Tollos en salsa are a traditional dish from the Canary Islands, which are usually prepared to enjoy during Holy Week. However, they are also made at any time. Discover how to make them with this recipe.
As happens in many areas of our geography, the Canary Islands also have their traditional gastronomy at Easter. Gastronomy formed by a wide range of menus and also by the traditional pastries of all the Canary Islands during those days in which Holy Week is celebrated.
Seafood products are the star these days, mainly salted fish, although menus are also made with fresh fish.
Among the menus that are made these days with fish, we highlight the following: the sancocho de cherne, the tollos in sauce, fish with onion, fish salad, octopus spatter, roe spatter, yellow rice with fish and squid, yellow rice with octopus , yellow rice with tuna, squid in sauce, octopus in sauce, fried octopus, old octopus clothing …
But there are also many other typical dishes, such as fish with boiled mojo, assorted fried fish, boiled old woman, boiled fish with boiled potatoes and mojo, squid in sauce, cuttlefish in sauce, baked fish, marinated tuna, cod with chickpeas and spinach, fish croquettes, spinach and tuna croquettes… While, among the soups, the so-called Lent soup, chickpea and spinach soup, stands out.
To complete a good menu and give us a good taste in our mouths, Canarian desserts and pastries are also quite rich and varied.
And what about the wonderful Canarian desserts? Among those that are prepared to taste these days we highlight the flour pancakes, the pumpkin and banana pancakes, the torrijas, the roasted milk, the frangollo, donuts, sweet potato buns, fritters, rice pudding, fried donuts, orange donuts and the donuts.
Tollos in sauce recipe
At this time of Holy Week is when they are most seen and we can get the tollos in the fishmongers, along with salted fish.
The tollos are strips of meat from a small shark in the Canary Islands is known as dogfish, they are also another way to take advantage of remains left of the dogfish. These strips are hung and left to dry in the sun, then prepare them in sauce or simply eat them dry.
Tollos en salsas are a dish that is made at Easter along with other typical fish recipes from the Canary Islands.
A few days before we go to prepare the recipe, we must take into account soaking the tollos in water and making the water changes while the soaking lasts, at least two days before and water changes every 8 hours and keep it between changes and changes in the fridge.
The recipe that we present below is a recipe with a history, as it is a recipe passed down from generation to generation, specifically the memories take me back to childhood when my grandmother prepared it and my mother also.
Well if you are curious about preparing this dish, then we provide the ingredients and the steps to make it, surely they will be very tasty.
Ingredients:
- 500 grams of previously soaked tollos.
- 3 chopped onions.
- 4 cloves of garlic without skin and chopped.
- A pepper without seeds and in pieces.
- A chorizo pepper without seeds and hydrated.
- 250 grams of peeled and seedless ripe tomatoes.
- A teaspoon of sweet pepper.
- One teaspoon of ground cumin.
- A sprig of dried or fresh thyme.
- A bay leaf.
- 3 sprigs of minced parsley.
- A few threads of saffron.
- Salt (optional), first taste.
- A pinch of ground black pepper.
- A glass of white wine.
- Virgin olive oil.
- Water.
Elaboration:
- The chorizo pepper must be hydrated by soaking it in water for at least two hours before starting to cook the tollos.
- Once it is hydrated, we remove it from the soak and with the help of a knife we remove the meat well and reserve it for frying. We remove the tollos from the soak and wash them well.
- We put the tollos in a cauldron and cover them with water, light the fire and cook the tollos over moderate heat until it begins to boil.
- When it starts to boil, we turn off the heat, drain the water and reserve the tollos in the cauldron to prepare the sauce.
- In another cauldron we put a small pot of oil to poach the onions, when they begin to be soft we add the pieces of red pepper, the diced tomatoes, the meat of the chorizo pepper, and stir everything a little.
- When the frying is almost ready, add the white wine, raise the heat so that the wine evaporates, reduce the heat again and add the spices (bay leaf, thyme, black pepper) and keep the heat to a minimum.
- In a mortar we crush the garlic cloves with the sweet paprika, the cumin, a pinch of salt, we crush well, we remove it with a spoon and we add it to the frying.
- We stir the frying well, cook everything together for another 5 minutes over low heat. Add the frying on top of the tollos, cover with a little water, just to cover, and a few strands of saffron. We cook the tollos with moderate heat until they are tender.
- Once they are tender, we turn off the fire. At the time of serving it, we will present it with chopped parsley on top.
Tollos in sauce are usually accompanied by boiled or boiled potatoes, as here in the Canary Islands we call cooked potatoes.
They can also be accompanied by some wrinkled potatoes.
