Cooking with "Tapas" by Jose Andres

[percyn]

Percy, Is the aioli is mashed with an asparagus in front of the egg in the second photo?

Doc, the aioli is not pictured. The thing in front of the egg in the 2nd photo is the white asparagus puree.

[docsconz]

Percy, Is the aioli is mashed with an asparagus in front of the egg in the second photo?

Doc, the aioli is not pictured. The thing in front of the egg in the 2nd photo is the white asparagus puree.

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Thanks, Percy. I should have known better

[markemorse]

Just for clarification: are we talking about aioli in the last couple of recipes, or allioli, the recipe that Andres starts the book with? And if it is indeed allioli, can anyone share their experience in making it?

mark

EDIT: oops, just saw that percy did indeed make the honey allioli with his lamb. Nonetheless, I'm interested to see if Bryan's talking about aioli or allioli...

Edited August 25, 2006 by markemorse (log)

[BryanZ]

Aren't the two the same thing. It's more or less flavored mayonnaise. The "original" Andres version creates the emulsification without the egg, however. I was talking about the egg version. And yes, it does mellow with time.

[markemorse]

Well....right or wrong, I always associate aioli with eggs, whether it's the mayonnaise you're talking about or the Provencal dish, and I just assumed that allioli was a different condiment altogether because of its egglessness. In any event the preparation is unusual enough to seem to warrant a distinction, but maybe I'm wrong...

mark

[Eden]

Has anyone made the Artichokes sauteed with ham? I am having trouble finding baby artichokes locally, and wondering if this is really as good with full sized chokes, or if I should just make different dish. He says you can use either, but...

[markemorse]

Almost made that tonight, but didn't get to the market in time and couldn't find any good lookin chokes. Instead, my cupboard contents steered me in the direction of two raw fish recipes: Tomato, green pepper, and cucumber salad with tuna in olive oil (p90); and Asturian-style Salmon (p192).

Only problem being that I didn't really have any raw fish I trusted, so variations occurred b/c I happened to have some Ortiz ventresca sitting around and some defrosting salmon. I hope that this post retains some relevance nonetheless, these are pretty practical/authentic subs I think.

The salad with tuna recipe has you poach garlic and tuna in olive oil for 14 minutes (garlic for 21). I cooked my garlic until soft, then poured it and some EVOO over my ventresca slices and let them hang out together in a bowl for 30 min or so.

Obviously, my end result is nothing like what you'd get if you poached fresh tuna in olive oil, but it was delicious nonetheless. The intro to the recipe describes the salad as a variation of gazpacho, and indeed it tastes like a light-on-the-tomato gazpacho: light, fresh, crunchy vegetables and in my case luscious tuna belly. After my initial tasting I added some toasted almonds and this was very good but changed the character of the dish pretty dramatically. Either way, though, a perfect summer appetizer and a good use for ventresca that doesn't mask its delicate taste.

Salmon: I cooked the salmon b/c all I had was frozen. I cooked my salmon and then let it cool and marinate in the cider vinegar/EVOO/juniper dressing for 30 minutes, next time I'll try it overnight (this is quickly becoming a completely diferent recipe, I apologize). The combination of raw Golden Delicious on top and the cooked Golden Delicious underneath was maybe not enough of a contrast....but I also don't love Golden Delicious. Next time I'll try diced Granny Smith on top and see if it's too tart or not. But in general, the salmon/chive/blue cheese/apple grouping was very successful and something I'll make again soon.

It's worth mentioning how critical salt is to these recipes. After my first taste of the salmon I realized that I didn't salt the apple puree (duh), and once I did the dish really came alive.

Both of these recipes were very very light...which is good, b/c I'm looking for things to serve with the Potatoes a la Riojana and the Chicken with Lobster....pictures next time.

ok

mark

[markemorse]

One more question for Bryan: what kind of dried sweet chile did you use in your romesco? I haven't looked for the ñora peppers specified in the recipe yet, but I'm assuming ancho might be a reasonable substitute if I can't find them.

mark

[BryanZ]

I kind of cheated and didn't use one because I couldn't find one. I might imagine anchos would be good.

[markemorse]

Ja, I've used anchos the last couple of times I've made it, but of course I have no idea what a ñora pepper tastes like so I have no idea if my end result tastes anything like a Spanish romesco, etc. etc. etc. I was just curious.

thanks,

mark

[Chef T]

Nice Dinner Bryan (and good luck in school) !!!

Yesterday's breakfast:

"Hot spring Egg" with White Asparagus

I made the eggs in a water bath @65C for 1 hr. I found this dish to be a bit bland, so I added a bit of aioli which went well with the asparagus.

