Pinchos and Tapas: the Spanish taste

Spanish people love going to tapear, one of the most common activity in Spain and well known all over the world. Just for few euros you can have tapas or pinchos, little portions served with a caña of beer or a glass of wine.

Their name originated from a curious custom. Tapas are so named because they used to literally plug (spanish: tapar) glasses of beer or wine with a piece of bread and a slice of ham. In this way they avoided that dust or flies dropped in the glasses. While pinchos are so named because they are served thrusted (spanish: pinchados) by a stick and are very common in the north of Spain.

But where can we taste some of these little but precious dishes in Salamanca? Follow this short guide to know 5 places to eat well and save money ;)

Getting started from the centre, you can really eat in Plaza Mayor at Café Real, where you can have the Salamanca typical tapas without spend a fortune.

One of the cheapest place is 100 Montaditos, in Calle Concejo nearby Plaza Mayor. On mondays there is a special offer so that you can have everything you want just for 0,50€.

Tiempo de Vinos, in Calle Doctrinos, a short step from Calle Compañia, deserve you stop off here in order to sip an excellent wine combined with tradicional tapas and jamón serrano, a typical kind of Spanish ham. So good!

Turning a corner in Rúa Mayor you can go to Tapas 2.0, whose name says everything. Here tradition and modernity are combined in a successful way. Maybe less cheap than other places in this list, but you should really try it for the quality of its dishes and their original look. 

Lizarran, in Gran Vía, is known for its unusual style. You just have to take a drink and then get something from a variety of just done tapas and pinchos which waiters bring from the kitchen. Then you pay just depending on how many sticks you collected and their dimensions, so you eat whatever you want with a fixed price.

And if you don't still have enough to eat and want to try something good, the Van Dyck area is what you are looking for.

¡Que aproveche!

Ester - student at Tía Tula

Hornazo de Salamanca

Coming from the north of England I am a big fan of all things to do with pastry. Pies, pasties, sausage rolls, the lot. Coming to Salamanca for the summer I wasn't expecting to find many good places to get my pastry fix (there isn't a Greggs on every other corner as in England!) However was pleasantly surprised to discover 'Hornazos', Salamanca's version of a pasty. Hornazo to Salamanca is what Cornish pasties are to Cornwall. You can find pastry shops all over the city selling both hornazos and empanadas (another type of Spanish filled pastry). Traditionally hornazo contains pork loin, spicy chorizo sausage and hard boiled eggs, but you can now find many different versions, such as ham and cheese, tuna and smoked salmon and cream cheese.

Hornazo is traditionally eaten in Salamanca on Easter Monday, or 'Lunes de Aguas' (Monday of the waters). The name of this festival supposedly comes from a twisting of the word 'enagua', meaning petticoat, which is historically what the prostitutes used to wear under their dresses. The story goes that during lent the prostitutes of the town were sent to the other side of the Tormes river, so as not to temp or distract the men of the city during the religious festivities. On the 'Monday of the waters', the students of the town threw a party on the banks of the river to welcome back the women, and cooked and ate hornazo as part of the celebrations.

Nowadays you can buy hornazo all over the city, and other parts of Spain have their own variations of the dish as well. Here is a recipe so you can try and make the traditional pie at home!

Ingredients:

•  200 ml olive oil
• 150ml white wine
• 100ml water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 eggs
• 40-42g of fresh baker's yeast (or 3 packets of dry baker's yeast)
• 900g bread flour
• Filling (the proportions of which you can alter to your taste preferences):
• Boiled egg
• Jamón serrano
• Pork loin steaks or saddle
• Chorizo

Method:

• In a bowl lightly heat the water and slowly crumble in the yeast until smooth.
• In another bowl mix the oil, wine, salt and the sugar. Add the water and yeast mix. If using dry yeast  mix with the flour.
• Add the lightly beaten eggs and continue to mix.
• Add half the flour and mix. Add the remaining flour saving a little. Form a ball with the dough and add the rest of the flour as needed if the dough sticks to your fingers.
• Knead for about 10 minutes on a floured surface.
• Divide the dough into two parts. Put half in a greased bowl and cover with cling film and leave to stand for around 30 minutes or until the mixture has doubled in size.
• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
• Roll out half of the dough with a rolling pin and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
• Add the filling on top in layers, first the chorizo, then the jamón, on top the pork loin which you need to lightly sear in a frying pan, and finally the sliced boiled eggs.
• Cover this with the other part of the dough, rolled out into a flat surface. Trim any excess dough and pinch seal the edges. Use any excess dough for decoration.
• Cut a small hole in the centre of the pastry to allow any vapour to escape and brush the top with beaten eggs.
• Bake for 30 minutes until golden and repaint the top with the left over beaten eggs as soon as you take it out of the oven to make it shiny.
• Leave to cool on a wire rack.
• Enjoy!

If you do come to Salamanca, why not give this local dish a try? Many places sell pieces cut to size, or if you like you can buy a large one for a group of people. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do!