Thursday and Friday at Quims

Thursday for lunch, Quim made us a delicious muscle and pea soup with a saffron and leek broth. The recipe is really simple:

1) Add 1 c. h2o, 1/2 c. of sweet vermouth, and 2 fresh bay leaves to a pot
3) dump in fresh muscles
4) steam muscles until all are opened (discard any still closed at the end)
5) strain muscle broth through a fine chinois and put in a small pan to simmer and reduce a bit
6) remove muscles from shells and cut in 1/2
7) In a saute pan, melt some butter and sauté some julienne leeks (white and pale green parts only)
8) add a large pinch of saffron
9) pour in reserved muscle broth and boil for 2 minutes; add in 5 or whole muscles. set aside to cool
10) Use hand blender to blend muscle broth.
11) strain through a fine chinois, to capture the muscle parts, saffron and leeks. you should now have a nice, smooth broth
12) put broth back into a pan and simmer for a few minutes. add reserved muscles and fresh peas (frozen will do if that’s all you can get) and cook for 1-2 minutes more, if using fresh peas. if using frozen peas, take off heat almost immediately, so peas still have a bit of crunch to them. serve hot with baguette.

It’s amazing how little you need when you have super fresh ingredients, especially seafood.

I met some more lovely, new friends this week. I really loved Christi and Matt from Florida:

They are total foodies, so it was very fun to talk with them. They reminded me of my good friends Shannon and Fred who live to travel and eat. Christi and Matt, if you read this, I hope you open a food truck!

I also got a kick out of the two gorgeous and very smart women from New York (hope you had nice journeys in the Pyrenees), the four Brazilians, and the two super fun women from the cruise ship.

Last night, I decided to make a green curry chicken a la “Tailandia” (Thailand, in Spanish). I brought the finished curry in for the guys today (thanks, C, for bringing to me the good paste all the way from San Fran). The chicken curry was way too picante for some, but others like Yuri, Marcos and Joan liked it. I was surprised that Joan ventured to put into his bowl a few more pieces of freshly chopped red Thai chilies. Go Joan! Most Spanish folks do not eat a lot of “heat”. But, I think it was fun for them to try it, even if most of them were sweating after a few bites. On the Rachel scale of heat, this was about a “4” out of 10. On the Carnet scale, this was about a “2”.

My lunch today: Quim’s creamy gazpacho with fresh lobster claws, and wagyu with patatas. See pics below.

This is Jordi with the dualing, live lobsters:

This is a lobster that clamped onto Antonio’s shirt:

This is the delicious, final product: gazpacho with lobster claws

And, finally, the excellent wagyu:

Yuri was impressed with the amount of food I consumed today. I had breakfast at the apartment at 6:30 a.m., then I ate second breakfast at Quim’s at around 9, then some curry, then some gazpacho, and finally some beef and potatoes. What? My stomach was feeling good today, so I went for it.

Tomorrow is my last day at Quim’s. I’m sad! It has been a blast. This is the best non-paying job I’ve ever had 😉 Incredible people, incredible food, incredible atmosphere. Wish I could take them all home with me.