Hoy vamos a hablar de un lugar con encanto, un lugar conocido por abuelos, padres e hijos, ya que al ser una antigua parada del tranvía ha sido accesible para todas las generaciones. Desde hace años, siendo un lugar de encuentro y de baño de los granadinos. Se trata del Restaurante Maitena, situado en la antigua estación del Tranvía que iba de Granada a Sierra Nevada, donde se unen los ríos Genil y Maitena.

Bienvenidos a la Estación de Maitena./ MFB

Es un lugar acogedor y con varios puntos destacables. Con su gran piscina natural en verano, en la que nos podemos dar un refrescante baño situada justo al pie de la terraza, podemos degustar estupendos platos caseros. Esto es uno de los mayores atractivos de este lugar, además del excepcional paraje en el que se encuentra ubicado. Se ha conseguido además un encanto especial al cubrir la terraza con materiales vegetales, que junto al río dan una frescura especial al lugar.

La piscina natural junto a la terraza comedor, otro de los encantos del lugar.

Otro de sus puntos fuertes es la comida casera: papas a lo pobre, migas, setas a la plancha, choto al ajillo, morcilla… Por un precio más que razonable hace que sea un lugar ideal para ir a pasar un buen día con la familia.

La terraza comedor a la orilla del río; el mejor lugar para el verano./ MFB

Pero no solo es un lugar a disfrutar en verano, ya que en invierno se puede disfrutar de sus platos caseros al acogedor calor de la chimenea.

tel 958484150 / 958484919

Calle Estación Maitena, s/n
Güéjar Sierra
Granada 18160

Ensalada tropical, una de las especialidades de la casa./ MFB

Setas a la plancha con jamón./ MFB

Entrecot con papas a los pobre./ MFB

I’m pretty sure it’s the first time ever I’ve cooked entirely by myself for someone else. Me and my wife agreed that sometime after the tests it would happen, and we settled on Thursday. During the week I started planning. My wife sent me a few websites with recipies, and I consulted the Åsna. Something that looks fancy but is pretty easy to make. She suggested to take “some meat”, fry it in a frying pan, add salt and pepper and just before it’s ready throw on some vinegar, to make it more tender. And then to take out the meat and use that stuff that’s left to make a gravy by adding cream and salt and pepper. Sounded pretty ok. I had no idea what kind of “some meat” I could take, but I thought I’d figure it out. Probably some beef fillet or cutlet, or maybe mutton if that’s not too expensive?

After that I searched those recipe sites for something potato-like. I found two recipies that I liked and improvised a mix between them. One was sliced oven roasted sweet potatoes (sliced as orange segments). I liked the idea, but it seemed a bit boring. Just olive oil, salt and pepper and nothing else. Then I found a potato recipe for the oven with pretty much the same things, but also garlic slices and something that was called “salvia” in Swedish (sage). I didn’t even know what that was, but I wikipedia’ed it on Swedish wikipedia and then clicked the “Hebrew” button next to it for the Hebrew word. Marvah. Ok, so if I see something called “marvah” in the shop, it’s woth checking out. If not, I’ll just do this with garlic only. Then I made a search for “colorful salad” and found a lense salad. I didn’t want lenses, but the rest of the salad looked ok, and so did the proposed dressing. It used both vinegar and olive oil which I was going to buy for the other stuff in any case. So there we go. Some sort of meat with a cream based gravy, sweet potato slices in oven with something on, and a colorful salad. Yesterday evening I went through the kitchen to see what was available and what was needed to be bought.

As I came to the supermarket I found that Marvah thing. Ok, worth a shot. The wine based vinegar looked really exclusive and fancy, but it had exactly the same name as the recipe, so I took it. In the meat section I saw entrecotes. Fine and ready, in packages of two each. Could it be more perfect? Just to make sure I asked the butcher there if that was for frying. He said “sure, 3 minutes tops”. I bought some fancy chocolate for dessert also (I’m not going to bake dessert, there’s some limit to my abilities), but totally forgot about something to drink. Wine would have been perfect for this meal, but it turned out that the little we had left is needed for the shabbat. Never mind. We drank Mango juice instead. I also bought Tsiftit. The Swedish salad recipe suggested cutting up feta cheese, but we both prefer tsiftit (usually known as “safed cheese” in English. Google it).

Then I came home, my wife went to our bedroom with her laptop to study and leave me alone in the kitchen. I started by turning on the oven letting it heat up and then clear some space. I figured I’ll make this potato thing first, and do the rest of the things while the potaotes are in the oven. So I cut up the sweet potatoes and one regular potato. Then I put it all on an oven pan with olive oil salt and pepper and shoved it into the oven and turned on the clock. I set it on 5 minutes less than needed, because 5 minutes before I needed to add the garlic and the sage. So now I had 20 minutes to fry the meat, cook the sauce, cut the salad, make the dressing and cut nice thin slices of garlic to add to the pan with sage leaves.

