Cheeses of Spain & Portugal

[malacitana]

I've been to L'Alezna this summer for lunch. It's a nice, modern restaurant which is located above a small river, and the diners have a nice view of the landscape. It is very difficult to find, though.

The food seemed to be an absolute bargain, if I remember our four course lunch

menu was around 25 Euro.

I had an additional starter, which was a sea urchin, filled with a cider sauce, and topped with a small, very thin biscuit which again was topped with small cubes of apple jelly and julienne of apple. One had to crush the biscuit and mix the crumbles and the apple into the sea urchin. The result was excellent.

Then we had a spinach salad with grilled green asparagus, asturian cheese, and crystallized honey. Very nice.

Then a refined classical asturian fish stew, with a very concentrated fish stock. Not a creative dish, but the ingredients were all excellent. It was one of the best fish soups I ever had.

The meat was a braised piece of iberian pork in an infusion of dark berries. You must like pork fat to enjoy this, but it was melt in your mouth.

Dessert was a carrot cake with caramelized orange zests. Was good, but didn't strike me as very spanish.

Altogether a very nice experience.

[vserna]

Becas or Begas maybe.

←

Bejes. This is not in Asturias, but across the border in Cantabria. It's one of the two cheese-making villages atop the Liébana valley (the other is Tresviso). The appellation is Picón de Bejes-Tresviso.

A late addendum. Sorry to quote myself, but I think my report on the Reinosa summer artisanal food market had some info of interest in this context:

* The marvelously unctuous, well-balanced, complex picón de Bejes-Tresviso made by Amalia, of Bejes (no last name needed; in Spanish blue cheese land, as in Brazilian soccer, first names are sufficient). Of course, not the slightest hint of a knitting needle used to accelerate the inoculation with penicillium: this is the real, 100% natural thing. As I believe I mentioned in another thread on cabrales/picón/valdeón, when choosing a Picos de Europa blue cheese the name of the shepherd (or shepherdess, in this case) is paramount – much more so than the name of the village where it comes from. And Amalia is to Spanish blue cheese what Jean-François Coche-Dury is to white Burgundy.

Edited November 29, 2005 by vserna (log)

[dfunghi]

I had not seen that post before thank you for the replay. Amalia's is in the village of Bejas I believe and is a little white house. We were sent to her by another cheese maker in Bejas and her cheese was great. As was his ( the other maker) abd Bejas was much easier to reach than Sotres however Sotres has more to offer in restaurants / inns and stores. I did know that part of being the other side of the mountains and that is why ones is Cabrales and one is Picon and one is Valdeon however I find all to be about the same cheeses that vary more form producer to producer than town to town.

I like your Coche comment and wish Coche was as easy ( and affordable ) to come by as the afformentioned cheese. I actually enjoy a nice chilled Spate or great Kabinet with the blue cheeses.

I actually still have 3 whole cheeses , 1 picon, 1 cabrales, and 1 vaca cheese from raw milk that came from a small town in the Benesqua valley. Sort of a hard cheese with a natural rind. Really stinky but not too strong on the pallate.

[Almendro]

I'll second the empanada de merluza at Sport, and add the setas rellenas at Casona del Pio in Cudillero. Considering that we've been renovating an old mill in Oviñana for several months now, I'm embarassed to admit that we haven't tried La Cueva, though our neighbors tell us it is wonderful. I would, however, recommend the restaurant in the Hotel Cabo Vidio, a small, family run place just off the highway between Oviñana and Soto de Luiña.

Edited December 7, 2005 by Almendro (log)