Tapas Express
Fast food gets a bad rep but sometimes quick is exactly what you need and these five express tapas are guaranteed to hit the spot! Whether you’re looking to add some extra dishes to a spread of tapas or needing to rustle something up to satisfy growling stomachs before dinner, look no further than these ridiculously simple, yet moreish recipes!
Read on for tapas recipes for quails’ eggs with jamón, deluxe crisps, pimientos de padrón and melón con jamón. Each of these recipes takes under 10 minutes to prepare so there’s no excuse not to get cooking. Enjoy with an ice cold beer or your favourite red wine (Spanish, of course!)
Quails’ eggs with Ham
These sunny-topped quails’ eggs tapas will bring sunshine to your table! Eat the whole egg in one glorious mouthful of crunchy bread, salty jamón and creamy, runny yolk for the ultimate flavour explosion (and to stop the yolk running down your fingers!)
Ingredients (serves 4)
4 slices baguette, cut diagonally
olive oil
4 slices jamón
4 quails’ eggs
salt
Instructions
- Brush the slices of baguette with a little olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for a few minutes on each side.
- Fry the slices of jamón in a saucepan with a touch of olive oil until perfectly crispy. Remove the jamón from the pan and then add another glug of olive oil. Fry the quails’ eggs until the white is set.
- Top each slice of bread with a piece of jamón and a quails’ egg and season with salt.
Deluxe crisps
Forget minutes, this tapa of crisps topped with anchovies takes literally seconds to prepare! If anchovies aren’t your thing, try top-quality tinned sardines, tuna steaks or mussels instead.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 large bag of top-quality ready salted crisps
1 tin of anchovies in oil
Instructions
- Pour the crisps onto a large plate. Top with anchovies and drizzle with dash of oil from the tin.
Pimientos de padrón
Pimientos de padron are the Russian Roulette of tapas. Some are spicy, some aren’t, and there’s no way of guessing without trying! Eat each pepper in one go and wait to find out if you’ve been lucky or not!
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 bag of pimientos de padron (approx 150g) available in Waitrose and Sainsburys
olive oil
coarse salt, such as Maldon salt flakes
Instructions
- Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil into a large saucepan. Heat on a high heat until hot and then add the whole peppers. Cook for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the skin is blistered and the pepper is cooked through.
- Serve sprinkled with coarse salt.
Melón con jamón
In this tapa, light juicy bites of melon are offset by salty, rich jamón. The key to this ridiculously simply dish is using top-quality ingredients. Make sure your melon is perfectly ripe (it should smell sweet and fragrant) and buy the best jamón you can afford.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1/2 melon – could be canteloupe, galia, piel de sapo
70g jamón
Instructions
- Peel the melon and cut it into large chunks. Top each chunk with a small piece of jamón. Secure with a toothpick if desired.
Have you tried any of these recipes before? What’s your favourite fast tapas recipe? Let us know in the comments below.
