Posted by: puebloman | November 8, 2011

The euro. Britain shits on Europe. A view from Spain

photo by Daquella Manera

It has been sickening during the last week to listen to the Americans and British talking about the future of the Euro. The southern states of Europe have been subjected to veiled racist abuse, and European leaders admonished by politicians who lack the courage to do anything to reform their own back yards – their corrupted banking systems that created this mess in the first place.

Britain is playing a nasty little role in the present euro debacle. It was the British failure to regulate banks, many of which were bought up by the relatively excellent Spanish banking system, that introduced financial collapse into Europe.  British Conservatives have spent the last  fortnight boasting that because they are “trusted”, because their “austerity measures” inspire “confidence” they are able to borrow money at preferential rates.

What exactly does this mean? It means that Britain can borrow at 3% and charge Greece 7% for a loan. And Portugal. And Italy. And Spain. No wonder the British command international respect. This usury is cloaked and presented by the toadying BBC as “bail out”.

Britain flirted with the ERM, wasn’t man enough to stay in  and subsequently steered clear of the euro under Gordon “when the time is right” Brown. If there was any lack of leadership in Europe was to allow Britain to bully its way to a position where it could free trade with Europe while  retaining its alien currency. Free wheeling rights without responsibility.

How has Britain used this privilege? Over the last ten years it has quietly devalued sterling relative to the euro. When my wife and I bought our house in Spain six years ago, you could buy a euro for sixty-eight British pence. Today, six years later, a euro will cost you eighty-six pence, sometimes ninety pence.

What does this mean? Now that sterling has fallen by thirty per cent, British goods have effectively got 30% cheaper when sold to Europe and European goods – Greek and Spanish goods for example are 30% dearer to buy in Britain. Effectively Britain is undercutting its European competitors in spite of being part of a free trade community by using a slowly devaluing currency. Nobody on radio 4 – which is staffed by British patriots – mentions this fact when questioning euro sceptics, or even europhiles.

So what’s my solution to the euro crisis? Should Greece leave the euro? Should everyone except Germany and Holland leave it? On the contrary, Europeans should stand solid and together for the first time in their history.

I propose a devaluation of the euro at least 30% across the board. This would slam the trade door shut in the faces of the British, the Americans and the Japanese, whose goods would increase in price overnight by at least 30%. Britain might wish it were part of the euro, Barack “we lead from behind” Obama might complain, but this is a crisis – there is no room for sentiment. Everything they produce could be produced by the Germans Dutch and the industrialised north of the euro zone at no increase in price to euro customers. Having wiped out American and British competition, German and other industries would take an extra growth leap forward, creating employment possibilities and extra funds to support the weaker south. Within the Euro boundary, all prices will remain the same.

Brits as old as I am will remember Harold Wilson’s statement when he devalued the British pound during the 1960′s, that “The pound in your pocket” would not be affected. He was lying of course, but then he was the Prime Minister of a little country totally dependent on imports. Europe on the other hand is the one of the greatest, potentially the greatest economic community the world has ever known. It can handle itself on its own.

But what about the bankers? How will they get their money back? Well, they lent in euros so they’ll get euros back. And those euros will hold their value if traded within the euro block. If any banker tries to sell them, or trade outside the euro block, they will lose an awful lot of money.

This solution is the obvious first step out of the crisis. It is simple and just, which is why no one will even consider it.

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Posted by: puebloman | October 31, 2011

“The spirit of woman” an exhibition by Ann Westley

The reflection

I went last week to see an exhibition of recent work by the artist Ann Westley who lives and works in Cutar, the village where we live. If you happen to be touring the Axarquia during the coming month, it will be well worth your time to drop into the gallery at the town hall, Velez-Malaga, where she is exhibiting her work.

The exhibition consists of watercolours, prints, illustrations and acrylics.

The acrylics each catch a moment in which the subject and the setting resonate with, and transform each other. For example in the picture “The girl above the rooftops”, her big boots hardly touch the tiles of the cottage roof as she stands suspended above the rooftop, naked and weightless, light as the air and of the air. “The Woman of the fountain”,  or “The woman of the source” is set in the still water of cavernous pink baths.  The woman’s limbs and the water are exactly the same tone and colour. Her swollen belly, the bird gazing at her from the tip of her finger and her  bright robes show her absolutely still, but pregnant with life.

