I love to entertain as I love to cook for people. However, I am often overly ambitious, and my perfectionist nature makes me difficult to please. So, of course, when I entertained for 6 people (including myself) I hopelessly over catered and spent all weekend in the kitchen! Next time I would probably cut back on the number of dishes I put together.
This gathering was Spanish themed, so I prepared about 8 different tapas dishes. All of my tapas dishes for the evening came from a book called “From Tapas to Meze” by Joanne Weir. I’ve had this book for years but haven’t made a lot from it. It is split up into countries and simply focuses on “small bites”. All my recipes were adapted from the Spanish section.
I will only put in a couple of recipes, which represent the best of the bunch.
Firstly we have Spanish meatballs. These were probably the easiest dish to prepare and I was very happy with the final product. Little morsels of deliciousness!
Spanish meatballs
By: Leah
In the original recipe the meatballs finish cooking in a tomato sauce. I thought it would be simpler (and less messy) to simply serve the meatballs. They are oven-baked, so relatively healthy. I prepared these the day before and reheated them before serving, but they were delicious straight from the oven, and you could also serve them cold if that is your preference.
- Prep Time:
10 min - Cook Time:
25 min - Ready In:
35 min
- 500 gs Beef mince
- 500 gs Pork mince
- 1 cup Dried breadcrumbs
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 tbsps Parsley chopped
- 1.5 tsps Coriander seeds ground
- 0.5 tsp Nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp Cumin
- pinch Cayenne
- 0.5 tsp Salt
- 0.25 tsp Black pepper ground
- Preheat oven to about 170*C. Grease a baking tray (I used baking paper).
- In a bowl, combine all ingredients.
- Form the mixture into small meatballs (about 1 inch/2 cm). You should get about 30+ meatballs.
- Place on the baking tray and bake in the oven until cooked through, about 20-25 minutes.
- Remove from oven and serve.
Secondly, stewed chickpeas with chorizo. This dish is a bit more time consuming, but not much of that is actual hands on labour – it just takes a while to cook. This was very tasty, and the quality of the final dish will directly correlate with the quality of the chorizo that you use.
Stewed chickpeas with chorizo
By: Leah
This recipe is quite time consuming, but not terribly labour intensive - definitely start preparing this well in advance. You need to use dried chickpeas, rather than tinned. You should soak the chickpeas for at least 8 hours before-hand, so put them on to soak overnight.
- Prep Time:
10 min - Cook Time:
120 min - Ready In:
2 h, 10 min
- 2 cups Dried chickpeas
- 1 small Yellow onion quartered
- 3 Cloves
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 1 pinch Dried thyme
- 6 sprigs Parsley
- 3 tbsps Olive oil
- 1 medium Yellow onion chopped
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 Chorizo Prick with fork
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 pinch Pepper
- Drain soaked chickpeas.
- Place in saucepan with quartered onion, cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, thyme, parsley and enough water to cover by 2 inches.
- Simmer, uncovered, over medium heat until the skins just begin to crack and the beans are tender. This takes about 40 to 45 minutes.
- Discard the onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, parsley and cloves. Reserve chickpeas with the cooking liquid.
- In a large frying pan, warm the oil over a medium heat.
- Add the chopped onion, garlic and whole chorizo.
- Cook, stirring occasionally and rotating the chorizo sausages, until the onion is soft, about 7 minutes. Be careful not to have the temperature up too high or you will burn your garlic!
- Add the chickpeas and cooking liquid and simmer slowly over a medium to low heat until the liquid is almost gone. This takes about 40 minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Remove the chorizo from the pan and slice on the diagonal into thin slices. Return to the chickpeas and heat thoroughly for another 3 to 4 minutes until hot. Serve warm.
07.02.10 | 
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