Archive for the ‘Savory Stuff’ Category
La Boqueria Market is one of my favorite spots in Barcelona. The market is a large, covered marketplace that offers everything from candied fruit to foie gras, just off La Rambla, one of Barcelona’s busiest streets. A market has been operating at the same location as far back as 1217, though the face of the market has changed many times over the years. The modern market was built in 1840.
The market is packed with with chefs, locals, tourists and foodies from the time that it opens very early in the morning. The vendors sell just about everything you can imagine. Chefs stock up on very fresh, top quality meat, fish and poultry, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs and all kinds of cured meats and cheeses. Tourists are more likely to purchase fruits, nuts, artisan candies, chocolates and individually wrapped foods that they can eat with little to no preparation as they wander around the market taking photos – and there are a lot of people taking photos at the market.
Read on for lots more photos of the market!
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When you think about olive oil, you probably think about Spain, which grows and produces the majority of the world’s olive oil, or of Italy, Greece and a handful of other Mediterranean countries where olive oil is produced. You probably don’t think about California, even though the Mediterranean climate of much of the state provides a great environment for planting olive trees and producing olive oil. California currently produces just 0.1% of the world’s olive oil and only 1% of the olive oil annually consumed within the United States. It might be a small number, but California olive oil is very accessible to locals and visitors to the state and many olive oil producers offer tours and tastings. Ojai Olive Oil is a great example. This is a family-owned olive orchard and olive oil producer in Ojai, California that offers free tours and tastings to visitors year round.
On a recent trip through Ojai, I made it a point to stop by Ojai Olive Oil and go to a tasting for myself. The farm offers visits by appointment during the week and has an open house policy on Saturdays, where you can drop in without calling ahead. The tours are run by Ron Asquith, the owner of Ojai Olive Oil, who starts out with a talk that offers great insight to olives in general, as well as great information about how the olives and grown, harvested and pressed into oil at his farm. Ojai Olive Oil has been around for just over a decade, but olive trees have been grown on that land for more than 130 years. There are more than 2000 trees in the grove, a mix of young trees and rejuvenated older trees that had been left untended for years. Like grapes used to make wine, there are a number of different varieties of olives grown to produce olive oil. Ojai Olive Oil growns Frantoio, Leccino, Nocelara del Belice, Pendolino, Columella, Kalamata and Lechin de Sevilla olives.
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Greek yogurt is a fantastic ingredient to have in the kitchen. The thick and creamy yogurt is made like many other yogurts and starts with milk and active yogurt cultures, but before packaging the yogurt is thoroughly strained to remove excess whey from the yogurt and give it its rich consistency. Nonfat Greek yogurt is the most widely available variety. The tangy plain yogurt is a healthy addition to all kinds of foods, from dips for appetizers to cheesecakes for dessert. Nonfat Greek yogurt is a staple in my kitchen (I usually buy the Fage brand) but there are many more brands to choose from than there were just a couple of years ago. Cook’s Illustrated set out to give plain, nonfat Greek yogurts a taste test to see which of these yogurts stood out from the rest in a recent issue (May/June 2011).
The test kitchen discovered that most Greek Yogurts were made using the traditional method of straining the yogurt to remove excess whey. This is a fairly time consuming process, and they noticed that at least one brand in their taste test used pectin or gelatin to thicken up their yogurt instead of relying on straining alone. The two brands that included these extra ingredients – made by Yoplait and The Greek Gods – were at the very bottom of the taste test with textures that just couldn’t compare to the real thing. The rest of the yogurts in the taste test fared fairly well, with flavor preferences varying very slightly from tester to tester. The top ranked yogurt was Olympus Traditional Greek Nonfat Yogurt, which was praised for being “smooth, fatty,” and “seriously creamy” with a “pleasantly tangy” flavor and was well-liked by all of the taste testers. Other highly ranked brands were Voskos, Brown Cow, Dannon, Oikos and Fage.
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Irish soda bread is one of my favorite quick breads to make because it is so easy and so versatile. The history of the bread (not to mention the name) always emphasize how popular the bread is in Ireland, so while it is easy to make from scratch, I couldn’t resist giving Neill’s Irish Soda Bread Mix a try because it actually comes from Ireland.
The mix contains just flour, baking soda, buttermilk and salt, which are the same ingredients you’d find in a scratch recipe for soda bread. To make it, you simply add milk or buttermilk to the mix, shape it in to a loaf and bake it. The bread turned into one of the most beautiful loaves of soda bread I’ve seen, and was perfectly browned on the outside while remaining moist and tender inside. It was much lighter than some soda breads that I’ve had, which tend towards being rather dense and heavy. It stored well and still made great toast the next day.
The bread had a subtle buttermilk flavor, which you can enhance by using more buttermilk as your liquid (as opposed to plain milk). I should also note that this mix makes a great base for mix-ins, if you want to add raisins or other dried fruits for a sweet soda bread or feel like stirring in some herbs or sun dried tomatoes for a savory version. There are a few suggestions right on the packaging. The mix has just recently become available in the the US, so keep an eye out for it if you want to give it a try.
Peanut butter is a delicious and versatile ingredient that we can spread on sandwiches, mix into cookies and use as a base for all kinds of savory sauces. Most of the time, we buy our peanut butter and choose from one of dozens of varieties available at the supermarket. If you have a food processor, you can actually make your own peanut butter very easily at home and gain the ability to control what goes into your butter and control the texture.
You can make a huge batch of peanut butter, but I would actually recommend starting with this recipe of halving because it is easier to keep and use in the fridge. It is also easier to tweak the recipe in the future if you decide that you like a little more salt, a little more sugar or some other element. The process is simple: place roasted peanuts in the food processor and whiz with a bit of salt, a bit of sugar and a bit of oil until the mixture is smooth and creamy. You can vary the seasoning to your taste and the amount of oil to the consistency that you like best, but no matter what you’re going to end up with a very fresh tasting peanut butter.
Homemade peanut butters are almost never as smooth as store-bought peanut butters, which utilize much heavier duty equipment for crushing peanuts into a paste than a counter-top food processor. My peanut butters have a very slightly sandy texture by the time I’m done with them. I add back in chopped peanuts for “chunky” peanut butter.
Now, while I like homemade peanut butter for sandwiches and toast, I still prefer brands like JIF for baking because they give a more consistent – and sometimes better – result. You can certainly experiment with the homemade nut butter for baking, but keep in mind that most recipes are written for national brands (regular and “natural” with their creamy consistency). This means your result may be different with homemade butter, so don’t worry if you need to do a little tweaking to get the cookies with homemade peanut butter turn out like the cookies made with a national brand.
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