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Maybe try cooking the egg at 63 c for 1 hour. The yolk looks a little over. The yolk is part of the sauce you are not going to get the rich flavor with the way the egg was cooked( at to high of a temperature) . And you can may be add a couple of grapefruit slivers. And you didn't add any herbs. Sliced chives and a little maldon salt would be a nice finishing touch.

Edited August 27, 2006 by Chef T (log)

[percyn]

Maybe try doing the egg at 63 c for 1 hour.  The yolk looks a little over.

I might have to experiment with the temp a bit. Since the eggs came from the fridge, I figured the yolk would still be a bit runny, but unfortunately it was not. I will try it at 63 or 63 next time.

I did add some fennel fleur de sel to the puree (after the picture was taken), as I did not have fresh herbs or chives handy when I made it.

Edited August 27, 2006 by percyn (log)

[siriuslea]

Hiya Everyone,

I've tried 3or 4 of the recipes from the book. First I made the Beef tenderloin with Cabrales except I used an Organic Hanger steak (cheap cut) which I cooked to 140F at 200F. It turned out quite well and although not as tender as tenderloin just a little chewy.

Then I made eggs in the 63-64C water bath for 35 min. I thought my yolks were a bit firm too. Next time I'll reduce the temp a little although on my gas stove the larger burner was set to min.

I also made the Green beans with tomatoes and pearl onions. I followed the recipe carefully weighing the ingredients. My boyfriend thought there were too many beans for the amount of other ingredients. I would put more garlic and onions in next time. I also found the dish a bit oily. It is quite a flavourful dish more so because we split the four servings between 2 of us. There was enough serrano ham though next time I will cut into smaller ribbons. That ham has a meaty maybe gamey flavour brought out by the other ingredients.

Lastly I made the Oven roasted potatoes and oyster mushrooms. After finding the Green Beans too oily I cut back a little on olive oil for this dish. I did find 2 tsp of salt too salty so I doubled the potatoes and made a second salt free version to mix with the first (I think I actually used 2 lbs of potatoes total which were 6 med potatoes, the recipe only called for 2 large potatoes or 1/2 lb). I think this kind of potato dish would be great on the second day.

I definitely plan to make a few more adventurous dishes over the next few weeks.

Siri

Edited August 29, 2006 by siriuslea (log)

[BryanZ]

63C is def. the way to go.

I've posted this in a couple other threads but when you get the egg right it's so awesome. The yolk runs out beautifully and, in the case of this dish, creates something like a broken emulsion with the beurre monte on the asparagus.

[markemorse]

One other thing I forgot to add - I used the called for 4 ozs of potato chips and seven large size eggs and the tortilla ended up more "egg-y" than I had anticipated and than other tortillas I've made in the past. 

Anyone else have that problem or should it actually be more egg than potato?  Should I have used samller eggs?  Chef Andres?

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Hey bilrus, I just made a test version of the Route 11 tortilla for a dinner this Thursday night and I too ended up with a much more egg-y result than I expected. It basically looked like your photo, whereas Malawry's looks a little more like what I was imagining. Unsurprisingly, Malawry's pre-skillet egg + chip mixture looks much less eggy than mine as well.

I think since the size was almost perfect for my pan, I'll probably reduce by one egg and add another ounce or two of chips. Tasting notes: Nice, but egg-centric (heh). I introduced the second half of mine to some sofrito (p. 37) that was hanging out by the stove, and I must say the two seemed happy together.

mark

Edited August 29, 2006 by markemorse (log)

[Malawry]

Mark and Bilrus, did you let the egg soak into the chips thoroughly before adding the last egg and cooking?

I am also wondering if this is an egg-size issue.

[markemorse]

I waited 5 minutes or so, as specified in the recipe. I was hungry! I can see how another 5 minutes might've made a big difference...interested to hear how long you waited.

Egg size may be difficult to compare precisely, my eggs are just classified as "groot" (big). There's a little 5-egg scale on the front that shows the possible sizes: mine are the second biggest. They don't look unusually large, but maybe I'm just used to them.

mark

[Chef T]

When you say that the tortilla is to eggy, can you be more specific because this tortilla is a egg and potato tortilla. Maybe it could be too eggy because it was cooked too long or the temperaturewas too high?

[markemorse]

Hey Chef T,

I'm used to tortillas de patatas that are pretty dense with potatoes, or where the egg and potato are at least on equal footing with each other. This was definitely more...(is there a synonym for eggy?) "full of egg" than tortillas I'm used to. It was difficult to detect a potato component while tasting. I'm kind of at a loss for how to elaborate. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a cooking time problem, because even my pre-skillet version looks quite different from Malawry's.

mark

[Malawry]

I used cheap supermarket eggs, sized large. I am pretty sure the mix rested longer than 5min, because I was cooking about 6 things at once and taking pictures of them all that day.

