A small rock in the Atlantic

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Canary Style Green Beans

When I annouce that we're having green beans for dinner, our 11-year-old usually says, "Thank you, Mummy!"

I don't think I'd get that reaction with plain boiled beans. Of course, it helps of the beans are really fresh. These came from Puntagorda farmers' market.

Serves four polite people or three hungry ones as a main course.

Ingredients:
About 700 g of green beans
150g bacon (in narrow strips)
2-3 cloves garlic
1 red pepper
1 small-medium leek or onion.
1 stock cube (vegetable, ham or chicken)
Olive oil to fry.
A large frying pan or wok.

Method:
Chop the garlic finely. Chop the leek or onion and red pepper fairly coarsely. Fry garlic, leek, pepper and the bacon over a low heat while you top and tail the beans. Add the beans, stir and put on the lid.

Ignore for about 20 minutes (apart from occasional stirring) while you have a glass of wine and chat to your other half.

Serve with bread and butter.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, food, La Palma, La Plama, Recipies

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Monday, 4 February 2008

Sopas de miel

This is a traditional recipe for Carnival. A literal translation would be "honey soup" but as you can see, this isn't soup. It can be rather soggy, though.

I believe in some places they use honey, but on La Palma, it's always "miel de cana", which is like molasses, but a little runnier.

Ingredients
Molasses (one small jar)
1 tsp cinnamon
anis 1 desertspoon
peel of one lemon
300g of toasted almonds (chopped)
Stale bread roll (standard Canarian size) cut into slices.

Some people like to use day-old bread, for soft "sopas" Others use week-old bread, so that it's crunchier.

Put the molasses, lemon peel, anis and cinnamon in a pan and simmer. When the flavours have had chance to mix, add about half the almonds. Keep the mixture simmering, while you add the bread slices, one at a time. Make sure they're well soaked with the mixture, and then fish them out onto a serving dish. When you've done all the bread (or run out of molasses mixture) sprinkle the rest of the almonds over, to decorate.

Personally I find them far too sweet, but there you go.

Labels: Canaries, Canary islands, Carnival, La Palma, Recipies