Since arriving in Barcelona I am becoming a compulsive shopper.

The kitchen is bulging with food and everywhere that I look there’s more. Winking at me. We are becoming a food sanctuary!

Today I have decided to keep my eyes straight ahead and my hands in my pockets.

Yesterday we went to the market and came home with a piece of hake and half it’s head, the half a head was a surprise, split right down the middle.We got one eye and half a mouth. It was included in the price . The head and all other trimmings are fairly shared between whoever buys the fish.It came in very useful to make some fish stock which we used to make a simple fish stew

We cut the hake into steaks, Spanish style, to cook on the bone.

Here’s the recipe

1 onion- peeled and sliced

olive oil

3 cloves garlic – peeled and chopped

1 large red pepper – deseeded and sliced thinly

1 leek – cleaned and chopped into 1cm pieces

1 bay leaf

3 potatoes – peeled and cut into chunks one can of tomatoes

1 glass white wine about

500mls fish stock

a handful of chopped basil

about 150g fish per person

To make the stock; a fish head or bones, a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion all peeled and chopped Put all the ingredients for the stock into a saucepan and barely cover with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for twenty minutes.

To make the stew, heat a large pan and add a little olive oil and the onions, when they start to sizzle away stir in the peppers, bay leaf, potatoes and leek. Season with a little salt. Cook on a medium heat for about ten minutes then add the  the garlic. Give a few stirs, pour in a glass of wine and when the wine bubbles up add the tomatoes and the fish stock. Simmer everything for about twenty minutes or until the potatoes are tender. The sauce will reduce whilst cooking, if it becomes too thick add a little more fish stock  or a little water. taste the stew and adjust the seasoning. Season the pieces of hake with a little salt and pepper and post into the stew, giving them a little push to submerge them as far as possible in the sauce. Cook for about four minutes then carefully turn them over, push them into the sauce again and cook for a few minutes longer. Take the pan off the heat and scatter with the chopped basil .

Last night we ate Fideua, a fairly controversial thing to do for the Three Kings Feast, as no self respecting Spaniard would eat that for dinner. It would most definitely be considered a lunch dish. It’s made with fine pasta vermicelli instead of rice with whatever you have from the sea. It was delicious. I hung around the kitchen while it was being made which is always the best way to unlock the secret of making a dish. It seems the stock is the most important ingredient, the actual seafood element can be made up of posh small bitty bits. We had prawns and squid. The prawns were peeled and the heads and shells went into the stock pot and the squid were cleaned and sliced into rings.

To make the stock  a little olive oil went into a big pot and the prawn heads and shells were fried off.  We also had some galera – the dictionary translated as mantis prawns. They are chubby little things which look like cockroaches of the sea. They’re about four centimetres long and aren’t up to much for eating but are great in the stock pot. These got fried up too, then in went a couple of chopped cloves of garlic and a big grated tomato. Once the garlic got going, in went a monkfish head, a handful of little fishes and enough water to barely cover. This was bought to the boil then cooked at a gentle roll for a good hour.

While this was cooking we had an aperitif . When we continued cooking a little oil went into a large shallow pan and the prawns and calamari were quickly fried off and put aside. This just takes a few minutes in a hot pan.

Using the same pan a couple of cloves of garlic were gently fried and then two big fatty tomatoes were grated and added.This all bubbles away into a rich sauce which is seasoned at the end with some salt and smoked paprika.

The fideua (vermicelli pasta) now goes into the sauce and is given a good stir followed by the stock.

How much stock? This is the question. I reckon it was about double the amount of pasta so for every 100g pasta, 200mls stock. And maybe a splash for luck. Once everything is bubbling away the heat is turned to medium and the prawns and squid were posted over the top. Five- six minutes later it’s ready for eating.

Yum!

Each winter I make a small stash of special reserve marmalade. It’s quite a procedure but to my mind and my taste buds it’s definitely worth the trouble.

