A Peek at Menorcan Cuisine

A bit over a week ago I had the opportunity to spend a wonderful weekend in Menorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the East Coast of Spain. Settled at different points by Phoenicians, Arabs, Catalans, French, and English, among other peoples, the island's gastronomy reflects a wonderful mix of cultures and traditions and of course all the wonders the Mediterranean has to offer.

The spiny lobsters that come to the Balearic coasts are renowned as some of the Mediterranean's tastiest, especially those caught between Mallorca and Menorca. Though prepared in a variety of ways, the most famous by far is the Caldereta de Llagosta, a simple but outstanding lobster stew not unlike the French Bouillabaisse. At around 60€ for 500 grams (plenty for two people to split) it is certainly on the pricier end of things, but in my experience totally worth it.
Fornells, a small fishing town on the island's north-central coast is said to be the place to get it, so naturally we enjoyed our stew there at Es Port, a restaurant just along the port.

With seafood on a Mediterranean island you really can't go wrong - grilled razor clams, raw cockles, broiled angler fish, and squid both stuffed and fried were among the delicacies we constantly indulged in. If I were to pick a standout after the caldereta, however, I'd have to say that the garlic prawns from Café Balear on the port of Ciutadella were a cut above, so incredibly flavorful and tender I could have eaten 10 kilo's worth.

Moving onto products from land, perhaps the most well-known product would be Maó cheese, shown here with Sobrassada, a sausage typical of neighboring island Mallorca. The cheese is made from cow's milk and sine 1985 has had its own denominación de origen (guarantee of origin) and is protected by a regulating council. We tried three varieties of it - the younger cheeses are more rich and creamy and perfect with a bit of honey on bread or with black pepper and olive oil - the older, harder variety is more akin to parmesan. Another delicacy further inland would be Menorcan roast suckling pig. Being on the western coast outside of Ciutadella certainly didn't stop us from having this at "Sa Caldareta" down the street. The skin was probably the best pig skin I've ever had - thick as bacon but crispy like a potato chip, certainly my daily serving of fat in one bite, but absolutely mind-blowingly delicious.

Menorca is also known for its sweets, our favorite being "amargos", a wonderful crispy-on-the-outside but chewy-on-the-inside almond-flavored cookie. Other options are carquinyols, little crispy bite-size biscotti, and pastissets, flower-shaped cookies often filled with sweet jelly. Lastly you have ensaïmada, a circular almost phyllo-like pastry whose name comes from the saïm, or pork lard, from which it is made. They come in all different sizes, some as big as 2 feet wide, and can be either sweet or savory, filled with chocolate paste and dusted with powdered sugar, or filled with local pork sausage. We devoured a maybe 20-inch chocolate one in two sittings :-)

Finally, a trip to Menorca is not complete without going through one or two bottles of Xoriguer gin, a local gin unusually produced with wine alcohol. When 18th Century British soldiers arrived along with their taste for gin, they decided to try to make their own using imported juniper berries and alcohol distilled from grapes. The result was a gin unlike any other! The best and most traditional way to drink it is in a cocktail called the pomada - take a hearty dose of xoriguer over ice, then simply add a sparkling lemonade - Fanta will do. Alternatively you could use fresh lemon juice with a bit of soda water and simple syrup. I can't even tell you how many of these I had during my week there - so refreshing and delicious, and perfect when I want something a little different from my summer standby the gin and tonic. Needless to say I will be bringing at least one bottle of this back with me as I've never seen it in the states! We were lucky enough to visit the Xoriguer distillery in Maó and see them make the gin ourselves, not to mention help ourselves to free tasting of all the company's other products, from rose liqueur to Menorcan pastis!

I will most definitely be returning to the Balearic Islands at some point in my life, if not just for the food!

Delicious and easy tuna and goat cheese empanadillas!

I must admit when I first came across this recipe, I was a little apprehensive about tuna and goat cheese going well together, but these empanadillas were absolutely delicious and super easy to make!

