Recipes with products from La Palma, an island full of flavors
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We have just visited the island of La Palma to make a tour of its best and most outstanding producers. There we have been able to know the best gastronomic products of the island and thus carry out a recipe book that integrates them to take advantage of them and get the most out of them.
La Palma stands out for its tropical crops, with banana and avocado as major representatives, but also for its cheeses, wines, salt, beer and even cigars. Every corner of the island hides a producer who has opted for quality, and the potential of each of these is enormous to use anywhere.
Osobuco de vaca palmera with Llanos Negros wine
Osobuco de vaca palmera
We were inspired by one of Pedro Hernández’s best recipes at El Duende del Fuego restaurant in La Palma. There one can taste an incredible osobuco de vaca palmera with a sweet sauce that you will never forget.
After the visit to the experimental farm of the Cabildo de La Palma, we chose the vaca palmera for this recipe because it is a very high quality meat, with good infiltration and great flavor. We will use the sweet aromatic malvasia from Llanos Negros made with negramoll grapes for the sauce.
To prepare this recipe of osobuco de vaca palmera in malvasia sauce for 4 people you will need:
Medallions of osobuco de vaca palmera, 4 Wheat or rice flour, to flour the meat Garlic, 2 cloves Onions, 2 medium or 1 large Llanos Negros Malvasia wine, 1 glass Meat or vegetable stock Orange, 1 Tomatoes, 2 Fresh parsley Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tablespoons Salt Pepper Butter, 1 tablespoon (optional)
The steps you have to follow to prepare the recipe at home:
Peel the garlic cloves and onions, chop them very finely and set aside. Season the pieces of meat with salt and pepper and dredge them in flour. If we want them to keep their shape during cooking, we can tie a string of bridle around each piece, so they will keep their shape and will be more beautiful when it is time to plate them. In a thick-bottomed casserole dish, if you have a cast aluminum one or a cocotte it will be perfect, heat the extra virgin olive oil and brown the pieces of meat on both sides. Remove and set aside. In the remaining oil in the pan fry the garlic and onion until they begin to take color. Add the chopped parsley, mix and sauté for a few seconds. Add the peeled and grated tomatoes, fry for about ten minutes over medium heat, stirring from time to time. Increase the heat to high, add the glass of wine and let everything boil until the alcohol evaporates and the liquid has reduced by about half. Add the zest and orange juice until it boils again. Add a glass of meat or vegetable stock, reincorporate the pieces of meat and the juices that may have been released. Bring to the boil, lower the heat (4/9 in our induction), cover and let it cook for one hour. Check if the meat is tender and, if necessary, let it cook a little longer until it is. Turn the pieces of meat over, shake the pot a little and let it cook uncovered for about 15 minutes more to thicken the sauce. If we want a smooth and shiny sauce, before serving, remove the pieces of meat, grind the sauce that remains in the pot, add the tablespoon of butter, put it over medium low heat and stir well so that it integrates. Return the meat to the pot and bathe it well with the sauce.
Depending on how the lid of the pan is, more or less liquid will evaporate during cooking, if there is a lot of evaporation, it is possible that during the process we will have to add a little more broth. On the other hand, if the lid condenses the steam and returns it to the pot, it is possible that when the meat is tender enough, we still have a lot of liquid in the casserole, in that case, we remove the meat and leave the sauce on the heat for the time necessary for it to reduce and, when it is to our liking, we grind it or return the meat directly to the casserole.
Plantain and avocado from La Palma
Avocado from La Palma
Two totally characteristic and representative products of La Palma agriculture are the banana and the avocado. Here they are of the highest quality, and we were able to learn more about them during our visit to Ecofinca Nogales, where they are grown organically and taste incredible.
Despite the avocado being one of the most photographed foods of recent times, we actually know very little about them. On this trip we have learned about their characteristics and varieties, which do not all coincide in season and it is something to keep in mind when buying them if we do not want to take home avocados that then are not going to be as rich as we expect.
