Chicken in almond sauce

I was asked for a typical Alpujarran recipe for a website the other day. Now the ultimate local dish is probably the plato Alpujarreño, which is great, but it's not unlike a British breakfast and sounds less impressive than it really is. Then there's migas, a kind of grainy semolina porridge which comes out rather like uneven couscous - again it's one of those hearty local dishes that doesn't really travel that well. So I made up a user-friendly recipe for chicken in almond sauce instead - I'm not sure if it's precisely authentic, but with great handfuls of almonds and garlic, lashings of olive oil and wine, plus pimentón and cumin, it should be close enough; and the results were delicious. This almond sauce is also great with meatballs - albóndigas - and of course with pork for carne en salsa.Ingredients to serve at least four people:

1 chicken, jointed, skin on, or a mixture of thighs and drumsticks sufficient to provide two or three pieces per person.
100 grams raw almonds, preferably with the skins still on.
300 mls white wine
Chicken stock or water, as necessary
1 head of garlic, cut in half horizontally
1 onion, peeled but kept whole
2 large tomatoes
2 or 3 slices from a baguette or similar white loaf, preferably slightly stale
Olive oil
Flour
A good pinch of saffron threads
1 tsp ground cummin
1 tsp of hot and 2 tsp mild smoked paprika (or adjust to your taste)
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper

1. Brown the chicken on all sides in a non-stick pan, in batches, adding more olive oil when necessary. Transfer to a flame-proof casserole dish.

2. Add the wine and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, add the 'bottom' half of the un-peeled garlic (it should stay in one piece), the tomatoes, bay leaves, paprika, cummin and saffron. Add stock or water to just cover and simmer for half an hour to 40 minutes, with the lid on.

3. In the same oil you used to fry the chicken, brown the almonds, making sure they don't burn. Peel the 'top' half of the garlic and add the peeled half-cloves to the pan, frying until just golden. Fry the slices of bread until golden. Put the browned almonds, garlic and bread into a pestle and mortar (or a food processor) and pound (or blend) to a thick paste.

4. When the chicken is just cooked, use a slotted spoon to lift the tomatoes and onion from the casserole and add these to the almond mixture. Lift out the half-head of garlic, squeeze the cloves from the skin and add these. Continue to pound or blend until you have a thick sauce.

5. Return the sauce to the chicken and its juices in the casserole dish, stir to blend in, and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Add a little water or stock if the sauce is becoming too thick. Check for seasoning and, if you have it, sprinkle a little chopped parsley over the top.

Serve with fried or roast potatoes. Good with the rough local rosé known as costa, or manzanilla sherry, which has a great affinity with almonds.

Great walks in Sierra Nevada

I just found this really helpful site that has detailed descriptions of walks in the Alpujarra and the wider area of the Sierra Nevada Parque Natural.

Alpujarra from the sky

Just found this clip of Andalucia es de Cine on Youtube - the show is a travelogue filler which appears on Spanish telly at odd times of the day and night. This particular clip is aerial photography of our area - the eastern Granadan Alpujarra. Shot during almond-blossom time.

See the footage here.

That amazing voice-over! Three packs of Ducados a day for several decades.

All day breakfast

Sam and Dave, the British first couple not the soul duo, had plato alpurrajeño when in the Albaicín the other day. This hearty dish is not unlike a good British breakfast. It consists of at least black pudding (morcilla), fried eggs, and potatoes stewed in oil with green peppers (papas a lo pobre). In addition, there will be chorizo, lomo (fresh pork loin) or ham, or a combination of one, two or all three.

You know when you've had a plato alpurrajeño, and I can't imagine SamCam would be indulging on a regular basis, although Dave might make it a weekly ritual, perhaps shared with the fluent hispanohablante Clegg. César, the owner of a restaurant near us, does one that's baked in the oven, but then César is originally from the Basque country, so what would he know? No, for an authentically alpujarran experience, the constituent elements of the plato must be fried in plenty of extra virgin olive oil, like everything else round here. Sadly though, the idea that alpurrajeños have been sitting down to this traditional dish for hundreds of years is unlikely to be true. It was apparently invented - like the Ploughman's Lunch in the UK - in the seventies, as an easy-to-make money-spinner for bars and restaurants. But if you've been working hard in the fields all morning- or perhaps assembling flat-pack furniture for you holiday house - the plato Alpurrajeño is just about perfect, especially with some rough red wine and a siesta afterwards.

Steady, Cam.

DavCam and SamCam on holiday in Granada this week. Ideal wrote this sweet article saying that although SamCam's birthday is really during Semana Santa (18th, apparently), they'd come early for a bit of peace. I like how it assumes that British people would know to avoid Semana Santa, but doesn't acknowledge that we've got a referendum on. Anyway, they had plato alpujarreño in a restaurant in the Albaicin.

Ryanair at it again

So Ryanair take huge subsidies from provincial government and local business associations to run relatively successful Granada-London and Granada-Madrid services, cancel them without any consultation, then hold the city to ransom, demanding an even bigger bung to reinstate the flights. If I didn't loathe Ryanair already, this would swing it.
Si sabes castellano, puedes leer el artículo aquí.

First booking for 2011

I'm delighted to welcome our first booking of 2011, with a couple from Australia taking our house for a month, from late April to the end of May. A great time to visit, with the wild flowers at their best and still some of the almond blossom about, usually warm although it can be a bit changeable. I'm sure they'll have a great time. That still leaves 11 months availability, including almost all of the English, Scottish and Spanish school holidays, but hopefully the calendar will start to fill up over Christmas. Talking of which, we have guests in from 16th-22nd, then we're there ourselves from Christmas Eve till Ne'er Day.