I always liked Chinese, Italian and Indian food but lately I'm into Spanish Food.

Love Spanish omelettes with potatoes (patatas), chorizo stew and sweet potato, paella and of course tapas. Gambas, jamon, aceitunas, atun, pinchos etc

Any delicious recipes out there?

I'm going to try making churros next to dip into my hot chocolate.

Also I love Rioja and also the Spanish white wines.

Viva Espana!

I'd love to live there

I love paella and chorizo
Next week I'm going to try patatas bravas (OK its a cheat theyre from M&S ) but still

I don't make a paella but do make a nice rice & chorizo dish.

More akin to a jambalaya really.
Also great that these days you can get the cooking chorizo in most supermarkets.
But if you can't then no probs as you can just use the cured stuff, or pork & chorizo sausages (a British type of pork sausage with added chorizo), or bacon and use smoked paprika.

Cooking chorizo - http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/asda-...sage_200g.html
Pork & chorizo sausages - http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/asda-...pack_454g.html


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jambalaya
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1...rizo-jambalaya
http://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/...tyle-jambalaya

I lived in Spain for three years and am going to a nice local tapas place next week for my birthday.

OP have you gone 'tapas-hopping' in Spain? In my experience Seville is one of the best places to do it.

Tapas is quite a rip-off in the UK in contrast to Spain, especially at La Tasca.

I'm not much of a cook but I can make Gazpacho and Salmorejo in my blender quite easily; the other tapas I do at home tend to require very little prep, like gambas al ajillo, Manchego, pa'amb tomaquet, chorizo al vino tinto, etc.

Muy rico

Rick Stein's Spain was repeated last week on BBC2. It's still available on iPlayer. Some nice dishes in that series.

Yes - tapas hopping in Tarifa, San Roquet, La Linea, Malaga etc - lovely

(By the way I can't stand goats's cheese - but love the Manchego sheep's cheese - did you know in mediaeval times in England, apart from the meat and the wool, sheep were kept to make cheese from their milk and so use it over the winter?)

Rick Stein's programme is mesmerizing - but it makes me sad because I want to be there - good food!

La tasca is vile. Unauthentic, pre-cooked and re-heated in the microwave.

Spain is great, Madrid being my personal favourite. What I like is when you go for a drink, they often give you free dishes if tapas to try and not just olives, but cured meat and prawns. Really fresh and tasty.

I love tortilla (Spanish omelette), paella and chorizo. I was in Barcelona this week and was at a restaurant serving many different tapas but didn't care for them.

I live part of the year in Spain and 4 of us went on a tapas trail in Malaga one day which started at 12 noon and finished at midnight - brilliant day what I can remember of it

Never found anything anything unique about spanish food, there's always something similar available elsewhere. For example I've never got the point of those meatball tapas dishes. I also hate the taste of sherry.

Yes you've got to be careful with some tapas, especially in the heat. Generally I like most things and am willing to try them. Once we had something called 'choco' - not chocolate as it turns out but fried cuttlefish - it tasted like a year old rissole. For a few days after I was quite ill But I usually like tapas.

You could say that about most cuisines.

Ive been cooking a sort of cross between risotto and paella recently, its a dish which has it's roots in Majorca.

Its basically a paella by way of ingredients but cooked with stock to a risotto consistency.

For the stock I start off by cooking off some prawns which shells etc then add some vermouth or brandy (personal taste) and cooking off some more then adding fish stock and letting it all infuse for 5 to 10 minutes then straining and adding a good pinch of saffron, gives a much deeper flavour to the rice rather than just using basic fish stock

Sounds lovely!
I'm thinking of making a paella on Friday - may use some of your methods. I havn't actually bought saffron for a long time - I know paella should have it - is it still expensive?

Yeah, more expensive than gold by weight I believe.

I'm going to try and make a salsa today - or is that more Mexican than Spanish?

They've managed to turn what are essentially bar snacks into 'restaurant cuisine' over here, and charging restaurant prices for small dishes.

You don't mind putting up with it if it is somehwere genuinely good (and there are some authentic places) but the likes of La Tasca are crap.

You can have a larger plate of sit-down tapas in Spain - think it's called a racione - but of course it will be the real McCoy and probably not much more than at the bar.

Today just browsing around my local small supermarket - noticed lots of food for other countries including Mexican but there wasn't even paella rice and no sauces. Olives and olive oil a plenty though, but all at over the top prices.

It isnt cheap but then it goes a long way

Exactly.

Depending where you eat tapas in Spain - obviously not authentic tapa bars in Madrid, Seville, Malaga etc - you will now find that some of them are going down the "fast food" road using lots of mayo, crab sticks i.e. processed food. One we were in recently was spooning out boquerones from a supermarket tub whereas they would have been home made a few years ago.

Using La Tasca as an example of tapas is like using Pizza Hut as an example of Italian food isn't it?

Try making your own fabada.
We did, well ok, it came from a 'kit' we picked up at Madrid Airport, but it was lovely.

Well, I have lived in Spain for the past ten years and, I'm afraid to say, I really don't like Spanish food on the whole

I live in a rural area inland from the coast and am usually very disappointed by the tapas served in our local village - same old choice whichever bar you go into - and the food is often so salty that it's virtually inedible Things are a little better in our nearest large town - but not a lot!

I think paella, as served in bars and restaurants very over-rated and much prefer my own. Pretty much the only way potatoes are ever cooked are as chips and, despite the vast variety of vegetables grown here to be exported to the UK and northern Europe, we are served either mushy mixed frozen or tinned veg, or a greasy, lukewarm char-grilled pimiento on the side of the plate.

This photo of a plate of typical food is proudly presented by a local restaurant on their FB page - appetising? Not!!!

http://i.imgur.com/0GEk9Y3.jpg

Ha! I like Spanish food and have had some nice stuff there - but have also had similar experiences to the above!