This years organic Seville oranges appeared early, in the middle of December, and rather than miss them I bought my usual three kilos and stashed them. Until yesterday.

It’s a two day mission to make marmalade so you need a bit of time and space to get it done. First the peel of the orange needs to be pared away from the pith and then finely shredded with a sharp knife.

The oranges are then juiced, pips, pith and any remaining fruit flesh are tied in a muslin bag and then everything is put into a large bowl and seeped over night with some water.

The next day all of this is tipped into a big saucepan and boiled up for an hour or so, until the peel is tender. The muslim bag comes out at this stage. I put it in  a colander and left it to cool while I took the dog for a run on the beach. When I got back it was cool enough to handle and I could give it a good squeeze to extract all the pectin, Pectin is extremely gelatinous and this is vital for the marmalade to set. Once the pectin was back in the pot I added the sugar and boiled it up. And boiled it up! It takes ages. The kitchen was like a steam bath even though I had the extractor on. I was checking to see whether it would set by dropping a spoonful onto a chilled plate and doing the wrinkle test. When it finally it reached setting point. I potted it up and we now have nine jars of very valuable orange nectar for our breakfast toast.

We drove to the city yesterday to watch The LIfe of Pi.

It’s surprising how hungry you can get just sitting watching a movie. Mind you the journey was pretty epic. We went to Mahon Point shopping centre, thinking we wouldn’t have to pay for parking and there were so many people there we couldn’t find a parking space! Luckily all these people were on a crazy shopping mission and the cinema had plenty of space. I really enjoyed reading the book some years ago and the movie does a great job with the story.

It took twenty minutes to leave the car park after the movie so by the time we got home we were even hungrier.

We had a bowl of vegetables left over from our Xmas dinner – roasted spuds and chilli ginger sprouts and these were rapidly transformed together with a fried onion into a tortilla which we ate accompanied by some ‘blonde’ cole slaw.

Winter slaws are the business this time of the year and in our vegetable basket we had a pointy cabbage, some chicory and fennel. I sliced these all thinly , added a sliced pear and  a few walnuts and made some dressing by mixing a little left over vinaigrette with a little left over sour cream and a little wedge of gorgonzola cheese.

All very tasty and it helped to shift the backlog of food loitering in our kitchen.

I first ate this dish sitting on rooftop in Jodphur in Rajastan, India.

I was blown away by the fresh sweet explosions of the pomegranate seeds served on top of the chickpea dal, it looked amazing too. The bright pink jewel like pomegranate seeds glistening on top of the brown chickpea stew, It certainly elevates what can look like – we’re not talking taste here – a rather pedestrian looking dish to something that’s quite exotic. The chickpeas are cooked with tomatoes and tamarind and the tamarind gives a lovely sour twist, the perfect complement to the pomegranate seeds

It’s pomegranate season now and the pomegranate sitting in our fruit basket inspired tonights dinner. It is so easy to make and quite a taste sensation. We ate it with basmati rice, tomato and red onions, sliced, and seasoned with a little salt and lemon juice and some thick creamy yoghurt. Yum!

Pindi Channa

500g cooked chickpeas or 2 cans rinsed and drained

1 tsp tamarind concemtrate

100mls hot water

25mls vegetable oil

250g onions, peeled and chopped

5-6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

25g fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

1 tsp turmeric

1-2 chillie, chopped

1 can tomatoes, chopped

1 heaped tsp toasted cummin seeds

1 heaped tsp garam masala

1 pomegranate

a handful of fresh coriander

Put the teaspoon of tamarind concentrate into 100mls of hot water and stir until it has dissolved.

Put a small dry pan on the heat and gently toast the cummin seeds until they lightly brown and become aromatic. Put aside to cool.

