Berlin is not by the sea, so fresh seafood is rare here. Ramón Peña's chipirones from Galicia solve that in their own way: butter-soft, not fishy at all, with their own gentle flavor. Thomas Vetter paired them with a Canarian potato salad and a red pepper vinaigrette. The potatoes cook in extremely salty water until a salt crust forms—that's how they do it in the Canary Islands.
Galicia and the Canary Islands · Summer dish
Chipirones with Canarian potato salad
Nothing difficult about it, but it involves three steps, and the potatoes need to cool. For two as a main course, for four as a starter.
Ingredients
For serving · for 2–4 people
For the potato salad
400 g small potatoes, e.g. La Ratte
2 small onions
3 slices of unpeeled lemon
10 peppercorns and 10 allspice berries each
3 cloves, 2 bay leaves
300 g sea salt
150 g cornichons
1–2 red onions
1 bunch of coriander
some flat-leaf parsley
For the red pepper vinaigrette
Preparation
The potatoes
1
Wash the potatoes and add them to a pot with the allspice, pepper, cloves and bay leaves. Peel the onions, cut them into pieces and add them with the lemon slices.
2
Cover with water, stir in the salt and cook until tender. The water must taste like a mouthful of seawater when swimming; only then will a salt crust form. Then drain and let cool completely.
Vinaigrette and serving
3
Peel the peppers with a peeler, remove the seeds and cut them into small pieces. Peel the onion and garlic and cut them into small pieces too.
4
Sauté everything in the pot, add the tomato paste and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add some olive oil, then season with salt and pepper.
5
Remove from the heat, season to taste with Banyuls vinegar, sugar and Piment d'Espelette, and blend until creamy. Then season again.
6
Slice the potatoes and cut the red onion and cornichons into fine strips. Mix everything together, fold in the oil from the chipirones cans, and season with coriander and parsley. Top with the chipirones and drizzle the vinaigrette around.
Tip
Don't be alarmed by the 300 g of salt—almost none of it ends up in the food. The potatoes become savory on their own from the cooking liquid, so you hardly need to add any salt. There will be some vinaigrette left over, which goes well with roasted vegetables the next day.
