Barcelona - pure joy

Walking through the streets of Barcelona we stumbled upon something very close to heaven - an Enrique Tomas shop - a store with ham and wine. And they had the most amazing thing - ham cones.

A ham cone (a.k.a. chuches de jamon belota) has to be one of THE greatest inventions ever - finally a way to enjoy ham as a snack on-the-go! There are two versions of the ham cone - one with ham cubes and one with shredded, thinly sliced ham. I guess the second one is a better way to go, as the flavour is really intensive and can be overwhelming. Also, this form is better if you want to enjoy how the ham melts in your mouth...

This was one of the best, most inspiring things we saw in Barcelona, one of those things that, like vino turbio, brought us nothing but pure joy.

One cone costs 4,50 EUR, but it's a fair price for such quality and quantity - we took one for the two of us and were completely satisfied.

Barcelona - Can Maño

We went to Barcelona for the Primavera Sound Festival and were lucky enough to team up with people who went there many times before and knew exactly what to do when it came to dining. They took us to the most amazing place at Barceloneta, visited mostly by the locals. To get in there, you have to get in a queue at least half an hour before the opening.

The first amazing thing we got to know there (which stuck with us until the end of the trip and well beyond) was Turbio. This amazing white wine is unlike any wine I've tried before - it's enriched with yeast. Surprising, refreshing and truly delicious, sold in beautifully simple bottles with a thumb-sized label, available from 1,19 EUR in some supermarkets. We brought 10 bottles back to Poland.

Then came the food. I may have already mentioned I'm not really a fan of seafood which is, of course, a specialty of Barcelona, so I was really happy to see that the orgy started with deep fried vegetables - eggplants, sweet peppers and home-made french fries (as seen in the middle of the table). All of it amazing, but nothing comparing to the seafood part.

My mother always explained to me, that seafood tastes completely different when it's really fresh and served just a few hundred meters from where it was caught. As much as I hate to admit it - she was right.

We ordered some sick amount of food, including calamari, sardines and prawns, but my top 2 were chipirones (baby squid, top of the plate) and llangueta - the tiniest fish (just compare their size to the fork), both deep fried.

Everything was amazingly fresh and you had to eat it as soon as it hit the table - while it was still sizzling, crispy and hot. As soon as I got stuffed beyond my limits and had to wait a while to eat more, my satisfaction fell down a few levels - it all wasn't so great as it cooled down. So the way to go there is to take some friends and order really small amounts of everything, but frequently. They don't mind - everything is done extremely fast, like within two minutes from the time you'd placed your order.

If you ever go to Barcelona don't miss this place. It would be a sin.

books: Doctor Who Cookbook

This came at a really perfect moment. As all the Whovians were scanning every possible torrent source for the supposedly (and obviously falsely) leaked final episode of season 7 - "The Name of the Doctor" - the searches started returning results with this little gem on top. The Doctor Who Cookbook, a collection of recipes gathered from the whole Doctor Who crew, published in 1985.

There's no point in reviewing this properly - it's key value is nostalgic, especially now that I found a Polish element there. One of the first recipes in the book is Chłodnik - the name and the dish 100% Polish. What is it? See for yourself.

btw, was this episode one of the best yet or what?

bugs!

A friend brought us some edible bugs from Mexico - my fiancé is fascinated by the idea and I tried to force it into cultural foresight reports at work (with no success, not my fault).

Once you take a deep breath and explain to yourself that they're not going to start moving as soon as you put them in your mouth, it's really fine. The texture is crispy, that's true, but no more crispy than regular potato chips or something in sugar coating. And they taste really good. For me the flavour is much less weird than any fish or seafood.

The bugs are quite savoury, with a nice, tangy finish. A friend told me not to say they taste like chicken - well, they don't. The flavour is rather unique and much less "transparent", but it may just me the seasoning, about which I know nothing, unfortunately.