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 tablespoons minced onion
6 oz canned tuna, packed in olive oil
4 oz goat cheese
3 oz pimento-stuffed olives, chopped
5 tablespoons toasted pine nuts
3 tablespoons capers, chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper, to taste.
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
30 puff pastry discs (can be found in the freezer section with Latin American-type things. You can of course cut out your own discs of about 3 inches from a 16 oz. package of puff pastry)
1 egg, beaten (for the egg wash)

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for about 5 minutes or until softened. Remove from the heat and set aside

Using whatever utensil you fancy, mash the tuna (drained, but not to the point of it being dry) with the onion, garlic, goat cheese, olives, pine nuts, capers, paprika, salt, and pepper. I found that with the salt from the olives and capers there was no need for any extra salt (I even reduced the amount of capers to 3 tbsp from 5), but you can certainly pepper it up a bit. Fill the center of each puff pastry disc with around a tablespoon of filling, then fold over and seal the edges with a bit of water. You can also crimp the edges with a fork to give the empanadillas a bit more character. Make a small slit in the top of each empanadilla with a knife, then brush them with the egg wash.

Put in a baking dish or sheet pan at medium heat for around 20 minutes, or until the empanadillas become somewhat golden and crisp-looking. Finally, ¡que aprovechen!

La Calçotada

Today in Andorra we had the opportunity to experience a calçotada, a popular gastronomical event held around this time where calçots, a type of green onion, are consumed in large quantities. Somewhat milder than onions but looking like thinner versions of leeks, calçots are native to eastern Spain and not really consumed anywhere else.

The tenderness of the long, center is achieved by planting the onion bulbs in trenches and successively increasing the depth of the soil around the stems throughout autumn and winter as they continue to grow. The catalan verb calçar apparently means literally to cover the trunk or bottom of plant with dirt, hence the onion's name calçot


The calçots are barbecued in large quantities over fire, then served - today they were divvied out and wrapped in newspapers. Once you receive your portion of calçots you must peel off the charred outer layer to reach the sweet and tender center. This is then dipped in the typical Catalan romesco sauce made from ground nuts, oil, garlic, and small red bell peppers, among other things. It is very much reminiscent of muhamarra from Arabic/Turkish cuisine. On the side it is typical to grill sausages and bread, both of which we also had today along with some wine.

The eating of the calçot is quite a production and, like with lobsters in the U.S., one is served a bib so as to not make a mess. We even got plastic gloves today. Despite waiting an hour in line (Andorran efficiency at its finest!) I'd say it was definitely worth the wait! Fun little festivals like this are definitely some of my favorite things about living in greater Catalunya.

Casa Leon Armengol - Andorra's Best Prix Fixe Menu?

When in Western Europe a prix-fixe afternoon menu is not hard to come by - practically every restaurant has one. We've experienced the menus at several Andorran restaurants now, but it's Casa Leon Armengol's lunch menu in the Parish of Ordino that keeps us coming back.
Owned by chef Christophe Grosjean, this 8.95€ menu includes a soup, starter, main course, and dessert. There are three to four options for each course, one of which is the daily special. Naturally it's the daily specials we tend to go for...

When it was still warm out for our first course we were served a wonderful homemade gazpacho, while in the colder winter months the soup of the day might be a delicious white bean or vegetable stew.
For the starter we've never been able to resist the hard-boiled eggs with ham, baked in an earthenware dish and smothered with a béchamel sauce. Though rather simple it's simply exquisite. Other options include a traditional Catalan salad and pasta.

For the main course specials we've had an incredible pork rib confit served with roasted potatoes as well as stewed beef. My favorite is the whole clove of roasted garlic that comes alongside.

For dessert one has the choice of a tarte tatine, a gloriously rich chocolate cake with a creamy sauce, fresh fruit, and another options which escapes me. Needless to say we've gone with the tarte and the cake.




Add another Euro or two for a nice cold beer or a glass of wine and you leave Casa Leon Armengol with a full belly and only 10€ poorer. Though it's a bit of a trek from the capital, and by trek I mean a 20 minute bus ride, this lunch menu keeps us coming back and will certainly be a lunch stop for anyone visiting us in Andorra.



