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There are several factories in Spain farming sturgeon and producing caviar. Riofrío is probably the best known. I've just had lunch at Etxebarri. Everyone should make a point to go there, no matter if you have to leave one of the starred restaurants out of your schedule. More when I'm not in a dial up connection.

Croquetas aren´t supposed to be very creamy, unless you're doing a variation on Adrià's liquid croquetas.

First time I hear about croquetas based on potatoes. But, hey, I'm Spanish.

I'd choose a white Burgundy or Riesling for everything but the fruit salad, which I would pair with moscatel.

Other than elBulli, I wouldn't trust any Spanish restaurant in their checking the mail or handling online reservations. Admittedly, some of the lack of confidence may be due to my own prejudices.

Have the fires that have extensively punished Galizia during the summer had any effects in the harvest?

Brian, generally speaking, I wouldn't trust that much the information coming from the Consejos Reguladores. They are an interested party --simply take a look to the classification for the last ten years-- and they tend to overrate the ratings.

This dish, along with many other apparently simple dishes from Spain, is trickier than expected. I mean, you can easily get good results, but to take this dish to another level --and I assure you it can get to that level of excellence-- you need to master the dish through repetition and good sourcing. Neither were we completely satisfied with the results we got. They were good, but by no means excellent. BTW, the version with the smoked chorizo worked the best. I guess we'll have to keep trying.

Note from the host: Don't worry for the location of this thread --or Rueda's, for that matter. They will eventually moved to the wine forum once they're fleshed out some more.

A trick to get puntillas --crispy edges-- in the fried egg is to separate the yolk from the whites and cook the whites first, until you get the crispness you want, and add the yolk then for just a few seconds.

José Carlos Capel, critic of the most important newspaper in Spain, El País and director of Madrid Fusión, mentioned Dan Barber as the leader of the trend of chefs horticulturalists, with gardens and farms annexed: Capel's critic of Les Cols where Barber is mentioned Another of the directors of Madrid Fusión described Blue Hill as wonderful and its counterpart upstate as magical. I've been fortunate enough to dine at Blue Hill twice and in both occasions the meal was between the best I've had in the States, and probably the last one I had in January this year had nothing to envy to the best meals you can find in Europe. Yes, there are nuances and I think it's a cuisine that requires some attention, but it's hard to think of another restaurant to remove Blue Hill from my short list of places to visit when I'm in NY.

If you have a car, do yourself a favor and go to Hispania.

Not that I value "authenticity" in cooking that much, but it seems that the recipe in its origin for sofrito only had onion as its main ingredient. Which makes sense, since it goes back in Spain and particularly in Catalonia to pre-Columbian days. On that, you can add tomatoes or red peppers, for instance, to have different nuances of sofrito. And the best definition on how it is cooked is the one given by Pere Bahí, chef and owner of La Xicra in Palafrugell, in his book El que menjava Josep Pla (What Josep Pla ate): you have too alternatively bring the onion to boil and frying many times, adding water and waiting to its evaporation, until you get a dark brown color in the onions.

I think that's one of Ferran's dreams, being able of taking a sabatic year. So, it's something that comes up every now and then. On a side note, please try to keep this thread on topic: the reports of the 2006 season and related discussion. Needless to say, you're more than welcome to create new topics on any other subjects. Thanks!

Yes, Tamzen was served dishes from previous years. At least the melon caviar and olives. Not that this occurs only in your first visit, but also if you've missed several seasons between visits. I was served the caviar in 2004 when it's actually a 2003 dish --I think-- since my previous visit took place in 1999. When I returned in 2005 with some newcomers we weren't served dishes from previous years. A question to speculate on it's whether the apparent larger ratio of reservations granted to newcomers versus 'veterans' this year is linked with the also apparent fewer number of new techniques developed so far this season.

