Spanish food - Omar Allibhoy webchat Thurs 22 Aug 1-2pm

LyndaW

Hello Omar
I am so looking forward to this webchat. I love eating but hate cooking so maybe you can change me mind...? Mine's a personal question (following on from Nonu's assessment (which I have to agree with!) Are you married yet or have a family? My middle son once worked as a chef and I know he worked ridiculous hours. And my oldest also works in hospitality and he struggles with the late nights and unsociable hours. How do you manage to keep the balance?

I am married and I have a 5 week old son. My father once told me when I was 14 years old "Dedicate yourself to what you like to do and you will never have to work in your whole life." If you like what you do you will learn to enjoy the long hours and manage a healthy lifestyle. I could work Monday to Friday 9 to 5 in an office but I can tell you I would be incredibly unhappy. It comes down to them.

cm25

Hi Omar,

So great to have you on Gransnet, I'm really looking forward to reading all of your tips.
I, like everyone else it seems, adore tapas!
My question is what are the store cupboard essentials for spanish tapas cooking and where are the best places to source them??

Thanks!!!

Spanish olive oil, sweet pimenton, saffron, olives, rocksalt. That's very much it. Nothing fancy.

Nonu

Hi Omar , I hope you don"t mind me saying, but I have just seen your photo on G/N newsletter , and I have to say I think you rather handsome !

Thank you so much for the compliment. I hope you like my food too.

albertine

Hello
do you where can I buy dried giant butterbeans, please

You will be able to find them from ocado.com. They have a really good selection of Spanish deli products. Spanish butterbeans are very difficult to find otherwise.

nancy22

Hi There

I am a vegetarian but i also eat fish, but i also have limited time to cook at night, what would you recommend me to cook thats full of flavour but is quick to prepare and cook.

Many thanks

Mackerel in escabeche. Fry in a bit of olive oil sliced onion, carrot, garlic. Sprinkle a bit of sweet pimenton and add a splash of white wine or vinegar. Immerse your mackerel in this sauce and when cooked put on a plate. Mix the vegetables and liquid with a tin of drained chickpeas and serve with your fillet of mackerel.

flopsybunny

Hi Omar, I had some absolutely delicious rice pudding in Spain a couple of years ago. I'm not sure what was different about it, but it was nothing like the school dinners version I remember from my childhood. Is this a common dessert in Spain and would it be possible for me to make a rice pudding as good as the one I had on my holiday?

I am a huge fan of rice pudding and I agree there is no other like the Spanish one. I have cooked rice pudding in probably more than 30 different ways and in my book you will find the one I think is the best. And I promise you this one is very very good. Sorry, it's too long a recipe to write here.

GeraldineGransnet

I would love to get hold of some of those little earthenware dishes that are often used to serve tapas. Is it possible to get hold of them in this country? There used to be a deli near me that sold bigger ones (casserole size) but it's gone now. It's the small ones I'm after, anyway.

You can find the most beautiful earthenware from Spain on the Internet. Depending on how many you buy, they will be able to deliver them for free to your home.

getmehrt

I like the mixing of cheese and meat and vegetables that you get with tapas. I usually only serve cheese at the end of a meal. But I don't really know what to do with the cheese so that it's not just slabs. Should I be making it more interesting?! If so, how?

There is one recipe in the book called Almogrote Gomero which is a beautiful dip or spread from the Canary Islands. Just blend the cheese with one fresh tomato, a bit of vinegar, olive oil and cumin seeds. This will go very well with meats and vegetables.

fritterbug

Is there a correct proportion of hot to cold dishes when serving tapas?

Not at all. It's completely up to you.

appleseed

I am a bit hesitant about using peppers in cooking because (sorry, this is probably too much information) I find they repeat on me. They can be very aggressive. But I do like the taste at the time! Can you suggest any ways I can use them that will have less of a lasting effect?!

Roast your peppers at 200 degrees in the oven for 30 minutes. Place them in a tight container with a lid so that they keep steaming themselves. When they drop temperature peel them and deseed them. Use those peppers in any way you want and they won't repeat ever again.

firenze

A few years ago I had the most amazing ham in Spain that tasted like no ham I've eaten before or since. I think it was made from pigs that had fed on acorns - is that right? I wondered if you could tell me what it was called and if it's possible to buy it in the UK? Thanks.