Heat a saucepan and add the vegetable oil and the chopped onions, season with a little salt and cook without browning for about ten minutes. Stir in the chopped garlic, chilli and ginger. Cook gently for a few minutes then stir in the turmeric. Add in the can of tomatoes, the toasted cummin seeds and the tamarind juice, mix everything together and cook for fifteen minutes. Just before serving stir in the garam masala and add more salt if needed. Roll the pomegranate around on the table or a chopping board, using a little pressure with the palm of your hand to loosen the seeds then cut it in half and tip the seeds out into a sieve. pick out any bits of menmbrane and drain off excess juice – you can drink the juice. Serve the dal with the pomegranate seeds and chopped coriander on top.

We often have a large lunch on a Sunday. We eat it very late. It’s a bit of a throw back to when we had the restaurant and we used to sit down and eat the ‘scraps’ when all the customers had left.

Sunday lunch for us never begins before five and can be as late as six or seven by the time guest arrive and we sit down. Technically it could be called dinner but we still call it lunch as we operate a two meal only policy on Sundays. A large breakfast and a large lunch.

Yesterdays lunch was big on root vegetables and pumpkins.

We started off with roasted pumpkin on grilled polenta and salad leaves with borlotti beans and toasted pumpkin seeds with a pumpkin seed oil and a pomegranate  dressing. The dressing was divine. We were given a bottle of the most amazing toasted pumpkin oil from Austria by one of our woofas last summer (thank-you Lucas) and I whisked that together with white balsamic vinegar and the juice from the pomegranate.

The second course was a beetroot risotto. I love beetroot risotto, the wacky colour alone brings a smile to everyones faces.We ate it with roasted parsnips and carrots.We have discovered that we have enormous parsnips in our garden so I roasted some of those along with some carrots and dressed them with a little maple syrup when they came out of the oven. The earthy sweetness of the beetroot went alongside the maple parsnips very well. The photo is rather messy as I had the bright idea of economising with the washing up and eatening the main course off the starter plates. Not such a pretty vision I think I’ll make more effort next time!

Dessert was a seductive truffley chocolate cake. It was bought by one of the guests and was delicious.We managed to polish most of of it off. I don’t know where we put it all!

Here’s the recipe for the beetroot risotto

Beetroot Risotto

2 medium onions

4-5 medium beetroots

25g butter

25ml olive oil

400g Arborio rice

1 glass white wine

About 1.25 litres hot vegetable stock

100g parmesan cheese

handful flat leaf parsly.

Peel and chop the onions. Melt the butter together in a pan and add the onions. As soon as the onions begin to sizzle season with a little salt and  turn the heat down. Cook gently for about 7 minutes. The onions should soften, not brown.

Peel the beetroots and cut into a fairly small dice then stir into the onions. Season with a little salt and cook for a further ten minutes, giving occasional stirs.

Add the Arborio rice to the vegetables and give a good stir, then add the glass of white wine. Allow the wine to bubble up and reduce then add a small amount of the hot vegetable stock. Cook for a couple of minutes then start adding the stock ladle by ladle. Stirring between additions. Keep the rice cooking, so that you can visibly see action but not like a volcano. The rice will be cooked after 15=20 minutes, Check and maybe add more stock, or water if you’re out of stock. If the rice has the slightest bite to it, take it off the heat and beat in the Parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper and serve with a sprinkle of chopped flat leaf parsley

Gin bars are popping up in Barcelona. Gin and tonics aren’t new but there are now bars with an enormous variety of gins and lots of tonics to try.

The oldest gin bar in Barcelona the XIXBAR has more than thirty gins on offer,and is close by to where I am staying. There is an extensive menu using gins from all over the world and about half a dozen tonics. Not all the drinks on offer use tonic, there are plenty of other options including a blue gin made  with a dash of curacao which looks pretty wacky.

