Shellfish and blue cheese

Why is it that some of the strangest-looking food delicacies are also the most expensive?

Wandering along the fascinating fish and shellfish counter in the supermarket at the El Corte Ingles department store in Cartagena we spotted a tray that was priced at 68.95 euros a kilo. What a fantastic price, but one that makes it unlikely that we will every find out what this shellfish tastes like. The name in Spanish is Percebe Gordo, which translates as Fat Barnacles. See the picture.

Much cheaper were good old winkles, ideal for anyone who fancies a traditional British snack after a session at the pub. In the past, the winkle stall was a common site outside the pubs of London and winkles are still a popular dish in the East End, with the slimy contents being winkled out with a pin. At El Corte Ingles, look out for Biguros Gordo, priced at a very reasonable 9.95 euros a kilo.

Meanwhile at the cheese counter in the delicatessen, Club Del Gourmet, near to the supermarket, there was an interesting selection of blue cheeses. A triangle of suitably mouldy looking Queso Azul La Perla, from Asturias, was selected. Sharon won´t touch this.

However, more mature palettes found the Asturian blue cheese to be rich and creamy with an aroma that is less powerful than other blue and green cheeses. Highly recommended.

“How could you fancy anything that smells so disgusting?” said the uneducated palette.

With Christmas coming up, attention was drawn to the bottle of Macallan 1951 whisky, the ideal festive treat at 3,600 euros.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

More like a cake

Another Sharon´s boozy cheer-up cake was baked at the weekend. See the earlier article for the recipe.

This time the amount of dried fruit soaked in sherry was halved and replaced by Whitworth´s dried fruit soaked in rum, which is fairly dry. The result has the consistency of a cake rather than of a bread pudding.

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The creature from the deep

After taking our golden Labrador Sam to the vet this morning for routine jabs we called in at a local café for some tapas.

We enjoyed seafood salad, boquerones (slightly pickled anchovies), tender York ham and a Murcian salad made with sliced onion, tinned tomatoes, tuna and quarters of boiled egg. With lots of fresh crusty bread, olives and frothy café con leche as well, of course.

On the counter was a special treat, all ready to be cut up. This was a big octopus measuring about two feet across and nicely roasted and brown. This is known in Spanish as “pulpo” and is greatly appreciated. When you order, the waiter takes a big pair of scissors and cuts off a piece of leg which he then further cuts into thin slices, each with suckers attached.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Sharon´s Boozy Cheer-Up Cake

Finding a bag of dried fruit on a shelf in the larder, the problem then arose of what to do with it. So we invented Sharon´s Boozy Cheer-Up Cake.

First the bag of dried fruit, which included things like apple rings, dried whole apricots and prunes, was soaked overnight and the water thrown away. The fruit swells up and becomes all juicy. In the days before fancy supermarkets dried fruit was a staple ingredient for sweet treats throughout the winter months.

Then the now-soft fruit was put into a tight-lidded container and just covered with sherry from our local bodega and left overnight again. The next day it was all whizzed in the food processor.

Now we turned to our 35-year-old New Zealand cookbook. We bought this when living in Wellington and it is a treasure-trove of ancient colonial recipes. Bet you don´t have recipes for Ladysmith Cake, Khaki Cake, Gruel or Mutton Broth.

Surprisingly, we had all nearly all the ingredients for the traditional Fruit Cake contained in the book.

Ingredients

Eight ounces of butter
Eight ounces of brown sugar (we only had white)
Two tablespoons of Golden Syrup (we used treacle instead)
One tablespoon of marmalade (we had some three-year old home-made)
Five eggs (three of which had to be borrowed from next door)
12 ounces of flour
Pinch of salt
One teaspoon of baking powder
One and a half pounds of mixed fruit (this is where we used our sherry-soaked fruit)
Two ounces of mixed peel
One teaspoon of mixed spice
Half a teaspoon of nutmeg.

Cream the butter and sugar together then add the golden syrup or treacle and the marmalade. Add the well-beaten eggs and the sifted dried ingredients. Then add the fruit and cook in a medium oven for about two and a half hours.