The painting “The Canary woman” was perceptively translated by Google as “The woman in the Canary”, which I like.  In this picture we catch the amazed face of a heavily bodied woman as she outwardly sprouts wings and inwardly goes to pieces, presumably in song, against a canary yellow oblong set against sky.

Jessica in her shop

The picture that moved many locals was “Jessica in her Shop” (above). The shop closed a few weeks ago. Like the school and the bar it was a lynch pin of village life and is much missed. This picture is now all that remains of it. The shop is not, however, depicted as it was – gloomy, with provisions piled against the shelves and smelling faintly of mice. Instead it’s transformed into a glorious cornucopia, bursting with good things and stuffed with life. It is endowed with the energy of the woman who runs it and brought to life by her optimism. There are many small stories woven in the detail of the picture, it reminds me of a Stanley Spencer resurrection. This vigour, strength and confidence is typical of an exhibition that radiates positive energy and never slips into sentimentality.

Fuego

“Fuego” (above) is the painting that I like best of all. Three girls hold hands in a cornfield, their hair the colour of the corn. At the bottom is  revealed the gaping black void and a staircase only just attached to the world above. The central figure is not climbing up the steps, she rather  ”arises”, her ankles together as she floats weightlessly back into the world, guided by two handmaids, their bare feet firmly on the ground. This is Persephone released from Hell and from the arms of Hades. It is the moment when she returns to the world and Demeter her mother permits the harvest once more. So the field is blown by the wind into a raging inferno of corn, magically parted for the goddess in the way that the red sea parted for Moses. It is a very pagan picture. In the catalogue Westley, describing her process, talks of a little patch of yellowing weeds through which the neighbours have trod a track. The myth began to take shape as she worked upon this scene, visible from her kitchen window. It is the process of a true artist – a universal theme arising out of work upon an ordinary moment of everyday life. And the process is innocent. It allows a theme to arise rather than trying to force and control the subject matter. At the same time it does what an artist ought to do for her community – transforming everyday moments into universal themes.

I have posted the catalogue at the bottom of this log so you can appreciate the range and quality of the exhibition. Westley is less well-known than she should be because she has cloistered herself in our little village. At €300 – €500 for major pieces of work, the artist is selling herself at a price well worth investing in, even at this time of “crisis”.

Catalogo Ann Westley

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Posted by: puebloman | August 25, 2011

Cheap Spanish food 3. Sardines filleted and deep fried

Deep fried sardine fillets

If the great jewel in the crown of cheap English food is the Cornish mackerel, then its Spanish equivalent has got to be the sardine. The difference the English and the Spanish is that Spaniards don’t despise this, or any food just because its cheap. The sardine is “celebrated” – cooked and eaten everywhere from the posh dinner party to the beach shack barbecue.

Sardines, head on gut in, spitted and roasted on the seashore

The simplest way with sardine is to roll them in coarse salt, stick a wooden skewer through half a dozen and grill them over charcoal. This is how its done at Spanish fiestas and street parties. The fish is cooked whole – gut in head on. The cooked flesh is chewed off the bone and the spine and head discarded.

Beach shacks and Chiringuito bars that spring up along the beaches during the tourist season usually gut and head their fish – they’re for foreigners after all.

You get an old clinker built rowing boat and fill it with sand, threadle an industrial quantity of sardines onto a yard long wooden skewer, stick it in the sand and roast your sardines over a smouldering hunk of olive wood.

Or you can head, gut and fillet them and deep fry them til they’re crisp.

Buying Sardines

Sardines on a plate

Use the same common sense as you would when buying any fish.

Don’t buy on Monday because they don’t fish on Sunday so your fish is already two days old. Don’t eat fish in a restaurant on a  Tuesday by the way in case you get palmed off with Mondays leftovers. This is really old fish! Wednesday, Thursday and Friday especially- great. Saturday you may be getting the dog ends of the stock as they clear the  deck for Sunday and Monday. On the other hand, you may get some bargains.

Signs of fresh fish: Bright eyes, not sunken. Gills bright pink or red, not dark – and ask to see them. That’s what a Spanish housewife does! No smell. Go on – have a sniff! They should look slimy. And not flabby. Slightly stiff. Like these:

I bought forty of these for two euros. Forty. 

How to fillet and fry Sardines

Lets assume you’ve bought the best sardines, big and bright, the fishmonger mortified if you imply that they weren’t flapping on the slab an hour before you turned up.

