Tapas

I lived in Madrid, Spain for about a year and while traveling throughout the Iberian peninsula, I experienced the true essence of Tapas bars. You would go into a bar, have a beer or a glass of wine accompanied by a pincho of this, or a bocadillo of that, a piece of Jamon Serrano, some olives, a croqueta, chicken, shrimp, beef, whatever. You basically have a specialized tapa at each bar , have a drink and a tapa, and move on to the next, it's called a tapeo when you move from bar to bar. The beauty of it is that your palate never gets bored and you experience something new every bite. Logrono in La Rioja region was especially magnificent. They have La Calle de Los Vinos (The Street of the Wines) where each Bodega (Vineyard) sports their own vintage wine and 1 particular tapa. The street is about 15 feet wide and there are 50-60 different bodegas represented. Incredible!

That made me wonder why I don't relive my Spain memories more often. A few different mini dishes. I did it last night. I made Chicken Teriyaki, Spicy Asian Shrimp and a new chicken that I have no idea what it was called, but was the best chicken I have ever eaten. It was all accompanied by some rice and a small side salad with my moms vinaigrette dressing. So there were 3 distinct meat flavors, a salad and some rice.

On to the chicken. You can see by the picture how good it looks. It tasted better. All I did was cut up some onions, tomatoes and mushrooms. I cooked the onions for a few minutes in butter, added the mushrooms, added the tomatoes, added some pepper flakes, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and some other spices here and there that I could find. I let it saute for a few minutes and than added about a quarter cup of chicken stock. Once that came to a boil and reduced a bit, I added the cut up chicken and cooked it until it was ready. I have no idea what this is called, but it was absolutely amazing! Especially combined with the Asian Spicy Shrimp, Teriyaki Chicken, Asa's salad and the brown rice.