Tapas

Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today we're going to talk about tapas. Yeah, tapas. So what's the deal with tapas? What is the deal with tapas? What do you usually order when you go to a Spanish restaurant? So there's a few things that I can like safely say that if they're on a menu in a Spanish place, I will always, always order them, especially if it's the first time that I go there. Out of fail, if there are croquetas on the menu, I will order them.

Especially the traditional ones, croquetas de jamón. What are croquetas de jamón? Croquetas de jamón, I mean, a very, very quintessential Spanish dish made from a bechamel base with jamón ibérico in a breadcrumb crust, you know, little fried balls. Yeah, it's basically a jamón bechamel, like in a crust. Yeah. I love croquetas as well. I think one of the best I've had, a little bit of stock was added instead of milk to the bechamel, like half half. Oh yeah.

And also like there were brown on the inside, there was like super caramelized onions, even a little bit of tomato paste and Japanese soy sauce, which is completely non-traditional. What the fuck? So this was like pure Mami and it was amazing, man. It was really good. This sounds really good. Where was that? It was in Onigin in Berlin. Oh really? That sounds really good.

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's like, it's a must have, you know, and it's probably also like, I will go to places that I know have good croquetas just to eat croquetas. You know, like if a place has really good croquetas, I'll be like, oh, we have to go there and then just order croquetas and have everything around it, you know? So yeah, that's definitely a must have.

What I will probably also always order, especially the first time is a panto mate, which I mean, is one of the most simple Spanish tapas that you can order. Yeah. Literally just toasted pan cristal, Spanish white bread, kind of like a charvata, if you want a reference. Very crispy, very aerated, toasted. And then often, you know, you just take a tomato and you grate it on top of the bread and then season it with a bit of salt, a bit of olive oil and, you know, often a bit of garlic.

And that's it. That's it. Because I've seen people making pan con tomate like in YouTube videos or whatever, and then they get super creative and add pepper to it or things that are not supposed to go there. This is the magic about it is that there are only four ingredients and that's it. I've said many times that I could easily have for my last supper a pan con tomate with jamón because this is one of those things that the ingredients talk for themselves.

So if you have a super good bread, super good tomatoes, super good olive oil and a super good jamón pata negra, for instance, you don't need anything else. That's by the way, my favorite way of also eating a very good jamón. There are discussions about it. Some people prefer the same thing, but without the tomato, people that are more purists about the taste of the ham. I love it this way. I totally agree with you. It's one of the most delicious things that I can personally think of.

It's one of the best things that I can think of eating and I totally agree with you. I think that sums up real Spanish cooking perfectly. It's all about the quality of the ingredients. It's completely ingredient focused. If you have good bread, good olive oil, really, really poor, good tomato, and then it's so simple and it's just not overdoing it. Then just a really, really well-made jamón on the side. For me, that's heaven, honestly. Jamón is also a thing that I will probably always order.

I think that's it. I am also a big fan of anchovies, anchovies. Oh yeah. That's one of those things that you can really tell. First time I had anchovies, I didn't like them. You would get this super salty stuff on your pizza that was like, why are you doing this? But then when you try, especially the ones you find here in north of Spain, like the ones from the Cantaurico, these things are amazing and they don't need anything. You just put it on a plate with some olive oil and that's it.

They speak for themselves. Absolutely. Yeah. For me, those are the must haves for sure. And I would say depending on the time of day, maybe, but also tortilla. Oh yeah, of course. We spoke about tortilla before, but it really shows you the quality of a place, how good the tortilla is. Also some good Spanish wines, like the most typical ones like Rioja or Rivera del Duero when it comes to reds or Verdejo when it comes to the whites or Albarino from Galicia, which is also super nice. Oh yeah.

Chacolí, I mean, these kinds of things. Yeah. Albarino and Chacolí are two of my favorites for sure. They're definitely my go-to. And that kind of ties it together what the tapas culture actually is. You know, it's sort of like grabbing a bite on the go, you know, life on the streets, moving from one bar to another. Yeah. What about you? What are your go-tos? You know, here in San Sebastian, they call it pinchos instead of tapas. And it's its own thing, usually a little bit more elaborated.

And as you know, what I do here is I go from one bar to the next and I know what's special about each specific place, which is the whole thing about doing this. But if I'm abroad and I go to a Spanish restaurant besides the one you said, Boquerones. Yeah. How do you say Boquerones in English? Boquerones. And toys. I mean, yeah, but like it's not really sardines, I guess. I know. Well, I guess it's... Large anchovies.

