I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while. Simple recipes for tapas. This is a first try and although I’m confident about the recipe, I’m not so sure how it’ll work with the fish you have access to. If anyone tries it, I’d appreciate feedback. Mrs Maki and I have a lot of tapas recipes. We love going out for tapas, of course, but sometimes it’s a lot of fun to try them out at home and have a little more control over the freshness etc of the ingredients.
This is the way we prepare Cazón en Adobo.
Cazón is a member of the shark family. Dogfish or “rock” are two of the names it goes by in the UK.
Ingredients:
1 lb (and a bit) of cazón cut into bite size chunks
1 teaspoon sea salt
For the marinade;
1 wineglass of sherry vinegar
1/2 wineglass of fino wine
2 soupspoons of sweet paprika
1 soupspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon of crushed cumin seeds
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
For frying;
Flour. There is a special flour they sell here for frying fish. I find that a mixture of two parts plain flour to one part cornflour is a pretty good substitute if you can’t get hold of it.
Olive oil.
Method:
Clean the fish. Make sure there are no bones and cut into bite size chunks.
Add salt. Don’t worry about oversalting as the marinade tends to absorb most of it.
Mix together the marinade ingredients.
Put a layer of fish pieces in a a glass dish. Add half the marinade. Put in a second layer and add the rest of the marinade. Cover and put in the fridge overnight. Give it a stir from time to time.
Frying:
Drain the fish well. Once it is drained, pat dry with kitchen paper and coat well with the flour mixture. Put the fish back in the fridge for half an hour.
Heat a generous quantity of oil in a frying pan to about 170ºC or 180ºC. Fry the fish in small batches till the batter is a crisp golden brown, making sure the oil doesn’t overheat at any time.
Serve with crusty bread and a cool glass of beer or fino, as is your wont.
*There will be vegetarian tapas later in what, I hope, will become an occasional series.*
As this is a tapa that is typical of Cadiz, here’s an Alegría.
How many does this serve, in a tapas situation?
A couple if there’s nothing else on the table. My idea is to provide more recipes so that you can do a table full of different things. Mrs Maki and I had this for dinner last night and ended up filling up on bread. Mind you, we’ve got good appetites.
Sounds interesting. I always seem to end up doing the same sort of things whenever I do tapas; patatas bravas, wedges of tortilla, marinated olives, cubes of manchego, jamon serrano, slices of chorizo or lomo.
Maybe I need more interesting dishes?
This looks like a good one.
Another nice one is chorizo cooked in cider. Do you know it?
Maki – I’ve evolved a tapas out of the cider & Chorizo one . I love it but it seems too sweet when it’s hot. I make it with sun-dried tomatos, basque chorizo, Potatos (fingerling are best) Spanish paparika, couple of bay leaves & a bit of garlic simmered in a sweet wine (had a half case of Gewürztraminer left over from a party that’s found it’s use). I make lots cause it’s better the next day.
Maki: Thank you, this is exactly what I had in mind when I recently suggested posting headings, [film, books, recipes etc] on the spill for various non-musical posts. Of course we can do it this way but I think the other might encourage diversity, regardless, my appreciation for this one.
Tapas were a wonderful discovery when I visited Spain and I look forward to all that you have to offer.
Looks delicious, Maki. You could probably do something similar with eggplant or cauliflower. And if the marinade didn’t soak into the vegetables you could use it as a dipping sauce. Hmmmm….
Thanks, and what a good idea for a series!
As I was getting the kids’ tea this evening I thought how much I miss FP and her can’t be arsed to cook series – this looks like being a worthy successor.
Thank you, Maki!
This sounds delectable! A good idea for a series. If I ever get my act together, I’ll contribute my Libyan couscous recipe (feeds a multitude).
Tomato bread!
You want the recipe? We’ll do it as a side dish and put up either some *rumba catalana* or a *sardana*.
Yes please!
Maki – great of you to revive my favourite off-topic topic – cooking. I luuurve tapas. I will plan entire holidays around opportunities to bag some (recent forays were sea urchin omelette in A Coruna, and perfecto manchega and Iberico in Seville). And tapas in London is improving. So I’m really looking forward to trying this, and more recipes please!
Your recipe looks really interesting and I am sure it will be delicious!!!
There some things I do not know if I can buy here. Fino wine I never heard of before and had to look on Wiki for it so I suppose it will be hard to find and also sherry vinegar I think will be impossible!!!! But we have vinegar called Awasezu which is rice vinegar with sake added and I can buy white wine from Australia in the local convenience store in my neighbourhood …….ummm……..do you think this will do? I think in Japanese we call this fish tsunozame, which is quite an economical fish to buy here.
Your recipe is like to make tempura, but I have never seen this in fish in tempura, so it looks very interesting!! I will definitely try to cook it and try it on my friends next week!!
I will tell you if it was a success…..or not……..
i’m pretty sure you can get シェリービネガー in Kinokuniya or somewhere like that, might be a bit pricey there though!
Hi Panthaer san I think it found it on line!
I bloody love going for Tapas! It was a sad day indeed when “Tapas Ole!” in Edinburgh closed. Though their in-house minstrel often outstayed his welcome, my face hurt from politely grinning as he unleashed yet another terrible serenade…
Maki – Bravo mi amigo! Wonderful recipe & I can see it working with most firm flesh fish. Agree with Hoshino, it’s like a Spanish tempura almost. My basque friends make one similar with trout but tend to use half filets instead of the bite size. I can see this one having a nice spot in a 4 or 5 dish tapas serving. Ok now I’m hungry!
*drools uncontrollably*
Hi. Found The Spill t’other day. Posted, then off for the weekend. Great stuff, btw. Feeling quite hungry looking at the fish.
I have never had tapas, can you believe that? Do these fish bites tend to have a dipping sauce, like you would dip tempura?
Hi SpottedRichard! Good to see you and other new faces here!
There’s no specific dipping sauce for these. Tapas in general don’t belong to the “dipping” family although in the Canaries there are sauces called Mojo that are used for dipping. Of course if there’s a bit of mayo or Alioli on the table there’s no hard and fast rules…