Potato Salad, Spanish Style

Ensaladilla Rusa
(Spanish Potato Salad) I’ve read cookbooks that call this a quintessentially Spanish salad, while others say it really is of Russian origin. Regardless of origin, you can find versions of this potato salad in virtually any bar in Spain.

The salad is made with prodigious amounts of mayonnaise, something a little off-putting in this age of cholesterol paranoia but necessary nonetheless; you can skimp on the mayonnaise, but the flavor won’t be quite right. Spaniards consider mayonnaise a gourmet-level sauce, instead of something you spread on sandwiches; consequently, most recipes that I’ve seen for ensaladilla rusa call for using homemade mayonnaise. I had a bad experience once in Madrid with some mayo that had turned, so I’ve never been anxious to try making my own. My friend Neil tells me that it’s pretty easy, though, so I suppose that some day soon I’ll give it a try. Meanwhile, I used mayonnaise from a jar for this recipe.

I’ve adapted this recipe from Cocina facil para todos los días, by Clara San Millán, (Madrid: Interediciones, 1984), with occasional glances at ¡Delicioso! by Penelope Casas.

1 pound new potatoes
2 carrots
½ cup petit frozen peas
1 6 oz. can of tuna
Chopped olives
Pimentos
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
1½ tbsp. lemon juice
Salt to taste

Peel the potatoes and carrots and cut into ½ inch cubes.

Place in a pot of boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes until done. Add the peas, then drain the vegetables and rinse in cold water; repeat a few times, then place in a bowl.

Add the tuna, olives, pimentos and egg.

Mix together the mayonnaise and lemon juice; the mayonnaise should have a creamy texture. Add to the vegetables and mix well. Add salt to taste. Let chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

In Spain this will often be garnished with more pimento and served with an extra dollop of mayonnaise on top.

Chicken and Red Peppers

Penelope came through for me again with this delicious chicken dish that we made for some friends the other day. This one’s going into the regular rotation, although I will check my other Spanish cookbooks for other variations. Apparently this also works quite well with lamb and other meats. Adapted from ¡Delicioso!, by Penelope Casas, New York: Knopf, 1999.

Pollo al chilindrón
(Chicken Braised with Red Peppers)

A 3-3½ pound chicken (cut up into pieces, each breast chopped in half)
Salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp coarsely chopped jamón serrano (or prosciutto)
½ tsp paprika
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, unsalted
2 large roasted red bell peppers, cut in strips
¼ tsp chile pepper flakes
Freshly ground pepper

Sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt.

Heat the oil in a shallow casserole and brown the chicken on all sides. Add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion has wilted. Add the ham, cook a minute, then stir in the paprika. Add the tomatoes, cook a minute, then mix in the roasted pepper strips, the chile flakes, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer 45 minutes. Serves 4.

Notes: I'm a little less insistant than the recipe when it comes to specific ingredients. The recipe calls for fresh tomatoes; since I didn't have time to scald and skin fresh tomatoes I used canned. It worked out well. The recipe also calls for imported or homemade pimientos; I bought a jar of roasted red bell peppers that worked just fine.

Garbanzo and Spinach Soup

I tried this recipe on some friends tonight with good results. My friend Neal said “it tastes like Spain.” Since that was the general idea, I’d consider it a success. On a personal note, I don’t understand why some people persist in calling garbanzos “chickpeas.” “Chickpea” sounds dainty and ineffectual, whereas “garbanzo” is a robust name that rightly does justice to this wonderful bean.

Potaje de garbanzos y espinacas
(Garbanzo and Spinach Hotpot)

1 15 oz. can garbanzos
1 quart chicken broth
½ lb white potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 lb fresh spinach, washed and chopped
salt
1 hardboiled egg
4 tbsp olive oil
1 thick slice French bread (cut into large cubes)
2 cloves garlic, peeled
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp. chopped prosciutto (optional)
½ tsp paprika

Drain the garbanzos and rinse in a colander and set aside.

Heat the chicken broth in a large saucepan. When it comes to a boil, add the potatoes and the spinach; cover and simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes, or until potatoes can be pierced with a fork, but are still firm. Add the garbanzos.

Chop up the white of the hardboiled egg. Reserve the yolk.

Heat the oil in a small skillet. Fry the bread until crisp and golden on all sides, then remove from the pan and set aside. Turn the heat down to medium and fry the garlic in the same oil until golden, but not burned; remove and set aside. Slowly saute the onion (and prosciutto if using) until it starts to brown. Add the paprika, stir, then quickly add this mixture to the soup.

Crush the fried garlic and bread with the egg yolk in a mortar, then add to the soup along with the chopped egg white.

Check the seasoning. Cook uncovered gently for another 10 or 15 minutes, then serve. Serves two as a hearty one-dish meal or four as an appetizer soup.

Adapted from: The Heritage of Spanish Cooking, by Alicia Rios and Lourdes March, New York: Random House, 1992.

Big Al

Via Camille Paglia's column at Salon.com, I found this link. Enjoy.

Huevos Flamencos

While the wife's away, I've been experimenting with dishes I know she wouldn't be interested in. Tonight it was "Huevos a la Flamenca," a baked eggs and veggies dish from Spain. Here's the recipe, from The Best of Spain: A Cookbook, by Alicia Saacs, Collins: 1993. I'm a big fan of the Spanish way with eggs.

