Txoko para Todos: A Food Blog for All

Great tasting piquillo peppers, great tasting manchego cheese, great tasting tapa, simply made.

Seared Piquillo Peppers stuffed with Manchego Cheese

Total Time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients

4 piquillo peppers D.O. Lodosa
5 tablespoons Spanish extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon minced shallot
1/2 scallion, white part only, thinly sliced
2 ounces manchego cheese, cut into 2-inch sticks
fresh thyme sprigs
fresh parsley sprigs
sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Directions

1. Whisk 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, the vinegar, shallots, and scallions together in a bowl. Season as desired with salt and pepper.
2. Slide a stick of cheese into each pepper.
3. Heat the last remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sauté pan over high heat. Add the peppers and brown a bit on both sides until you see the universal symbol of tastiness, melting cheese.
4. Plate the peppers, and drizzle with some of the dressing and a sprinkling of the thyme and parsley sprigs. Serve immediately to maximize the wonders of melted cheese.
5. Eat.
 
Recipe adapted from Jose Andrés.

---

An easy tapa (with the aid of a food processor or blender), The asparagus and romesco sauce complement each other well. So well, in fact, people will taste this and say, "Wow... wow, this is good." Enjoy the impressed looks sent your way.

White Asparagus with Romesco Sauce

Total Time: 15-20 minutes. 

Ingredients

• 1 jar - extra thick white asparagus D.O. Navarre (about 8 spears)

for romesco sauce (servings: 1 1/2 cups)

• 1 or 2 piquillo peppers
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
• 1/4 cup tomato purée
• 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 1 teaspoon piment d'Espelette
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Set aside the white asparagus. All you'll need to do with these is open the jar.

2. For the romesco sauce, pulse the first 8 ingredients in a food processor until finely chopped. Then, with the motor still slowly running, add the olive oil with the same slow determination and continue to process until as smooth as desired.

3. Spread the romesco sauce on a plate and place asparagus atop the sauce.

4. Eat.

For additional recipes and serving suggestions for Spanish conservas, please see our aptly named Recipes & Serving Suggestions page.

Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit.

Piment d'Espelette on French fries, because sometimes even French fries can be better. #foodies #chicago #food

A photo posted by Donostia Foods (@donostiafoods) on Feb 11, 2015 at 12:02pm PST

Donostia Foods conservas, premium canned foods from Spain, as featured at the aptly named Donostia in New York, have made the Saveur 100 for 2015 at number 15. The annual guide is a collection of "inventive chefs, oddball ingredients, and ingenious tips" that are making the writers and editors glad to be eating and cooking today. As noted in the magazine:

The availability of top-quality Spanish conservas (preserved foods) is changing the way we think about canned ingredients. Restaurants like Donostia in New York City and Aatx in San Francisco are serving foods right from the tin -- and you should, too.

See more of the Saveur 100 in the Jan./Feb. issue and saveur.com. 

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the tenth and last in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. The grand finale of simple, if such a thing is possible. Happy holidays.

The Grand Pintxo - Bonito del Norte Tuna with Manchego, Anchovies, Guindilla Peppers, Roasted Cherry Tomatoes, Manzanilla Olives and Aioli

Ingredients

- Bonito del Norte Tuna in Olive Oil
- Cantabrian Anchovies in Olive Oil
- Guindilla Peppers
- Manzanilla Olives (Pitted)
- manchego cheese
- cherry tomatoes
- aioli
- bread

Directions

We put just about everything we had out in the kitchen that we thought would be nice together, together. This was the result.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the ninth in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients

- Cantabrian Anchovies in Olive Oil
- Guindilla Peppers
- Manzanilla Olives (Pitted)

Directions

A traditional pintxo mentioned on this blog previously, but popular enough to merit another post. Thought to be named for Rita Hayworth's character in the eponymous film, it's been found in pintxo bars throughout San Sebastián since 1946. A jar of anchovies will give you about 18 pieces.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the seventh in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients

- Cantabrian Anchovies in Olive Oil
- fresh ricotta cheese
- Piment d'Espelette
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- bread

Directions

Another pintxo that simply calls for putting one ingredient atop another. Drizzle a small amount of olive oil over each piece when you've finished constructing them and you'll be done. If you'd prefer to use a Spanish cheese, a mató cheese (if you can find or create one), is a good choice. Each jar of anchovies will give you about 18 fillets; one or two fillets per piece is entirely up to you.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the sixth in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients

- Marinated Grilled Artichoke Halves
- Octopus in Olive Oil
- Piment d'Espelette
- bread

Directions

Drizzle a little olive oil over your pintxos once you've skewered the bread, artichoke, and octopus. Then sprinkle with piment d'Espelette and you're ready to serve. Each jar of artichokes will give you about 10 pieces.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the fifth in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients 

- Bonito del Norte Tuna in Olive Oil
- Piquillo Peppers D.O. Lodosa
- Manzanilla Olives (Pitted)
- aioli
- bread

Directions

As with a previous pintxo, all the work here is aioli whisking-related. Once that's accomplished, it's just more of opening jars and putting one ingredient on top of another, with delicious, crowd-pleasing results. You should be able to get about a dozen pintxos from a jar of the Bonito, which is of course dependent on how much tuna you feel like awarding your guests. A naughty or nice joke could go here, something about the correlation between goodness over the course of the previous year and the resulting division and distribution of exquisite Bonito del Norte tuna amongst Christmas party guests. That joke will be withheld.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the fourth in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients 

- Cantabrian Anchovy Fillets
- manchego cheese
- apricot jam
- bread

Directions

Here, the most work you'll have to do is probably slicing the cheese, but that's not difficult at all, particularly if you have one of those little cheese boards with the slicer built in. Job done. If you want to get wild, perhaps try lightly toasting the bread and melting the cheese. It's not what we did, but the theory that melted cheese makes things better has withstood the test of time. Each jar of anchovies will give you about 18 fillets.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the third in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients

- Octopus in Olive Oil
- aioli
- chives
- bread

Directions

This pintxo takes a bit of whisking. For the aioli we used (directions for which can be found by clicking the link found at the beginning of this sentence), we kept it simple with just egg yolk, olive oil, garlic, and fresh lemon juice. As you whisk the aioli into being, perhaps you'll be inspired to add piment d'Espelette (or any number of other spices we do not sell). You should try it. At worst, if you're imagination runs amok, it will only add a few more minutes of whisking to return you to the right path.

Pintxos and eggnog? Why not. This is the second in our series of pintxos to be posted this holiday season. Some simple combinations of ingredients you can put together in a very little amount of your time, so you can spend most of it partaking in the revelry of the season. 

Ingredients

- Mussels in Escabeche (Pickled Sauce)
- fresh ricotta cheese
- bread

Directions

All you have to do for this pintxo is open a tin of mussels in escabeche, have some fresh ricotta cheese ready to be spread, and slice appropriately-sized slices of bread. Put the cheese on the bread, the mussels on the cheese, and you're ready to serve. If you want to use a cheese that maintains the Spanish origins of the pintxo, try using a mató cheese, an unsalted Catalan fresh cheese made from cows' or goats' milk. It's difficult to find, though, in the US, and fresh ricotta worked well, according to our tastes. You'll get about 12 pintxos from one tin of mussels.