But this Friday we did something different. We organised a big paella at school! Paella is one of the most popular dishes in Spain. It has its origins in Valencia and is a special kind of cooking with a wide variety of ingredients. We were able to see live how it is prepared and how much dedication it takes to make it the right way.

Paella is also known for bringing people together to celebrate, so the students and staff of Linguaschools got together for dinner and a good time. We were able to practise our Spanish and get to know the teachers and staff a little better.

We had all the ingredients for a perfect afternoon at the school!

But what’s also important, here in our country, paella has always been a dish that brings people together to celebrate an event. For us it’s essentially a festive dish. Due to its laborious preparation and the fact that its ingredients were a luxury for the majority of the population for a long time when a celebration had to be held, paella was the chosen dish. Families or friends would gather together and talk for hours while the chef was cooking, to end up tasting a delicious portion with a glass of wine.

We decided to pay tribute to that tradition and also give an opportunity to those students who hadn’t tried paella to do so. It was our first big event in the garden of our new building and we couldn’t have been more happy to make it’s debut this way!

Two great chefs came to cook paella for 65 people! Music, talking, drinking, and fraternity was all around!

Its sweetness, its watery softness, its smoky flavour and the finishing touch of almond, roasted tomato and pepper sauce justify the stains, while the ritual of picking it up with your hands, putting it in your mouth and swallowing it with your eyes open guarantees fun.

Calçotadas – gatherings of friends or family to eat calçots and other grilled foods – are a winter classic in Catalonia, and we couldn’t resist trying them.
We went to the famous local restaurant La Caseta del Migdia, up in Montjuïc, to enjoy a day of sun, calçots, nature and live music. What a plan!

This saturday we tasted calçots for the first time!

The calçot is a variety of tender onions. It is one of the typical star dishes of the Catalan gastronomy, very consumed at the end of winter with “romesco” sauce.

We met in Plaza España and got in a bus up to the top of Montjuïc, in a restaurant called La Caseta del Migdia, that is surrounded by nature and has amazing views of the harbor of Barcelona.

We had some starters, the calçots and then grilled meat or vegetables, while listening to a band, who played Catalan songs during all the event. There was such a good vibe!

In case you’re eager to taste calçots too, here you have a page of the best restaurants in Barcelona to eat them.

Buen provecho!

We spent the afternoon having beers and chatting about football (of course!), our experience of living in Barcelona, the city and our plans for the summer. For many more evenings out to come!

Paella is a traditional Spanish dish from Valencia. It is a rice dish that can have meat, fish, seafood, and vegetables and is characterized by its use of saffron to give it a yellow color and unique flavor. There are three main types of paella:

• Valencian paella/paella valenciana: rice, green vegetables, rabbit, chicken, or duck, snails, beans, and seasoning.
• Seafood paella/paella de marisco: rice, seafood, and seasoning.
• Mixed paella/paella mixta: combination of seafood, meat, vegetables, beans, and seasoning.

How to prepare the best paella

Before beginning preparations, it’s important to ask, “How many people will be eating?”Once you answer that, you can decide what size and type kind of pan is needed.

• The Paella Pan: Paella pans, sometimes called paelleras are made especially for the job. They are round, open, metal pans, which are approximately 2-2.5 inches deep (5-6 cm). These pans spread the heat and withstand cooking over hot coals. Paella pans can be made of carbon steel, stainless steel or enamel and have two handles. The material, shape and shallow depth of the pans are what make them perfect for cooking rice, which is the focus of the paella. Paella pans are readily available in sizes from a 9-inch pan that makes 1-2 servings, and costs about 10 Euro.

• Casual Ingredients: 
  • Spice Mix for chicken, recipe follows
  • 1 (3-pound) frying chicken, cut into 10 pieces
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 Spanish chorizo sausages, thickly sliced
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 1 Spanish onion, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • Bunch flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped, reserve some for garnish
  • 1 (15-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and hand-crushed
  • 4 cups short grain Spanish rice
  • 6 cups water, warm
  • Generous pinch saffron threads
  • 1 dozen littleneck clams, scrubbed
  • 1 pound jumbo shrimp, peeled and de-veined
  • 2 lobster tails
  • 1/2 cup sweet peas, frozen and thawed
  • Lemon wedges, for serving
  • Chicken Spice mix: 1 tablespoon sweet paprika, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

• Preparation: Before starting rub the spice mix all over the chicken and marinate chicken for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/gas 5. Season the chicken pieces and dust with flour. Heat a little olive oil in a large deep pan and fry the chicken until golden brown on both sides. Place the pieces on a baking tray and into the oven for 20 minutes. Add salt and freshly ground pepper. Remove the chicken from pan and reserve. In the same pan, make a sofrito by sauteing the onions, garlic, and parsley. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes on a medium heat. Then, add tomatoes and cook until the mixture caramelizes a bit and the flavors meld. Fold in the rice and stir-fry to coat the grains. Pour in water and simmer for 10 minutes, gently moving the pan around so the rice cooks evenly and absorbs the liquid. Add chicken, chorizo, and saffron. Add the clams and shrimp, tucking them into the rice. The shrimp will take about 8 minutes to cook. Give the paella a good shake and let it simmer, without stirring, until the rice is al dente, for about 15 minutes. During the last 5 minutes of cooking, when the rice is filling the pan, add the lobster tails. When the paella is cooked and the rice looks fluffy and moist, turn the heat up for 40 seconds until you can smell the rice toast at the bottom, then it’s perfect. Cook’s note: The ideal paella has a toasted rice bottom called socarrat. Remove from heat and rest for 5 minutes. Finally, add the cooked chicken and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley and a wedge of lemon.Garnish with peas, parsley and lemon wedges.

