Dema's Mom's Falafel

Last weekend i had a craving for middle eastern food and decided to make some falafel. My usual source for recipes is the infinite wisdom of Claudia Roden. I have my ma's well worn copy of her guide to food of the middle east (this is where kelsie gets her recipe for no-fail hummous) and i have a newer book called Arabesque which features the food of Morrocco, Turkey and Lebanon.
On this occasion i decided to ask my workmate Dema, who is Palestinian, for her tips. She in turn asked her mom and i was all set to go.
To accompany i made some tahini dressing, pitta bread and a pickled red cabbage carrot salad.

Falafel
500g dried favas or chickpeas
2 onions grated
1 bunch parsley finely chopped
1 bunch coriander finely chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
Salt
Cayenne
1 tsp baking powder

First soak the dried beans in plenty of water for 24 hours.
Drain well and grind to a smooth consistency in a food processor. You need to scrape down the side of the bowl from time to time to ensure a uniform consistency.
Add the rest of the ingredients and process until well blended.
Set aside in a bowl for 30 minutes.
Heat a wok or pot with vegetable oil until a piece of bread dropped in sizzles and turns brown.
Form walnut sized balls of the falafel and flatten slightly. Add to the hot oil and fry until golden brown all over.
Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm while you fry the rest.
NOTE: this recipe makes a LOT.

Tahini dressing
2 cloves garlic crushed to a paste with salt
3 Tbsp tahini
1 lemon juiced

Whisk all the ingredients together. Add 50ml water or enough to thin it out to the consistency of double cream. Adjust seasonings.

Pickled Red Cabbage and Carrot Salad
2 carrots, grated
1 small red cabbage, finely shredded
1 lemon, juiced
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 pickles cut into slices
3 pickled chilies cut into slices
Salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients together and adjust seasoning to taste.

Oleoturismo: a mini road trip in search of olive oil

It all started with me doing a google search for "slow food sitges". I found out about two slow food restaurants right on our doorstep and widened the search to Tarragona which is high on my list of places to visit. There are lots of roman ruins there and three more slow food restaurants.
One that stood out to me is called El Celler de l'Aspic. I became fb friend with them and the other day they posted that their supplier just released this year's olive oil.
So then i became fb friends with the Cooperativa Agricola Riudecanyes.
And i found out they have a shop where you can buy their products.
And for the past three days i have been harrassing kelsie about doing a mini road trip to visit them. Because well, we finally finally got a new car. This wasn't too bad for a first road trip. It's about an hour and some on the toll road. The tolls one way add up to almost 8€. You basically drive down the coast past Tarragona and then head a few miles into the hills. When we arrived in Riudecanyes we managed to catch the last cars that were driving through on the RallyRACC catalunya-Cost Dorada Race. The town was heaving with spectators. They were there to see the cars and we were there to see the olive oil.
The man at the shop was really helpful and explained the difference between the filtered and unfiltered oils. We bought a couple lires of the filtered. It's more fruity than grassy and is going to be enjoyed as long as we can make it last. We also picked up some tapenade made from the same arbequina olives, some moscatel and a package of hazlenuta.
In the same building as the shop is a small info area showing how olive oil produced from harvest to bottle as well as descriptions about the other fruits of the local countryside.
If you are further afield than a mini road trip, fear not! They also have an online shop where you can order direct.

Pane co' santi

It's my turn to bring breakfast in for my office mates tomorrow.

I decided to try this recipe from Twelve by Tessa Kiros. She says the reason it might be called saint's bread is that the ingredients of olive oil, walnuts and sultanas are saints themselves.

Lunch Adventures: Mayura Lounge

Food:
Indian food for a Spanish palate. For lunch you have a choice between the Indian thali menu or the Mediterranean menu. The thali menu on this particular day had: samosa, chicken saag, rice, lentils, vegetable curry and chapatis. The menu also includes drink (i paid extra for a Cobra beer) and dessert (i chose mango lassi). There are several supplement options if you want additional items like pakoras or a meat other than chicken. Overall the food was nicely spiced but not overly hot. The green chile chutney gave everything a nice extra kick of heat.




Interior:
Mostly lounge style seating consisting of low sofas/chairs with lots of cushions. Our group sat at the long bar which is divided in the middle by a water feature. Hint: if you sit at the bar you get a discount on the price of the menu.




Service:
menus came in english and spanish. our orders were taken quickly and the food came out pretty fast. paying took a bit longer because we were each paying separately.

Cost:
11.80 for the indian menu



Mayurna
Calle Girona, 57 Barcelona
Map
Tel: 934 814 536
Web: www.mayuralounge.es

New Series: Lunch Adventures with Restaurant Tickets

One of the best perks from my new job at Xing is the booklet of Sodexo restaurant tickets that I get every month. Each booklet has 43 tickets, each ticket is worth 3 euros. Most of the restaurants around where we work accept these tickets in lieu of cash. This amounts to 129 euros tax-free each month. Can't beat that! It's also a really good way to encourage us to get to know our work colleagues better as we inevitably go for lunch together in a group. Such a nice contrast to the rushed sandwich or tupperware leftovers eaten at your desk, in front of the computer.

