Many months ago a number of board members - Ignacio and Fernando among them - were posting some great recipes so we all know you guys can cook. I friend of mine is having a major birthday and friends are having a black tie & evening dress cocktail party in honor of it. I need to come up with a couple of elegant tapas to bring. Now, I am not the world's greatest cook and do want to have my offering be both elegant and good. Needless to say, it must be Spanish - that is what people expect - and what I like.

The guests will all be bringing food as there are at leas a hundred people coming - which means, I guess, that I need to bring enough tapas for at least 25. (is the math right? I figure if half the guests bring something we are more than covered)

I pulled my favorite Penelope Casas cookbook out last night - drooled alot but didn't get really inspired ....

So any and all suggestions will be most appreciated. Please - no calamares - I'm alergic

Gracia!!!!!

Chef Fernando at rescue!!!!

Here is my offer (feel free to ask for further details if you don't now the recipe):

- Potato omelette (tortilla española), cut in small pieces and served on a slice of french bread
- Croquetas
- Empanadillas
- Small bread baskets with mushrooms fried with a hint of garlic
- Chistorra/chorizo frito in small pieces, over a slice of french bread
- Patatas bravas (potatoes with a spicy sauce)
- Patatas alioli (garlic and mahonese sauce)
- Cured ham, sliced
- Pantumaca (french bread with a sauce of natural tomato and some drops of olive oil)
- Pan de ajo (french bread with butter and garlic)
- Olives
- Spanish cheese slices

I will think about it and will come later with more ideas. Now I'm going for lunch.. mmmmm :p

Fernando

Hola Chef Fernando -
Thanks for coming to my rescue but I what I really need is the actual recipe ... and absolutely no tortillas española. I love it but I can not - even with your original recipe and set instructions from way back when - recreate it. Mine comes out either too olive oily or it sticks to the pan ... :o

Please keep trying after your lunch ....

Hi Puna - My favorite source for recipes is epicurious.com. Go to "browse" and narrow to "spanish" then under course pick "appetizer". I pulled up 38 recipes.

I'm taking my first culinary school class at night and I just wrote my first paper on "the foods of Spain"! I'm not good enough to have acutal recipes for you, though. I know gambas al ajillo are pretty easy to make if your host lets you use a pan to cook them last-minute. And I think last month's "real simple" magazine had a recipe for some easy empanadas that looked really good. The rib-eye and goat cheese empanadas on epicurious would be good (with refrigerated dough, maybe?) with some roasted red peppers rolled up on toothpicks with a little bit of spanish cheese - I forget the name of the cheese... Or maybe little tiny cold individual servings of gazpacho in espresso cups or some other tiny disposable pary cups.

I know how hard tortilla is to make! I screw it up a lot when I make it.

Hi Puna,

Here’s a recipe for an elegant tapa. I’ve made the mussels many times in both Spain and the US to rave reviews. It’s easy to make, and since it’s cold, it’s easier than a hot tapa to take to someone’s house. The recipe is from a neat little book titled The Best of Spain - a Cookbook (Evie Righter, editor)

(I was also thinking that if you made pollo al ajillo, and just cut the chicken in small cubes that could be speared with a toothpick you’d have a very nice, easy, and delicious tapa.)

Mejillones en Vinagreta

2 dozen mussels, cleaned (I’ve noticed in the States they tend to come quite a lot cleaner than in Spain. You hardly have to do anything besides rinsing them. And the ones from New Zealand are REALLY delicious!)
9 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons minced onion
2 tablespoons finely chopped roasted red pepper
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 hard-boiled egg, minced

Drain and rinse mussels. In a large pot with about a cup of water steam them over high heat. This goes quickly. Discard any that don’t open, and remove the ones that do open soon after they do so. Separate the mussels from their shells and reserve half of each shell. (Throw away the rest.) Clean shells and refrigerate.

In a bowl whisk together the oil and lemon juice. Stir in the onion, roasted pepper, 2 tablespoons parsley, salt and pepper. Add the mussels and stir. Cover and refrigerate a few hours or overnight.

To serve, return mussels to chilled half shells and spoon more marinade over them. Sprinkle with minced egg and remaining parsley. Arrange on a large platter.

Enjoy!

Puna:

I am not very good at the kitchen, so I doubt I posted any, but maybe (perhaps one of the few courses I can make or I copy/pasted it).

I'll think of something spanish and elegant for your party, in the meantime, I enclose a couple of threads I found in this website regarding typical recipes:

One

Two

A third one

Another

5

6

Hope this helps a bit (by now).

You guys are wonderful! Keep the ideas coming, por favor -

Diane, you figured out my concern immediately - I was planning on doing gambas but with that many people attending, my concern was an overly needed kitchen - and, besides, I want to enjoy myself.
You mussels recipe is a definate will do - thank you sooooo much! It's perfect - easy - elegant - and do ahead!

As you might all guess, cooking is not what I consider a truly pleasurable activity

Chicagan - epicurious.com has now been book-marked as a favorite for future reference. Thanks for sharing -

Keep all the brilliant, tried and true recipes coming .... need a couple more!

Ignacio - I'm going to pull up your links later today when I have a few moments - but I'll bet your name and Fernando's will show up on more than a few - as I recall I printed out a couple of amazing gazpacho recipes .... that I should probably reprint because there are tomatoe drips all over the ones I have

Just had time to pop in and out of Ignacio's links - gazpacho (as above noted) and many versions of patatas bravas (due to MM's love of the dish along w/ calamares)- but not really what I need - cocktail party tapas ....

all this talk of food is making me hungry. I ate some great patatas bravas at a place in brookline,MA last week. The sauce is the sauce that they use in the canary islands.Not the traditional picante in madrid.It was sooo gooood.

MOJO!!! mmmmmmm.....

Hi "Punita"!

It's been tough to think of an apetizer that you can make in quantities and bring somewhere in perfect conditions!
An idea would be to make crab paste filled puff pastries (crab tartles?, I mean 'tartaletas de cangrejo'), either medium sized or smallish like canapés, it's up to your taste, that you either can buy ready-made or make yourself depending on your cooking ability and "oven situation" (I still don't own one!), and then spoon the crab paste into them. The recipe for it could not be simpler, it's just mayonnaise mixed with chopped onion, some minced lettuce, and finely cut up surimi sticks; and you can place small shrimps on top of each one for a great presentation. Of course this dish is much better when the mayonnaise is homemade, but you don't want to go causing people to get salmonella! , so you might as well use a good bottled one.
In Spain it's much more common to see this tapa made with only the crab(surimi sticks), the onion and the mayo spread on slices of bread, but I've thought that to make it more "elegant" and avoid the bread "stale look" you could substitute it for something that preserves beautifully and add the lettuce and shrimp for a finishing touch. Other presentation idea would be to decorate with avocado pieces, but either you rub a lot of lemmon in them or they'd turn dark so I don't recommend it in this case...