Monkey Milk & Foods of Spain!
Buenos dias! We’ll be heading to Foods of Spain in a moment, but first…
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We hope everyone is enjoying the return of Banana Milk! The sock monkeys certainly are. Some customers add it to their coffee or cereal. Brian adds a splash to warm whole milk. I imagine mixing chocolate milk and banana milk would be pretty epic too! (We have one bottle left in the cooler now!)
Okay… now that we’ve talked Danzeisen, let’s take a trip to Spain through food.
The Foods of Spain
Pre-pandemic, Brian and I tossed around the idea of spending an extended time abroad, with Spain number one on our list. We’d both retired from our professions playing with cameras and motorcycles and thought we’d take time to travel before opening the store.
But the world changed and travel was out of the question. We can, however, explore the world through food!
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Now in stock at the MPM!
A variety of foods imported from Spain. One of our sources includes an American who received the Cross of the Order of Civil Merit from Spain’s King Juan Carlos I for bringing these good to America. All of the items are beautifully packaged, from colorful tins of paprika…
To elegant jars of large capers.
All Natural Capers in Brine by Coquet $6.95
We also have a ready-to-eat gazpacho, Spanish Olives, Chile Cooking Sauce, and a half-moon of apricots with Marcona almonds—which is awesome crumbled on a salad made with Coffee Pot Farms spinach (still available!) or paired with Beeler’s pork medallions on a taco.
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We are MOST excited by the following collection of ingredients now in stock to make Spain’s most famous dish:
Paella!
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The dish originated in the eastern coastal city of Valencia in the 1800s, and is a saffron-scented rice traditionally cooked with rabbit, chicken, snails, and three types of beans. (Don’t worry, you can modify!)
Interesting enough, Paella is the name of the flat shallow pan, not the food. We ordered these Made-in-Spain Paella pans to first evaluate the quality. They are awesome! We have two available now, but if they sell out and you would like one, let us know. We plan to order more.
Matiz Paella Pan – 34cm – Matiz España $18.99
You don’t have to use a Paella pan to make the dish. You can use any flat-bottomed, shallow pan.
The Rice
The secret to perfect Paella is in the short-grained rice. Long grain isn’t going to give you the texture you want. This Matiz Paella rice cooks up beautifully!
Paella Rice – 2.2lb – Matiz España $6.69
The Stock
The key seasoning in Paella is saffron. If you’ve bought it, you know it’s expensive and a spice you don’t often use. Instead of stocking up on jars of saffron, we instead picked up this base to make Paella which has not only saffron, but all the traditional flavors cooked into the stock, making Paella more reasonable and easy to prepare. Plus, it’s all natural!
Aneto Cooking Base for Valencian Paella – 34fl oz – Matiz Españ $12.59
The Meat
While I’m sure we all have rabbit and snails in our pantries, it’s perfectly fine to change up the meats. We used a chicken breast from our Mary’s organic whole chickens (then roasted the rest and made a couple quarts of broth).
Mary’s Organic Air-Chilled Chickens $13.96 – $17.90
Plus we used our new Spanish dry chorizo, which is different than Mexican chorizo, flavored with a wonderful smoky paprika. We first had it while living a ”#vagabond life” in SoCal, bought from a cool little Spanish import shop in Claremont. We have the chorizo in three varieties: a hot, a mild, and minis.
Palacios Chorizos $9.48 – $13.47
The Beans
Valencian Paella uses string beans along with a white bean found only in Spain. We instead used our Bolita Beans from Adobe Milling in Colorado, a lovely pale bean that beautifully picks up flavors.
Bolita Beans – Adobe Milling $3.65
You can see our full recipe and all the ingredients by clicking the button below to go to the MPM Test kitchen!
While making Paella at home isn’t quite the same as sitting in some quaint cafe with a view like this…
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It is a fun special occasion dish to make and share with friends as we did. Thanks John and Joan for sharing your memories of Spain and Portugal and for being our MPM Test Kitchen Paella guinea pigs!
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To see all of our products from Spain click the button!
And there it is! This week’s update!
To see all the MPM Market goods, including Danzeisen, click the button below.
Dairy order deadline is Monday 2/22 by 9pm for Thursday 2/25 delivery! Other goods available anytime, just let us know when you’d like to shop or if you’d like home delivery.
Thanks and..
