FRIED SQUID

This can be served as a snack or a starter. Kids (and adults) simply love it. If you are feeling really indulgent get a baguette, put inside the fried squid and add a dollop of mayonnaise - this is the famous 'bocata de calamares' from Madrid. Seriously yummy.

You need:
- around 200 gr squid cut in rounds or sticks ( see picture). Fresh squid is obviously ideal, but frozen squid(already clean and cut)  also does the trick ( it has less flavour though)
- salt
- breadcrumbs
- olive oil
-1 lemon

Put a really generous amount of olive oil on a frying pan and heat it until it is almost smoking. Meanwhile add the salt to the squid and then dust the squid with the breadcrumbs. Put the squid in the pan, reduce the hit to medium and fry them quickly (around one minute or a minute and a half on each side - if you overcook them they will become tough and rubbery). Squeeze a bit of lemon on top and serve immediately .

Some people add garlic, parsley or chili, but this masks the squid flavour.

My children  refused touching the squid  ( I can see why). We tried dusting the squid inside a plastic bag and they thought that was a bit better - still they found the raw squid texture pretty revolting. None of this put them off from eating the whole lot once the squid were fried.

STEWED LAMB

If you only try one recipe from this blog try this. It comes from my grandmother and it is delicious. It is my 9 years old son's favourite dish.

You need:
lamb steaks (one per person - this recipe is for 5 persons) It is best with leg steaks.
salt
flour to dust the steaks
1 and a half cloves of garlic
1 table spoon of chopped parsley (preferably flat)
1 glass of white wine
1 glass of water
peas (they can be frozen)  - 100 to 150 gr
3 potatoes cut into not to small cubes (see picture)
olive oil

Salt the steaks and dust them wit the flour. Fry them on a pan on a generous amount of olive oil until they are a little golden on both sides. Put the steaks aside.
Discard half of the oil that you have used to fry the steaks.
Heat the remaining oil. While the oil is heating up, mash the garlic and parsley with a pestle and mortar and add it to the glass of whine. Add it all to the oil and wait until there are bubbles on the surface (1 minute or so). Add the water, wait until there are bubbles again. Add the steaks and let it all boil for 45 minutes over slow heat. Add the peas and let it all boil for another 5 minutes.
Separately fry the potatoes on olive oil until the are golden. Add them to the lamb and let them boil for a final 3-4 minutes.
This dish, as all stews, tastes better after a day.

CROQUETAS

This is a very traditional Spanish dish/snack. I rarely have enough patience to make them but two of my aunts are the 'queens of croquetas', so the kids have been practicing with one of them. We made them with (serrano) ham but they are delicious with chicken, prawns or boiled egg.

You need:
1 l milk (full fat or semi skimmed)
4 tb spoons olive oil and more to fry them
1 leek chopped thinly
3 table spoons of flour 
300 gr of serrano ham chopped very thinly (parma ham or equivalent is also good). You can do this in a food processor (for other kinds of croquetas substitute the ham by 300 gr of boiled or roast chicken, or 200 gr of raw prawns, or 4 boiled eggs)
2 slices of mild Cheddar cheese (or Edam, Gouda or equivalent)
salt
a pinch of nutmeg

To coat the croquetas (this is just indicative - add more if you need it):
1 glass of flour
1 beaten egg with 1/2 glass of milk
1 glass of fine breadcrumbs

Heat the oil in a deep pan over medium heat. Add the leek, reduce the heat and cook it for 10 minutes until it becomes translucent. Stir in the flour and continue stirring it for 5 minutes until the flour is golden. Separately (in the microwave if you wish) warm the milk and pour it into the flour mixture. Cook, stirring continuously, for about 2 minutes. Take the pan off the heat. Now, this is the trick for smooth velvety croquetas: with a hand held blender bled the mixture well for 3-4- minutes.

Add the ham, salt and the nutmeg. Take the pan back to the heat and keep stirring until you have a thick bechamel sauce (this should take another 4 minutes more or less). As you take the pan off the heat add the cheese. It should melt immediately. Stir it all once more, pour the mixture over a shallow dish and let it cool for at least one hour (or overnight)

Put three dishes in a row. Pour the flour on the first one. On the next one pour the beaten egg and the milk. In the last one add the breadcrumbs.

Pick a spoonful of the mixture (it should not be sticky - if it is, then let it cool a bit longer). With your hands mould the mixture like a kernel or a cylinder. Keep doing this with the rest of the mixture. You should get 45 to 50 croquetas.

Roll the kernels/cylinders in the flour, then in the egg and milk, and finally in the breadcrumbs. Put the croquetas on a tray (they should not touch each other) in the fridge so that they get firm before frying them. The croquetas are even better if you freeze them at this point - they last for 2-3- months in the freezer.

In a small deep frying pan or in a fryer heat olive oil over strong heat. The oil should cover the croquetas. Add 5-6 croquetas (you need to fry them in badges) Reduce the heat to medium and  and fry for 2-3 minutes until they are golden. As you take them out put them over a kitchen paper lined tray to get rid of excess oil. Serve them immediately.

Kids like helping with making the kernels and with rolling the croquetas. Do not let them approach the frying pan as the oil is too hot and it will splatter if accidentally some of the mixture gets out of the coating.

I do not know any children who do not like croquetas.

