When Spain Comes to Call

Most of us stash groceries in our cars for a short ride home. Joan Sauvion recently toted the makings of a single meal more than 5,000 miles, from her home in northern Spain to West Hollywood.

It was worth it. She staged a Spanish dinner as extensive and authentic as if she were serving it at home in the Basque country.

The scene was the house of her sister, Carol Sauvion, owner of the Freehand ceramic and gift shop on 3rd Street in Los Angeles. The guests were mostly family, including Joan Sauvion’s daughters, Nicole and Sara.

Nicole, a student at UC Santa Cruz, brought her blue enameled paella pan, so her mother didn’t have to carry that bulky object all the way from Spain. Her luggage was already heavy enough with Rioja wines, serrano and Iberico hams, Spanish chorizo, red peppers that had been roasted over an open fire, anchovy-stuffed green olives and even squid ink.

All Sauvion had to buy here were perishables like chicken, seafood and vegetables for her paella Valenciana--and American rice.

“In Valencia,” she says, “there are real purists who will only use the rice from Valencia. This can be very expensive, up to $40 a pound.”

Sauvion chose farmer cheese as a substitute for queso de Burgos in an appetizer. And in Santa Cruz, while visiting Nicole, she picked up some American hard cider for poaching sliced chorizo, part of another appetizer.

The morning of the party, Sauvion awakened at 2, realizing that she had forgotten to soak the beans. That omission rectified, she started the serious cooking at 8. By late afternoon, she had assembled a table full of dishes that looked like a glorious painting by a Spanish artist enamored of food.

It also satisfied the requirements of a typical Spanish dinner party. “Usually, when you go out to dinner, there may be five or six appetizers put on a common plate,” she says. After appetizers comes a main dish that could be squid, fish or steak. Green salad follows, then the host brings out cheeses and fruit.

“Spanish cooking does not involve elaborate desserts,” says Sauvion, who originally went to Europe as an American college student, fell in love with Spain and settled there. She dredged up one from her repertoire, however: almond soup spooned cold over cubes of white bread, a Christmas specialty from Toledo.

If anything, Sauvion outdid the average Spanish host by offering three main dishes: paella, chipirones en su tinta (squid in their own ink) and a big pot of beans cooked with sausages, leeks and carrots. The dried beans were packed in a cloth sack labeled alubia pinta Alavesa, red beans from the province of Alava.

Vitoria, where Sauvion lives and co-owns a language school, is the capital city of Alava, and the wines she selected were two boutique reds from the Rioja Alavesa district: a 1990 Valserrano and 1992 Campillo.

For appetizers, she set out the stuffed olives; the roasted peppers, which she sauteed in olive oil with garlic; tomato slices topped with farmer cheese, anchovies and marjoram; the cider-infused chorizo; a big potato-onion omelet; and the sliced hams.

Serrano resembles prosciutto. Iberico ham, from Extremadura, comes from pigs allowed to run free and feed on acorns, which gives the meat a distinctive flavor. “It is the most expensive and appreciated ham in Spain,” she says.

Another plate held the “omelet” (more like a frittata) known as tortilla espan~ola, as typical a Spanish dish as you can get. “The average Spanish family has tortilla at least once a week,” Sauvion says. “It’s a popular dish to take out on a picnic.” And Vitoria is in prime picnic country. “It’s surrounded by some of the most beautiful landscape you’d ever want to see.”

For the paella, Sauvion used chicken, prawns, clams and whole green beans, along with red bell peppers and tomatoes for color.

In Spain, paella pans come in all sizes. “A lot of people have a special gas ring to fit large paella pans feeding up to 16,” she says. Although Nicole’s pan looked capacious, it was large enough for only four servings.

No matter. The menu was generously filled out with beans and squid cooked in squid ink, both typical dishes of the Basque country. Sauvion mixed the ink with tomato sauce, garlic and onion to create a midnight-hued coating for the squid. “I love when tourists order this,” she says. “They never really expect it to be black.”

