Summer salad

Just a salad. Words that strike dread into my heart. I've written about this before, but it bears repeating: if you have artistic tendencies, or think you may have, ask for help. Don't take it out on a pile of defenseless greens, and start flinging things at them until they are smothered in bits and bobs.

Yes, if salad is going to be the meal, it can't just be a sliced tomato.  I know it's too hot to cook actual food, and it makes sense to make the most of fresh summer produce and a couple of tins. Fine. But that doesn't mean it should have seventeen ingredients. It just looks messy and tastes messy, too.

Why don't you make two, or even three, salads instead? I looks beautiful, lavish, fills you up just looking at it, and takes a little more time to prepare, but much longer to eat.

A combination I like is a bowl of green lettuce and ruccola, perhaps. Tossed with this dressing, with perhaps a tiny bit of raw garlic and some chopped nuts.

In another bowl, tomatoes, just like that, with a drizzle of oil and some salt. If they´re good tomatoes, they need nothing more.

A third can have the heavy duty stuff: the boiled eggs, tuna, olives, asparagus, etc. Placed side by side, drizzled with a simple vinaigrette, or perhaps one that you have made creamy by adding some mayonaise.

Doesn´t that look pretty? Toast some bread, open some wine, enjoy the summer. And if you´re somewhere northern and blustery, have a hearty pudding afterwards. See the advantage where you can.

Red cabbage with sausages

I wrote this post last year, braised sweet and sour red cabbage.

For some unfathomable reason, I only eat red cabbage on special occasions. This must be remedied inmediately, because it´s very easy and really great.

Especially since I have discovered a great variation: braised red cabbage and sausages. Braised together, that is. How can that not be great?

The recipe is simplicity itself. While slicing the cabbage and onion and apple you let the sausages brown in the pressure cooker. I´m usually too lazy to brown, but in this instance it´s pretty painless. By the time everything is prepped, the bangers are golden and smelling a treat.

Proceed with the recipe and in ten minutes or so (because, unlike some sneaky pressure cooker doyennes, I count the time it takes for the pot to come up to pressure) you have a warming, wonderful dish.

If you´re a pressure cooker geek, then you can use your other one to make smashed potatoes. Serve with sweet mustard, rye bread, and beer and thank heavens it´s so cold.

Brightened up bubble and squeak

Tell anyone in Spain that you live in Scotland and you will instantly hear two things: "lucky you, all that scenery" and "poor you, that horrible food".

Wrong , and wrong.

Mountains don´t really do it for me, and lakes and moors are only useful for a picnic, which, since it´s usually wet and windy, they aren´t.

British food, on the other hand, is lovely, and is just what you need for British weather, which is, well, awful, really. Tact is all very well but what can you say?

So anyway, they have this thing called bubble and squeak, which is a hash of the cabbage and potatoes left over from a Sunday lunch, usually livened up by a fried egg. It is awesome.

But, through one of those fridge foraging flukes, I have come up with a version that is just as good, but feels lighter, newer, and is very pretty on the plate: sweet potatoes and broccoli. Gurgle and squeal? Screechy and foam?

Never mind. Here´s how it goes.

You will need some cooked sweet potatoes. This is an irritating start to a recipe, I know, but there you are. I usually roast them in peeled wedges, but they can be microwaved in four or five minutes.

Once you have those, you make some pan steamed broccoli (again, yes, I know. This is a core lobstersquad recipe). A few cumin seeds and perhaps some mustard seeds will go very well, and chilieas, if that is your thing. When the broccoli is almost done, add a bit more oil and the cooked sweet potatoes, and, after swirling it around the pan, leave it alone: the idea is to let it catch a little, caramelize and get a crust.

The broccoli will probably cook a little more than is fashionable, but this is not a problem in this dish.

It is colourful and very good with almost anything.

Gather your parsnips while ye may

Autum hits you fully in the face when the clocks go forward.

It´s a nasty, cruel joke, and if you´re as close to the North Pole as we are then it´s no joke at all.

Scottish winter has very little to recommend it, but, just to show what a bright little ray of Southern sunshine I am, I will focus on one (small) consolation: parsnips.

This lowly root vegetable was happily looked over once the potato came to stay, centuries ago, and in Spain we fell for spuds so hard that parsnips are only given to horses. A big pity, because they are very good. You can make Jane Grigson´s famous curried parsnip soup, or you can use some in your mashed potato, but to me where they shine is in the roasting pan.