• Drink: Paella is a complex dish, with many ingredients and layers of flavors, so the range of wines and beers that complement it is wide. Traditionally, the Spanish accompany Paella with a rosé or a crisp Spanish white wine such as albariňo. Lovers of sparkling wines could try a good Spanish cava and red wine fans might favor a light Spanish rioja.

• Bon appetit / ¡Buen provecho!

Sangria is a drink normally made of red wine, in which seasonal fruits (apples, pineapples, mangoes, pears …) or particularly citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, clementines and nectarines) are macerated. Spices and liquor such as port, cognac or brandy are also added. Some even add sparkling water.

If you would like a little bit of Spain at home (even if you don’t have the sunshine), you can find below the sangria recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 liters of red wine… or substitute the red wine with white wine for sangría blanca (white sangría)
• 1 litre of lemonade
• 2 peaches
• 1 apple
• 2 oranges
• 1 lemon
• 1 chunk of cinnamon
• Sugar

Instructions
Wash all of the fruit and cut it into chunks. Now add the wine. After letting it all soak together so that the wine absorbs the fruity flavors, add the lemonade, sugar, and cinnamon (at this point you can also add other liquors if you so desire). Mix everything together, cool it, and then serve it even colder with ice cubes and fruit chunks.

A closer relative to the Italian frittata than a Mexican flour or corn tortilla, a Spanish tortilla is so much more than the sum of its humble parts. Potatoes are the star, but tortillas welcome variation. The tortilla makes an excellent breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or crowd-pleasing tapa.

Ingredients:

• 6 medium potatoes, diced
• 2 small onions, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus 1/2 teaspoon
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil, plus 2 tablespoons
• 7 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
  Serving suggestion: tomato salad drizzled with olive oil

Preparation:

Peel the potatoes and cut them into small slices or pieces. Do the same with the onions. In a medium bowl mix the potatoes, onions, and 1/2 teaspoon salt by hand. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Fry the potatoes and onions on low heat and cover with a lid for 5 minutes to let them soften. Turn up the heat for another 5 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the stove and drain off any excess oil.

Meanwhile break the eggs into a medium bowl. Add the remaining salt and milk and whisk vigorously until frothy. Add the potatoes and onions to the eggs and mix until fully integrated.

Clean the frying pan and return to stove. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil on a high heat and pour in the mixture, moving it around in the pan to help the tortilla to rise. Fry until golden brown, stirring occasionally until it has set. Then turn down the heat to allow the inside to cook. After a few minutes turn up the heat in order to brown the tortilla. When it’s cooked place a large plate over the frying pan and flip the tortilla onto it. Return to the pan and fry the other side until golden brown.

When its perfectly cooked and the , transfer the tortilla to a serving platter and let cool at least 10 minutes. Serve warm, at room temperature, or slightly cool. Cut into wedges or small squares, sticking a toothpick in each square if serving as an appetizer.

As Spanish language student, you cannot leave Barcelona without having eaten “Pan con tomate” or “Pan tumaca”. A popular tapa, which you can easily make yourself.

Pan con tomate is one of the most typical and simple recipe, culinary technique or custom, that is mostly linked to the sign of Catalan identity.

The origins of this recipe can be traced back to bread with oil, the union of two key ingredients in Mediterranean cuisine inherited from its Greek legacy. However, tomatoes didn’t reach the kitchens on the Iberian Peninsula until the 18th century. Indeed, the first written record of this recipe dates from 1884, when two-day-old stale bread was spread with tomato to soften it and then drizzled generously with olive oil. Pan con tomate was part of everyday farmhouse cooking at a time when people had to find a thousand and one uses for left-overs and avoid throwing anything away.

Now we’re going to tell you how to make it in six easy steps. In this way you can have an easy Spanish and Catalan flair within your daily kitchen:

1. The bread. It’s true that you can make it with any type of bread, but if you’re looking for the original, most authentic and traditional, choose a rustic sourdough loaf called pan de payés. And…more importantly, it’s got to be toasted.

2. Salt. Sprinkle it on the bread, to taste, before the tomato. The salt will spread more easily as you rub the tomato over the slice of bread.

3. Tomato. It’s very important to use tomatoes on the vine or hanging tomatoes. The latter have lost their acidity and the water from the pulp and have a much more intense flavour. Cut the tomato in half across the middle and rub it on the bread. You’ll see that once you’ve finished you’ll be left with just the skin and the bread will be nice and moist.

4. Olive oil. The finishing touch. It has to be extra-virgin olive oil. You can choose the variety (arbequina, picual, picuda…) and intensity according to the flavours and foods you’re going to serve with the pan con tomate.

5. ¡Buen provecho! Don’t forget to say it!. Do you have no idea what that means? Come and study Spanish with us!