Rabo de toro (bull´s tail stew)

Let´s keep up with the traditional Spanish meals!

Today, rabo de toro, bull´s tail stew. I don´t know if the fame of the dish is because it is made of bull or because of the main ingredient is not so appealing or common. It takes quite many hours, you can speed it up using pressure cooker.

Traditionally, this dish is made with the Lidia bull´s tail. Of course this is a rare and desired product, so really expensive, otherwise bull or cow tail is used.

It is important to choose good pieces, you have to find pieces with lots of meat and big bone marrow, which will good flavor to the stew. Unfortunately the ones I used were a bit average.    

Ingredients

• 1 large leek
• 1 carrot
• half red pepper
• 1 tomato
• couple garlic nails
• 600g bull tail
• laurel
• 25 cl red wine
• 10cl Porto wine
• 35 cl broth vegetable or meat
• Optional: 2 potatoes and parsley

Preparation 

Serving for 2.

Add salt and pepper to the tail and then cover it with flour. In a hot pan, cover the bottom with olive oil and place the tail as to fry it. You have to fry all the sides so all the outer meat is browned.

After the tail is ready, in a casserole add a bit of the frying oil, trying that the burned flour doesn´t go there. Chop all the vegetables and fry them for 5-10 minutes, then add the bull´s tail and add the wines, the broth and the laurel, mix it till all the alcohol has evaporated. Then close the lid and let cook for 2,5 or 3h.

Every once in a while, open to stir a bit. The cooking time is approximate, the meat is ready when feels that the meat is falling from the bone.

Once is ready take away the bulls tail and the laurel leaf. Blend the sauce and put it through the strainer, if the sauce is too liquid boil it a bit more, but I recommend what I did.

When you take the bull´s tail out of the casserole, peel and cut couple of potatoes and place them to boil with the sauce before blending it. The potatoes will release the starch, helping making the sauce thicker, plus you have an amazing flavored potatoes to go with the stew.

Hope you like it

Mr South

Korvapuusti (cinnamon roll)

Just few days ago it was the Finnish independence day, it was cold and snowing outside so there was nothing better to cook some korvapuusti, a traditional Finnish cinnamon roll.

Ingredients

• 7dl flour
• 2,5 dl milk
• 1/2 egg
• 1 dl sugar
• 1/2 tbsp black cardamom
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 1 bag dried yest (11g)
• 100g butter 
• For filling: sugar, butter and cinnamon

Preparation

The flour used for this recipe is a bit difficult to explain, it has 12g protein per 100g and it says is a all purpose baking. One of the main hints of this recipe is to use as less flour as possible, otherwise it looses the fluffiness.

The black cardamom, you can use powder or you can grind your own to be a bit thicker, as you wish. 

In a big bowl pour half the flour and add the dried yest, heat the milk in the microwave so it is a bit over hand temperature. 

Batter an egg and place half in another big bowl and save the other half for decoration later on. In that bowl add the warm milk the blag cardamom, salt and sugar. Add slowly the flour/yest mixture to the milk/egg stirring all the time.

Once a homogeneous dough is achieved, add the other half of the flour slowly and when you have about 1dl flour/yest left to add, add the butter (room temp so it is easy to mix) and mix thoroughly then add the rest flour if it is necessary.

The dough should like elastic, silky soft and non sticky. Let it rest for 40 min in a warm place as to activate the yest. And easy trick is to place the bowl in the sink and create a warm water bath (warm it is around 40ºC).

Take the dough and work it a bit in a floured surface and split in in 2 so it is easy to handle. Add some flour on working surface and flatten the dough with a roller into rectangular shape, make it as thin as possible, half centimeter is good, but make it as thin before it breaks.

With your own taste, add butter cinnamon and sugar, it is not important the order; you can put all the ingredients in a food processor and then add all together, add sugar cinnamon and then the butter, but maybe the easiest is to add the butter then cinnamon and on top sugar. Keep in mind the amounts given above are for the dough, not the filling!

You can put a lot if you prefer, you can add there raisins, almonds, etc but traditional korvapuusti doesn't have.

Once you are happy with the filling, roll the dough trying not to press too much so it keeps fluffy. Once the roll is formed, with a knife cut the dough in a zig zag pattern (see the picture below). 

With the pieces cut, place them in a oven tray with baking paper and with the short side facing upwards. Then with your two thumbs press a bit the little pieces by the part which doesn't have the filling.

