Grupo Lezama's Café de Oriente in Madrid: Platos de Cuchara (dishes eaten with a spoon) and Other Dishes from Chef Pedro Quían; The Solemn Changing of the Guard at the Palacio Real; Celebration of Chinese New Year in La Plaza de Oriente

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When I was in Madrid in late November, early December, late January and early February doing interviews for a book on the career of Padre Luís de Lezama, the priest-restaurateur who founded the Grupo Lezama, which runs some 20 establishements--restaurants, hotels and cooking schools, I was privileged to eat many meals at his restaurants on the Plaza de Oriente.  

At Café de Oriente, one of the great platos de cuchara (dishes eaten with a spoon) is verdinas (young, green, flageolot-type beans) cooked with centollo (spider crab), a specialty of northern Spain, especially in Asturias.

Some days and nights, I went to La Taberna del Alabadero (see my report), but several days for lunch, Chef Pedro Quían invited me to Café de Oriente to sample some of his superb platos de cuchara, traditional dishes usually made with beans or garbanzos that are eaten with a spoon.  These are wonderful, hearty, winter dishes. that really hit the spot when the brisk, chilly wind that comes from the snow-capped Sierras de Guadarrama north of the city sweep through Madrid.  Sometimes it is said that the wind may not blow out a candle, but its chill can kill a man.  These delicious, classic platos de cuchara are life savers in the wintertime in Madrid. 

Pochas con almejas, Café de Oriente, Madrid.

Each day was a new adventure:  alubias con almejas, vedrinas con cangrejo, potaje de garbanzos, alubias de Tolosa con chorizo y morcilla, patatas a la Riojana, etc.  Along the way I sampled other dishes from Chef Quían's kitchen:  foie gras with fruit gelatins and purees, cured anchovies with green olives, croquetas de bacalao, pheasant, merluza with clams and some artfully constructed desserts.   Below is a slide show of some of the dishes I ate at Café de Oriente.  

Cafe de Oriente Platos de Cuchara and other dishes Nov 2010 - Feb 2011.
Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

Since I was staying on the Plaza de Oriente, at the Hostal Posada Real Manuel, above the Café de Oriente, I was able to observe and photograph life on the Plaza, day and night, and I was able to photograph the Solemn Changing of the Guard, which takes place only on the first Wednesday of each month, weather permitting, and not in the months of July, August and September or when another official event conflicts with the changing of the guard.  Below is a short slide show of the Solemn Changing of the Guard.

Solemn Changing of the Guard at the Palacio Real.
Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

On a beautiful, bright sunny February morning that was comfortably warm after several days of brisk cold,  I was waiting for the changing of the guard to begin when I heard  music coming from the Royal Theatre area on the far side of the Plaza de Oriente, near where the Café de Oriente is located.  Unbelievably, it was the Chinese expatriate contingent from Spain celebrating Chinese New Year at almost exactly the same time the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace was to take place.  Several hundred Chinese  wearing colorful costumes and carrying dragons that they danced along the parade route filed through the Plaza de Oriente and headed past the Senate toward the Plaza de España.  Slide show number three shows the Chinese parade celebrating their New Year. 

Expatriate Chinese New Year parade through the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid.
Photographs by Gerry Dawes©2010. Contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

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About Gerry Dawes and Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel  
Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. 

Dawes was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

A trailer from a proposed reality television series with Gerry Dawes  
on gastronomy, wine, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com

Gerry’s Dishes: Langostinos Cocidos (or a la Plancha) con Aioli (Garlic Mayonnaise

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(Recipes from the first broadcast on the Gerry's Dishes segment of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio program on WPWL 103.7 FM Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York.)
  

 Gerry’s Dishes: Langostinos Cocidos con Aioli

I cook every night that I am at home and I will share the results of successful dishes on Gerry Dawes & Friends and the Gerry Dawes & Friends Facebook page. I will also post the photos and recipes of the dishes on the WPWL Pawling (NY) Public Raido website and on my Gerry’s Dishes Facebook page.

Raúl Aleixandre's Technique for Cooking Shrimp 

Raúl Aleixandre, formerly the Chef-owner at Ca Sento in Valencia, Spain taught me this technique. I get very good heads-on langostinos, prawns from Restaurant Depot in Newburgh, New York.

