An Introduction To Basque Pintxos - Recipe For Olive, Anchovy And Piquillo Skewers
by Nicola Lando
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10 minutes prep time
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0 minutes cook time
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Easy
Basque pintxos are essentially small tapas or canapés popular in the Basque Country and Navarra. They get their name from the Spanish word for thorn, ‘pincho’, referring to the skewer picks that are used to keep them together. The difference in spelling comes from Basque phonetics, with ‘tx’ being preferred over the Spanish ‘ch.’
However, to compare Basque pintxos to tapas and canapés doesn’t do them justice – everywhere you go in the Basque Country bar counters are piled high with a mouth-watering array of the best local ingredients sumptuously and lovingly composed into teetering towers. In some bars you’ll find cutting-edge trends and molecular gastronomy in miniature, whilst in others you’ll find simpler, classic combinations.
Pintxos are always accompanied by a drink and many people hop from one bar to the next drinking and eating as they go (known as to 'txikitear') which makes pintxos ideal for a Christmas or New Year’s Eve celebration. What's more, pintxos can be delightfully simple to prepare which is perfect for this time of year when there's so much going on.
These olive, anchovy, piquillo skewers can be prepared in just a few minutes and use only store cupboard ingredients - wonderfully salty, but the palate is soothed by the sweet roasted piquillo pepper at the end.
Traditional Basque food is all about simplicity which is why presentation really comes into play in making the pintxos stand out in the festive season. Bamboo skewers are a neutral, elegant way of keeping different ingredients together whilst miniature spoons are perfect for delivery saucy morsels straight into the mouths of your hungry guests!
As the Christmas season approaches we’ll be putting together some ideas for classic Basque pintxos recipes that are straightforward to prepare and assemble in advance:
Cod in a rich vizcaina sauce made from choricero peppersPiquillo peppers stuffed with bonito
Chorizo glazed in membrillo atop a square of manchego chees
Olive anchovy and piquillo skewers
Chorizo cooked in cider
Ingredients Serves: 20
- 110g pitted green olives
- 2 x 50g tins anchovies in olive oil
- 1 can piquillo pepper strips (or whole piquillo peppers cut into strips)
- bamboo skewers
Method
- Drain all the ingredients to remove excess oil.
- Then, simply arrange a strip of pepper, an anchovy and a green olive on each bamboo skewer
About the author
Nicola Lando is the co-founder and CEO of Sous Chef, where she has spent more than a decade sourcing, tasting and selecting specialist ingredients, cookware and tableware from producers around the world.
She trained at Leiths and later completed a stage at a Michelin-starred London restaurant, experiences that helped shape Sous Chef’s original mission: to give home cooks access to the same exceptional ingredients used by professional chefs.
Today, Nicola leads much of Sous Chef’s product sourcing and ingredient selection, working directly with producers and travelling internationally to food fairs, farms, mills and manufacturers. She tastes thousands of products each year and has built deep expertise across storecupboard ingredients, olive oil, condiments, spices, preserved foods and specialist cooking ingredients.
She holds an olive oil sommelier certification from ESAO in Spain, Imperial Executive Education’s Certificate in Nutrition for Health: Evidence-Based Tools and Strategies certificate; as well as studying Food Safety and Control at University of Greenwich.
Nicola also writes recipes and ingredient guides for Sous Chef, combining practical cooking experience with first-hand knowledge from producers, suppliers and specialist food makers. Her work focuses on helping cooks understand how to choose better ingredients, use them well, and get more flavour from their cooking.
