Cross-cooking part III

It is time for an update to my not-so-regular report on global cross-cooking phenomena. After haggis pakora in Glasgow and dangerous experiments in my own kitchen, the time has come for the Basque country. Just in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, between Europe's finest surfing beaches (south of France and north of Spain), lies Donostia or San Sebastian. Not only is it a beautiful city, to which I am soon moving, but it is also the place with the highest concentration of Michelin stars per capita!

One of the best things with this part of the world are the ubiquitous pintxos (the Basque answer to tapas). In one of the fanciest places serving pintxos, called A Fuego Negro, they have embraced experimental cross-cooking in an awesome way. The basic recipe is easy:

• One part Japanese: a small but delicious piece of ground kobe-beef (神戸ビーフ)
• One part American: let's make a hamburger of it
• One part Basque: it is a miniature, i.e. a pintxo

The result is called Mc Kobe, was brilliant, and can be seen below.

This was the first time I had eaten kobe beef. For those of you who don't know, it is a very special Japanese delicacy, made from cows who get to drink beer during the last weeks of their life, and get hour long daily massages. This makes them very happy and relaxed cows. And tasty. I highly recommended it (both the massage and beer parts, but mainly the Mc Kobe).

Cross-cooking Part II

I have written earlier about the fantastic dish haggis pakora from Glasgow and inspired by this Indian-Scottish cross-cooking I did experiments at home. I am less brave, though, so I have only been trying South-European - Scandinavian combinations.

First up (depicted here) is the famous Iberian morcilla along with potato omelette (tortilla). Morcilla is an Iberian blood-sausage quite similar, but typically superior to, its Swedish cousin the blodpudding. Morcilla contains rice or vegetables whereas blodpudding contains flour and the best ones come from Burgos or Etxarri Aranatz. This one was was from Burgos.

Normally you serve morcilla with beans but sometimes like here with tortilla and tomato sauce. My hypothesis was that it would be even better with lingonsylt (lingonberry jam or "tyttebærsyltetøy" as they say here in Norway; the lingonsylt test area is located in the slightly out-of-focus back of the green plate). I think it was damn good but it was even better with tomato sauce, so this was a negative result. Unable to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal I thus put it here on my blog.

Glasgow - international Capital of Cross-Cooking

Ask anybody what they think of Scottish food and most people will not feel very hungry, or think of dishes such as haggis (which is hugely under-appreciated by the way), deep fried pizza or even the lunatic dessert deep-fried Mars bar, which you can get in some of the chip shops here. During my short visit, however, I have realised that Glasgow should, in fact, be recognised as the Capital of Cross-Cooking. Not only is this the only place in the world where you can order Haggis Pakora in Indian restaurants; When ordering an archetypically British Fish & Chips yesterday, I was asked if I wanted curry sauce with it. My Glaswegian friend Jim confirmed that this is completely normal. He also pointed out that "Scottish cooking doesn't recieve as much recognition as it deserves". I am prepared to agree, although I was not brave enough to try the fish & chips with curry sauce just yet. But I will..

Another interesting thing about Glasgow is its subway, with possibly the smallest train cars in the world. Being of average Scandinavian height, I can barely stand upright in it. The general design is simplistic and good with a circle line where trains go in both directions around. But, they don't just call the only line the "the Line" or the "Circle line". No, instead one of the directions is called the "Inner Circle" and the other the "Outer Circle". Does this make sense? Of course, one direction will always be on the inside of the other, but to me it seemed like a bad joke. At first. Just like haggis pakora. But perhaps it is, just like that dish, or like kilts, or curry sauce with fish & chips, actually quite sensible, and not so stupid after all.

Goodnight from Scotland!