Thanks for your report, Schneier. I see your point about the overuse of spherification, aggravated by the fact that given your newcomer status you've been served dishes from previous years --melon caviar, olives-- which use that technique. I'm intrigued to find out what my meal will look like in a few days...

Eduardo, I think Paco might be referring to the Villagodio with tuétano (bone marrow) sauce.

I'm not sure if they're going to open the terrace finally this year. It seems that the neighbor is taking longer than expected to complete their work.

I would say half an hour or so. Quite a powerful breakfast, if you ask me!

We used a blend of 50% arbequina, 40% hojiblanca and 10% picual bottled by Abraham García (Viridiana chef and owner). It's very fruity thanks to the arbequina variety whose trend to quickly oxidized is counter-balanced with the other two, hojiblanca given the backbone to the oil and picual some nice acidity Albeit, I don't think that oil, as long as it's a good quality, plays a determinant role in this dish. It'd be a completely story were we talking of gazpacho, for instance.

Well, it looks like chorizo has got its fair share of attention in this thread. A few days ago, Rogelio and I met at my place to cook the potatoes Rioja-style from Tapas. Ok, Rogelio was the chef and I just a poor stager. Anyway, this recipe is very simple and it’s a good example of how certain Spanish preparations achieve impressive results with a handful of common products. You just need olive oil –should I add extra-virgin?--, garlic, onion, potatoes –we couldn’t get Idaho potatoes as specified in the recipe --, pimentón, salt and, of course, chorizo. The bottle of Ostatu Reserva 1999 is not required though it’s advisable to get one if possible. To make things more interesting we had two types of chorizo -- one smoked, which you can see in the front, and another non-smoked, behind the garlic. As you have already guessed, the first step it to chop the ingredients. The only trick here is that the potatoes shouldn’t be sliced all the way through. You have to partly cut them, and then break them to allow a larger release of starch: Then in low heat, you have to cook in olive oil the garlic until it gets golden and add the onion later until it's brown -- or as chef Abraham García says, they lose all sense of shame (pierdan la vergüenza): The goal here is to get caramelized onion. One of the puzzling things of the book is that the time to get the onions to the caramelization point varies from recipe to recipe. Once you reach that point, you add the chorizo to fry it until it’s browned too, let’s say a couple of minutes: Notice the different color of the first two pics and the last two. The former are non-smoked and the latter, which are darker, are smoked chorizo. Now, we have to add the potatoes ant let them cook around ten minutes or so: Now, the final step. Add pimentón, salt and water enough to cover all the ingredients, bring to a boil and let it reduce at least by half: We decided to add a couple of bay leaves: Serve and eat: This is where the bottle of Ostatu --to begin with-- comes in handy.

Well, at least they're from lamb and not pork. Pinchos Alhucemas is the name they use at Tapas 24.

An interesting trend is developing in Barcelona. Two upscale and creative chefs, Carles Abellán from Comerç 24 and Albert Adrià from elBulli have opened recently two tapas bars, Tapas 24 and Inopia respectively. These tapas are tapas de toda la vida, that is, the common fare you could find in tascas all over the country: ensaladilla rusa, the cold salad of potatoes, carrots, peas, canned tuna and other vegs dressed with mayo; croquetas de jamón; pinchos morunos; tripe. All this in a city where tapas are a recent and imported habit. Yesterday I had the opportunity to have an early dinner --around 20:30, mind you-- at Tapas 24. Good quality, wines by the glass including Billecart Salmon brut, Abellán appeared around nine. It seems a good place to sample classic tapas --I had a terrific time yesterday-- and have an informal meal.

What you're looking for is named ajoblanco. The recipe in the RecipeGullet is a good recipe for it.

. . . . .did you check the bulli 2005 book? wg ← I did, and there's a recipe which calls for stabilizer Prosorbet Sosa and Procrema Sosa, so I'm lead to believe that it's a commercial brand of these kind of products. The ingredients are used in a yogurt ice-cream, which is one of the components of the recipe.