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I was in Rioja, visiting a bunch of wineries for a story. It was a completely bonkers schedule, with up to 6 wineries a day. Even with spitting, we ended each day with our palates blown and bellies bursting from all of the sips and the pinxtos, or Basque bites of bread, salted cod, and Morcilla (rice and blood stuffed sausages) we were nibbling on to keep us going and to keep from getting drunk. We would pile into the hotel at dusk and collapse for a disco nap, getting up at 10pm to head out for dinner. Some nights it was a tapas crawl, giving us the chance to wander through the cobblestoned streets and try bites of jamon iberico, or little toasts topped with tomato and garlic, tiny sardine sandwiches with tinier guindilla peppers, sherry laced figs with goat cheese, wild mushrooms sautéed in garlicky butter then skewered with a prawn, wedges of tortilla espanol, and txangurrito, hearty fishcakes of crab and shrimp doused with a rich béchamel.
Other nights were full on diners with winemakers whose bodegas we hadn’t managed to get to during the day. In Longrono we went to Mesón Egües. Among my traveling companions were a vegetarian and a “sauce on the side, no butter, no oil” kind of eater and let me tell you that the Spaniards and the Basque have so very little patience for that. The vegetarian tried to be respectful of the porcine beliefs of most of our hosts, while quietly avoiding actually consuming the flesh. I took to sitting next to her at these dinners, to discreetly scoop the beef, foie, pork or prawns off her plate so that she wouldn’t offend our hosts. (Plus extra foie for me, yea!) The “sauce on the side, no butter, no oil” lady, well there was no hope for her. As we were sitting at the table and being handed our menus at Mesón Egües the chef asked if there were any preferences, by which I’m pretty sure he meant beef or lamb. After one person at the table said that he would like his meat cooked uber well done, the “sauce in the side, no butter, no oil” lady only managed to get a few words into her spiel before the chef somewhat wearily smiled, ruefully grabbed the menus out of hands and darkly turned on his heel muttering what ever the Catalan is for “You will eat what I cook and you will like it.”
What he cooked, I did indeed like. Silky sweet roasted red peppers, slipped from their skins and drizzled with grassy green olive oil. Spears of white asparagus, grilled until smoky and tender. Beef that was very nearly still gently mooing as it arrived at the table, charred and nearly black on the outside from the grill, while remaining red and ever so slightly chilled in the center. And the true revelation for me, a plate of calçots, caramelized, sweet grilled spring onions, kind of like a scallion. In Catalonia, the arrival of Spring is greeted with calçotadas, parties celebrating the new harvest season.
In hindsight, it’s fairly ridiculous, but it had never occurred to me to cook scallions. I’ve always loved them, but my only experiences with them were raw, or bathed in batter for pancakes. Grilling them lessens the bite and makes them tender and sweet.
I’ve taken to having my own version of a calçotada each Spring, when the young onions are so sweet and plentiful. A dozen or so slender young scallions, with the very tops and bottoms trimmed off, well coated with olive oil, sprinkled with big flakes of salt and grilled over medium-high heat for about five to ten minutes, until charred, and then covered with a tea towel or wrapped in newspaper and left to sort of steam for another five minutes.
At Mesón Egües, the calçots were elegantly served with a drizzle of yet more fragrant olive oil, and while it was crazy delicious that way, I’m not entirely certain whether that was just to irk “sauce in the side, no butter, no oil” lady, because it’s traditional to serve them with salbitxada sauce, or Romesco sauce. My own version: Take 1 tomato, halved, 1 red pepper, halved, de-ribbed and deseeded, 1 serrano chile, seeded, halved and 1 onion, peeled and halved, drizzle with olive oil and roast until tender and soft. Then put them in a blender with 2 cloves of garlic, 1 slice of stale bread, 1 sprig of mint, a small handful of chopped parsley, ¼ cup toasted and crushed almonds, a few dashes of olive oil, and a few dashes of vinegar and blitz until smooth. Peel the charred parts of the onions off and dip in the sauce.
