RECEIPT OF MONKFISH WIHT BURNT GARLIC AND FIONA McLAUGHLIN

Fiona's story is the kind that puts a lump in your throat and settles in your heart forever. Fiona McLaughlin is a 23 years old Catalan woman, of a Scottish father and French mother. Although, Irish blood run through her veins because his father's family was originally from County Donegal. Fiona speaks four languages without an accent, well, the Spanish with a noticiable Catalan accent.

By her courage and her looks it would cost me nothing to image her as one of those heroines of Irish blood who conquered the Wild West in the films of John Ford. Or for his mastery of languages and bravery, as Catherine Pradier, the English-French protagonist of the novel by Larry Collins, Fall from grace, parachuted into occupied France to confuse the Nazis about the true location of the invasion. Or as Linda Voon, an American Jewish spy in Nazi Germany, played by Melanie Griffith in the Shining through movie.

Fiona was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 18. Since then, they have operated her on five occasions. In the penultimate, she told her story through photos, a joint project with her friend Oliveira Thais, both students of Quim Roser and mine in the photojournalism course we lecture at IDEP, another case like Claudia Maccioni, photography as a therapy. I offered my blog to do so. I went to see her in El Masnou to plan the story and then invited, she and her mother Marie Pierre, to try a tasty tradicional Catalan fishermen dish, Rap al all cremat (monkfish with toast garlic) to talk about the final details . Tomorrow you can learn about the history of Fiona McLaughlin.

Let’s go to the recipe.

RAP AL ALL CREMAT (MONKFISH WITH BURNT GARLIC)

Ingredients for four people.

1 kg of sliced monkfish.
1 kg of potatoes.
200 gr. ripe tomato, peeled, chopped and seeded.
1 liter of fish stock or, alternatively, fish broth in carton or a tablet of fish broth dissolved in 1 liter of water.
Parsley 4 garlic 10 toasted almonds.
1 slice of bread from the day before.
1 chili.
Salt and pepper.
Virgin olive oil.

Preparation.

Peel the tomatoes, cut it clean, leaving out the seeds, rather small. Peel the potatoes and break into pieces with a knife, so they’ll release the starch. Peel the garlic and cut in half. In an earthenware pot or cast iron fry the garlic until golden.Reserve. In the same oil fry the slice of bread and reserve. Put then the diced tomatoes and cook at a very low heat until they becomes a jelly. Put the potatoes, cover with fish stock and add the chilli. While the potatoes are half done prepare the paste in a mortar. The carlic,the fried bread, two tablespoons of parsley and the almonds. When the potatoes are half done, put the monkfish slices, that will have salted previoously. Then left 15 minutes or so and add the paste that we’ll have dissolved in a little broth.

I had prepared rap a l'all cremat in the past, but this, as I think my guests will testify, was really good. I think because of the fish stock and the paste. In other ocassions I haven’t used them.

Fiona and Marie Pierre brought a white wine from her area, a Marques de Alella Pansa Blanca, made with a grape variety named Xarel.lo who combined beautifully.

Fiona will show you her photos and her story tomorrow.

(CONTINUATION)

RECIPES. HUMUS AND MAR COSTA

HUMMUS RECIPE FOR 4 PEOPLE

400 g cooked chickpeas
75 grams of chicken broth
A little cumin
A splash of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Garlic ¼
20 g tahini (sesame paste)
A teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or sweet, to taste)
Pita bread.

The tahini and pita bread can be found in a specialised shop.

Triturate with the hand blender the cooked chickpeas (without the liquid if they are canned), broth, garlic, sesame paste and lemon. Spread on a plate, season, pour over the oil, cumin, and sprinkle with paprika. Accompany with pita bread as a spoon. It is not usual but I prefer it lightly toasted. To decorate the dish i added some carrot sticks.

Also, as usual, I'll talk about my guest, Mar Costa,

As always in this blog I invite someone to dinner related with photography and prepare a recipe, in this case Hummus, the traditional Middle Eastern paste made from chickpeas that I loved the first time I tried it, many years ago, in Jerusalem. It's a little risky on my part because certainly I can not compete with the delicious Hummus my friends Hammad and Nicole make at Kabara restaurant, but there I go.

