Grilled Sardines in Lisbon

We are in Lisbon right now, leaving younger daughter Maria cat & house-sitting. The first thing we notice is that there are none of our pet cat, Yuki's hair that we have to brush off our cloths, keyboards on my laptop or between pages in a book or magazine we are reading. Back home we feel like using lint rollers to catch Yuki's hair day and night, dusk to dawn, all day every day. Here, staying in a hotel, there is none of that, it's even odd that we don't have to do that.  In fact, we don't even see any cats at all since we have arrived in Lisbon. Not even a stray. Very strange, considering there are so much fish in Lisbon.

Ever since we arrived on Sunday morning, we have been eating fish, every day for lunch and dinner. We fear we may turn into a fish, may start growing scales and fins! However, fish and shellfish are really good here - it's seafood lover's heaven. You get really fresh seafood, cooked simply to respect natural tastes of ingredients.

A lots of restaurants seems to be closed on Sunday but we managed to find a fish restaurant named, Restaurant Pessoa at Rua Dos Duradores 190, Lisbon 1100. This is not necessarily a cheap restaurant, considering you could find many restaurants that offer reasonably priced food in Lisbon however not exceptionally expensive neither.

Since we are in Lisbon, we got to eat famous grilled sardines. It was not on the menu but we asked for it anyway. "12 Euro per person, it is ok?" the waiter asked. We had no idea how much a plate of grilled sardines would cost but we just ordered it anyway.

Those who know me well must be able to picture me clapping my hands with excitement when the large dish full of grilled sardines arrived at our table. Each sardine was already fair size and there must have been 14 or so on the plate, along with boiled potatoes and some salad. We were hungry so of course we ate all up without any problem. It was really delicious with lots of rock salt.

Before ....

and After .....

We also ordered a half bottle of dry white local wine. We were about to order house white but the waiter to us "not that with the dish" and brought this wine. It was only about 6 euro and not bad at all.

Inside of the restaurant is decorated with white wall and typical azulejo tiles. My guidebook informs me that azulwjos takes their name from either julej, the Persian word for 'blue' or az-zuleyha, Arabic for 'polished stone'. There is no paper table cloths and napkin nonsense - they use real line serviette here.

We thought we were the only customers but by the time we finished eating, people started arriving. Most of them seemed to be local people coming for family Sunday lunches. I wonder what they would be ordering...

The place does not look that appealing, in fact it's rather shabby and run-down looking however most of restaurants are in Lisbon; looks can be deceiving, in fact.

This is the beginning of our 'peixe' in the city, here in Lisbon.  I am afraid you will see more seafood blog from me for a while.

That's all forks!

Papa's Tapas

Last Saturday, my older daughter Emily and her friend Jennifer were invited to their friend Kat's parents' house for dinner. This was not however an ordinary dinner. Kat's father, Pete, is an accomplished cook, enjoys cooking and his invitation for Spanish Tapas was also extended to me! Bravo!

Kat kindly came to pick us all up from our houses by her car. Kat's mum, Liz, welcomed us with lovely smile to their beautiful home, making sure we were all comfortable and happy and everyone's glasses were full. They also have a lovely dog named Dexter who entertained us all with his charm.

Pete had been very busy all day since the morning, getting fresh ingredients from shops in the morning, preparing and cooking all day for this special Tapas evening. As I don't eat meat, and Kat and her mum do not eat seafood, he had to think of menu that would cater for everyone.

The resulting creation by Pete was an excellent culinary delight for everyone.

Kat's Papa's Tapas!!!

Pete made 4 Tapas dishes - Tapas style fish and chips in tempura batter, summer pea risotto, patatas bravas and Spanish omelette.  Pete's home-made tempura batter perfectly enveloped chunky fish, accompanied with fries. Summer pea risotto was really refreshing in taste, with flavoursome runner beans that were harvested from Pete's & Liz's back garden. My favourite Pete's dish was patatas bravas, which was really savoury and delicious.

Pete also made Spanish omelette with roasted red peppers and potatoes. The omelette was a perfect shape - tasty eggs holding all vegetables together in a harmonious manner. It was a Zen of  Tortilla Espanola!

Pete's signature dish...?

Everything was so delicious.... and what made Pete's tapas so special was that there were a lots of thoughts in making these dishes, resulting in such a special deliciousness that you just can't get anywhere else. My real favourite must be his patatas bravas - so flavoursome with sweet and sour of tomato sauce with lovely potatoes.

Pete's Patatas Bravas, Tapas Bravos!

Cheers to the chef!

We all enjoyed the evening, and we all went home with happy stomach. I would also like to say special thanks to Pete, Liz and Kat for inviting me to such a wonderful evening.

That's all forks!

Butterflies in Stomach

My daughter Emily has recently suggested that I should blog about the food I make than the food I have eaten every now and again. Not that I am a Master Chef, quite opposite in fact. I am a lazy cook -  I don't have patience to follow recipe, I can't be bothered about using scales or measuring spoon, etc. I just use my hand and eyes to judge how much ingredients I need when I cook.

