Ensalada de Pimientos Asados aka Roasted Red Pepper Salad

For a tapas party, or a summer barbecue, along with the ubiquitous green olives. This was colourful and very fresh-tasting, unlike jarred pimentos.

Ingredients:

• 3 thick-fleshed red bell peppers

• ½ onion, peeled 

• extra virgin olive oil, wine vinegar, and salt 

Methods: 
Roast the red peppers: wash and dry well, and poke once with a fork. Place in an oiled shallow baking dish and bake, uncovered, at medium high for an hour or so, until the peppers are very tender when pierced with a fork. This is best done early in the day or the day before.

When the peppers are cooked, seed and slice them. Then grate the onion and add it to the peppers. Dress them with a sprinkling of salt, olive oil, and vinegar (use approximately equal parts of oil and vinegar). Let the flavours develop for at least a few hours in the refrigerator.

Gambas al Ajillo - AKA Garlic Shrimp

There are many variations on recipes for gambas, a Spanish tapa. I would call the following the sparest I've encountered. There are only 4 ingredients in my recipe: shrimp, minced garlic, chili flakes and olive oil. Essential to eating gambas is a fresh baguette or similar loaf of chewy bread for dipping in the garlic-infused oil. I use a cast iron skillet for cooking and serving the gambas. This is a great dish for sharing.

Ingredients:

• I used 300 grams of wild-caught raw shrimp, but use as many as easily fit into your skillet, and they should be deveined and shelled
• about a 1/3 cup of good quality olive oil
• a large pinch of chili pepper flakes
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced

Methods:
Use a large heavy-bottomed skillet to begin sauteing the garlic in the olive oil, being careful not to brown the garlic. When the garlic is mostly soft, add the shrimp and pepper flakes and saute for only a few minutes more until the shrimp have lost their translucence and turned pink. Cut up lots of bread and dig in while everything is piping hot. Sop up the garlic-infused oil with gusto.

Spanish Tortilla aka Tortilla de Patatas

We probably most frequently think of a tortilla as a thin round Mexican flatbread made from maize or wheat flour. However, a Spanish tortilla is a thick omelette, also flat and round, but made by frying eggs that have been mixed together with potato, onion and a lot of olive oil. The following recipe by Janet Mendal was found on the internet on a site dedicated to the tapas of Andolusia.

Ingredients: 

• 600g potatoes (1.3 pounds)

• 160 ml olive oil (that's like slightly more than 1/2 cup)

• 1& 1/2 chopped onions (I used about half of this) 

• 6 eggs 

• 1/2 tsp salt 

Methods: Peel the potatoes and either slice them thinly or cut into dice. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook the potatoes slowly until fork tender, about 30 minutes, adding the chopped onions after 15 minutes. The potatoes should not brown.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with the salt. Place a plate over the potatoes and tip out the excess oil to be used again in a moment.

Combine the potatoes and onions to the bowl with the beaten eggs and mix. Add the oil to the frying pan and pour in the mixture of eggs, potatoes and onions.

Cook on a medium heat until set on one side. Shake the pan to keep it loosened on the bottom. Place a plate on top of the pan. Hold it tightly and reverse the pan, so the tortilla turns out on the plate. If necessary, add additional oil to the pan.

Slide the tortilla back into the pan to cook on the reverse side. Slide out onto a serving plate.