Because of their shape, they are perfect for roasting. If you cut a parsnip in four lengthwise you end up with three textures. Coated in a very little oil, dusted with salt and roasted for about half an hour in a very hot oven, the thin tip almost chars, the middle bit is chewy, and the thick base fluffy. This is the best of all worlds.

The great thing is that you can also roast potato or sweet potato wedges, carrots or pumpkin. And nobody says you should keep chicken parts or sausages out of the oven.

And you´ll have heated up the kitchen so beautifully that you won´t even notice, behind misted up windows, that it´s been dark for hours.

(The drawing has nothing to do with anything, but I feel there aren´t enough images of Soviet space dogs in our every day life).

Pressure cooked kale

Kale, that strange vegetable; spinach on steroids, chewy chard, bitter cabbage…healthy, virtuous, austere, dark. A hard sell, paired as it often is with mentions of brown rice and winter soups.

Not that I knew, because we don´t have kale in Spain, as far as I can tell. I can sometimes find it in supermarkets in Aberdeen, and when I do, I bring home whole armfuls.

I usually gave it the pan-steam treatment, and it worked well, but because it´s a sturdy old thing and needs longer cooking than other greens, now I use the pressure cooker.

Method A is the ultra-organized, grown-up thing which I use for cooking my supermarket sweep in one go. I can fit three 400 gr. bunches in my 6 litre cooker. Cut out the rib, rip the leaves, wash them, throw them into the pressure cooker with a cup of water and give it five minutes under high pressure.

Let them cool and then freeze part, put part away in the fridge, and perhaps have the rest right away.

Method B is for a single bunch, and works just as well with any green, but you will have to adjust the cooking time.

Heat oil, add a crushed garlic clove and some cumin seeds, and as soon as the garlic dances, throw in a can of chickpeas or beans of your choice, liquid and all. Add the cleaned kale, salt, and give it five minutes under pressure.

Open the cooker and tweak it for salt. A lump of butter and a squeeze of lemon will be very welcome. Serve with bread and a bottle of hot, olive oil, a bowl of yogurt or ricotta, and mind you soak up the pot likker.

Needless to say, bacon, sausage, chorizo, etc, will all go very well indeed with this, so go ahead and add them at the beginning.

If you want it more soupy then simply add more water or broth.

Once you have your steamed metod A kale done, you can simply add it to anything you like, on the spur of the moment. It can be sauteed with a bit of garlic, pine nuts and raisins added at the end, perhaps a dash of pimentón. This is great on polenta, with a poached egg on top, but it´s pretty great in pasta, on pizzas and inside pies, in soups, or bean dishes, etc etc.

If imagination fails, you can always go for the brown rice, of course.

Pan steamed broccoli

I just had some beautiful broccoli for lunch, pan steamed, with a hint of garlic and nothing else. It was soft, melting, but retained a little bite. savory, punchy, and yet it had nothing but sea salt added.
All this happened because I happened to cook it just right. I don´t always get it so perfect, but today I did. I know it was that, because the broccoli itself wasn´t much; your basic supermarket head, somewhat rubbery and beginning to yellow from having been in my fridge a little bit too long.

I just say this to remind everyone not to be too hung up upon the Myth of the Marvelous Ingredient. Sure, the fresher the better, and yes, starting out with marvelous ingredients helps, but...you still have to cook. It´s annoying and patronizing and plain stupid to convince people that unless the produce was harvested within a mile of them by vestal virgins they needen´t even bother to start.
Can you imagine an article on decoration beginning with "unless your bedroom is in a XV century palazzo overlooking the Canal Grande, there´s no point in painting a wall this shade of blue"? Or someone saying "don´t bother to learn to drive if you´re not prepared to get a Ferrari".
Get real.
Cook, even if the vegetables are wilted.

Pan-steamed broccoli
This works with all vegetables, but the time they take to cook will vary. It is a very easy way to cook, and has more flavor than usual, as no nutrients are lost on the way. You also need less fat than with the usual steam-then-sautee method.

Put a non-stick pan that has a lid on the hob, with a bit of oil or butter or both. A very little will do. Put a smashed garlic clove or two in there, let it cook while you prepare the broccoli.
Cut the florets, peel the stalk and dice it. Add to the garlicky fat, swirl, and pour a half cup of water in the pan. Cover, and let steam.
You might need to add water if it dries up, or uncover and turn up the fire if it´s almost cooked and there is a lot still. Either way, keep an eye on it. Five minutes is usually enough.