I was watching a repeat of a TV programme called Simply Italian by Michele Chiappa on Channel 4 the other day (http://scrapbook.channel4.com/programmes/simply-italian/bookmarks/series-1/episode-1). What I like about her programme is that she shows us the easiest way to cook lovely Italian dishes.
Even making home-made pasta looks so simple when she does it and it really makes you want to try it. You don't need any super gadget or lots of ingredients, as long as you have '00' pasta flour, egg(s), a cup and a rolling pin.

I saw her recipe of Farfalle (bow-tie shape pasta) with Mozzarella and Tomato Sauce again and thought I shall try it tonight for dinner.

Unfortunately I didn't have all ingredients listed in her recipe so I just had to improvise.

Michela showed us how easy to make farfalle pasta at home but as I didn't have '00' pasta flour, I used dry farfalle pastas in the packet. I did not even have enough pasta in the packet left so I had to mix them with tricolour pasta to make up the volume.

The following recipe serves 2 - 3 people.


Boil hot water in the kettle and pour into a cooking pot to boil pasta. Put salt and a drop of olive oil if you wish.  Cook the pasta until al dante.

Michele's recipe says you need: red onion, garlic, tinned chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, cayenne pepper, chicken or vegetable stock, black olives, mozzarella cheese and baby spinach. This is all I had in the kitchen this evening.  I ran out of vegetable stock and did not have cayenne pepper, so I used few strips of anchovies instead. I used a packet of baby spinach and watercress mix.

First, heat extra virgin olive oil and fry chopped red onions until being soft.
Squash a clove of garlic with a knife, moving back and forth with a little salt, and add to the pan.

Add anchovies to let them melt and then tomatoes. Chop tomatoes as you mix in the pan and simmer for 5 - 10 minutes.

Chop watercress. Add both watercress and baby spinach into the pan along with black olives.

 

By then pasta is ready. Quickly finish the sauce by tearing in the mozzarella, add grated parmesan cheese.

Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the cooking water to add to the pan. Mix the cooked pasta into the pan.

Sprinkle with bit of baby spinach over the past, tear a bit of leftover mozzarella cheese, grate more parmesan cheese and pour over good quality extra virgin olive oil. Grind black pepper if you wish.  There you have it. My improvised version of Farfalle with mozzarella and tomato sauce. Farfalle means butterfly (farfalla) in Italian, so butterflies in stomach, ha ha ha.

This was quick and very yummy. You could add rock salt to the tomatoes in the pan whilst cooking if you like more salt in the sauce. I didn't as I thought anchovies and parmesan would be enough.

My family all enjoyed it and we were full of butterflies in stomach!
I would definitely cook again, perhaps I may even try making farfalle from scratch as Michele showed us on TV.

That's all forks!

A bit of Spain @ Barca in Glasgow

Isn't it great that we can buy on-line vouchers for restaurant deals to try out different dishes at different restaurants? Anyway, my husband and I have just been to Barca (http://www.barcatapas.co.uk) for dinner using on-line voucher.

For £19, we got small portion of bread, olive oil and some olives as apperitif , seafood paella to share for main course and a bottle of house white wine.  Not bad a deal. Of course, the small print on the voucher informed us that it would take 45 minutes for paella to be ready, naturally we perused the menu and ordered 3 tapas dishes off the menu.

We ordered Gambas a la Plancha (Whole tiger prawns in lemon and chill), Escabeche de Lubina (Seabass escabeche pickled veg & potato dill scone) and Croquetas de Pescado (Fish Croquettes with a lemon & roast garlic alioli).

Whole tiger prawns in lemon and chilli

As I love sucking juice out of tiger prawns' heads, I was looking forward to do that, alas, prawns were a bit dry, still, the chilli sauce was very lovely and spicy. I wish we had more bread to dip in the sauce to wipe the plate clean ...

Seabass escabeche with pickled veg & potato dill scone

Escabeche is, I am assuming, basically a fish dusted with flour lightly and then marinated in olive oil and lemon. This was rather nice but maybe a bit fishy to some people. I liked the pickled vegetables which were refreshing in taste. I am not sure about these two potato dill scones that came with this dish - they are rather dry and I am not sure if they add to anything, however, they were interesting.

Fish croquettes with a lemon and garlic alioli

I love croquettes so these were nice too. I wish they make these croquettes bigger. They could do two bigger croquettes with more alioli sauce instead of 4 small skinnier ones which resembles to fried mozzarella sticks you get at Italian restaurants for starter.

Did we order too much before paella????

However, we did enjoy all these. Problem of tapas is that you tend to order far too much, ended up spending a lot for starters.

The house wine was fine too - not too dry and not too sweet so I guess it's a safe choice for everyone.

Not too dry, not too sweet...

Oh, I almost forgot, yes we also had some small starter olives, olive oil with balsamic vinegar with some bread.  Bread was really nice.

We had all these as we thought we would be waiting for 45 minutes or more but after 30 minute or so, our seafood paella was ready!

