tapas for the Lunar New Year, why not?

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My 2018 started off with tikoy, so why not make the real Lunar New Year, ushering in the Year of the Dog, have an international flavour by eating tapas?

No, not the Filipino tapa, which is a form of beef jerky. I mean Spanish tapas... the likes of which I love so much that I go to the Vask Tapas Bar and to the Black Pig for my occasional fix. I thought that this time I could make some DIY tapas because I have Phaidon's The Book of Tapas now... I could widen the repertoire of dishes I could prepare (so I don't have to resort to sinigang all the time).

The two tapas I chose to try preparing were mushroom and olive salad and rice with tomato, bell pepper, and pork loin. They prove to be easy to prepare; but because it's my first try at Spanish cuisine, I found the cooking method to be quite distinct from what I learned growing up. For instance, in Filipino cuisine, we typically sauté onions and garlic before we add the rest of the ingredients. But for the dishes I prepared, the onion and the garlic were added into the pan or the pot after the tomatoes and the bell peppers. This avoided the burning of the onion and the garlic, I think. Also, the rice is sautéed first before stock is added into the pot... similar to risotto but definitely foreign to the rice preparation method I grew up with. 

Because I tend to cook in bulk and then just eat the food in small portions (unless I am having people over for lunch or dinner), the tapas, in their containers, absolutely do not look like tapas!

Mushroom and olive salad

Rice with tomato, bell pepper, and pork loin

The dishes were delicious! Because I had such an encouraging start, I'd like to try a few more dishes from the recipe book. 2018 will be the year I try to avoid fast food so I'm going to cook and eat at home as much as I can.

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