My first trip to the Canary Islands was part of a desperate escape from my first miserably long grey London winter; there are only so many times a thick pint of Guinness and some kind of roasted animal can warm the soul. I flew out of Gatwick with a backpack, camera, notebook, sleeping bag, but no itinerary (a combination of laziness and a grudging acceptance of the futility of making plans when one travels solo).
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The first hit of warm air was enough to relax my shoulders, hunched in the cold defence position one assumes waiting at London bus stops. I found a rental car and without pause started driving, following interesting road signs until I passed a small convenience store. Picking out the usual suspects for dinner – tinned sardines, fresh cheese, a jar of lentils, a label-free bottle of wine and then I spotted it – mojo, a small glass jar filled with what looked like Romesco, but upon closer inspection was something entirely different.
I kept driving, this time looking for the remote coastal corners of Tenerife and a flat boulder to call my bed for the night. Postcard perfect, I found myself at the Punta de Fraile looking out towards the North Atlantic Ocean and its satisfying immenseness. I set up my sleeping bag, rolled up a jacket for my pillow and read my book until the sun began to sink into the ocean and the fading light gave way to hunger for the first of many amazing solo dining experiences held together with wine and the rosemary and thyme flowers that thrived on the craggy cliffs that ringed the island.
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But what made this picnic different was the small jar of mojo, innocent looking enough but with an undeniable smoky heat I knew would become an integral part of every meal during my week traversing the Canaries. It was as a fiery orange smear over wedges of fresh sheep milk cheese that I would enjoy that first flavour revelation – the exotic warming heat of cumin, cayenne, pimentón with the familiar base of garlic, sherry vinegar and olive oil. Mojo picón found a way into almost every bite, with the wrinkled saltiness of papas arrugadas, with the tough yeasty local Canarian bread, and the perfect foil for the small oily fish caught off the jetties in the fishing villages that dotted the coastline.
For a Romesco loyalist, a sauce has to prove itself before it ends up in my kitchen, and long after that first taste of Mojo on Tenerife, I rediscovered it in Barcelona at a dinner party held by a passionate Canary Island expat who not only used liberal quantities of Picón, but actually made the stuff herself! And so it was that I crossed paths with the evanescent Teresa and her Mojo Labuela Flora.
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Her version of this fiery sauce is one of the best I’ve tasted with a sweetness that comes from using the best organic ingredients in every step of this artisanal process. Being celiac, she takes extra care not to use commercial starches to ‘fill in’ the product and uses local and organic ingredients from the peppers all the way to the sea salt and extra virgin olive oil.
This summer I decided to add Teresa’s mojo to my Papalosophy supperclub menu. And not hidden alongside a fresh cheese plate or as a dip for crispy baked potatoes, but as the crowning sauce for fat belly fillets of bacalla. Mixed with toasted almond cream and a touch a lemon juice, it became the perfect sauce with which to slowly bake these buttery hunks of salted cod.
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Served on a purple potato puree and topped with grilled red peppers, I needed to feature once more before putting away the jar of explosive red flavour for another week. The dish needed some crunch so I kneaded together a buckwheat rosemary flatbread and once baked and cool, crushed it together with a few dollops of mojo into a deliciously addictive crumble. A lemony parsley oil to give the plate some colour and zest, and the dish was done.
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You see, I’m no scientist in the kitchen, I am a cook. If it looks like a fish, it’s usually going to taste like one. And Mojo is a sauce with no tricks, it’s deeply authentic and stands for something more than a visual stimulant. It is a keeper.
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