Mar was an IDEP student of mine a few years ago. The first day of class students always present a sample of their work. I was struck by Mar subject; it was on an NGO in Nicaragua, a good story that contrasted strongly with many other works. But I also realized that Mar needed to find a photographic language of her own and still lacked a lot of technique. On completing the course she presented a final work on a common theme but I did not care, she had improved greatly and now she had a visual language with which to tell her coming stories.

I kept in touch with Mar, sporadically, and it caught my attention the fact that she had won a major prize in a travel photography contest, nothing more and nothing less than a world tour for two people. Thus was born the blog, De Costa a Costa (in Catalan), in which Mar narrated and photographed her experiences with his sister Clara. A blog that I thought was very cool, fun and creative.

Later on Mar, whose attitude considering that thanks to the internet and new technologies the world is her scope, won an important grant from the Ministry of Education of Spain. This overview of Mar Costa reminds me of other photographers such as Charlie Mahoney or Lauren Hermele who also were students of mine. The scholarship was to study two years at the University of Graz, Austria, Interactive Multimedia Design, a course which teaches photography, video, 3D, interactive, web design and audio. We agreed to see each other in Barcelona during the summer holidays and as I knew Mar liked Hummus, which she tasted in Palestine during her world tour, this was what I prepared for dinner.

Mar’s next project? A collective exhibition in Ljublijana organided by her Graz university. She also has ended a very interesting video based on photos taken in Istanbul, using what she learnt in Graz. You have to be very steep, at least I am, considering these new ways of multimedia, because maybe the future of photography and image passes through here.

http://www.marcostaphoto.com/

PASTA ALLA FERDINANDO SCIANNA.

Last weekend I cooked for two. I used a recipe that gave me the Sicilian photographer from Magnum, Ferdinando Scianna. I know many photographers who cook very well. Maybe we can find the reason, if we consider the photographers who worked in the laboratory of black and white, in the biographical book by Xavier Miserachs Fulls de contacte. Xavier compares the ritual of black and white developing with cooking: ingredients in their right amount and time to think while listening to music in the solitude of the lab or the kitchen.

This is the Ferdinando’s recipe that I named Pasta a la Ferdinando :

Peel the tomatoes with boiling water.Empty and cut into very small pieces (Two tasty tomatoes per person).

Abundant basil. A handful for every three people.
A clove of garlic per person. Then shred, not too fine, in a blender, the garlic and basil with extra virgin olive oil. The tomato is added. Put salt and pepper. Mixe with a lot of energy to "salsify" everything.

I gave the receipe a personal touch and added diced black olives.
It was delicious, although I must admit that my pasta dish never was as good as Ferdinando’s.

PASTA ALLA PACO ELVIRA

This weekend I also cooked for two. Also the company was very enjoyable and I also did a pasta dish but, in my companion’s country, the typical dishes would rather be the bouillabaisse or the onion soup. I'll keep on posting more recipes in this blog, always connected with people related with the world of photography. This is one of the favourite dishes of the people who have eaten at my house; I even have done it for many people at once because it is very easy to do, and I have decided, although the original recipe is not mine, to name it with my name. It is a dish of spaghetti with clams and this is the recipe:

Ingredients for two people:

200 grams of spaghetti.

30 clams.

1 tablespoonful of chopped garlic.

1 tablespoonful of chopped parsley.

1 red chilli pepper.

1 jet of white wine.

A splash of olive oil.

Salt and pepper.

Fry the chopped garlic till it begins to brown and add the parsley and the red chilli pepper, also chopped. Add the clams and remove well over a minute and then add a splash of white wine. Then cover the pan until all the clams have opened. Put salt and pepper, remove and reserve (it has to remain quite liquid). Boil the spaghetti al dente and slip. Immediately throw them into the pan with the clams, which we'll have put to warm a couple of minutes before, and remove everything. I put in a handful of fresh chopped parsley, and serve immediately.