Go home with your catch. wash your hands. Wash your sardines. You don’t need to scale them.

Get a sharp, small, non serrated knife. First behead your fish. Then draw the head away, taking the trace of gut with it

thus:

You can do this very quickly. Once you have beheaded and gutted all your fish, take each one in turn and massage the spine away from the flesh of the fish. You can do this by turning the fish spine up on a slab, and running your thumb along the spine. Or you can open the gut cavity and slide your thumb and forefinger along the spine from the inside of the fish. Either way it’s slightly messy, but takes no time at all.

When you have loosened the spine, lift it free from the butterflied fillet thus:

Good. All thus will seem messy and fiddly when you start but you soon  develop a technique. I did forty sardines in fifteen minutes.

Open the fish and massage the spine

Lift the spine gently from the flesh

Forty fillets. I did these in 15 minutes

The final stage is easy. Use a fish fryer, or if you don’t have one a wok with a good two inches of sunflower oil in it. Heat the oil until a little crust of bread sizzles as soon as it hits it.

Prepare some flour, seasoned with plenty of salt, a few screws of freshly milled black pepper and a good pinch of Provencal herbs. Spanish flour is milled to a fineness fit for purpose, so look for Harina Fritos y Rebozados, which is fish frying flour. Put it in a plastic supermarket bag. Drop all the fillets in and shake so that they are all lightly coated with the flour. Drop them into the oil about half a dozen at a time and don’t take them out til they are golden. Grey fillets taste the same but look horrible so no one wants to eat them. When done, drain them on kitchen paper. You can eat them hot or cold, with or without sweet or hot paprika sprinkled over. Plenty of Spanish fishmongers and supermarkets will  sell you these already filleted, but its less satisfying than doing it yourself!

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Posted by: puebloman | August 7, 2011

How to buy Serrano Ham

Next time you come down to southern Spain for a holiday – and you won’t be able to stay away for long, instead of returning home with a fluffy donkey or a mexican hat, consider a quality souvenir that will give pleasure to you and yours for a good six months. I’m talking about a leg of Serrano ham.

Just as “cafe con leche” is superior to “cafe au lait”, so Jamon Serrano is superior to Parma ham, though by the price of the latter you wouldn’t think so. Serrano ham is also cheap Spanish food. In the sense that it is “best value” Spanish food.

Jamon Serrano (literally sierra meaning ‘mountain ham’) is dry cured ham. It is covered with salt for two weeks to draw off moisture and preserve the meat, then the leg is washed and dried for six months and then hung in sheds for at least another 6 months at cool, high altitudes (hence ‘mountain’ ham). As always, in hot countries you don’t need smoke when the heat of the sun is free!

Serrano ham curing while it sells

There are four aspects to a serrano ham’s quality:

The type of pig

The pig’s food

The cut (leg or shoulder)

The curing process

Beautiful, acorn stuffed Bellotas

These are the four categories of ham, starting with the highest:

Jamon Iberico de Bellota or Iberico de Montanera : Made with free-range acorn fed Black Iberian pigs (cerdo Iberico). Highest quality. Accounts for only about 5% of sales

Jamon Iberico de Recebo Acorn : The same pigs, part free range and part compound fed

Jamon Iberico : Same pigs, compound fed. This is known as Jamon de Pata Negra

Jamon Serrano, Jamon Reserva, Jamon Extra, Jamon Curado : Compound fed large white pigs

Serrano Ham has denomination de origin, like Manchego cheese and wine. Jamon de Huelva is the local denomination nearest to us, from northern Andalucia. Serrano Ham should be served at room temperature. It needs to be stored in a cool dry place, covered to preserve the aromas, and brought to room temperature prior to eating. It is best eaten in thin slices, but cheap Serrano can be diced and lightly fried in olive oil before being added to vegetables – baby broad beans for example.

For these and other delights, see us on www.vivasiesta.com

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Posted by: puebloman | August 1, 2011

How to buy, cook and eat Octopus

What is an octopus?

The octopus is a member of the Cephalopod family that includes squid and cuttlefish – all delicious eating.

O. vulgaris is is the most popular eating octopus. Twenty to one hundred thousand metric tons of this octopus is landed yearly. The octopus, though an intelligent animal,  easily yields to the octopus pot. Traditionally these were made out of clay but now they are made of plastic or PVC. You don’t put bait in octopus pots like crab and lobster traps. Instead you make the octopus feel like its nestling in a safe octopus home.