Let it rest for 30 min on warm place.

With the spare half egg from beginning, pain the rolls and add a bit on sugar on top of each one, it can be bits of sugar, ice sugar ow whatever you have.

Place in oven at 225ºC 10-12min. It is better that the rolls are a bit under cook that too much, when they are right in the spot they seem a bit under cook but if you stick a knife through a roll it will come out clean.

Hyvää ruokahalua!

Ms North 

By the way, Mr South says these are the best korvapuusti he has ever tasted! So try the recipe and tell us! 

Sopa castellana (garlic soup)

Winter, is time for heavy warm meals, and soups are in the top of the list. Today I decided to post about one really traditional Spanish dish, if a top 5 typical Spanish food was to be made, sopa castellana would be there (and no, paella wouldn´t not even be in top 10.

So what is sopa castellana? a humble, cheap ingredients, surviving meal for many, many generations throughout the last centuries (yes so old). The main ingredients were; old, hardened bread, garlic and couple of eggs, and if the family was lucky, a bit of pork in the form of chorizo or jamon. This soup, was the main caloric intake for the day.

Today, such hard times are over, but Spanish people keep on eating this humble dish, not because of some sort of past heritage but for the amazing flavors. 

Ingredients

• Garlic
• half tbsp Pimentón dulce (Spanish paprika powder)
• 2 eggs
• olive oil
• half baguette
• 0,6L vegetable or meat broth
• Optional: some chorizo or jamon and parsley

Preparation 

I used a baguette because it is easy to find, ideally you would use a thick, dense bread.

Serving for 2
In a casserole, cover the bottom with olive oil and add fine chopped garlic and laurel leaf. The amount of garlic for this dish has to be substantial, for me (garlic addict speaking) this starts around a large head, but up to you.
I just found this video, it is always nice to see new tricks to make cooking easier and faster, it works, I tried!!

When the garlic starts to get golden, pull the casserole out of the heat and add the half tbsp of pimentón dulce. 

Stir quickly, you don´t want to burn the pimentón and add the bread sliced. Mix thoroughly, trying that the bread soaks all the flavors.
Add the broth and mix for couple of minutes in medium fire. Let it cook for 5 minutes.

Add two full eggs and the chopped parsley. Leave it for couple of minutes so the eggs cook a bit.

Hope you like it!
Mr South


By the way, in the pics I added 1L of broth, but I like it a bit thicker, that´s why in the recipe I suggested 0,6L would be enough.

Filled squid

Hei! I had cooked this dish long time ago, but forgot to write about it.

This dish, brings me a lot of memories. When I remember my grandma (who passed away many years ago) the memory that comes first to my mind is helping her cooking this dish. It was the first time I cooked it, but I hope you like it.

I want to say as well, this dish represents a very typical catalan concept, mar i muntanya (sea and mountain). There are many dishes in the typical catalan recipe book which combine fish and meat, it might seem odd, but some combinations are delicious! Hopefully in the next posts we can post more mar i muntanya recipes!

Ingredients

• 3 onions
• 3 tomatoes 
• laurel
• 6 medium squid
• 50g shrimps
• 1 egg
• couple dried tomatoes
• small zucchini 
• garlic
• bit of Porto wine
• olive oil
• salt 
• black pepper

Preparation

Serving for 2.

We have prepared a vegetarian version, in my grandma´s recipe, she used the meat from a llonganisa (this is made with minced meat from pork, a quite fatty part) so you have to change the zucchini and dried tomatoes for minced meat.

In a casserole add a bit of oil and slow cook two and half onions chopped in stripes and couple of sliced garlic till it gets golden. 

Grate the tomatoes and add it to the casserole with onions, add a bit of Porto wine and a laurel leaf.

Chop small the remaining onion and a small zucchini and saute it in a different pan. When ready add the shrimps and the head/arms of the squid and small chopped dried tomatoes.

Boil and egg.

Place in a bowl the content of the pan and the boiled egg. You have to chop really small all the ingredients, go with scissors, is easier and less messy.

 

Clean the body of the squid with water and then use the chopped ingredients to fill the squid. Use fingers, it is easier, and you have to compress it as to feel quite hard. Close the squid body with toothpick.

