Barcelona, Where They Get the Chocolate to Pastry Ratio Right

We spent Christmas and New Year in Barcelona and the days were heavily punctuated by some fantastic eating, as you can expect. Christmas was feasting with family out in the village. St Stephen’s Day (Boxing Day here in the UK) was more feasting at home. New Year’s Eve was snacking on canapes as we waited to shove grapes in our mouth with each strike of the clock at midnight. On New Year’s Day, even more feasting. Ah, that was the good life.

One thing that always strikes me about Barcelona is the way that chocolate is used with reckless abandon at all patisseries. Croissants, coques, palmiers,etc, come in both plain and chocolate-covered varieties. The chocolate coating is not a mere afterthought but a proper drenching – a thick coating! – that turns the pastry into a hefty, weighty treat. And these can be found at all patisseries! There were a couple of more unique chocolate treats that stood out during my visit though.

We went back to my beloved Forn Mistral to try a wide variety of their pastries. I particularly wanted to try their mini chocolate croissants and I wasn’t disappointed. They don’t look very promising from the outside but under that surprisingly thin layer of puff pastry is an equally surprising hefty lump of chocolate. There is a proper 50/50 ratio of pastry to chocolate in these little morsels. And if you pick some up for takeaway, there’s a chance you could get a scoop straight from the oven….mmm…. little chocolate lava morsels.

We also re-encountered a bakery that we’d visited years ago – Forn Jaume Montserrat. The bakery is famous for their coques, Catalan flatbreads that are topped or filled with sweet or savoury ingredients. I noticed that there were many comments online about their coca de xocolata – pictured below – and we bought a large slice to take home. While the chocolate in the mini croissants above was pure dark chocolate, the one here was like a stiffer dark chocolate frosting, probably to hold up to a longer baking time. It was sweeter but I still liked it. I loved it. More please!

I guess it’s another way of mainlining chocolate that isn’t in liquid form!

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NHK World’s Lunch ON!

Right, here’s yet another Japanese TV show that I’ve been watching that I can definitely recommend. This one is Lunch ON!, an NHK World television show that is the English translation version of a NHK television show called Salameshi, dealing with the subject of lunches eaten by the working man/woman.

And yes, weekday lunches in Japan are just as exciting as you’d expect them to be. There are no sad sandwiches to be seen here; instead, there are noodles and dishes with rice and onigiri and, of course, bento. Oh, how I wish our work cafeterias served the dishes that I have seen on this show! Of course, it’s more likely that more unusual or quirky lunches and lunch traditions and customs are featured on the programme but it’s still a good insight into the country. Not so cool is the waking up an extra hour early to put together that bento, or in some cases, the making of many bentos for others. Just as interesting are the different jobs they cover, from various salespeople to archaeologists to scientists to shopkeepers, etc. Also of interest to me were the clearly delineated gender roles in Japan and it was heartening to see some men subverting these roles, making their own bento.

I’m not going to lie – the narrator’s voice is infuriatingly grating. I just sucked it up and watched everything I could though…my interest in the subject trumped her voice. I’m mentioning it here so you can’t say I didn’t warn you!

Here’s one example episode on Youtube. Others can be found by searching for ‘Lunch On NHK’ on Youtube. Sadly, I’ve watched all that I could find already and I hope to catch new episodes on the NHK World app.

 

Mother Clucker

I’m starting to like the format of these short little posts that allow me to quickly expand on my thoughts of a place or a dish I’ve had recently. I like the instant publication of Instagram but something about it doesn’t allow me to wax on as I do here. One recent meal whose photo I posted was my lunch from Mother Clucker, who I encountered in the monthly KERB street food market in Sheldon Square, Paddington.

My £10 was exchanged for their lunch deal of 3 chicken strips, Cajun fries, and a can of soft drink.

Those chicken strips were huge! These tea-brined, buttermilk soaked and twice battered (that’s what their website says) chicken strips were utterly fantastic, very moist and tender and with a great crust. You know I love me some fried chicken and these were hands-down the best Southern-style strips I’ve had in a long time. As you can see, I also put good use to the proffered squeeze bottles of homemade lime mayonnaise and hot pepper sauce. Two thumbs up.

These guys are definitely worth seeking out.

Mother Clucker
All over London – check out their website for details.

 

Catalan Hanging Tomatoes

Most of London woke to a light dusting of snow this past Sunday morning but while there are Narnia like scenes outside, we’ve got a bit of the Mediterranean inside. We’ve still got a handful of so of tomatoes grown in our garden and harvested last autumn.

Now what kind of tomato keeps for months like that?! Hanging tomatoes do – let’s ignore the fact that I haven’t actually hung mine. These thick skinned tomatoes are the kind to use for the famous Catalan pa amb tomàquet (literally ‘bread with tomato’) and are generally not available outside Spain, maybe not even outside Catalonia. In Catalan, these go by the names tomàquets de penjar (hanging tomatoes) or tomacons.

