Apricot Tart

In the tiny village where we are living this month, there is no grocery store. There are two bread shops that sell the essentials of life: coffee, cookies, yogurts, olive oil, wine, etc.  They also have the most basic of produce, a list which may not be of interest to everyone but I feel is worthy if only anthropologically:

• lettuce...not exactly iceberg, but...
• tomatoes
• spring onions
• squash
• apples
• kiwis
• peaches
• plums
• apricots
• potatoes

That's about it. The most beautiful and interesting are the apricots, and I'd been eyeing them, buying a few for breakfast now and then. The other day I took the plunge and bought a big bag, subconsciously driven by some weird urge to whip up this very tart. Reminiscent of both the French countryside childhood I never had and my time at Bottega.

The chance arose when we had some friends over for lunch, all very thrown together.  Chorizo, ensalada rusa, green salad, chickpea salad and pork loin stuffed with jamón and idiazabal.  With cider to drink. And this tart, which I made using my oh-so-useful trick: when faced with a pathetically outfitted kitchen, freeze your butter for things like scones, biscuits, and pastries. Then grate it with your neighbor's Microplane or grater. A cornmeal-like dough in no time.

Here's the recipe. Pardon my grams.

apricot tart

• 6-8 ripe apricots
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp regular sugar
• pinch salt
• 113 grams butter
• 175 grams pastry flour
• 1/4 c of ice water
• egg, beaten

Freeze butter. Mix flour, sugar and salt. With borrowed microplane, grate butter into dry ingredients, stir with a fork or two. Drizzle ice water into mixture until it comes together. Form into a disc and wrap with plastic wrap. If you're in a hurry, place in the freezer for twenty minutes.  Roll out with a wine bottle, always starting from the middle and moving 15 degrees clockwise (or counter) each time. Put in the freezer for ten minutes or the fridge for longer.

Meanwhile, quarter the apricots (or cut them into sixths) and toss with the brown sugar. Distribute over the crust and then fold the edges up. Brush (or use your fingers to brush) the egg over the exposed crust. Bake for 20 or so minutes at 200º C.

chorizo a la sidra

Fresh chorizo and Basque cider. I know...if you live in the USA, you're probably already thinking 'Where the __ do I get those?'  Well...I can answer a lot of questions. But not all of them.  How about if I just say that I've never heard anyone regret the $1000 plane ticket they purchased to come eat pintxos in this part of the world.

Chorizo a la sidra is a quintessential Asturian/Basque dish. It's ridiculously simple and ridiculously delicious. The tender, fresh type of Spanish chorizo (made with pork and spices) is pan fried (or not) and then simmered in the local cider. This cider is quite different from the ones we see in the States, down to the manner of drinking: one gulp in the glass at a time.

Or as the owner of our local ciderhouse (bottle pictured above) told me: "Poco y a menudo. (A little and often)."

At the butcher shop in our adopted village, home and birthplace of the great Sir Anthony Worldgate, they make me order in Basque. It's funny. And I use the cider made twenty minutes down the road to infuse it with a tangy bite. It's a hands off dish that is way more delicious than it should be. I find great results as far as texture when I let the meat sit in its liquid, whether for a half day or overnight.

Eat this with bread -make little mini sandwiches- then use the leftover bread to soak up the fat juice (it's normal).

chorizo a la sidra

• 1 lb of Spanish chorizo (the fresh type, txistorra works well too)
• 1/2 bottle of Basque cider
• a splash of olive oil
• a pinch of salt

Cut the chorizo in links of desired size. I usually aim for about two inches.  Heat the olive oil and fry the slices of chorizo until they've browned a bit. Add the cider and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender, about twenty minutes. Serve immediately or later, but warm it up first!

peanut butter cookies : 4 ingredients

Life is too short for bad ______. Fill in the blank. A good motto, and a wise friend recently filled in the blank with a word near and dear to my heart (and digestive tract): cookies.

Time is also often too short to make cookies at home, which is one reason I ALWAYS have dough in the freezer. But these little cookies are some of the best of their kind, and they take about 5 minutes to come together and ten minutes to bake. 

Peanut butter cookies...a darling of the American pastry tradition. They come with chocolate, with a jelly thumbprint, with ice cream sandwiched between, you name it. But they're just as delicious in their plain, unadorned state.  So here's my standard peanut butter cookie recipe, which I found a good decade ago in Gourmet magazine.

