Calle 8, or, “You know you want these shrimp”

While doing our little circuit around Spain a couple of summers ago, we stopped at Ithaca Bed and Breakfast, a little B&B in El Puntal, one of the weirdest towns ever.

The home itself was quite lovely, if you forget about the streets littered with dog turds and potholes the size of the Grand Canyon.  To make it even more odd, the whole town was planned and built in the exact shape of a bullseye (zoom in and look just a bit north of Padul, and you’ll see the strangeness of it all).   So you could walk, taking care to avoid the landmines, in concentric circles, moving closer  and closer to the center until, finally, stumbling onto Calle 8, or Calle 9, or Calle 10, you find your way to the center of the bullseye.  At least when we were there, this meant you would be in the middle of a deserted plaza where a dry fountain decorated the center, and a couple of graffiti-marked empty lots made you wonder if you were really in the right neighborhood.  I mean, they did say that there was a restaurant here… but…

Based on the pictures from the restaurant’s website, El Valle del Puntal must really be a great place to be, during some other season.  In mid-August, however, it was a ghost town.  Still, plucking up our courage, we walked in through the door and found what you would expect to find in any Spanish town: a tiny bar so filled with smoke that you are instantly coated with a thick layer of nicotine, with a few local old men sitting around picking at salty olives and thick potato chips while sipping their cañas of yellow beer.  We of course, decided to pull up to the bar, and enjoy some of the salty treats ourselves while we tried to figure out where the actual restaurant was.

Finally the bartender let us know that there was, in fact, a terrace out back where we could enjoy some dinner.  Which we did.  And, I must say: It. Was. Awesome.  Despite the fact that there was no one else in sight on the terrace, the food was excellent.  I don’t even remember what S-Man ate, probably some monstrosity of a pork chop and garlic soup or something like that.  But my meal.  My meal was a big plate of gambas a la plancha, a.k.a. immense prawns with heads that have been grilled to a smoky perfection.

Now, this is definitely not the most “feminine” of dishes, and probably not one for a first date, as it most definitely involves getting covered in prawn juice while peeling the suckers, and then slurping the brains out of the giant shrimp heads.   Perfect for enjoying with a cold beer, these mega crustaceans make a great tapa for sharing with others, or a whole meal in and of themselves.

Here at home, we do things a little bit differently, as we don’t always have shrimps with heads on them, but when we’re feeling nostalgic for that deserted terrace in El Puntal, we just pop some shrimp (still in their shells) on the grill.  Since the S-Man likes things with a bit more zing, I generally toss them in my 3 Pepper seasoning and let them sit for a while before I grill them.  The 3 Pepper seasoning is pretty easy.  You just mix up some freshly ground black pepper, some white pepper, and some Secret Spice #2, or any other crushed red pepper flakes you might have kicking around.  Then we sit around, and reminisce, while enjoying our mini-gambas Lao-style, with sticky rice and jeow.  You know you want them!

The Land of Cockaigne

Get your filthy minds out of the gutter!  I don’t know what you were thinking, but you were WAAAAAAAAAAY off base.  And so was I.  Oh, no.  Wait.  Nope.  No.  I wasn’t so far off, after all.

I’m talking about the J of C, yet again.  A few years back, my wonderful sister gave me a big, huge, mega-monstrosity of a cook book… just a little light reading: The Joy of Cooking.  And since I received it, I’ve done a fair bit of page turning.  In my travels through this tome, I’ve discovered that all of the best recipes have this strange word Cockaigne in the name.  According to the authors, they took this name from their home in Ohio, but I think I’m rather inclined to the Wikipedia version wherein this is not only the land of milk and honey, debauchery and drunkeness, but also the land where the skies rain cheese and nuns show us their heinies.  Okay, perhaps we could all do without the granny panties, but it sure would make this oat bread recipe a whole lot more exciting.  It really opens up a whole new world of possibilities.  Oh, and by the way, I didn’t make up that part about the nuns.  It’s really in there.  Look it up yourself.

