Chef and restaurateur Frank Camorra shares a journey through the food of his childhood, both traditional and modern.
In 2008 I travelled around Spain researching the recipes of Spanish people, from the chefs of Madrid to the widows of Galacia. With a heightened sense that their culinary culture was under attack, people spoke freely and openly about the food they made and ate. They took me into their kitchens and gardens and showed me the food they were preparing and growing. In most cases it was an act of pure Spanish hospitality. But for many it was part of their belief that recipes should be passed down and handed over for safe-keeping.
They knew the recipes were never ‘theirs’, but simply a way of recreating a cultural phenomenon that always had a life of its own. It was once explained to me that we cooks are simply the vehicles for these dishes to take shape. Without us they would simply remain ideas or words on a page – so whenever we cook these recipes we invoke the idea of the food itself.
The Spaniards I spoke to responded well when I explained I was searching for the foundations of Spanish food, the bedrock of traditions on which their cooking was based. I told them I wanted to highlight some of the pillars of Spanish cooking, and the culture in which their food is grown, prepared and eaten. They gave me their recipes as gifts to share, not to covet and make my own.
I cannot tell you what attracted me to some dishes and not others. Perhaps I was looking for the food of m y childhood. My family left Spain in 1975, the year Franco died. I was five and spoke only Spanish, with a strong Andalucían accent. “If you’re going to learn to speak English then you’re going to have to go to school,” my Dad said. I remember my first day there feeling very, very small amid a cacophony of tongues. (To those who know me today this seems quite laughable.) But every afternoon I went back home and there was always my Mum, who had spent the day in the house cleaning and preparing food. And it was food from Spain. It was the dishes she and her sister had grown up with. It may have been a plate of cocido (a meat and vegetable stew), or tripe with chorizo, or meatballs in beef broth.
This is probably why the food I’ve written about is food that was particularly popular at a time when Spain was poor, and had to be prepared in a manner determined by poverty. But poverty meant resourcefulness in feeding the family. Spanish people, particularly in the country, still grow a lot of their own food – so Spanish food is also about the type of soil the food grows in, the water that is available for the food to grow, the time of the year in which it is harvested and the long traditions of preparing food that stem from way back in time.
Enselada de huevas
Summer salad with poached fish roe
Light but rich, fresh but decadent, this is a dish that well describes the contrasting nature of Andalucían food. Entire fish roe sacs are delicately poached in a fragrant bouillon, then cooled and sliced into naturally patterned rounds. These are folded through a salad of fresh summer vegetables dressed with aged sweet Pedro Ximénez sherry vinegar. The sauce is then soaked up by discs of young potatoes. A salad served in bars across Andalucía, Enselada de Huevas is a casual, unsophisticated snack. It goes just as well with an ice-cold cruzcampo, the local beer, or a chilled glass of fino sherry. I use Trevally roe, but this is not always available. Describe to your fishmonger the dish you are making and they will help you with the right sort of roe.
Makes 6 servings
- 3 bay leaves
- 100 ml dry sherry
- ½ white onion
- 600 g fish roe sacs, from a fish such as trevally
- 600 g boiling potatoes, washed but not peeled
- 6 ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 cm chunks
- 1 green pepper, seeded and membranes removed, finely chopped
- ½ red salad onion, very finely chopped
- Sea salt flakes
- Ground white pepper
- 150 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 150 ml aged Pedro Ximénez vinegar
- 1 tbsp oregano leaves
Pour 2 litres into a large saucepan. Add the bay leaves, sherry and the white onion half and bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium. When the water is simmering, gently lower in the fish roe sacs. Simmer for 20 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat and allow the roe to cool in the poaching liquid.
Meanwhile, place the potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and add a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 45 minutes, or until tender. Remove from the heat, then drain and leave to cool. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, carefully peel them and slice into 1 cm rounds and place in a large serving bowl. Add the tomato, capsicum and red onion, then season to taste with sea salt flakes and white pepper. Drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar and toss gently to combine.
Remove the cooled fish roe sacs from the poaching liquid and slice into 1 cm rounds. Add to the salad with the oregano leaves. Mix very gently and serve at room temperature.
Salpicón de marisco
Chilled seafood salad
The last time I ate Salpicón was in a bar in Cádiz, a city on the periphery of the sherry triangle. I had been watching a brass band practicing for the next day’s bullfight in the courtyard of a block of flats. When the last trumpet finished echoing off the concrete walls, the band’s music was replaced by the shrill call of a flock of gulls chasing a school of fish in the bay. The sun hovered over the bay of Cádiz, its rays flaring in the clouds in the upper atmosphere, flooding the whole western sky with rich yellow light. The band members came into the bar shortly after me. Some drank beer. Most had sherry. They all ordered Salpicón – although it sounds light, Salpicón has a depth of flavour that marries perfectly with chilled Manzanilla sherry.
