And it was because of this humbling reminder of mortality that we were unable to visit a very tempting restaurant that lay just across Calle de Campomanes from our hotel (the curiously-titled Roommate Mario) in the Opera district of the city. Every day for a week, we walked (or, as our stay progressed, waddled) past this restaurant (it didn’t appear to have a name), re-reading and salivating at the names of dishes advertised on the sunshades overhanging the windows: paella marinera, paella bogavante, arroz al horno, paella valenciana, arroz atianda, and arroz negro.

At the time, we convinced ourselves that this was no big deal since we were in Madrid to eat Madrileño food, not rice dishes from the Levante (eastern Spain, around Valencia/Murcia, so-called because that’s where the sun rises), and certainly not in the chilly depths of winter when rib-sticking dishes like cocido madrileño and callos a la madrileño were the order of the day. Of course, we flagrantly disobeyed this rule on a couple of occasions (see our previous posts on Canarian papas arrugadas and Galician arroz marinero), and during our current lengthy bout of winter-induced, home-bound funk, we found ourselves, in our related regret-filled nostalgia, wishing that we’d made one more exception.

So, to appease these feelings, what we were unable or unwilling to eat in Madrid, we decided to make ourselves right here in Brooklyn. A couple of sachets of cuttlefish ink, some D.O. Calasparra rice, and a little help from Penelope Casas’ The Foods and Wines of Spain resulted in a quite magnificent traditional Murcian arroz negro.

Do not be confused about it, the rice is, and should always be, the star of the dish. Do not be tempted to listen to the voices in your head telling you to add more seafood: this is not a black paella (though traditional Valencian paellas contain no seafood). Rice, in this case, is not just a starchy canvas on which the more tasty and colorful protein displays itself, as it is commonly thought of in the American and British mind. Use only the amount specified below, otherwise you risk distracting your tastebuds from the point that is the extraordinary manner in which the squid (or cuttlefish) ink, together with pimenton, saffron and a hint of garlic, delicately perfumes the rice. A crisp white wine (as called for in the recipe) or a dry rose would make a perfect match.

Our good friend Nuría of Spanish Recipes Pic by Pic made what is, by any measure, a superior arroz negro on her third attempt. Having been unable (at least for now) to find squid or cuttlefish complete with their ink sacs, we’re not optimistic that we’ll be able to mimic the wonderful inky blackness of Nuría’s dish, but next time we try, I think we’ll add an extra packet of dry ink to see if we can get closer to that beautiful color.
Arroz Negro Murciano (Murcian-style Black Rice) with Garlic Sauce
(adapted from Penelope Casas’ The Foods & Wines of Spain)

Ingredients

• 500 grams Calasparra, Valenciana, or Bomba rice (only use Italian arborio or carnaroli, if you are absolutely desperate)
• 2 pounds octopus (with tentacles)(ab0ut 8 squid), sliced (if you find them with their ink sacs you’re very lucky, and use these in place of packets listed below)
• 1/2 pound small shrimp/prawns, shelled and chopped into pieces
• 1 large onion, chopped roughly
• 1 medium tomato, roughly chopped
• 1/2 medium green pepper (capsicum), chopped
• 1/2 jar piquillo peppers, julienned
• 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 small, dry chorizos, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 2 packets squid or cuttlefish ink (nero di calamari/seppia)
• 1 pinch saffron threads
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 tsp pimentón dulce (sweet paprika)
• 4tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 3/4 cups (1.5ish liters) fish broth or clam juice (make 4 cups in case you need a little extra)
• 3 tbsp olive oil

For garlic sauce:

• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 cup olive oil

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 325F (160Cish)
2. Clean the squid, cutting bodies into rings and chopping up tentacles.
3. In a wide 2-3inch deep casserole dish (preferably earthenware), or paella (pan), heat oil and saute onion and green pepper until both are wilted.
4. Add squid rings and tentacles and saute for around five minutes before adding chorizo, garlic, tomato, parsley, salt, pepper, saffron, and pimentón. Cover and simmer gently for around 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, follow directions on packets for reconstituting the squid/cuttlefish ink, and pass black liquid through a sieve to remove impurities. Mix ink with wine.
6. After 30 minutes, stir in rice and when well combined, add broth (boiling hot) and stir in ink/wine and toss in shrimp.
7. Bring to a boil and stir occasionally until rice is no longer soupy, about 10 minutes. Decorate with pimento strips and put dish in oven and bake uncovered for around 15 minutes until all remaining liquid is absorbed.
8. Remove from oven and cover tightly and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
9. While rice is resting, add garlic in a food processor or blender, and with motor running gradually pour in olive oil until well combined and golden.
10. Place dish in the middle of the table and encourage diners to stake their claim. Serve garlic sauce on the side.

It’s widely known that humble ingredients prepared with simple techniques often produce the best dishes, and it’s becoming more widely known that this philosophy lies at the very heart of Spanish cooking – a cuisine that has, in the last five or so years, become one of the most celebrated “new finds” of foodies everywhere. As a result of this, there has been a great deal of interest in tapas and the cuisine and culture surrounding these small plates/finger foods. All of which, in my view, can only be a good thing, even if many of these new “tapas restaurants” (itself, again in my view, an oxymoron) serve few, if any, authentic Spanish dishes.

Indeed, and here lies the rub, in their rush to capitalize on the latest food trend, it seems everyone is trying to outdo everyone else on the cleverness factor. Expanding their menus to include all sorts of dishes resembling “tapas” only in the fact that they are served in small quantities. It’s almost as if the tasting menus of high-falutin’ restaurants have become conflated with “tapas” so that you get tiny dishes and are charged through the nose for them.

Now, we here at WeAreNeverFull.com, perhaps contrary to popular opinion, are not against experimentation or new dishes in the slightest. Quite the contrary, in fact, we are always ready to try new things. However, and again, this may just be our view, so feel free to comment disagreeing, we feel that developing all these new and complicated dishes and calling them tapas is fundamentally against the spirit of tapas as a style of eating, outlined above.

The term tapas, as I’m sure many of you know, is derived from the Spanish word tapa, meaning a lid, and originally connoted a slice of bread or cheese that certain tavern owners used to serve across the top of the drinking vessel, perhaps as a way of keeping out unwanted bugs. Over the centuries this has developed into a wondrous variety of small dishes, now commonly on plates and cocktail sticks, as well as on rounds of bread, that are served to accompany su caña – whatever you are drinking at the bar. Indeed, it has become so refined a practice that many bars, while they might serve a lot of different tapas, are famous for one in particular, a signature tapa, that those in the know only eat at that one bar. So, as you can see, tapas has come a long way from its beginnings as a humble drink lid. That said, the original ethos of simple but tasty accompaniments remains.

We’ve traveled extensively in Spain and eaten, it must be said, an obscene amount of tapas over the past several years, and the consistent theme has been that the ingredients and the simple, time-honored preparations and take center stage, not the ego of the preparer. And this has never been more true than in the case of patatas a la Riojana. So, so simple, unbelieveably good. Really. Potatoes, chorizo, onions, garlic, sweet paprika and water, combine to create a dish that is without a doubt my favorite tapa. And, if I may name-drop shamelessly, I am not in bad company when I say that. Legendary chef and father of nouvelle cuisine Paul Bocuse, no less, while at a culinary convention in Spain in the late 1970s, described patatas a la Riojana as among the “greatest dishes created by man.”

And here is the interesting thing. If Bocuse, a man whose entire reputation was built on small, artfully-plated dishes, found this humble and rustic dish such a revelation, why is it that so many lesser chefs of today are trying so hard, and in many cases failing, to improve upon these time-honored preparations?