Have you tried making pa amb tomàquet at home with regular tomatoes? There’s not much to squish out of those fleshy salad tomatoes, is there? Many Spanish restaurants here, either unable to get the original tomatoes or who need to make lots in advance, tend to puree tomatoes and premix the puree with olive oil and salt and when it’s time to serve, brush this mixture onto toast. It really doesn’t taste the same.

These tomacons have lots of liquid and seeds inside their thick skins, making them absolutely rubbish for eating like a salad tomato but perfect for rubbing onto bread. Cut them in half around their equator, and rub their flesh vigorously onto a slice of gently toasted bread. You’ll find the tomato flesh give and release itself all over the bread, leaving empty skins between your fingers. Drizzle with olive and a bit of salt (and you could also rub a little garlic on the toast before the tomato) and you’re feasting.

Here’s a photo of another variety in a market in Barcelona. Oh look, they’re being properly hung for storage!

You’ll notice that they look a little different than the ones I grew. Ours were tomacons of the variety mallorquí, which are quite distinct with their pointy bottoms. I’m growing a different variety next year – Domingo.

If you’re looking for seeds to grow them, you can, of course, get them in garden shops in Catalonia but I’ve also found them at Real Seeds – they’re listed as the variety De Colgar (Spanish for ‘hanging’). Ignore what they say about them being nearly extinct as that may be the case in the rest of Spain but it’s definitely not the case in Catalonia; you can buy them from pretty much any grocers. I believe those are the correct seeds!

 

Good Eats from My Garden: The End of Year Update

Happy new year! This is an end-of-year update from our vegetable garden! Since my introduction to our vegetable garden, we’ve had quite a good summer and autumn of harvests. Of course, things are relatively dormant now but with the current mild winter we still have some chard going strong as well as a few carrots still in the ground. The cavolo nero still looks good and the rocket keeps putting up new leaves. The broad beans I’ve planted for overwintering are already almost 30cm tall!

Let’s see what’s been harvested! Chard. Lots of it and of the rainbow sort so that still tickles me.

Cherry tomatoes. A million.

Carrots. I planted way too many but they’re good to have around.

Cucamelons. I also planted way too many of these.

Near daily harvests.

Even friends come over and help you harvest!

Cavolo nero! Well, my plants are a little on the small side but they taste good.

Then of course there was all the cooking with the vegetables. Most of it went into every day cooking and eating. There was a brief stint of bringing couscous-based salads to work.

There were vegetables aplenty for having on the side with everything.

Most of the time the vegetables became the focus of our dinner. We made lots of truites (Catalan for tortillas) and soups.

Courgette carbonara.

More vegetables, this time served with eggs.

This was one of our favourite meals which we called pasta de l’hort (garden pasta). This was hot pasta tossed with a chopped salad with many things from the garden: tomatoes, rocket, cucamelons, etc. Oh, and we’d toss in an avocado too and maybe some cheese.

Baby courgettes are good in instant noodles.

Some of those endless carrots were turned into a salad.

I’ve now learned to freeze some of the vegetables but lots were cooked as soon as we harvested them. Lots of things were cooked into various dishes here that we had with rice: runner beans with miso butter, egg and tomato, courgettes with Lao Gan Ma sauce, and purple bean omelette.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. When we returned from our summer holiday, we found our purple beans had fallen over – the supports we had used for them had got soaked in the rain and then the winds blew them over. The runner beans succumbed to the same a month later – lesson learned, never use these supports again! And then our tomatoes were struck down by blight – argh, what a terrible stupid disease! We had to pick lots for them to ripen indoors but some of the larger ones were turned into fried green tomatoes. They’ve all been eaten now except for a few Catalan hanging tomatoes that can keep all winter – I’ve been meaning to write about them in a separate post.

Our sunflowers were brilliant. We grew three and one flower head fell off after a fat bird or squirrel got to it. The other flowers survived though their seeds were attacked by pigeons, squirrels, parakeets, etc. We just managed to save most of the two remaining heads, enough to toast and snack on. They were fabulous!

Anyway, it’s time to start planning for next year. Things I’ll change? Perhaps not so many cucamelon plants. More green beans – I love them. Maybe I’ll try corn and maybe melons. The broad beans are already new.

One thing that’s been driving me stir-crazy all year are the stupid cats that come along and dig up my poor seedlings – it’s very difficult to raise any winter lettuces and cabbages if the young plants keep getting buried! Does anyone have any tips for detracting cats please? Should I just get garden hoops and cover everything with fleece/netting? Is there a cat repellent spray you can recommend?