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PAELLA (serves 6)
1/3 cup of Olive Oil
1 Small Onion, minced
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
3-5 tbsps minced fresh parsley
1 generous pinch of saffron
2 tbsps of chicken bullion
3 skinless Chicken Breasts, cut in large chunks
2 green peppers, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1 tsp of yellow food coloring (optional — saffron is very expensive, a pinch
of it is all you need for taste but a richer color is desired)
8 oz tomatoe sauce
1 tsp sugar
4 cups of rice
7 cups of water
salt
1/2 lb - 1 lb shrimp, leave shell on
1 lb scallops
Saute onion, parsley, and garlic in olive oil until the onion begins to become transparent. Add saffron, chicken bullion, chicken, peppers and saute until chicken has become white. Add tomatoe sauce, sugar, food coloring. Stir. Add rice & water and bring to boil. Salt to taste. Boil 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add shrimp & scallops, boil an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Simmer 10 minutes covered, stirring occasionally. If the rice appears to be getting too dry during the last 10 minutes, add more water. If the rice is too wet at the end of the 10 minutes, uncover and evaporate unwanted liquid.
Tortilla de Patatas
If you like the taste of french fries, you’ll love the spanish tortilla. When made correctly, the spanish tortilla is a delicious half-inch thick “cake” of fried potatoes mixed with fried eggs and onions. After cooking, the tortilla can be cut into pizza-like triangles to serve 4-6 people, or cut into squares to give a whole group a bite-sized toothpick sample.
1 cup olive oil
four large potatos (peel and cut into small pieces about 2mm thick)
salt to taste
one large onion, thinly sliced
four large eggs.
Some people add thin slices of red pepper together with the onion.
Heat the oil in a 9-inch skillet, add potato pieces, one slice at a time so that they don’t stick. Alternate layers of potato and onion. COOK slowly, medium flame. DO NOT FRY!! Turn occasionally until potatoes are tender, but NOT brown. They must be loose, not “in a cake”.
Beat eggs in a large bowl with a fork. Salt to taste. Drain potatoes. Add potatoes to beaten eggs, pressing them so that eggs cover them completely. Let sit for 15 minutes. Heat 2 tbsps of the oil in large skillet. Add potato-egg mixture, spreading quickly. Lower the heat to medium-high. Shake pan to prevent sticking (crucial step!!) When potatoes start to brown, put a plate on top skillet and flip to cook other side, adding another tbsp of oil. Brown on the other side. Can flip three or four times for better cooking.
GAZPACHO It is difficult for me to give you definite weights or quantities for this recipe; please forgive me. Lots of red, ripe tomatoes Cucumber (with the part that attaches it to the plant removed: it is bitter) Anaheim peppers (or any green pepper which is not sweet)Old, hard bread (my favourite for gazpacho is extra sour dough, but others will do too) Garlic Red vinegar Olive oil Salt Water There might be as many recipes of gazpacho as families are in Spain. This is the one i have learned at my house. There is nothing "gospelly" about it. As a rule, you want more tomatoes in the gazpacho than anything else. A nice looking gazpacho should have a pretty orange-red colour. Therefore, add the ingredients according to this principle. First, cut the vegetables in pieces that your blender can manage. You do not need to peel the cucumber or the tomatoes or remove the seeds from anything (at least i never do). Cut some bread and soak it in water. Add it to the blender. Add the olive oil, salt, vinegar and water. Turn the power on until everything blends "homogeneously". Take a spoonful and taste it. At this point you can decide what is missing, what is in excess, etc. You can experiment with the < recipe: some people like the gazpacho very thick, so they add a lot of bread, while some others like it very liquidy, and they add more water instead, or less bread, whatever. Some people get crazy adding garlic, while some others hate it. I prefer gazpacho at room temperature. However, as it is a typical summer dish, it is usually served cold. In some places this is so true that they even throw ice cubes in it when ready to eat. As with many other dishes, when you save gazpacho from one day to the other, it tends to improve in flavor.