The meat took more than 20 minutes to get ready. I turned them over quite often and had it on low heat to make sure it gets cooked thouroughly. There’s nothing worse than meat that is burned on the outside and raw on the inside. When it looked ready I took a knife and cut in one of them. Still blood red inside. Fry longer. While I waited for that I started to cut the salad. But the worry for having it burned made me stop every other second to check on it and turn something over. I got a few vegetables cut, but nothing more. Then the meat was finally done, and I sprinkled on some vingegar and turned it over a couple of more times to make sure it melted and sank in real good on both sides. Then I took out the meat and poured in cream to make the gravy. Added salt and pepper. Then I turned to the vegetables again, and back to stir the gravy that had started to bubble. More cream, maybe a little bit vinegar… some more cream. Back to cut vegetables. Then all of a sudden beep-beep-beep, the potatoes alarm started to scream. Darn! I haven’t cut any garlic yet! And now it’s five minutes before it needs to be done. And the gravy is bubbling up again.

Breath… breath… put the salad aside for a while… turn of the gas underneath the gravy. Take out the potatoes from the oven and let them sit outside while you cut the garlic… there now…

Ok, potatoes stirred around a little, garlic and sage and a bit more olive oil  added and done. Pan has been put back in the oven, and alarm is set for five minutes. Then I poured the gravy to a smaller cooking pan (instead of continuing with the same frying pan where I made the meat) and made some test tastes until I was satisfied with the result. Cut another vegetable, and the oven was done. Ok, food is done salad is not. Uhm… honey…? Heeeelp… how do I keep food warm…? It’s all done but the salad isn’t….! How the heck do you manage to get everything ready exactly at the same time..? Covering it up? Ok, I can do that, most of the pans have lids… here we go… ok, cut more vegetables, make a salad, take out the tsiftit… oh crap, more dishes for me. This salad bowl is to small I need to pour it all over to another one. Ok, and now we make the dressing. Olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar, squished garlic, water… and shake it around before I pour it on the salad. There, done!

Honey, dinner’s ready!

This was the first time ever I planned, shopped and cooked an entire meal by myself for someone else. I know my dad will shake his head in disbelief when he reads this, and I totally agree. It’s not ok to do that for the first time ever when you’re almost 27. But good news, it works. I apparently can cook (more or less). I even improvised the recipies on my own, mixed two recipies together, and it worked out great. The taste that sage gave the potatoes was really interesting… never had anything like it. A bit too salt, I will keep that in mind for the next time. Now I also know how long time some of the things take so I’ll be able to plan my time better when needed.

I created something today. It was yummy.

Por estos locutorios ya andan preparando todo para el gran programa televisivo: elefantes, niños que cantan, humoristas, malabaristas, millones y millones de bailarines… o por lo menos eso parece. En Pakistán las bibliotecas deben tener los decibelios que registramos aquí en el Katmandhú a las cuatro de la mañana. La ciudad, dicen, es muy ruidosa. Pues éste engendro de negocio debe ser ruido relleno de gente. Se la toman de merienda-cena. Como Pepe “El Uña” se tomó aquel entrecot.

Y es que en torno a la figura del nulamente camaleónico Pepe “El Uña” -el único español más encasillado que Antonio Resines-, han surgido muchas leyendas. De cómo su encorvada figura se infiltra por la noche flamenca de la capital, nos quedaremos con la versión más romántica porque, como bien se ha criticado del blog, últimamente estoy muy melancólico. 

Pepe era un gran bailarín. Eso dicen. Pero por lo visto con duende y toda esa mierda del márketing flamenco. La ostia tú. No a nivel los chavalitos del Fama, que ves a los papás viéndo el programa como locos. Y sus mujeres preguntándose por qué, si su marido no las quiere llevar a bailes de salón, se flipan con el programa. Manolo Lama tiene la respuesta: las chavalas. Y los chicos especiales.  

Pues para Pepe bailar no era su sueño. Su sueño eran ocho horas, más una siesta andaluza -que, según la OMS oscila entre las 3 y las 5 horas-, y el bailar sólo era un buen método para comer, beber, fumar, vivir y follar (follar, y su fase previa de Champions: ligar). Pero hete aquí -esto es muy de cuento, cómo mola- que se enamoró de una gitanaza de éstas, jaca jerezana, jamona, de las que se te ponen encima y te hacen más cosas que un móvil de última generación. Ella, rehuyendo del duende, del arte, y de los pepinillos en vinagre (ayer en la Patas el calvo con dientes de caballo casi me mata -y no es un recurso daliniano, es que es así), decidió que a Pepe le dieran por el mismísimo culo, y se largó con un gitano de éstos que nacen con el pelo brillante.

Y Pepe, como era otro tiempo, y no tenía ese rollo newyorkino de ahora, que si te dejan tú tienes que reaccionar como si estuvieras comiendo una valenciana de Hacendado, se volvió loco. Loco de amor. Y probablemente protagonizó la letra de algún cantante melódico latino, y su historia da la vuelta en los cedés de millones de pubs casposos de nuestro país y, cruzando el charco, de ese pub casposo que es latinomérica (a ver, siempre desde el respeto). 

Y desde entonces, cuando cae la luna, sale entorno a Lavapiés, con la uña de su dedo meñique tan sucia como larga, con ese mal afeitado de anuncio, con ese abrigo y bufanda que no suelta hasta agosto -que viste el modelo blanco/Wimbledon-, con ese pelo grasiento que refleja las miserias de un barrio al que lanza la súplica: “Amigo, amigo -llama la atención- ¿Un porrito me darías?”

Amigos: vigilen sus entrecots