Makes 4 servings
- 4 bay leaves
- 450 ml dry sherry
- 4 garlic cloves
- 250 g piece of skinless blue eye revalla, cut into 2.5 cm chunks
- 200 g cleaned squid hoods, cut into 2.5 cm chunks
- 100 g scallops, trimmed
- 250 g raw prawns, peeled and de-veined, leaving the tails intact
- 500 g mussels, scrubbed and beards removed
- 4 ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
- 1 green pepper, seeded and membranes removed, cut into 5 mm dice
- 1 large Lebanese cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 cm chunks
- 1 small red onion, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp roughly chopped parsley
- 100 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 100 ml chardonnay vinegar
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
- Crusty bread, to serve
Pour 1 litre water into four separate saucepans. Add a bay leaf, 100 ml of the sherry and a garlic clove to each saucepan and bring to the boil.
Add the fish to one saucepan and cook for 6 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and place on a tray. In the other three saucepans cook the remaining seafood separately, cooking the squid for 2-3 minutes, and the scallops and prawns for 1 ½ minutes each. Transfer all the cooked seafood to the tray and allow to cool.
Place the mussels and the remaining 50 ml sherry in a large frying pan and cook over high heat until the sherry comes to the boil. Cover the pan and cook, shaking the pan continuously, for 3-4 minutes, or reserving 100 ml of the cooking liquid and discarding any mussels that haven’t opened. When the mussels are cool enough to handle, remove them from their shells and place on the tray with the other seafood.
Combine the tomatoes, capsicum, cucumber, onion and parsley in a large bowl. Add the reserved mussel liquid, the olive oil, vinegar, white pepper and sea salt flakes and mix well. Add the seafood and gently toss again. Refrigerate until chilled, then serve with crusty bread.
Bacalao fresco en refrito
Roast cod with a hot garlic and chilli dressing
Visiting a Spanish fish market can be like visiting a parallel universe. The fish and sea creatures all look strangely familiar but are all slightly different. There are dorada, which are similar to our bream, and pargo, which as far as I can work out are snapper. There are the wildly sought-after merluza (hake) – a fearsome-looking creature. Then there’s bacalao fresco, or fresh cod. We’re using groper here to make this simple but lively roasted fish dish. It’s started off in an extremely hot pan or flat grill, finished in a moderate oven and dressed with ajada – a hot oil flavoured with garlic and chilli.
Serves 4
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1.2 kg skinless groper or cod fillets, each cut into two pieces
For the ajada
- 160 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 6 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2 red bullet or other medium-hot chillies, halved, seeded and thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Preheat the oven to 180*C. Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a large, heavy-based ovenproof frying pan over high heat. Add the fish pieces, season well and cook for 6 minutes on each side. Transfer to the oven, then bake for 6-8 minutes, or until just cooked through.
Meanwhile, to make the ajada, heat the olive oil in a small heavy-based frying pan over low-medium heat. Add the garlic and shake the pan for 1 minute, or until the garlic is golden but not burnt. Add the chilli and stir for 30 seconds, then stir in the parsley and remove from the heat.
Place the cooked fish fillets on warm plates, spoon the ajada over and serve immediately.
Sorbete de Mandarinas y naranjas con aceite de oliva
Mandarin sorbet with oranges and olive oil
In autumn the streets of Andalucía fill with the scent of azahar. The moors left to Spain not only the citrus, but the whisperingly poetic word to describe both the orange blossom and its season. Azahar is the time of the year when the pale white waxy flowers erupt, filling town squares with a heady sweet perfume. A stroll on a warm night in Cordoba or Seville during Azahar is one of the most intoxicating experiences. Funnily enough, in spring when the fruit is ripe, nobody eats the oranges in summer. May I suggest you also search out Hojiblanca olive oil as it is fruity, aromatic and traditionally used in desserts in Spain.
6 serves
- 125 ml sweet extra virgin olive oil, such as Arbequina or Hojiblanca
- ½ vanilla bean, halved lengthways
- 750 g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp extra, to sprinkle
- 3 kg mandarins
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 3 oranges, plus the juice of 1/2 orange
- 3 blood oranges
- 3 tangelos
Infuse the olive oil the day before serving. To do this simply pour the olive oil into a glass jar, add the vanilla bean, then seal. Leave to stand overnight in a cool place, but not the refrigerator.
Also on the day before serving, prepare the mandarin sorbet. Place the sugar in a saucepan with 700 ml (24 fl oz) water and stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and allow to cool. Chill.
Slice the tops off six of the best-shaped mandarins. Carefully remove the segments from inside the cut mandarins (this takes a little skill), then put the skins on a tray and place in the freezer. These will become your serving receptacles for the mandarin sorbet.
Peel the remaining mandarins and juice them in a mechanical juicer along with the segments from the six hollowed-out mandarins. Add the lemon juice, strain, then measure 1.2 litres juice. If there is not enough juice from the mandarins, top up with bottled orange juice if necessary. Chill.
Stir 700 ml of the chilled sugar syrup into the chilled juice, then pour into an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Freeze for 5 hours, or overnight.
On the day of serving, make the citrus salad. Using a very sharp knife and reserving all the juices, slice away the tops and bottoms of all the oranges and tangelos. Working from top to bottom, remove the skin and white pith. Cut all the citrus in half widthways and remove the white pith in the centre, then cut the flesh into 1 cm (1/2 inch) chunks. Place in a bowl with any juices and the extra orange juice, then sprinkle with the extra sugar. Pour the vanilla-infused olive oil over the salad and mix together well.
Fill the frozen mandarin skins with the sorbet and place on chilled plates. Spoon a little citrus salad and juices around the sorbet and serve.