Gourmets caseros

So with the Gazpacho cooling down in the fridge and plenty of time to kill before anyone arrived, I decided to embark upon my culinary experiment. I like escalibada, I really like it. It is one of those fantastic dishes which oozes Mediterranean flavour, so much so that just a small taste is enough to send you back, Proust-like, to fond memories of seaside holidays and sunset barbecues. And the fact that the present, a small flat at the centre of Madrid, couldn’t be further from that distant Summery past is all the more reason for one to enjoy this oven-baked mixture of aubergines, red peppers and olive oil. However, you can’t eat escalibada every day and as I’d already made it at least twice that month I wanted to try something different. Earlier in the week I’d spoken to my sister on the phone in England and she’d mentioned a recipe for a Spanish dish called tumbet which was similar to escalibada. Great, I thought, looking at the vegetables on my kitchen sideboard, I’ll do tumbet. But I couldn’t quite remember what went in it. Improvise, I thought, you can’t go wrong with fresh veg baked in the oven.

WARNING, the following recipe has nothing to do with tumbet.

So I started cutting some aubergines into 1cm thick slices, I peeled some potatoes and cut them into 1cm thick slices and I did the same with some red peppers and onions. I then took a large lasagna-type oven dish and, beginning at one end of it, I placed a row of aubergine almost standing up. Next to the aubergine, I put a row of Potato and, next to it, a row of pepper rings and then onion rings. I did this until the whole dish was full of alternating rows of vegetables. I liberally doused the whole in olive oil (the thinner 0,4 degrees olive oil, as opposed to thick virgin oil), seasoned and whacked it in the oven on low heat. Feeling very satisfied with myself, having so efficiently dealt with these last minute preparations for feeding the masses, I daydreamed about those bilingual compliments about my food and the culinary conversation we would enjoy. The phone rang, bringing me abruptly out of my reverie. It was a couple I had called earlier saying they couldn’t come because they’d just realized they had previous arrangements. Don’t worry it was a last minute thing no problem…. I poked around with the “tumbet” in the oven, which was starting to smell quite nice, thinking to myself there was going to be rather a lot of food. The phone rang again, almost making me burn myself on the oven door. It was another couple of friends saying they wouldn’t be able to come because they had to work late, and they were so sorry. Yeah, no problem, short notice, couldn’t really expect… My bilingual evening had suddenly turned drastically monolingual. A slight smell of burning coming from the kitchen broke the call off. I rushed in just in time to save the “tumbet” from burning. The doorbell rang and it was my English friend “Something smells nice”, he said.

Hi, Caseros, I miss writing here too and I promise to come back. Things are pretty hairy/scary at work at the moment which is why I haven’t had time to conclude my story. But the good news is that new stories are brewing! And a trip to Barcelona! I’ll tell you all about it soon. I will. No, I really will.

So I got back upstairs with my shopping. The gazpacho was going to be quick and easy. I sliced the ripe tomatoes into 4 pieces each and put them in the blender together with half the cucumber, peeled and cut into a couple of slices. Then, after cutting out the seeds and throwing away the top, I chucked the green pepper into the blender and, then I peeled half an onion and did the same. Finally, before whizzing it all up, I added a mug of water to the blender, about a quarter of a mug of olive oil and a fifth of a mug of vinegar (I used red wine vinegar flavoured with tarragon) and a small piece of bread (a slice of baguette, thanks for reminding me about this Caseros!). The blender is pretty full by this time so I gives you a kind of perverse satisfaction when you flick the switch and watch it get “liquidated”. Now I added some salt to the mix. I bought a really nice sea salt mixed with herbs in England the last time I was there and it works really well with this type of dish. Remember that if you test the mix now for seasoning the results can be misleading as you are going to mix cold water into it all later on. In other words, the mix should taste quite strongly seasoned at this stage. I then removed the blender jar containing the gazpacho and put it in the fridge to get it nice and cold. I could have poured the contents out of the blender jar into a “nice” porcelain recipient, but as my kitchen is quite small I like to keep it as uncluttered as possible and, more importantly, I hate washing up. I already had a bottle of tap water in the fridge to keep it cold. If you don’t keep water in your fridge you’ll need to put some in there now to add to the gazpacho when its cold.
I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, I’d just made a starter for six people in about 5 minutes and which would require only a couple of minutes to clean up after. This would be perfect to have on the roofgarden while enjoying the company and the cool after a hot day. I was quite looking forward to it. I imagined us chatting away in Spanish and English, translating compliments about my gazpacho into both languages.
Now all I had to do was the main course…

Well, there might have to be a part 3 to this as I want to digress a little bit today. I just wanted to mention a book I’m reading called “Journey to the West”, a huge Chinese novel written in the 16th century which tells the adventures of the monkey king… the Great Sage who dared to challenge heaven. He’s a fantastic character, often pithily referred to as “Splendid monkey!” and it’s great fun… but wow, is there some strange food in it.

I’ll just give you a flavour of some of the weird stuff they eat. “The servants set out a table and stools, then brought in several dishes of tender tiger-meat, which they placed steaming hot on the table.” What the… Tiger meat! However, it may be of some consolation to hear that when the Buddhist monk refuses this meal, being a vegetarian, his hosts go to great pains to make sure he has a meal he can enjoy. Worried about the fact they use the same pots and pans for meat as for vegetables, his hosts “take down the little cooking-pot, burn the fat out of it, scrub it and wash it several times over, then put it back on the stove. Then they half-filled it with boiling water that they threw away”. In the end the monk gets served a vegetarian feast, while the others enjoy “dishes full of meat of tiger, roebuck, snake, fox, and hare as well as dried venison, all cooked without salt or sauce.” Well, that sounds healthy! You definitely wouldn’t want to have too much salt on your tiger.

Last Friday I decided on the spur of the moment to invite an English friend round to see a film. He’s visiting Madrid for a few months to learn Spanish. Hey… As I’ve been through the same experience as him, I’m a Brit who had to struggle learning the lingo, I thought to myself, why not invite some Spanish friends too. So I rang round, and spoke to about five friends, we’ll come if we can they told me. Great! But what am I going to cook?
Well, I decided to do something simple… The truth is, I’m an accidental cook and I really prefer to keep it simple, though I have occasionally tried my hand at a few more intricate recipes with a variety of results… some hilarious, some depressing and some delicious, and some that leave me asking myself “all this work just for that”. So let’s keep it simple, with six guests I don’t want to poison anyone.

I dashed down my 4 flights of steps and out to the busy, noisy and colourful streets of Lavapiés to do some shopping. I had decided to make Gazpacho (typically Andalusian) and Escalibada (typically Catalonian) with a personal twist (insane culinary experiment) to make it more substantial. So shopping was easy… it consisted of big, red ripe tomatoes, a long, thin green pepper, a Spanish cucumber (they’re smaller than the ones you get in Britain, and you need to peel them as the skin is very tough) a couple of aubergines, potatoes, an onion and a couple of red peppers. Some of the more travelled gastronomes among you reading this are probably already thinking, you don’t need all those vegetables to make these dishes… Well that’s why I prefer to call myself an “accidental” cook, though some might say “suicidal” would be better

I’ll tell you what happened next tomorrow

It is a great pleasure for me to introduce in this BLOG a little space in which to speak and dialog with my dear English friend and partner, TOM. He has been responsible for the existence of this BLOG.

WELCOME, MY DEAR TOM!