Pasta casserole with small cockles
Description
Small cockles (coquinas in Spanish) are a kind of mollusk sold, like any other, at a good price. In the old days, one of the attractions of sea bathing was collecting cockles. One would poke about a bit in the sand and, with a little luck, come back not only with their body refreshed but also with a good handful of cockles. Cockles are tightly sealed. Therefore in Spanish ‘acoquinarse’ means to be a coward, to shrink away, to be disheartened. For a human being, it is not easy to come out of one’s ‘cockle shell’. As for the cockle, all it takes is to put it in a pot of boiling water. This pasta and cockle casserole belongs to the family of Malaga casseroles or clams. In Italy, there is a very famous dish: ‘spaghetti a la vongole,’ but the Malaga dish is usually more soup-like and picks up a special flavour from the cockles.
Method
Lightly fry the peeled and seedless tomatoes and garlic, parsley and onion in olive oil. When this gentle frying is complete, add paprika and pour everything into a stew pan together with the artichokes (from which the coarse leaves have been removed), shelled broad beans and cockles (well washed and without a trace of sand). Stir-fry at low heat until the cockles open, then add the proper amount of water and salt, as well as saffron to give it colour. Cook until the beans are tender and add the noodles and the peeled potato cubes. Next, boil over a low flame until the noodles are done. You may add hot water if the stew is too thick. Upon removing the flame, season with mint.
Ingredients
1/2 kg cockles
1/2 kg artichokes
1/2 kg broad beans
1 tomato
2 potatoes
200g noodles
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
parsley
saffron, paprika, mint
olive oil, salt and water. Anchovies are optional
Malaga stew
Description
Although the most famous of Spanish stews is that from Madrid, this one is prepared throughout the country, with some variations. In Andalucía, there are the famous varieties of Andújar (Jaén), which includes fresh bacon, ham, veal and cabbage; Fernán Núñez (Cordoba), made with chicken, fresh or aged bacon, potatoes, Spanish oyster plant,tender thistles and aubergines; and Granada, with chickpeas, marrow, green beans, beef and parsley, among others. The manner in which it is served is one of its defining features. It generally comes in three platters: the broth, the chickpeas and the ‘pringá’. In contrast, in the case of the maragato-style stew, the broth is served last.
Method
First soak the chickpeas overnight and then put them into a pot with water, together with the beef, bacon, ham and knuckle bone. When it begins to boil, skim off the foam and let the preparation cook until the chickpeas are tender. Next take out the juices, leaving the chickpeas in the pot, and put in the green beans, marrow and peeled potatoes. Add a spoonful of hog lard and a little boiling water, and place over a low flame. In a mortar, grind cumin, garlic, pepper and cooked, peeled and seedless tomatoes. Pour this, mixed all together, over the chickpeas. Season and let cook a while longer. Finally, make a soup from the juices, adding garlic and a few very thin slices of bread.
Ingredients
300 g chickpeas
200 g beef
50 g bacon
100 g green beans
100 g marrow
50 g potatoes
2 tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
ham
knuckle bone
hog lard
cumin
pepper
bread, water and salt
Regards