Unfashionable mecca

[pedro]

Víctor, that's more or less what I remembered about the differences in the oven.

Regarding kid, I'll always remember a simply roasted kid presented by Santamaría at El Racò. Low expectations from the description (Cabrito asado) amidst the caviar + smashed potatoe + pork jowls and the like, impressive and touchy results. I know that perfect is an overused adjective speaking about dishes and meals, but in this case I think it's totally applicable.

Don't know if it was due to the andalusians roots of my mother, but while I was living in Catalonia kid played a very important role in Christmas and familiar meals. I'd dare to say that it plays a non neglectable role in Catalonian cooking.

[vserna]

Kid's indeed widespread in Spain. After all, only goats can survive on many of our rocky, dry mountains...

[bobsdf]

Regarding kid, I'll always remember a simply roasted kid presented by Santamaría at El Racò. Low expectations from the description (Cabrito asado) amidst the caviar + smashed potatoe + pork jowls and the like, impressive and touchy results. I know that perfect is an overused adjective speaking about dishes and meals, but in this case I think it's totally applicable.

I had a similar experience with his cochinillo. It was the rear quarter of the piglet, similar in size to the leg/thigh quarter of a large chicken. Perfectly crisped skin and meltingly tender, juicy meat. The waiter kept returning to the table to spoon the most incredible jus over top each time I had mopped up what was on the plate.

Ok, so has anyone tried roast lamb at con Fabes?

Edited March 4, 2004 by bobsdf (log)

[Bux]

My father was born in a small town in Burgos, and they used to use the oven of the town's bakery to roast the lamb in special occasions. A common Castillian tradition some time ago. Which was the deal made with the baker, that I don't know.

That same tradition existed in France. It may have died first in France. That I don't know, but there are many dishes that require long slow cooking. "Boulangere" in the name of a recipe would be an indication it was at one time made in the baker's oven. In many, or most, cases, the housewife would bring the dish to bake in the oven between bread bakings for lunch and dinner. Once fired up, those brick ovens would stay hot all day anyway, so the baker really didn't expend much fuel and I imagine the housewives paid to use the oven. For them, it was much cheaper than heating their own oven, if they had one.

[bobsdf]

In many, or most, cases, the housewife would bring the dish to bake in the oven between bread bakings for lunch and dinner.

Bux, I've made a traditional alsatian dish called "backeoffe"--it's basically a meat (pork,beef, and lamb), onion and potato stew, slow cooked in a terrine sealed with a flour paste--that, I think, originated in the manner you describe.

[vmilor]

While we are on this topic I should say a few things on Turkey, should I not?

The "used to be" traditions of France and Burgos continue in Turkey. In many village housewifes take whole pieces of meat or backeoffe style stews(typically pieces of meat and garden fresh eggplant and tomatoes and garlic) to the town's baker in clay pots and tell him how they would like it to be cooked.

Vserna, as in Spain in many parts of Turkey kids are roasted and sold as lamb to unsuspecting local tourists. Like Spain, Turkey is mountainous and barren. Some say that people get a diarrea from kid but never happened to me. But cabrito is superb too---just more lean.

My favorite "suckling churra lamb" preparation is what we call kuyu or pit roast. It is cooked in a pit which is preheated and then sealed with mud. So it cooks slowly and the dripping fat is used to make the rice-pilaf which is often eaten with lamb. Now very few places are doing this and the horno de asar is more common. I wish Turkey had as good red wine as Spain...otherwise I do get more pleasure from a pit roasted suckling lamb than eating the main course in many 3 stars.

Bobsdf, I did have roasted lamb, canon d'agneau(canon is the cut from the back I believe but please correct me as I am not sure) at Con Fabes. Very good. 18/20. Even better was the roasted shoulder of spring lamb at Zuberoa. 19/20. But I suspect the few places mentioned here like Tinin will be 20+/20. This is what they specialize in and the quality of prime material is top and the oven special--used for many years, etc. Personally I prefer the upper quarters, shoulder and rib, to the leg.

[vserna]

The "used to be" traditions of France and Burgos continue in Turkey.

They are not things of the past in Spain. In those villages that still have working bakeries, in the Castilian lamb triangle and nearby, the lambs are still roasted that way. They are indeed dwindling in numbers: 'progress' means pre-cooked bread that will be quickly finished in an electric oven.

[Bux]

... 'progress' means pre-cooked bread that will be quickly finished in an electric oven.

All too often true. Progress in Spain is such that one can find it leading Europe in some areas and lagging far behind in others. As a gastronomic destination, the areas in which it hasn't caught up to France, can be as great a draw as the ones in which it has moved ahead. One has to wonder how long this co-existence of dynamic culinary creativity and traditional ways that defy world scale economics can last.

