Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Cooking Swiss chard

Mediterranean peoples still eat Swiss chard regularly. Maybe not every single day like thirty years ago when some poor Mediterranean families had nothing else to put on the table, but still now most families eat Swiss chard a few times a week. A typical everyday dinner dish in the Mediterranean Catalan countries is boiled swiss chard and potatoes with olive oil and salt, and fish or an omelet.

Although it is known as Swiss chard in English, Northern European and American took a while to discover the nutritional properties of Swiss chard.

Understandably, some people don't like the visual aspect of Swiss chard. Or they find them too bitter. Cooking Swiss chard is easy, but you have to do it properly, otherwise they are unappealing.

The stalks are edible, but they can be very bitter. My advice is that you chop the stalk ends and discard them. If the stalks of Swiss chards are very thick I even chop and discard the stalk in the middle of the leaf.

As with so many everyday simple Mediterranean food recipes, if the basic product is not natural and good quality, it is very difficult to get a tasty Swiss chard dish.

In my Mediterranean food recipes you will find the details for cooking Swiss chard with rice. It is my personal Mediterranean Swiss chard recipe. We eat it once a week. It is easy, light, healthy and nutritious. I invite you to try it too.

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The B44 restaurant, a Catalan bistro in San Francisco

San Francisco has a great representative of the best Mediterranean Catalan cuisine. The restaurant of chef Daniel Olivella offers an impressive selection of traditional delicious dishes that have been praised by American food commentators.

The B44 restaurant imports itself Montsià rice for the ten different paellas and rice recipes Daniel offers in his restaurant. This rice is my personal choice also, because it cooks beautifully, and doesn't give you unpleasant surprises when cooking paellas.

Montsià is a rice region at the southernmost end of Catalonia, bathed by the Ebre (Ebro) River. Apart from rice, it produces juicy clementines that are really mouthwatering.

The Montsià region can boast not only a wonderful mountainous landscape and the Mediterranean Sea, but plenty of rice dishes too: arròs a banda, arròs rossejat, and also fideuada or noodle-paella dish. Montsià natives are rice masters when growing rice and when cooking it too.

By the way, if you are a basketball fan, you may find yourself dining next to Pau Gasol, the Catalan basketball player from the Memphis team. Pau Gasol visits the B44 restaurant whenever he has the chance.

Find Mediterranean food recipes that you can prepare at home wherever you live.

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Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Medieval recipes

As stated in the Catalan Medieval cookbook Libre de Sent Soví, almonds were a part of myriad dishes. In the Middle Ages cooks used almonds in ways that we have forgotten. With the tremendous interest in cooking that Catalonia experiences today, I wouldn't be surprised if people took up that interesting tradition again.

Now that we all try to be as health-conscious as possible, it is important that we remember that almonds are tremendously healthy.

In Catalan medieval cooking there are many recipes that include almond milk. However, it isn't the almond milk, as we know it today: almonds, water and perhaps sugar or some sweetener.

Our almond milk from the Middle Ages was prepared with almonds, and chicken broth. It is very nutritious, and the almonds cleverly counteract the animal fat of the chicken broth.

In North Africa there is a couscous that you prepare with at least one pound almonds. A few years ago, I wanted to cook something completely different for Christmas, and I cooked that couscous. It was delicious, and I might repeat it soon.

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Saturday, November 12, 2005

Fusion cuisine. Japanese-Catalan mushroom cooking

In Barcelona there is a Japanese restaurant that draws on the fact that the Japanese and Catalan peoples are crazy about mushrooms.

It is the Restaurant Shojiro after its chef Shojiro Ochi. In a very interesting fusion cooking, Shojiro fusions shimejis with onions from Figueres - most excellent Japanese mushrooms with most excellent onions to prepare an imaginative Japanese soup with a Catalan touch. I love traditional cuisines, but sometimes fusion cuisine can have a magic appeal.

For your reference, Figueres is the Catalan town where famous painter Salvador Dalí was born, and where the Dalí Museum was built. Salvador Dalí was from the Empordà, a Catalan region with delicious sea-mountain dishes and a very special wine. The Empordà has the Mediterranean Sea in one side and mountains on the other, and its specialty cuisine reflects its beautiful landscape in a superb way.

The address of Restaurant Shojiro is Ros de Olano 11, Barcelona. As for the Dalí Museum, once you are in Figueres, anyone will give you directions. People are very proud of their international artist and Museum.

Visit my web for more Catalan and Mediterranean food recipes.

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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Organic vegetables - Terra Viva: Living Earth

The Mediterranean diet that has become famous worldwide relies on lots of vegetables. It would be wonderful if all of us could consume organic produce regularly, but sometimes we can't afford them or they are not available where we live.

I buy lots of vegetables every week -fresh local produce grown under the bright sun of the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. I can't buy everything organic, but I do my best.

Last week I found out that a group of friends have started an organic farm here on Majorca. Their vegetables are tasty and of course very healthy as they contain no chemicals. Their prices are amazingly fair; they are the same as for regular local produce. So from now on I can buy more organic vegetables, and more pictures of the dishes I cook to publish on my web site about Mediterranean food recipes will be proudly organic.

If you get the chance to travel to Mallorca, do visit their farm to buy some excellent organic vegetables for your Mediterranean diet.

You will find them here: Son Caminal, carretera Artà - Can Picafort km 2.200 - Mallorca

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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Barcelona First European Conference on Asian Cuisine and Culture

The capital of Catalonia, Barcelona, is a champion of the delicious Catalan cuisine, traditional and innovative, but it is certainly open to cuisines other than Mediterranean food cuisines.

From the 7th to the 10th of November 2005, Barcelona celebrates Cuinasia, the First European Conference around Asian gastronomy.

There are guest chefs from India, Thailand, China and Japan. I was pleased to find out that among the chosen top Asian chefs, three of them are female:

  • Julie Shani - Indian cuisine.

  • Hiroko Shimbo - Japanese cuisine.

  • Fuchsia Dunlop - Chinese cuisine

    Click here for the English presentation and program of the Barcelona First European Conference on Asian Cuisine and Culture.

    Browse a delicious directory of the best Mediterranean diet recipes.

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