For example, during the winter, in the months of November to June, is the season of Hass avocado, the most popular variety and with greater implantation in the market; but instead, if we want to buy avocados in summer, we must choose the Reed variety, a much more rounded avocados whose optimal time of consumption is from July to October.
In the kitchen, avocados are much more versatile than most people think and serve for many more recipes besides breakfast toast and guacamole, such as this avocado and zucchini salmorejo, this avocado ceviche or these other 19 recipes with avocado that are not guacamole.
Bananas, although we have known them all our lives and it goes without saying that the best are the ones from the Canary Islands, are another fruit we know very little about despite their popularity. The life cycle of banana trees is really curious and maybe another day we will talk about this in more detail, because today it is more urgent to tell you that the banana growers of La Palma are having a hard time due to the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano and much of the blame is on all of us (in this case the we includes you too). We explain why.
The erupting volcano emits a lot of lava and volcanic ash, but this ash is not like the ash from a cigar, the ash from a chimney or the ash left after a barbecue. The ashes of a volcano are tiny droplets of incandescent molten rock that solidify as they fall, so that when they hit what they find in their path they are like red-hot sand that burns and erodes whatever it touches.
When these ashes land on a bunch of bananas, the only one the banana tree will produce in a whole year, they scratch the skin of the bananas leaving large black spots like scars. It does not affect the inside of the fruit at all and the quality of the fruit remains the same, but the skin loses its characteristic yellow color and this causes them to be rejected in the peninsular and European markets. It would be good if this were not so, because in fruits, as in people, the important thing is inside and we should never reject them because of the scars they have on their skin.
This said, as we had come here to talk about recipes, I tell you that the bananas of La Palma, apart from eating them alone in bites, are also delicious to prepare this fried banana, this delicious banana bread, these healthy oatmeal and banana pancakes, the always delicious banoffee, or the impressive banana Tarte Tatin.
Mojo picón with palm pepper
Pimienta Palmera
Pimienta palmera is a type of hot red bell pepper grown on the island of La Palma. It can be consumed fresh or dried and is the most commonly used to prepare one of the best-known recipes worldwide, the mojo palmero.
To make an authentic mojo rojo palmero at home you need:
Dried palm pepper, 1 pc Slices of stale bread, 3 or 4 Garlic, 1 clove Sweet paprika, 1 teaspoon Cumin, 1 teaspoon Vinegar, to taste Coarse salt, 1 teaspoon Neutral flavored oil, 175 ml (sunflower oil is usually used) Frying oil Water, 2 or 3 tablespoons
The steps to follow are very simple:
We boil water in a saucepan and add the dried palm pepper, keep boiling for a couple of minutes, remove the pan from the heat and let it rest for about 15 minutes. Cut the bread slices in two or three pieces and fry them until golden brown, but be careful not to burn them. Remove the palm pepper from the water, let it cool until we can handle it without burning, open it, remove all the seeds from inside and, with the help of a spoon, remove the pulp, which will already be completely hydrated. We put the pulp of the palm pepper in a blender glass – the traditional way is to do it with a mortar, but here we like to save work whenever possible -, add the paprika, the peeled garlic clove and without the germ, the salt, the cumin, the vinegar and the third part of the oil. We grind until obtaining a paste, we add the fried bread, we continue grinding and adding the remaining oil in form of thread until having a fine cream. We test and rectify what is necessary (salt, garlic, vinegar…) We put the mixture in a saucepan, add 2 or 3 tablespoons of water and put it over medium low heat stirring constantly until we see that it begins to boil, then remove from heat and let cool in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Black pork knuckle with Isla Verde beer
Black pork knuckle
Polish Jolanta Klimaszewska and Belgian Gino de Reuwe came to La Palma with the intention of enjoying a twelve-day vacation, but on the sixth day of being on La Isla Bonita they decided to stay and, in the premises of a former party hall, they started making craft beer in 2009. Since then they have refined the process and already brew more than 10 craft beers in what is the first Spanish brewery that works with 100% renewable energy.
