Tapas 24, Barcelona, Spain

This is completely cheating because I basically wrote about this place about a year ago and now I am writing about it all over again.  But I have three reasons why I shouldn't be criticised for doing so, which I think are pretty valid and compelling:

1. Last time I didn't have my fancy camera so you had to make do with crappy iPhone pictures only (and not that many of them);
2. Last time we arrived at 12.30 and ordered all the food only to realise afterwards that there was a lunch menu from 1pm that was much better but we which we were now too full to eat; and
3. This place is absolutely flippin' amazeballs and deserves to be written about at every opportunity.

So with that in mind I am now going to write a lot about Tapas 24.

Basically, I was in Barcelona for a work thing, which ended on the Friday night (technically, Spain being Spain and keeping very Spanish social hours, it ended on the Saturday morning).  We had a preferential rate on the hotel if we wanted to stay on so I said GrubsterGirl that she should come and join me and we'd make a weekend of it.  She agreed on one proviso: we went to Tapas 24.

Tapas 24 is run by Carles Abellan, a former El Bulli chef, so it's a fair guess that he knows what he's doing.  We timed it right this time and managed to bag a seat at the bar during the peak lunchtime.  Operating out of a tiny kitchen hardly much bigger than a toilet cubicle, these lads knock together some of the best tapa I have ever had the immense pleasure of sampling.

We kicked off the proceedings with a couple of croquettas, as you do (it being Span and all).  They were good – and as freshly made as you're ever gonna get them – literally, we watched them being made and going into the fryer from where we sat.  But, frankly, Tapas 24 has so much else in store I'd recommend looking elsewhere on the menu.

Next up was the bikini sandwich.

Now, this is a quandary.  It's immensely popular in Barcelona / Catalonia but seems to be utterly unheard of elsewhere in the world.  And that's the quandary part, really, because it's bloody luverly.  A combination of soft, mozzarella-esque cheese, Iberico ham and black truffle, squished flat by a heavy toastie maker and baked so that the cheese oozes and the truffle mingles.  It is quite simply a work of art, and undoubtedly the best sandwich I have ever, ever had.  Better still, I now understand that Tapas 24's contribution is amongst the sandwich's finest examples.

Moving on to the more substantial dishes, there was a plate of corvina ceviche (corvina being a kind of salt water fish that's a little like trout).

This was delicious – absolutely fantastic, it managed somehow to be both immediately similar to a run-of-the-mill ceviche and be something unique and unexpected.

We also had the Iberico presa pork.

Presa is the end of the loin, at the neck, and is regarded as one of the finest cuts of meat from the pig.  Because of the quality and responsible rearing of the meat in Spain (and, I expect, in particular from their personal suppliers) you can have your presa rare, as opposed to the well done form in which all pig meat in the UK comes. This one was served Argentine style, with a chimichurri sauce full of herbs and spices.  Another definite hit (albeit not quite reaching the gargantuan heights of the ceviche).

For pudding we had the mango and chilli.

Another wonder, the range and matching of the flavours was intense.  A mango flavoured foam with lime zest stirred through it, topped with crushed chillies – it had it all.  But then, the surprise at the bottom was the lime grantia - slightly effervescent, almost pétillant - that just brought it all together.

But perhaps the star of the show – and possibly Tapas 24's signature dish – was the chocolate.

It's basically a beautifully smooth, heavy moose – almost unmoussey altogether, a thick chocolate cream perhaps – served with olive oil, sea salt and crisped bread.  I have almost no words for this.  The combination of a really fruity, peppery green olive oil and the chocolate, intensified by the salt, was extraordinary.  This is quite possibly the best pudding I have ever had, and definitely amongst my all time, top ten favourite dishes.  Superb.

One of the great things about Tapas 24 – and you've probably figured out by now that I think that there are a lot of great things – is the bill.  You've had food cooked for you created by a man who learned to cook in what was, at the time, the greatest restaurant in the world.  But it is far from bank breaking.  Whenever I've been asked over the last year or so where's good to eat in Barca, I always say here.  On this recent visit I was proved right.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Food Porn #10: Homegrown Walnuts

Homegrown.  As in we actually planted the tree.  Bloody proud of these.

Cookies

So, we had a bake sale at work to raise money for Macmillan – one of their coffee mornings, in fact – and I reckoned I ought to bring something in. 

As I have said so many times on this blog, I suck at baking.  Like properly suck.  At university I once made a loaf of bread – I thought it would be an economical and homely, hipster-y thing to do.  I ended up with something that resembled the soul of my shoe and which tasted foul.  Later than academic year I attempted a tarte tatin that that burnt to a crisp on top whilst leaving the apple crunchy.  Then there was the pie crust (another one from that year now I think about it – I certainly attempted a lot of baking in my 2nd year) that had to be cut open with a hacksaw – not kidding.  I think after those triumphs I was scarred for life in the baking department, and now the closest I get is readymade puff pastry pie toppings – that's good enough for me. 

