Verdinas with cuttlefish and clams

                                                                               Receta en español

The recipe I present today is famous in Asturias, 'verdinas with cuttlefish and clams'. A perfect and surprising mix.

Verdinas  are small beans with a shape remembering a kidney, they are green, that's why they are called 'verdinas' , this name comes from 'verde' (Green in spanish).

These are buttery beans, with a fine and delicate taste. These characteristics make them combine perfectly with seafood and fish.

Verdinas are typical from Llanes in Asturias.

Its greenish color comes from the time of harvest, they are harvested when grain is matured but it is still green. If they are harvested later they become white and their taste is different.

Ingredients:

For fish broth:

• 1 piece of monkfish (for instance).
• 1 piece of onion.
• 1 clove of garlic .
• 1 bay leaf.
• 1 sprig of parseley.
• 1 piece red pepper.
• salt.

For verdinas beans:

• 250 grams of verdinas beans.
• 1 cuttlefish.
• 1 onion.
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• 1 bay leaf.
• 1 parseley sprig.
• salt.
• 1 tablespoon of sweet paprika.
• Fish broth.
• a splash of Natural tomato sauce.
• 500 grams of Clams à la marinière.
  

Method:

1-   Soak verdinas for 12 hours.

2-  If you don't have a fish broth, prepare it. Put fish, onion , garlic , bay leaf , parseley , pepper and salt in a casserole with water. Put at high heat, once it reaches boiling point, reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes.

3-  Once broth is cold, strain it and keep the liquid. (Don't throw the rest , you can make croquettes).

4- Put cuttlefish into a pressure cooker, sprinkle a little salt. Pour the quantity of water you need to cover the bottom of the cooker.

5- Put the heat on high , when steam comes out of the safety valve , put heat on low and cook cuttlefish for 20 minutes.

6- Cut cuttlefish into small pieces and set aside.

7- Chop onion and garlic , pour a little olive oil into the pressure cooker, sautée onion and garlic for 3 minutes at low heat.

8- Add bay leaf, parseley, salt and pepper (sweet paprika) , keep on sautéing for 5 more minutes.

9- Add verdinas beans and stirr with a wooden spoon , keep on sautéing for 3 more minutes.

10- Add a trickle of natural tomato sauce, cover verdinas with fish broth, it should cover 1 cm above the verdinas. (fish broth must be cold).

11- Close pressure cooker, put on high heat, when steam comes out from the valve put heat on low heat and cook verdinas for 10 minutes.

12- Open the pressure cooker and keep cooking verdinas for 10 more minutes , on low heat and the lid ajar.

13- Add to the pressure cooker the cuttlefish and Clams à la marinière  , stirr with a wooden spoon and cook on low heat for 5 minutes.
¡Now verdinas are ready!.

My comments to the Recipe

I had never tried beans with seafood. I am delighted with this combination, besides verdinas are soft and buttery , they go perfectly with cuttlefish and clams.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Asturias

Clams à la marinière

                                                                               Receta en Español

Clams à la marinière is a typical dish in North Spain, in Asturias are very popular too. You can eat them as a dish by their own or to accompany stews, to give a sea taste to beans or pasta.

Ingredients:

•   1 clove of garlic.
•   1 Little onion.
•   1 tablespoon of flour.
•   1 cup White wine.
•   Olive oil.
•   Parseley to sprinkle.
•   500 grams of Clams.

Method:

1-   Place fresh clams in a bowl with water and a handful of salt during three hours to remove the sand. Change the water three or four times.

2-   Chop garlic and onion and sauté them in a pan with a little olive oil, sauté until onion turns transparent.

3-   Add flour and stirr well with a wooden spoon.

4-   Now add White wine, clams and parseley. Stirr with the wooden spoon. Clams will be done once they are open. If there is some of them that doesn't open , discard them. They must be rotten.

My comments to the Recipe 

It is easy to cook, and clams are delicious with the wine. It is bette If you make it with fresh clams, I bought them fresh but I froze them after cleaning. I wasn't sure if frozen clams will open but Ican asure you that even frozen clams open when they are cooked.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Asturias

Kiribati Buatoro

                                                                               Receta en Español

Buatoro is a typical dessert from Kiribati, it can also be a side dish or a starter.