In Spain, says Sauvion, ink extracted from squid is sold in little plastic packets. That made it easy for her to carry this essential component of her dish.

At home, Sauvion cooks daily, not at night but for lunch, which is the main meal of the day. The Spanish lunch break lasts as long as 3 1/2 hours. Dinner, taken around 9 or 10 p.m., is a very light meal, she says: soup or an omelet, cheese and bread.

On the weekends, the Basques often go out for a glass of wine before lunch. Along with the wine, bars offer pinchos (plates of beautifully arranged tidbits) to snack on. Sauvion differentiates between pinchos and tapas in this way: Tapas are usually served in small earthen casseroles, while pinchos are picked up for eating.

A tremendous variety of ingredients is available where Sauvion lives. “There are not a lot of fancy sauces or elaborate desserts,” she says. “Spanish cooking on the whole is fairly simple. They start with such excellent products, there is not much that needs to be done to them.”

COUNTDOWN

Night before: Put beans in water to soak.

3 hours before: Start cooking beans.

1 hour before: Start cooking paella. Cook squid. Simmer chorizo in cider, if serving.

20 minutes before: Prepare roasted red peppers with garlic. Arrange tomatoes, cheese and anchovies on serving plate.

Last minute: Cut up sausages and back fat from bean recipe and arrange in serving dish. Serve beans in separate dish. Open wine.

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INGREDIENTS

Shopping List

1 pound small dried red beans

1 slice back fat

1 1/2 pounds Spanish chorizo

2 leeks

2 carrots

2 pounds tomatoes

1/2 pound blood sausage

3 pounds squid with tentacles

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch thyme

1 (500-gram) container squid ink

1 pound chicken pieces

1 red bell pepper

1/2 pound green beans

1 package saffron

1/2 pound clams or mussels

1/2 pound large shrimp

1/2 pound farmer cheese

1 can anchovy fillets

1 bunch fresh marjoram

1 (12-ounce) jar roasted sweet red peppers

1 (1-quart) bottle hard cider

1 or 2 bottles Spanish red wine

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Staples

Garlic

Bay Leaf

Beef and chicken bouillon cubes

Salt

Olive oil

3 onions

Flour

White wine

White bread

Rice

BASQUE RED BEAN POTAGE (Alubias)

2 cups dried small red beans

1 (3/4-inch-thick) strip pork back fat

1/2 pound Spanish chorizo

2 leeks, white part only, cut in large chunks

2 carrots, cut in large chunks

2 to 3 cloves garlic, unpeeled

2 tablespoons diced peeled tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 beef bouillon cube

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 pound blood sausage

For this dish, use small beans, not red kidney beans. Sauvion cooks the beans in their soaking liquid to add color and substance to the soup. Occasionally adding 1/2 cup cold water promotes thickening, she says.

Wash beans and soak overnight in water to generously cover. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Place beans in large pot. Add back fat, chorizo, leeks, carrots, garlic, tomatoes, bay leaf, bouillon cube and salt. Add soaking water to cover. Bring to boil and skim off impurities. Lower heat to gentle boil and cook, partly covered, about 2 hours. Add more water as needed.

When beans are tender, remove leeks, carrots and bay leaf. Heat olive oil in skillet. Add onion and saute 4 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Add onion mixture and blood sausage to beans. Cook 20 minutes, partly covered, at gentle boil.

Remove sausages and back fat. Cut into bite-sized pieces; serve in separate dish. Serve beans in soup tureen.

6 servings. Each serving:

637 calories; 1,394 mg sodium; 68 mg cholesterol; 38 grams fat; 48 grams carbohydrates; 29 grams protein; 4.83 gram fiber.

SQUID IN ITS INK (Chipirones en Su Tinta)

3 pounds squid with tentacles, cleaned and tentacles chopped

Salt

Flour

Olive oil

1/4 cup white wine

1 slice white bread

3 cloves garlic

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 1/4 cups diced peeled tomatoes

1 sprig parsley

1 sprig thyme

1 bay leaf

1/2 to 1 teaspoon squid ink

This dish is traditionally presented on a round platter, with a mound of white rice in the center and the squid arranged around it. Squid ink can be ordered through specialty fish markets.