After adding the grated tomatoes and the Porto wine in the casserole, cook it slow for 20 min and keeping the heat low, add the filled and closed squid. Cook 15 min, turning the filled squid and it is ready to serve!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I took them with the phone.
Salut!
Mr South

Beetroot hummus, tzatziki and dried tomato pesto with arabic/asian salad

Today, I wanted to make hummus. I love beans, I love hummus and sometimes I buy it in supermarket, but today I decided to try myself, and I'm not kidding, is super fast!!

Beetroot season is almost over so wanted to use the last bits of fresh beetroot, and seemed a good idea to mix it with hummus, and it was!

So the idea was to make this three delicious side dish sauces and with a bit of leftovers I did an amazing salad! I have to confess that coriander and I weren't good friends, but I'm starting to appreciate the little spicy aromatic kick of this plant.

Ingredients

Beetroot hummus 

• 150g chickpeas
• 1 lime
• 1 small finely grated beetroot
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt
• pepper 
• 1 nail garlic

Dried tomato pesto

• 10 dried tomatoes
• 8-10 roasted hazelnut
• 100g grated parmesan cheese
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1 nail garlic

Tzatziki

• half lime
• 2tbsp thick yogurt
• 200g finely and medium grated cucumber
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 nail garlic
• olive oil

Salad

• 50g green pepper
• 50 g chickpeas
• 180g kidney beans
• 20g couscous
• 20g sunflower seeds
• half small onion
• half thick grated carrot
• half thick grated cucumber
• coriander
• half lime
• olive oil

Preparation

Beetroot hummus

From a can of chickpeas, use 3/4, aprox 150g (dried weight) and rinse it with water, then pour them into the food processor or blender.

Grate finely a peeled beetroot and put it together with the chickpeas. Add 1 lime juice and olive oil.

I use lime because I like it much better than lemon, which I find too strong taste and somehow masks all other flavors.

Give it couple minutes in the blender and try it. Put black pepper and salt as desired as well as water if you prefer a less thick hummus.

Dried tomato pesto

Again, with a blender or food processor, add 10 dried tomatoes, 8-10 roasted hazelnuts (I didn't have pine nuts but roasted hazelnuts taste amazing) 100g finely grated parmesan cheese and a bit of garlic and olive oil.

Couple of minutes in the blender and it is ready. 

IF you want to freeze this for another occasion, like that is perfect, otherwise add more olive oil before serving.

Tzatziki

In a bowl, add 2 big table spoons of thick yogurt, juice of half a lime, grated cucumber (most of it finely and a bit quite thick) a crushed garlic, 1/2 tea spoon of sugar, 1 tea spoon of salt and stir it till it becomes homogeneous. Taste it and add more lime juice, salt or whatever you like best and in the end add the olive oil.

Asian/Arabic salad

Ok first of all, there is no name for the salad, I just started adding things I had and thought would go together.

In a serving bowl, add the leftovers of chickpeas, open a can and rinse it of kidney beans and pour it too. Grate in the thickest size, half a carrot and half cucumber. Chop really small half a small onion and green pepper and add it to the serving bowl.

For the couscous, a bit more boiling water than amount of couscous, 1:1,5 I use. In a bowl, add the couscous, a bit of salt, black pepper, olive oil and a bit roasted curry powder (careful it is strong stuff). Then add the boiling water, give it couple of stirs and place a dish on top of the bowl so the steam can't escape. Live it rest for 5 min. When ready pour it to the serving bowl.

For finishing, add the sunflower seeds, chopped coriander, olive oil and half lime juice. Mix it together and it is ready!

For serving we had pita bread; take it from the bag, splash some water in top, 30seconds microwave and good to go!

 

Hope you like it!

Mr South

Salmon soup

Finally!! we get to cook salmon soup for you! It is the dish you have to taste if you visit Finland. In Catalonia we usually eat soups when it is cold and dark outside, but Finns do salmon soup whether is summer or winter!

This is serving for 6

Ingredients

• 300g salmon
• fresh dill
• 2 potatoes
• 3-4 carrots
• 2 onions
• 4dl cooking cream
• Salmon broth
• Salt
• Black pepper 

Salmon broth

• Head, bones and trims from a salmon
• Half onion
• Half tomato
• 1 garlic
• laurel
• vegetables for broth (carrot, turnip, celery, etc)
• water

The salmon broth is not mandatory, but it is much better. If you go to buy salmon, either to a supermarket or a small fish shop, they will ask you if you want the head and bones, say YES!!! for the soup it gives so much more flavour! of course you can always use the stock cubes.
 

