I was glad that my four students unanimously asked for Spanish cuisine for our cooking class last Sunday. While I can cook Italian dishes in my sleep, it was definitely a challenge to create some new recipes, research Spanish wines, olives, and cheeses, and learn how to make a delectable flan – which, until last Sunday, was never one of my favorite desserts.
Here’s how the class ran:
- We began with an array of tapas:
- Roasted beets with mint
- Beet greens with garlic, golden raisins, and lemon
- Sautéed Mushrooms with sherry vinegar and garlic
- Four different kinds of olives
- Carrot chips, snap pea crisps, and crackers
- Roasted almonds and pumpkin seeds with cumin, garlic, coriander, and cinnamon
- Crudités
- A cheese board with Manchego, Iberico, Valdeon, and a young Mahon (God bless, Amanda at Earth Fare, who allowed me to sample a number of different Spanish cheeses to make sure that I had the right mix of textures and flavors)
Our first course was my Spanish Gabanzo Chipotle Stew, which was a huge hit. We sampled two different spicy vegan sausages: Trader Joe’s Chorizo and Field Roast Mexican Chipotle. And as I’ve previously blogged, the Field Roast won hand’s down!
Our salad course was a Seville salad, with oranges, green olives, capers over mixed baby greens with a delightful dressing that used two hard-boiled egg yolks, sherry vinegar, garlic, and extra virgin olive oil.
Our main course used the Gardein Chick’n Scalloppini that is so versatile. I taught everyone the easiest way to roast peppers, and we roasted red, yellow, and orange peppers to make sure our sauce was very colorful. We used spicy Peruvian green olives, Meyer lemons, garlic, and shallots to make a luscious sauce, which we served with garlic mashed potatoes (hey, not Spanish, but quite delicious!)
Our desert course was a homemade low-fat flan (yes, it can be done), decorated with blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and pomegranate seeds. Best flan I’ve ever had!
And oh, the wines. Here’s what I served :
- Vina Sanzo 2009 Rueda – Verdejo
- Martin Codax Albarino 2010 (OUTSTANDING)
- Bosao Garnacha 2011
- Paso a Paso Termpranillo 2010
So, there you have it. Another fun cooking class and successful dinner party. I’m willing to do more of these kinds of classes – just let me know if you’re interested!
PS – recipes for all of these dishes will be forthcoming . . . in my next book!
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