You can add spices, or anchovies, to the oil with the garlic for a change of flavor.

Fusion baby food: miso mashed potatoes

Miso is one of the things that´s always sitting in my fridge. Usually to be used as a soup base when I´m making Japanese-y noodle soups, and as a quick marinade for fish, but also to kick up a panful of mushrooms, or anything that tastes a bit wan.

Yesterday I had a leftover boiled potato, and a toddler in a high chair looking hungry but discerning. The lone potato would not cut it, but if I started fiddling around defrosting stuff, he´d howl. Answer; miso mashed potatoes, a David Chang conceit, but fine for all ages.

I heated the potato in the microwave, and then put a bit of butter and a bit of miso, mashed it with a fork, and that was that, a very popular instant hit.

You can also do that with sweet potatoes, and if it´s for you, don´t be shy with the miso. Your pork chop or chicken thighs will be very happy next to this.

Burnt Onions

Untitled #69, originally uploaded by Lobstersquad.

Leave husband and one child alone for six days and you can be sure that the soups and vegetables you left, neatly labeled for their consumption, will be untouched. Yes, they have survived happily on pancakes with Nutella and scrambled eggs on bagels.
Obviously my first lunch on getting back was lentils and barley. Duh. Livened up with burnt onions, beautiful stuff. I´ll leave you with the post that sent me down that road, and dash. My life is very crazy and soon you´ll know why.

Braised red cabbage in a pressure cooker

Christmas dinner preparations continue full tilt. Two capons are already deboned, stuffed and sown up for this killer once-a-year triumph of a recipe. Jars and jars of onions and cabbage and apple sauce and chestnuts glisten on the countertop. A huge tray of pommes dauphinois promises to send everyone into a creamy stupor. Tomorrow we roast the birds and we´re all set.

Here´s the recipe for the red cabbage. It´s a very easy braise, and looks beautiful, and in a pressure cooker takes just a few minutes.

Shred a head of red cabbage, and throw it into the pressure cooker. Add a couple of handfuls of raisins, two big apples (we use reinetas because that´s the universal cooking apple in Spain, but any will do, really), a chopped onion, two spoonfuls of Sherry vinegar and salt and pepper. Now do a leap of faith and close the lid of the pressure cooker. The cabbage will provide all the liquid needed, trust me.

Once the pressure´s up, count 6 minutes and voilá you´re done.

I make this all winter and fall long, to go with sausages or baked potatoes. If you´re feeling very Nordic and have access to them, a few caraway seeds will not go amiss.

Sweet Pearl Onions

We´re 22 for Christmas this year, so it´s best to organize and make as much as possible ahead. First on the list, the red cabbage with apples and the sweet onions. We make them and seal them into jars, so they can be kept in a cupboard and not take up room in our bulging freezer.
The sweet onions are great any time of the year, of course, and they go well with everything, so it´s a recipe worth keeping in mind.

You´ll need 600 gr. of frozen pearl onions (or normal sliced onions, or small onions or shallots that you peel yourself).
Melt 70 gr. butter and 30 gr. oil in the Thermomix for a couple of minutes in Varoma, then add the frozen onions and program 30 minutes more, in Varoma. Once they´re done, add a stock cube and 70 gr. caramel, and leave them for 10 minutes at 100ºC. Check for salt, add pepper and there you have it, an elegant little side dish.

If you make them in a normal pot, just sautee the onions until soft in butter and oil, add caramel and the stock cube, etc. It´s pretty straightforward, but you´ll have to use your judgement because the size of the pan changes everything.

And if you want to keep them around for a bit, just put them in a jar, cover it well and leave it in a bain marie for half an hour or so, until there´s no air inside and the lid doesn´t yield.

Cookbook love, and five minute roast potatoes (really!)

Illustrating cookbooks is one of my favourite types of work. As is working for friends. When a friend writes a cookbook it´s a wonderful double whammy that makes it the best possible job.

This is "Nami-Nami kokaraamat", or The Nami-nami cookbook, written by Pille, blogger extraordinaire, dear friend and embassador of all things to do with Estonian food.

I haven´t checked out the recipes because the text is in Estonian, so all I can vouch for is one of them, which you can find here.

The recipe I´m sharing to day comes from this video , where Jamie Oliver mentions, in passing, a method for roasting new potatoes in the microwave for four minutes before grilling them for another couple of minutes with olive oil and herbs.