The octopus is a highly developed form of mollusc that has a centralised nervous system, a big head and a real brain. It can remember and learn. Although it looks like an alien from space, it is speedy and athletic in the wild and can rapidly change colour to hide or intimidate the predator.

There are three edible species of octopus, but the common octopus, Octopus Vulgaris is the most commonly availble and the best eating. It can grow to 300 cm or nine feet long. On the fishmonger’s slab, look for the double row of suckers.

Preparing

From the cook’s point of view, the octopus consists of a sac, which is both its head and its guts, mouth parts like a bird’s beak, but with a file like construction that allows it to saw through the shells of molluscs. The “head” also has big eyes. Attached to this body are eight legs.

Octopus is always sold cleaned, but in case you get given one, you just have to open the head sac and wash out the guts. Remove the “beak”. There is no need to skin the octopus.

The stumbling block, according to reigning “wisdom,” is that octopus is so tough that extraordinary measures must be taken to tenderize it. And if you ask five different people what these measures are you are likely to get five different answers, all arcane – which goes a long way toward explaining why no one cooks octopus at home.

  1. A Greek cook may tell you to beat it against some rocks (actually a contemporary would probably tell you to throw it against the kitchen sink repeatedly).
  2. A Spanish cook will dip it into boiling water three times, then cook it in a copper pot – only copper will do.
  3. An Italian might cook it with two corks
  4. The Japanese rub it all over with salt, or knead it with grated daikon, then slice the meat at different angles, with varying strokes.
  5. My advice: freeze it for 24 hours or, better, buy it in legs, frozen

Fresh or frozen? How to buy

The best way to judge freshness is to smell – the aroma should be of seawater, nothing else. (An octopus that is going bad will reveal itself to your nose in an instant.) Most but not all fish markets carry frozen octopus, and any should be able to get it for you with a day or two notice.

Two to three pounds of octopus is about the right amount for four people (it shrinks startlingly). It doesn’t matter much if you buy one larger specimen or several smaller ones, though it will affect cooking time (see below).

Cooking

Like all Cephalopods, you cook them quick, or very slow. You can toss an octopus leg on a hot barbecue or deep fry it. I prefer it braised in equal parts water fish stock and white wine. Gently fry slivered carrot, celery and thinly sliced onion until nearly soft then add two or three cloves of chopped garlic and cook until they start to colour then turn up the heat and pour in the wine so that the alcohol bubbles off. Then add the stock and water. Then put in your fresh or (preferably) thawed octopus.

Like all Cephalopods, there are no hard and fast rules for timing. Some people say octopus should cook about 30 minutes per kilo (two pounds) but often the timing is longer. A 12- to 16-ounce octopus certainly cooks in less than an hour, and if you put four or even six of them in a pot together the cooking time will be faster than that for a four-pound octopus, which can take as long as two hours to become tender. Check with the sharp point of a thin-bladed knife; when it meets little resistance, the octopus is done. Do not cook further or it will begin to dry out and toughen again.

Cooking methods

It has long been a standard at sushi bars of course; and you have been able to find it at Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, and even some Italian restaurants for years, in salads, stews, or with potatoes or pasta. Now, however, you see dishes like octopus terrine, octopus confit, octopus risotto, octopus with pasta, and more. Then of course there’s grilled octopus, which – since it was first popularized at Periyali about ten years ago – has become downright trendy.

All of these dishes can be readily accomplished by the home cook. Cook your octopus slowly. No one wants rubbery octopus (although sushi-style octopus is nearly rubbery), but if octopus is properly handled, without fuss, it is reasonably tender. It remains chewy, but so does lobster, or sirloin steak.

Octopus is much like squid: If you keep the cooking time minimal, under five minutes or so, you get a chewy but not unpleasant texture; this is a good technique for octopus salad or sushi. But for most preparations, long, slow cooking, which yields a tender texture, is best. (If you cook it too long, it becomes dry and tasteless.)

Although octopi live all over the world, there is a common belief that the best octopus comes from Portugal. But since water knows no political boundaries (and Portugal is hardly a body of water), it can hardly be the whole truth. According to Vincent Cutrone, who owns The Octopus Garden, a Bensonhurst fish store specializing in the cephalopods (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish), “Whether Atlantic octopus is fished by the Portuguese or anyone else, most of it comes from the waters off the west coast of Africa.” But Mediterranean octopus is also common, as is octopus from Asia, especially the Philippines. (There is very little domestic octopus, probably because the domestic market is so small; it’s an incidental catch and probably thrown overboard as often as not.) After weeks of cooking octopus from all over the world, I detected little or no difference in quality between those from Europe and those from Asia.

