Easy Tapas Recipes

Therefore, Spaniards often go "bar hopping" (Spanish: Ir de tapas) and eat tapas in the time between finishing work and having dinner. Since lunch is usually served between 1 and 3 p.m., another common time for tapas is weekend days around noon as a means of socializing before lunch proper at home.

It is very common for a bar or a small local restaurant to have 8 to 12 different kinds of tapas in warming trays with glass partitions covering the food. They are often very strongly flavoured with garlic, chilies or paprika, cumin, salt, pepper, saffron and sometimes in plentiful amounts of olive oil. Often one or more of the choices is seafood (mariscos), often including anchovies, sardines or mackerel in olive oil, squid or others in a tomato based sauce, sometimes with the addition of red or green peppers or other seasoning. It is rare to see a tapas selection not include one or more types of olives, such as manzanilla or arbequina olives. One or more types of bread are usually available to eat with any of the sauce-based tapas, and you can prepare all of this by yourself with easy tapas recipes and enjoy the evening with your friends.

In Madrid, Castilla y León, Asturias, Extremadura, and in parts of Andalucia, when you go to a bar and order a drink, you will often get a tapa for free. As a drink, it is usual to ask for a corto (small beer), a chato (glass of wine) or a mosto (grape juice). In several cities, there are entire zones dedicated to tapas bars; each one serving their own unique dish. In León you can find the Barrio Humedo, in Logroño Calle Laurel and in Burgos Calle de la Sombrerería and Calle de San Lorenzo.

Sometimes, especially in Northern Spain, they're also called pinchos (spelled pintxos in Basque) in Navarre, the Basque Country, Cantabria and in some provinces like Salamanca. They're called that because many of them have a pincho or toothpick through them. The toothpick is used to keep whatever the snack is made of from falling off the slice of bread it is attached to and to keep track of the number of tapas the customer has eaten. Differently priced tapas have different shapes or have toothpicks of different sizes. The price of a single tapa ranges from 1.00 to 1.50 euros. Another name for them is banderillas (diminutive of bandera "flag"), in part because some of them resemble the colorful spears used in bullfighting.

In Andalusia, tapas can be "upgraded" to bigger portions, equivalent to half a dish (media ración) or a whole one (ración). This is generally more economical when a tapa is being ordered by more than one person. The portions are usually shared by diners, and a meal made up of raciones resembles a Chinese dim sum, Korean banchan or Middle Eastern mezze.(source: wikipedia)

So why dont you start right now with our Easy Tapas Recipes and enjoy the fun?