Anyway, I decided I would attempt it nevertheless – it's for charity, after all.  So I attempted cookies – which are, I think, quite possible the easiest things to bake.  They turned out well good, actually – Mrs Grubster ended up eating most of them before they got to work.

Ingredients:

125g butter (plus extra for tray greasing)
100g soft brown sugar
125g caster sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
225g self-raising flour
100g chocolate bar (get the good stuff)
Pinch of sea salt

The butter needs to be up at around room temperature for this one.  Chuck it in a bowl with the sugars, vanilla and the egg and, using an electric whisk, cream so that it is light and fluffy.

(I actually had to look up what was meant by "cream until light and fluffy".  Apparently it's a bit like this.  I expect someone will come along and say, "oi, that's not light and fluffy" or "that's not creamed", but whatever - the cookies came out decent, didn't they?)

Sift in the flour, add a pinch of salt, and stir the whole lot together until fully combined.

Smash up the chocolate bar into pieces of about the sort of size you want to find lurking in a cookie.  This is totally your call.  Mix that lot into the dough – you now have a bona fide cookie dough.  You should resist the temptation to eat this all now – although there's a great little spot in Texas (Torchy's) where you can get lumps of this stuff deep fried and oh my god is it good.

Get the oven on to 180ºC. Grease a non-stick baking tray.  Dollop lumps of dough onto the tray – the lumps should be about the amount that you scoop out with a dessert spoon.  You'll need to leave a good gap between each cookie – these buggers get big as they slop out in the cooking process.

Into the oven they go for between 7 and 9 minutes – it varies from oven to oven, but each batch will be about the same so watch that first batch LIKE A HAWK.  They turn very quickly.

Cool on a wire cooling rack.  Resist temptation to eat the whole lot in one sitting.

 - GrubsterBoy -

Balsamic Chicken Salad

This is an ever-so-simple meal for a quick and easy weekday supper.  If you can be faffed then you should get the chicken in the marinade before you go to work, knowing that it will be ready and waiting for you when you get home – ready, even, to go straight on the grill. 

 

The proportions will feed two as a main meal or four as a starter – but it's terribly easy to increase.

 

Ingredients:

 

2 chicken breasts

50ml olive oil (plus a drizzle for the sweet tatties)
50ml balsamic vinegar (doesn’t need to be uber expensive)
2 medium sweet potatoes
½ tsp cayenne pepper
50g pumpkin seeds
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 lime
100g rocket leaves

 

(In the pictures below I have used pine nuts.  Ignore this – Sainsbury's were out of pumpkin seeds.  So sub in pumpkin seeds wherever you see pine nuts.)

1. Lay the chicken breasts flat and slice them in half horizontally, so that you're left with two pieces of chicken of the same proportions but half the thickness.  Place these in a large, flat bowl, pour the oil and vinegar over them and stir it up so that the chicken is properly coated.  Leave them to marinade for at least an hour.

2. Peel sweet potatoes and cut them up into fat chips.  Drizzle the oil and sprinkle the cayenne pepper over them then stir to ensure they're coated.  Stick them in an oven at 175ºC for 45 minutes or until cooked (ie. soft inside and slightly crispy / blackened on the outside).  They'll need turning a few times during the cooking process. 

3. About 15 minutes before the potatoes are done you'll want to cook the chicken, so you probably want it to come out of the fridge about 15 minutes before that to come up to room temperature.  Get a griddle pan on the heat (mine is properly screwed so I've used a frying pan instead) and get it hot, but not screaming hot like you would for steak (otherwise the chicken will stick to it like superglue – hence why mine's so screwed).  Get the Chicken on the griddle and cook for about five minutes aside, or again until done and a little crispy on the outside.  When it's done the meat will need to rest of a few minutes.

5. Whilst the chicken rests you can cook the lime.  Slice it through the equator and stick it on the griddle.  At the same time, lay the pumpkin seeds out on a baking tray and toast them in the oven.  Be careful here – they need only a couple of minutes.  Overdo them and they'll be minging – crusty and burny and not at all nice.  So keep an eye on them.  When they're toasted pop them in a freezer bag with the paprika and the tiniest drop of olive oil and give them a big shake.  You'll find that the paprika sticks pretty good.

 6. All of your elements ought to be done by now, so it's just a matter of assembly.  Slice the chicken into strips, being careful not to lose any juices that run out.  Put the rocket in a big bowl and heap the chicken and any escaping juices on top.  Add in the warm sweet potatoes and the pumpkin seeds.  Squeeze the lime over the whole lot and toss the salad.  You may want to add a drizzle of oil if you don’t feel it's dressed enough, but I never really think it's worth it.

Serve the salad whilst it's still warm.  It's good for all seasons – summer and winter alike.

- GrubsterBoy -