Almost all of this octopus is cleaned and frozen before shipping, which is not the disadvantage you might think. For one thing, octopus spoils quickly, so it’s difficult to maintain high quality during shipping, especially since it’s not expensive and therefore rarely shipped by air. More important is that the quality of octopus, like that of squid, does not suffer noticeably when it is frozen.

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Posted by: puebloman | July 31, 2011

What is Spanish coffee?

How coffee came to Spain

  1. Coffee, like very many good things, was bought to Andalucia by Islamic Arabs.
  2. It was discovered by Berbers around the sixth century, in Ethiopia where it grows wild. The berries produced hallucinations and suppressed the appetite, so until the 10th century coffee was considered to be a food.
  3. Its uses in religion and medicine became well-known by the thirteenth century. It was traded across the Red sea to the Arabian peninsula. Coffee kept you awake. It was an “eye opener,” – it allowed Muslims to keep going during long prayer ceremonies.
  4. During the Muslim expansion between the 8th–16th centuries coffee appeared in Turkey, Spain and North Africa
  5. The Catholic church considered coffee to be a satanic concoction, and the Vatican argued that it was the spawn of the Islamic infidel,until Pope Clement VIII (1535-1605) tasted it, disagreed, and baptised it, pronouncing it a christian beverage (Catholic wankers!).
  6. Spain and Portugal then spread coffee cultivation across South America. Today coffee growers in Latin America account for nearly half of all the coffee exported; however, most Spanish coffee served in Spain comes from Angola and Mozambique.
  7. Today the FEC estimates that more than 24 million cups of coffee are drunk in Spain every year: the equivalent of 599 cups for every person. The following standard versions can be had in most bars

What makes Spanish coffee different?

You can roast coffee beans in two different ways. The most usual is ‘tostado natural,’ which is the simple application of heat to the bean. The second is sold almost exclusively to Spain and Portugal. It is called ‘torrefacto,’ where sugar is added during the toasting process to produce a darker-coloured, stronger-tasting coffee bean. This variety is known as Spanish roast

How to order a coffee in Southern Spain

In the little white villages in Andalucia, southern Spain where we live, you coffee comes in a glass and is made espresso method, very strong. Cups with handles are appearing, but they are for foreigners and for the posh.

Café Solo – single espresso – a “normal“ coffee, and
Café Doble – double espresso are the choice of men in bars. This is often drunk with a glass of water. 

Café con Leche – coffee with milk, half and half proportionally to taste – is breakfast coffee, but i’s much stronger than that soup bowl of tinted milk, the french “cafe au lait” – If you like coffee that weak, try

café nube - a thin stain of coffee in a glass of hot milk.You can also order

Café Cortado – espresso cut with just a bit of milk, or

 Café con Hielo – espresso served alongside a glass of ice, or after a hard day’s holiday making, a 

Carajillo – espresso spiked with brandy or whiskey.

For these and other delights of the Andalusian holiday, see www.vivasiesta.com

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Posted by: puebloman | July 27, 2011

Understand Spanish Brandy

A brief history of Andalucian BRANDY DE JEREZ
The cultivation of grapes in Jerez goes back to at least Roman times but the Moors who followed and ruled most of Spain from 711 to 1492 were forbidden by their religion from drinking wine. However they clearly did drink, claiming as dispensation that the wine was “pudding”!

The cultivation of grapes continued in Jerez and the practice of distillation is known to have been introduced in the 10th Century mainly for the production of cosmetics, essences and antiseptics. The word ‘Al-Kohl’ is an Arabic term for the fine powder used in cosmetics which was a bi-product of the distillation process. In ancient Spanish the reflexive verb ‘alcoholarse’ did not mean to drink copiously, but to paint one’s eyes.

As the popularity of the wines of Jerez (‘Sherry’) increased, distilled spirit was added to fortify them for export and eventually the local wine producers must have realised what a wonderful evolution took place when these wine distillates were left to mature in the oak casks previously used for ageing Sherry.