Anyway, I'll keep insisting that bugs ARE the future of nutrition, unless we want to kill off half of the population and stick with what we're eating now. I'm trying to think of something more to do with them - tempura seems to be the most obvious answer here, but perhaps I'll go with a salat, if with anything at all.

first time for everything: mussels in white wine

I guess I finally found a reason to have a social life - cooking for more people is quite fun. It's also a good excuse to make things that serve more than two and don't reheat well. Mussels - one of such dishes.

I don't actually eat seafood at all. Apart that one time I made deep fried mussels for someone. But these came out pretty well, I ate a few and did not want to throw up or even follow it with something to kill the taste. They're good for a dinner party, because you can prep everything in advance and just throw everything in a pan when the time comes.

Ingredients:

• a large knob of butter
• few cloves of garlic
• two shallots
• one chili pepper
• two celery stalks
• a handful of parsley
• a glass of dry white wine
• 1,5-2 kg cleaned mussels
• salt, pepper

Chop everything finely (except for the butter, wine and mussels, of course). Start with melting the butter and cooking the challots and celery until translucent. Add the garlic and chili, cook for a moment and add the mussels, parsley and wine, season. Cook under cover for a few minutes, shaking from time to time, so that everything mixes well. If the pot isn't large enough, use a second one - transferring the mussels back and forth once should do the trick. Take the lid off, cook for a few more minutes, discard the mussels that didn't open, serve with fresh baguette, make people happy.

Looks Like Shit, But That's Not It #1

Today in Looks Like Shit But That's Not It: Chicken in Black Bean Lava!

There's not much background to this dish: my fiancé likes beans and we try to eat relatively healthy recently, as serious cutting back on booze is not an option. So, here it goes.

Ingredients:

• chicken breasts, about 1lb / 500g
• black beans, soaked and cooked or canned, about 1 can / glass
• 1/2 red onion (or one small)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 chili pepper (or more, if you like it hot)
• 1/2 glass olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Heat the oven to 190C / 375F / gas mark 5

Using a blender, combine the olive oil with chopped onion, garlic and chili (you can also squeeze in a half of lime and/or add some corriander leaves), then add the beans and pulse until at least half of it turns into a smooth paste. Take an oven friendly dish and place the chicken breasts there after rubbing some olive oil, salt and pepper on them. Now, cover them completely with the paste. Roast for about 45-50 minutes, watch an episode of Breaking Bad or something, think of how I went all Walter White on Mexican inspirations. Voila.

Now you can serve your loved ones with a dish that looks truly disgusting, but, surprisingly, the texture and flavour are quite great. The bean coat should be crispy on the outside and soft closer to the chicken. The chicken itself, when I made it, remained soft and moist, as it should be.

PS: the black bean paste itself is a great dip or spread!

test - baking bread in silicone form

I grew tired with removing pieces of parchment from every bread I bake, so I decided to see how a silicone form would work. This one is the 22,5 cm Bake It form from Duka. And it worked pretty great.

The bread may seem flat, but it's not the form's fault - I fell asleep while the dough was proofing and it collapsed before I put it in the oven and had no more strength to grow. That's the thing with baking your own bread - you need to be patient and alert at the same time.

Back to the form - the best thing about it is the removal - with just one move you take out a neat loaf of bread, it doesn't stick at all. I imagined it would require a bit less cleaning, but, to be honest, that was a bit unreasonable - you really just need to wipe it once and rinse it properly.

As for the baking, the bread was baked evenly throughout and less burnt on the sides, as it tends to be in metal forms. All in all, I consider the test to be successful and I'll definitely be using the silicone form again.

UPDATE: my second attempt has shown me, that it wasn't entirely my fault that the bread was flat - because the form is soft, any slight movement causes the dough to lose air and collapse. So I have to switch from proofing it in the oven to some other place, so that I don't have to move it around too much.

UPDATE 2: using the silicone form as a lining for a metal form seems to be the perfect solution, bake on.