I was
pedaling around for the first day of Fallas and happened upon this scene a
block from my house. It made me laugh that they included an ambulance in the
tableau, as if to warn kids of the dangers of bulls in the street, which, if
you haven’t heard or seen, is actually a thing in Spain.
There were kids dressed up as doctors and nurses standing
by, and one little guy in a suit told me he was the coroner. I thought that was
going a bit too far, especially when he kept saying, "Forget the
ambulance; call the meat wagon."
The music in this short video is by the Brazilian folk singer, Ana Carolina
Confesso
Confesso acordei achando tudo indiferente
Verdade acabei sentindo cada dia igual
Quem sabe isso passa sendo eu tão inconstante
Quem sabe o amor tenha chegado ao final
What I am finally learning about cooking is that one of the most important aspects of any dish is how you season the dish. This sounds incredibly obvious but it is the difference between the insipid and the delicious. A pinch more salt, a bit of pepper, a dash more of pimentón can change a disastrous dish into something sublime. When making gazpacho, seasoning is so incredibly crucial to the final product. It is something that I am learning dish by dish as I develop my taste buds.
Chilindrón is a wonderful vegetable stew that comes from Aragon, where they grow astonishing vegetables in the fertile land near the Ebro River.
Serves 4
• ¼ cup Spanish extra-virgin olive oil, plus 3 tablespoons
• 4 chicken legs, thighs and drumsticks separated
• Salt to taste
• 4 cups diced Spanish onions
• 1 cup diced green bell peppers
• 1 cup diced red bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 cup thinly sliced and diced jamón Serrano (Spanish cured ham)
• ½ teaspoon sweet pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika)
• 2 cups plain canned tomato sauce
• 1 fresh rosemary sprig
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cups flat mineral or filtered water
Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a 12-quart pot over medium-high heat. Season the chicken pieces with salt then, working in batches, brown them on all sides. Transfer the chicken to a platter and set aside.
Add the ¼ cup of olive oil to the same pot, and when the oil is hot, add the onions and peppers. Reduce the heat to low and cook slowly until the vegetables are dark golden brown, about 30 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of water if the onions start to burn. Add the garlic and cook for 5 more minutes. Then add the white wine and cook until it evaporates, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add the jamón and browned chicken pieces, as well as any juices that have collected, and cook for 5 more minutes. Stir in the pimentón, tomato sauce, rosemary, bay leaf and the water and simmer over low heat for 1 hour or until the meat starts to fall off the bone. Season to taste with salt before serving.
*Youtube no longer allows you to use copyrighted music in your videos. Big deal, who needs it? In this video I use a song my younger brother made. Not exactly cooking video music, it's more like "humping some hot chick in a corner of an Ibiza disco" music but I think it's pretty cool and I'm hoping he'll make me some more stuff to put in future projects. Thanks, Mat. You are a true Renaissance man.
To say that the Real Madrid-Barcelona football games are a big deal here in Spain is an incredible understatement. This year it is even a bigger deal because the teams came into the match tied for La Liga with 77 points each and only five (I think) games left in the season. It is yet another holiday weekend here in Valencia (San Vicente) so this big game gave an even more festive mood to the city. It gave us a good excuse for a rooftop barbeque. It was sort of short notice so no one had time to prepare anything fancy. What we did have was lots of grilled meat.
I have been teaching English on Saturdays at a super-fancy private high school in Rocafort, a small town about 12 kilometers outside of Valencia. The pay is great. I wish that I could pick up another couple of gigs like this one and I would be doing really well, not the I have much to complain about as far as money goes these days. The teaching is a lot of fun and I think that I am pretty good at it. I have spent a good part of my life learning languages and I have learned a thing or two about how to go about it. More on that later. The best part about this new job is the bicycle commute from home.
On the way home yesterday I noticed some guys playing baseball in a nice field in Turia Park. They were playing real baseball—fast pitch hardball—and they were good. The third baseman made a Brooks Robinson grab to make the final out of the inning and as they were changing sides I asked one of them where they were from. The Spanish De dónde sois? seemed to throw him for a second (Latin Americans don’t use this vosotros form). He made some sort of wise-ass answer.
I asked him if they played here every week and got sort of another wise-ass answer, not insulting but the kind of thing you’d expect from young guys during a sporting event. Then he asked me where I was from. I told him Seattle and then he asked me what my team was. I told him the Mariners, of course. One of the worst teams in baseball I said. He said that we had some great players. I agreed and said that we used to have the great Freddy GarcÃa (I had guessed he was Venezuelan by his accent). Of course then the tenor of his responses changed completely and he named a couple of other prominent Venezuelan players who had played as Mariners. A couple of other guys joined n the discussion and then they invited me to come to their next practice. I told them I was a little old and slow to play actual games but that I wouldn’t mind throwing a ball around and taking a few swings.
It was such a beautiful day that I rode through the city center on my way home just because I was shooting a video of my commute and I thought it would make it a little more interesting. It was November 7, 2009 and the temperature at 14:30 was somewhere around 24 degrees. I was wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I see a very mild winter on the horizon.