In the 19th Century, an important export market with the Netherlands developed selling raw grape spirit (65% alcohol) matured in old Sherry casks that became known as ‘Holandas’. Once at its destination, this was either diluted and sold as ‘brandewijn’ meaning ‘burnt wine’ (brandy) or mixed to make different liqueurs.

In 1835 González Byass was founded and in 1844 the first alembics (pot stills) were installed. In 1845 in what was one of the earliest references to the sale of Jerez brandy, a shipment was sent by González Byass to Ireland. The following year, the Soberano name was selected due to the close friendship of the González family with the Spanish sovereign (‘Soberano’ in Spanish). By the turn of the century, the principal export market for Soberano was the British Isles partly due to the successful business relationship with the Byass family who had been both agent and partner since 1855.

Now with the introduction of Soberano Solera Reserva 5 and the increasing number of English people who visit Spain for their holidays each year, sales are on the increase once more – up 30% in 2001.

How to read your Brandy Label

Brandy has a rating system to describe its quality and condition; these indicators can usually be found

near the brand name on the label.

A.C. - aged 2 years in wood

V.S. - “Very Special” or 3-Star, aged at least 3 years in wood

V.S.O.P. - “Very Superior Old Pale” or 5-Star, aged at least 5 years in wood

X.O. - “Extra Old”, Napoleon or Vieille Reserve, aged at least 6 years, Napoleon at least 4 years.

Vintage- Stored in the cask until the time it is bottled with the label showing the vintage date.

Hors D’age These are too old to determine the age.

Spending time at an alcohol recovery center is less likely when a person consistently drinks in moderation.

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Posted by: puebloman | July 26, 2011

Cheap Spanish food 2 What is Menu Del Dia?

Eating in Andalusia, Spain

The menu del Dia

Lunch al fresco Spanish style

The Spanish menu del dia was invented during Franco’s dictatorship to provide working men with one substantial meal per day. Del Dias have a fixed price. The Axarquia, Andalucia has the reputation for the cheapest and best value del dias in Spain.

The fare is rarely written down or even chalked on a board, so you have to do the whole thing verbally with a waiter. While they rattle off the whole menu with a flourish, they,  like most Spaniards, are courteous and patient in repeating, waiting, explaining, even venturing into a little English. Many tourists find the bread, salad, three courses altogether too much, though you can always order a single plate, or even a plate and two forks, after all this is Spain not England, but your “poor” appetite may not find favour with your waiter.

The village bar

Spaniards, like the French, eat a plate of soup, followed by a plate of veg followed separately by a plate of meat or of veg. Northerners on the other hand – the English, the Americans, the Irish, the Germans, Scandis, and the Lowlanders prefer to squash their food all together on a fork and stuff it into their gaping gobs. For this reason Spaniards have conceived of an alien plate called a “combinado” where you get, for example, fish or meat, veg and chips all on the same plate. Lemon is not usually served with fish. It is however served with pork, especially “filete” – thin slices from the leg. Don’t forget to ask for “allioli” – a small dish of mayonnaise heavily spiked with garlic and indispensable for chips and perfectly deep fried floured fish.

Spaniards eat late. 2.30pm for lunch (turn up at 2pm on paella day to make sure you get some!) and 9.30pm for an evening meal. Evening meals are for weekends and fiestas. On an ordinary day a Spaniard eats heavily at lunch time, works it off and eats light in the evening. The evening meal is so late because Spaniards work so late. They start at 8am, work til 2.30 pm, siesta til 5.30pm and work until 8.30 – 9pm. A long and punishing day. Northerners should not be so patronising about the “siesta” culture

LUNCH AT BAR FLORIDA

This is the best lunchtime eating house in Velez Malaga. People come from miles around for the best value (7.50€ in 2011) lunch. There is a large choice of dishes and you get three courses, bread and a drink for your money. It has upwards of 50 covers, and bustling and friendly service but you must speak some Spanish or use a dictionary  because there is no written menu

Whats the best day to go? Any day, Tuesday for paella, Thursday is market day

Whats the best time to go? 2 pm until 3.30 weekdays for the ‘Menu del Dia’, any time for rolls and coffee. Open evenings and weekends but no Del Dia.

Where is it? Velez Malaga - At the Paseo with the giant walking rubber trees, where the buses stop.

What do you get?