I tried it this morning, heating the grill (broiler over the Atlantic) while the potatoes were in the microwave.

People, this is a keeper. They were great, crunchy crispy outside, soft inside and truly quick. Wonderful. I can´t wait to try it with other vegetables.

Sally Schneider´s Magic Peppers

I was going to write a long(ish) post about food for toddlers, but I´ve just found out that it´s the custom here to take a cake to nursery on your birthday. In my day in Spain we used to take a bag of sweets, and take care to give the aniseed ones to the mean girls. 

Lord knows what they do now, but in the meantime, I have to go and make a tray of cupcakes for a gaggle of two-year-olds to crush underfoot, so I´ll leave you with a quick recipe, Sally Schneider´s Magic Peppers.

That´s her name for them, and while she may be exaggerating a little, she´s on to something. These are not your usual sort of red peppers slowly roasted into slippery submission. 

Instead, they are cut into four, lengthwise (Spanish readers, cut them into eight; guiri peppers are small), brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with herbs and salt,and a bit of sugar too, for good measure, and blasted for half an hour in a very hot oven, to emerge caramelized, chewy and irresistible. The recipe is nothing much, but the result is well worth the effort. You´ll notice that it´s light, quick, and pretty. I made five peppers for a side dish yesterday, thinking to have about half left over to do something with, a la Sally in her improvisational way, but J and I polished them all off within seconds.

Carrots

I meant to do a post about Lenten chickpeas and spinach soups, but you know what? The lovely Deb was just before me, with this version of the Spanish classic. You can try my slapdash method or her more beautiful one, but do try it because it´s sooo good.

As for me, I´ll just reflect on shapes and sizes. Isn´t it odd that things taste different if they´re cut different? I hate carrots cut in coins. They remind me of the flabby, overcooked, tasteless stuff I refused as a child. If I´m having them sauteed or roasted or plain steamed, or they are to go into a stew, it has to be thick batons. I grate them for salads, or make long slivers with the peeler, and these are the shapes I like in a stirfry. For soups I favour the small cube, or the very small cube for my baby. And if I´m in a tearing hurry, I grate it with a microplane so it cooks in her soup truly fast. Long sticks are my favourite snack (never mind that they´re healthy, I just love them).

Here´s a quick side dish preparation for carrots:

Take a couple of carrots cut in thick batons, and put them in a small non stick frying pan with water to come half way up (this is very little water) and a small piece of butter, the size of a hazelnut, no more. Salt, fire it up and get on with the rest of dinner. When it comes to boil, cover it and let them steam. In a few minutes they´ll be quite soft, and the liquid should have evaporated, but if it hasn´t, take the cover off and let it bubble up.

Sometimes I add french green beans too, straight from the freezer, and they cook at the same time.

Sauteed cherry tomatoes

One of my rules is: no tomatoes between October and June. There are enough dissappointments going around to add mushy, mealy, pale, tastless toms to the list.

And yet. Sometimes, I really, really want a tomato. Or big bags of them are on sale, and, well, I´m not made of iron. The rule that ammends the broken rule is: cook them. Slow roasting makes up for their sins pretty well, but it takes forever. My new favourite thing is to achieve a similar result within minutes. 

All you need is a handful of those accomodating little things, cherry tomatoes, and a bit of balsamic vinegar.

Sauteeing the cherries at high heat brings out all the things you want in a tomato: juiciness, flavour, tartness, sweetness. A drizzle of vinegar at the end makes them caramelize, or look caramelized, dark and long cooked. And it all happens while you get a sandwich ready!

Over the past week I´ve used these in a salad with fresh mozzarella and anchovies, as a side vegetable, and as a garnish to perk up a bland sqash soup from a carton.

Brilliant.

Frozen spinach

Eek!, you say.
Do I want curses beating about my head? Haven´t I seen the River Cottage DVDs a million times? What am I thinking?
Well, I´m thinking that in real life it´s not always possible to have the fresh stuff to hand. It´s not practical to have whole bunches of spinach in danger of wilting lying around your fridge. Sometimes you just want a few leaves to provide a green note in a bowl of soup. Or you´re in a hurry and can´t really stop to trim and clean a whole lot of leaves. Or you can´t be bothered, and what´s wrong with that? It just makes sense to have some spinach (and peas, and green beans) stashed in the freezer, however many times a week you go to the market.
I grew up in a house where frozen spinach is boiled and then sautéed. But here´s how I do it which is quicker, and only uses one pan. If anyone thinks this is a dodgy method and I´ll die in convulsions pretty soon, please don´t tell me. I think it´s just great.

