Paella

On Sunday October 28, 2007, we visited our friends, Susan, Pedro, Laura and Sarah, in Denia. For lunch, we had a delicious chicken paella (take-out from a local restaurant, El Farallo) in its traditional pan. Paella (also frying pan in Valencian – from Latin patella) is a rice dish cooked with saffron and olive oil and garnished with vegetables, meat and seafood (it is nearly impossible to find paella without some sort of sea animal as an ingredient - and all of these animals have parts left intact!). I learned that the rice in paella tastes so good because it is cooked in a large pan, hence, spread flat for each grain to absorb the flavor. I heard that Vicente's mom makes the best Paella around here!

The sizes for paella pans vary from 10” to 52” (they use larger ones for the festivities but only via special acquisition); and to cook in these large pans, they use special burners and tripods to hold the burners – if you don’t use burners, the food on the outer rim of the pan does not get properly cooked. Paella is the main dish for picnics, family and community gatherings (like the ones at our apartment building) in this region as we have pizza or subs. The most famous paella cooking is performed during Fallas in Valencia (a Valencian tradition to celebrate St. Joseph Day on March 19th). There are many myths about how the paella was originated. The most plausible one seems to be the one with mixing the leftover rice dishes into one! In Middle East, there are rice dishes prepared similarly, but not festively.

The most exotic part of paella is saffron and it is unbelievably expensive. The spice is derived from the stigma of saffron crocus flower. Each flower has only 3 stigmas so about 40 flowers yield 1 ounce of saffron (1 acre of plantation yields about 10 lbs!) and the price varies from $20.00 to $45.00 per ounce depending on its grade (there are 4 different quality grades). For a paella dish to serve 6-8 persons, you might need to use only about 1/10th of an ounce.

Anyways, we later discovered the restaurant for the best prepared traditional paella in the region: Puig Mola Restaurant.

Finding the place was an adventure in itself! Following the directions as we drove, we often doubted that this could possibly be a famous place and anyone would take the trouble getting here just to eat paella... In disbelief, we finally found the place and noticed the fancy cars parked around. So it was true: it was a well-known restaurant and people do come here just to eat paella. The restaurant was located in a small town called Puig Mola near Barx (about 15 km from Gandia) and surrounded by total of 6 visible houses. Perched on a hill, it had a spectacular view of the prairie below and surrounding mountains above (including the one that I had hiked before with some friends).

Yes, it is definitely worth the trip if you can. The traditional chicken and rabbit paella was the best at this restaurant among the ones we had tried in Spain. For the seafood paella lovers, El Farallo Restaurant was the best by our experience. Both places require a reservation. At Muig Mola, they need to know how many in your party so they can prepare your food ahead of time.

Puig Mola Info: Puig Mola Restaurant Barx (Valencia) Phone: 96 280 7008; 606 073 131
El Farallo Info: C/. fenix, 10 Las Rotas Denia (Alicante) Phone: 96 643 0652

Valencia Oranges

There is no way that you live in "Comunidad de Valencia" and not get intimately involved in their famous oranges. Our good friends, the Faus, own a farm home which includes an orange grove - many people I have met here do have such arrangements. They have been sharing some of their naranja crop with us - well, some might be a bit of an underestimate: we have received four crateful of oranges and mandarins in one month, so imagine the amount of citrus eating and juice drinking (our next door neighbors have also been supplying us with some oranges). The lemons below is Faus' first crop.

These citrus are completely natural without any spraying or processing because the Faus are not producing them for commercial use. The Valencian oranges have a thin peel and are extremely juicy and sweet. They are best for making juice because it is hard to peel and slice them. These oranges became pretty handy while Grandma and our friends the Wassermans were visiting.