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 pound cured ham (serrano or prosciutto) cut 1/4 inch thick and diced
1/4 pound chorizo, cut in 1/4-inch slices
1 1/2 pounds fresh or canned tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
6 tbsp. dry white wine
1 tbsp. minced parsley
salt and freshly ground pepper
8 large eggs
8 asparagus spears, cooked
1/2 cup peas, cooked
1/4 pound green beans, cooked
1 pimiento, preferably freshly roasted

Heat the oil in a skillet and saute the garlic and onion over medium-high heat until the onion is wilted. Add teh ham and chorizo and saute 1 minute. Remove the chorizo with a slotted spoon and set aside. Mix in the tomatoes, paprika, wine, parsley, and salt and pepper. Cover, and cook ham mixture over low heat about 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Divide the tomato mixture among 4 shallow individual casseroles, each about 6 inches wide. Gently slide 2 eggs into each casserole and arrange chorizo, asparagus, peas, beans, and pimiento on top. Bake until the eggs are just set, about 5 minutes in all; check for doneness after 4 minutes. Serve in the casseroles. Serves 4.

Note: I varied this slightly. I didn't have any ham on hand, so I doubled the chorizo and diced it instead of slicing it; I also left it in with the tomato mixture, instead of removing it. I also replaced the asparagus with canned artichoke hearts.

For those of us who teach Garcilaso

Here's an interesting piece from Psychology Today on a variety of politically incorrect subjects, including why the male ideal of feminine beauty is what it is. Adds an interesting perspective for those of us who teach renaissance sonnets.

Happy 4th

A few years ago I had a student who was interested to find out that I had lived in Spain. Upon finding out that I had returned home after two years, his only question was “Why?”

My only response was, “Because this is home.”

I like to think of myself as someone with an international perspective. I love traveling and living abroad. I adore Spain and would love to take my family there to live for a year or two.

But I love my own country more. This is home.

Happy Independence Day, everybody.

Gabe Quote of the Day

"But I have to walk in the dirt; it's my job."

Quote of the Day

"Hey, I know! If I dry myself off, I won't be wet anymore!"

-- Gabriel, having a bright idea after getting out of the pool.

PEZ Museum

I'm going to try to get into the habit of blogging every day. In the meantime, I thought I would resurrect some earlier pieces. Here's one I wrote exactly two years ago about our visit to the PEZ Museum in Burlingame.

Gabriel has become a man of taste. He knows what he likes and is not shy about sharing his opinions. So when he found out we were going to the Pez museum he squealed in delight. Gabe is a man who loves his Pez.

The world's only Pez museum is located in Burlingame, just about 10 minutes to the south of us.

We were expecting something on a somewhat grander scale, so when we passed a tiny storefront with PEZ in big letters on the facade we had to do a double take. But there it was, wedged between a cake bakery on one side, and a music store on the other.

Once inside we found a wonderland dedicated to all things Pez. Every conceivable Pez dispenser is for sale there, including some you wouldn't think would be for sale. A door at the back of the gift shop led to the museum.

We paid our $3 a pop for a personal tour of the Pez museum itself. Inside you find yourself in a small, square room lined with display cases, showing off Pez dispensers of every conceivable variety. The owner of the store/museum, a lumbering man who bears a passing resemblance to Randy Quaid, showed us around. The man oozed enthusiasm for Pez and proved to be a repository of Pez facts and minutiae -- things you would never imagine needing to know, but once you do know them you are glad to have found them out.

Pez itself is an acronym for "pfefferminz," German for peppermint. As the name implies, it started out as a breath mint, and originally came in a little tin can, not unlike Altoids. One such can is on display in the museum. And even though all these years I thought Pez was as American as Certs, it turns out to be as European as Altoids. Pez originated, and is still produced, in Austria.

Later came headless dispensers that look somewhat like cigarette lighters. It wasn't until the 1950s that Pez began topping their dispensers with cartoon character heads. Since that time, some 600 varieties of character heads have been produced for the Pez dispensers. All 600 of them are on display at the museum (as of last week, we were told, that number went up to 608).

Our guide started collecting Pez 15 years ago. The Pez museum started out as a small display in a corner of his computer store. He soon realized that people were more interested in the Pez than in computers. He told us he hasn't sold a computer in 10 years.

Recently he added to his collection a piece he had been looking for his entire 15 years as a collector. He guided us to a large case with rows of Pez dispensers and pointed to one on the first row: a faded pineapple-headed dispenser wearing a jaunty pair of sunglasses. One of the most rare Pez dispensers in the world.

Pride of place, however, is reserved for the most rare dispenser in the world. A sort of Pez version of Mr. Potatohead, the Super Spiel was withdrawn very shortly after being introduced because it was felt that all its tiny pieces constituted a choking hazard (Erika chortled at this, saying that Pez itself constitutes a choking hazard; the Pez man was not amused). Only 20 of these pieces are known to still exist.

Speaking of Mr. Potatohead, the museum also boasts an impressive collection of vintage toys, including erector sets, viewmasters and the original Mr. Potatohead. Originally, the Mr. Potatohead pieces were smaller and sharper than what are available now because they had to be stuck into a real potato. If you didn't have access to a potato you could use a cucumber or a pear. Later in the 60s the plastic potato was introduced (you could even get a plastic cucumber).

After a pleasant while spent browsing through Pez we finally bought Gabe a couple Madagascar Pez dispensers and took our leave.