• There are seven major islands in the Canaries: La Palma, El Hierro, La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote
• All canaries (the birds) descend from birds native to the Canaries (the islands). The name of the islands came first, allegedly named by the Romans when they encountered fierce dogs kept by the native population. (And so called the island 'Gran Canaria', and the people canarii, because they kept the dogs; canine being Latin for dog, of course. )
• The islands have been under Spanish rule since 1495.
• The indigenous population is called the Guanches.
• Fuerteventura, which has a dry desert climate (only 18 days of rain a year, on average), still has more goats than people.

Some of the ingredients for mojo picón: red pepper, dried pepper, garlic

So even if my facts are iffy, no matter-- there's your primer! Anyway, back to the treats. Although the food encountered is mostly mainland Spanish (jamón serrano, tapas, bocadillos), we did find a few things unique to the Canaries. The main indigenous Canarian food staple is gofio, a toasted grain flour that is used to make porridge and desserts. You could maybe call it the poi of the Canaries. I had never seen gofio on mainland Spain, and so I bought a bag of it at the grocery, where there was an entire section of the various types of gofio. (Some consist of corn, barley, wheat, or a mixture of the different grains.) I'm going to try to reproduce the one gofio item that I ate that was delish: a dessert called mus de gofio, or gofio mousse. All the recipes I've seen so far differ immensely (some call for egg yolks, like a traditional mousse, and others call for condensed milk as a sweetener, with no egg). Hopefully I'll figure it out and post it, without wasting the whole kilo of gofio in the process!

Other Canarian specialties are queso majorero (Canarian goat cheese), and anything involving goat meat, such as roasted cabrito (roasted kid goat). (Fuerteventura has a lot of goats because of the non-vegetation-friendly climate there-- there are barely any trees on the island!) The food preparation that most captured our attention was mojo. Not mojo like Austin Powers, but mojo-- pronounced 'mo-ho'-- as in a sauce. It is basically the Romesco sauce of the Canaries, and comes in different incarnations: red mojo (the most common), green mojo, goat cheese mojo, etc. It is apparently used on nearly everything, but most commonly found on papas arrugadas, or 'wrinkled potatoes'. These are small potatoes boiled in their skins in sea water then cooked dry until they gain a wrinkly appearance. Mojo is then poured on top and it is served as the most common tapa in the Canaries. I bought a bottle of the mojo picon, the red pepper mojo, but decided to just try to make my own at home. After going through various recipes (in Spanish and English!) here's what I came up with. It is actually really similar to Romesco-- many recipes even call for almonds-- but all seemed to have the North African touch of cumin, which gives it a bit of a different flavor. Many recipes seem to call for the spicy dried red pepper found in the Canaries, but as that isn't very common, I used a typical dried red pepper, like the type found in Asian grocery stores, and used a bell pepper to give it fresh flavor, color and also to control the spiciness. (There was no point in using several dried peppers-- all you would taste is spicy and nothing else.) I came pretty close to the mojos that I had while there, and you can further adjust it to taste by using more or less vinegar as well.

Canarian Mojo Picón
makes about 1 cup of sauce

Ingredients:
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 dried red pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 small red bell pepper, diced, seeds and stem removed
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Remove the seeds from the dried red pepper. Soak it in boiling water for at least 2 hours.
2. Mash the dried pepper in a mortar and pestle. Add the cumin seeds, garlic and salt, and pound until a paste is formed.
3. Place the paste in a blender or food processor. Add the bell pepper, vinegar and olive oil, and process until smooth.

The sauce is traditionally served with papas arrugadas. You can substitute steamed or boiled new potatoes. I had larger potatoes on hand last night, so I roasted them instead, with olive oil and salt, and they tasted crazy good with the mojo.

Labels: recipes, the savory and salty, travel