Yunus and Dilara made a huge production of orange juice and stored for later consumption. Here is a juice making operation at the Tezcans:



According to February 2006 USA Department of Agriculture report, Spain (estimated 2005/6 production 4.8 million tons) is the 5th highest citrus producing country (falling behind Mexico after a severe drought 2004, worst in 60 years). Brazil (estimated 18.2 million tons) is the largest producer followed by China (14.4 million tons, mostly mandarin and tangerine), USA (10.6 million), and Mexico. Spain does not produce much grapefruit. The report states that citrus production was affected in year 2005-6 by Hurricane Wilma in USA, abandonment of citrus fields in Brazil (apparently, Brazil is replacing its citrus plants with sugarcane; gotta have those cereals loaded, eh!), drought in Spain and a frost in late spring 2005 in Hunan region and cold temperatures and several typhoons in Zhejiang province of China.

As one of the leading citrus exporter, Spain's citrus export (estimated 2.7 million tons) exceeds USA (899, 000 tons) - obviously, Spain sells much of what it produces. World's total citrus export was 9.3 million tons. With the recent economic developments, Russia is apparently becoming a major target market for citrus industry.

The Valencian oranges are not available here until the end of November or so. Before the local crop is available, Spain imports its citrus from South America and South Africa. Those oranges are nothing like the ones you pick from the trees now. I have not yet found one Valencian orange that is dry and tasteless.

Unfortunately, I also noticed the signs of abandoning smaller orange groves to be replaced by high-rises. On the other hand, I realize more trees are planted in the more commercialized fields. In any event, it seems like the Valencian oranges will be around here quite some time - luckily...

Puchero

On December 30th, the Tezcans, Rachel and Vicente were invited to our new friends, Alicia, Miguel and Michael, for a puchero lunch (comido). If you remember, I had met the Faus family at the Fords' dinner party. After that, we went to hiking together. Miguel is a building contractor, who was originally educated as a biochemist. He is a wealth of knowledge in pretty much everything, but definitely an expert on vegetation and building homes. Alicia is a clinical psychologist and takes English classes from Rachel. She must be very good at her work for she always listens and is very compassionate. Michael is their only child and his birthday is only one day before Dilara's on the same year! He also takes English lessons from Rachel and last summer, he spent some time in England; hence, his English is pretty good - ironically, one of the friends he kept in touch with from this England camp is from Turkey.

During our hike, we had talked about puchero because we spotted some Cardo (penca in Valencian) plants. Cardo is cardoon in English, artichoke thistle, and in Spain it is used for cooking. The flower buds can be eaten like the artichoke, but the stems are normally bitter in taste without processed, so they blanch the stems before using in recipes. Apparently, the plant possesses the same medicinal properties as artichoke, which is suggested to have liver detoxifying properties. After this scientific discussion about cardoon, I became very curious to taste it and decided to have a puchero meal one day. Anyway, that was the story about puchero arrangement but the real reason, of course, was just to get together.

Puchero is Valencian word for Cocido in Spanish. It is basically a stew cooked with incredible amount of good stuff. The clear part of the juice (caldo) is sold in stores and used as stock in cooking.

Los Fausos live in Rotova, about 10 km west of Gandia. Miguel renovated their house incredibly beautiful. The walls, floors, woodwork and staircase were exceptional craftsmanship. He swirling staircase was built from marble and obviously required some heavy duty fitting - amazing work.

You can see the staircase behind this Santa.

Don Quixote wall murals in the garden

Michael's Nativity Display (years of collecting)

Alicia's LLadro Nativity Display

Well, the meal! It was not only puchero, but the whole lunch was a fiesta. First, we had a variety of Spanish entries - salchichons, jamon iberico, manchego cheese and etc. Then came the puchero. First we had it like soup with the meatballs and rice. Then the vegetables and the meat cooked in it came separately. After main course, we had some naranjas from the Faus' orchards followed by a variety of Spanish Christmas goodies such as all sorts of turrons and fruit filled pastries. The meal ended with a dessert wine from the region.

The best part of the whole affair was being in the company of such wonderful people. I have recently found some blogs that talk about not very nice treatment of the foreigners by the Spaniards in Spain. We must be awfully lucky to have encountered such nice people so far. I have not, yet, met one nasty person during this visit - except some customer representatives on the phone (they are pretty useless, if you want to get anything done in Spain, you do it face to face).