RICE WITH COD AND MAJORCAN SAUSAGE

This weekend I decided to make rice with cod and sobrasada (Majorcan sausage). This is a Manuel Vazquez Montalban’s dish and I found it in his book The Carvalho recipes. It is one of these traditional poor people dishes in which they used to throw everything they had on hand into the rice, with the final result of amazing combinations. As it was far more complicated than the other pasta dishes I made before I invited three friends to share the rice in good company. Someone could ask me: What Vázquez Montalbán has to do with photography? Because I said that all the recipes would be related to the photographic world. The reason could be that I photographed the writer on numerous occasions. It's a good excuse, isn’t it?

Here is the recipe for 4 people:

½ kilo of rice, 1 large sobrasada (Majorca sausage) slice, 4 garlic, tomato sauce, 1 green pepper, artichokes or 2 ½ k of cooked green beans, 200 g of salt cod, 1 large potato or baked beans (250 g already cooked). Roast the cod and crumble it. Fry lightly the minced onion and the green pepper and add the tomato sauce. At the same time fry the potatoes sliced thin and turn away. Then in the sauce melt the slice of sobrasada (Majorcan sausage), add the shredded cod, the rice and then the artichokes (already fried and cut into pieces) or the baked beans. Pour the vegetable broth, twice the amount of rice, cook vigorously for the first fifteen minutes, and then reduce the intensity. Add the layers of potatoes, or cooked white beans, and stew with a sprinkle of minced garlic. Five minutes later retire away from heat and let stand for another five minutes.

MANUEL VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN

Some years ago I photographed Vazquez Montalban for the last time. It was on the occasion of 25th anniversary of the publication of his first book of the detective Pepe Calvalho: Tatuaje. "You won’t imagine the success that I have cooking your recipe of rice with cod and sobrasada" I told him. "You know that you can put artichokes instead of green beans?”- he said. So I did, and the layers of potatoes instead of white beans. To your health Manolo!

GILT-HEAD BREAM WITH ALMONDS SAUCE

Andrea, my daughter who is 16 years, said good bye to me in the morning telling me that she wouldn’t come for lunch.Then I took a pair of gilt-head bream fillets from the freezer. Before, this kind of fish was very expensive, but now they sell it farmed, and although perhaps is not so tasty, it is much cheaper. Andrea does not like fish so I cook it when she is not. Fish is essential for a balanced diet, but I'm too concerned about the fact that she does not eat it now. When I was her age, I did not like it too and now I love it. That day I had no job, a situation that happens sometimes when you are freelancing, so I did various activities outside home. I came back about one hour before lunch time, so instead of preaparing a salad and grill the fish -my initiall choice- I decided to do something more sophisticated: an almond sauce to acompany the fish.

Here is the recipe for two people:

2 fillets of gilt-head bream.
1 onion.
120 grams of toasted and chopped almonds.
2 deciliters of fish broth.
2 deciliters of milk.
10 tablespoons of virgin olive oil.
Salt and parsley.


In a saucepan fry the minced onion over low heat. Add the minced almonds and stir. After a couple of minutes add the milk and the fish broth and let cook for 10 minutes. Grind the sauce with the blender, put the sauce through the sieve and add the salt needed. Then put salt and pepper to the gilt-head bream fillets and grill it slighty.Pour over the sauce of almonds, cook over low heat 5 minutes and then pour over a little chopped parsley and serve immediately.


Before eating the fish, accompanied with a glass of white wine, I took the dish to the terrace to photograph it, and then was when I found my cat, Taca, walking on the ledge.

/RECEIPTS AGAINST THE CRISIS. CHICKPEAS WITH CHORIZO

A food recipe against the crisis? The story is that some times I cook this dish for dinner. It's simple, tasty and very easy to do. Once I made it for a group of friends and one of them, Alberto Soulier, an Argentine photographer liked it specially, and he always wanted me to make it again so, encouraged by his comments, I cooked it for a very large group with a total success. That is why I’m saying that has become a recipe against the crisis: you gather a large group of friends at home, everyone brings something to eat or to drink, and I make the chickpeas and pasta with clams, another classic. We spend a wonderful time and is much cheaper than going to a restaurant; very good in these times of crisis although bad for restaurants. This is the recipe for 4 people:

Chickpeas with chorizo (hard pork sausage)

Two pots of cooked chickpeas of 500 grams each
Middle chorizo (spicy or not according to taste)
A garlic
A big spoonful of chopped fresh parsley.
Olive oil.
Salt

Chop the garlic and half the parsley and fry. Add the chorizo cut into rounds (I remove the skin), when done add the chickpeas. It is very important to add all the liquid inside the pot of chickpeas, otherwise the dish will be too dry. Let it cook until the liquid reduces slightly, correct for salt and add the remaining fresh parsley on top. ¡Spectacular and very easy!

