News at Quality Street Kitchen and Catering: Spanish Tapas Class

Tapas (pronounced TAH-pas) is the name for a wide variety of appetizers in Spanish cuisine.
They may be cold, such as mixed olives and cheese, or warm, such as puntillitas, Andalusian battered, or fried baby squid. In Spain (mainly in the southern half of the country), tapas are usually given for free to accompany a drink before lunch or dinner.

Chef Jeffries from the Woodland's Grill provided tonight's Spanish Tapas class. He was born in Spain and by the age of two, learned to prepare all of the entrees offered in class (NOT!). The first dish, Roasted asparagus with serrano ham, disappeared before our photographer could shoot a shot. The second entree, Camarones Aiello (shrimp and garlic), is shown below.

In Spain, dinner is usually served between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. (sometimes as late at 12 Midnight), leaving significant time between work and dinner. Therefore, Spaniards often go "bar hopping" (Spanish: Ir de tapas) and eating tapas in the time between finishing work and having dinner. Since lunch is usually served between 2 and 4 p.m., another common time for tapas is weekend days around noon as a means of socializing before lunch proper at home. Chef's Jeff's next menu item was Lemon and garlic chicken.

It is very common for a bar or a small local restaurant to have 8 to 12 different kinds of tapas in warming trays with glass partitions covering the food. They are often very strongly flavored with garlic, chilies or paprika, cumin, salt, pepper, saffron and sometimes in plentiful amounts of olive oil. Often one or more of the choices is seafood (mariscos), often including anchovies, sardines or mackerel in olive oil, squid or others in a tomato based sauce, sometimes with the addition of red or green peppers or other seasoning.