Sun 11 - Tapas at Home

Inspired by the tapas we received at Jose last Monday, we decided to try to create a few ourselves on Sunday.  First, a plate of ham and salami (from Tesco) with two types of manchego cheese (from McFarlanes deli).  The meat was fine, and I preferred the younger, cheaper cheese to the aged variety, which was too dry for my liking.

Next, I tried making some ham croquettes, using a recipe from the excellent Felicity Cloake's "Perfect" series as published in the Guardian.  Recipe link is here.  I couldn't find any spanish ham on Sunday in Clapham so settled for some Italian pancetta.  They worked pretty well, though I overdid the bechamel slightly so the filling was a little too thick.  Not bad for a first attempt though, and not quite as fiddly as I thought they would be.

I roasted some red peppers too, and served them with parsley, olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Next, a Spanish omelette, made by frying of potato slices until just crispy, cooking white onions until soft, then mixing with well seasoned beaten eggs, and fried on both sides.  An easy and economic dish.

Next, prawn pil pil - prawns baked with oil, garlic and chillies.  Easy, and again relatively cheap, as we used frozen prawns from a big bag that we regularly purchase from Moxons for about £8.

Finally, a salad that we shamelessley ripped-off from Jose - roast squash, spinach, almonds and goats cheese with a sweet honey dressing.  Simple, delicious, easy to prepare and relatively healthy.  The soft goats cheese we had in the fridge would be replaced, in an ideal world, by something crumbly and harder, but it's still a great plate of food.

All this was accompanied by some crusty French bread from the Petit Boulanger on Abbeville Road, and a bottle of decent Pinot Noir from New Zealand.  Not bad for a Sunday, though the food took a bit longer to prepare than I'd envisaged at the start of the day.