Chicken with Scampi and Crema Catalana (egg custard)

Nibbles:  Pan Con Tomate

Main:  Pollo Con Lang (Chicken stew with langoustines)

Dessert:  Crema Catalana (like a brulé)

Hi there everyone!

Well remember I told you that we would be having my friend from England cook for us – well this is it.  She has spent a great deal of time in Spain so treated us to an amazing Spanish themed menu with the Catalana flavours.  It was a real treat and all the recipes are included here.

To start with we had a board of nibbles called a Pan con tomate.  This is a very simple recipe in Catalan cuisine, known as Pa amb tomàquet – a slice of bread with tomatoes, some salt and olive oil.  Sometimes you can toast the bread and rub in some garlic.  The story is that this is a good way to use up old bread, as the tomatoes and olive oil bring back moisture – makes sense to me!

The toasted bread (we used turkish) is rubbed with a clove of garlic then we rubbed the tomatoes over the garlic bread, add a good glug of olive oil and some salt.   BUT we also then drizzled some aioli over all that and munched away.  Let me tell you this was a revelation.  Imagine adding a few cold cuts to this and you would have a complete meal.  Honestly, I made such a pig of myself.  This was given 10/10 – of course.

I had to save room for the main though because I had been watching my little guest “chef” all day and let me tell you I was salivating with the smells as well as the visual.  Not necessarily an economical recipe because of the scampi but keep it for a special occasion.  It’s a classic mar y montana -sea and mountain – dish.  Some people say there is a legend that a farmer fell in love with a mermaid and from that love came the mix of sea and land.  I don’t know if it is true or not but this recipe was just delicious!  Perhaps you could look out for the the seafood when it is on special or just use very large green prawns as an alternative because the chicken thighs were very reasonable as were the rest of the ingredients.

This was served with Patatas bravas (little fried potatoes).  This dish is well known all over Catalonia, Spain and in tapas bars everywhere.

I feel that when you read the ingredients you will realise that you have had it before just presented in different ways but the traditional way done here is to fry the potatoes three times and add the sauce on top.

To – die – for. The tates got 10/10 and the sea and mountain received 8.5/10.  Why you may ask – well in the true spirit of Wine Wednesday, everyone had to give their opinion and it was thought that the sauce on the Polo Con Lang could have been thicker which, of course, is easily solved with a little cornflour.

And now to dessert – Crema Catalana.  This can be done with all sorts of different flavours – coffee, cardamon, vanilla and more but in the end the traditional one is the best.  Very much like a crème brulée.  In the restaurants in Spain they burn the sugar on top with a hot plancha which gives off a beautiful aroma but here we just had to use the kitchen torch.  The end result was the same and with it’s light and smooth texture it was very moreish in deed. This received 9/10.

Now, I don’t normally talk about the wines we drink but my darling friend included all Spanish wines with the meal and they deserve a mention:

Codorniu (bubbly)
Rueda (2018) the white wine
Rioja the red.

This was a fantastic Wine Wednesday and made so special for me being able to sit down and enjoy someone else’s inspiring cooking.  I will certainly be including these dishes in my repertoire, hope you do to.

Until next week.

From my table to yours with love X