The way of cooking this dish is the typical way in Oceania.
You will need banana, taro or breadfruit tree leaves, to wrap this dessert in it.

Banana leaves are the easiest to find in Sapin, in case you don't find them you can use aluminium foil asuming in this case that you will lose the original taste that this kind of leaves provide.

In kiribati Kamaimai is used to sweeten this dish, kamaimai is palm sap cooked until it becomes sweet, there is a similar product in Canary Islands called palm honey wich you can use as a substitute.

Ingredients:

•   930 grams of taro.
•   1 banana leaf.
•   300 grams of brown sugar or palm honey.
•   300 ml aprox of coconut milk.

Method:

1-   Peel and cut taro into pieces, pour a little quantity of water in a pan and cook during 40 minutes. Until taro gets a Little soft.

After cooking the taro, put it in a bowl.

2-   Add sugar to the bowl , mix well wih a mixer.

3-   Add coconut milk litle by little, add just the quantity you need to make the mix soft and to give some coconut taste to the dessert.

4-   To clean the banana leaf ,put it under the tap and after that place it in a pan full of water at low heat. Deep the leaf on both sides, very carefully given it breaks easily.

5-   Place the banana leaf on an oven proof plate, pour over it the mix made in step 3.

6-   wrap the mix into the banana leaf as if it was a parcel, use a string to fix it.

7-   Preheat oven at 180 º Celsius, then cook buatoro for 50 or 60 minutes. 

My comments to the recipe

Taro has a special taste, mixed with coconut and sugar makes a marvellous taste that takes you direct to an Oceanic island.
Besides taro is a healthy food that helps lowing your cholesterol levels.

Where to buy the ingredients

Banana leafs can be found frozen in some stores in Madrid, it is common to find them in asiatic stores. I bought them at 'Super Ventas' , José María Fernández Lanseros 1 ,metro El Carmen .
Taro can be found at fruit stores with latin products.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Kiribati

Africa

Read my recipes for the following african countries:

Angola

Algeria

Benin

Bostwana

Burkina Fasso

Burundi

Cape Verde

Central africa

Comoros

Ivory Coast

Red snapper with Coconut Curry Sauce

                                                                               Receta en español

Fish is a staple food in Kiribati. I wanted to make a recipe of a  kind of oceanic fish  easy to find in Madrid.
After my research I found that red snapper could be found in Kiribati as well as in Spain, so I decided to cook this fish.
It is a delicious fish that goes well with Coconut Curry Sauce, one of the most common sauce in the islands.
They serve it accompanied by Coconut Rice. Coconut rice Pacific way.

Ingredients:

•   1 red snapper.
•   3 lemon slices.
•   380 - 400 ml coconut milk.
•   1 dessert spoon of curry powder.
•   Salt.

Method:

1-   Make three cuts at the back of the fish. Sprinkle a litle salt over the two sides of the fish.
Pour a litle oil in an oven proof dish and place the snapper on it.
Place a lemon slide into each cut at the back of the fish.

2-   Preheat oven at 175 ºC , cook the fish during 45 minutes.

3-   Now is time to prepare Coconut curry Sauce.
Put the coconut milk in a saucepan with a little salt and curry powder, put at medium heat and stirr well. Once the mix is hot you have the sauce ready. It is easy!.

4-   Serve the snapper with a Little Coconut curry sauce on top, accompanied by Coconut rice.

My comments to the recipe

It is easy and fast to cook, it surprises me the good taste of the fish deeped in coconut curry sauce, besides, coconut rice gives an extra delicious and soft taste to the dish.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Kiribati

Coconut rice Pacific way

                                                                               Receta en Español

It has been a real challenge trying to find recipes , or at least the name of typical dishes, of Kiribati.

Luckily I came across this website :(http://www.kiribatitourism.gov.ki/) where they explain what is life like in Kiribati and offers travel guides where you can find a short description of main dishes consumed in these islands.

