- Hello friends, it's Lee Kalpakis,
and we just helped our jet-setter friend Zaneta
cook an amazing tapas spread for her guests,
so stick around to see how we did it.
Welcome back to beautiful, sunny Park Slope.
We're about to meet up with Zaneta.
She's a busy teaching fellow who wants
to prove to her friends that throwing a dinner party
can both be budget-conscious
and worldly, so let's go meet her.
Zaneta, let's start with the fellowship
that you're involved with.
- I'm here in New York on an Atlas Corps fellowship
and I get to work with over 40 international
partners and over 40 different countries.
- You're busy doing really interesting things,
but it sounds like you don't
really have that much time, right?
- Yeah, no, short on time and also short on cash.
So with like all of my international background,
I would really love to tie into
some of the places I've lived, and I spent
a semester studying abroad in Spain,
so I thought tapas might be like a fun cheap way
to have a lot of good things to eat.
- What was your favorite thing looking back on that time?
- Oh my God, it's so easy: tortilla Española.
- It's filling, and it's potatoes and eggs,
so we can definitely fit that into the budget.
I think that that could be like the star of our show.
- Perfect.
- When I think tapas, I think pan tomate:
How do you feel about that?
- Yeah, I like that.
- Maybe we could do something a little daintier,
maybe like a stuffed olive?
- Oh my gosh, yes.
- We could even fry them.
- Wow.
- How do you feel about sardines?
- Who doesn't love sardines?
- I love sardines, sardines with potato chips.
We could do a marinated sardine
that could be really, really good.
And then we need something sweet
to sorta counterbalance all the savory.
We could do kalimotxos.
- Yes, I think that's perfect,
'cause like they're not big on desserts.
- I think that that sounds perfect.
How do you feel about this menu?
- That menu sounds amazing, and
I think my friends will love it, too.
- Awesome.
Hey guys, Zaneta and I are back in the Thrillist kitchen
and we're ready to get crackin' on our tapas. So, vamanos.
Let's start off with our tortilla:
warm up our olive oil, garlic,
then I'm gonna add our onions
and potatoes that are cut about a quarter-inch thick.
Give that a little stir -- we want to make sure
that the oil is coating all of our potatoes.
While our potatoes cook, let's get started on our eggs, OK?
So we have eight eggs, and we're just gonna add
a little bit of salt and whisk them up.
We're also gonna add some roasted red peppers.
Our potatoes look done, so now let's mix them
all together with our eggs -- let's mix them gently, too,
because we want to make sure
we want to keep the nice shape of the potatoes.
Let's add a little bit more oil to our pan,
pour our mixture back in. We're gonna let this hang out
for a few more minutes, just so that
the sides of the eggs starts to set.
So now we're gonna throw it in the oven
for like 15 or 20 minutes at 375.
While our tortilla is baking,
let's get started on our aioli.
I'm gonna add our roasted red peppers,
two cloves of garlic, a little bit of salt,
and we're going to blitz those guys together.
Now that we have a paste consistency,
we're going to add egg yolks,
the juice of half a lemon, some more salt.
So now for our olive oil, you can go ahead
and stream that in nice and slow.
Our aioli is done -- I'm gonna set that aside,
and I'm gonna grab our tortilla.
It's beautiful.
- It's so attractive.
- It looks like a painting.
I'm gonna use this big guy.
We're gonna hold our breath, and let's
invert this bad boy... OK, here we go.
- And you stuck the landing.
- Oh my God, look at that.
Let's stuff these olives, are you ready?
Here we go, let's start with our stuffing.
We have some feta cheese, two tablespoons
of parsley chopped, some olive oil, about a tablespoon.
Let's make 'em a little spicy and add
some red pepper flakes and a little salt and pepper.
You have a little spoon, I got a little spoon --
you ready to stuff them?
All right.
Just take a little bit and just push it in there.
Our olives are stuffed. We're gonna
dredge 'em down and fry 'em up, as I always say.
We're gonna put them in the flour, toss them in egg,
and roll it in our bread crumb, and that's it.
Our oil is at a medium-high; it's around 360 right now.
We're doing a shallow fry, and these really only take
like under a minute to cook -- it's really fast,
so we just pop 'em in and then we pull 'em out.
