Posts from the ‘Light Lunch’ Category

May 10

His Mother’s Son

The first time I read about Spanish avant-garde chef Francis Paniego I fell in love, with his mother. An award winning chef in her own right, Marisa Sánchez is responsible for Echaurren, a restaurant serving traditional Riojan food connected by a small inn to El Portal, the cutting edge restaurant run by her son.

Now that I am looking more thoughtfully at traditional cooking, I see the push and pull between old and new everywhere. I like of the thought of these two restaurants sharing a kitchen, side by side like a whim of Gaudí. I decided to try to make Marisa’s Chicken and Serrano Ham Croquetas, served at both restaurants. I included a picture above of the uncooked breaded croquetas because they were much prettier before I inflicted my skittish frying on them, as seen below. Read more

May 1

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Kako’s Arepas

Now that I thought I had the right arepa pan, I was dying to test it out. An increasingly popular street food trend, I wanted to master making them at home so I could have them with leftover guisados and the Colombian cheese I could only buy as a wheel. Generally, I prefer the peaceful precision of baking, so I decided to follow the directions on the package and stuff them with ropa vieja I had left from earlier this week. The results were disappointing, a little too messy, and definitely too raw.