SEASONAL CUISINE. BEANS SALAD WITH CURED HAM

Whenever I go to the market I buy seasonal products. They are fresh, not thawed and cheap. I saw they had beans so I decided to make a salad. It can be done in just a moment but you have to shell them first, an operation that brings me memories of my childhood when my mother asked me or some of my other brothers to help her, and we shelled the beans together around a table; though, thinking about that, we always lived in the city and my mother always had service to help her. Nowadays, when I have a spare time, I sit in the kitchen listening to music and shell the beans. Then, I boil and keep them. After that everything is really easy.

Recipe for two:

400 g of fresh boiled beans.

50 grams of cured ham cut into small pieces

Half onion.

Fresh mint leaves.

Virgin olive oil

Vinegar of Moena

Salt

Mix the beans with the half onion and the ham, both cut into small pieces (The better the cured ham the better the dish). Then place on top the fresh mint leaves also cut into small pieces. I dress it with a little salt, olive oil and vinegar of Modena. Some people dress it with a vinaigrette instead. I thought it was a typical Catalan dish (there are many recipes with beans), until I went to Granada. Maybe my Granada’s friends will be able to explain me the origin of the dish.

HEALTHY COOKING. LEMON CHICKEN

Eating a healthy way is one of three basic factors, as the renowned cardiologist Valentin Fuster explains, to enjoy a good health; the other two are doing some exercise regularly and not smoke. I try to practice all three.
In terms of cooking has influenced me greatly Karlos Arguiñano. This popular cooking star has taught recipes to millions of people around the world and always insists that it costs nothing, and is infinitely better, to eat a fresh food, just cooked, instead of canned or precooked. I admire these chefs; in United Kingdom there is also Jaimie Olivier who has helped greatly to improve the eating habits there.
Sometimes you are in a hurry, as this day where I prepared, in just five minutes, a lemon chicken and a fresh salad.


Lemon chicken recipe for two people:

2 chicken breasts.
The juice of a lemon.
Olive oil.
Salt and pepper.

Add salt and pepper to the chicken breasts and grill in a pan. When they are done, add a jet of oil (oil always first!) and, after, the lemon juice. Let cook a couple minutes and go.

While I was grilling the breasts, I prepared a salad with the fresh vegetables I had on hand that day: lettuce, onion, tomato and olives. Usually I do the dressing with a little salt, olive oil and a dash of vinegar of Modena.
A healthy menu, tasty and very fast to prepare.

CHICKEN WITH OLIVES

"Papaaaaaaa. Que hi ha per dinar? (Daddy. What do we have for lunch?) "Sounds the voice of my teenage daughter Andrea yelling from her room. It is Sunday, 2, 30 pm. Andrea just wake up and, of course, she is starving

"I'm cooking the two thighs of duck that I bought the other day," I reply.
"And how are you cooking them? She asks.
With olives and almonds "I explain.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! This is spoiling the duck. I wanted to cook them and make a sweet or orange sauce “resounds her indignant voice from the room where she has deigned to open the door.
The truth is that the original recipe is with chicken, but hadn’t, so I decided to use the duck thighs. Andrea cooks very well, although on the rare occasions she feels like. The problem is that she always leaves a kitchen that needs a week to be cleaned. Moreover, if had waited for her to get up we would have had the lunch at dinner time. But anyway, let’s drift away from the topic or this blog would look like Gemma Tramullas’s Raising children or perhaps I should start a new one entitled Separated with teenage daughter in charge .
I continue with the recipe:

2 chicken breasts, two legs and a whole chicken or chicken pieces.
100 gr. of olives
2 onions.
2 cloves of garlic.
50 gr.of almonds.
4 tomatoes, peeled and cut into cubes.
A few grains of pepper.
A dash of brandy.
½ liter of chicken broth.
Pepper balls.
Olive oil.