Preparation

 

Salmon broth

I do what in Catalan cooking call sofregit, this is the base of all catalan cooking and I believe gives much more intense flavor to everything you cook with it. It is really simple to do a sofregit, in a pan or in our casserole (we are going to use always the same) add like a tbsp of olive oil, half onion, a nail or two of garlic and saute it for 5 min, grate half a tomato and fry it together 5 more minutes. And that´s it! this is a sofregit!

Next step is add the vegetables for the broth with the laurel, give a quick mix everything together, cook 5 min and add the water. How much water? Enough as to cover everything plus 3 fingers more.

Keep in mind that I haven´t added any salt, no, I haven´t forgotten! quick chemistry class!

In a broth we want all the flavors to dissolve into the water as to create the broth. All the aromas are dissolved withing the water or oil of each ingredient, if we add salty water we are limiting the amount of flavor the water can gather from the ingredients. Surely there is someone who can give a better explanation, but this chemical aprox and the wisdom of past generations says not to put salt to broth till the end.

Let the broth to boil for an hour at least, then pour it through a stainer into a bowl, just to avoid the bones to go into the broth.

Salmon soup

We have a nice salmon broth, so add the potatoes, carrots and onions peeled and chopped.

From the remaining of the head and bones, try to rescue as much meat as possible and cut small pieces of 300 gr of salmon.

After the vegetables have been boiling for 15 min add the salmon, salt and black pepper, cook it for 10 more minutes.

Add the 4dl of cooking cream and the dill finely chopped, let it cook for 5 min and it is ready to serve!

Hyvää ruokahalua!

Mr South

Italian dinner; roquefort pasta, rocket salad and tiramisu

Today while having lunch with Ms North, and being her birthday, I thought I could cook something nice for her. I don´t know how but I ended up thinking about an Italian dinner, but after few minutes I had figured out an improvised menu; roquefort pasta, with rocket salad and homemade tiramisu.

Ingredients

Pasta

• Mezze Maniche Rigate pasta
• 2dl cooking cream
• 50g roquefort
• 50g parmesan cheese finely grated
• Black pepper
• tbsp mascarpone

Rocket salad

• 300g rocket salad
• 100g grape tomatoes
• 3-4 common mushrooms
• 50g thick grated parmesan cheese
• Balsamic vinegar
• Olive oil

Tiramisu

• 4 eggs
• 1dl sugar
• 400g mascarpone
• Coffee
• Rum
• Orange chocolate
• Black cocoa powder
• "ladyfingers"
• half vanilla bean

 for the "ladyfingers"

• 3 eggs
• 0.5dl sugar
• 0.75dl regular flour
• Ice sugar  
• half vanilla bean

  

Preparation

Hei, don´t freak out! it is really simple, easy cooking, doesn´t take much time (but baking in the oven or cooling down in the fridge). So let´s start with the "ladyfingers"! I truly have no idea how this is called in Italian or English, in my homeland we call it melindros (wikipedia says ladyfingers...) Whatever the name of that is is what makes the base of the tiramisu. So let´s get started!

Ladyfingers

Of the 3 eggs necessary for the recipe, separate the yolk from the white saving both. With the yolks, add the sugar and the seeds of the vanilla beans, and whip it up and then add the flour, if possible put it through a stainer it will make the mixture easy to get homogeneous.

Whip the whites till they are ready.

I tried this time not to put baking soda, a tea spoon would have been necessary (mostly because I forgot to buy it, and didn´t had any at home) and the result was not bad, so I´ll leave it up to you.

Mix together carefully, we want to retain the fluffiness of the whites.

Now in a oven tray you have to make this long, narrow shapes. It should be done with a baking bag, but it happens that I don´t have those, so my improvisation led to use a freezing bag (so it is not toxic at contact with food), pour all the mixture in and, in one of the corners of the base, cutting it, creating a small hole, and there you have! a baking bag for 2 cents! 

Add a bit of sugar powder on top and bake it 10-15 min at 200°C

Tiramisu

Starts pretty similar as above, separate the yolk from the white, but now we went just 2 of the whites and 4 yolks.

Whip the yolks with the sugar and the vanilla seeds, and the whites separately. Add the mascarpone slowly. When you achieve and homogeneous batter, mix with the whites carefully.

