Lettercollum Kitchen Project

We’re  hanging out in Alicante. When we mentioned to friends that we were going to Alicante they looked at us as if we were cracked – it has such a reputation for lager louts, teabags, and chips . This may be true of the resorts, I can’t vouch for them, but Alicante, like many of Spain’s cities  has a thriving city centre complete with good food, culture and a beach.

I have been exploring cities with beaches for some years now, visiting cities that we can travel to, mostly via Cork airport, for a short break.

We set off this morning to check out the beach, it was a little busy at the city end but we walked along and there was plenty of space. It’s not a bad beach in the grand scheme of things, it’s clean and sandy and the sea is blue. When we needed some lunch so we wandered back through the small streets and found ourselves a sunny spot to sit,

The Menu del Dia is the way to go  in Spain if you  like good value local food. Our menu was ¢11 for four courses and a glass of wine which is quite phenomenal. It never ceases to amaze me and we enjoyed everything that we ate.

The lunch kicked off with a classic Spanish salad – lettuce, tomatoes, onions, tuna and olives and was then followed with a choice of three dishes. I chose the gazpacho, one the the ultimate sunshine dishes.

Con took the Alubias a lo Pobre – poor mans beans.

We shared a main course of Fideua de Mariscos. This is a paella type dish which is made with noodles instead of rice. It was a different version from the one that we are used to – larger macaroni type noodles.

For dessert Con chose a torta de Chocolate – chocolate tart

I had Flan de Coco, a take on the traditional creme caramel made with coconut, both were delicious although I was a little defeated at this stage.

All of this washed down with a glass of Alicante white wine cost us twenty two euro.

Maybe we won’t go home!!

The tunnel in our garden is being planted with seedlings, it’s like an instant garden. The beds are filling up with cute rows of spinach, pak choi, herbs etc . There is also a big bed of garlic and onions that has been growing all winter, none the worse for wear after it’s months of exposure whilst the tunnel was wrecked. There’s a piece of chicken wire attached to the wall behind where they are growing and this is where I plant beans and peas . The borlotti beans are already in and thriving and today I transplanted the sugar snap peas. It was a bit of squeeze to get them in behind the garlic and I ended up picking the back row of garlic to make space.

The evicted garlic  was a real bonus. I cooked a potato and garlic soup and it was absolutely yum.

If you don’t have baby garlic I’m sure wild garlic would make a great substitute. The woods and lane ways are full of wild garlic at this time of the year

Potato and Garlic Soup

1 onion, peeled and chopped

2 stems celery, diced

3 potatoes, peeled and diced

25g butter

25 mls olive oil

about 600mls vegetable stock

8 baby garlic or a large bunch of wild garlic

Melt the butter and olive oil together and then add the onion and celery. Sweat them gently whilst you peel and dice the potato. Stir the potato into the onion and celery, season with salt and black pepper and sautee gently for at least ten minutes. Give the occasional stir so that it doesn’t stick.

Clean up the garlic. peel off the very outer layer, trim the tatty ends of the green part and rinse under the tap.

Chop the white part of the garlic first and add this to the onion/spud mix. Cook for five minutes then stir in about 600mls of vegetable stock – if the soup is too thick which is likely the consistency can be adjusted at the end. Bring to the boil and simmer for about five minutes. Chop the green part of the garlic and add into the soup. Cook for another couple of minutes then give the soup a brief buzz – I like to have lumpy bits in mine.

Taste and adjust the seasoning then serve with a swirl of cream, creme fraiche or yoghurt.

The kitchen window sill is full with baskets and bowls of eggs. The chickens are doing quite some egg laying at the moment. Nineteen eggs today which makes just about an egg a hen. The only hen that’s not laying is Miss Grey who is super broody. She’s my favourite hen. mainly because she survived the fox foray that took out most of her chums. She’s a pretty blue grey and quite gutsy which is why it’s difficult to get her off the nest. I’m thinking about slipping a clutch of eggs under her if she stays put. Unfortunately we have once again eaten all of her eggs – we did that last year too – before we decided she wasn’t going to budge, so there won’t be any mini Miss Greys.

As there’s an egg glut we had a spinach, chive and ricotta sort of tortilla for lunch. Very quick and tasty to make.

Serves 4 hungry people

7 eggs

about 500g spinach, washed and thick stems removed

a bunch of chives, chopped

2 cloves garlic

200g fresh ricotta

a knob of butter

2tbs olive oil

salt and pepper

Gather the spinach leaves together, roll them up on the chopping board and cut them into ribbons.

Heat a non stick frying pan, melt the butter, add the olive oil then pile in the spinach.

Sprinkle with a little salt and cook on a medium heat until the spinach wilts down. Peel and chop the garlic and stir into the spinach. Cook for three to four minutes more.

Whisk the eggs together in a bowl, season with salt and pepper.

Tip the spinach into the eggs and stir in the chives and the ricotta. Don’t break ricotta up too much.

Pre -heat the grill

Put the frying pan back on the heat, add a little olive oil then pour in the egg mix. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and cook gently for about five minutes. then remove the lid from the pan and pop it under the grill finish cooking on the top side.

Here’s a picture of the piece that we didn’t eat!