Travel the World Through Your Taste Buds: Bienvenidos a España!
Welcome back to another week of international travel through our mouths! This week we are visiting Spain! I spent the second half of my freshman year of college in Seville Spain and traveled all around with my host family. My host father was the main chef so he always made dinner, but my host mom was the one who made all the desserts so my recipes from this week follow the ways they taught me.
Where are we going?
We are headed to Seville Spain with some dishes that my host father and I would have for lunch about once a week. Lunch is very important in the Spanish culture, it is the biggest and most extravagent meal of the day, but some days we just wanted something simple. Most days during the week my host dad and I ate lunch together while watching political news in the sun room. I learned how to make one of these dishes from my host dad so sadly I cannot link it for you here but if you google Arroz Cubano you’ll be sure to find a decent enough remake of the dish!
What are we making?
In Spain tapas or small meals are very common and actually better than full meals because they allow you to sample many different kinds of food all in one sitting. So today I made a selection of tapas, Arroz Cubano, champiñón con aioli, and lentejas. There were some challenges that I did not expect when making these recipes, again like with all the recipes I do not have access to the ingredients I would have while overseas but I try to make due. The rice and mushrooms turned out just fine, however the soup, the lentejas did not turn out well at all.
As you can see in the above picture there are large chunks of garlic, this is because I absolutely love garlic and my host family knew that very well so they were always very sure to add large garlic cloves to the food. This is a simple rice and tomato dish normally served with a fried egg on top but I do not like fried eggs so I always put a scrambled on on top of mine.
Now I know these may not look appetizing but I promise they are delicious! They are sauteed mushrooms with a garlic aioli and they are the perfect tapa to start a meal with. These are extremely easy to make and are done within 5 minutes.
Now onto the bad news, the soup, I needed a recipe to follow and so I found one. However this recipe turned out disgusting and absolutley nothing like the soup I was used to. This recipe was not correct and I would not suggest anyone follow it. I won’t even post a picture here because of how awful it looked. I even followed the comments that said to add more liquid. You can locate the recipe here.
Hopefully the dessert goes better this week!
And Remember to Take a Bite Out of Life!
Ratings:
Taste – 3.5 stars
Difficulty – 4 stars
Appearance – 2 stars
Would I Make it Again – 3 stars
