If you’ve read our other blog posts, one thing you know about is that we love to learn new things. And we love food. And ultimately, we love to learn about new foods…and share them with you! In Barcelona we encountered a Spanish favourite, Tapas and Sangria!
As part of our learning in Barcelona, we found a cooking class to learn about typical Spanish food. Mikhaila and Zoe will be sharing our experience in making Seafood Paella…this post is the opening act, Tapas and Sangria!
As part of the class, the first thing we did was to visit the Mercat de St. Josep, commonly called La Boqueria. This is an indoor market where you can get all sorts of fresh foods: fruits, vegetables, meat, fish…if it’s a food available in Spain, you can probably get it here. At the market we purchased everything we would need for our cooking class that evening.
Tapas are an important part of the eating experience in Spain. We often think of the Greek version, mezes, which are served as small platters of different foods and everyone helps themselves. The main platters contain sausage, ham, and cheese with some olives and coriander for garnish. We made some platters that looked like this:
In addition to the main platters, a number of additional plates with different items were also set up:
- A small bowl with pan fried choritzo sausages
- A small bowl with mixed olives
- A small bowl of pan fried baby octopus
- A small bowl of pan fried hot peppers
- Bread – like baguette and cut into 1″ thick slices
- A tomato cut in half, placed with the bread
The idea is to combine the different flavours on your bread.
You always start with a piece of bread and then you rub the tomato against it turning the top of the bread a pink colour.
Add a drop of olive oil for flavour…
You then add a piece of cheese followed by some of the meat – ham or sausage.
Top it with a baby octopus, olive, hot pepper, or chorizo. Keep the whole Tapas together with a toothpick or bamboo skewer.
As they say, “Man and woman cannot live on tapas alone”! (that really is a saying by the way…Google it!). You need something delicious and refreshing to make your meal even more enjoyable. Wine is ok, but can be too heavy with the paella. Sangria is the drink of choice!
Ingredients to make Sangria:
- A jug that holds 1-1.5 l of liquid
- “low cost” red wine
- Orange juice
- Orange drink (we used Fanta – it adds ‘bubbles’ to your sangria)
- Rum
- Brandy (or Cointreau or Triple Sec)
- Ice Cubes
- Slices of Oranges, Lemons, Limes etc.
Process:
- Add ice cubes to the jug
-
Add the red wine to the jug, filling to approximately 1/3
- Add Orange Juice, filling to approximately another 1/3 of the jug
- Add the Orange Drink (Fanta) to ½ the remaining space within the jug to add some ‘fizz’ to the Sangria!
-
Pour the Brandy and Rum into the jug at the same time, counting up to 6 as you pour. If you would like your Sangria to be a bit stronger, you may count more slowly, or count like this: 1…2…3…4…5…6…6…6…6… J
- Add sliced fruit, and stir the Sangria
None of the people at our table drank alcohol, so we made a virgin sangria, simply increasing the amount of orange juice/drink with ice cubes and fruit slices and excluding the alcohol. It was still very refreshing!
The final step…eat, drink and enjoy!
Comments
20 responses to “Mmmmm…Tapas and Sangria in Barcelona!”
Yummy! Looking forward to the paella recipe!
The girls pulled together a special post for paella…we hope you love it as much as we did!
hmmmm … sangria. It’s early morning as I read this, drinking a cup of coffee, but it’s never too early for sangria 😉
Enjoying reading about your adventures!
Hi Joanne,
Glad you’re enjoying reading our adventures. I can’t say I’d pour sangria in the morning, but then again people do drink Champagne and orange juice (Mimosa) in the morning.
Oliver
Okay I am with you on the sangria but the baby octopus on top of the cracker is too much for me!
Agreed!
Hi Chris,
It’s difficult not to like food that you get to put together yourself…and Sangria that you get to make as ‘potent’ as you want!
Oliver
Colleen…you haven’t lived until you’ve had baby octopus on a tapas! 🙂
Ok, maybe that’s extreme but still…it was actually delicious!
Oliver
Hi, Oliver, everything looks delicious and it must have been quite an experience to see all the different foods at the market and then try some of them. Sangria is delicious and I will practice pouring two bottles at the same time, as the bartender/teacher (?) does. Love the photos.
Hi mom,
Going to the market was half the fun! Seeing how our master chef picked out the mussels, clams, octopus, and squid was really interesting. We also got a good lesson on the different meats that can be used in tapas.
We poured two bottles at the same time too…orange juice and Fanta!
Oliver
Yum, yum, yum! Two of our most favourite things!
Hi Kim,
I know you guys are foodies…anything you’d do differently on the Sangria? 🙂
Oliver
Now I’m hungry!
We were, too…at first! 🙂
Wow! Those platters look soooo good! All I can say is yummy! Love Baba
Hi Baba,
The visual is just as important as the taste. The presentation was fantastic…and it was all yummy!
Oliver
Sounds like another great experience! All the food looked yummy but I am with Colleen, think I would have passed on the octopus! Love Doreen
Hi Doreen,
It might seem a bit odd to put octopus on, but when combined with the rest of the ingredients for the tapas it was excellent. Still, there were plenty of other toppings available to make it enjoyable whatever your tastes.
Oliver
So it sounds as though ‘plan b’ for this round the world trip has also evolved into ‘cook our way around the world’. Sounds like a great plan! I for one am really enjoying all the recipes.
Hi Herta,
The one thing we love about out trip is the flexibility we have and the fact that things change as we go. We had always intended to blog our international food experiences, and it seems as though these blog posts are our biggest hits! We’re glad that everyone is enjoying the recipes and even trying some of them out! Let us know how your version of Sangria turns out!
Oliver