Few things are as narcissistic as blogging about how many
hits your blog has been getting lately; nothing we're able to do is more pretentious than hosting a dinner party highlighting the cuisine of a
region whose existence most guests are not aware. The centerpiece was these flag-evoking anchovy pintxos we were informed about
here. To differ, we added spicy
pimenton ahumado to our mayo and unfortunately over-roasted the peppers, making them harder to cut. FYI, we were able to find
boquerones in NYC at Westside.
Since the phrase "Vegetarian Spanish Food" may have as well been created for a George Carlin bit about
oxymorons, we had to freestyle for these inclusivity-themed pintxos. We incorporated an ancient secret of Spanish cooking -- using a shitload of olive oil -- to saut
é two packages of oyster mushrooms with half an onion, roasted red pepper scraps, and thyme leaves. This was topped with a slice of brie and freshly ground smoked peppercorns. The brie was ommitted on two of these per plate so that vegans would have two less reasons to passively whine -- these were consistently the last two eaten before a new plate was brought out.
For the people who were too squeamish to let their palette wander like a butterfly in an open meadow we made these self-explanatory Castilian pintxos. More notably, we were actually able to bring with us from Spain our favorite olive,
Campo Real. They are perplexedly sold nowhere in the United States that we are aware of; please turn the lights on for us if you know where to find the switch. They have a fresh, herbed, non-salty flavor for which there is no substitute.
The reason for the existence of the party was the purchase of a frozen octopus from the corner fish market. At 24$ we needed help eating this, and at the precipice of offending the uninvited the only reasonable choice was to invite everyone that we could think of. We wanted to see if we could recreate the
pulpo a la gallega of our dreams -- contrary to the assurances of
Bittman we were not. While certainly tasty, it was rubberier than the restaurant prepared version that hooked us in the first place. However, the Area 51-esque scenarios we encountered in cooking such a creature more than validated the attempt.
Like the fabled lost episode of your favorite TV show, message board denizens of
Pintxos and Friends fan sites often say that the tastiest pintxos were the ones never brought out. This would be the bacalao pintxos we prepared from
this recipe. While that sauce is very lacking in the flavor category, placing a piece of bacalao on the baguette slice and topping it with a
pickled hot pepper made an irresistible combination. So irresistible that the possibility of our tipsy Friends eating too fast and choking to death on fish bones caused our inner risk-assessor to keep them hidden. However, based on the reports of sober souls with lifelong experience in navigating cod skeletons -- the few trusted with the task of tasting -- they measured up.
Few things are as narcissistic as blogging about how many hits your blog has been getting lately; nothing we're able to do is more pretentious than hosting a dinner party highlighting the cuisine of a region whose existence most guests are not aware. The centerpiece was these flag-evoking anchovy pintxos we were informed about here. To differ, we added spicy pimenton ahumado to our mayo and unfortunately over-roasted the peppers, making them harder to cut. FYI, we were able to find boquerones in NYC at Westside.
Since the phrase "Vegetarian Spanish Food" may have as well been created for a George Carlin bit about oxymorons, we had to freestyle for these inclusivity-themed pintxos. We incorporated an ancient secret of Spanish cooking -- using a shitload of olive oil -- to sauté two packages of oyster mushrooms with half an onion, roasted red pepper scraps, and thyme leaves. This was topped with a slice of brie and freshly ground smoked peppercorns. The brie was ommitted on two of these per plate so that vegans would have two less reasons to passively whine -- these were consistently the last two eaten before a new plate was brought out.
For the people who were too squeamish to let their palette wander like a butterfly in an open meadow we made these self-explanatory Castilian pintxos. More notably, we were actually able to bring with us from Spain our favorite olive, Campo Real. They are perplexedly sold nowhere in the United States that we are aware of; please turn the lights on for us if you know where to find the switch. They have a fresh, herbed, non-salty flavor for which there is no substitute.
The reason for the existence of the party was the purchase of a frozen octopus from the corner fish market. At 24$ we needed help eating this, and at the precipice of offending the uninvited the only reasonable choice was to invite everyone that we could think of. We wanted to see if we could recreate the pulpo a la gallega of our dreams -- contrary to the assurances of Bittman we were not. While certainly tasty, it was rubberier than the restaurant prepared version that hooked us in the first place. However, the Area 51-esque scenarios we encountered in cooking such a creature more than validated the attempt.
Like the fabled lost episode of your favorite TV show, message board denizens of Pintxos and Friends fan sites often say that the tastiest pintxos were the ones never brought out. This would be the bacalao pintxos we prepared from this recipe. While that sauce is very lacking in the flavor category, placing a piece of bacalao on the baguette slice and topping it with a pickled hot pepper made an irresistible combination. So irresistible that the possibility of our tipsy Friends eating too fast and choking to death on fish bones caused our inner risk-assessor to keep them hidden. However, based on the reports of sober souls with lifelong experience in navigating cod skeletons -- the few trusted with the task of tasting -- they measured up.
1 comment:
some of those photos look downright yummy.
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