I got a little tired of babysitting them on the stove, though, so I let them fry a little to a light golden brown and then put them in the oven to finish cooking. This also helped make sure that they were actually cooked all the way through, which is a problem I always have when cooking potatoes on the stove. They turned out perfectly crispy and golden.

Next: the bravas sauce! This sauce is basically just liquefied paprika. It starts with olive oil, heated up. Then, you guessed it, paprika. I only had smoked paprika but the recipe I used called for both hot and smoked.

Once the oil and paprika are combined, you add in some flour to thicken it up.

Once that flour cooks for a hot second you gradually add broth until it reaches this nice silky smooth consistency. It's very similar to making gravy, and it kinda looks like it too.

The color of your paprika will probably dictate how red your sauce ends up being. I've seen some that look more orange or ketchup-y, but mine was definitely more of a rusty red-brown. Kinda like burnt sienna. It basically just tastes like paprika and oil, which isn't surprising. Luckily Chris liked it more than I did, because the recipe made a LOT of this stuff, which we ended up putting on eggs and things for about a week.

The bravas sauce gets slathered all over those nice crispy potatoes, along with a simple aioli, which I think I just made by combining mayonnaise and garlic that I made into a paste. I wasn't about to start making my own mayo, although I probably could with the food processor I have now. As for the potatoes, I love how you get the crispy bits, but you also get the parts where the sauces have kind of softened them a little too. It's like nachos. The chips at the top are still crispy and you can still use them to dip into stuff, but then you get down to the bottom and you get the pieces that have just soaked up all the flavors of everything else. I love those soggy chips at the bottom. Same with these guys. I just don't think you can go wrong with fried potatoes.

The last dish I made isn't so much of a dish as it is just a collection of finger foods with some more aioli. I actually didn't mean to get a fresh artichoke--I only wanted canned artichoke hearts. But hey, Instacart: you live and you learn. So this was my first time cooking an artichoke. It was easy to actually cook it but you have to make sure you cut off the right amount of this and that. I just don't think artichoke leaves are worth the effort. Just eat the heart. This one wasn't a particular "meaty" one either so there was a lot of teeth scraping for not a lot of payoff. But hey, it's pretty!

Along with the artichokes, I also served some more of the pepperoncinis and olives, as well as some manchego. This was my first time eating cheese since January, so I didn't have a lot of it, but I was reminded how good it is. The aioli here is I think the same as what I put on the patatas bravas, just with some added paprika.

I almost forgot that I also made some sangria! Because you can't have Spanish tapas without some wine. I just combined orange and apple slices with some cinnamon sticks and stuck that in the fridge to infuse into some red wine for a little while. I love making sangria, it's such an easy way to make something that feels a little fancy and fun.

So that's it! It's surprising how many elements did not actually require much cooking, which was a relief to not have to stand over the stove literally all day. And the idea of tapas is just such a great concept. I love getting to sample a bunch of different things at once. It's also sometimes fun to share food, unless it gets awkward. I'm always that person who's just like "what the hell give it to me I'll finish it" when people are "no YOU have it." I'm clearly not ashamed to eat everything on my plate. Luckily Chris is also that way, so we made quick work of most of these dishes (although we did have leftovers as it was actually quite a lot of food.)

Recipes Used: Pa amb tomàquet // Banderillas // Chickpeas & Spinach // Patatas Bravas & Bravas Sauce