Our cake turned out a bit like a bread pudding, rather than airy-light concoction, but several volunteer samplers agreed that it tasted lovely.

It certainly cheered Sharon up – hence the name.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

Time to make a really traditional Christmas cake

“It´s that time of the year again,” says Sharon. “Time to make the Christmas cake. If you make it now there will be plenty of time for it to mature and become more delicious when you tuck into it at Christmas.

“My favourite recipe comes from my old friend, Dorrie, with whom I have sadly lost touch with over the past few years. Dorrie used to live in the Camp but moved to Los Alcázares on the shores of the Mar Menor. She is from England originally and must now be nearly 90.

This is Dorrie´s recipe that has been handed down from her great-grandmother. A bit of calculation suggests that the recipe dates back to the middle of the 19th century, so it is really authentic.

That´s about the time that Christmas, as we know it today, arrived in the United Kingdom. Charles Dickens´ story “A Christmas Carol” was massively popular. The young Queen Victoria married the German Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840 and it is thought that he introduced the Christmas Tree. Santa Claus is Germany´s patron saint of Children. However, the fat, happy chap that we know today as Father Christmas, with his white beard and red suit, made his first appearance as a Coca Cola advert. The first Christmas commercial Christmas card was printed in 1846 but cards didn´t really catch on until the 1870s. Dorrie´s great grandmother started making this cake when she was married.

The cake is easy to make so get cracking now.

Ingredients.

One and a half ounces of chopped almonds
Three ounces of ground almonds
Six ounces of plain flour and a pinch of salt
One teaspoon of mixed spice
Six ounces of butter
Six ounces of Brown sugar, Barbados is best
Five large eggs
One tablespoon of treacle
Nine ounces of Currants
Six ounces of sultanas
Six ounces of raisins
Three ounces of chopped mixed dried peel
Four ounces of glace cherries, or cherries in syrup
Two ounces of glace pineapple, chopped. If this cannot be found substitute more cherries.
One ounce of angelica (can be omitted)
Grated rind and juice of a large lemon
Juice of an orange
One tablespoon of brandy
One large apple, peeled, cored and finely grated.
One large carrot, finely grated

Mix everything together and cook in your oven, pre-heated to 100C, for more than four hours. When it is cool, wrap tightly in tinfoil and store in a cool place until Christmas so that the flavours can really develop.

“I love this cake. It is always so moist and the fruit is always nice and juicy,” says Sharon. “And it makes you feel as if it is Christmas, so it helps you to get into the festive spirit.”

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

Keep an eye out for anise biscuits

One of the pleasures of shopping in Spain is that you find plenty of new things to enjoy. One thing worth looking out for is “Tortes de Aciete” which, misleadingly translates as oil tarts.

In fact these are crisp wafer thin biscuits about five inches across made with virgin olive oil, flour sugar, aromatic herbs, and anise. “They crumble as soon as you bite into them but they make an excellent snack with a cup of tea,” says Sharon.

The pack we bought in the supermarket was found with a selection of traditional baked items, such as tarts and dry pastries. The wording on the wrapper says: “Las legitimas y acreditadas tortas de aciete de Ines Rosales.”

Give them a try.

Herbalists have long valued anise, which is native to the Eastern Mediterranean and must not be confused with the Asian star anise. The plant grows to about three feet tall and is very aromatic with a licquorice-like flavour. It has also similar to fennel.

It is a firm favourite in European cookery, and can be found in treats such as Greek dolmas and English aniseed balls and humbug. It is drunk with hot water after meals in India as an aid to digestion. In fact, the herbalists cite it as an important digestive helper. It is also thought to be effective against parasites and to relieve toothache. Aromatherapists say it helps with colds and flues.

Anise is found in many strong alcoholic drinks, including Arab arak, French absinthe, anisette and pastis, Greek ouzou, Italian sambuca and Turks raki.

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© Phillip Bruce 2009.