Anyway, what a way to finish a year: great meal, friends, family and a beautiful weather....

Here is Alicia's recipe for Puchero:

Coges garbanzos secos y los pones en agua y sal el dia antes del puchero. En una olla a presion pones carne de ternera, de cordero, de cerdo y de pollo (cada persona elige los trozos que mas le gustan). Despues añades la verdura, que puedes poner carlotas, pencas, patatas, boniato, nabo, puerro, apio, chirivia (puedes poner cualquier verdura que te guste). Lo cubres todo con agua, sal y azafran. Cuando el agua esté caliente, y antes de cerrar la olla, pones los garbanzos remojados, cierras la olla y la pones a fuego lento.

Despues preparas las pelotas que necesitas carne de ternera y magro muy muy picada, un huevo o dos crudos, un poco de pan mojado y muy escurrido, piñones, pimienta y sal. Lo has de amasar todo con las manos y hacerlo muy bien mezclado y despues modelar tantas pelotas como quieras. Se añade al resto del puchero al cabo de 1,5 hora.

Cuando ya esté todo cocido, que suele ser al cabo de 2,5 o 3 horas, sacas caldo aparte y cueces el arroz. Se sirve como ya vistes, es decir, el arroz con las pelotas primero y despues la carne y la verdura.

You need a huge (believe me huge) cooking pot for this dish:

1. take garbanzo beans and put them into water and salt the day before making puchero.
2. in a pressure cooker, put the beef, lamb, pig or chicken (you choose the kind you like but typical meat used are lamb and beef).
3. then add vegetables such as carrots, pencas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnip, leak, celery, parsnip (and any kind you like)
4. cover everything with water, add salt and safran.
5. heat it before covering the lid.
6. when the water is hot, add the soaked garbanzo beans, close the lid and reduce the heat.
7. prepare meatballs while the stew is cooking.
8. take finely ground beef and lean pork, 1-2 eggs, a little bit wet bread crumbs, pine nuts, pepper and salt, knead them by hand until mixed well and shape them into the size you like (ours were about 1/2 size of my palm).
9. add these meatballs into the stew about 1.5 h after they have been cooking.
10. total cooking time for the stew is about 2.5 to 3 hours with pressure cooker and almost the whole day under very low heat with a regular pot.
11. after the stew is cooked, take the juice into another cooking pot and cook with some rice into a soup.
12. serve the soup with meatballs first, then the vegetables and meat as second.

Yum, yum...

Haluk and Vicente with Spike and Lara in the garden

An avocado tree (I remember our attempts trying to grow the plant from the seed!)

One unripe avocado on the tree

The Faus' Christmas Tree in Spanish style

Post-Christmas Events

After we came back from Norway, our social life gained a momentum. On the December 29th, we had a lunch (comido) at the Fords' house. The meal was exquisite again. It was same as British Christmas dinner except few days later. We had lots of appetizers prior to the main course, moist and delicious roasted chicken (I must try this way of cooking the chicken: Merry bakes the chicken wrapped in aluminum foil first, then opens and roasts it; this way, chicken remains moist). There were so many scrumptious vegetable dishes such as green beans, potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, stuffing, regular gravy and bread gravy (this was the first time I tried this gravy and I really liked it). For desert we had apple pie and coffee. I tried to make the similar kind of dishes for Thanksgiving but these were far more palatable than mine. I am glad we had the chance to have a traditional Christmas meal before closing 2007.

During our visit, Haluk got to learn so much about sailing from David, who was getting ready for another sailing by his boat across Atlantic in a couple of weeks. I have learned so much from these encounters with both Merry and David, they have amazing wealth of knowledge.

After the lunch, we went to the swimming pool for a fun swim meet just among the team swimmers. At the end of races, they did a fun-relay carrying a foam-person across the pool - it was hilarious.

The next day, we were at the Faus' for a puchero lunch, but that is topic of another entry.

Before

and after...

We found this spot at the Plaza Mayor after my Christmas entry, so they do have a pic opportunity with Santa in Gandia!