[markemorse]

Thanks Malawry. Just so we can get on with our lives (and on to the next recipe), I'm making it again tomorrow...I'll let you know what happens.

Tonight I made the Mushrooms in Escabeche with ham (p.65), and it's perfect. Have to admit I only used 2 cups of EVOO instead of 3. It was painful even doing 2 cups, but I imagine the oil will still be useful when the shrooms are gone.

[markemorse]

OK, I promise, this is my last post about the Route 11 tortilla.

Made it twice yesterday and it came out perfect both times.

Used 6 eggs instead of 7, and soaked the potato chips for 15 minutes or so.

Served it with sofrito on the side, it disappeared so fast the first time I had to make another one.

In case anyone's interested in the full menu (sorry no pictures, wife took camera to Shetland Isles on summer adventure):

Big table laid out with:

-Black Olive and Walnut breads from 't Vlaamsche Broodhuys

-a young Manchego

-a terrific Cabrales, I couldn't believe how much of this people ate.

-a very potent sheep's milk cheese called San Sueña, cubed and preserved in EVOO. When I bought this from Hollandaluz, the girl behind the counter told me that "we say 'you can almost taste the farmer'" in this cheese. I halved the cubes after they came out of the jar, because they were just too sharp.

-Membrillo

-Mushrooms in Escabeche (p.65). Awesome.

-Chorizo a la Sidra (pg.230). Very good and supersimple to make.

-Arbequina olives

Then:

-Tortilla al estilo Route 11 (p.55) with Sofrito (p.37). Really good, now that the technical issues have been resolved. I finally used some olive oil potato chips as well this time, big difference. Lightly browned exterior, slightly runny center, pretty perfect-looking and tasting. I personally enlisted the sofrito for excitement, but I'm an raving egg/tomato sauce fiend.

and, after a bit, plated:

-Garlic Shrimp (pg.139) with Romesco sauce (pg.95). The tiniest bit boring for me, although everyone ate every last bit. The romesco was subtle, complex, great, but the shrimp themselves needed a bit of action.

-Spinach, Catalan-style (pg.109). Great, lots of discussion about this, especially the apples.

For dessert, chocolate bars from Dolfin in Belgium: dark chocolate with anise and milk chocolate with cinnamon.

Wines (all under 6 euro):

Heredad de Barros Tinto Crianza, Ribera del Guadiana 2001

Casa Solar Tempranillo 2003

Torres Sangre de Toro Garnacha/Cariñena 2004

Caño Cosecha Tempranillo/Garnacha 2004 (review here)

and someone brought a Spanish white from which the empty bottle has mysteriously vanished, so I'm not sure what it was.

This evening's food was a last-minute redesign for a non-meateater (eggs, cheese + shellfish OK though). Looking forward to doing one for unapologetic carnivores.

mark

EDIT: Figured out that my little brown olives were Arbequinas.

Edited September 1, 2006 by markemorse (log)

[Malawry]

Excellent, Mark.

I was supposed to teach a tapas class next week, and it got cancelled...too close to the holiday weekend to garner enough interest I guess. Too bad, I was looking forward to demo-ing a few of these dishes...

[Pontormo]

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.

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It was this post with its long series of increasingly seductive photographs that inspired me to reserve a copy of the cookbook at the public library. (This is something I have been trying to do lately to stop buying so many books. However, it only makes me want the good ones even more.)

Question: One thing I'd like to know is why Idaho (aka Russet) is specified in EVERY single recipe that calls for potatoes. A clue appears in Pedro's instructions, not excerpted here: do not slice all the way through the potato; snap it to release starch. Thus a starchier potato makes sense for some recipes, but not the ones that call for frying smaller cubes, right? And wouldn't russets break up in some forms of preparation?

I haven't looked through the entire thread, but Rochelle, thanks for recommending sofrito for a potato tortilla which I will probably make with Carolina potatoes sold to me by Heinz, the bearded farmer whose photo is on p. 45 of the book...unless I make the gazpacho. Reports of a few things I haven't seen here yet will come later in the week.

Meanwhile, Bryan, your dinner party looks wonderful, especially the croquetas.

[markemorse]

I mentioned that my garlic shrimp with romesco were just OK. Afterwards I noticed that in the photo in the book (p.139) it really looks like there are a few pieces of shaved hard cheese (Manchego?) on the shrimp, but they're not specified in the recipe. Or am I crazy? If not, does anyone else have any idea what that might be....might've been just what they needed.

mark

Edited September 5, 2006 by markemorse (log)