Enjoying tapas and herbs

This morning we made a trip with friends Brian and Jackie to the town of Fuente Alamo to visit the vet with the papers for our golden Labrador, Sam, to make sure that he is up to date with all his jabs. Everything is fine we were pleased to hear.

Being in Fuente Alamo, of course we took the opportunity to visit a favourite café/bar for morning coffee and tapas. This is a long-established place in a back street with a well worn and comfortable air about it.

Sadly, Sharon was still too full of breakfast to eat anything but she enjoyed her coffee. The rest of us managed to force down a few morsels, including a delicious long thin baguette sliced and with a filling founded on freshly-grated tomatoes on top of which were layered plenty of anchovies and thick slices of goats´ cheese. Croquettes were also ordered, together with tostada con tomate, which is the local favourite of toasted bread served with a big bowl of more freshly grated tomatoes. Of course, we also ordered a dish of olives, the fresh green type that are just split and kept a few weeks in brine. These are quite sharp but have a bite that is appreciated by those who like such things. A basket of hunks of fresh bread completed the table, as did a flask of olive-oil to pour over anything that needed it.

On the way back home, we stopped at a Moroccan shop in La Aljorra that Jackie has discovered. “Have you got fresh coriander?” Jackie asked, the smiling owner looked towards the door and a man walked in carrying several baskets over-flowing with bunches of fresh-cut coriander and mint. The fat bunches were only 60 cents each. We also bought huge fresh oven-baked round loaves that are wonderfully soft.

Sharon said: “I´m going to use the coriander in a white sauce to have with baked potatoes for tonight’s dinner, she said. We´ll also have chopped ham on top and coleslaw on the side. So, a well-balanced and nourishing meal. Simply delicious.”

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.

The Power of Porridge

Today Sharon wore for the first time this year a light cardigan as she went out early. It wasn´t cold but “there was definitely a nip in the air,” she said.

What does colder weather mean? Porridge of course. We´ve recently found a new brand, or new to us at least, of porridge in our local Intermarche supermarket – Flahavan´s – which comes to the Mediterranean all the way from Ireland´s Kilmacthomas, on the River Mahon in County Waterford.

The porridge is lovely and smooth and the family-owned company is immensely proud of its product if the wording on the packet and its website is anything to go by. According to the website, www.flahavans.com, there has been an oat mill at Kilmacthomas since the late 1700s. The river Mahon, which flows from its source in the Comeragh Mountains to the sea at Bonmahon, provided the power to turn the great stone wheels that milled the oats.

Originally, the oatmeal that was produced by milling was heavier than that sold today. In 1935, the family added an oatflaking facility which produced a finer flake that is faster to cook. Now Flahavan´s Progress Oatlets is the leading brand of porridge oats in Ireland. The chairman of the company is a sixth-generation family member. The packet we found at Intermarche is labeled “Flahavan´s Irish Porridge Oats.”

“Flahavans porridge has a distinctive texture and taste because all of the oats used in the making of Flahavan´s are grown locally, chosen from a select panel of growers,” says the company. “The region of Kilmacthomas has its own micro-climate, nestling beneath the shelter of the Comeragh mountains while also being relatively close to the sea. This means that the area does not get very cold winters, which gives a better quality of oat grain.”

Sharon, who suffers from an English upbringing, prefers her porridge with milk and honey. This is sacrilege in the opinion of the Scots half of the household, which holds that it should only be eaten with salt. In the old days in Scotland, it was not unknown for the week´s porridge to be made on a Monday, poured into a drawer and left to set with chunks being cut out for breakfast each morning.

Apparently the tough Scots and Irish were eating the best possible breakfast as porridge has the highest protein content of any cereal. In more modern times that makes it ideal for people trying to lose weight. A diet rich in fibre is said to help prevent heart disease and porridge is good for this, as it reduces blood cholesterol by soaking up the bad stuff. Porridge can be relied on to keep your spirits up: “Eating porridge helps the brain to produce serotonin. Serotonin is a brain transmitter that helps keep our spirits up and our appetites down. Levels of serotonin dip when sunlight is low – i.e. during the winter months and can frequently lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder.”

