GOURMET LOVERS BRUNCH CLUB : SPANISH & SOUTH AMERICAN STYLES

Hola amores, ayer hemos tenido una gran brunch club con una menú un poco Español y Sur Americano. Con el sol brillando a través del ventana y una grupo de gente muy lindo quien llegaron a probar nuestra brunch, nosotros disfrutado nuestra día mucho!


Right thats it for my Spanish efforts today and apologies for the mistakes, of which I'm sure there are plenty if you can't understand that at all what I'm trying to to say we had another wonderful brunch club yesterday with once again a little Spanish influence which I can't help but go back to. It's no secret I've had a hard time trying to go back to normal life in London ever since I came back from Barcelona last October,  I dream about it constantly. Whilst most people tell me I'm looking at that experience through rose tinted glasses ( It was Summer, I had no job, I had some money to spend ) and of course I was happy there.  But I am a person who craves the sun, I do think I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, I love to look outside and see colours everywhere and I want quality of life that removes the insistent pressure of having to succeed that seems to come when living in London, maybe Spain really is the place for me?


So I continue to grasp at the hope that something exciting awaits me in the not too distant future involving Spanish summer and swimming in the ocean and drinking an Estrella on the street at middnight when its still 25 degrees, sitting in a plaza eating jamon y queso and it being the simplest of things but so magically delicious that you need nothing else. Sometimes simple pleasures really are all you need.


Wouldn't it be grand for brunch club to pop up in Barcelona? I found a couple of brunch spots there and I think its a meal perfectly suited to the late to bed, late to rise life style.


Maybe they would like something like this....

Virgin Mary gazpacho
A cold tomato a vegetable soup of fresh tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, capsicum & garlic with tomato juice and the addition of worcester sauce, tabasco and limes.

Huevos al Nido con tomate 

Eggs in a nest -  we posted a recipe for these a while back. This time we made them with a fresh tomato sauce centre and a little pan fried bacon. We used Clarence Court Cotswold Legbar duck eggs. Clarence court eggs are lovely when you want the egg to be the star of the dish. I don't use them for everyday baking but for any egg main dish certainly they are quality eggs. The duck eggs are a little richer and I prefer the deeper orange colour ascetically. Nick made the soft bread rolls of course.

Pinchos de queso de cabra y cebolla

I love the simple tapas in Spain, with their naturally flavoursome ingredients they taste spectacular. Something as simple as cheese and bread can either be boring and tasteless or melt in your mouth delightful depending on quality of ingredients. I chose to deep fry the goats cheese  (because deep frying stuff taste good!!) with a little basil in the centre for a refreshing bite. The slowly sweated red onion base gave it a sweetness that balances the strong goats cheese.

Calamares fritos con sal y pimienta
We marinated the calamari in chilli and lemon, same as we did for our Hip Hop Brunch and grilled it on our charcoal BBQ for 60 secs. For some reason we weren't as happy with how this batch turned out and we aren't sure why. Nick is of course a perfectionist and thought this calamari was just not as melt in the mouth as previously, the only difference being the much larger size of this particular squid. We follow the 60 seconds only cooking rule and got it plated up and served along side  my whole egg aioli asap. 

Tortilla mexicana con chorizo, guacamole y frijols negros
This was basically Huevos Rancheros without an egg once we finished it off but whats not to love about that. Avocado salsa which we make with our corn fritters with black beans rehydrated and slowly reduced in a stock with capsicum and onion for an entire day to get the most flavour out of them.  The star of the show was the chorizo, you cannot beat Brindisa chorizo to really make a dish sing.  Its flavour really stands out as rich and sweet and is balanced along side the cooling citrus from the guacamole and the spice coming from the beans.  

Churros y chocolate caliente picante

So quick & easy to make, its essentially choux pastry piped it in to sizzling oil to shallow fry for a couple of minutes. Adding a little cayenne pepper to the ganache made a chocolate sauce with a kick. A sweet but light end to a big meal.

We weren't particularly good at documenting this brunch pictorially, which we aplogise for, we need to sort that out! But many of these dishes we've made before and I've linked to those. This was mostly as we were on a tight schedule with Nick needing to rush off for work as the last churros bubbled away as well as not wanting to delay service by taking a million photos of the dishes, next time will be different as we will have help! Yes, we haven't done this in a while but we've got an exciting new 'guest chef' for our March 11th brunch club, a foodie friend with fresh ideas and exciting influences gained from his recent trip to Abu Dhabi. I for one am looking forward to a burst of fresh new ideas and another new and exciting brunch unfortunately as I break this exciting news the brunch has already SOLD OUT, but we will post some new dates on event brite soon for March and April.  Give us a shout if you have any special requests :)


We're still the only 6 course brunch in London as far as I'm aware, we will continue to push the brunch boundries as long as you let us!! Also we were so pleased to be featured as 'The Foodies' in Company Magazines March issue looking at couples who blog together.


So get in touch if you'd like to talk brunch!!  We do! 


Until next time


Bex (  & Nick )


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