Food in a glass
SALADS, desserts, French fries or fried shrimp can easily be served in glasses. This type of presentation is sure to surprise your guests and lets you serve and portion the meals in an original fashion.
Great effects and new experiences for your taste buds can be achieved by serving aperitifs, soups, starters, main courses or desserts in this unusual way.
This novel way of serving may be eye catching, but it is far from practical. We should therefore ask ourselves if our party guests would be up for such an experiment.
It was Catalan celebrity chef Ferran Adrià and his team who made food in a glass popular with their deconstructed omelette. Caramelised onions were placed at the bottom of the cocktail glass, followed by the egg and then potato foam on top. A brilliant idea.
But a real shrimp cocktail, or rather a ‘coctel de gambas’, can also be served in a glass.
Glasses for champagne, martini or regional specialities such as Basque Zuritos or the Sidra from Asturias can be used as well as shot glasses, glamorous champagne flutes and pompadour glasses in turn set the tone. There are no limits to one’s imagination.
Quick cucumber soup
Ingredients for 4 bowls or several glasses: 2 cucumbers (pepinos), 1 clove of garlic (diente de ajo), 300 ml chicken broth (caldo de pollo), 200 g yoghurt (yogur), 3 tbsp olive oil (aceite de oliva), 2 tbsp chopped dill (eneldo), 4 hot jacket potatoes (patatas) in their skins), salt, pepper, sugar
Put the broth and yoghurt in a blender or in an appropriate container and then use a blender.
Peel the cucumbers, cut them in half and remove the seeds, keep one half, chop the rest and add to the blender. Also add the peeled garlic clove, salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar and the olive oil. Now blend everything well.
Grate and add the rest of the cucumber for extra flavour and add a tablespoon of chopped dill. Pour the soup into glasses.
Add chopped hot peeled potatoes as a topping. Mix the other tablespoon of dill with some soup and a few dashes of olive oil to make a paste and put it on the potatoes as a blob. This gives a great contrast of hot and cold ingredients.
Salad in a jar
For 4 people: 8 waxy potatoes (patatas, the Spanish red ones), about 1 tablespoon of capers (alcaparras) to taste, olive oil (aceite de oliva), 100 g of lettuce, bitter like frisee etc. (escarola), 50 g of Brussels sprouts, finely shredded (col de Bruselas).
For the sauce: 1 can of tuna, drained (atún, 180 g), 4 anchovy fillets (anchoas), juice of half a lemon (zumo de limón), 6 tbsp olive oil (aceite de oliva), ground black pepper (pimienta negra)
Steam clean potatoes in their skins, covered, until just tender. Leave to cool slightly. Cut into slices with the skin. Fry the capers briefly in the oil. Wash the lettuce, drain well. Mix with the Brussel sprouts and capers.
Mix the tuna with the anchovies and lemon juice. Add the olive oil little by little. Season with pepper. Serve in a jar.
Peach cream
Serves 4: 1 tin of peaches (melocotones, 235 g), 2 tbsp lemon juice (zumo de limón), 3 tsp cornflour (maizena), 40 g sugar (azúcar), 250 ml chilled cream.
Drain the peaches in a sieve, collect the juice and make up to 250 ml liquid with water. Mix the peach juice with the lemon, cornflour and sugar in a saucepan. Cook on the cooker, stirring, to make a firm cream. Leave to cool and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Put two peaches aside for garnish, cut the rest into fine cubes.
Whisk the cream until smooth. Mix in the peach cubes. Divide the cream into glasses, thinly slice the peaches set aside and garnish the cream with them.
Curry parfait
A semi-frozen dish like this is easy and can be made the day before. You don't even need an ice cream maker. Just whisk the ingredients in the following order: 5 egg yolks with 125 g sugar. Then add 2 tablespoons of white rum (ron blanco) and 2 teaspoons of curry powder but make sure the curry powder is fresh otherwise it tastes musty. Mix everything together thoroughly.
Then whip 1/2 litre of cream until stiff and stir into the mixture. Pour into an attractive bowl and place in the freezer for three hours.
One hour before serving, place the parfait in the refrigerator.
To serve, simply dip a tablespoon into hot water and arrange the parfait in pretty glasses.
Quark creamy cheese with raspberries
Serves 4: 100 ml cream (nata), 500 g low-fat quark (queso fresco, tipo quark), 2 tbsp sugar (azúcar), 2 tbsp lemon juice (zumo de limón), 500 g frozen raspberries (frambuesas congeladas), more sugar to taste.
Whip the cream until stiff. Beat the quark with the sugar and lemon juice with a hand mixer until fluffy; stir in to the cream.
Divide a third of the raspberries into four glasses, add sugar to taste. Cover with half of the cream. Repeat, finishing with a layer of raspberries.
Leave to stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes.
Cake in a jar
Cake in a jar is also very popular. The principle works the same way as we know it from preserving. However, because of the rubber ring, it will be better to bake the cakes in an open heat-resistant jar.
To get the right amount of batter, you can roughly calculate: One jar (approx. 450 ml) is roughly equivalent to two pieces of cake. Fill twothirds of the batter into the jar and bake the cake. However, if baking powder is used or if there are a lot of eggs, the jar should only be filled halfway.
In the meantime, soak rubber rings in cold water. Put them on the lids, immediately close the hot jars with them and fix them with clips. Leave the cake to cool in the closed jar on a wire rack. Remove to serve. If this is not possible, the cake can be eat with a spoon.
Ginger cake
200 g butter, 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk, 180 g sugar, 200 g flour, 100 g candied ginger (jengibre confitado)
Mix the very soft butter with the whole eggs, egg yolk, sugar and flour until smooth.
Roughly chop the candied ginger and mix in. In addition, whisk the remaining egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff and fold into the batter.
Pour the cake mixture into a suitable loaf tin or jars and bake for 40 minutes in an oven preheated to 190 degrees.