According to Flahavan´s, famous people who eat porridge include Wallace and Gromit, Big Brother housemates, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Demi Moore, Kate Moss, Calista Flockhart, Tim Henman and Jane Fonda.

Sharon ought to be added to that list as plenty of porridge will be consumed in the Campo in the months to come.

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©Phillip Bruce.

Chocolate biscuit discovery

Sharon has found a new type of chocolate biscuit which she is very keen on.

“They are absolutely yummy and they are smothered in dark chocolate, which is my favourite as opposed to milk chocolate. I am either white or black when it comes to my chocolate tastes.

“The biscuits are made by Fontaneda, and it says ´Digestive Noir Con Naranja´ on the box. They are flavoured with orange when you bite into them which goes wonderfully well with the black chocolate. They are my new favourite when having a nice cup of tea.”

And you can feel virtuous while eating these chocolate/orange treats as it says on the box that they are a good source of fibre and a new recipe contains 30 per cent less saturated fat than previously. Fontaneda has been making biscuits in Spain since 1881 and it says on the packet that it carries out more than 2.5 million quality controls every year to ensure the highest quality in its products.

So, you can have an extra biscuit if you like and it will be doing you good.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009

Roasted vegetables turn out great

Last night we made the roast vegetable dish recommended by Rosa, of El Corte Ingles, and it was delicious. (See article below “A real Spanish salad.”)

A large roasting tray was chosen and into it went a couple of purple and white striped aubergines, a large courgette, a red pepper, a green pepper and four fat tomatoes. The very tiniest bit of oil was spread across the bottom of the tray first to stop sticking.

A visit to the front garden produced fresh sage, rosemary and another herb that looks a bit like chives but is something else – must get it identified (see picture). These were chopped finely and scattered over and among the vegetables. The pan was put into the oven, uncovered, and roasted for about 45 minutes. About 20 minutes from the end a handful of button mushrooms was added.

The pan was removed from the oven and allowed to cool. Then the skin easily peeled off from the peppers and tomatoes. The flesh was scooped out from the aubergines and courgette. Everything was sliced and mixed together with a splodge of olive oil.

The vegetables were served with some home-made cheese quiche.

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©Phillip Bruce

Super suet makes a comeback

In days gone by British cookbooks were full of recipes featuring suet. Those were the type of cookbooks that never mentioned things like garlic, broccoli or strangely-coloured lettuce.

Doing a bit of reorganization in the Campo larder we found a couple of boxes of Atora light suet and went in search of recipes. Atora has its own excellent website, which can be found at www.atora.net. The larder search also produced a packet of Whitworths luxury mixed dried fruit soaked in rum. The fruit included sultanas, currants, seedless raisins, chopped pineapple, apricots, citrus peel, glace cherries and, of course, rum.

Putting the suet and the fruit together led to an idea for a traditional steamed pudding.

Ingredients, to serve six people: 150g or six ounces of self-raising flour, 75g or 3 ounces of Atora suet, 75g or three ounces of caster sugar, one beaten egg, milk to mix. 75g or three ounces of dried mixed fruit, or currants, or sultanas or raisins.

Get ready a big ovenproof bowl that can hold abut 750ml or one and a half pints, a sheet of greaseproof paper and kitchen aluminum foil.

Mix the flour, the suet and the sugar together. Put in the egg and mix up with a bit of milk to make soft dough. Then add the dried fruit.

Put the mix into the bowl and cover the surface with greaseproof paper. Put aluminum foil over the top of the bowl and tie around with string to stop the water getting in during cooking. Put the bowl into a large pan with water that comes about three quarters of the way up the bowl. Then bring to the boil, turn down a little, put the lid on the pan and steam for two hours.

Our pudding came out absolutely delicious and very light. Sharon said: “It was yummy, especially the cherries. The fruit was all soft and juicy and was spotted throughout the pudding. There was fruit in every spoonful.”