Being a gin and tonic officinado myself, tasting the tonics seemed like a do-able plan, with the most chance of survival. Half a dozen tonics versus thirty odd gins seemed the safer option

So  we decided to focus on the tonics. and see how much impact they had on our enjoyment. This all became a little hazy – not the enjoyment but the subleties of the tonic if we drank more than one at once. This is of course is partly due to the generous measures dispensed in the bars which has also lead to a new discovery that you’re meant to tell the bar tender when to stop pouring. This is obviously why we have been drinking such whopping great gin and tonics over the years..

The tasting panel consisted of myself, A Catalan and A Pregnant Lady which really gave the tonic an open rating as it wasn’t occluded by gin.

Some of the tasting was done at home and some in the bars

Here are our findings.Score are from 1-5, 5 being the top rating and price taken into consideration

Feverfew Indian Tonic -price €5.40 for 4 bottles of 200mls

We thought this was a bit lemonady and gave a score of 2 . We weren’t influenced by the fact that Adria Ferran apparently drinks this!!

Fentimans Tonic -price €5.70 for 4 bottles of 200mls

A herby, bitter and tasty tonic. very nice for a change, scored 4 but was downgraded to 3 with the price consideration

Q Tonic -not sure of the price per bottle as we tasted this in the XIXBAR but probably similar to Fentimans

On our tonic research we had discovered that Q Tonic still uses quinine – most tonics use an artificial substitute as it’s cheaper- and had expected to excite our tastebuds but it tasted disappointingly ordinary and it got a score of 2

Tonica Catalana price €1.40 for 250mls

There was definitely enough tonic to make a whopping g and t in this bottle. It was fresh, a little bitter and not too sweet. We gave it a score of 4 – the Catalan was especially enthusiastic with a 5 but could be somewhat biased!

Blue Tonic

This was one of the XIXBAR creations. It looked spectacular and was lovingly prepared. First a lime skin was scraped over the ice, the rim of the glass was rubbed with lime juice and then then plenty of ice cubes were added. The gin was poured in – this was the moment in our education that the stop pouring instruction was discovered – and then the tonic. It looked spectacular and tasted very good. It got a score of 5 but cost a fortune so was downgraded to 4

Schweppes Tonic price €1.50 for 1 litre

The consensus was that this makes a jolly good g and t, not too sweet with a zing to it. This scored 3.5 but was upgraded to 4 with the price consideration!

At the end of the day, Schweppes tonic certainly does the trick and the other tonics are definitely fun to try but we think that there is an essential procedure for making gin and tonics and this has as much bearing as the gin or the tonic.

The glass needs to be large, preferably long and there must be plenty of ice and lemon. In fact enormous ice cubes really upgrade the drink. It’s a bit like blanching in reverse. Instead of having a huge pot of boiling water so that the temperature doesn’t plummet, huge ice cubes chill the drink without melting and making it watery. And of course  good company and sunshine will always upgrade the experience!

Spain is full of beans, this much I have discovered walking through garden allotments just out side of Barcelona.There are rows of bean structures dotted here and there, in-between all the other veggies. with all the foliage dying back and  the beans dangling there, waiting to be picked. I had a moment of bean envy as we can’t grow beans that way in Ireland, it’s far too cold and wet to grow beans for drying.

The  beans that are grown in Spain are not only eaten green earlier in the summer, they are also dried in the pods on the plants in the autumn and then harvested. I think they are probably enjoyed more as harvested beans than the fresh green kind. The Spanish kitchen is very good in the bean department and  beans are in soups, stews with chorizo etc.,and also with seafood . Any of these these combinations are a delicious way to make little go along way.

The seafood combo is something that I enjoy and last night we cooked beans with pumpkin and clams.

If you can’t get your hands on any clams, mussels make a good substitute

Here’s the recipe

250g white beans -cannelini or butterbean – soaked in cold water overnight

500g pumpkin or butternut squash

1 onion- peeled and chopped

1 clove garlic – peeled and chopped

1 glass white wine

75mls olive oil

a good pinch of saffron

500mls – 700mls vegetable stock – use the liquid from cooking the beans and top up with water

500g clams

a handful fresh parsley – chopped

Soak the beans overnight in cold water. the next day drain the beans and put them in a saucepan. Cover them with plenty of water and bring to the boil. Turn to a low simmer and cover with a lid.