Fry the chicken in olive oil and reserve. In the same oil fry the whole crushed garlic and cut the onions into wedges . When done, add the balls of pepper, the almonds and a dash of brandy. After a minute add the tomatoes cut into dice and cook, stirring occasionally, and put salt. When ready add the chicken and half a liter of broth. Cover the container and leave it half an hour over medium heat, stirring occasionally. 5 minutes before the end add the olives.
It was delicious, although Andrea was right. It is a recipe that is much better with chicken. The next time, I’ll cook the duck legs with an orange or cherry sauce.


LAST NEWS
To be fair, I had prepared this post a month ago. But last Saturday, Andrea got up early (about 11 am); early if you compare her normal behaviour the others weekends. She saw that I had bought a farm chicken and decided to cook it. She made it baked with pruns and herbs, and she also cleaned the utensils she employed while cooking. I almost could not believe my eyes! Ah, the chicken was excellent. Happy ending!

EL POLLO DE ANDREA / ANDREA'S CHICKEN

CHARLIE MAHONEY / OVEN-ROASTED GILT-HEAD BREAM and THE WORLD IS ENOUGH

I hadn’t seen Charlie Mahoney for some time and I invited him to lunch at home. As he had commented that he liked gilt-head bream, after reading one of my blog’s recipes, I decided to prepare two of them oven-roasted. I met Charlie at a Photojournalism graduate course I taught at the UAB in Bellaterra. He struck me, apart for his eye for photography, for his ability to make contacts and work around the world.

An example: Charlie photographed Africans immigrants in Barcelona. He tried to publish it in Vanguardia Magazine but failed. (Neither the Magazine nor its editor, Pepe Baeza, can absorb in its 52 issues per year, the thousands of stories photojournalists bring there every year). Far from beeing discouraged and giving up (see the article by Tino Soriano), Charlie managed to publish it on the online website of BBC news. He also received the second prize in the Prix de la Photographie Awards, held in Paris and first prize in the SOS Racism Awards. Out of Focus Magazine in Sweden also published his photo essay called Life in the Shadows.
Another example: Charlie Mahoney is an American, based in Barcelona, and, as his name indicates, is of Irish origin. He traveled to County Cork in Ireland, to photograph his Irish relatives still living there. His story was published in the Lonely Planet Magazine in Spain and in National Geographical Traveler. This story also won the Travel Photographer of the Year 2008 award, in the Life category , held in London. The prize was a trip, all expenses paid, to travel to Cuba. Previously,in 2007, Charlie won the TPOTY award, in the category New Talent.This time he was given a grant to cover any topoc he wanted related to the environment and he chose to travel to the Maldives, threatened by climate change and rising sea level.Since he had contacted editors prior to his arrival, while there, he managed to get an assignement for Time Magazine (Asian edition) .
Unlike the title of the James Bond film, for Charlie the world is enough to publish his photographs.
But let’s go back to the recipe ...

OVEN-ROASTED GILT-HEAD BREAM FOR TWO PEOPLE.

2 gilt-head bream of 250 gr each, prepared for the oven.
A couple of potatoes.
1 large onion.
Olive oil.
Half a glass of white wine.
A big spoonful of chopped parsley.
A big spoonful of minced garlic.
Bay leaves.


Fry the potatoes, cut into circular slices. When they are half way done, add the onions cut into slices. When finished frying, place the potatoes and the onions over the base of a saucepan and season. Season the fish and introduce a couple of bay leaves in each. Drizzle with a little oil and add the half glass of white wine. Introduce the baking dish in the oven, preheated to 210 degrees, and leave it for 30 minutes. Occasionally ladle the fish with the sauce in the saucepan. When there are 5 minutes remaining, sprinkle the fish with the minced garlic and parsley.
I prefer to serve the potatoes and onions in the dish, debone the fish and place the delicious white pieces on top of the potatoes and onions. The potatoes will have absorbed all the juices and will come out really delicious.
Bon appetit Charlie!