According to Atora, one the earliest mentions of suet is made in a recipe dated 1617. It was a key ingredient for “Cambridge Pudding” which was served to students in the famous university city. From the end of the 17th century suet puddings really became popular, often containing whole apples or other fruit. Meat puddings were also made using left-over minced meat, mixed with egg, milk and spices.

Suet is actually beef or mutton fat, especially the hard fat found around the loins and kidneys. It was complicated and time consuming to prepare but a Frenchman living in Manchester, Gabriel Hugon, set up the first factory to manufacture shredded suet. In 1893 he opened the Atora suet factory in Openshaw, Manchester. The new product was an immediate hit with cooks.

The word “Atora” is thought to come from the Spanish word for a bull, toro. And this may be true as Atora suet comes from beef cattle. Wagons carrying Atora traveled the country pulled by pairs of huge Hereford bullocks. Captain Scott took suet on his trek to the Antarctic in the 1900s. Today more than 2,300 tons of Atora is sold in Britain each year.

Normally, we use Atora to make delicious dumplings for stews and casseroles, popping them in about 20 minutes before the end of cooking. The 2,300 tons would make more than one million dumplings a day.

With the difficult economic times currently being experienced there is a big interest in traditional dishes. So get cooking with suet.

For our steamed suet pudding we used Atora Light, shredded vegetable suet, which has 30 per cent less fat than the traditional type. This is ideal for vegetarians as it is made from vegetable oils, wheat flour and pectin.

Next we are going to try making proper steak and kidney pudding.

A tip is that you should always top up the steaming pud pan with boiling water. If you use cold water the pudding will turn out heavy.

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©Phillip Bruce

Enjoying a leisurely lunch

Lunch should be long and leisurely not rushed. The people who live around the Mediterranean have always appreciated this and in Cartagena the long lunch is still thriving.

A few days ago we enjoyed a lunch at the Café Marin, in Calle Angel Bruno, where the cooking was great and the waitress, Catie, was so friendly that we felt as if we were eating in someone’s home. The Café Marin is in the Ensanche district, which was formerly the giant lagoon that protected the back of ancient Cartagena. This was filled in during the early 20th century and is now a popular residential area.

We arrived some time after 1pm and Catie pushed two tables on the pavement, or sidewalk, together so that there was plenty of room for Sharon in her wheelchair. Being virtuous, water, fizzy and still, was ordered rather than wine and the menu was explained. Waitresses and waiters in Cartagena have fantastic memories and they give details of everything on offer and answer all questions.

Sharon decided to have pollo asado, which is oven-roast chicken, and I chose albondigas, which is the traditional meatball dish of Spain. The world albondigas is derived from the Arabic word “bunduqah”, with “al” meaning “the.” Our friend Graham also had the meatballs and his wife, Liz, chose paella.

First to arrive was a huge salad, with lovely fresh tomatoes, lettuce and olives, together with a big basket of fresh bread. We tucked in.

Then the main courses arrived and they were all fantastic. Sharon´s chicken was mouth-wateringly tender and served with oven-roast potatoes and juices from the pan. The albondigas were delicious and served as a kind of stew dotted with little cubes of roast potato. The paella was rich with the colour of saffron and Catie brought a fresh lemon for Liz to squeeze over.

Full to bursting, we all agreed we could not eat any more. But, then Catie insisted that the inside of the café be inspected. In fact, Café Marin is not just a café, but a bakery and patisserie as well and the shop is full of fantastically tempting treats. We ordered a plate of small sweet delicacies, a couple of big glazed strawberry tarts and an apple flan, which were brought out to the table. Everything disappeared in a very short time. Another specialty of Café Marin is the take-away meals that are very popular with the locals who call in a constant stream to pick up something tasty for lunch or dinner.

We can´t remember what time we finished lunch, enjoying coffees, of course, after the desserts had disappeared. Who cares? That´s how lunch should be.

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A real Spanish salad

Sharon says: “Sometimes people ask me how I know so much about Spanish food. I have to say it is because the thing I am most famous for is talking. And I talk to just about anybody and everybody I meet.

“People who know me will know this.