One dozen heads-on shrimp or prawns.
Coarse sea salt
Pot or pan with enough water to cover the shrimp
(preferably fresh shrimp or prawns with the heads still on).


Sometimes, I use frozen or refreshed shrimp from Ace Endico or DeCicco’s in Southeast or even purchased from local supermarkets. Nevertheless, the technique is the same and works well even without fresh shrimp. 

Put the shrimp a bowl in ice water with sea salt for ten minutes or put frozen shrimp in a bowl of water with sea salt for half an hour or more before cooking. 

Heat a pot or pan with enough water to hold all the shrimp, but do not let the water reach a full boil, just a simmer. 

Put all the shrimp you plan to cook in the water at once and set a timer for no more than five minutes, depending upon the size of the shrimp or prawns. Cooking properly may take 3 -5 minutes. 

Never let the water return to boil, just watch the vapors coming off the hot water and when they return to the state they were before you put the shrimp in, turn the flame off. 

Watch the shrimp turn a rosy color, then take out the shrimp with a slotted spoon and put them on a platter in a single layer. For a lot of shrimp you may need more than one platter, but the idea is to keep them in a single layer, so they do not keep cooking from their own heat. 

Let the shrimp cool a bit before serving, so you can peel them without burning your fingers. Put out a bowl for the shells. 

You can keep any prawns or shrimp cooked this way in the refrigerator for a couple of days. 

I also sometimes pat the shrimp dry in a paper towel and do them a la plancha style, but since I do not have a plancha-type grill, I grill them in their shells in a cast-iron skillet with a little Spanish extra virgin Olive Oil and some coarse sea salt, turning them once until the are cooked, but not overcooked. 

 Langostinos a la Plancha, done in a cast-iron skillet doubling as a plancha grill.

Gerry’s Aioli (Garlic Mayonnaise)

 Aioli (garlic mayonnaise)

Make an aioli* to serve with the shrimp as a dipping sauce. (Or serve a good cocktail sauce if you prefer or do both.)

(*Real aioli has no eggs, just olive oil, garlic and salt. If you make it like real back country Catalans and some do in Barcelona, it will curl your eyebrows, with its industrial strength pungency.)

I make aioli with a blender. If you enjoy martyrdom, you can do it in a mixing bowl with a whisk. 

1 fresh raw egg
splash of Chinese red chili oil
1-2 cloves of good quality garlic
1 Tbs. Dijon Mustard
Sea Salt (salt to taste)
I -2 Tbs lime juice or 1 Tb lime juice
1 cup Trader Joe's Extra Virgen Olive Oil

(Optional: add saffron to the mixture while blending or cilantro (not stems) or basil or make the aioli, spoon out some and mix in whatever herb you might want to flavor it with. My next stunt with aioli is going to be blending in romesco sauce (made with hazelnuts, almonds, nyora (or ancho) peppers, paprika, parsley, and Spanish pimentón [the best paprika in the world].)

Put a fresh, raw egg in the blender, add a splash of Tabasco sauce or Chinese red chili oil, which is what I use, and one to two cloves of fresh garlic, depending upon how much you like garlic. 

Add a teaspoon sea salt and a tablespoon of Dijon-style mustard (classic Spanish aioli recipes do not call for the mustard, but I use it and love it).

Start the blender and mix those ingredients and puree the garlic. 

Remove the small top cap from the center of the blender, start the blender on the blend setting and begin slowly adding about a cup of Spanish extra virgin olive oil – I use Trader Joe’s at $7.99 per liter--to the egg, chili oil, sea salt and garlic mixture. 

When you have added about half the olive and the mixture begins to thicken, add 1 Tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice or 1-2 Tablespoons of lime juice (lime is my preference, in Spain, cooks would use lemon) to taste. 

After the citrus juice is integrated, continue adding olive oil until the aioli gets thick and smooth. Your blender will tell you that it is about to choke, so shut it off and mix any un-integrated olive oil with a spatula. 

Pour and scrape with a spatula the aioli into a Pyrex type bowl with a cover, one that you can also use to serve the aioli with a spoon. 