Stuff squid with chopped tentacles. Sprinkle squid with salt to taste. Flour very lightly.

Heat 5 tablespoons olive oil in skillet. Add squid and cook until slightly golden. Place squid in separate pot, add wine and cook over very low heat while preparing sauce.

Fry bread slice and garlic cloves in oil in which squid were sauteed. When bread is crisp and garlic golden, remove and mash in mortar with pestle. Set aside.

Add more olive oil to skillet. Add onion and cook slowly until transparent. Add bread-garlic mixture, tomatoes, parsley, thyme and bay leaf. Cook 10 to 15 minutes.

Drain squid and add any cooking juices to onion mixture. Bring to quick boil. Add salt to taste if needed. Return squid to pot. Pass sauce through sieve or food mill placed over squid. Cook 20 minutes, or until squid are tender. Add ink and cook 5 minutes longer.

4 servings. Each serving:

394 calories; 287 mg sodium; 529 mg cholesterol; 17 grams fat; 19 grams carbohydrates; 37 grams protein; 0.60 gram fiber.

PAELLA VALENCIANA

1/4 cup olive oil

1 pound chicken, cut into serving pieces

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1/2 red bell pepper diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 pound green beans, left whole

1/4 cup diced peeled tomato

3 cups warm water

1 chicken bouillon cube, optional

Few threads saffron

Salt

1 cup rice

1/2 pound small clams or mussels

1/2 pound large shrimp in shells

Heat olive oil in large paella pan or 12-inch skillet at least 2 inches deep. Add chicken and fry until golden, about 5 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Add onion, bell pepper and garlic, then green beans and saute few moments. Add tomato and stir. Return chicken to pan. Add warm water, bouillon cube, if wanted, and saffron. Cook until liquid is reduced to 2 cups. Season to taste with salt. Add rice and clams, then shrimp. Cook 10 minutes over high heat, making sure heat is evenly distributed. Turn heat to low and cook 10 minutes. Turn off heat. Cover with kitchen cloth and let stand 5 minutes to complete cooking. Serve at once.

4 servings. Each serving:

617 calories; 257 mg sodium; 169 mg cholesterol; 28 grams fat; 49 grams carbohydrates; 39 grams protein; 1.02 grams fiber.

Kitchen Tips

These Spanish appetizers don’t require recipes. Once you have the ingredients, they’re quick and easy to assemble.

*Tomatoes With Cheese and Anchovies: Slice tomatoes and arrange on serving dish. Top each slice with slice of farmer cheese. Top cheese with 1 anchovy and 1 fresh marjoram leaf. Can be seasoned with olive oil and vinegar, if desired.

*Roasted Red Peppers With Garlic: Saute sliced garlic in olive oil in skillet. Add drained canned roasted sweet red peppers and saute until flavored with oil and garlic. Serve at room temperature.

*Chorizo Cooked in Cider: Slice Spanish chorizos. Place in saucepan and cover with hard cider. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer over low to medium heat 45 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Serve at once.

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Sources

Squid ink is hard to come by but can be ordered from a few sources, including the Los Angeles Fish Co. (420 Stanford Ave., Los Angeles; [213] 629-1213.) Imported from Spain, the ink comes frozen in small packets or packed in 500-gram jars. It takes only a tiny amount to color a sauce black. The rest can be frozen. Upscale markets may also be able to order the ink. Prices we checked ranged from $35 to $65.

Spanish chorizo is firmer and more sausage-like than Mexican chorizo, which is designed to crumble when cooked. Spanish chorizo is also slightly milder in spice than Mexican chorizo. Spanish chorizo is sold in many supermarkets and is easy to find in most Cuban markets. Two good sources: El Caney, 4600 Maplewood Ave., Hollywood, (213) 661-2864; and Food Bag (El Cubano), 11350 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 506-0911.