This is about a three hour ride, round trip if you hump it pretty good. Not a bad day's ride. I was out for more than four hours with all of the stops and sightseeing that I did. The ride from Sagunto to the fortress on top of the mountain just about killed me today but that's probably because I was showing off for a group of women who were sliding back down from visiting the citadel. There are spots that are just about as steep as you can possibly manage on a bike. I have been trying to make this video for a while. I have had bike and camera failures on earlier attemtps.
The town of Sagunto is really pretty. It has a lot to offer the tourist although I was trying to cover a lot of ground on this ride so I didn't hang around long. The fortress is enormous and has been around since recorded histroy in this area. Hannibal sacked the city in 219 bc which was the beginning of the Second Punic War.
I made another video but it's crap. I didn't mean to put the word "crap" in bold, a poetic slip of the finger. I didn't bother to post it here but you can follow the link to my youtube page and see another of my cool bike rides south of Valencia. This one takes in the Albufera, the big wetlands area that is like Spain's Everglades.
Just to hear if I sound any less retarded in Spanish than I do in English. I made this video in español. Fabada Asturiana is a simple dish that is incredibly rich in flavor. Perfect for the crappy weather we are having right now. The province of Asturia has pretty crappy weather almost all the time so that's why they invented this bean and sausage stew. The video is mercifully short as it walks you through everything you need to know about how to make this dish. The problem for those living outside of Spain will be in obtaining the ingredients. The fabada beans are long white beans that are quite expensive even here in Spain. Along with the beans I was given some smoked Asturian morcilla, or blood sausage which really added a lot of flavor to the dish. Once again, saffron is an incredible luxury that I take for granted here and is prohibitively expensive in many parts of the world.
I have been making beans ever since I left home at age 17. I practically lived on beans, rice, and potatoes back when I was a broke student. I still cook some sort of beans on an almost weekly basis. I never get tired of them. This dish ranks as my favorite of all my bean recipes.
*I actually changed the name of this video on youtube to Fabada Valenciana because so many Spanish viewers said this isn't fabada asturiana.
This classic French dish of chicken cooked in wine is just about the best thing I've ever cooked. When I decided to make another attempt at cooking coq au vin I distilled about twenty different recipes into what I have presented in the video. I honestly have to say that I wouldn't change anything. I will use an older stewing bird next time I make this as they are more appropriate for this kind of dish where the chicken is cooked slowly. Other than that, I think this came out about as well as I have ever tasted coq au vin. I went to summer school in Dijon way back when I was in college and I remember loving the two emblematic dishes from Bourgogne: coq au vin and beef Bourguignon. They are both made in a similar fashion so I suppose that I'll have to try making beef Bourguignon some time soon.
As the name states, this dish should be made with an older bird, over ten months while most fryer chickens are 7 to 13 weeks and roaster chickens are about five months old when they are called to duty. This is something most Americans don't think much about but in France they have taken poultry to heights we can barely imagine. It is their national symbol, after all, and adorns their most coveted emblem: the national football jersey. Spain has a lot of nice birds as well. My local market has abot five stalls that deal solely with birds of all types. I bought the regular chicken before I even knew what I was going to make but the next time I will use an older bird.
I realize that this recipe has nothing to do with Spain but France is our neighbor. I have been searching for a challenging Spanish chicken dish but this just popped into my head and I decided to try it. My cooking strategy is to first search out recipes for whatever it is I want to make. Most recipes are garbage and I discard most at a quick glance. I take a few things from different recipes. Then I look on youtube for cooking videos of the dish. Actually watching someone make a dish is a huge help in understanding what is going on. A lot of things become apparent that you may not have understood from the recipe. I ended up plagiarizing a show called Good Eats for my recipe although I made a few adjustments. You can't copyright a recipe.
Coq au Vin
Chicken cut in parts
Un-smoked bacon*
Pearl onions
Mushrooms
Bottle of wine
3-4 cups chicken stock
2 carrots
1 onion
2 stalks of celery (I didn't use celery because it is hard to get here)
1 cup flour
Butter
Olive oil
Salt, black peppercorns, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf
*if you can't find un-smoked bacon you can boil the bacon or pancetta in water for a minute to get rid of the smoke flavor. If you don't the dish will taste like bacon and not much else.
This dish may look like a lot of trouble but I think that it is fairly simple in its execution. I can assure you that it is worth time, money, and effort. When we sat down to eat this meal I never wanted it to end. You were almost overwhelmed by the wonderful aroma as soon as the elevator door opened on my floor. Coq au vin should be served with a hearty starch dish. I made a Spanish potato recipe called patatas a lo pobre. !Buen provecho¡ Bon appetit.
Virtual Bike Rides: El Saler beach to Valencia and Downtown Valencia
This ride is through Valencia's historic center. *Music by J.S. Bach
This is one of my favorite workout rides to the beaches south of Valencia. As you can see, most of it is on the bike path but on this day I had to take a slight detour becuase of a mud slide on the trail.