Besides drinking it, this beer is perfect for cooking because of its flavor and quality to integrate it into a recipe as an ingredient.
To prepare two portions of black pork knuckle with Isla Verde beer you need:
Black pork knuckle, 2 pc Isla Verde beer, 500 ml Leek, 1 (including the green part) Carrots, 2 Garlic, 4 cloves Old mustard, 1 tablespoon Tomato, 1 peeled and grated Dried thyme, 1 sprig Black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon Extra virgin olive oil Salt
The preparation of this recipe we can make it in a cocotte type casserole, which would be the most traditional way, but we could also make it in a CrockPot type slow cooker or in a fast pressure cooker adapting the times.
Wash the leek well, peel the garlic cloves and carrots, chop everything very finely and put it to sauté in a cocotte with a couple of tablespoons of oil until everything is well browned. Add the mustard and grated tomato, season with salt and pepper and fry for about five minutes. Turn up the heat, add the beer, peppercorns and salt to taste. We wait for it to boil and leave it for a couple of minutes until it stops smelling of alcohol. We introduce the knuckles that we will have previously dried very well with kitchen paper and we wait until it starts to boil again. We cover the pot and we lower the fire just enough so that it continues cooking to the chup chup. After an hour, turn them over, add the sprig of dried thyme and heat the oven to 200ºC with heat up and down. When the knuckles are tender, put them in a baking dish, brush them with a little oil and put them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. Strain the cooking liquid, degrease it and put it back on the fire to reduce it, which will leave us a wonderful sauce. Remove the knuckles from the oven, cover them with aluminum foil and let them rest for about 10 minutes before serving so that the juices settle inside the meat. Serve the black pork knuckle accompanied by the reduced sauce.
Palmera goat cheese recipes from Granja Los Tumbitos
Young Brenda makes artisan cheeses with natural rennet and the raw milk that she milks daily from the goats of the Palmera breed that she cares for. In this artisan micro-cheese factory she has the help of her father and achieves a daily production of around 35 kg of cheese.
This cheese can be tasted as part of a succulent cheese board, or as part of recipes such as this tomato and goat cheese cup or some wonderful spinach, goat cheese and pine nuts cannelloni.
Aldea rum cocktail with Don Julio cigars
Two products that seem distant but share many points in common are Aldea rum and Don Julio cigars. Both start from an agricultural product that occurs in tropical areas and both need aging to reach the maximum expression.
The Aldea Rum that is made on the island of La Palma is obtained from guarapo, the pure juice of sugar cane, unlike the vast majority of rums in the world, in which the raw material for its production is molasses obtained as a byproduct in the manufacture of sugar.
This rum made from guarapo is known as agricultural rum and is traditional in the islands where in the past there were French colonies and where this high quality rum was made for the lords.
Inspired by the cocktail maker Yoni Mesa of Maresía Atlantic Bar at the Royal Hideaway Corales hotel, we propose a cocktail of Aldea rum flavored with Don Julio cigars. For it we mix Aldea Tradition rum, cocoa and chiule liqueur, bitter chocolate, lemon juice and ripe banana syrup. Then we light a cigar and, if we have a dome, we fill it with smoke, or else we pass it near the cocktail. That way we aromatize the cocktail with the cigar to intensify the flavors.
Sal de las Salinas de Fuencaliente
In 1967 a salt structure was created to supply the salt market on the island of La Palma. Despite the negative expectations of the rest of the Canary Island salt works, Don Fernando Hernandez, a romantic, undertakes the hard enterprise with the help of the master salt maker Don Luis Rodriguez, exporting the Lanzarote salt works model.
Today La Palma offers one of the highest quality salts in Spain, which we have used in all our recipes. An excellent product with the potential to be used anywhere.
