A Culinary Journey Through Spain’s Basque Country — With Chef Shin Soyeong of Maha Kitchen

Culinary Journey in Spain’s Basque Country — Chef Shin Soyeong of Maha Kitchen on Eating Her Way Through the Basque Country

Straddling northern Spain and southwestern France on either side of the Pyrenees, the Basque Country boasts a distinct culture and a rich culinary tradition built on its own language and history. San Sebastian, a world-renowned food city, is often called the heart of Basque cuisine, where tradition and modernity meet. Recalling the summer she spent in the city, Chef Shin Soyeong of Maha Kitchen ^* introduces five tastes of the Basque Country.

Words Shin Soyeong
Illustration Kim Eunbin
* Shin studied arts management before turning to cooking. After graduating from the Luis Irizar cooking school in San Sebastian, Spain, she opened Maha Kitchen, which has now spent ten years serving Spanish dishes created with Korea’s seasonal ingredients. She is the author of a book of Basque cooking adventures and original recipes, ‘Basque Cooking That Makes Me Who I Am.’

Summer in the Basque Country
San Sebastian, in Spain’s Basque Country, was a summer retreat for the aristocracy in the nineteenth century and is now famous for its many Michelin Guide restaurants. It is a city that still holds the leisurely feel of the Belle Époque. The golden City Hall, once a glamorous casino, stands in contrast to the blue sky on clear days. Pass through the square in front of City Hall, decorated with small flowers, and you arrive at La Concha beach. Beyond the white railing that symbolizes San Sebastian, you can see blue-striped parasols and people relaxing beneath them. This is the scene from the summer I worked at a traditional Basque restaurant, just before graduating from cooking school. Between the frantically busy lunch and dinner services, I would lie down for a moment on the sand by the sea. It felt as if my tightly clenched shoulders were melting into the warm sand heated by the sun. Remembering that summer, I have picked five dishes that represent the Basque Country.

Anchoa
The seasonal fish that announces early summer in the Basque Country is the anchoa. It looks similar to the Korean anchovy, though it seems slightly larger. Perhaps because the anchoas caught in summer have come through the winter, they are bigger and meatier than those harvested in autumn. When freshly caught they have a bluish-green sheen that gradually turns blue, and as they begin to spoil, the black deepens. There are many ways to prepare them: marinated raw in vinegar and olive oil, fried, grilled, or simmered in sauce. But the method that lets you enjoy them all year round is salt-curing. The flesh of the anchoa, carefully filleted by grandmothers one piece at a time, is cured in salt and, as time passes, firms up and gains a deep savory flavor. Skewered with a salt-cured olive and guindilla, a traditional fermented Basque chili pepper, it becomes an intensely powerful one-bite appetizer, because salty, sour, and umami-rich ingredients all go into your mouth at once. This dish is called a Gilda, named after the femme fatale heroine played by actress Rita Hayworth in the 1946 American film noir ‘Gilda.’

[Recommended Place]
Restaurante Casa 887
A passionate restaurant run by a Brazilian chef who studied Basque cooking. Be sure to try the crisp toast with tomato sauce topped with anchoa en mariposa (mariposa means ‘butterfly’ and refers to anchovies that are delicately opened out on both sides and cured). It goes down with endless glasses of white wine. Gran Vía 9 entrada por calle Zabaleta, San Sebastian

[Gilda Recipe]
Ingredients
1 jar anchovies, 1 jar pickled olives, 1 jar pickled guindilla peppers, olive oil, skewers
Method
1. Cut the pickled peppers in half.
2. On a skewer, thread an olive, a folded anchovy, two pepper halves, another folded anchovy, and an olive, in that order.
3. Drizzle generously with olive oil.

Pintxos
You have probably heard of them. Spain has a dish called tapas. The word means ‘lid’ in Spanish and refers to small bites and snacks enjoyed with drinks, mostly at bars. Opinions differ on the origin. One theory says that in hot Andalusia, bread was placed over the mouth of a glass to keep insects out. Another says it comes from King Alfonso X of the Kingdom of Aragon in medieval Spain, who ate small meals often to cure an illness. Yet another says Spain learned it from the Arab custom, during their rule, of entertaining guests with a table of many small dishes. There are truly many stories.
Pintxos is the Basque word for tapas. Since pintxo means ‘spike’ or ‘skewer,’ the name is presumed to come from the shape of the food, with various ingredients piled high and held together with a skewer. In recent years, however, any small portion of food that can be enjoyed at any time in any bar in the Basque Country is called pintxos, whether or not it has a skewer. Sometimes the term is used for upscale tapas that involve more effort in ingredients or technique, and sometimes for tapas with a distinctly Basque character, using local ingredients such as salt cod, anchoa, and pickled peppers. In any case, it is undeniable that hopping from bar to bar, enjoying tapas and pintxos and chatting, is the quintessential food culture of the Basque Country and all of Spain, and part of everyday life for Spaniards. Every day around five or six in the evening, you can easily spot small groups enjoying pintxos and wine at standing tables lining the narrow streets of the old town.

