And now for something completely different ..... All i pebre - Eels in Piquant Sauce

All i pebre is a spicey dish made with made with eel. This is a famous recipe that originates from Albufera, a lagoon near Valencia. I think it's delicious, however it's an aquired taste. So if you're the adventurous type and fancy this eel dish, why not try this recipe is below?

 
Ingredients for 4 people:

1kg of eels
Olive oil
1 large onion, diced
50 g of flour
sweet paprika
1 chili pepper
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
1 small slice of toasted bread
10 to 12 almonds
2 large potatoes, cubed
parsley
salt
water

Method

Wash the eels in cold water and remove the heads and the tips of the tails. Wash them again and dry with a cloth. Once cleaned, cut them into pieces measuring approximately 6 to 8 cm. Crush the cloves of garlic in a mortar and add to an earthenware dish when the oil is hot.

Dice the onion and when the garlic begins to fry, add it along with the flour and the paprika, stirring at the same time. Also add a fair amount of water, but bear in mind it must not cover the eels, which will be added when it comes to the boil. Peel and cube potatoes, place in the dish and boil for 10 mins. Once the eels are in, simply add salt and chilli pepper, the amount depending on how spicy the stew is intended to be.

Leave everything to cook for 15 or 20 minutes. Five minutes before it is cooked, add the almonds, parsley and the toasted bread, crushing it previously in the mortar.

Buyer's guide - Eels are most often sold live, although they are sometimes available as steaks. A live eel is quite something to manage, so ask your fishmonger for advice.

Recipe of the day by Lorraine Rimmer



Carrots and chillies painted in Acrylic



Carrot and chilli soup

serves two

Ingredients

4 large carrots

1 red chilli

500ml chicken stock

1 med onion

2 cloves garlic

Tablespoon olive oil

Coriander

Method

Heat the oil in a pan until hot, fry the onion, garlic and chilli for 2 mins – or until soft.

Add the sliced carrot and fry for a further minute

Add chicken stock and cook until the carrots are soft.

Remove veg with a slotted spoon and place in blender. Blend until smooth.

Return to the stock and season to taste.

Add a bunch of chopped coriander just before serving.

Scoville Chart

Wondering how to rate the heat level of various types of chile peppers?

Peppers are rated based on Scoville Units, a method developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912. The original method used human tasters to evaluate how many parts of sugar water it takes to neutralize the heat. Nowadays human tasters are spared and a new process called HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromotography measures the amount of capsaicinoids (capsaicin) in parts per million. Capsaicin is the compound that gives chiles their heat. The chart below rates chile peppers, with 0 being mildest and 10 highest heat