The Lunch Adventures posts are going to be all about where we go for lunch and what we eat. And don't forget, if you have Sodexo restaurant tickets, all the places i write about accept them.

Sucking vegetables: The Way of the Calçotada

I have a friend Don Purple who is a stylist in New York. Part of what makes him a good stylist is his vast collection of things he's picked up over the years. I remember the last time i saw Don we were in Scotland and his favorite thing to do was trawl the numerous charity shops looking for "collectibles". At that time his collectibles were all porcelain white animals. Anything…bunnies, kittens, puppies, would be considered and sometimes purchased. I confess i didn't understand it really, it was just 'stuff', but years later when i saw some of the brilliant photos he styled it clicked.



I'm a collector too, although my stuff isn't porcelain white animals. My stuff is local food experiences. It's not necessarily about exotic or hard to find or 'best in class' ingredients. It's more about the particular local ingredients and how they're celebrated in the local culture. Like….german rye bread slathered with schmaltz...



or the famous pork pies from the Ginger Pig...




I like to go to someplace new and eat something from that place -- doing that sears that place on my memory better than any instagram can do.

Lucky for me there are a ton of regional food festivals here in Catalunya. i've already missed the Fesolada (white bean festival) in Sant Pau. And i know that on the horizon there will be a chicken and artichoke festival in Prat Llobregat this month



Right in our town of Castelldefels we had a Calçotada. The featured ingredient is the calçot. It's basically a variety of spring onion. I noticed that all the local fruiterias (where you also buy veg) had stands of calçots cropping up around the beginning of january. when i asked my team mates about them they told me about Calçotadas which are meals centered around the calçot.



the usual way of preparing and eating calçots is to grill them over a barbecue until the outer layers are completely charred and the inside is cooked to a sweet pulp.



Since there's already a barbecue going the rest of a Calçotada is made up of grilled meats and maybe even potatoes and artichokes.



the other essential element of a Calçotada is the romesco sauce that you dip the calçot in before eating it. apparently it's the quality of the romesco that distinguishes a good Calçotada from an average one. and of course the other essential requirement is the company of good friends to enjoy the experience with.



there's a definite learned technique to eating a calçot. at last week's Calçotada our friend asela demonstrated the technique. first, peel off the charred outer skin. next, swish the cooked white part in the romesco. finally suck the end, pulling the onion up through your teeth to get every last juicy bit.







kelsie wasn't too impressed with the sucking vegetables bit. she was far too fascinated with our new friend alba who was captivated by the oranges we had.





i of course sucked and savored every last calçot and had enough to last me until next year's festivities.

San Esteban at Mar Blanc

For those of you who haven't heard yet, we've moved (yes AGAIN!) -- this time to Spain! Our new home is in the town of Castelldefels which is a short commute to my new job at Xing in Barcelona. I'll save you the story about all the stress and angst of leaving Berlin and moving here. Suffice it to say that we are glad it's over and that we're here.

We're really loving it here already and are starting to explore our new surroundings. A big plus is that it's a mere 1.25 hour flight between here and where my parents live. So much closer! We invited them over for a few days to celebrate Christmas and had a wonderful meal on Christmas day.

To close out the visit my parents wanted to treat us to lunch and asked for us to choose some place special. We chose Mar Blanc for a few reasons: 1) it sits right on the beautiful beach of Castelldefels; 2) they had Lobster Thermidor on their special San Esteban menu; and 3) most of the review we read on TripAdvisor were complentary of the food and restaurant.



The restaurant has three separate eating areas -- an outside terrace which would be fab in the sprint or summer but would have been too cold on this particular day, a downstairs dining room which is where we sat, and an upstairs dining room. When you walk in the front door you immediately face tanks where the live lobsters are kept before being cooked for you. The dining room is decorated with seaside paintings and other nautical adornments.



Here is the view from our table in the restaurant.



For a starter we were served hollowed out oranges filled with a salad and gulas. We accompanied this with some lovely cava.



Our first course choices were either seafood cannelloni or langostines. The cannellonis were flavourful and very rich, and the langostines were succulent and sweet, though a bit of work to remove the shells. Btw -- the best part of eating the langostines was sucking all the juice out of their heads. Yum!





For the second course we mostly went for the lobster thermidor, while my father decided to tackle the cochinillo (suckling pig). We were unanimously underwhelmed by the lobster -- it was dry and lacked flavour and the rich sauce you'd expect with a thermidor. On the other hand, the cochinillo was tender and flavoursome and served with a nice side of potato gallette.





Dessert was the traditional yule log, followed by an assortment of turrons.

Overall we loved the location and everything but the lobster which we felt should have been the star of the meal. I'd like to go back again and order things a la carte to see if it's any better.



Details
Mar Blanc
Ribera de Sant Pere, 17 08860 Castelldefels
Map
Web site