1. Para beber (to drink) cerveza, agua con/sin gas, vino tinto/blanco

2. Primero (first course) one of the following:

i. Sopa – (all year round) sopa de Moriscos (seafood), Picadillo (chopped bacon and egg in a rich chicken stock)

ii. Entremezas (cold starter: serrano jamon, manchego cheese, prawns, potato salad)

iii. Ensalada mixta (mixed salad: tomato, lettuce, olive, sweetcorn, tuna)

iv. Callos: (In winter – Chick peas with saffron, blood sausage, pigs bits) Bezas is like Callos, Col uses cabbage

v. Paella (Rice with saffron, seafood and chicken)

vi. Spaghettis (slightly overcooked spaghetti in sauce)

vii Gazpacho or Ajoblanco (Summer: Cold typical soups served in half litre beer jugs)

3. Segundo (second course) one of the following:

i. Pescados = fish (‘frito’ = fried in batter or ‘a la plancha’ = cooked on hotplate with parsley and garlic) You can have a plate of

a. Calamares, calamararitos, pulpo, jibia (squid, octopus, cuttlefish)

b. Rosada, bacalao, merluza (dogfish, cod, hake white fish)

c. Sardinas, bocarones (Fresh Sardines, fresh anchovies oily fish)

ii. Carne (‘a la plancha’ or ‘con salsa’ = grilled or in sauce) You can have a plat of:

a. Chuleta de Cerdo con patatas y huevo (grilled pork chop, fried egg and chips)

b. Pollo (grilled chicken) a joint or “filete” – thinly sliced breast cooked on a hotplate in a persillage of parsley,                               garlic and olive oil

c. Carne con salsa (pork meat in tomato sauce)

d. Albondigas (meatballs in sauce)

4. Postres

i. Natilla ( custard with soggy digestive biscuit)

ii. Arroz (rice with cinnamon)

iii. Flan (caramel custard)

iv. Frutas (Fruit in season – melon, peach, orange)

v. Helados (ice cream cornet)

vi. Café – ‘solo’ or ‘con leche’ (black or with milk).

Menu del dia price (2011) seven euros (yes – three courses and a drink!)


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Posted by: puebloman | July 25, 2011

Cheap Spanish food 1: Patatas a lo pobre

There are certain foods that it would be a feckless extravagance not to eat, they are so cheap and such good value. UK Cornish mackerel, and mussels come to mind. These foods, among the best this world has to offer, are so cheap that they are largely ignored. If they were ten times dearer , the stinking rich would niche them, clique them and otherwise celebrate them while the wheedling poor would claim them as a human right.

So before its too late let me sing the praises of one of Spain’s great humble potato dishes “Patatas a lo Pobre” – poor man’s potatoes. This has to be one of the world’s great peasant dishes. It’s a dish of onions and potatoes so no one is excused from eating it because of its price. It is delicious hot, cold and as a base for a wide range of Andalucian specialities.

Imagine your partner is out for the day, leaving you alone with a blank sheet of writing paper, a list of domestic tasks and the porn channel. What is the first thought that comes to mind?

“What’s for lunch?”

Exactly.  As a casual lunch it beats sardines on toast, beans on toast and toast. It also beats poncy elaborate dishes ( Yes I can cook) that are pointless if you have no witnesses or fellow eaters. “Lo pobre” requires 20 minutes of Tender Loving Care after which you can leave it to its own devices. For example you can pile it hot onto a hot plate, scatter pieces of bite sized serrano ham over it and top it off with two fried eggs. On the other hand you can just leave it in the pan and graze all day on it, stabbing your fork into it every time you pass by as it slowly goes cold.

