Ingredients:

1 (12 oz.) jar of roasted red peppers
4 garlic cloves
4 tablespoon olive oil
1 small can anchovies

Procedure:

The peppers should not be in vinegar or with any spices. Look for glass jars or cans of whole roasted peppers. If you aren’t able to find them, look for containers with large pieces of pepper. The jar or can should contain approximately the equivalent of 2 red bell peppers. Drain the peppers and pat dry with a paper towel. Carefully remove any membranes or seeds that may remain. Cut the peppers into 1/2 inch wide strips. Peel the garlic cloves and slice thinly. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan on low heat. Add the garlic and sauté until golden brown. Then, add the pepper strips. Sauté mixture for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and place pepper mixture on a platter. Take 4 to 5 anchovies from can and pat with a paper towel to remove excess oil and salt. Coil and arrange on platter with red peppers. Serve cold or warm with slices of French-style bread. Makes 8 servings.

Ingredients:

Country-style (chewy-textured) French bread, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices
Spanish extra-virgin olive oil
nutella (chocolate-hazelnut spread)
vanilla-bean-flavored fleur de sel (or other fleur de sel) sea salt
Spanish chorizo sausage, cut crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices (not Mexican soft chorizo sausage)

Procedure:

Toast the bread slices on both sides and let them cool. Lightly brush one side of each bread slice with olive oil, then spread a thin layer of Nutella on top (like spreading mayonnaise on sandwich bread). Sprinkle a small amount (a pinch or two) of sea salt evenly over the Nutella, then place two or three slices of chorizo in a single layer on top. Serve at room temperature, as an appetizer or snack, accompanied by a robust Spanish red wine.

Note: Make vanilla-scented fleur de sel sea salt by finely crushing a vanilla bean and combining it with the salt in a tightly covered glass container. Let the mixture stand for several days for the flavors to meld.

Ingredients:

2 packages of Spanish rice mix
(1) 10-pack beef n bean burritos
40 oz. can chile con carne
1 cup water
2 cups cheddar cheese shredded

Procedure:

Prepare rice according to package directions. Heat El Monterey Burritos according to the packaging, keep warm. Bring chile, with the water added, to a simmer. Place the Spanish Rice on large platter, pour half the chile over the rice, sprinkle with half the cheese. Arrange the burritos over the chile and cheese, pour the rest of the chile and cheese over the burritos. Melt cheese under a broiler or in a preheated 375°F oven. Serve immediately.

Ingredients:

1 lb. dry black-eyed peas
sofrito (tomato sauce)
1/2 lb. chorizo, sliced
1 dry bay leaf
salt to taste

Procedure:

Soak black-eyed peas in a bowl or a large pot for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Make sure that the water level is at least 3 inches above the peas. After soaking the peas, drain water from pot. Add water to at least 1 inch above the peas. Add bay leaf and sliced chorizo. Place pot on burner on high heat and bring to a boil. While you are waiting for the water to boil, make the sofrito following our recipe. Add sofrito to the potand add salt to taste. Once peas come to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer until peas are soft – approximately 1 hour.

Note: If you use a pressure cooker instead of a standard pot, cook peas on high pressure for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow pressure to drop naturally. This may take 10-15 minutes.

Serve hot in bowls. Serve with French-style bread.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg. chicken livers
1 large onion finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. of plain flour
1/4 pint of sherry
1 tbsp. tomato puree
100 m.l water
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Procedure:

Remove all the fat from the chicken livers and then cut them into bite size chunks. Heat half the oil in a large frying pan and fry the onion and garlic until they are soft - this will take about 15 minutes. Remove the onion and garlic from the pan and save on a plate. Add the rest of the oil to the frying pan and heat the oil over a high heat. Once the oil is heated add the chicken livers and keep the heat high to seal the livers and stop any of the juices from escaping. Cook the livers for about 5 or 10 minutes stirring often. Remove the livers and save on a plate. Return the onion and garlic to the frying pan and sprinkle in the flour. Cook this while stirring constantly. Add the sherry and continue stirring, add about 100ml of water and the tomato puree and stir to mix this through. The texture of the sauce should be quite thick but still a sauce. Some of these quantities can be varied depending on how you like your sauces. Return the kidneys to the frying pan, season well with salt and pepper and cook for about 5 or 10 minutes. You could serve this as a tapa with crusty bread or as a main course with boiled potatoes. For variations on this you could add a lot less flour and water to have a runnier sauce, you could miss out the tomato puree altogether or you could miss out the flour and add more tomato. All of these options create lovely dishes. You could also use lamb’s liver or kidneys as an alternative. Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

1 whole fryer, cut up or 8-10 pieces of chicken
¼ cup extra virgin spanish olive oil
2 cups of white mushrooms, sliced
4-5 large cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 ½ cups dry white wine
1 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper
2 peeled carrots, cut into large pieces
1 16 oz. can green peas, drained
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

Remove excess fat and skin from chicken, rinse in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. In a large, deep frying pan or skillet, heat olive oil and brown chicken for 5-7 minutes on medium high heat. Add mushrooms, garlic, onion, carrots and sweet red pepper to pan and sauté until mushrooms are softened and onion is translucent, approximately 5 minutes on medium heat. Add white wine to skillet and turn heat to high until broth boils, then reduce and simmer until chicken is cooked thoroughly and liquid is reduced a bit and thickens, 20-30 minutes. Check the pan while chicken is cooking and add more broth or water if necessary. Just before serving, add green peas to pan and stir well. Serve with home-fried potatoes.