Nearly everyone knows that La Rioja is Spain’s most famous wine appellation, but it is also known, mostly inside Spain, as being the origin of many good things to eat. Piquillo peppers are the regions’ second best known export, and together with wild mushrooms, chorizo, river crabs, bream and trout they combine to make many dishes synonymous in the Spanish stomach with La Rioja. In fact, it is the inclusion of a typical Riojan dry chorizo that makes this preparation “a la Riojana” or Rioja-style.

Personally, I would eat this dish three times a week, but if my recommendation that you try making it isn’t good enough for you, then I’m sure you’ll pay attention to the wise words of Monsieur Bocuse.

Ingredients: (serves 4)

• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
• 1 small onion (or half a large one) finely sliced
• 7 ounces (or 2-3 links) chorizo, sliced into rounds
• 1/2 pound floury potatoes (idaho or similar), peeled and cubed
• 1 tsp pimenton dulce (sweet paprika)
• 1 tsp kosher salt, or more, to taste
• 1/2 – 1pint (1/2 liter) cold tap water

Recipe: (adapted slightly from Jose Andres’ Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America

• Warm olive oil over medium heat and add garlic.
• Cook for about a minute until golden before adding onions, and sauteing them gently for 20 minutes or so, until light brown.
• Add chorizo and cook until this also is browned, about 2 minutes.
• Place the potatoes in the pan and stir to coat with oil. Cook for 10 minutes.
• Now sprinkle over the pimenton and pour in enough water to almost cover potatoes and chorizo. Put lid on pan and bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until liquid is reduced by half.
• Serve immediately with lots of crusty bread and a hearty red Rioja. Unbelieveably delicious. Trust me.
• Unsurprisingly, this is quite a filling dish, but fear not, as left-overs, eaten either cold or reheated the next day are even better as the flavors continue to meld together.

Not long ago our good friend Nuria at Recipes Pic by Pic offered to do a food exchange with us, knowing both how obsessed we are with Spanish food and their comparative scarcity over here in the States. In return she asked that we send her some typical American products of our choice as well as a Cuisinart food processor. We were delighted to oblige.

Nuria wasted no time and recently posted about a hummus she made with her shiny new toy and including a photograph of the rather idiosyncratic selection of foods we sent her. Amongst them Franks Hot Sauce, two kinds of dried Mexican chiles, Reeces Peanut Butter Cups (cause you know how much Americans love Peanut Butter) and, perhaps most amusingly, a packet of Silvia’s seasoned fried chicken coating.

Her package to us, however, contained rather more sophisticated ingredients: jamon iberico de bellota, chorizo de bellota, and some piquillo peppers. Those of you who read our Jamon, Jamon, Jamon, Jamon post back in January when we had just returned from Madrid will know how we feel about iberico ham – the finest grade of the wonderfully delicious range of Spanish cured hams made from black-footed pigs raised amidst the statuesque holm oaks of Extremadura in central west Spain near the Portuguese border. So you can imagine our delight at having a generous racione of it arrive vacuum-packed from the famed Mercado la Boqueria in Barcelona.

However, we were cautious, looking for an opportunity to savor the ham and give it the attention it deserves, we had to wait until earlier this week for the moment to finally breech the packaging. Following Nuria’s instruction we allowed it to come to room temperature – yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to enjoy iberico – and laid it out on a plate just as we had had it in Madrid, accompanied only by a couple of pieces of pa amb tomaquet (see recipe below) in a Catalan homage to both Nuria and the ham’s provenance in Barcelona.

And, how was it, you ask? Well, it was bliss. The ham’s fat was soft and almost unbelievably buttery and rich, yet strongly flavored with the scent of the acorns on which the pig was fed. The ham itself was gamey and powerful while being at once smooth and calming on the tongue. It was, in all honesty, swoon-inducingly good and provoked tearful memories of our last taste of iberico in the fug of a bar in Madrid back in January when we had sighed and wondered aloud when we might eat iberico again.

Thank you so much Nuria – muchissimas gracias a usted – for both offering to do the exchange in the first place and then trusting two complete strangers to respond in kind. It’s not only reserved you a very special place in our hearts (and stomachs) but also made us think very kindly about the rest of this wonderful food community that we’re getting to know and the fascinating and generous people who inhabit it. Buen provecho y salud a todos!  Oh, and also, thank you for giving us the Blogging with a Purpose award – much appreciated!

