Not Just a Man's World

I’m not generally a fan of tapas, certainly not for eating out.  While the principle is fantastic (getting to try lots of different flavours), the reality is that you get almost no food for your money.  However, the other week there were a few things from the Delicatessen counter in the supermarket that were reduced because it was the end of the day and they got me thinking about the idea of giving Chris a sort of antipasti/tapas style meal for that Saturday night.

I struggled to decide whether to call this post “tapas” or “antipasti” because the reality is that it’s got both Italian antipasti and Spanish tapas dishes.  The principle though is lots of small(ish) helpings of different flavoured dishes.

Paleo antipasti and tapas

As you can see from the photo above, we had the following things for our dinner, all of which were reduced in price at the same time (except for the sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts):

• Fresh rocket and radicchio leaves with a drizzle of malt vinegar
• Artichoke hearts marinated in oil, oregano and garlic
• Sundried tomatoes marinated in oil, oregano and garlic
• Black olives (pitted)
• Saucisson
• Chorizo
• Fresh mozzarella (ok, not quite paleo but reduced in the supermarket and delicious since it wasn’t that processed pre-sliced rubbish)
• Chorizo sausage in a tomato sauce (recipe below)

The leftovers also made an excellent Paleo picnic the next day too!

Paleo antipasti and tapas picnic

Chorizo Sausage in a tomato sauce

I cheated a little with this, since the supermarket was selling off some chipolatas that were chorizo-flavoured.  These required pre-grilling and then cutting up into suitable sized pieces, but I’ve cooked something similar to this before and used a stick of proper chorizo.

Paleo chorizo sausage in a tomato sauce

Ingredients (serves 2-4 people, depending on how many other dishes you are serving up with it):
4 tbsp olive oil
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped
½ tsp dried chilli seeds (if you choose to use normal sausage instead of chorizo then you may want to increase this to a full teaspoon)
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
3 inch length of Chorizo sausage, cut into rough ½ inch cubed chunks (or 15-18 chipolata sausages, grilled and chopped into pieces)

Directions:

1. Put the oil and chilli seeds into a pan and heat the oil for a minute or two to release the flavour from the chilli seeds.
2. Add the other ingredients to the pan taking care as the hot oil is likely to spit when you first add the ingredients, even if they are warmed to room temperature.  If you are worried about the oil spitting then put all the ingredients into the pan together at step one.  Mix the ingredients together, cover and simmer on a medium heat for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the lid, add in the sausage, and continue to simmer for a further 5-10 minutes while it reduces slightly, leaving the sausage in a fairly oily paste.

Related posts:

1. Paleo kitchen experiments – roast pork and a tomato sauce
2. Paleo recipes: sausage casserole
3. Paleo recipes: barbecue (BBQ) sauce
4. Paleo recipes: parsley and lemon sauce (for fish)