Cook for about  forty minutes or until they are tender.

Put the saffron in a small bowl and cover with boiling water, leave aside to infuse.

Heat a fairly large saucepan then put enough olive oil into a pan to cover the bottom and add the chopped onions.Let these sizzle away whilst you peel and chop the pumpkin but don’t let them brown.

Peel the pumpkin and chop into equal sized chunks – about 2cms. Add the chopped garlic to the pan with the onions, give them a stir then add the pumpkin chunks and a little salt and pepper. Cook the pumpkin gently for about fifteen minutes then add a glass of white wine and about 500mls of stock and the saffron infusion..Bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about fifteen minutes or until the pumpkin is tender. Stir in the beans and let them heat through.Don’t finish the seasoniing until the clams have been stirred in as they will be a little salty

Put the clams into a large pot with a splotch of white wine. Turn the heat to high, cover with a lid and give a good few shakes. The clams are ready as soon as they open, this only takes a few minutes.

Stir the clams and the cooking juices into the pumpkin and beans, taste to check the seasoning and add more salt if you fancy.

Serve with a little chopped parsley

We’re back on the aubergines again but this time they’re Irish aubergines which are a more precious commodity. Tonight’s dinner was made with one big purple aubergine from Galway and one long Chinese aubergine from our tunnel in Timoleague. Our aubergine harvest was a bit of a disaster . They obviously didn’t enjoy our summer. I grew several varieties which I planted in the tunnel and funnily enough the Chinese aubergines did the best.

Anyways, I made a pilaf with the aubergines and a jar of ‘flood affected ‘ passata. We still have several bottles of passata which lost their labels when they sat in our flooded shop this summer. The only thing that’s wrong with them is the lack of label so we are slowly munching our way through them. They worked perfectly in the pilaf. I cooked some onions and cinnamon in a little butter then added ground allspice and some passata before adding the rice and fried aubergines.

We ate it with some yoghurt and mint sauce on the side

Here’s the recipe

2 aubergines

2 onions – peeled and chopped

25g butter

3 cloves garlic – peeled and chopped

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp chilli flakes

1 tsp ground allspice

350mls tomato passata

300g basmati rice

400 ml vegetable stock

olive oil to fry the aubergines

a handful of chopped coriander or parsley

DIce the aubergines into 2cm cubes and sprinkle with some salt. Leave them aside to sweat.

Measure the rice and put into a bowl and cover with warm water,

Melt the butter in a big sauce pan and add the chopped onions and cinnamon stick. Cook on a high heat until they are sizzling then turn the heat to medium and cook gently until the onions melt down.This will take about ten minutes

Add the chopped garlic and chilli flakes, cook for another couple of minutes then stir in the passata and ground allspice. Bring everything to the boil then turn the heat to low and simmer for  fifteen minutes.

Drain the rice and rinse under a cold tap. Shake off any excess water and add to the pot together with the vegetable stock. Season with a little salt, bring everything to the boil then cover with a lid and turn to the lowest simmer. Cook for twelve minutes then take off the heat and leave aside to relax. (leave the lid on – no peeping)

Put a frying pan on the heat and squeeze the aubergines, handful by handful, to get rid of the excess moisture. add a little olive oil to the frying pan and fry the aubergines until they are golden. This will probably have to be done in batches, don’t overcrowd the pan. When all the aubergines are cooked tip them into the pilaf , add a handful of chopped coriander or parsley and gently mix through.

To make the yoghurt/mint accompaniment finely chop a clove of garlic, add it to about 200mls Greek yoghurt and whisk in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Stir in a handful of chopped mint and serve the sauce  on the side of the pilaf.