P.S. – After the iberico we made another tapa with some of the delicious piquillo peppers Nuria also sent us. Riffing off something Jose Andres made on his show Made in Spain, we put thick slices of Manchego cheese (or you can use any other type of hard cheese that melts like Provolone, Cheddar, Piave, Gouda, etc.) into the piquillos and lightly fried them in good olive oil and served them with a sprinkling of pimenton dulce or sweet Spanish paprika. So easy and so gooey and delicious.

For other ideas for tapas and for a delicious recipe for Spanish tortilla, check out an older post of ours.

Pa amb Tomaquet (Catalan toasts or bread with tomato) – serves 2

Ingredients:

• 2 thick slices of hearty Italian or country-style French bread
• 1 fresh and very ripe tomato (this is key – it should be ruby read and soft)
• 1 clove garlic, sliced lengthwise
• some extra virgin olive oil
• salt

What to do:

• Grill the bread pieces until toasted.
• While bread is still warm from the grill, rub the openly cut side of half a clove of garlic on each face of bread. This allows the scent and flavor of the garlic to melt into the warm bread.
• Cut tomato in half and rub each face of bread with the tomato. Rub hard and don’t be afraid if you feel it’s a bit messy – you want all the juice and pulp of the tomato to get on the bread.
• Drizzle some olive oil on both pieces of bread and then sprinkle a bit of salt on top. You can add some optional toppings of anchovies or olives or tuna for fun and a heartier tapa. MMMMMMM – enjoy!

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• Unusual Tapas We Ate in Madrid
• Chorizo and Clams with White Wine
• Squid with Golden Potatoes
• MORCILLA (SPANISH SAUSAGE) STUFFED GRILLED SQUID WITH A SPICY SAUCE
• ARROZ MARINERO (SPANISH RICE WITH SEAFOOD AND SPICES)
• Fabada: A Mortal and Corporal Sin – But Worth It!

In celebration of the start of Euro 2008 – the European soccer/football championships – yesterday, and in light of the fact that England failed to qualify because they were awful, I am in need of a team to follow, so have decided to become an honorary Spanish soccer fan for the next month, or however long it takes for them to get knocked out.

The reason for this, you see (and yes, I’ll get to something actually food-related soon, so please be patient), is not just because I love Spain and am fascinated by nearly all things Spanish, it is also because historically, the Spanish team has always been long on potential but very short on delivery. And as an English football fan, I can appreciate this complex psychology of pitting hope against realistic expectations, and the likelihood of some great moments followed by the depths of despair.

So, to get into the spirit, I decided to watch the opening games of the tournament (neither of which actually featured Spain – they don’t play until Tuesday against Russia, but I’ll be at work then) with a couple of cold beers and, fittingly, a “seleccion de pintxos/pinchos” (small tapas on rounds of bread and often eaten off a toothpick) – the Spanish national team are known as “La Seleccion.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that this is the perfect kind of sports-watching food. It’s easy and cheap to make, with four or five ingredients plus a couple of staples from your fridge, you can make a variety of pinchos to suit the tastes of any friends you’re watching it with, and best of all, they are much, much healthier than the conventional bags of chips and salsa, cheetos, or miscellaneous frozen things with dip. This last one is important, because should your team lose, disappointment and self-loathing will be all because of the game, not the snacks!

These pinchos were made from, variously: manchego cheese, piquillo peppers stuffed with meat and cheese, cured anchovies, lettuce, lemon peel, leftover morcilla stuffed-squid, grilled Spanish mackerel, capers, olives, and the very wonderful thing that is leftover Rioja-style chorizo and potatoes (a dish Paul Bocuse declared to be one of the greatest dishes created by man).

You should give sports and pinchos a try, they really are a “match” made in heaven.

Check out these other posts you may enjoy: