Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs with Serrano Ham

Higos con Queso de Cabra y Jamón Serrano

One of my favorite appetizers in the world is goat cheese stuffed figs wrapped in prosciutto.  I also do the same with dried dates and it's amazing. While adjusting to my new kitchen here I decided I would make something that required little or no cooking.  So, I decided to Spain-ify these little one bite wonders.  Yes, Spain-ify them.  Normally I use the dark purple figs found in the United States, a log of goat cheese from any decent grocery store, and deli sliced prosciutto di parma ham.  Here in Spain, purple figs are nowhere to be found.  At first, I thought the figs sold nearby my flat were just unripe. But after perusing several of the fruit markets in San Sebastián, I realized that the figs were perfectly ripe and naturally green in color.  As far as I can tell the taste is almost exactly the same as that of purple figs, perhaps a bit milder.  Figs in general have a very mild taste. Thats why, when combined with the strong taste of goat cheese and the salty bite of prosciutto, they become the perfect hors d'oeuvre.  

I had never even eaten a fig until this past summer and now it's my mission to get everyone to try one of my figs.  For those of you who have never eaten a fig, I've included a picture of what they look like to the left. Figs are soft and filled with a million tiny edible seeds.  The queso de cabra, or goat cheese, here is much softer as well. You can buy it in a log or a container and it tastes distinctively like goat cheese but the texture is more like that of brie.  And of course, I had to use Spanish ham.  Serrano is a dry cured Spanish ham that is very similar to Italian prosciutto, so it was the clear choice.

Ingredients

10 figs (green or purple)

6 oz. goat cheese

10 thin slices Serrano ham

Toothpicks

First, run all of the figs under warm water to clean them because they tend to get slightly sticky.  Slice each fig in half exposing the seedy center.  Slice each piece of ham in half lengthwise to make twenty thinner strips of Serrano ham.  Using the back of a teaspoon, lightly press each fig half so that there is a small indent for the goat cheese.  Using the same teaspoon, place a small amount of goat cheese on top of each fig half, wrap in Serrano ham, and spear with a toothpick.  Repeat until all figs are assembled.  Voila!   I'm expanding the palates of my friends here daily, and my roommate Brittany is especially into these appetizers :) The flavor is not like anything you would expect, especially given that most people have no idea what a fig tastes like. These are seriously delicious. Enjoy!

San Sebastián Week 2 and Tortilla Espanõla

San Sebastián Week 2 and Tortilla Española

YES I can blog again!  I'm sorry it has taken so long but we still dont have wireless internet hooked up! Wow I have a lot to say its almost overwhelming, but bare with me. Brittany, Lexie and I have spent several hours sitting at an outdoor bar crowding our three laptops onto a tiny table to use their wi-fi (or "wee-fee" as they say it).  These first two weeks in San Sebastián have been incredible.   I am already in love with our apartment even though I feel like it was decorated by a ninety year old cat lady.  It has three bedrooms, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen and tiny living room, but its home :) Since moving into our little flat I have learned SO much more about the city.  The above photo is the view from our living room window.  I continue to be charmed by the number of people sitting at the bars below us each and every day for their afternoon sangria or glass of wine.


Naturally, I've done a significant amount of food investigation since I've been here. Tapas, or pinxtos (peen-chos) in basque, are by far the main dining option in San Sebastián and all over Spain.  Pinxtos are small bites that are sold cold at the bar of a restaurante or ordered warm from the kitchen.  Originally, the pinxtos tradition was invented to keep people from getting drunk as they hopped from bar to bar throughout the night.  Now, San Sebastián is known for its delicious bars and restaurants that offer the small savory dishes.  

Among the seemingly endless amount of bars and restaurants there is a surprising number of Turkish "Doner" Kebab places.  We discovered these kebobs early on and have since compared them to a New York hot dog stand because of their presence on every other street corner.  These aren´t the same kebabs that we are used to back home (see Chili Chicken Mango Kebabs). These kebobs are different and they´re awesome. The chicken is topped with lettuce, a spicy red sauce, and creamy white yogurt sauce that makes it sloppy to eat but well worth the mess and pile of napkins. However, I took a peek into the kitchen of one of the kebab places only to discover that the chicken is shaved from a large mass of chicken parts somehow glued together and spinning vertically on a spit. Questionable.  But delicious nonetheless.  My recommendation to anyone who visits Spain would be to try the kebab, but forego watching them prepare it.

Another popular dessert item around here is called  Dulce de Membrillo which is literally a brick of quince jelly.  Quince is a fruit that is basically hybrid between an apple and a pear.  Dulce de Membrillo is sticky, dark orange in color and as you can see, does not look especially appetizing.  The texture is like a combination of apple sauce and Jell-O, the taste can be described as such as well.  If you´ve ever eaten those fruit leather snacks as a kid, you get the gist.                                                                  

As for cooking, I will most definitely make pinxtos throughout the semester so that you can get a feel for what I've been eating. However, the cooking resources here are not what I am used to, to say the least.  It's going to take me a little while to get used to the limited amount of cookware in the kitchen and foreign ingredients that are available to me in the local markets.  To the right is the little set I've been using in our kitchen for my photos.  I found those black lights in one of our closets. Natural light coming through that window is hard to come by as there is another apartment building about ten feet away. Opposite the kitchen table there is a small fridge, horrendously inadequate counter space, and and unreliable set of stove burners.  The oven has yet to be tested.  I'll get around to that as soon as I figure out how to turn it on.

For my first cooking experience in San Sebastián I decided to get in the Spanish spirit and make a traditional Tortilla Española.  Tortilla Española is essentially a potato omelette and should´ve been easy enough to make.  It was a semi-flop.  Perhaps it was the egg yolks that are distinctively more orange than egg yolks in the United States.  Either way, it´s a little difficult to cook when a recipe calls for ingredients using the American system of measurements but the food here is weighed using the metric system.  Not to mention the complete lack of any measuring device in our flat.  Oh well.  I followed the recipe and the flavor was there but somehow the proportions did NOT work out.  Way too much potato and not enough egg.  Hey, we ate the whole thing anyway.  I´ll try again once I get a little more in the swing of things.

There are SO many things I want to cook while I´m here.  However, I´ll probably have to adjust that list to better suit my current cookware/ appliance situation.  There are actually several things I´ll have to adjust to while I´m here: navigating my bike through crowded sidewalks, the merely suggestive nature of all traffic lights, the fact that every door is "Push" as opposed to "Pull", hanging my laundry out on a clothes line, checking the weather before hanging my laundry out on the clothes line etc...  So that's what I've been up to.  One of my regular posts is coming up in the very near future!  Tonight we're celebrating Lexie's twentieth birthday and I'm making the hors d'oeuvres...

San Sebastián, Spain

San Sebastián, Spain

As many of you know, I am lucky enough to be studying abroad for the fall semester in San Sebastián, Spain.  San Sebastián is on the northern coast of Spain in what is known as the Basque region, extremely close to France.  Pictured above is the main beach of San Sebastián, just a few short blocks from where I´ll be living!  I arrived here on Sunday, August 22nd and lost a little faith in the San Sebastián airport since it took them until today to deliver my suitcase.  Regardless, I´ve really been enjoying myself while getting to know the other sixty five students in my program and exploring the city.  For the next week I´m living in a dorm and then moving into an apartment with two friends on September 1st.  So for those of you who are wondering whether or not my blog will continue during the semester the answer is YES, I will be cooking and blogging as much as possible for the next four months!  But that won´t begin until the first of September :)

I recently recieved the most amazing cookbook I have ever read.  It´s called The Food of Spain: a Journey for Food Lovers.  It has incredible pictures, maps, and of course recipes of all of the amazing food that I´ll be ingesting over the next few months.  In the introduction, the author states:

     "The Basques are well known for their love of food - and this shines through in their dishes and the star-studded restaurants of their capital, San Sebastián.  And no wonder - they have access to such wonderful produce: Draw a circle 100 kilometres around San Sebastián, and you will find the best seafood in Spain, the vegetables of Navarra, foi gras from the Landes, and the truffles of Perigord.¨

Could I have chosen a better place to study abroad? I dont think so!

Oven Roasted Salmon with Cucumber Dill Sauce

Hey guess what?  I'm celebrating over 50 followers and over 600 blog views!!!

That may not sound like much but I am pretty darn excited :)  So, what more reason to give my blog what it has lacked up until this point - a fantastic fish dish!

Oven Roasted Salmon

with Cucumber Dill Sauce

For those of you who think you don't like fish, and especially for those of you who do, this salmon is so delicious and easy!  Salmon and dill are a classic combination.  However, most of the cucumber dill sauces that I have tried in the past involved a LOT of mayo.  Way more mayo than I care to ingest in a lifetime.  So, I've lightened up this sauce but trust me when I say it is not lacking in flavor whatsoever.  The sauce is tangy and very refreshing!  And the salmon is flaky and cooked to perfection.

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs salmon fillet

1/3 cup chopped fresh dill plus six sprigs

1 medium cucumber

12 ounces greek yogurt

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 lemon

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit.

Slice the large fillet of salmon into six evenly sized smaller fillets.  Spray a 9 by 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.  Place the salmon fillets in the dish, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and lay one sprig of fresh dill on each fillet.  Place in the heated oven for about fifteen minutes until pink, opaque, and medium rare.

While the salmon is in the oven, combine the greek yogurt, mayo, and dijon mustard in a medium bowl and mix well.  Slice the cucumber in half and use a spoon to scoop out all of the seeds.  Finely chop the cucumber halves and finely mince the clove of garlic and add both to the yogurt mixture.  Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice of both halves into the bowl.  Chop the fresh dill, add to the mixture and mix well.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator to chill for as long as possible.  

Right before serving, remove the cucumber dill sauce from the refrigerator and season with salt and pepper.  Wait until the sauce is chilled before seasoning because foods tend to taste differently when they are cool as opposed to room temperature.  Before serving the salmon, remove the sprig of dill, and top with a healthy spoonful of cucumber dill sauce.  Enjoy!

Footnote:  I know I left the sprig of fresh dill on the fillet in the top picture but that was just for aesthetic beauty...you don't need to eat it.  Also, in writing this post I learned that the word refrigerator does NOT have a letter d before the letter g.  20 years old and still learning to spell!

Beer Marinated Flank Steak with Chimichurri

Beer Marinated Flank Steak with Chimichurri

Anytime my brother Dan and I get together it's an occasion for us to cook (or at least eat well and talk a lot about food).  So, when he and his girlfriend Lauren drove out east for a couple days we made sure to do just that.  Being a firefighter, Dan often cooks for his fire department in the South Bronx and of course, cooks at home as well.  We collaborated on this recipe and I am super excited to share it with my readers!  I usually describe chimichurri sauce as sort of a hybrid between pesto and vinaigrette.  It's composed mainly of herbs like a pesto but has the red wine vinegar to give it a tangy bite like a vinaigrette.  However you describe it, paired with flank steak it's delicious!

Ingredients

1 1/2 to 2 lb flank steak

2 cans of beer (we used Budweiser)

1/3 cup worcestershire sauce

1 cup parsley

1/4 cup cilantro

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Cross-hatch marks courtesy of Dan's grilling skills.

In a large tupperware or casserole dish place the flank steak.  Pour both cans of beer over the meat then add 1/3 cup worcestershire sauce.  Allow to marinate for at least one hour but preferably several. 

After the meat has marinated, grill over medium direct heat for 7-9 minutes on each side, flipping once.  Remove the meat from the grill and let it rest on a cutting board for at least ten minutes.  This keeps all of the juices from flowing out during the slicing process and keeps the steak juicy.

While the meat is resting, combine parsley, cilantro, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, cumin, and red pepper flakes in a food processor.  Purée until smooth.  The sauce should be of similar consistency to a pesto or salad dressing.

Use a sharp knife to slice the flank steak into long strips.  Always slice against the natural grain of the meat to ensure tenderness. You could substitute skirt steak in this recipe if you prefer a fattier cut of meat, however, my preference would definitely be the flank steak.  Drizzle the meat liberally with chimichurri sauce.  Enjoy!