The restaurant also has a webpage, mostly in French

Escudella

Today, on the Feast of St. Anthony, all of Andorra gathers together in various plazas throughout the country to celebrate what is called L'escudella. Escudella, itself, it the name given to a traditional Catalan stew full of delicious things like Catalan sausages, beans, and various vegetables. Apparently in the early 70s some friends in Andorra got together and prepared plates of escudella for their neighbors and the shopkeepers in the area. They were essentially reviving the centuries-old tradition of distributing food among the poorest in the parish on St. Anthony's day, January 17th. As you might have guessed, this became quite popular and now the entire country participates.

Lucky for us, in Andorra la Vella the festivities were taking place just a 5 minute walk from our apartment in the Plaça de Les Arcades. Basically the whole plaza was set up with the Escudellaires working massive vats of stew and then long rows of tables for people to eat at. The stew, as well as bread, dessert, and wine are all free - provided you bring a bowl. If you don't have a bowl they sell really nice commemorative painted bowls for 7€ with the year engraved on it, or even bowls from years past for a few Euros cheaper. The most popular thing to do, however, seemed to be to bring tupperware from home.

Once you show them you have a bowl, they give you a ticket and then you pass through to where you are served hunks of meat and sausage followed by several ladels-worth of stew. Finally there are nice hunks of bread for dipping. At the tables were also porrons, typical glass wine pitchers that one passes from person to person. As you tip the pitcher the wine comes spewing out in a narrow stream - quite daunting if you've never drank from one before. Once we'd finished our stew, which was of course delicious, particularly the nice fat sausage I had in mine, we got back in line for dessert - delicious hunks of tortell, o-shaped pastries filled with marzipan. It was a perfect (not to mention free!) meal for a chilly January afternoon. I certainly hope there are more delicious food festivals in the months to come!

Minim's - Andorra La Vella, Andorra

Despite the food-centered nature of my roommates and I, we somehow hadn't really gone out for a proper Andorran meal in the several months we've been here. Alex's boyfriend's visit gave us the perfect excuse, and so we were off into the evening in search of someplace to dine. The Antic Carrer Major (Old Main Street) had couple of places that appealed to us, and so we settled upon "Minims" based on the reasonable prices and dish selection seen on the menu posted outside.
Walking into the restaurant between 8:30 and 9 we were unsurprisingly the first people there. It seems no matter when we go out to eat it just isn't late enough for us to not seem like foreigners. Though we didn't have a reservation (which we apparently needed?) they quickly seated us at a table in the back. The place itself had maybe a dozen tables and, though not overly decorated, was cute in a way.

We decided we'd each do a starter and an entrée (well, Alex had no entrée) and then split a bottle of wine - bé. Alex and Matt both ordered the "sopa de ceba gratinada" - onion soup, while I opted for the "coca". Coca is somewhat of an umbrella-term for a variety of breads, in this case a flatbread having anchovy, arugula, fig, and parmigiano reggiano. Before this arrived, however, we were brought a nice plate of little bread toasts with a creamy dollop of cheese covered with anchovy and what looked like pea tendrils or watercress. The creamy cheese had a nice light and airy texture and did a good job of balancing the saltiness of the anchovy.

Moving on, soon came the onion soups. While they looked quite akin to French onion soup they really were quite different . The onions were less caramelized but sweet and seemingly of the Spanish variety. The broth was less salty - Alex described it as almost a cross between egg-drop soup and french onion, minus the Asian herbs. The raw egg dropped into it certainly added to that description! My coca was delicious - the fig was incorporated as a deliciously sweet sauce drizzled over everything, and they certainly didn't skip on the nice anchovy filets draped over the flatbread. While the bits of parmesan were tasty enough, I could have done without it. Well, either that or more of it!