Barca's Seafood Paella

This is a deep-pan (?) paella with some seafood - tiger prawns, king prawns and squid rings with vegetables. Personally I would like to have a bit more saffron and less paprika but saffron is very very expensive so I understand. We did enjoy this paella but unfortunately we could not finish all, and I did not have audacity to ask for a doggy bag and probably we would be either found upon or laughed at, ha ha ha.

We then ordered coffee - flat white for me and espresso for my husband. He also ordered Spanish liqueur called Cuarenta Y Tres or Licor 43 for digestivo!  This is made from citrus and fruit juices, flavoured with vanilla and herbs and spices. The name came from having 43 different ingredients in it (yes, we have checked on wikipedia, ha ha ha!)

Digestivo - Wow, this is really really goooood stuff!

I tried a wee sip from my husband's glass (and I liked the glass too...) and I would not mind having this at home with an ice cube in it after dinner as digestive. I said to my husband that we would buy this and bring it back next time when/if we go back to Spain. He said, we can buy it in UK.  Well, he is right, it appears that you can buy it at ASDA for £17.50 a bottle. I shall check it next time I am in the shop.

Total, including on-line voucher, came to around £43 or so and service charge included, so it was not a bad deal. We could have done without those starters but what is the point of not trying different dish to experience a little bit of Spain in Glasgow!!!   Staff were nice and attentive, service was good too, despite some of negative reviews I have read on Trip Advisers.  So, overall we did enjoy our dinner and the evening.

I am off to search for another on-line deal now. See what food we can try next!

That's all forks!

Unforgettable Focaccia in Lucca, Tuscany

Focaccia is popular bread in Italy, usually seasoned with olive oil and salt, but can also be with herbs, cheese or onions.  According to Wikipedia, "the word is derived from the Latin focus meaning 'hearth, place for baking' as in ancient Rome, panis focacius was a flat bread baked on the hearth. Yes, sometimes, reading my blog can be an educational or a place for useless learning, ha ha ha.

Anyway, we were in Lucca, Northern Tuscany in late May this year, and we went to this restaurant, L'Antico Sigillo on Via degli Angeli for lunch. The place is a bit away from the main touristy area of walled city of Lucca. When you are seated, they bring you a basket of freshly baked foccacia whilst perusing the menu. The focaccia was just nice and fluffy with crunchy tops drizzled with olive oil to prevent it from over-drying/baked but yet still retain moisture, and it is sprinkled with good amount of rock salt. This is really yummy.  You could just keep having this wonderful bread with a glass of wine, nothing else as it's that gooood. And you would wish you could just do that but you do actually need to order something.

Mmmmm, focaccia  .....

Could she be the one who made that Focaccia!!!

Mushroom pizza - I think she made this.... 

Their focaccia is really 'unforgettable' and you got to try this.  To tell you the truth, this was our 2nd time going to this restaurant. My husband found this place few years ago. As we don't eat meat, the menu choices seem a bit limited to me at this restaurant. I remember that I had a tomato spaghetti then and this time I had this again, and my husband had mushroom pizza then and this time again too. I think my husband enjoyed the pizza both times. Unfortunately forcccia is the only thing that was really unforgettable. Other dishes were fine, nothing special if I can remember, however despite that, I wanted to come back to this restaurant again because of their focaccia and so we did. It is still worth going there, just to try their wonderful bread. 

Besides, Lucca is a lovely place. You can easily get there by train from Pisa or Montecatini Term where we stayed or even from Florence. There is a lovely cake shop I must tell you ... well, I shall keep this for another day.

Locals cycle around the town. You can also rent a bicycle too.

Well, that's all forks!

Erotic Salad in Lucca, Tuscany

It's been 2 months since we were in Northern Tuscany and so as last time I blogged about food.... time flies so fast when you keep eating but not blogging.

I was looking through all photos while we were in Lucca and I have forgotten to blog about this salad I had in a bistro named, Paris Boheme (http://www.parisbohemelucca.com) in Piazza Cittadella, within the ancient wall of Lucca. Just head towards Puccini's statue and the bistro is right next to it.

You got to try their insalata erotica or Erotic Salad!  Yes, it's not exotic, it's called erotic salad! I don't know why it's 'erotic' but it's a lovely salad - mixture of salad leaves, few different kinds of cheese (mozzarella pecorino,  I think ...), fruits, raisins and edible flowers, etc and you just pour over good quality Tuscan olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dressing. You would not think these combinations may not work but it actually does work well!!! They were really refreshing and lovely! Perfect lunch for a nice summer day with nice crusty bread!

Mixture of everything - melon, apple, pear, orange, strawberry, kiwi, currents, apricot, salad leaves, mozzarella, pecorino cheese, nuts, seeds, edible flowers, etc......

My husband had porcini tagliatelle - he loves mushrooms so he really enjoyed this too.

Statue of Puccini. 

If you ever visit Lucca, you should definitely try this salad.

That's all forks!