Cooking Spanish Food –
Part 2 – by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
I
served Viña Esmerelda from the Torres winery outside Barcelona, Spain with the
gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp). The
wine provided some “spin” stories, too.
Laurent and I relived our 1992 trip to Barcelona where we first tried
this wine at the Los Caracoles restaurant.
I
had just finished reading my first reference book in Spanish entitled Atlas de los Vinos de Espana (Atlas of
Spanish wines) and could tell Laurent that Viña Esmerelda was made with muscat
and gewürztraminer grapes. Those grapes
gave it a slightly sweet flavor that went well with the shrimp.
The
wine’s name was the same as the heroine in Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Nôtre Dame.
All this great spin came from one of the best kept secrets of the 1990s
– inexpensive and very good Spanish wines.
The
next dish I served was a roast leg of lamb that was really mutton. I studded the roast with garlic and drizzled
olive oil on it with thyme sprinkled on it to roast.
When
the roast was medium rare, I carved it as Florence sprinkled chopped, fresh
Italian parsley on white cannellini beans that would go with it.
I
served the lamb-mutton on warm plates to keep the food hot so we could talk a
long time.
I
chose a French wine with not a Spanish one to go with the meal from the
Bordeaux region – Lalande-de-Pomerol. We
bought that bottle as a souvenir from a Bordeaux area road trip.
Everyone
liked the cognac-laced brownies.
Brownies may not be Spanish, but the Spaniards are the ones who brought
Mexican chocolate to Europe along with other New World products such as corn
(maiz), tomatoes, and potatoes.
The
Spanish meal theme was a hit, but it can easily become all French, if you serve
all French wines.
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
