Recommendations

Tortillitas de camarones with Tío Pepe Fino

On the plate lie thin, crispy biscuits of batter with small shrimps in them, salty and just out of the oil. Opposite them stands a bone-dry fino that brings no sweetness, but acidity, salt and a bitter almond tone.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Tío Pepe comes from the bodega of González Byass in Jerez de la Frontera and is a fino. The wine is made from one hundred percent Palomino Fino and ages biologically: under a layer of yeasts, the velo de flor, which seals the wine off from the air and consumes alcohol and glycerine during that ageing. The house keeps the wine for at least four years in American oak botas in the solera y criaderas system, in which younger wine continually refreshes older wine. According to the Consejo Regulador, a fino may have between 15 and 18 percent alcohol and in practice is usually at 15 percent; this bottle is at 15 percent and comes in 75 centilitres.

Tío Pepe Fino

The combination

Why this works together

Tortillitas de camarones bring three things: salt from the shrimp, fat from the fryer and the toasted flavour of the crust. At 15 percent ABV a fino has hardly any residual sugar and sets acidity and a light bitterness against it, so the salt is not lifted further but flattened. The fat from the fryer is the second part: an ice-cold sip at 6 to 8 degrees takes that fat off the tongue, so the next fritter arrives clean again. Then there is the flavour itself. In biological ageing under the flor, acetaldehyde forms, the compound behind the sharp apple and almond notes that mark a fino, and that almond note runs exactly in step with the toasted quality of fried batter. The Consejo Regulador explicitly mentions tapas, olives, nuts and shellfish for fino, and this dish is all three at once.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 20 minutes, of which 30 minutes cooling
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 140 g small raw shrimp, finely chopped
  • 180 ml wheat flour (about 110 g)
  • 180 ml chickpea flour (about 100 g)
  • 240 ml ice-cold water
  • 1 small spring onion, very finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • salt
  • olive oil for frying

How to make it

  1. Mix the wheat flour and the chickpea flour in a roomy bowl with the spring onions, the parsley and a good pinch of salt.
  2. Pour in the ice-cold water and whisk to a smooth, runny batter. Fold in the prawns.
  3. Put the batter in the fridge for thirty minutes.
  4. Heat a layer of olive oil of about a centimetre in a frying pan to 182 degrees.
  5. Let a tablespoon of batter at a time slide into the oil and keep the cookies apart from each other. Fry them golden brown and turn them halfway.
  6. Spoon the cookies onto kitchen paper, sprinkle them with salt and serve them immediately.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this fino between 6 and 8 degrees, from a bottle that has stood in a bucket of ice and water. Use a traditional catavinos of about 200 millilitres and fill it by a third, or take an ordinary white wine glass; a small shot glass releases too little aroma. An opened bottle of fino keeps only briefly: the Consejo Regulador reckons on a week, tightly closed in the fridge, so rather buy a half bottle than still be pouring a remainder a week later.

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