Let's get started on our pan tomate.
Cut this loaf lengthwise,
and then I'm gonna open it up and cut it
into like 3-inch pieces.
Gonna place these guys on our baking sheet
and drizzle them with a little bit of olive oil.
So now we're gonna put these under the broiler
for about three minutes, and we're gonna
take 'em out when they just start to char a little bit.
You wanna get started on grating the tomatoes?
- Sure.
- I've checked on our bread, and it's perfect.
- It looks wonderful.
- Let's take our raw garlic and
let's start working on rubbing each piece.
Are you ready to add our tomato?
All right let's do it: spoon a little bit
onto each one.
OK, let's taste.
Cheers. - Cheers.
- I feel like this is all about texture, right?
- And the garlic is in there real good.
- For our marinated sardines,
we're gonna start with about a quarter cup of olive oil,
and add our sardines, so we're using one tin of sardines
and these are really affordable and they're super-flavorful.
I'm gonna add a pinch of red pepper flake
and some sliced garlic and some cracked pepper.
Coat the sardines, and I'm gonna break our sardines apart,
so now that our garlic is tender.
Let's go ahead and add our lemon zest,
our parsley, and squeeze that lemon into it,
I'm gonna add a little salt,
give it a little mix.
We have our marinated sardines done,
we have our potato chips.
Our tapas are all finished, and it's finally kalimotxo time.
- Kalimotxo time.
- We're gonna start with our red wine,
and while you add that, I'm gonna add our cola.
We're gonna add some lemon peel,
lemon peel around our rims.
Let's cheers.
- Cheers.
So refreshing - So refreshing,
it's crazy how a cheap bottle of booze
and some soft drink can be so complex and sophisticated.
- So good.
- Yeah, it's so good.
How are you feeling about our tapas spread?
- [Zaneta] Really good.
- [Lee] You think your friends will like it?
- [Zaneta] Yeah, and there's so many different things,
like they're not gonna believe it was $30 first of all.
- [Lee] I'm impressed that we did it.
I think it's gonna be great.
- [Zaneta] I'm super excited.
- [Lee] Well cheers to that.
- Cheers. - Yeah girl.
- I think that all the things we've come up with
are really good, really exciting and different
and I think the whole meal comes together really well.
All right guys, this is some pan tomate,
this is our drink tonight, it's kalimotxo,
these are some deep-fried stuffed olives,
these are some sardines, and this is tortilla Española,
which is a Spanish omelet with potatoes and red peppers.
- I'm not sure what to expect.
- Well I like tapas, but it's usually
really small portions and fairly expensive.
- Me too.
- You're gonna be serving now, Lucy,
but you need the work.
- Arriba! - Arriba!
- Abajo, al centro, adentro.
- Yay, cheers.
- The bread's amazing.
- Isn't the bread really good?
- It's really good.
- The chips taste really good with the sardines.
- Oh cool.
- Is there cheese in the tortilla?
- No, no cheese.
- Mm, Zaneta, those olives are amazing.
- They're really good, right?
- Usually the olive tastes like chewy --
I hate that -- but these taste a little more like crisp.
- The texture's a lot better.
- Yeah.
- Mm, so is it just wine and cola?
- That's it, yeah, it's just wine and like
the smaller bottle of cola, you just mix them together.
- My favorite part was the drinks, the kalimotxo.
I think it's a great way to turn
some cheap red wine into something great.
- This is a good combination with the sauce on the top.
- [Zaneta] Oh yeah, you're innovating, put it on the bread.
- I know, and I haven't tried it with the bread on.
- My favorite dish is the tortilla
and the sardine. I can't believe it's from a canned food.
- The tapas was really, really good.
- I'm full, which is great -- that doesn't happen a lot
with tapas, and I am quite drunk, so it's amazing.
- Everything was a hit, and people said that they would
like to make some of the stuff themselves, which is great.
- Well, that's a wrap on that one.
Zaneta brought her friends to Spain
by killing it with the tapas game,
and she didn't even have to leave the tri-state area.
So, uh, see you next week.
Hope you enjoyed that episode!
Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share,
and be sure to check out the recipe on Thrillist.com.