ZARZUELA DE PESCADO

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This is the result when you fry some monkfish, “Dublin bay prawn” as the dictionary says… but we call them “cigalas” in Spanish, and you mix it with previously boiled clams. Sauce is made of tomato, garlic, parsley and saffron.
Saffron is widely used in fish dishes, in paella for example. Nevertheless, some alternatives exist.

The name Zarzuela may come from the lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung/danced scenes. This is also the name of the Palace of the King and Queen of Spain in Madrid.

CARGOLS A LA LLAUNA/CARACOLES ASADOS

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What you see here is a typical dish of Lleida, at least the way of cooking the snails because they are also eaten in other places of Spain and in some other countries too ( France, Portugal, etc… ). This dish is called “Cargols a la llauna“. “Cargols” is snail, and “llauna” is the special iron pan with handles used to cook them in a barbecue.

Salt, cayenne and olive oil are added to the snails and they are left in the heat. They have been carefully chosen, one by one, to discard any dead snails.

They are served with this sauce similar to mayonnaise and called “allioli”. Outside Catalonia they call it “alioli” too. It means “garlic and oil” because these two ingredients are the main ones. It contains also egg.

Snails are taken out of their shells by this special tool, a spike, and dipped right after in the sauce.

Complete menu may include “escalivada” which is eggplant and pepper ( sometimes tomato and onion too ) roasted in barbecue and then peeled. This is usually eaten on a toast, seasoned with oil and salt. Traditionally the toast is previously rubbed with tomato or garlic, or even both, but skipping this is step doesn’t make it less tasty.

“Mona de Pascua” is a traditional Easter cake which is eaten on Easter Monday in places like Catalonia and Valencian Community. I don’t know if “mona” is eaten in other places of Spain because there are already many types of traditional Easter pastries around the country, so they don’t need to eat more :P. For example in Balearic Islands they eat “crespells”, a star-shaped special biscuit and “robiols” a pie made of the same dough and filled with a sweet made of pumpkin and syrup or cottage cheese, among other fillings.

“Mona de Pascua” was formerly a plain cake with hard-boiled eggs which godparents gave to their godchildren as a present on Easter Sunday. There was an egg for each year-old of the child. Nowadays it’s the same but cakes are very elaborate ( for example with jam, chocolate, butter, etc… inside ) and eggs are made of chocolate or have been replaced by figures. In Catalonia even the cake has disappeared in some cases and the “mona” is only the figure, by the way very big and extremely elaborated.

This is a little example of “mona“. It hasn’t a chocolate figure because different kinds of chocolate ( plain, white, strawberry, milk… ) are spread on the top, so there is enough, LOL.

This other one has a milk-chocolate figure, a bunny.

The bottle you see in the pictures is “cava“, the Catalan version of the French “champagne“. For those who want to make a toast.

The chocolate bunny figure in detail. Yes, I guess a scantily clad chocolate bunny on the phone is a bit strange ^^U:

The typical image of Easter in Spain are the processions everywhere, but specially in Andalucía. Those people wear tunics and some of them conic hats ( the ones that are doing penance ). They belong to several brotherhoods, called “hermandades” in Spanish. Each one has its own “paso” ( or more than one) a figure generally representing a scene of the Passion of Christ. They have also a characteristic tunic design. The figure is carried around the town in procession.

You can have a look at these link, to see some pictures:

Holy Week Procession

The first civilization that dwelt in Spain were the “íberos” ( Iberians ). There were pre-Iberian civilizations but Iberians are the first ones mentioned in texts. Later, Celtic tribes came from the north and established in the territory.

After Iberians and Celtic, Phoenicians were who came this time. They were merchants and navigators and spread over all the Mediterranean Coast founding colonies. It’s said that, when they came, rabbits were so abundant that they called our land “Isephanim“, which means “Rabbit Coast” in their language, the Phoenician.

Ancient Romans came later and used the name “Hispania” (taken from Greek) to call the peninsula, and “España” derived from “Hispania“. They spoke Latin and were very good at engineering ( among other skills ). Latin was spoken around all the Mediterranean area ( approximately today’s Europe ).

When the Empire started disgregating, Vulgar Latin ( the language of the normal people, not the high cultured class ) also did. Then, Romance Languages appeared. Those languages were Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, French, Galician, Catalan, and many many other still spoken by a few people or already dead.

The other name of Spanish is Castilian Language. “Spanish” is used when we compare it with foreign countries languages. “Castilian” is used when we talk about languages in Spain because there are some more. The Spanish official languages are Castilian, Euskera (basque language), Galician and Catalan. Euskera is the oldest language and its origin is unknown.

Sometimes, language is a source of problems because is a matter that tends to be politized.

Last week “Fallas” ended. It’s a tradition from Valencia that origined when carpenters started burning all the leftovers at the beggining of spring. “Fallas” are constructions made of cardboard and wood. The figures are called “ninots” and represent politicians, famous people, etc…but always related to current issues, and satirized.

The tradition has evolved to the point that, nowadays, “fallas” are extremely elaborated and colorful. Some of them can even reach a height of 30 meters. Artisans work all the year to have this pieces of art ready to be burnt the 19th of March, at midnight.

During “Fallas” all the town is filled with noise and smoke. People lit firecrackers and bangers everywhere and all the time ( sleeping is impossible ). Some of them are also drunken all the day ^^U.

Here you are some of the pictures my fried Asuka took last week. Enjoy!

More pictures behind the cut

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Let’s begin explaining what black rice is. It’s a kind of rice but also, a dish coming from the East coast of Spain, by the Mediterranean Sea. Black Rice in our languages is usually known as “Arròs Negre” or “Arroz Negro”. I’ll have to talk another day about languages spoken here.

The recipe is rather simple. The ingredients are: fish broth, rice, peppers, onion, garlic, tomato, squid and olive oil. And the “magic” ingredient is the squid ink you use to obtain the black color. It also gives the rice an incredibly good taste.

I would post a picture…but we haven’t cooked black rice at home for a long time. So you can have a look at the Wikipedia entry:

Arròs Negre

Hi! first of all let me introduce you to this blog: Black Rice, a flavour of Spain…

After reading and following many blogs in english about Japan, a country and culture I’ve been a fan of for many years now, I thought a blog in english about Spain might be interesting. If there are people who like Japan, there might be other people interested in Spain. And I’m from Spain and living here after all…why not trying it?

I hope I can write good posts for you. I don’t know if I’ll be even regular, but I’ll try it to. Forgive also my english, it has been a bit dusty for a while ^^U.

Enjoy!