[Recommended Restaurant]
Bodega Donostiarra
A great-value spot frequented by locals who care more about taste than looks. Everything on the menu is delicious, but be sure to try the sandwich of cured bonito (a Basque specialty) with guindilla peppers, and the made-to-order mini omelet, which spills out caramelized onions and creamy potatoes. Calle matia 36, San Sebastian

[Pintxo de Gambas Recipe]
Ingredients
12 shrimp, 2 strips bacon, 1/4 onion, 1/4 green pepper, 1/4 bell pepper, 1/4 tomato, 1 clove garlic, 6 pickled olives, 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper, 4 baguette slices
Method
1. Slice the baguette and toast it until crisp in an oven or toaster.
2. Finely chop the onion, green pepper, bell pepper, tomato, garlic, and olives. Sprinkle lightly with salt, let sit, then drain off the liquid and mix well with the vinegar, olive oil, and pepper.
3. Cut the bacon into 3 mm pieces.
4. Thread a skewer with shrimp, bacon, shrimp, bacon, and shrimp, in that order, and season with salt and pepper.
5. Cook the skewers in a frying pan, place them on the baguette, and drizzle with the vinaigrette to finish.

Sidra
One of the Basque Country’s signature traditional drinks is sidra, an apple cider. If you visit the Basque Country during sidra season, between January and April, you can drink it poured straight from enormous chestnut-wood fermentation barrels (spilling it all over the floor). But there is no need to feel too disappointed if you miss that window. Bottled sidra can be enjoyed at any time of year. In the old days, when the first barrel of sidra, made by fermenting the autumn apple harvest through the winter, was opened, traditional instruments were played to spread the news through the whole village and people were called together for a festival. Basque people love sidra so much that every year they visit a cider house called a sagardotegui and buy a year’s worth by the box. Here’s a little aside: the Basque word for apple is sagar, which sounds remarkably like the Korean word for apple, sagwa. Doesn’t it?
Spain has been famous for its wine regions since Roman times, but the ‘drink for everyone’ in the Basque Country and the rest of northwestern Spain is arguably sidra. This is because sidra was the drink enjoyed by the Celts who lived on that land, before the wine tradition that ran from Greece to Christianity. At only 4 to 6 percent alcohol, it is a naturally fermented drink with no added sweeteners or ethanol, and it is so cheap (a 750 ml bottle is usually under 3 euros, or around 5,000 won) that you can drink it anytime without a second thought. The bubbles formed during natural fermentation are lively and refreshing, and because the juice is fully fermented, it is not sweet at all. Sourness stands out, with a hint of saltiness and quite a bit of fermentation funk, yet it is a curious drink that never turns unpleasant.

[Recommended Cider House]
Zapiain Sagardoa
A historic cider house of the Zapiain family, which has grown apples since the sixteenth century. Here you can taste traditional Basque sidra made without any additives or preservatives. Join a guided tour to look around the cider house and sample the sidra produced here. www.zapiain.eus/en/

[Chistorra a la Sidra Recipe]
Ingredients
350g chistorra (fresh sausage), 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 bay leaf, 400ml sidra (Basque cider)
Directions
1. Heat a frying pan, then add the olive oil, the chistorra cut into bite-size pieces, and the bay leaf. Sear for about 3 minutes.
2. Pour in the sidra and simmer until bubbling, about 20 minutes.
Tip) Have some bread ready to dip into the broth, rich with the flavors of the chorizo and cider.

