¡Angulas son deliciosos!
Last night I had the treat of dining at Solera, a great, authentic midtown Spanish restaurant, and I got to try their angulas. Angulas, baby eels, elvers, or txitxardin in Catalan are a delicacy from the northern Spainish Basque region. The main ingredient in this $300 dish resembles a piece of short spaghetti with eyes protruding from one end. The taste is quite subtle and far less fishy than fully matured eel.
Due to their small size and delicate nature cooking angulas can be quite challenging. Cook for too long and they shrivel up into a tough, tasteless mess. Add the wrong ingredients and their subtle flavor can get lost in the shuffle. The Basque people have perfected the art of angulas by preparing a cazuela (or small ceramic dish) with olive oil, sliced garlic and one dried, red chilli pepper. The dish is then heated until the oil is nice and hot and the garlic turns brown. The angulas are quickly thrown in as the dish is taken off the heat. They are then served sizzling in the hot oil with a wooden fork for eating.
The special wooden fork is an essential part of the angulas experience. A regular metal fork can actually impart a metallic taste onto these tiny little creatures. Their slippery texture also makes the wooden fork far more practical for scooping them out of the hot dish and into your salivating mouth.
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