All you need is a heavy skillet with a lid. Heat a little olive oil in it and add your frozen spinach. It helps if it´s in pieces the size of undernourished golf balls, which is of course the lowly kind of frozen spinach, and if you think this is going from bad to worse, that´s too bad.
Add salt, cover the pan, turn down the heat. Wait maybe five minutes, dduring which time you can shake it a little. That´s it. Your perfectly serviceable spinach, without having to wait, drain, or do anything boring.
You can add cream and let it bubble down, of course. And before adding the spinach you can brown a little garlic, and add raisins. Pimentón will go well at the end, if you´re so minded, or nutmeg. Anything, really.
It´s not spectacular, but when there´s a lunchbox to be filled, or a lasagna/spanakópita to be assembled at a moment´s notice, it´s pretty good.

Cocarrois, the recipe

Ok my ladies, here goes.
These cocarrois are one of my all-time most favourite things. We first had them in Mallorca, where the cook of the house we were staying at, Jerónima, aka Jeroni, introduced us to the mouthwatering island cuisine; tumbet, pa amb oli, cocas with various toppings, and these babies, which are a pastie filled with various vegetables. They go raw into the pastry, and cook inside, which makes it meld beautifully but not overcook.
She very kindly gave us the recipe, and we brought it back home, where it´s been a staple ever since. Cocarrois make the perfect picnic fare, but usually we´d have them as a cold lunch or dinner, alongside a bowl of gazpacho.
Because they´re filled with cabbage and cauliflower, in the beginning my father and sisters refused to touch them. Which meant that Escolástica, my mother and I had them all to ourselves, and I could be sure of finding one nestling in the oven that I could take to school the next day. Sadly, they´ve all caught on to the fact that they are irresistible, and of course J loves them, so nowdays it´s a sad-to-see scramble at the table.
The only quibble I have with Levantine cuisine is the salt in the dough thing. They don´t put salt in breads or pastries, and this baffles me profoundly. I don´t see why ever not, and I miss it, so even though I´ll give you the real thing as I heard it, know that I salt the dough, and always will. Silly not to. Authenticity is all very well, but there´s a limit.
So. This quantity makes about 12 or 14 pasties. If you have leftover filling, it makes a surprisingly good salad, a sort of Mediterranean coleslaw.

For the dough

1 cup olive oil
1 cup water
1 tablespoonful of lard (you can use butter, we often do, but lard is the real thing and makes them flakier)
As much flour as it needs.
This is the sort of instruction that drives me nuts, but I´m sure you are all very experienced bakers and will know when the thing has come together. It´s approximately 700 gr., and the dough should be slightly sticky but definitely compact.
Let it rest while you make the filling with:

half a cauliflower
half a white cabbage
1 mild onion ( I use spring onion)
2 ripe tomatoes , deseeded and diced (you don´t want them to make everything waterlogged)
Chop everything very finely. Mandoline or processor is best for the cauliflower and the cabbage. Dress it with olive oil, black pepper, salt and pimentón, the sweet kind. Go easy on it, you don´t want it to taste like chorizo, just to give it a hint.
Heat up the oven to 200 or so.
Take the dough and pull of pieces the size of a fattish golf ball. Roll them, then flatten them til they´re 12 cms in diameter.
Lay a couple of spoonfuls of the filling and dot with four raisins, then close them to make a shape like the drawing.
Bake them for 30 or 40, until golden. Try to resist them, they´re best at room temperature, not hot.
I like them even better the next day, when they´ve lost their crispness but the flavours have had time to settle in. And may Majorcans forgive me, I always slather them with chutney.

