SAN NICOLÁS (LA COCINA VASCA)
San Nicolás, 13 (Old Town)
Tel.: 948 22 13 19
www.lacocinavasca.com
In 2004, four local professionals from the city’s night bars (David Linde, Javier García, Javier Yarnoz and Mikel Brau) took over this locale which had been a guest house serving food for over fifty years. Now a bar & restaurant, at the San Nicolás you will find excellent traditional cuisine with the occasional signature touch, such as pork cheeks in Pedro Ximénez and fresh vegetables in tempura with baby squid. They also serve a house special: broken eggs, which can be ordered with black mushrooms, black pudding, txistorra sausage, salt cod ajoarriero… The lunch and special weekend menus are made with seasonal produce and change every week. On Friday and Saturday nights the four men return to their origins as the venue becomes a night bar open till 4 in the morning.
PINTXOS
- Foie gras with pineapple sauce
- Fried eggs with porcini mushrooms
- Vegetable tempura with baby squid
- Porcini mushroom and duck risotto
- Goat’s cheese in tempura with caramelised onion
- Pork cheeks with PX sauce
- Prawn in filo pastry with brie
- Scallop shell stuffed with salmon, prawns and crabstick
- Assorted toasts
- Txistorra sausage from Arbizu
RECIPE
Egg with porcini mushrooms, potato purée and bacon
INGREDIENTS
- 1 egg yolk; porcini mushrooms; garlic (optional); olive oil; 2 fine slices bacon; filo pastry; sunflower oil.
- Potato purée: potato; butter; milk; salt.
- Parsley oil: extra virgin olive oil; freshly chopped parsley.
PREPARATION
For the potato purée: boil the potato and purée in the Thermomix (or with a hand-blender), adding butter, milk and salt.
For the parsley oil: mix good quality extra virgin olive oil with the chopped parsley and beat energetically to taste. The more you beat, the more it will emulsify.
Slice the porcini mushrooms and sauté in a frying pan with a little olive oil. Sauté with or without garlic, as preferred. Griddle the two slices of bacon and use them to envelop the raw egg yolk. Wrap all three into a little packet with the filo pastry and fry very briefly to keep the egg yolk runny.
TO SERVE:
Place the little filo pastry packet on the potato purée base with the sautéed mushrooms to one side. Drizzle with a little of the parsley oil.
NOTE: this pintxo was born as a “modern” take on the broken egg cazuelita for which the establishment was previously very well known. Another version of the pintxo, called “Egg 2.0” made it to the final of the Navarre Pintxo Week in 2010. In 2013 the bar also made it to the final with its “Salt cod cappuccino”.
PAIRINGS