Tortilla
If you had to name the one dish people in Spain, the Basque Country included, eat all the time, it would be tortilla, not paella (the traditional Spanish rice dish). People eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as a snack or a late-night bite, and pack it in lunchboxes. You can have it at home, in a café, or at a bar at any hour, and even fine-dining restaurants serve their own reinterpretations. Countless competitions, from small villages to big cities, are held to decide who makes the best one. The first dish I learned during my internship at a local restaurant was a giant tortilla made with 16 eggs (and tortilla is my favorite Spanish dish, too).
The word tortilla is a diminutive of torta, meaning ‘cake,’ and it simply means something round. The round loaves baked in convents, wheels of cheese, and the flat, round sandwiches of Mexico are all called tortillas. So are the wheat or corn flatbreads of Latin America that most of us know. The potato, which came to Europe from the Americas and only became widely eaten in Spain in the seventeenth century, was an ingredient that filled stomachs in poor and difficult times. The Spanish omelet made with these potatoes, tortilla de patatas, is considered Spain’s national dish today.

[Recommended Restaurant]
Bar Txintxirri
A cozy pintxo bar near the Guggenheim Bilbao, known locally for its tortilla. When you put your fork in, the runny egg spills out, and it is truly delicious. The place is so tiny that you naturally end up sharing a glass of wine and chatting with whoever is sitting next to you at the bar. Juan Ajuriaguerra, Bilbao

[Tortilla de Patatas Recipe]
Ingredients
500g potatoes, 150g onion, 5 eggs, 100ml cooking oil (rice bran oil or olive oil, free of any risk of genetically modified ingredients), salt
Equipment
A nonstick frying pan, 20–25cm in diameter
Directions
1. Thinly slice the onion and cut the potatoes into thin, square slices. Soak the potatoes briefly in water to remove the starch.
2. Put 100ml of cooking oil and the onion in the pan and sauté, seasoning with salt.
3. When the onion turns translucent, add the potatoes and keep sautéing, seasoning with salt.
4. When the potatoes are golden, pour in about 50ml of water, cover, and steam them. Cook until they are so tender they crumble when pressed with a spatula. When done, leave the oil in the pan and set the potatoes aside.
5. Beat the eggs in a bowl, add the sautéed potatoes and onion, and season with salt.
6. Heat the pan from step 4 until hot, then pour in the egg mixture and stir as it cooks.
7. Place a plate over the pan and flip the tortilla to cook both sides evenly.

Salsa Tinta de Calamar (Squid Ink Sauce)
The Basque Country, a holy land of gastronomy, has four distinctive traditional sauces, each a different color. There is salsa verde, the green one made with parsley and fish stock; pil-pil, a white sauce known for its sticky texture from the gelatin in cod skin; salsa vizcaína, the red sauce made with Basque dried peppers and red onions; and finally the black sauce made from squid ink. The squid ink sauce is a color that hardly seems appetizing, but once you have tasted it, you may find yourself drooling every time you see it. The baby squid dish bathed in this black sauce is chipirones en su tinta. The sauce itself is a treat, with slow-cooked sweet onions, tart white wine, and the savory depth of tomato and ink melting together. The squid, plumped up by stuffing the body with its tentacles, is not so much chewy as endlessly tender when you bite into it. It is even better with white rice, which naturally reminds Koreans of jjajangbap (rice topped with black bean sauce). Even now, in the middle of the night as I write this, it is a flavor I find myself craving.

[Recommended Restaurant]
Restaurante Rekondo
Set in the countryside beyond San Sebastian’s old town, this is a place to enjoy traditional Basque cuisine in a refined and elegant way. It is best to whet your appetite with pintxos and txakoli (a traditional sparkling Basque white wine) on the beautiful terrace, then move indoors to continue your meal. The grilled dishes and desserts are also excellent. Its wine cellar is so superb that the restaurant has been recognized in the Restaurant Awards by the American wine magazine ‘Wine Spectator,’ which evaluates wine lists at restaurants around the world to select the best. Even if you do not drink, be sure to ask for a tour of this treasure house! Paseo de Igueldo 57, Donostia

[Chipirones en Su Tinta Recipe]
Ingredients
500g squid, 2 onions, 2 tomatoes, 1 clove garlic, 1 teaspoon squid ink, 500ml fish stock, 100ml white wine, 4 slices baguette, olive oil, salt, skewers
Directions
1. Heat olive oil in a pot and slowly sauté the minced garlic and onions.
2. Add the golden-toasted baguette to the sautéed onions and cook together.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes and the squid ink dissolved in the white wine to the onions, and reduce.
4. Add the fish stock and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes. Blend, then strain through a sieve.
5. Tuck the tentacles into the squid bodies and close them with skewers. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and sear until golden.
6. Pour the sauce from step 4 into the pot, add the seared squid, and simmer until bubbling, about 30 minutes.