Tomato crumble

We had what looked like a properly autumnal change of season this weekend, with a bit of rain, but now the sun is back, temperatures are pushing thirty, and we might be distracted into thinking this is high summer in Estonia. Lovely weather.
What this means: gather tomatoes while ye may.
It´s not too late. They´re still cluttering up the grocers´ stalls, selling at a euro the kilo. Go on, bake, roast, sauce, soup or chutney, you will be glad later.
If you´ve got more roast tomatoes than you know what to do with, because, say, you´ve been so overenthusiastic that your freezer holds nothing more, this is a great way to use them. It comes from my aunt Gabriela´s book and is her favourite recipe in the whole collection. And I can understand why.
You can´t go very wrong with roast tomatoes, but when you add a crumble with cheese and nuts it elevates the whole thing into the realm of the sheer genius. I dare you to leave enough of this to eat cold the next day.
You´ll need:
Two kilos of roast tomatoes, skinned, but never mind about the seeds. Why is everyone so het up about tomato seeds, anyway? They don´t bother me at all.
100gr. of flour
100 gr. butter
80 gr. fresh bread crumbs (not from stale bread, that is)
80 gr. parmesan or similar aged cheese
30 gr. pine nuts
5 tablespoons of olive oil
thyme, or oregano
salt, pepper.

Since this is a recipe from a Thermomix book, the method is tho grate the cheese with a few jolts of the turbo button, set it aside, and then put the butter, flour, breadcrums, half the cheese and two tbs oil, herbs salt and pepper in the machine. Give it 15 seconds on 6 until it forms clumps.
If you don´t have a processor, then cut the butter into the rest of the stuff in the traditional way, or rub it in with your fingers. It doesn´t take long.
Put this dough on top of the tomatoes in a baking dish, scatter the remaining cheese and pinenuts on top, drizzle with the rest of the oil, the herbs if you´re using them, and bake at 210ºC until golden, about 30 minutes.

I like this with a green salad, but Gabriela suggests anchovy ice cream. For that recipe you´ll have to buy the book, because it entails gelatine and whipped cream, two items that scare the hell out of me and make me think I won´t be making it any time soon.

Tomatoes in my quirky oven

I´m a daring baker

Well, not really. I mean, I´m not one of the select few who can make strawberry mirror cake at the drop of a hat. That is blog aristocracy, and they have my deepest respect (and a nice logo?!?)
I just mean that baking in my kitchen is an act of daring. It requires a lot of nerve to pull a cake off chez moi, and I say this with modest pride.
My oven is a museum piece, gas fired, and only heats from below, or from above, but not both. It has no temperature settings, merely an on and an off position. By some very delicate twiddling with the knob, I achieve what I like to think of as a medium oven, but which, actually, is anybody´s guess.
Since the heat is fierce from below, I never put things on a baking sheet, but rather in a pan suspended on two pieces of pottery equipment that make the heat slower to burn the bottom of cakes and biscuits.
I never really know what´s going on in there, and so usually spend the baking time hovering anxiously around, beaming it with a flashlight every now and then.
Did I mention, it has no light inside? I mean, really, you must agree, that´s pretty daring.
This summer I had occasion to potter around what may be the dream kitchen. In it, Pille had an oven thermometer. Even though her oven comes equipped with all the buttons, she still wanted to make sure of the temperatures, so there it was. She also told me her theory: "Everything bakes at 200ºC".
So I bought one and when I tried it, I realized how stunning my baking feats actually are. The oven is totally bonkers. It takes very long to heat up, and rarely, if ever, goes hotter than 200º. Once there, however, it never goes below until turned off.
So, actually, I´ve spent all my baking life proving Pille´s theory without knowing it. Makes everything so much easier. Not that I ever make complicated stuff, of course.
These tomatoes are something easy that cooks away all by itself, and is always handy to have around. They freeze well and are good with everything. When I bloged about them before , there was some imprecision in my explanation and method, which I´ll now try to redress. There are still good cheap tomatoes in the markets, go make the most of them!

Cut plum tomatoes in half and put them cut side up on a roasting tray. You won´t be able to get so many in, but they´ll cook more evenly and easily, so it´s worth it. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with herbs, salt and sugar, and put in a 200ºc oven for at least an hour. After that, they´re probably usable, but I like to leave them another hour in what I used to beleive was a slower setting but now know is also 200ºC.
Turn the oven off and leave them inside to cool. By then the skins will peel off easily, which is recommended before storing. You´ll be glad you did it.
If the toms were very juicy, make the world´s best possible tomato juice with lemon and worcestershire sauce.
(The colage is a page of my kitchen sketchbook. Notice the flahslight).

