he taught me all about cooking and drinking wine, or was it in reverse order

I've tried to make many Spanish dishes eg; arroz al horn and fabada with british - well Bury - black pudding. Sorry, but they just don't taste the same. After watching 'Rick Stein Spain' I'm very tempted to try and make my own morzilla! Any suggestions????

Sorry 'MORCILLA' Doh!!

Getting the pig's blood might be difficult. I believe you can use dried blood.

Much as I like Bury black pudding it is so very different to Asturian smoked morcilla and as you found doesn't work.

If you look at the recipe there is very little in the way of seasoning and spices (only a pinch of saffron and a little salt). The flavour all comes from the sausages which is why they have to be right.

Basque Country, La Rioja, Navarra and Catalunya tonight. Some seriously good looking veg tonight. Wine was obviously good - Rioja or Navarra. But the last bit reminded me of a Spanish food I've never adapted to - Caracoles. Over the years I've adjusted to eat and like Pulpo, Morcilla and even Callos (has to be cooked a certain way though). But I've never been tempted by the humble snail - maybe I'm missing out?

I didn't watch it all...gave up the will to live. Saw the bacalao recipe with peppers out of a tin Suppose you have tasted that slimey trash. The guy himself is totally lacking in personality too. A same ole same ole programme about spanish food, nothing new the chorizo angle has been done to death

I've not eaten them in Spain but I have in France,

OK, but just an excuse to eat bread soaked in garlic butter. The snails didn't add a lot to the experience.

Stein dipped them in Alioli - much the same experience!

The Piquillo peppers with salt cod looked pretty good. I usually do them in a seafood sauce but they looked pretty good just with cheese on them.

You clearly know nothing about Spanish food.

The small roasted peppers almost always come out of a tin/jar etc.

You can do it yourself (and they always end up slimey) if you can find the small peppers but they are rare outside the area of production.

I quite like piquillo peppers, and they're normally good as a starter dish in a menu, stuffed with something like the bacalao. Nothing wrong with tinned food if it's good quality and not already cooked - the tinning process preserves the food's quality. Anchovies almost always are from a tin in spain, but you can find some really rich tasting anchovies there (not to everyone's taste I admit). As for the chorizo - yes we've seen it being prepared before, but the programme's for people who haven't. Like Rick himself! The best thing tonight I thought was the menestra - loads of great veg in there like artichokes, beans and peas. I think at that stage (and a bit later where Rick did his partridge beans and cabbage dish) most folk from the costas would have disbelieved he was in Spain.

The whole point about this series/book is to show what real Spanish regional cooking is like.

He doesn't go for the latest up-market stuff like El Bulli but concentrates on "peasant" food - probably the best food in Spain.

Well yes, but I also think he's trying to flog his cook book! Hence going for the simpler dishes - and yes, to be honest a lot of regional dishes rely on basic recipes but with the best local ingredients. Rick said two things tonight that may cause some argument. He said that Spain produces perhaps the best beans in the world. Maybe it's hard to prove that, but beans like the faba and alubia bean are certainly among the best I've tasted. He also said that Winemakers have done more good than doctors! Again - that may cause an argument or two I suspect!

Of course he is doing it to flog his book!

I don't agree about the dishes being simple - I have had the book since it was published and most of the recipes are not in the TV series and they are not always that simple for a novice cook.

I think his best book was the one about south east Asian cooking and that contained some of the most complicated recipes that I have seen - and they all work - I have cooked most of them!

Ah well, I stand corrected. The dishes he's shown on the box so far have generally been fairly easy though.

Well he would put people off buying it otherwise!

I thought my Paella recipe was complicated until I read his!

Aren't some of you the ones who are always saying that spanish food is good because it's fresh Now we have rick stein saying that the spanish always use lots of tins and suddenly that's ok

I may not know a lot about spanish cooking but I do know that the old "peasant food" didn't include tins! I wouldn't touch canned peppers ...or any other canned stuff either, it just isn't nice whatever the celeb cooks say.