Yeah, they're like anchovies, but not the ones brined or salted like the ones you find in cans. But fresh anchovies deep fried. And in general, fried fish, especially in the southern Spain and Andalusia, it's a thing. And the way the fish is fried, like Boquerones among them, but also calamari drinks and all these kinds of things. I think these are things that belong to Atapa's place. Same as the patatas bravas. It's also like a super classical. For sure.

Also its own thing with its own discussions about what's the right or wrong way to do the patatas bravas. So what do you think is the right way? I'm curious because I'm not entirely sure myself. I mean, for me, it has to be like a super concentrated tomato sauce up to the point that it's almost sweet. But spicy or no spicy? Just a tiny bit because Spaniards in general don't like spiciness so much, but just a little bit, it's fine. And I think that that's the right point.

And I also like, which is not the most traditional way, but it's also super common, alioli in my patatas bravas. Yeah, is it not the way to do alioli? Is it usually mayonnaise? No, no, no. It's usually only the brava sauce. I mean, the most traditional way. Oh really? Yeah. But I mean, half of the places add alioli to it almost always. Yeah. Because for me, it's like if I would order patatas bravas and it would come only with tomato sauce, I'd feel like they forgot to put the alioli on.

For me, it's the mix of having the garlicky, fatty alioli and then the sweet, acidic, spicy tomato sauce that really makes it. And then of course, like really nicely fried potatoes. Yeah, exactly. And for me, the potatoes shouldn't be, they shouldn't have like too much color. It's also its own thing that like the way that potatoes are fried. They usually are pre-configured and then fried.

And yeah, like if you see this potatoes fried until they're like orange, I think that's not the most common way to see them. Yeah. What else? Like, Padron peppers usually in other regions here in the Basque Country, you get Guernica peppers. I remember once I was working in a tapas restaurant in Berlin and I just by mistake said, ah, and this Guernica peppers. Sorry, I mean Padron peppers. And the owner was like, what did you just say? Guernica peppers. Oh, let's name it like that in the menu.

That sounds so artistic. Like the painting from Picasso and I was like, you know that painting, that painting is about a Nazi bombing. You don't know what to, you know, it's, you should think about what you're saying. Padron peppers, this is also something really nice. They're just fried in oil with some coarse salt on top. And there is this saying that randomly one of every hundred, it's spicy and can be really spicy, but it's just like a lottery.

You can get one or not, especially with the Padron ones. I used to love that as a kid. Always when we used to go to these sorts of places, we would order like one or two plates of Bimitrese Padron. And it was always super exciting to see who would get the spicy one because I really like spicy food and half of the rest of my family don't like spicy food. So it was always exciting to kind of see when you eat one and it's not spicy, eat another, it's not spicy.

I feel like these days you don't really get any spicy ones anymore. Yeah, I think that you don't get good ones anymore as well. Like all these peppers, I think they are flavorless. Once you get like a broth and like with any ingredient, if you go to the source and try like the good ones where they're actually produced, it has no point of comparison. And that happens a lot. I mean, we just talked about pan con tomate.

I mean, to make a super good pan con tomate, you need to have a super good tomato and super good olive oil and these kind of things. Yeah, for sure. What about, I mean, especially when we're talking about pinchos, what about gildas? Oh man, I love them. For me, when I go to a pincho tour, both with friends or because I'm guiding a tour, I always try to start with the gilda because well, a gilda is just a skewer with a pepper that is slightly spicy, but not so much.

And as I said, Spaniards and Basque don't like spiciness so much, but a little bit is okay. So they harvest it before it's too sunny because the sun usually makes the peppers spicier. Then you have the anchovies and olives. That's it, just three ingredients. I think that's it, yeah. And the peppers are pickled. The peppers are pickled, exactly. So you have just everything in one bite and then you have a good drink of whatever you're drinking. It can be beer or a chacolis.

And the combination is amazing. It's a great way to start. Yeah, it's iconic. For me, it's like Basque pinchos. It's the most iconic pincho, I think. Yeah, it was the first pincho that was made here in the Basque country because before that you would have whatever, olives or these kinds of things, non-elaborated, just an ingredient while you were drinking. And this was the sort of food that was served in bars before the 40s.

And then there was this guy who was a regular client in a place called Bar of Vallès here in San Sebastian. And he would come and do this. He would take a skewer and take three different things, like an anchovy and olive and a pepper. And then he started, he would always do that until it became like a standard in that bar. And a few years later, this was during Franco times. And as you know, San Sebastian is just half an hour from the French border.