Refrigerate until ready to use. I keep my aioli for about a week in the fridge, if it lasts that long at our house. 

Spoon some aioli onto your plate and dip the peeled shrimp into the spooned out dollop of aioli.  Do not dip your shrimp into the aioli bowl, not if you want to use the remainder again with another dish. 

Paco Dovalo's artisanal Cabaleiro do Val Albariño 2013 (or any other vintage from this great bodega) from Rías Baixas in Galicia is a superb match for this dish. Available from the Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group (e-mail gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com) for more information.

 

Paco Dovalo, President of the Asociación de Bodegas Artesanas, and Gerry Dawes 

at the Encontro de Viño de Autor in Meaño.

Again, this recipe for shrimp with aioli (and other dishes that I make) can be found on my Gerry Dawes & Friends and Gerry’s Dishes Facebook pages and on my blog, Gerry Dawes’s Spain: An Insider’s Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel at http://www.gerrydawesspain.com.

 
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 About Gerry Dawes

 Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com

Gerry Dawes's Visual Encyclopedia of Spanish Gastronomy & Wine Beans: Spanish Bean Dishes--Fabada Asturiana, Alubias con Chorizo, Pochas, Verdinas con Mariscos, Mongets, Caparrones

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La Maquina restaurant's famous fabada asturiana, fabada bean stew with chorizo and morcilla.   
Conde Santa Barbara 59, 33420 Lugones, Asturias, Spain. 011 34 985 26 36 36. Closed on Sunday.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

 
Asturian verdinas con mariscos (beans cooked with shellfish), a dish made with beans brought back from my recent trip to Asturias, crab legs, clams and shrimp. 11-11-2012. 
Dish and photo by Gerry Dawes©2012; gerrydawes@aol.com
 

 
Botifarra amb mongetes, Catalan sausage with white beans and balsamic vinegar at Pinotxo, La Boqueria, Barcelona.

Photo by Gerry Dawes©2012; gerrydawes@aol.com

Fabulous alubias de Ibeas, Casa Quintanilla, Burgos. Ibeas is a village east of Burgos. 
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2012; gerrydawes@aol.com

 
Slide show on Spanish beans and bean dishes.

Capparón, a two-colored bean that is a specialty of La Rioja

Pochas at El Crucero, Corella (Navarra)

______________________________________________________________________________________  
About Gerry Dawes  

Gerry Dawes is the Founder, President & Chairman of the Board of The Spanish Artisan Wine & Spirits Group -  Gerry Dawes Selections.  

He was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain, including for such chefs and culinary luminaries  as Thomas Keller, Michael Chiarello, Norman Van Aken, Ryan McIlwraith, Terrance Brennan, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Whiteman and the Club Chefs of New York & Connecticut. 

He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

 In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com.

Blast From The Past: Post Pamplona Shenanigans! Miss Merande, Meeting Doro Merande, Star of The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming!

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Doro Merande, near Ayamonte, Spain, August 5, 1971.  Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2018

Back in the day, in the early 1970s, I used to write for Guidepost Magazine, Spain's American Weekly, which was based in Madrid and published by the great Dan Lowell.  One day in August of 1971, after we had been together in Pamplona for las Fiestas de San Fermín, my great friend Mike Kelly and his brother Bob came to visit my then fiancee Diana Valenti and me when we were living in Sevilla. 

My great friend Mike Kelly, sanfermines 1971, Bar Txoko.  Photograph by Gerry Dawes©2018.

Because we needed to get our passports stamped, proving that we had exited Spain at least once every six months (this was well before the EU changed the rules), we decided to make a one-day passport stamping and Mateus Rosé (this was well before my palate became much more refined) on the way to Portugal.  We stopped at a roadhouse watering hole for reasons this article makes obvious and ran into Doro Merande, the memorable star of "The Russians Are Coming!"   My article is about what ensued.   Mike Kelly tried to round out every copy he could get his hands on because he was the Headmaster at the American School in the Canary Islands. 

Doro Merande died of a stroke in late 1975 at the age of 83.

_____________________________________________________  

 

 About Gerry Dawes

 Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 
 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at  gerrydawes@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com