Brindisa

I don't 'get' Spain like I 'get' France, but I do love their food and also the existence of the Basque country (I'll qualify that by saying yes to more Xs in words, and no to ETA).  My personal opinion is that jamon iberico de bellota (the acorn one) is nicer than any other ham in the world. As my uncle said when we went to Casa Brindisa (aha, a link!) recently, 'it's one of the times when it really is worth spending the money'. So there you go; to women, wine and cars you can now add ham. Not literally.

Anyway, the ham at Brindisa is spectacular. 'Melt in the mouth' always makes me think of some sort of high temperature plastics accident, but unfortunately it does apply here.  We picked at that quite happily for a while and then moved on to the parade of croquetas, gambas and boquerones that Spanish tapas restaurants in London continue to march out with varying degrees of success  (amazing: Brindisa, Tendido Cero, Opera Tavern, Barrafina) because we all love them, despite the fact the chefs are dreaming of Can Roca. I ordered monkfish cheeks as a special because they sounded interesting and they weren't, really, which was annoying since my uncle ordered everything else and it was spot on.  They didn't have any padron peppers, which was upsetting but they had taken them off the menu so I suppose it was silly to ask (although let the record show this did work with pre-11am martinis at the Dorchester). We had a glass of albariño and then something red that was possibly tempranillo; my knowledge and appreciation of wines being an ongoing but slow moving project that can currently be best summed up in the words of an 80 year old contributor to Trip Advisor "red and white: wow".

Having had such a good time at Brindisa, when I invited some friends to the flat for supper to discuss our group's summer holiday plans I decided to cook Spanish stuff. Despite hoping to have the holiday in Italy, I wasn't ready to revisit that particular culinary danger zone yet; not after Christmas Pastagate (see Christmas dispatch, somewhere below). The memories, like much of the dough, were still too raw.

So I decided to do lots of picky things (chorizo and prawns - surf and turf of the gods - nuts, olives, manchego... we've all been there) and then aubergines stuffed with lamb.  I thought this sounded Middle Eastern, but Rick Stein assured me it was a Spanish dish and my godfather kindly bought me some pimenton recently, so 'why not' was the attitude with which I tacked this one.  I love Rick Stein but Sister Number 4 doesn't (she quite literally won't have him in the house - she turns off Saturday Kitchen if they're running an old clip of his show.  We don't know why but I'm pretty sure they've never met), so I told her I invented it.  I was stymied by my failure to buy either onions or tomato sauce, believing myself to be in possession of both.  I wasn't.  And the co-op wasn't in possession of lamb.  So it was basically just aubergines with mince.  What's 'better luck next time' in Spanish?