RECIPES. HUMUS AND MAR COSTA

HUMMUS RECIPE FOR 4 PEOPLE

400 g cooked chickpeas
75 grams of chicken broth
A little cumin
A splash of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Garlic ¼
20 g tahini (sesame paste)
A teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or sweet, to taste)
Pita bread.

The tahini and pita bread can be found in a specialised shop.

Triturate with the hand blender the cooked chickpeas (without the liquid if they are canned), broth, garlic, sesame paste and lemon. Spread on a plate, season, pour over the oil, cumin, and sprinkle with paprika. Accompany with pita bread as a spoon. It is not usual but I prefer it lightly toasted. To decorate the dish i added some carrot sticks.


Also, as usual, I'll talk about my guest, Mar Costa,


As always in this blog I invite someone to dinner related with photography and prepare a recipe, in this case Hummus, the traditional Middle Eastern paste made from chickpeas that I loved the first time I tried it, many years ago, in Jerusalem. It's a little risky on my part because certainly I can not compete with the delicious Hummus my friends Hammad and Nicole make at Kabara restaurant, but there I go.

Mar was an IDEP student of mine a few years ago. The first day of class students always present a sample of their work. I was struck by Mar subject; it was on an NGO in Nicaragua, a good story that contrasted strongly with many other works. But I also realized that Mar needed to find a photographic language of her own and still lacked a lot of technique. On completing the course she presented a final work on a common theme but I did not care, she had improved greatly and now she had a visual language with which to tell her coming stories.

I kept in touch with Mar, sporadically, and it caught my attention the fact that she had won a major prize in a travel photography contest, nothing more and nothing less than a world tour for two people. Thus was born the blog, De Costa a Costa (in Catalan), in which Mar narrated and photographed her experiences with his sister Clara. A blog that I thought was very cool, fun and creative.

Later on Mar, whose attitude considering that thanks to the internet and new technologies the world is her scope, won an important grant from the Ministry of Education of Spain. This overview of Mar Costa reminds me of other photographers such as Charlie Mahoney or Lauren Hermele who also were students of mine. The scholarship was to study two years at the University of Graz, Austria, Interactive Multimedia Design, a course which teaches photography, video, 3D, interactive, web design and audio. We agreed to see each other in Barcelona during the summer holidays and as I knew Mar liked Hummus, which she tasted in Palestine during her world tour, this was what I prepared for dinner.

Mar’s next project? A collective exhibition in Ljublijana organided by her Graz university. She also has ended a very interesting video based on photos taken in Istanbul, using what she learnt in Graz. You have to be very steep, at least I am, considering these new ways of multimedia, because maybe the future of photography and image passes through here.

http://www.marcostaphoto.com/

DUCK BREAST ANDREA’S WAY

It's actually duck breast with orange and honey sauce, but I've named it like this because it is a recipe Andrea improvised recently. She said: “today I feel like cooking, what's in the fridge?” There was Magret (duck breast), that we both like a lot, and she decided to cook it. Usually we share one, but more hungry diners can use a duck breast per person. There were oranges, the two have been through a bad cold and a lot of orange juice provides vitamin C and it is great. She also found that I had bought honey in Morella, from the time when I participated in a photographic journey together with Sandra Balcells and Tino Soriano. Andrea also used cinnamon sticks that I usually don’t have, but happened to be a gift from Hélène who had just returned from "paradise" (Mayotte). But let’s go with the recipe:

INGREDIENTS FOR TWO:

A large duck breast
4 oranges
Peppercorns
Salt
2 Cinnamon sticks
Honey
4 small round potatoes
4 slices of cheese
Butter

Add salt and pepper to the duck breast and grilled it letting the inside juicy. Before, in the skin side, make some longitudinal cuts. Peel two oranges, cut the peel into small pieces and keep it together with the oranges’ slices. Add the juice of the other two oranges. Heat in a pan with two tablespoons of honey, a teaspoon of pepper and two sticks of cinnamon. When the sauce is boiling, add the duck breast and simmer until the sauce is reduced, half an hour more or less. At the same time, cut the potatoes in half, rub them with butter and place slices of cheese on top. Place in the oven at 210 degrees until the potatoes are cooked and cheese melts. It was spectacular. I think I will forgive Andrea about her room.