For my main dish I was feeling a bit adventurous and settled on the "peus de porc farcits amb bolets i salsifis" - stuffed pig's feet with mushrooms and salsify/oyster plant/goatsbeard (tragopogon porrifolius) The actual feet were used as casing, the stuffing being a blend of primarily pork and rice. The texture of the feet might turn some people off, but it is not unlike that of a slimier mushroom variety - certainly not unpleasant like fat can be at times. The sauce was on the salty side but very savory and rather like a nice thick beef stew. I could have used a few more mushrooms but the ones I had were quite nice. At the time I did not know what "salsifi" was, nor could I really figure out what it was on my plate admidst the stewy goodness, but I now know that it is a plant whose roots and leaves purportedly taste somewhat like oyster.

Matt's entrée was the "costelles de corder servides a la llosa" - lamb chops served on a "paving stone".
We couldn't for the life of us remember what "a la llosa" meant, but seeing as the chops came out sizzling on a stone slab it would seem that "paving stone" is the translation we were looking for, haha. The lamb chops were described as salty but very good. They were accompanied by roasted onions, peppers, what looked like fennel, and some lovely bits of grilled fat. Unfortunately I only had a bite of the grilled fat (shocking), but from what I gather it was a very satisfying dish.

We washed down our meal with a decent bottle of crianza, and by the time we were done there was no room for dessert. We waited the usual half-a-lifetime for the check, as we have done elsewhere in Western Europe, but we weren't in any particular rush. Naturally a bit after 10:30 when we left the place was hopping - when will we learn? Overall we were quite satisfied with our little dining excursion and would very much consider returning for some more reasonably-priced Andorran delights :-)

A Taste of Nice!

Over the past full week I had the opportunity to travel along the Mediterranean in the Côte d'Azur region of Southern France, spending the largest chunk of time in the gorgeous city of Nice. That being said I was able to indulge in some delicious Provençal cooking, some of it particular to Nice itself. Ironically, however, the one thing I did not consume was the infamous Salade Niçoise. Le sigh...life must go on.

Lou Pilha Leva
One restaurant which we had read about in our handy guidebook, Lou Pilha Leva, presented us with the opportunity to try several of the city's specialties while in the old town. The first of said dishes were farcis, small roasted vegetables stuffed with a simple pork, egg, oil, herb and breadcrumb mixture but whose taste is anything but simple! In our case the vegetables (or fruits, in the case of the tomatoes!) were tomatoes and courgettes. I'm sure every Niçoise grandmother has her own recipe, and I look forward to perfecting my own at some point.

Our next dish was the Socca, more or less a crêpe made from chickpeas, flour, and oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. To be perfectly honest the socca didn't do much for me - I found them a bit bland - but with some anchovies and olives I'm sure they would be just delicious.

Next on the list was pissaladière, a delicious flatbread/pizza made with sauteed onions, garlic, and olives and topped with bits of anchovie. The crust is a bit thicker than that of what I could consider standard pizza, but its just perfect with all the oil and juices from the toppings soaked into it. Last but not least was a hearty serving of Moules Frites - delicious mussels in a mustardy broth served with French fries. Of the three times I had mussels in the city, these were definitely my favorite - not at all overcooked and very plump and flavorful.




Le Resto
The best restaurant we went to in Nice was tucked away in the Old Town and called simply 'Le Resto'. I couldn't resist doing the menu, given that for around 20€ I'd get 3 courses, so I started out with some nice crisp bread with an anchovy pate and an olive tapenade for spreading. Both were excellent. For my main dish I opted for the Ravioli Niçoise, choosing to lean a little toward Italy and check out some of Nice's pasta offerings. This dish was incredible - the little pouches of dough almost melted in your mouth and were doused in delicious oil and herbs, primarily fresh parsley. Inside was beef and who knows what else, but whatever it was was divine. Alex chose a dish of fresh scallops baked into a small casserole and smothered in buttery breadcrumbs, zucchini, and just overall deliciousness. On the side came a mound of rice with a nice sweet taste that complemented the casserole nicely. Kelsey went with the gnocchi smothered in a gorgonzola cream sauce - how bad can that be?! As to be expected the gnocchi were wonderfully cooked and the sauce left you wanting to lick the plate. My dessert, a tiramisu-esque concoction, was quite tasty but not overly emblematic of the region
and hence not worth writing home about.

