Savour these traditional Spanish dishes and delve into the delectable world of Mediterranean cuisine with these easy-to-make recipes...
Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish potato and egg omelette)
Ingredients: Olive oil 6 tbsp Diced potatoes 450 gm Chopped Spanish onions 1 Eggs 5 Freshly chopped parsley 1 tbsp Salt
Method: Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add potatoes and onion to the pan. Cover and cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes until it turns soft. Make sure it doesn’t turn brown. Keep stirring occasionally to prevent it from sticking to the pan. Remove it from the pan and reserve the oil. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Mix in potatoes, onion and chopped parsley. Leave for 10 minutes. Next, wipe the pan with absorbent kitchen paper. Add sufficient reserved oil to cover its base in a thin film. Add eggs. Spread it evenly in a pan. Cook over moderate heat and shake the pan occasionally. Add a little more oil and cook the other side of the omelette. Cook until it turns brown. Slide onto a serving plate. Serve warm or at room temperature. Recipe courtesy: Chef Kirankumar Parmar (Sous Chef – Waterside Café, The Club, Mumbai).
Pollo en Pepitoria (Chicken in almond sauce)
Ingredients: Olive oil 2 tbsp Chicken, cut into 8 pieces, or four large portions, halved, 1.75 kg Finely chopped Spanish onions 1/2 Chicken stock 225 ml Crushed cloves and garlic 4 Lightly roasted almonds 20 gm Pinch of ground cloves l Freshly chopped parsley 3 tbsp Egg yolks 3 Salt
Method: Heat oil in a flameproof casserole. Add chicken and fry till it turns light brown. Using a slotted spoon, remove chicken from the casserole and cook for about five minutes. Stir occasionally. Pour in the stock, cover tightly and simmer gently for about 45 minutes, until chicken is tender. Pound together garlic, almonds, cloves and parsley. Place this mixture in a small bowl and gradually work in the egg yolks. Pour a little hot chicken liquid into the bowl, and then add this mixture into the casserole. Continue to cook and gently stir, until the sauce thickens. Do not boil. Season with salt and serve.
Review by Shunashir Sen
What does it say if a restaurant has more staff members than customers at lunchtime on a Saturday It says that the kitchen isn’t busy. So if The Wife asks for the quickest starter since she hasn’t eaten all morning, it’ll be served in less than five minutes flat.
The restaurant in question is The Spare Kitchen. The starter is the Wok-Tossed Chilli Garlic Chicken ('275). What’s good is that you can actually see bits of garlic in it. What’s better is that the chilli is willing to sit back while the other flavours do the talking. But the best thing about the dish, given the situation, is that it has been served in less than five minutes.
“What do you think ” I ask The Wife once the smile is back on her face since there’s food in her tummy. Curiously, she still has cause to complain. She says, “The marination is good, but tell me what you think. I think they messed up with the seasoning.”
That’s harsh, I feel, without saying it. The dish seems perfectly fine, given it’s wok-tossed in under five minutes. “Well, you asked for it,” I don’t tell her. Aloud I start making a point but end up saying something like — ‘Hmmm’. Sometimes, we should agree to agree. Maybe that’s the answer to world peace, or marital discord if nothing else.
The other starter we order is The Seafood Platter (Rs 525), probably because we’re both fish-loving Bengalis. It comes with two types of tandoori fish and — a taste worthy of an Olympic medal — tandoori prawns. Come to think of it, how can anyone not allergic to it argue with tandoori prawns Not me certainly, and not The Wife either. She’s already on to ordering the main course, positively beaming by now. But before she can get lost in the menu (as she always does), I slide in with my expert suggestion — the wood-fired meat-cheese ‘Four x 4’ pizza.
What is it about a wood-fired pizza Why does it make home-delivered Domino’s taste like cheese toast left in the fridge for far too long There is, for one thing, an ‘earthiness’ to it, which our ancestors would understand better. It’s our oldest forefathers after all who taught us how to make fire from wood. So let’s be honest here. No one likes popping food into a microwave. But fact is that in modern times we are spoilt enough to walk into a Juhu restaurant and get a perfectly decent starter served quicker than the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. So it doesn’t matter if the seasoning isn’t always spot-on unless, of course, you do deserve the world.
Rating: 3.5 Cost for two: Appx. Rs 2,200 with a pint of Kingfisher each. Address: Ground Floor, Hotel King’s International Compound 5, JuhuTara Road, Juhu, Mumbai.