Also, in honor of my Spanish-speaking, metric-measuring readers, I've translated and converted the recipe. See directly below the English recipe. Podeís encontrar la mantequilla de cacahuete en chinos, supermercados grandes, y tiendas latinas donde se suele llamar de maní en vez de cacahuete.

peanut butter cookies

• 1 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350°F. and grease baking sheets. Beat together peanut butter and sugar until combined well. Lightly beat egg and beat into peanut butter mixture with baking soda until combined well.

Roll level teaspoons of dough into balls and arrange about 1 inch apart on baking sheets. With tines of a fork flatten balls to about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, making a crosshatch pattern. Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven until puffed and pale golden, about 10 minutes.

cookies de mantequilla de cacahuete

• 260 g mantequilla de cacahuete
• 200 g azucar
• 1 huevo
• 1 cucharadita bicarbonato

Calentar el horno a 175°. Mezclar la mantequilla de cacahuete y azucar hasta que sea homogeneo. Añadir el huevo, batido, y el bicarbonato y mezclar.

Formar bolas de masa de 3cm mas o menos. Poner en una bandeja del horno con papel. Con el tenedor, aplastar las bolas, dar una vuelta de 90º y repetir, formando una almohadilla. Hornear durante 10 minutos, hasta que se doren un poco.

preserved lemons

 Today the rain started.

I think it may now officially be winter here in San Sebastián. My feet are cold, my boots are wet, and it's dark until 8:30 am.

This is the unglamorous side of this picturesque, edible town.

Meanwhile, I'm reaping the benefits of my mad return to my humble Gros kitchen this fall. I preserved guindillas, tomato, and fruits...made ricotta and basil-watermelon shrub (coming soon!). I also made this lovely lemons. After a month in the fridge, they are ready to scrape clean, dice and throw in ANYTHING. From couscous to cócteles, there are few things that aren't better with a little preserved lemon. This particular recipe has a nice eastern touch.

Make. Trust.

preserved spiced lemons

• 10 lemons
• 1/2 cup coarse salt
• cinnamon stick
• 5 cardamom pods
• 2 chiles de arbol
• 2 bay leaves

 
Cut off the little rounded bit at the stem end if there’s a hard little piece of the stem attached. Cut an X shape starting at the end of the lemon.
Pack coarse salt into the lemon where you made the incisions. Use a large spoonful for each lemon...don't be shy. Put the saltedlemons in a large glass jar with a lid. Add cardamom, a bay leaf, a dried chili, and a cinnamon stick.
Press the lemons very firmly in the jar to get the juices flowing. Cover and let stand overnight.
The next day do the same, pressing the lemons down, encouraging them to release more juice as they start to soften. Repeat for a 2-3 days until the lemons are completely covered with liquid. If your lemons aren’t juicy enough, add some fresh squeezed lemon juice.
When the preserved lemons are soft, they’re ready to use (about a month). Store the lemons in the refrigerator, where they’ll keep for at least 6 months. To use, rinse before using to remove excess salt, split, and scrape out the pulp. Slice or dice. You can also use the juice of the pulp.

If I remember correctly, this recipe is a takeoff on the one here.

Pickling Guindillas

I am no longer capable of imagining a world without guindillas. 

Fresh, they appear each spring on the counters of pintxo bars, in bowls that signal their availability. Sometimes, but not often, accompanied by a hand-written or Microsoft Word sign that says "hay guindillas". 1 out of 10 fresh guindillas are spicy, and if I had a nickel for every theory on which are the spicy ones, I'd have, like, $1. The big ones. The small ones. The skinny ones. The only thing I've found to be remotely fact-based is the ratio of spicy to non-spicy changes as the season stretches on.

The rest of the year, there's pickled guindillas. These are ubiquituous, as one of the main ingredients on a famous pintxo, on a notorious mini-sandwich of tuna, anchovy and pepper, and all the way to the new posh eateries in town that serve it in a mayonnaise on some farm-raised hoity-toity hamburger. Plus they're just amazing popped into your mouth around 7pm with a glass of red vermouth.

And they're SUPER easy to make yourself. Look:

pickled guindillas

• green, fresh guindillas
• water
• vinegar
• salt
• bay leaf

Blanch guindillas for one minute in boiling water. Meanwhile, in another pot, boil a mixture of 60% vinegar and 40% water with two bay leaves for 10 minutes.

Place peppers in jars, covering them with the vinegar water mixture, and throw in a large pinch of salt. It's not necessary but I usually put the jars lid down while they cool. Allow them to pickle for about a month for best flavor.