Barcelona Part 4 and final - The Boqueria Market and Christopher Columbus column .

A visit to la Boqueria Market, alongside  La Ramblas, in Barcelona is a must!  So many colours, and so many smells  that make your mouth water!  It's a crowded place, so amongst the heaving throng, you need to keep your valuables tucked away!

Here are just a few of the stalls of which I took photos.

Fresh fruit and ice cold fruit drinks.

No shortage of fresh fish and plenty of willing buyers!

Sweets and glacé fruit. Yum!

Fresh fruit and vegetables piled high!

Cheeses, hams, salami and dry sausages. Spoilt for choice!

More sweets and glacé fruits

The children were fascinated by this man in a park making large soap bubbles.

 Christopher Columbus monument;  the scaffolding is certainly not on the scale of that at Sagrada Familia church, but the monument was being cleaned!  Good to know that, in these times of severe economic recession, Spain is looking after its national heritage! The column is 60 m (197 ft) tall and was constructed in 1888.  At the top stands a bronze statue of the man himself, supposedly pointing towards the New World!

At the base there are four staircases, each flanked on either side by lions.

The octagonal base has eight bronze panels, each of which depict important scenes in Columbus's first voyage to the Americas.  See two of them above and below. 

An interesting way of getting around Barcelona; rent an electric 'car'!! Never seen these before anywhere else, but Barcelona seems to pride itself on its  eco approach and I think it's a good initiative, as long as there are enough charging points!

This lady human statue must have had excellent balance, as she was standing motionless on the bike saddle; other than the flicker of her eyelids, there seemed to be no movement! We saw her each day we were there - what a hard way to make a living!  The only time I saw her really move was when we had a sudden shower of rain, and then she took cover very quickly.  Guess if she had not sheltered, the yellow may have ended up in a puddle at her feet!

Last but certainly not least, we could not leave Spain without eating the famous paella! Looking at it now, it does bring back the gastronomic memories!

Sorry I am still finding it difficult to find time to catch up with everyone's blogs but I promise I will do so very soon. I am struggling to keep up with all the bottling and freezing of the fruit and vegetables in the garden. How can anyone say that there is nothing to do in retirement!  I have never been so busy, and of course in summer there is so much going on here in France.

Paella

Firstly, Nigel would like to say thank you for all the birthday greetings and good wishes he received from literally all round the world! He is not one for wanting to be in the spotlight and was therefore overwhelmed by all the publicity, but he was most appreciative nevertheless. :-)

A couple of weekends ago, I bought some Mozambican prawns from the seafood trader at the Saturday market.  I got home and then wondered what I was going to do with them!  I decided that paella sounded a good choice, despite being short of some of the ingredients I would usually use.  I found the following around the house.

Ingredients
About 10 cms or 4 inches chorizo, cut into thin slices
110g/4oz pancetta, cut into small dice
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 tsp soft thyme leaves (1/2 teasp dry, if you have not got thyme in the garden)
1 small chilli, chopped
1 cup of rice
1 tsp paprika
1/2 cup dry white wine
About 3 cups of chicken stock, hot
3 chicken breasts, each chopped in large bite size pieces 

2 to 3 fillets of white fish cut into bite size pieces
1 cup of frozen peas 
1 tin chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter
6 to 8 Large cloves of garlic, separated and peeled
12 prawns, in shells, preferably raw

5 tbsp chopped green parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat half the olive oil in a paella dish or heavy-based non stick frying pan. Add the chorizo and pancetta and fry until crisp. Add the garlic, onion and pepper and heat until softened.
 Add the thyme, chilli  and  rice, and stir until all the grains of rice are nicely coated and glossy. Now add the paprika and dry white wine and when it is bubbling, pour in the hot chicken stock, add the chicken pieces and cook for 5-10 minutes.  

Add the pieces of fish fillet. Sprinkle in the peas and chopped tomatoes and continue to cook gently for another 10 minutes.

Note - I always have hot water on hand, in case the rice takes up more liquid than expected, and I just add a little if the ingredients look a bit dry.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil  and butter with the garlic cloves in a separate pan and add the prawns. Fry quickly for a minute or two then add them to the paella. 

Scatter the chopped parsley over the paella and serve immediately.

For my usual recipe with all the normal ingredients see Here

Add the chorizo and pancetta

 Add the thyme, chilli  and  rice

Chicken, fish and peas added

Fry the prawns and the garlic

Add the prawns to the main dish and serve.

Bon appétit.  

 

See also - My Life Before Charente Updated 18/11/12