“This morning I was in the great El Corte Ingles department store in Cartagena to pick up my bits and bobs. I like to go there because there disabled parking underground right next to the automatic door entrance. There is also a Post Office. And there is no siesta. The café is excellent and the staff is always very helpful. There are fantastic toilets and the place is always clean. Just like department stores should be.

“Anyway, I was in there this morning buying some stationery and I got talking to Rosa who was serving me. She is a food expert and loves the country food of Murcia. She is originally from Águilas which is down the Murcia coast to the south and is famous for its seafood.

“Rosa told me about a great way to make roasted vegetable salad. Take a big oven tray and fill it with aubergines, red and green peppers, tomatoes and plenty of chopped garlic. Roast it all in the oven, take out and let it all cool down. Take the skins off and arrange on a serving dish before sprinkling with olive oil.

“So, of course, I am all set to try this at the weekend. Bear in mind this could be served as a starter or a side dish with a main meal.”

What nice people you meet in El Corte Ingles.

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Beautiful bread

The baker in our village has been there for decades and he says it is the only place in Europe that proper bread can be baked. Go a few miles north or south and the weather and conditions are hopeless for good baking.

A big old oven is used and the loaves go in on special long-handled wooden shovels to be baked to perfection. The bread is sold all around the Campo by little vans but it was only on returning after our break that we found that the baker has opened a shop.

The place is beautifully decorated, with images of the tools of baking and the oven itself on the walls and when Sharon popped in for a look around today she found a steady stream of customers. As well as bread there were savoury pastries, or empanadas, and a selection of cream-filled treats.

On asking what round baked circles of pastry were, she was told that this was the same pastry that is folded over to make empanadas. Apparently, it is broken up with the fingers and eaten like crisps. “It´s great with cold beer,” said a lady customer.

Sharon chose a huge round loaf which was still warm from the oven and hunks went very well with our home-made chicken soup lunch.

“The other thing I treated myself to was a bagful of freshly-baked mini-croissants that are stuffed full of chocolate,” said Sharon. “They are delicious. What a treat.”

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©Phillip Bruce. www.sharonskitchenworld.blogspot.com

Where did apples come from?

Sharon continues to enjoy the apples from the little tree in her huerta, or kitchen garden. These apples, like all apples, are probably descended from the wild mountains of Tian Shan, or “Heavenly Mountains”, which straddle Kazakhstan and China.

That seems a very long way from Sharon´s small garden but Oxford University researchers claim that study of the DNA of British apples, such as Granny Smith and Cox´s Orange Pippins, confirms the theory that the first edible sweet apples on earth grew in the Tian Shan mountains, at heights of more than 6,000 feet, or 2,000 meters.

Biologist Barry Juniper, says that descendant trees of the “Garden of Eden” fruit are still growing on the high mountainsides, although they are threatened by modern development. Apparently, the DNA discovery has surprised the experts. They had thought that apples were hybrids of different fruits. Bears were thought to have assisted their spread as they love eating sweet, ripe fruit. The resulting waste products spread the seeds widely. The first cultivated fruit orchards were set up around the Persian Gulf and later soldiers of the Roman legions brought apples to Europe.

Cartagena was a Roman city for many hundreds of years and Sharon says she is now going to tell everyone that the ancestors of her little tree arrived with a legionnaire.

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Battered apples very tasty

The rain has swelled the apples in Sharon´s front garden. These apples grow on a small tree of unknown origin and although they don´t grow very big they are delicious.

We haven´t given the tree any fertilizer or sprayed it so the fruit counts as 100 per cent organic. The apples have to be shared with the birds and bugs but there are usually enough left for us to enjoy. With the heavy rain, many had fallen to the ground and when things dried up a bit we went out and scooped them up. Careful peeling and cutting was required but the end result was a pan of delicious stewed apples.

Delicious natural fruit doesn´t look like the perfect factory farm specimens in the supermarket but our apples are sweet and juicy. “I´m more than happy,” said Sharon as she tucked into a plate of the stewed apples with fat raisins.

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