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.