Valencia – Page 5 – food by sole

22nd September 202023rd September 2020

Post summer fallow

I have been quite absent from here lately.

Trying to keep up with the weekly posts stressed me, which was the opposite of what writing here should be. So I decided to stop it, there and then.

Then we were really lucky and we could finally go back to Spain for a few weeks. It was really strange to be elsewhere, not in our flat, for the first time in six months. It all felt quite unreal, as if we were in a dream.

Grafitti depicting a cup with a palm tree, a slice of lime and a barraca, and an “Aigua de València” title

We enjoyed spending time in Valencia again. We ate and drank, explored new and old favourites, and of course, visited my beloved market almost daily—summer fruits are a thing of beauty! We also made almost daily use of our balcony, having very socially distanced aperitivi and practising the noble art of Human CCTVing (and sometimes also being bitten by mosquitos).

All of this requires active dedication and the last thing I wanted to do was to stop enjoying what I was doing in order to blog about it. Hence, no writing here!

Now that autumn has started, that might change…

16th June 2020

Bollit / hervido (“boiled”)

Picture of a portion of bollit / hervido in a soup dish, containing half a red onion, a carrot and one potato with a dash of butter

In the quest for the most extravagant and spectacularly looking dishes, we often overlook the basics. What a shame!

So here’s one of them: bollit (in Valencian) or hervido (in Spanish). Which literally means… boiled!

This dish is extremely simple, consisting of boiling vegetables in salted water, and then having them with a bit of fat of your choosing. I know—it sounds “unappetising”, and it looks “ugly”, but it can be oh so comforting, especially when the weather is cold or if you’re feeling not so great and all you need is some simple food that doesn’t require extremely sophisticated skills to prepare.

25th May 202025th May 2020

Horchata de pipas de melón (melon seeds horchata)

Last week we got a big melon in our fruit and veg box delivery, and when I was removing the seeds I remembered that I read that early horchata recipes used melon seeds, and I wondered: what would an horchata made of melon seeds taste like?

Why not try it? After all, these seeds were going to go to waste, and I have a bit of time in my hands… so…

30th April 202012th April 2022

Mona de Pascua

This is a sweet cake that is produced around Easter time in the Valencian region, and it’s also one of my favourites!

In fact, I like it so much that I learned to make it, because it’s impossible to source it in London, and I was missing it lots each time I spent Easter in the UK.

One of the defining features of this bun is that it uses eggs both in the dough and in the decoration, which has many variations: you can brush the top with beaten egg, or whisk the egg white with sugar until it stiffens and use it to decorate the top the bun, or you can even place an egg on the bun before baking, which makes it look like an egg nesting on the bun (this is most typical of the smaller, individual pieces). Often, the eggshells are dyed with food colouring, so this makes for very colourful pieces that you’re sorry to eat.

Tradition has it that you should take a mona with you on a country side walk on Easter Monday, to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Then, when you find a nice and calm spot, you sit down and eat your mona outdoors, while enjoying the early warm weather and the sight and scent of flowers (hopefully without too many insects!).

And if your mona includes eggs, it’s quite traditional to ‘crack’ them on the forehead of your family members or friends… preferably by surprise! 🤪

Not my forehead or the forehead of anyone I know! Source: Alicante Vivo

5th April 20205th April 2020

Self isolation, week 3: anything goes!

Pumpkin, cauliflower and korean bacon ramen

We used to do most of our grocery shopping in the shops in the area, but since the ‘outbreak’ and the ‘lockdown’, it all has been really messed up, with shops packed with people but devoid of food.

Now that most of our fresh food shopping comes from erratic and unpredictable home deliveries, and is complemented with whatever we can find when we venture onto the shops once a week, we’ve had to “change our paradigm”.

Or in other words, instead of going from recipe to ingredients, we’re now going the other way: here’s the ingredients, what can you do with them?