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Today, I'm meeting Floren and his wife Mercedes, vegetable growers who supply some of the top chefs in the restaurants in Spain. Chefs who really put Spain on the culinary map. Artichokes. Yeah. What is it in Spanish? Art- Alcachofa. Is it beans? Oh, broad beans, I love them. Yeah. I just discovered you supply Ferran Adrià and um and Juan Mari Arzak with the vegetables. So, you're the vegetable king. He start 25 years ago. So, when Juan Mari is not so famous, Ferran Adrià is not so famous, they start to So, they all of them start together. So, they grow up together. So, you're all a formation of the nouvelle cuisine. You
Floren and Mercedes had the perfect dish to show off their selection of vegetables, a minestra, which is like a thick soup made entirely from young vegetables. There are runner beans, which take about 30 seconds to blanch. And Floren chops up some borage stalks. That's a new one. I've only had it in Pimm's. He then blanches those, too. Next, he shows me how he prepares the young, freshly picked artichokes. They're soft enough to be peeled and the flower part of the tip removed and then split in half.
We thought this artichoke we cook yesterday. Good lord. How come they're sort of turquoise green? Just water and salt. Water and salt? And so, the water have to be 2,000 magnesium. Is it a word? And more. And the water from here have this I don't think I could do a recipe for it. It's a great color. Oh, I've got to get that. I've got to take that back to my restaurant. Now, we're going to clean the asparagus. We going to show you how we clean, right? We peel out like that. I love gadgets. Can I just have a look?
Yes, of course. Oh, I've got to have one of those. I'm surprised This is Floren hasn't got his name on it. This one, the other one. He's going to present to you his name. Oh, I'm very And go with you everywhere you go. He's going to remember us, Tudela, and our gadgets for This for you. A present to you. He's going to be your partner in your trip. So The asparagus will take about 5 minutes to soften, and Floren is ready to start the final part of the process.
He's frying off onions, again picked a minute ago from his waiter, along with some young tender garlic stalks, and all of that stage straight out of the ground. They're mild and subtle. Now he adds flour because the menestra is quite thick. That will absorb some of the oil while it cooks out, and then for the stock. He uses a cupful of water from the asparagus, and another from the electric soup. I mean, that is great. It looks a bit like something out of science fiction, but I mean, that will give this the finished menestra such a lovely green spring-like color.
Now he puts in the artichokes. The thing about this dish is that you use whatever is in season when it's just at its tippy-top best, and I think it's a great thing to cook in an allotment. That's if you get the weather. I like these baby broad beans, sweet and tender. They'll take seconds to soften. And now for the asparagus. The Spanish love their fat white asparagus. Look at that green now. Just the water? I just somehow can't believe it. Then more runner beans, one of my favorite vegetables, fresh and young. And lastly, tiny peas, which Florin calls the caviar of the land. It's lovely watching this in this allotment. Lovely cooking outdoors, you know, cuz it seems right. You can go and pick the artichokes. So the broad beans.
You know, the queen of the vegetable, right? King, king, king. Sorry. Well, but he has long hair, SO MAYBE. WELL, IT'S TIME FOR LUNCH. AND THAT, I'm pleased to say, means a glass or possibly two of wine. Although not as famous as its neighbor Rioja, I think the wines here in Navarra are just as good. You see what I mean about this dish? It is just like a thick soup. So brindamos, no? Salud. A salud. Cheers. Por Ricky.
