Jose Andres: Tapas

By JULIETTE ROSSANT The best part of Mediterranean food is the time it takes to eat and enjoy a string of meze or tapas or hors d'oeuvres, served with a good wine or raki or some other drink. So, it seems that there should be dilemma inherent in a a cookbook like Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America (Clarkson Potter 2005) by Jose Andres, Washington DC's fine Spanish chef, since tapas are usually enjoyed in a restaurant from whose kitchen flow countless kinds. When you go out and enjoy tapas at Jose's restaurant Jaleo or Turkish meze at his restaurant Zaytinya, you want a table-full of little dishes to taste and hour to savor them. Two serious questions arise, then. Do the dishes work well if you only try two or three at home, instead of five or six or more at a restaurant or tapas bar? And if you make tapas at home with a cookbook such as Tapas, can anyone afford the time it takes to make so many? The first answer is yes, tapas work well in twos and threes, whether served as hors d'oeuvres, main course and salad courses. In which case, it makes sense to organize Tapas' chapters by rather than by courses. Dishes from any of the chapters can make a meal, be it brunch, lunch, or dinner. Each recipe serves four amply. And yes, you can afford the time to cook tapas, not just because it takes such a small number to make a good meal but because in Tapas Jose Andres makes sure that the recipes are uncomplicated. Rather, the recipes require quality ingredients. The purpose of Jose's is to inspire the mind and the heart, whether a few bites at a tapas bar or more of a meal at home. Try Olives Marinated in Orange and Thume-Infused Olive Oil (p. 23), which could last for several meals. Or enjoy more one-off dishes like Softshell Crabs Fried in Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (p. 208) for crisp, sweet, and perfectly simple fried crabs. The recipes in Tapas are wonderful to read and contemplate. They tempt. Knowing that you can make Octopus with Olive Oil, Pimenton, Potato, and a Copper Penny (p. 30), can you pass up the next two-pound octopus you see? (The copper penny, Jose explains, is a stand-in for the copper pots that this octopus dish is traditionally cooked in, "The copper adds a characteristic red color to the octopus". So, if you have a copper pot, skip the penny.) The tomato chapter has a wonderful recipe from Jose's mentor, the famous Spanish chef Ferran Adria: Tomato and Watermelon Skewers (p. 43), an incredibly simple dish of watermelon and tomato in a lemon vinegrette. The photo (by Francesc Guillamet) makes the skewers look like children's ice pops, ready to quench a summer's thirst. Elsewhere in the book, the modern hand of Jose himself and perhaps influence from years living in the United States shows through in re-thought classic dishes as in Clams in Green Sauce, Modern-Style (p. 204) in which clams are cooked barely 10 seconds, just enough to open them, and their liquor is used as the basis of a green sauce. The last recipe in the book, Rabbit with Cherries (p. 248), is inspired by Jose's home town Santa Coloma de Cervello where he says the best cherries are grown. It typifies this fine cookbook: it focuses on bringing out the sweet and fresh taste of both rabbit and cherries with careful preparation and an eye to balance. Come spring when the cherry trees blossoming along the Potomac, it may come time to go coney hunting -- shopping, that is. (The book's co-author is Newsweek senior White House correspondent Richard Wolffe, a regular at Jose's restaurants who has already co-authored some of Jose's food magazine stories.) Super chef: Ferran Adria Related news: Forbes NPR El Pais Washington Times TIME Washington Post Previous articles: Juliette Rossant: Forbes Tastemakers Cocina Betty Crocker: Portent? Emeril Wolfs Lunch at Zaytinya Jose Andres: Zaytinya, with Ladies in Lavender [complete Cookbook Reviews] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, cookbooks, Spain, tapas, Richard Wolffe --> back to superchefblog