How do you feel about seafood? Unfortunately, Berlin isn't located by the sea, although that would certainly be an added bonus for our beautiful city on some hot summer days... Accordingly, many of us perhaps rarely get to enjoy these special delicacies. At least not in their fresh form. It's a good thing that there are these fine canned goods from Ramon Peña in Galicia, Spain. Because indeed: the chipirones, the brand's small squid, are among the finest canned seafood I've ever tasted. At first, I was a bit skeptical, but the first bite completely won me over, and now I find it difficult not to eat the whole can on my own. They're buttery soft, not at all "fishy," but have their own delicate flavor that's hard to get enough of. These small, fine delicacies are also very versatile: we can easily imagine them with homemade pasta, for example (perhaps with the chipirones in their own ink...). Of course, they are also fantastic on their own as tapas.
Nevertheless, this week Thomas decided to serve the chipirones in olive oil with a side dish that's truly something to behold! To keep the regional flavors consistent, he pairs them with a Canarian potato salad and spices things up with a red pepper vinaigrette made with fine Banyuls vinegar, which we've just added to our range.
A sophisticated dish that doesn't require any chef skills, but simply leaves you full and happy.
Ingredients:
- 2 cans of chipirones in olive oil from Ramon Peña
for the salad:
- 400g small potatoes (e.g. La Ratte)
- 2 small onions
- 3 slices of an untreated lemon
- 10 allspice berries
- 10 peppercorns
- 3 cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 300g sea salt
- 150g gherkins (available fresh in our store)
- 1 - 2 red onions
- 1 bunch of coriander
- some flat-leaf parsley
for the paprika vinaigrette:
- 2 red peppers
- 1 small onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tbsp tomato paste (available in our store)
- Banyuls vinegar
- olive oil
- Espelette pepper
- Salt , pepper, sugar
Preparation:
Wash the potatoes and place them in a pot with the spices. Peel the onions, chop them, and add them along with the lemon slices. Cover everything with water, add the salt, and stir well. The water needs to be very salty so that a crust forms around the potatoes. When you taste it, it should taste like you've just been in the ocean and accidentally swallowed a load of seawater while swimming.
Boil the potatoes until soft, drain and let cool.
For the vinaigrette, peel the peppers (using a vegetable peeler), remove the cores, and cut the peppers into small pieces. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Sauté everything together in a pan, add the tomato paste, and cook for about 2 minutes. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Remove the pan from the heat, add some of the Banyuls vinegar, sugar, and Espelette pepper. Blend everything with a hand blender until you reach a creamy consistency. Season to taste.
Slice the potatoes, peel the red onion, halve it, and slice it into thin strips. Slice the gherkins into thin strips, and mix everything together in a bowl.
Stir in the oil from the chipirones, season again with salt and pepper, and finally, fold in the chopped cilantro and parsley. Done.
Bon appetite!
Our conclusion:
A colorful, southern, excitingly fresh and fruity recipe full of different flavors that enhance and complement each other.
The potatoes taste super spicy and delicious thanks to the spicy broth in which they were cooked, the gherkins add a great acidity that gives the recipe a summery lightness, the herbs conjure up a green freshness and the vinaigrette, the absolute icing on the cake in this creation, is wonderfully fruity, with its fantastic bright color creating a beautiful contrast on the plate and allowing all the other flavors to shine.
Top with buttery chipirones, and summer can come! Or the guests, too! :)
Our wine recommendation:
For this wonderful recipe we can recommend a white wine, a rosé or even a red wine, depending on your taste.
White: the Saumur blanc from Château Villeneuve . This classic Saumur displays aromas of ripe white fruits and a hint of toast on the nose, and flavors of pear, quince, and honey on the palate. The finish is long, fresh, mineral, and very dry.
Rosé: Tears of Anima from Herdade do Portocarro, made exclusively from the highest quality Sangiovese grapes. Fresh with a lively acidity, elegant, refined, and balanced.
Red: Marcillac "Lo sang del païs" (The Country of the Land) . This aromatic southwestern French wine offers aromas of small berries such as sloes and mulberries, along with notes of Assam tea. Star fruit and bay leaf, soft tannins, a subtle sweetness, and mineral notes unfold on the palate, giving the wine an interesting, exciting character. Overall, it is pure and clear, medium-bodied, and dynamic.