One last treat we couldn't help but indulge in in Nice was lavender ice cream! Provence is hands down the place for lavender, so why not make an ice cream with it? This was a winning combo for anyone who likes that strong floral flavor and just the right amount of sweetness.

Oh Nice, I'll miss you!

Notes - Le Resto is located at 2, Rue Rossetti, 06300 Nice and Lou Pilha Leva at 10 rue du Collet - Vieux Nice

Panellets - A Catalan All Saints treat

As we get closer to the Tots Sants (All Saints) Holiday, bakery and confectionary windows here in Andorra have begun to advertise for the traditional All Saints treat, panellets. Literally meaning more or less "little breads", panellets are delicious little confections made primarily of marzipan. The most popular and arguably most delicious are those dipped in pine nuts and glazed with egg whites. Any fan of marzipan, almonds, or nuts in general MUST try them. At around 1€ a piece, however, they are not the cheapest sweet habit to get into.

The panellets, along with roasted chestnuts (castanyes torrades), sweet potatoes (moniatos), and a dessert wine like a sweet moscat (moscatell dolç) make up the traditional Tots Sants dessert spread. I'm thinking I need to learn how to make panellets myself and post a recipe ;-)

Sagres - Cerveja Portuguesa

After a bit over a month of residing in the Principality of Andorra and enjoying all the wonderful food here, I think it is about time I shared some of my experiences. I hereby decree the commencement of 'A Taste of Iberia and the Pyrenees', with frequent installments featuring products, recipes, and anything else related to food and beverage in this glorious corner of the world.

For this first entry I would like to recount a small beer tasting we held casa nostra in which we progressively tasted the 3 primary varieties of the Portuguese beer 'Sagres'. Given that the Portuguese make up some 12% of the Andorran population, it is no surprise that Portuguese food and beverage are easy to come by. The name Sagres comes from the Portuguese town of Sagres, located at the Southwest tip of the Iberian peninsula. The biggest selling beer brand in Portugal, Sagres was first introduced at the 1940 Exposição do Mundo Português and has had great success ever since.

The first beer to be tasted was the simple Pilsner Sagres Branca, the flagship brand and biggest seller. The taste was simple and clean, but nothing to write home about. It is comparable to many of the other inexpensive pale lagers produced in Spain and Portugal and would probably be best described as a simple table beer. It has a 5% alcohol value.

Next on the list was the Sagres Bohemia. Launched in 2005, Bohemia lager is a noticeably darker amber color and presumably inspired by the beers of the Czech Republic. This is my favorite of the 3 for an everyday beer - it is aromatic and flavourful but not too heavy on the wheat, which can make one feel uncomfortable after throwing a few back. It has a slightly higher alcohol content of 6.2%.

Last but not least we tried the Sagres Preta (with Preta meaning "dark"). At 4.3% alcohol it is the least alcoholic of the three, but what it lacks in punch it makes up for in flavor. Also available since 1940, it was for a long time the only available dark beer in the Portuguese market. To me it had a slightly smoky flavor, and I was surprised by how light it was considering its darkness. Andrew and Mike picked up some some coffee and nutty tones, but unfortunately my congestion prevented me from any deep tasting insight. I could definitely see myself drinking this while stuffing my face with say...pork ribs, since clearly I would want to fill up on the meat, not the alcohol, but at the same time would still want to have a nice, rich beverage to enjoy.

Still on the list to try are the LimaLight - Sagres' answer to BudLight Lime and all of those other Chelada-type beers - and then the Bohemia 1835 Reserve. Unfortunately I have yet to see either in the stores - and trust me, I have explored the grocery store options here in Andorra. Given the number of Portuguese in Massachusetts, I know as a fact that Sagres is available back home, but as to the Bohemia and Preta varieties, that I couldn't tell you - keep your eyes peeled!