noisy cookie

cebollin

There are these little onions that grow here, falling somewhere between a scallion and a regular onion, with a taste that is more delicate than either. They are perfect for cutting up to stir fry with mushrooms and white wine. I also think "soup!" when I see them pop up out of their little pots, which they always do right around this time of year.

So I've been clicking around looking for good soup recipes in the past couple of weeks. And I have found a few, though none call for delicate spring onions. My favorite thus far is this tomato soup recipe on Delicious Days. It is mellow, sweet and spicy all at the same time.

Because I live in the Place Where Nothing is Easy to Find and All Stores are Closed on Sundays, I had to take a slightly DiY approach to making the soup on the day I finally decided to do it. I ended up making my own garam masala and roasted(!) vegetable stock. This was kind of aggravating and hugely satisfying all at the same time. And my house smelled great.

I made the recipe exactly as it was written, and it was good in the way that that Mexican hot chocolate with that little bit of cayenne is good on a snowy evening in front of a fire. Or even better, like you came home and your whole family was there waiting to surprise you. And by that I mean that I have had soups that tasted this good in restaurants, but I have never known what that magic ingredient was that made me want to order the entire pot. And now I do. Well. I still don't, but at least I've narrowed down the variables.

This weekend a friend from the village gave my mother-in-law some beautiful huevocitos (little eggs) from their miniature hens.

I am thinking about making tortilla de patatas for dinner, with a big salad and fresh bread. Mmm. Spanish tortilla is sort of like a sturdier fritatta or a taller omelette. The classic tortilla consists of eggs, potatoes, onions, salt and olive oil. Sometimes people throw in red peppers, chorizo, mushrooms, or ham. Tortilla was my best friend when I moved here, because it is served everywhere and is almost always pretty good. When menu choices were undecipherable by me, or just seemed a little dicey to my unadjusted palate, I always knew I could count on tortilla to get me through. And now that CS will eat it without even pulling a brow furrow, we can eat almost anywhere in Spain without me having to tuck a sandwich and yogurt in my purse. In short, I heart tortilla.

I don't have a recipe of my own to post, or any pictures - though tasty, my tortillas tend to be on the un-photogenic side. However, there is a good tortilla recipe with pictures posted here at Smitten Kitchen. Minus the chicken stock, this is more or less how I have witnessed tortilla being made in local kitchens.