So, even though generally I tend to make up my own bread recipes, today, just for once, I have actually followed a recipe almost completely (except for that 1/4 cup of flaxseed meal that I threw in on top of everything else).  And the reason that I have done this is that this particular Oat Bread Cockaigne really could be manna from the sky.  It is so good and so nutritious that I just don’t want to take chances on messing it up.  Plus it is the first whole wheat bread that I’ve ever made that didn’t come out like a cement block.  Usually you spend hours and hours making a whole wheat bread that never rises and people eat it and say things like, “Mmmmmm.  That sure was, um, hearty,” and then you go to your local university and give the rest to college students so that they’ll have something with which to prop open their automatically locking dorm doors.

Yes, I am doing this loaf right.  No cinder blocks here.  I made sure the water was the right temperature, with a thermometer, instead of my usual technique of sticking in my little pinky finger and hoping that I won’t get burned.  I let the dough proof for the recommended time instead of my usual punching it down just a few minutes early to speed up the process.  I’m even letting it cool completely before slicing it open, because I’m working on my self-control, and I’m fighting an inner battle to not just tear it open right now, drench it in salty butter, and gorge myself.

I’m especially proud of this one, even though it’s not entirely 100% my own creation.  It is nicely shaped, brown and crusty on the outside, and soft and tender on the inside.  The bread is mildly sweet with molasses undertones, yeasty and hearty, but not in the bad way.  It’s got all of the heart-healthy benefits of oats, wheat germ, flax seed, whole wheat flour, and soy flour.  Plus, my favorite feature of this particular loaf does deserve to be mentioned.  I gave this one a plumber’s crack right down the middle, in honor of those afore-mentioned nuns.  It’s bread-gone-wild in the Land of Cockaigne.

The Tail of the Eyeball

He claims that the eyeball was the key.  The defining moment.  When he just  knew.  “Yup,” he thought, “I could marry this one.”  It is, after all, not every day that you meet a woman who is willing to eat fish eyeballs.

If I had known it was that easy, I probably would have eaten the eyeball a lot sooner.  I admit, I have a bit of a competitive streak, and, as I’ve mentioned before, all of the other members of my family have eaten some pretty weird stuff, due to roughing it on that little island in Alaska back in the day.  I was only four and a half when we moved, so I missed out on some of those joyful memories of eating things like skunk cabbage, radish pie, duck blood soup, and seal meat.  The way I figure, I’ve got a lot of ground to make up.

So when I was challenged to eat the eyeball out of the whole red snapper that we were sharing, it was truly a no-brainer.  Besides, he ate the other eyeball first.  I pretty much had to.  And if you are wondering what a fish eyeball tastes like, I’d say that it’s sort of like a little chewy liver-flavored gum ball.  Move on over Bertie Bott.  Here’s one flavor you forgot!

So every once in a while, just to duplicate that ultra-romantic moment, I go out and snag a whole snapper and fry it up.  Today’s catch was a whole Lane
Snapper, a lovely pink-and-yellow-striped beauty that was, lucky for me, scaled and cleaned by the lovely fishmonger at Ho Foo.   I don’t really recommend scaling fish in your kitchen.  It’s pretty gross.  Anyhoo.

This fishy was going to get prepped up with some Asian flair, so I gathered my herbs and spices and got to chopping: lemongrass, ginger, shallots, garlic, and cilantro.  Mixed together with some soy sauce, fish sauce, meyer lemon juice, and sesame oil, these flavors would form the marinade/stuffing for Mr. Bigeyes.  After cutting some crosshatches into both sides of the fish, I stuff the main cavity and the cuts in the sides of the body with the herb mixture and let the snapper marinate for about an hour before cooking.

While buddy boy is steeping in the fragrant juices, I mixed up a light breading of tapioca starch, onion powder, garlic powder, white and black pepper, and salt.  Right at the last minute, I gave the fish a quick dusting with the mixture, and then dunked it into a wok full of 350 degree peanut oil.  Granted, it does help if you happen to have a vat of peanut oil sitting around, just in case you suddenly need to fry something.

For the finishing touches, serve this bad boy up with some jasmine rice and a chili garlic soy sauce for dipping.  Then pick the bones clean… sides, back, cheeks, and eyeballs.