2 new yummy dishes

Lentils with chard

The Pursuit of Yummy Food is back!

Last Monday I cooked this excellent recipe I got from the famous Spanish cook Carlos Arguiñano:

https://www.hogarmania.com/cocina/recetas/legumbres/201410/lentejas-acelgas-26362.html

I started boiling 300 grams of lentils in a pot of hot water, and added salt, 1 leek and 1 carrot that I had chopped before. Once boiled for 30 minutes I took the leek and carrot and blended them with the hand blender, and added back to the lentils pot and added powder parsley.
Then I peeled and chopped a potato and 2 carrots, and 4 chard leaves, and boiled them all in salty water for 20 minutes. Later I added it all to the pot with the lentils.
In a separate pan I fried 3 sliced cloves of garlic, and then a chopped tomato and added half a spoon of cayenne pepper and parsley.
Finally I poured this last mix in the lentils pot and stirred it all, then I just served the yummy Chard lentil soup.

The result was simple yet nothing short of impressive: a vegetarian/vegan soup with enough substance and spice to not miss any meat in there. It will not be the last time that I cook this healthy lentil soup. ¡Que aproveche!

Broccoli with Bechamel and Spaghetti Sauce

http://www.hogarutil.com/cocina/recetas/ensaladas-verduras/201110/brocoli-bechamel-queso-12199.html

Here I roughly translated the recipe from the Spanish TV:

Ingredients:

- 2 or 3 broccolis
- 125 grams of emmental cheese
- 50 grams of flour
- 50 grams of Irish butter
- 1/2 liter of milk
- Water
- Salt
- Nutmeg
- Parsley
- HEB Spaghetti sauce with onion, garlic, olive oil and basil

Wash the broccolis and boil them in a pan with water and a pinch of salt for 6 minutes. Rinse them and cut them into smaller branches. Set them aside on a plate.
To make the cheese bechamel sauce, heat the butter in a pan and once it melts, add the flour, cooking it a little bit. Pour the milk on it little by little while stirring it all with a stick. Add the shredded emmental cheese, a pinc of nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Mix it all very well until it thickens and set it aside.
Set the spaghetti sauce on a platter, then lay the broccolis and pour the bechamel sauce over it. Cook it au gratin in the oven for a while at 350 Farenheit. Serve it decorated with a little bit of parsley.

Easy to make, healthy and delicious, what else can you ask for?

Spanish-Mexican Soup

http://www.hogarutil.com/cocina/recetas/sopas-cremas/201403/sopa-gachupa-23909.html

http://www.hogarutil.com/tv/programas/cocina-bruno-oteiza/201403/12/index.html

Last night I made this yummy soup from Bruno Oteiza.
Ingredients:
- 200 grams boiled chick peas (garbanzo beans)
- 2 eggs
- 100 grams Spanish serrano ham (Campofrío brand, from HEB supermarket)
- 2 big tomatoes
- 1 branch of celery
- 6 garlic cloves
- 2 slices of old bread
- 1 liter of vegetable broth (tetra brik packaged)
- Spanish extra virgin olive oil (Carbonell brand)
- Salt
- Chopped parsley
For the garnish:
- 1 lime
- Green onion tails
- 2 small radishes
- 1 serrano pepper
- Cilantro
In a pot I fried in olive oil the chopped garlic cloves and chopped celery, then I added the serrano ham and kept frying for a little bit (10 minutes on medium heat). I pureed in a blender the 2 tomatoes with a little bit of the vegetable broth, since I used a cup blender not a hand one. Then I added the pureed tomato and a little salt to the pot and boiled for 10 more minutes. Then I cracked two eggs and added the rest of the vegetable broth, the parsley and the bread and boiled for 5 more minutes on very low heat. For the garnishing I sprinkled chopped green onion tails, chopped radishes, chopped serrano pepper and cilantro, plus some drops of lime to refresh the final spicy result.
It tastes like a real cool blend of Spanish Basque Country Soup with a Latin American topping to spice up this surprisingly delicious soup.

Sultanas, coconut cakes

Last week I made these coconut cupcakes, known in Southern Spain as sultanas. I got the recipe from this website:
http://www.cosasdecome.es/recetas/sultanas-de-coco-al-estilo-de-antonia-butron/
It was a sweet flashback from my childhood, since it was one of my favorite pastries then.

Ingredients:

- 4 egg whites
- 2 egg yolkes
- 250 grams of sugar
- 250 grams shredded coconut
- 1/2 spoon of yeast

Step 1:  Crack 4 eggs and keep 2 yolks in a tupperware for another recipe, and put the 4 egg whites in a large bowl and 2 yolks in another bowl. In the large bowl beat the 4 egg whites to form peaks until it gets very frothy and white as snow. Then add little by little the 2 yolks previously beaten. Keep beating with a fork and add a little more than a cup of sugar little by little. Then add little by little 2.75 cups of shredded coconut, the star ingredient, and a little package of yeast. Keep beating and then knead it trying to keep it a little solid. Step 2: In a pizza tray set wax baking paper and on it put little meatballs of the mixture, made with your hands moist from tap water. The oven should be previously programmed to baking at 410 degrees Farenheit. After 10 minutes inside take it out seeing that they were golden. It´s very delicious and even more so the next two days when the flavors come together. It is recommended that you eat them quickly, I mean in the following 2 or 3 days, which is not really that much of a sacrifice ;), so that they don´t get hard and you enjoy the juicy core.

Wrinkled potatoes in spicy Canary sauce

This is my version of a very simple dish from the wonderful Canary Islands of Spain.
In a pot I boiled in sea salt  and water 6 unpeeled small red potatoes from Texas after having washed them very well in the sink. Poking with a knive I tested that they were thouroughly boiled after about 20 minutes. Then I emptied the pot of water and I left the potatoes on low fire from 5-10 minutes covering the pot with a tin lid so the potatoes got the characteristic wrinkle (very slight). For the sauce that I put on top of the potatoes, the famous mojo picón I did my own version. In a blender I put a little piece of tomato, a spoon of piquillo peppers, 5 peeled cloves of garlic, a pinch of salt, cilantro leaves, a spoon of cumin, a spoon of paprika, breadcrumbs, chilly peppers, a little bit of vinegar and Spanish extra virgin olive oil to cover it all. I blended it all very well and sprinkled the wrinkled potatoes for a typical flavor of Spain to enjoy. ¡Que aproveche!