Cooking Spain Region By Region: Asturias: Medallones de ternera a la asturiana: Asturian Style Beef

 Cider is one of Asturias´s most well-known and well-loved produce so it´s not surprising that it features in many of Asturian recipes, from chorizo in cider to hake in cider. So here we go with our first, and certainly not my last Asturian recipe containing cider. Asturian cider is alcoholic unlike some ciders.

I thought I´d bring you the following Medallones de ternera a la asturiana or Asturian Style Beef recipe, which is a tasty beef dish perfect for this cold weather. We loved this recipe and even my daughter had a clean plate and sometimes it´s hard to get her to even try new things. It´s great to eat this dish with some crusty bread to mop up all the juices (and there are quite a lot!) The dish itself is served on it´s own but you can also decorate it with a roasted pepper but I like to serve it alongside vegetables and sauteed potatoes. This recipe is based on the recipe and adapted from Nuestra Cocina:Asturias.

Ingredients (Serves 4):
800g rump steak(babilla de ternera)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 stalk of parsley,chopped
1 small glass of cider
1 tbsp flour
handful of frozen peas
1 litre beef stock(I used a beef Oxo cube)
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Method:
1. Heat olive oil and brown beef on both sides, remove from pan and sprinkle with salt & pepper.
2.Fry onion, garlic and parsley(in this order) till onion is translucent.
3. Add cider and cook till the cider has reduced, then add the flour and stir till flour is completely incorporated,making sure there are no lumps.
4.Add the beef stock gradually and then add the peas and add more salt & pepper if necessary.
5.Return beef to the pan and cook for a further 45 minutes until meat is tender.

Cooking Spain Region By Region: Asturias: Flamenquinos

Ta-da! I´m back! It´s been awhile due to various things, the hot summer weatherand being pregnant and giving birth to my baby boy so I´m just starting to get bak into the swing of things!!

It´s time to start exploring the culinary delights of a new region in Spain: Asturias. When you hear Asturias, you automatically think of cider and fabada but as I´m not that keen on fabada, I want to try some less well-known dishes so first up are flamenquinos,not to be mixed up with the Andalucian flamenquines!! These little fried "cakes" are pretty easy and fairly quick to whip up and so delicious.We loved them and will definitely be including them in our monthly meal repetoires.Unfortunately we couldn´t get my daughter to try them but I´m sure she´d love them if she tried them! The recipe is pretty straightforward if a little strange but with tasty results. My only gripe is that when it came to frying them, they started to stick to the frying pan or break up so I don´t know if this was to do with the frying pan or the oil not being hot enough or something!!(Excuse the photo...it was night and I was rushing as I was hungry and didn´t want them to go cold!!!) Flamenquinos are supposedly served as the second dish at meal times but we had them in the evening for our dinner and this recipe is supposed to be for four people but we ate it all between the two of us (and I was still a bit hungry afterwards!).

Ingredients(2-4 people)
25g butter
50g plain flour
1 small cup of water
50g Spanish cured ham
1 boiled egg
Sunflower or mild olive oil
A pinch of salt

Method:

1. Put butter and water in a saucepan and place over a gentle heat till butter has melted.
2. Add the flour and stir,not allowing to boil, until combined...if necessary,remove from the heat.When combined allow to cool.
3. Finely chop egg and ham and then add to the flour mixture and add salt and let sit.
4. Heat abundant oil in a frying pan and then drop spoonfuls of the batter into the frying pan and fry until golden brown on both sides.
5.Drain on kitchen paper.