So people would go to France and they were showing this Rita Haywood movie called Gilda. And the movie had like this kind of erotic scene where she would like undress her glove in a very sexy way. And this was the reason they started naming the pincho Gilda, which is the Spanish way of pronouncing Gilda. That's the story of it. Nowadays, it is such a standard that you find Gildas in the pickle section, almost in any supermarket in Spain. That's insane. Yeah, yeah. It's super, super iconic.

I mean, what else? I think like things like morcilla and chistora, depending on the time of year. Ensaladilla, that's another one. Ensaladilla, yeah, which is a mustad, also something that I order all the time, the Spanish potato salad, which I mean in Spanish is called Ensaladilla rusa, which means Russian salad, which is really funny.

Yeah. There are also other versions of Ensaladilla rusa, I think in Argentina, but it's its own thing, but it comes back to this Olivier salad, this kind of Mayonnaise potato salad that has many variations in many countries. But the one that is done in Spain is usually, well, you have some vegetables, you have like sweet peas and carrots and boiled egg, dices of potatoes, tuna, everything mixed and a lot of Mayonnaise.

And sometimes you would get like anchovies on top or olives or these kinds of things as well. But the one I really liked, Elcano, this fish restaurant in Getaria, has like a smaller restaurant, I don't know if it's still open, that was called Elcano Chiqui and it was their pincho bars.

And I had an Ensaladilla there and I'm sure they did someone with the brine of the olives, like they probably mixed the Mayonnaise with it or something, because you could really taste like this well-condimented briny flavor of olives all over the salad and it was amazing. That sounds delicious because I mean, like if you get sort of like average Ensaladillas, you know, they're kind of like a little bit under-seasoned.

They're just kind of like potato and Mayonnaise, they don't really have enough salt, enough vinegar. So that, yeah, that sounds really, really good. What about the fish preserves that are quite common? Usually a lot of people think that when something is canned, it's bad. Something that is tinned that comes out of a can, but you get really high quality preserved seafood here in Spain, especially in the north.

We talked about anchovies, but Bonito is very common, the one you put on the Ensaladilla. But also all kinds of clams and then this type of things. Yeah, mejillones, mussels especially, and like this really intense red oil, they're absolutely amazing.

And it's just like you say, you know, like people, when people come from a sort of like food culture where canned food is, you know, like relatively poor quality, it's a little bit of a surprise to them to have something like seafood, which is already like a very fragile product put into cans and then just kind of opened and eating and eaten as it is, you know, like cooked mussels out of oil, straight out of oil.

But you know, it's kind of like with tomatoes in Italy, really high quality canned tomatoes harvested at the peak of their ripeness and then sort of like preserved to preserve the like full flavor that they have in that moment, you know. And like you say, you know, things like ventresca de Bonito, which is, you know, the sort of penny part of tuna in, you know, high quality oil is a delicacy, you know. It's amazing. Yeah, that's probably one of the best ways of eating.

Like the way people usually know tuna, that this is canned tuna, well, that's the best way to eat that kind of elaboration. Another one is pulpo afeira. Oh yeah. Traditional way to make pulpo in Galicia. And it's again, something so simple. The pulpo has to be cooked up until it's tender. Then you have potatoes, olive oil and paprika powder. That's it. Nothing else. Yeah. Just a few grains of salt and that's it. Yeah, exactly.

It's always something like good olive oil, you know, and like that's it. But yeah, I mean, it usually gets cooked in these big copper pots, no? And again, it's fully ingredient driven and it's got all of these dishes, they have such a strong sense of terraria and region, you know. The local seafood, the pimiento from, you know, it's so quintessentially Spanish, right? And it's like so from there.

That's why it's, you know, Spanish restaurants around the world, like there's just these key ingredients that you have to have. Otherwise it would be impossible, you know, because this like identity from like connecting food to the land and to the local identity is so incredibly strong. Yeah, that's again interesting because Spanish restaurants, like let's say you open a tapas bar in let's say New York, it will have elements from many different regions. When in Spain, that's not so common.

You go to a tapas place and they have, they don't even think too much about it, you know. You will have like meatballs and you get just something while you're having a beer and are these traditional dishes and that's it. There's something very, very informal, very not, not, not non pretentious at all. While abroad, if you go to a Spanish restaurant, they have like the best of every region.

Like you will have pulpo, something Catalan, something Basque, something Andalusian, something from the center of Spain. And yeah, I think that that's interesting as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, it's impossible to think that you would open a Spanish restaurant anywhere and not have jamon on the menu, you know? Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A good platter of different cold cuts, not only jamon, also lomo, chorizo, ensina, these kind of things are really nice.

Cool. That gives us another episode. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks. The show airs every Monday.