It's called jamon iberico. What makes this ham so special is firstly the breed of the pig: iberico. Then it has to do with the way they live their lives, roaming freely in the woodlands of Spain eating grass and acorns throughout their lives. Once the pig is slaughtered we salt the leg for around 2 weeks and then we dry it in cold caves for 3 years. It results in what you described, the most amazing ham in the world. You can find thinly sliced iberico ham in supermarkets today, but you will only get the real thing freshly hand carved if you go to a Spanish tapas bar. I don't know where you live but I'm sure there is a local tapas bar which has it.

downwithcupcakes

Hello Omar,

I am on a bit of a mission to eat more pulses. Could you suggest anything delicious and Spanish I could do with, for example, chickpeas or butter beans?

Pan fry finely chopped garlic, onion, carrot and celery in olive oil. Add one bayleaf, salt, pepper, 1 teaspoon of sweet pimenton and a splash of white wine. Fill the pot with cold water, put your lentils inside and let it simmer for as long as the lentils need.

batgran

Hi Omar,

do you have any tips for making really crispy squid? I have tried but mine always comes out a bit soggy.

Thanks!

You will need chickpea flour to coat the squid, a very hot oil. Cook it only for 70 seconds at 190 degrees and when you drain it never pat it dry with kitchen paper. Always put it straight into a bowl, season with salt while sauteing in your bowl so that it dries in the air as opposed to steaming away in the paper. That should give you the perfect crisp squid.

granIT

Can you convince me that it's not fiddly to cook tapas? It seems to me that you have to serve far more dishes and that's a terrible faff. At least with pasta it's pasta and a sauce. I sometimes think about making tapas - I do love Spanish food - but it always seems more sensible to eat it out than to go to all the bother of cooking several different things, perhaps for only four people. I would like to be convinced it doesn't have to be too complicated...

It's not as complicated as it may seem. There is plenty of short and quick recipes that you can rustle up in literally 15 minutes. I cannot describe them all but they are all in the book. I promise you won't be disappointed and it will change your perception about Spanish food.

Mamie

Hello Omar
We love rice dishes. Last week our Spanish daughter-in-law made a delicious paella with chorizo and chicken and tonight we made arroz negro with allioli which was pretty good too.
So two questions, firstly what is your favourite rice dish and secondly which rice would you buy?
We live in northern France which is pretty hopeless for ingredients, but we always stock up when we are in Spain and come home laden with Nunez de Prado oil, tinned and dried peppers, saffron and rice. Is there anything else we should be buying in Spain? (Sorry that is three questions)!

My favourite rice dish is paella valenciana, the traditional and famous one. For any Spanish rice dish you will have to use always Spanish short grain rice (Bomba, Calasparra). Spanish rice is the best in the world and the most expensive. The reason is because it absorbs the most water of all the grains. Every penny will be well worth it. When I come back from Spain I always bring some sliced jamon iberico, morcilla de Burgos, pimenton dulce, manchego cheese...

jiggle

Can I ask one more? Why do boquerones (white anchovies) taste so good and tinned brown anchoviues taste so bad???

They are the same fish but one is cured for 8 hours in vinegar and the other is salted for days. In Spain you can get very good of both but here in the UK unfortunately the salted anchovies you get in the tins are not Spanish and they taste rubbish. If you ever come across an expensive little tin of salted anchovies in olive oil from Spain, please try them again as you will taste a huge, huge difference.

jiggle

I would love to try making paella but i don't eat seafood (or rabbit) Chicken is ok or veggie. I also don't have a paella pan - does this matter?

It doesn't matter as s long as you cook little amounts. A finished paella should only be one finger thick which means that if you are cooking on a normal size pan you wouldn't want to cook a paella for more than 2 people (180g of rice) as otherwise the rice won't cook properly and it won't be a paella with a good crust on the bottom of the pan. Again, the book has a very precise explanation for how to make the perfect paella.