Rice doesn't grow in these islands, but it has become a common ingredient in normal meals in Kiribati.

The dish I present today is rice cooked in coconut milk, where they take advantage of the great amount of coconuts of the islands.

This is an easy and delicious recipe.

I already cooked coconut rice for Belize : http://viaja-en-mi-cocina-english.blogspot.com/2015/09/coconut-rice-belizean-style.html

Todays' recipe is very similar, adding toasted coconut which turns the rice even more delicious.

Ingredients:

•   1 clove of garlic.
•   1 cup rice .
•   1 cup coconut milk.
•   1 ½ cups of water.
•   50 grams of grated coconut.
•   Salt.

Method:

1-   We pour oil in a pot and fry the garlic for a minute over medium heat.

2-  Add the rice and fry it with the garlic a minute over medium heat.

3-  Pour into the pot a cup of coconut milk, 1 ½ cups of water and salt , put the pot over high heat until it boils, at this momento, low the heat to minimum and cook for 20 minutes.

The minutes of cooking are an approximation, it depends on the hardness of the rice, you should take care and look if it is done before those 20 minutes.
Once it is done, turn off the heat and let it rest for a few minutes covering the pot with a cloth.

4- Let rice stand, meanwhile toast grated coconut.
Put grated coconut in a saucepan whithout oil, (coconut has its own oil).
 Put the saucepan at low heat , stirr with a wooden spoon. The moment we see that coconut starts to change its color to a light golden brown , we put away from heat and continue stirring.
It will keep on toasting with the remaining heat in the saucepan.
When it reaches the desired color, put the coconut in a dish.

This is the way it should look like:

Sprinkle a little toasted coconut over the rice:

Coconut rice is used to accompany other dishes, but it also is eaten alone. I ate it as a side dish of the fish I will present you next week.

My coments to the recipe

Coconut adds a special softness and taste to the rice, besides grated coconut on top of the rice turns it even tastier, it is easy to cook and a delicious dish.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Kiribati

Verviers rice cake

                                                                               Receta en Español

Veviers is a city of the Belgian province of Liege. Rice cake is a typical dessert in this Belgian region. The recipe I present today is the way they do the cake in Verviers.

The origin of this recipe is unknown, what is clear is that in the 17 th century this cake was largely eaten in Verviers.

It must be made with round and short rice, and you can eat it heat or cold, as you prefer.
It is said that the good rice cake must have a slimy consistency.

You must remember that the filling of this cake must be prepared in advance because it needs to stand for 24 hours.

Ingredients (24 cm de diameter oven dish):

•   1 l hole milk.
•   135 grams round rice.
•   185 grams sugar.
•   1 cinnamon stick.
•   1 block of shortcrust pastry.
•   2 eggs.
•   Butter and flour  to brush the oven dish.

Method:

1-   Make the filling the previous day; put milk in a saucepan at high heat, once it reaches boiling point , set at low heat and put rice and cinnamon inside the saucepan.
Cook for 1 hour.

2-   Add sugar to the saucepan and let cook for an additional half an hour.

3-   Let cool and keep in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.
This is the result after 24 hours in the fridge:

4-   Add an egg to the rice and mix well with your hands.

5-   Take an ovenproof dish of 24 cm diameter, rub butter over the Surface of the dish and sprinkle with flour, put the block of shortcrust pastry all over the oven dish, prick the pastry with a fork.

(If you have enough time it is better to prepare shortcrust pastry by yoursekf, here is the recipe I used: Pastel de nueces de macadamia).

6-   Pour rice over the shortcrust pastry.

7-   Take the other egg, separate egg yolk from white, take the yolk and paint the surface of the cake.

8-   Preheat oven to 240 ºC , cook the cake during 25 minutes at the same temperatura, heat up and down. The last five minutes use only the grill.

My Comments to the Recipe

If you like rice pudding, this is tour dessert, for me it was delicious.
You can eat it cold or heat, accompanied by a cup of coffee. Belgian people suggest that the cake must be slimy, my cake wasn't so slimy, I should have cooked the rice for less time.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

 

Belgium