MIXED SALAD

You can serve this with olive oil and vinegar or with mayonnaise ( see 2 minutes mayonnaise sauce post). If you use mayonnaise then this is called 'little Russian salad' (ensaladilla) in Spanish.

You need:
3 big potatoes diced (small cubes)
3 carrot (also diced into small cubes)
3 hand fulls of frozen peas
4 cornichons (cut into tiny pieces)
8 green olives (also cut into tiny pieces)
4 tinned red peppers (cut into small pieces)
1 tin of tuna (into small flakes)
you can also add if you wish a couple of boiled eggs cut into small cubes ( we did not use them for the picture below)

Boil water in a pan.Using a steamer (we have a stained steel fan, but you can also use a Chinese steamer) steam the potatoes and carrots in salty water for 10 minutes ( you can also just boil them for 7-8 minutes  but the texture will not be as nice). Boil the peas  for 3-4 minutes. Mix the potatoes, carrots, peas and all the other ingredients. Taste it as you may need to add a bit more salt at the end. You can serve this  (with olive oil and vinegar or with mayonnaise) with a simple green salad as a main course for lunch.

VINAGRETA SAUCE

This sauce is really healthy. You can have it with prawns, green salad, radishes, boiled eggs or (small) pasta.

You need:

1/2 onion

1 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

half a clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1 hard-boiled egg
olive oil (plenty)
white or red wine vinegar ( to taste)
salt
In a food processor chop thinly the onion, peppers, garlic, parsley and the hard-boiled egg white. Dissolve the egg yoke into a little bit of olive oil. Add this to the vegetables. Topple it with more olive oil. Add the salt and vinegar and serve.

The children did it all, except for boiling the egg. They like this with prawns.

SARDINES

This is very simple. The kids can help to dust the sardines but do not let them approach the frying pan as the oil often splatters.
You only need:
4-5- sardines per person. Small ones are best. You can also do this with anchovies, though they are more expensive.
Salt
Flour
Olive oil
Put a generous amount of olive oil into a frying pan. Heat it until the oil is about to produce smoke. Add the salt on the sardines and dust them in flour. Put them on the olive oil, reduce the heat to medium and fry the sardines on both sides ( this only takes a couple of minutes on one side and a minute on the other one). Serve immediately.

PAELLA

We are in Spain for a few days, so the kids are now cooking with their granny and various aunts, all of whom cook much better than me. With so many people in the kitchen the kids are not doing much, but at least they are learning by watching while they mess around.

We will have an 'all Spanish theme' for the days to come and we thought the best way to start this is with a paella. I never cook paella, but it is one of my mother's signature dishes.

There are many ways to prepare paella and you can try various combinations that should all work well (all chicken; all vegetable, all fish, fish and meat, fish and chicken, all chicken, squid and veggies...). Two main things to avoid though: do not cover the paella with herbs (nobody does this in Spain); and never, just never, put chorizo in the paella (I cannot explain why, but it is simply not right)

You will need:
olive oil
one onion diced
half a green pepper and a red pepper diced
two gloves of garlic ( unpeeled)
1/2 tomato (preferably peeled) diced
100 gr Spanish ham diced into small cubes
a handful of frozen peas
10-15 clams
1 squid (or 6-7 frozen squid rings) chopped into small bits
1 mussel per person
1 slice of chewy fish (tuna, conger or monkfish) chopped into cubes
12 raw prawns
1/2 tsp parsley chopped thinly
500 gr rice (we normally use a handful of rice per person and one more for the pan). The rice should be round, not long. In some Spanish shops you can find Calasparra rice - this is the 'pata negra' of the rices.
water
1 bay leave
lemon
saffron (three to five stems)
salt
A bill shallow pan or paella dish

Boil water ( 2 glasses) in a pan, add the clams, cover the pan with a lid and let it all boil for just a minute. Take the pan off the heat, sieve the water through a colander and reserve it. Discard any clams that have not opened up. Repeat the same process with the mussles.

Peel the prawns and boil the fish bone and the shells of the prawns for around 10-15 minutes. Sieve the water and reserve it. Discard the fish-bone and the shells.

Cover the pan in olive oil (1 cm depth more or less) and heat it (medium heat). Fry the onion, peppers, tomato and garlic (in this order) for 5 minutes. Then add the ham, the parsley and the bay leave, reduce the heat and and keep cooking it for another 5-7 minutes until the whole things becomes soft, slightly translucent and gooey. Increase the heat to medium, add the squid and then the fish and keep cooking it all for another 5 minutes. Finally add the prawns, the peas and half a lemon (whole, not diced). Keep frying it until the prawns take a coral colour and the lemon gets brownish.

Then add  the rice and the salt and move it all a little bit with a spoon. After a couple of minutes (when the rice starts getting translucent) add the water of the clams and the fish bone and shells.  Dissolve the saffron into half a glass of boiling water and add it to the pan. You should end up with 1 cm of water on top of the rice, so add more water if needed until you reach this amount. Let it all bubble and cook for 18-20 minutes. If you wish you can do this last step in the oven  (preheated at 200 degrees). As soon as you add the water to the rice you should not touch the rice anymore or you will end up with a sticky mess rather than fluffy rice.

Five to eight minutes before you take the pan off the heat add the clams  and the mussels (see picture below). 

Take the dish off the heat, cover with a clean cloth and let it rest for 2-3 minutes. The rice should be a bit 'al dente'.  Serve immediately.