  1. Take a deep frying pan or wok and pour in a wineglass full of well flavored olive oil. Extra virgin is a waste, but it ought to have sabor.
  2. Crush half a bulb of garlic cloves under a flat knife and put into the oil, skin and all.
  3. While they are gently sizzling, finely slice a large Spanish onion.
  4. When the garlic just starts to colour, remove it and put in the onion.
  5. While the onion is sizzling in the garlicky oil, peel and thickly slice a kilo or so of potatoes. Those huge white Spanish ones are best, that look like new potatoes but aren’t waxy.
  6. Add the spuds and turn them gently with the onions in the oil. Neither the onions nor the potatoes must brown, though a slight caramelisation is acceptable. The mixture should be slightly damp, not dry. Avoid burning the ingredients.
  7. When the potatoes are soft but al dente, turn the heat up and pour in a big glass of wine. The dry thin sherry called “Cobos” is best and gives the scent of Andalucia. White wine will do, resinated wine is good. I often use “Pasero” a very sweet sherry like local drink made from Moscatel raisins.
  8. Bubble off the alcohol, turning the mixture gently.
  9. Mash the cooked garlic cloves with a little salt. Remove the skins and add to the mixture
  10. Pour in half a pint (300 cc) of hot stock. Any old stock will do. I use old Knorr chicken cubes.
  11. Bubble the mixture at high heat, turning the mixture. Check seasoning. let it reduce until the spuds are just soft and coated with a shiny sauce.
This is the classic version. It can hardly be improved. Its just as good without the wine. Here are some variations:
  • In Velez-Malaga, where we live, this dish is served as “Broken eggs”. It is a Velez classic. The potato mixture is place in a small stainless steel frying pan – one pan per person and the mixture heated up up to frying temperature. Two eggs are broken into each pan. Once they have almost set, the mixture is gently stirred so that the eggs set round the potatos. The dish is topped with shredded Serrano ham, and each persons portion is served to the in their own individual pan.
  • Roughly chopped long green peppers are often fried in with the potatoes.
  • Add lightly crushed and whole black peppercorns at the frying stage
Non “classically” you can
  • Add Provencal herb mixture at the frying stage
  • Add a couple of rashers of chopped streaky bacon
  • Thinly slice two long sweet green or red peppers and add to the frying mixture

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Posted by: puebloman | July 23, 2011

Cheap Red Spanish wine: reading the label – a crib list

Reserva, Grand Reserva and Crianza all under €4

Reading the label on a bottle of Spanish table Wine

Where we live, in the Axarquia, Andalucia, you can’t grow a good grape that produces table wine. It’s far too hot. Here we grow muscatel grape that produces a sweet white “digestif”or an “aperitif” these are not usually drunk with meals, though of course drinking is always accompanied by food, usually tapas.
West of us, around Jerez, they produce sherry of course. North of us, around Granada, it is colder and grapes can be grown that produce table wine. It’s said that the grapes must be kissed by frost to produce grapes for table wine.
The world class Spanish grape, on a par with Cabernet Sauvignon,  is the Tempranillo grape.
One of the great things about life in Spain is that you can talk about “Grand Reserva” wine and cheap red wine in the same breath. And this is not because Grand Reserva is a meaningless term. Very far from it. In fact the wine buying consumer with little or no experience of buying can have every confidence in the terms on the label.
You may or may not like the taste of the wine, but this is, well, a matter of taste. You can however have no doubt about the quality of the wine, the expert assessment of its vintage, the work that has gone into processing it, or the commitment of the vintners. It is benchmarked at every stage, and each bench mark assessed by experts. Our favourite cheap red wine at the moment is called Vespral. The Denominatio d’Origen is Tierra Alta. That’s where it comes from, a region almost as famous as Rioja. The grape is tempranillo and granache. Native Spanish grapes. A Crianza is €1.99, A Reserva is €2.49 and a Grand Reserva $3.49.

Someone thought it worth investing 6 years of shelf space in this wine. Laid down in 2005

To find out the value of these wines, see the crib below.

Spanish wines: what it says on the label

  1. Vino de mesa: the cheapest table wine, often blended, with no indication of its geographic origin
  2. Denominacion d’Origen This little badge is found on all wine bottles whose wine has been tested and tasted by a committee of vintners and professionals from the area in which the grapes are grown, and been found to be of an acceptable standard and conforming  to the statutory processing standards.
  3. Vino joven: new wine, usually from a qualified Denominacion de Origen, occasionally with slight ageing, without qualifying as “roble” or “crianza”
  4. Roble: ”roble” in Spanish means oak. Sometimes a wine is very lightly oaked and some regions are allowed to use this term on the label for wines that are oaked but don’t reach the requirements of a “crianza”.
  5. Crianza: Is a good D.O. wine, aged for two years, with a minimum of six months in oak barrels
  6. Reserva: Is a high quality wine at least three years old. At least one of these years must be in an oak cask, with a further 2 years of ageing after bottling, made from top vintage grapes.
  7. Gran Reserva: quality wines usually aged for at least two years in oak barrels with three more years after bottling, made with grapes from the exceptional vintage years

Supplementary information:

  1. Bodega = From a named winery, always named, usually a family business
  2. Añejo = Means aged or matured
  3. Cepa = The type of grape – tempranillo, cabernet for example
  4. Cosecha, vendimia = The year, or the vintage

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