Rented house cookery: escalibada

"The kitchens of holiday houses (...) usually have a stony bleakness in common. However adequate the beds or satisfactory the view, the kitchen equipment will probably consist of a tin frying pan, a chipped enamel saucepan, one Pyrex casserole without a lid, and a rusty knife with a loose handle."
Elisabeth David, people. Marvel at this. She knew, to the letter, what would be the contents of the cupboard in our little cottage in Saaremaa, Estonia, in the summer of 2007. Pretty impressive. I love finding proof that some things never change.
Not that one really wants to cook in summer. At most, one will grill a few burgers, or make a batch of pancakes for a long lazy breakfast. The rest will go in sandwiches and ice cream, and happily so.
But when that´s not enough, here´s a summer staple that can be done in even the most basic rented kitchen, provided there´s an oven.
Escalibada is a salad of roasted peppers and aubergines, dressed with olive oil and vinegar, and chopped raw garlic. Some recipes also have tomatoes roasted alongside, and even the garlic and some onion, too. (I prefer this. Raw garlic and onion are sociopathic, in my opinion).
Here´s the recipe, with a suggested holiday timeline.
Start with 3 red peppers (bear in mind that in Spain peppers are very big, the size of an outstretched hand) 3 aubergines, 1 quartered onion, three whole garlic cloves.
In the morning, put everything in a 180ºC oven, unpeeled, whole, easy, while you prepare coffee. The vegetables will roast while you have breakfast and read the papers.
After 45 minutes or so, take them out, put them in a bowl, cover it with clingfilm, go and get dressed.
When you come back, they´ll have sweated a little and become cool enough to handle. Peel peppers and aubergines, deseed the peppers, and make your dressing. I like to squeeze out the garlic and make it into a paste that makes the basis of my vinaigrette.
If it´s not too hot, put it in the fridge, and go to the beach.
When you come back, you´ll have a beautiful, punchy salad. If you´ve picked up some fresh fish in the market on your way back, then of course you´re in business for grilled fish with escalibada, which is one of the best things possible. If not, it will still be great with tuna from a can, boiled eggs, a cheese sandwich, or even some pizza.
It lasts quite well for a few days, too, so you can make it as an investment or a just-in-case dish.
(And yes, I know, this is a very Mediterranean dish, and no, I didn´t make it in Estonia. I stuck to local cucumbers and apples and berries and mushrooms, no great hardship.)

Salpicón: seafood salad

Salpicón is one of the best things of the summer. It´s more of a bar food, of the sort that nestles in chilled trays on the bar. If you´re lucky, it will have whatever caught the cook´s fancy that morning at the market. If not, it´ll have been made on Monday with the sweepings of the fridge, and will have languished ever since. Caveat emptor.
In theory, salpicón is a vinaigrette made with three parts olive oil to one of sherry vinegar, and peppers, onions and parsley, chopped very small. Maybe tomato, too, and probably chopped egg ( I told you it was everywhere).
In practice, it´s more of a salad. The chopped vegetables make a substantial base note for a star ingredient, whichever it may be. The most typical is a mixture of seafood, prawns, mussels, octopus. Lobster, maybe, at the top end of the scale, surimi at the bottom. With potatoes, it becomes ensalada campera, or papas aliñás, and is one of the best possible potato salads, I think.
Fish roe is also a favourite, or beans, or salt cod. The variations are almost endless. Just walk into a bar, ask what aliño they have, and have a tapa sent round with your beer. It´s wonderful, and unique in the Spanish canon in its overall healthiness and lack of pig-parts.

Salpicón
Mince two shallots, finely dice one big red pepper, chop a good fistful of parsley leaves. The tomatoes don´t have to be as finely diced. Mix these with the 3/1 olive oil and sherry vinegar , and leave to mingle. Yes, the tomato will make a lot of liquid, but don´t we all love our pot likker?
Make a couple of boiled eggs using the 12 minute method. Thanks to everyone who left it in my comments box. I am a born-again boiled egg lover.
The seafood can be whatever you have on hand. Leftover crab, maybe, or a can of good tuna or sardines, or around 250 gr. steamed prawns. Whatever suits you best. I also love it over beans. In fact, I made salpicón to trick out this recipe from Mark Bittman´s 101 from last week´s NYT.
4 Open a can of white beans and combine with olive oil, salt, small or chopped shrimp, minced garlic and thyme leaves in a pan. Cook, stirring, until the shrimp are done; garnish with more olive oil.
I found it a bit bland, but left to cool, and then mixed with the salpicón and a couple of tomatoes, it was beyond delicious.
The only important rule you should never forget is to mix it a few hours ahead, and leave it in the fridge, well covered, so that flavours have time to mingle. And eat it in the day. It´s meant to be super-fresh and crunchy.