[Boris_A]

as in Spain in many parts of Turkey kids are roasted ... cabrito is superb too---just more lean.

It's a widespread known delicacy from Spain to Turkey, I guess.

I know it as Piedmontese "Capretto" or Swiss "Gitzi".

I remember my father (born in Bulgaria), back in the sixties, of driving his Chrysler Imperial to Swiss Alpine villages up to dwindling heights to get the best "Gitzi". It was a cult. Gitzi is still widely available in Sitzerland on farmer markets (especially around easter) and quite popular.

No wonder:

Regarding kid, I'll always remember a simply roasted kid ... I know that perfect is an overused adjective speaking about dishes and meals, but in this case I think it's totally applicable.

Pedro, reading your words I could cry

Wrt. bakery: I know of tiny villages where the bakeries are outright communistic. They are small oven houses, belonging to everyone in the village. One person has to heat early in the morning, then baking of bread (first) and braising/simmering (later) is done collecitively. Must have functioned as some kind of lGullets (localGullet), when I imagine discussions among the locals about how, when and what to cook.

[Bux]

as in Spain in many parts of Turkey kids are roasted ... cabrito is superb too---just more lean.

It's a widespread known delicacy from Spain to Turkey, I guess.

I know it as Piedmontese "Capretto" or Swiss "Gitzi".

I'm not familiar with kid in most of southern France. It must be that it's relatively flat beteeen the Pyrenees and the Alps. Then again, there's no shortage of goat cheese in that region of France.

[Boris_A]

I'm not familiar with kid in most of southern France. ... Then again, there's no shortage of goat cheese in that region of France.

Another French paradox?

I just speculated () and I must concede I've never heard of French roasted kid.

I found the Swiss French expression "cabris" as translation for capretto or gitzi.

I succesfully googled for recipes for "Cabris de Corse" and recipes from Reunion. But no "real" French recipe. OTOH, it's almost unthinkable that French Alpine peasants in regions with goats did overlook this delicacy. I'm perpelexed.

EDIT:

Just found a recipe by Alain Ducasse (Grande Livre): Chevreau de lait de l'arrière-pays niçois.

Edited March 6, 2004 by Boris_A (log)

[pedro]

For more than 15 years, when I've felt a craving for great Castilian-style roast lamb in Madrid my most frequent choice has been the utterly unfashionable Asador Tierra Aranda (calle Padilla 56, phone 914 013 826). Like other 'asadores', it's the local outlet of a restaurant group headquartered in Aranda de Duero, the heart of Castilian lamb country, on the Duero river 100 miles north of the capital. Rather dark, cramped, with uncomfortable wood-and-leather rustic Castilian chairs, some photos of Aranda and the Castilian plateau as the only 'decoration', a middle-class public with no taste for modernity. But a good semicircular baker's clay oven and total reliability of the produce, most of it sent down from Aranda, including the delicious shallow, round, crusty local bread, the 'torta arandina'.

Today, we had the usual, reliable fare, as good as ever for a family lunch. The usual amuse-gueules: uncommonly tasty, deep-fried Burgos black sausage (studded with rice), a salad of roast red peppers, some just-fried small 'croquetas' filled with ham-studded béchamel, thinly sliced Ibérico ham, and the redoubtable 'picadillo', minced pork loin that's marinated in paprika and herbs, then fried in olive oil. Then the two quarters of small, milk-fed baby lamb of the 'churra' breed, which have been roasted/baked in the low-heat wood-fired baker's oven for hours, deftly doused with a little water every time it's needed, so it won't dry up. The texture resembles only that of some méchoui lambs in north Africa - so tender you almost don't need a knife, but intensely tasty. This is traditionally accompanied by a perfect (because it's lip-smackingly fresh, as is the norm here) Spanish salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes and onions in an olive oil and red wine vinegar vinaigrette.

The restaurant has a very conventional, truly boring wine list. That hasn't changed, either... Viña Pedrosa Reserva (DO Ribera del Duero) and Remelluri Crianza (DOC Rioja) are probably the best bets.

Some traditional home-made desserts. The 'flan', caramel custard, is promisingly irregular in appearance, with holes and cracks: usually a good sign. And indeed it's way above average. Acceptable coffee.

Price per person, with tax and tip: 35 euros.

Spanish comfort food, this.

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Pretty much the same menu today, perhaps a lighter one, pretty much the same results. A more barroque version of morcilla de Burgos in terms of seasoning than I'm used to, which added some nice complexity. The picadillo was properly seasoned, minced a bit coarser than in other versions where what you get is almost what it's used to fill chorizo with. I saw too late that they had mollejas (sweetbreads), so those will have to wait for the next visit.

The lamb is the best I've had in Madrid, with no hints of that wooliness that more often than not you find when having lamb.

Thanks for the tip, Víctor.