Caballa con ajo y limon - mackerel with garlic and lemon sauce

Basic idea is to take some mackeral, salt and cover with flour so that it can then be lightly fried in oil. Then cook garlic in oil, add lemons and finish. Originally cooked with Japanese mackeral but maybe Spanish Mackeral - sawara - can be used?! Quantities below are rather high -probably for four people.

Ingredients

• 3-4 mackerel in fillits or sliced across into little cutlets (I guess this includes the bone)
• 10 tablespoons for fying
• flour for coating
• 2 lemons
• 2 bay leaves
• 6-8 cloves of garlic crushed with the flat of a knife
• 200ml of water

Method

Salt the mackerel and leave for ten minutes and then pat dry; coat in flour shaking off the excess. Fry in batches until brown and then reserve, draining any oil on kitchen paper. Add the garlic to oil and let sizzle until it colors. Add hald a lemon cut into think slices plus bay leaves. Fry for a couple of minutes then add the juice from the lemons left over and also water. Stir and then return the fish to the pan and cook quickly - in theory it should all amalgamate into a rich brown sauce...

Probably should not have poked the mackerel around so much while cooking as maybe did not go as brown as should have done. Note bad - worth trying again as very simple and healthy.

Looks like we have a genuine Spanish recipe here.

Tortilla con chorizo - spanish omlette with peas and chorizo

Worked out fantstically well the first time that I did it. Basic idea is to chop up some potato into small cubes and then shallow fry to pretty close to being cooked. Then mix together the potato, chorizo, peas and egg together and cook the whole mess. Important to have a non stick frying pan. Unlike a "normal" Spanish omlette this does not include any onion.

Ingredients

• 2 small potatoes for each person, diced - in practice to cover a decent part of the frying pan
• oil
• salt
• 1/2 chorizo sliced
• 120g of peas - in practice I used a whole frozen bag full
• 2 beaten eggs - I used five for the whole family - it was enough

Fry the potatoes in 1.25cm of oil with some salt until tender. Add the chorizo and peas and cook for five minutes more. Then drain and reserve the oil. Add the potatoes/chorizo/peas to the beaten eggs. Heat some of the oil in the frying pan again, add the mixture and then cook as normal - that is cook until bottom is firm and the whole is firming up, then turn out the half cooked to turnover and cook the remainder. Should be eaten hot or at room temperature.

Roasted red peppers with thyme, red vinegar and garlic

This is a very easy and absolutely excellent Turkish recipe. Good to make when you may need a roasted red pepper for some other recipe such as marmitako.

Very simply, roast the red peppers on the grill. Put in a sealed bag for ten minutes or so after blackened. Peel and de-seed, taking care to let the juice in the center formed while grilling fall into the bowl you will use for marinading. Chop into large slices and add to a crushed clove of garlic, red wine vinegar and a load of thyme. Leave for a couple of hours and eat when cold.

Very good for using up thyme

Marmitako - fish stew with parsley, onion and potato

A very easy to make Spanish recipe that's healthy and makes the most of ingredients available in Japan. The basic idea is to make a base with onions fried with olive oil plus parsley and more garlic than average and tomato. You then add potato and some fish stock and half cook the potato. Finally you add tuna or bonito and then cook through both the tuna and finish off the potato. A roasted red pepper is added for extra flavor

Note this is a good opportunity to also make roasted red peppers with garlic, thyme and red wine vinegar.

Also here is a great looking web site with a youtube video channel as well with Spanish dishes.

Ingredients

• 400g of tuna or bonito
• 4 tablespoons of oil
• 1 onion finely chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
• 2 tomatoes peeled and chopped
• 4 medium sized potatoes peeled and thickly sliced
• 1 small dried red chilli finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• fish broth or water
• 1 red pepper - roasted, peeled and sliced

Method

Season the fish with salt. Head the oil and fry the onion until soft. Pound the garlic with a little salt and pepper - note it helps to chop the garlic quite well. Prepare the tomatoes and then add the past and tomatoes to the softened onion and cook until pulpy. Add the sliced potatoes and top up with the fish stock or water. Cook for fifteen minutes or so. Add the tuna or bonito cut into pretty big chunks and then cook until soft.

Apparently there is a wikipedia article about this dish. This Spanish food about.com website also has a recipe.