Wrinkled Potatoes (Papas Arrugadas)

This is another potato recipe from the Culinaria Spain book.  I found the name quite interesting and decided to give it a try.  It is also the season of nugget potatoes and it’s just the right potato for this recipe.

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As the name suggests, the potatoes turned out looking wrinkled.  It has a slightly salty taste on the skin and creamy soft inside.  Arkensen enjoyed this and asked me to make it again for him.  This is an easy and fast side dish to make, ready in less than 30 minutes.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 lbs/1 kg small quick-cooking potatoes
  • 1-2 tbsp coarse sea salt

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Potato Omelet (Tortilla De Patatas)

Potato Omelet (Tortilla De Patatas) is a common savoury breakfast in Spain. It is usually eaten as a second breakfast around 10 to 11 am. We had this in BraCafe while we were in Barcelona.

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I made this Potato Omelet for Ben’s lunch as he is a light eater while he is at work.  This is great as it can be eaten warm or cold.  This will be a great lunch box item when the kids are back to school next week.

I got this recipe from the Culinaria Spain book as mentioned in this post.

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup/150 ml olive oil
  • 2 1/4 lbs/1 kg large potatoes (about 4 large russet potatoes), peeled and thinly sliced
  • 2 tsp salt (I used 1.5 tsp only)
  • 6 eggs

The hardest part in this recipe is to turn over the omelet.  Chick on more for the instructions. (more…)

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Spanish Rice

Rosa served the Chicken Mole with Spanish Rice. We are glad to learn another way of cooking rice. We had learned many ways of cooking rice here:

  1. how to cook basmati rice flavoured with saffron
  2. how to cook Risotto (Italian rice)
  3. how to cook Stick Rice
  4. how to cook Chicken Rice
  5. how to cook Nasi Lemak (coconut rice)
  6. how to cook Korean Seafood Rice
  7. how to cook Lubria Polo (Persian Green Bean Rice) and
  8. how to cook Casserole Sausage Rice

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The Spanish Rice is flavourful by itself. I’m sure my kids will love this rice. The only thing is I have to puree the tomatoes and onion so that they cant see the vegetables in the rice and cant pick them out.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups long grain rice, unwashed
  • 4 cups water or chicken broth
  • enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan
  • 1/2 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tomato, finely chopped
  • chicken bouillon
  • garlic powder
  • cumin powder

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Chicken Mole

It has been a while since I attended the Caring Place Community Kitchen. The reason is most of the demonstrations in that kitchen had been blogged already from other kitchens. Minoo will make it a point to inform me if there is something new in Caring Place Community Kitchen so that I can blog about it. This time, we had Rosa to make Spanish dishes in the Caring Place Community Kitchen.

This is the first time I met Rosa. She is a very cheerful lady with great passion in cooking. Coming from Las Vegas, Rosa told us that the chicken and beef here tastes different from those in the United States. She still goes to the Bellingham Costco to get her meat which is also cheaper there. Rosa told us when she first moved here where her family got to stay in a hotel for 2 months, she lost 20lbs as she cant do her cooking. Once they settled down in a house, she gain back her weight. This is how much she enjoys her own cooking.

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Rosa made this Chicken Mole which is her family’s favourite dish. You may cook this dish in the mole sauce or cook the chicken and the mole sauce separately. This way, the sauce will last longer in the refrigerator, like a few days. Otherwise, you have to freeze the chicken with the sauce if you have left over.

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The most important ingredient for this Chicken Mole recipe is the Mole sauce. Mole is a Mexican condiments. It is made with cocoa, sesame seeds, chili pepper, peanut butter, sugar, spice, etc. Rosa told us that you can get Mole from Safeway. There are different flavours of Mole, like Adobo, etc but according to Rosa, the original Mole is the best.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs chicken pieces (Rosa used chicken thigh which is more flavourful)
  • 1 can Mole
  • 2 tablespoons peanut butter
  • 6 to 8 pieces bay leaves
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 teaspoon salt

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