Friday favorites 7/15

Smoked eel, a roundup of zucchini recipes, and trying that horchata latte I mentioned on Wednesday

Iced horchata latte in the garden

Happy third Friday of July! It’s the exact middle Friday of the month, and I know I say it every week but I can’t believe we’re here already. Cómo pasa el tiempo!¹

This week was another hot one, and even though I’d usually prefer to spend my time roaming the city, I’ve been huddled up at home trying not to melt into a puddle. That doesn’t mean some exploring wasn’t to be had, though! Check out my favorites from this week below.

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• Sometimes I wonder what young Kiki would think of all of the “weird” food that I eat these days. I was thinking about this when David and I went to Yokaloka last weekend. For those of you outside of Madrid, Yokaloka is an Izakaya sushi bar located in El Mercado de Antón Martín. When it first opened over 14 years ago, it only occupied a small puesto², but it’s now expanded to take over a substantial section of the main level of the market. The expansion is within good reason— Yoka (the owner) consistently serves up high-quality Japanese dishes. The sushi and nigiri are delightful (David is also a big fan of the temaki), but the star dish in my opinion is the anguila ahumada (smoked eel). As you can see in the picture below, it’s served with three different types of condiments: wasabi, a miso-based sauce, and… I honestly can’t remember the one in the center (I’m pretty sure it’s a plum sauce; don’t quote me, though!) but all you need to know is that it’s amazing. Young Kiki would probably be horrorizada³ at the thought of eating something that originally looked like a sea snake, but current Kiki assures you to dig in.

  

  Smoked eel from Yokaloka

• I talk a lot in these Friday Favorites posts about seasonal fruit, but today I’d like to highlight a seasonal vegetable: zucchini, or calabacín in Spanish. Sometimes I forget that zucchini is a summer vegetable, because the truth is that we eat it year-round. One of my favorite all-time puréed soups is crema de calabacín; I loved it so much after trying it on my first visit to Madrid that I begged David to send me his mom’s recipe so I could replicate it back home in Chicago (my version was not as good, but it did the trick of satisfying my craving). Zucchini is also a standby vegetable in our house to quickly sauté or roast as an easy side dish or to throw in a veggie bowl or omelette. That being said, there’s nothing like fresh summer zucchini. A simple preparation highlights its subtle sweetness, but I also don’t shy away from using it in more complex recipes. Deb from Smitten Kitchen has a fantastic roundup of zucchini dishes in her newsletter this week. As it so happens, I’ve tried the Zucchini Fritters she mentions and they were a win, although to be honest I was super impatient about squeezing all the water out of the shredded zucchini (a personally annoying but highly necessary step that I can assure you is worth it). The Pasta and Fried Zucchini Salad and Zucchini Bread Pancakes are also calling my name. You can grab the recipes at Deb’s post below.

  recipes for zucchini zillionaires

• Earlier in the week we made horchata casera and I got the idea of reserving some to make an horchata latte. I’m here to report that I did in fact make one, and it was in fact delicious. The preparation couldn’t be more simple: I poured an espresso shot over ice and then splashed in the horchata. As you can see in the main picture of today’s post, I used a small glass, which resulted in a higher espresso to horchata ratio. Next time I would add more horchata to really let the tiger nut milk shine. You can grab the recipe for the homemade horchata in my newsletter from Wednesday, or store-bought horchata would also be wonderful if you can get your hands on it. Next on my list is an horchata granita, and David has plans for an iced ’chata chai latte. The options are endless!

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A few more end of the week bits and pieces:

• On a non-food but yes-Spain related note, I’m loving a substack published by a fellow España-dwelling writer! Ángeles hosts a súper divertido⁴ newsletter for Spanish language learners over at Spanish language and Spain culture. She publishes several editions each week containing not only vocabulary words, but also Spanish sayings, slang, and even jokes. It’s not only for beginners; as someone who already has a good handle on the language I find it useful for learning more colloquial words and expressions, and also for the information on Spanish culture. Ángeles also hosts a free Spanish Language Conversation Club each week. Basically, es una crack!⁵ Check out her newsletter below.

• The Sunday Sobremesa is hopping this week! We’re talking about how many cookbooks we own and truthfully it’s a dangerous convo that’s making me want to fill up my shelves. Click over to join in the discussion if you haven’t already!

That’s all for the week! Comments are open below in case you have any questions or perhaps want to share a favorite zucchini recipe!

Qué tengáis buen finde!⁶

Ki

1. Cómo pasa el tiempo: How time flies

2. Puesto: Stall

3. Horrorizado/a: Horrified. Side note that this is an extremely fun (but kind of difficult) word to say in Spanish!

4. Súper divertido: Super fun

5. Es una crack: She’s a “crack.” Un/una crack is a slang word here in Spain for someone who is really good at something, or in this case just awesome overall.

6. Qué tengáis buen finde: Have a good weekend!