Ingredients:

1 yellow onion, diced
2 medium tomatoes, diced
1 whole chicken or 8 chicken drumsticks
1 1/2 lbs. pork loin (fat trimmed), cut into ¾ inch pieces
1/2 lb. calamares (squid) cleaned and sliced into rings
medium grain or “pearl” rice
4-6 cups chicken broth
1 large pinch saffron
1 1/2 lbs. raw mussels in shell (frozen or fresh)
1 lb. small clams (frozen or fresh)
1 1/2 lbs. raw shrimp, medium or large - shell on
1 red pepper seeded and sliced
1 10 oz. pkg. frozen peas
olive oil
salt to taste

Procedure:

You’ll need one whole chicken, cut into serving-size pieces or 8 chicken drumsticks. If you use a whole chicken, use a meat cleaver to cut the chicken into pieces small enough to easily mix while frying. With a sharp knife, cut the pork into 3/4″ pieces.Clean the squid and remove the tentacles. Make sure to remove the innards and the “spine” and discard. Then, cut the squid into rings. Slice red pepper and chop onions and tomatoes, set aside. Now that you have the ingredients cleaned and chopped, it’s time to start the BBQ and begin cooking. When the coals on the BBQ are covered in white ash, cooking can begin. Assemble all the ingredients on a table near the BBQ, so that you can stay in the area and monitor the cooking. Place the paella pan on the grate and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom and allow the pan to heat up. When hot enough,fry the onions and tomatoes in the olive oil. Add olive oil as needed to prevent sticking. Once the onions are translucent, add the chicken and cook, stirring constantly – about 15 minutes. Add pork and squid and cook, stirring often. Add the rice in the form of a cross, as shown in the photograph. Stir for 2-3 minutes to thoroughly coat the rice with oil and mix with the other ingredients. Add saffron to the chicken broth and stir. Slowly pour broth into pan until pan contents are covered. Spread ingredients evenly over bottom of pan. Arrange mussels around outside edge of pan. Place clams and shrimp distributing them around pan. Add slices of pepper on top. Allow to simmer, cooking rice. Add more broth if necessary. When rice is almost cooked, sprinkle peas over the pan. When rice is cooked, remove from heat and cover with aluminum foil, allowing paella to “rest” for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Serve paella with lemon wedges.

Ingredients:

4 x 175 grams hake cutlets
2 tablespoons plain flour
salt and freshly ground black pepper to season the flour
3 table spoons olive oil
1 large onion
2 wine glasses of white wine
1 wine glass of cold water
500 grams clams
100 grams peas
3 tablespoons of chopped parsley

Procedure:

Scrub the clams and throw out any damaged ones.
Hint: Soak them in cold, salty water which may make them open and get rid of any grains of sand that are inside them. Start by washing the fish and then patting it dry. Season the flour with salt and pepper and then roll the hake cutlets in the flour. Heat the oil in a large frying pan that has a lid and fry the onion slowly until it goes transparent. Add the hake cutlets to the frying pan and cook gently for about 2 to 3 minutes before turning them and cooking them for a further 2 to 3 minutes. Add the wine and water, bring to the boil and add the clams and peas. Put the lid on the pan (this creates the heat which will help the clams to open) and cook for about another 5 minutes or until the clams open. Transfer the fish and the clams to a warm serving plate (throw away any clams that haven’t opened) and keep warm. Add about 2 spoons of the chopped parsley to the liquid in the pan, stir well and check the seasoning. Pour the sauce over the hake and clams, sprinkle the rest of the parsley over the dish and serve immediately. You could serve this with boiled potatoes or, as we like, with mashed potatoes. Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

1 lb. shrimp, 25 count to a pound
4 large cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. Spanish paprika
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
2-3 oz of cognac (you may substitute dry sherry instead)
¼ cup virgin olive oil
3 tspb. chopped fresh parsley
1 lemon for juice
French bread baguette

Procedure:

The shrimp can be peeled first, before cooking them if you prefer. In addition, if you like larger shrimp, you may purchase shrimp with fewer count to a pound. However, 25 to a pound are about the right size for this tapa. In a sauté pan or heavy frying pan, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for about one minute or until they begin to brown. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Raise the heat to high and add the shrimp, lemon juice, sherry or cognac and paprika. Stir well, then sauté, stirring briskly until the shrimp turn pink and curl – about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer shrimp with oil and sauce to a warm plate or serve right from the pan. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve with fresh bread. Makes 4 servings for appetizers. If preparing for a main course, double the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. lean pork, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 tbsp. hot paprika
2 tbsp. sweet paprika
3 cloves of garlic, diced very small or put through a garlic press
1 cup white wine
pinch of oregano
pinch of salt
French-style bread and/or fried potatoes to accompany

Procedure:

Prepare Meat and Marinate:

Place cubes of pork in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle hot paprika, sweet paprika, oregano and garlic over top. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands. Add the white wine and mix thoroughly. Cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator for at least 24 hours. When ready to cook the meat, place 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and heat on medium heat. Remove meat from refrigerator and fry in pan. Salt to taste. Serve with French-style bread or fried potatoes.