Now maybe the ladyfingers are ready, with a knife open them up and place them in the tray you will use for serving, or if you prefer in individual portions.

Prepare really strong coffee, with an Italian coffee machine or espresso machine. When I mean strong is that you put as much coffee as possible as to be a really concentrated juice. If you ask me a good coffee, LAVAZZA, you can´t go wrong with it; I use this:

Once you have the ladyfingers in the serving tray, add the coffee, cold if possible, adding a bit of strong alcohol (I had a bit of dark rum) don´t add sugar to coffee. I personally don´t like the ladyfingers to swim in coffee, but to be moisture with coffee, so with a cooking brush, I "paint" them till they are a bit soaked.

I added a bit of the batter, and before adding another layer of ladyfingers with coffee on top, I grated a bit of orange chocolate.

Add the rest of the batter and you can decorate with a nice layer of dark cocoa.

Put to fridge couple of hours and it is ready to eat!

Rocket salad

Easy preparation; fine slice the mushrooms, chop in half the grape tomatoes. Place the rocket salad into a bowl and add salt, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, whirl it together and add the mushrooms, tomatoes and thick grated parmesan. Easy, fast and delicious!

Roquefort pasta

Really easy, put 3liters of water to boil with salt, the water has to be as salty as sea water. Cook the pasta (around 125g per person) as long as the brand recommends and meanwhile in a warm pan pour the cream. Add the grated cheeses and stir continuously, it takes a bit to melt so be patient.

Add a little bit of grated nutmeg and taste if a bit of salt and black pepper is need it.

Once the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan with the sauce. If the sauce is too thick add a bit of the water from the pasta.

If you have few ladyfingers left, you can melt a bit of chocolate and decorate them as to serve with the tiramisu.

Hope it hasn´t been too long post today!
Enjoy it!!
Mr. South

Roasted duck leg with Porto wine and beetroot sauce

Wanted to try duck leg for really long time, I´ve always eaten duck breast or magret, but never the leg. Wonder around how to cook it, it was for sure that oven was the only way to go, in a pan, it is really difficult to get the bone meat cooked without not burning the outer skin.

Duck meat is really intense, almost as game meat, so I thought it need a slow cooking. This dish was a bit of experiment and test for my skills, I love to experiment with new flavours or techniques, most of the times goes well but there has been times that the result is not eatable!

My idea was to give a slight marinate to the duck leg, achieve a crispy skin and a juicy interior. For the marinate I used mainly Worcester sauce, Lea & Perrins, don´t try any other brand, don´t taste not even close to the original!! The problem here in Finland is that they only sell Heinz Worcester sauce, got mine in a recent trip to Italy and was so eager to use it!

Ingredients

• Duck leg
• Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce
• Dried rosmary
• 1dl Porto wine
• Beetroot
• Onion
• Carrot
• Garlic
• Laurel
• Red pepper

Preparation

Prepare the duck leg, don´t trim too much the fat, we want a bit for the cooking proces. With a sharp knife, make some small holes, pinching, in the duck skin. Place the duck leg in a tray and add salt and pepper and rosmary for both sides, add two table spoons of Worcester sauce making sure the whole meat is soaked in the sauce. Let it rest in the fridge for two hours.

Chop the vegetables in fairly big pieces but the beetroot, otherwise it will be raw. Peel the garlic and with a big knife, press till it breaks.

In the same tray where you had the duck marinating, add the vegetables, a laurel leaf, 1dl of port wine and same amount of water and put it straight to oven at 180C for 30 min.
 

After the 30 min take it out, and with the help of a spoon, mix the vegetables and use the sauce of the tray to get the duck moisture by dropping some sauce on top. Put it back to oven for 15 min more. and repeat the operation.

The duck leg it need 1h 15min to be ready but depend on how thick is it, so an hour would be a pretty standard time.

With the roasted vegetables we are gonna make a thick sauce. For that we will place most of them in a blender with almost all the "juice" of the tray and making sure the laurel is not there. We will get a sort of mashed potato texture.

Now there is nothing but serving it! put a bit of the sauce next to the vegetables and the duck leg, and pour the little bit of the "juice" remaining in top of the duck leg.

Hope you like it!!

By the way, you can see the last pictures the duck has changed a bit, the thing was when the duck was ready and almost going to serve it, we had a kind of emergency that make me postpone it for next day. Then I had to reheat the duck leg in the oven and that's why the colour changes a bit!