No Res, Day 3: Spanish Cooking... Ole!

The Spanish fiesta began with a divine snack of warm cinnamon-dusted churros with luscious hot chocolate. Imagine having churros con chocolate for breakfast… Lucky Spaniards!

Churros & Hot Chocolate

Started the day’s cooking with flan, a traditional Spanish caramel custard but with a citrus twist. Considering it is a milk-based custard, the oranges worked surprisingly well with it. Thin slices of kumquats and tangerines were placed at the base of the custard moulds, and caramel sauce was poured over them, so later when the custard was baked and de-molded, there were lovely caramelized slices of citrus right on top. If you enjoy caramel custard, I strongly recommend you try this heaven on a plate :)

Caramelizing sugar and segmenting Tangerines for the Flan

Having never cooked Spanish cuisine at home before -- only having vicariously experienced it through food shows on TV -- I learned a ton of new things!

We also made paella! It is made with the same variety of rice as risotto ­– Arborio. But the one big difference between the two dishes (apart from the seasoning and trimmings) is the act of stirring: risotto gets its creaminess from the constant gentle agitation of the rice, while in paella stirring is a big no-no, as it hinders the formation of the socarat or crust at the bottom of the pan that defines a good paella. Just one little difference in technique and you get two vastly different dishes!

Paella - The rice grains remain separate

Risotto - Stirring makes it creamy

This WCF batch that I participated in was vegetarian, and being a biiiit of a carnivore, I must admit I did think longingly of all the seafood and chorizo, both integral parts of Spanish cuisine, that I was missing. But don’t feel too sorry for me, I got to sample some of these delicacies in a later non-veg batch -- just one of the advantages of being an intern at the Studio… ;D

Spain's national dish - Seafood Paella

And I have to add, this was the first time I tried chorizo -- and became a fan for life!