The first course, goes without saying, just get organic tomatoes if you can, and use a little better olive oil, blah, blah, blah….
For the second course, I substituted Better-than-Bullion’s fish stock and used King Crab legs (*Hey* This is Alaska!) instead of the small crabs. The recipe uses some building blocks you’re encouraged to make ahead. In particular, soffrito and picada. The soffrito is straightforward. The picada is a green sauce made from Italian parsley, garlic, oil, hazelnuts, and SAFFRON — which is giving me trouble. I’m not certain how saffron is supposed to taste, but if the recipe for the picada is too heavy on the saffron, it may explain the “medicinal,” “idodine,” or “bactine” taste it has given the last two dishes I used it in (including this crab stew). I Googled the taste issue, but can’t quite make heads or tails of whether I’ve got crap saffron, or just used too much. The stew was good, but the hint if medicinalness from the saffron was annoying.
At any rate, the stew is fairly straightforward, and most importantly the serving for six proportions — of rice to stock — are dead on. Don’t let that 15 1/2 cups of stock throw you. The only caveat is that you will be eating the rice for a while — it makes quite a bit.
The flan was a bit more troublesome, again maybe the magic ovens at El Bulli can cook a flan in 30 minutes, but mine can’t. After about 40 minutes it was at ~160º in the middle, thought the eggs would set, cooled it off. Not so — it was a runny mess. I put it back in the oven for an hour, got it past 180º, and cooled it off. The carmel on top was a little clumpy, but it held together and separated cleanly from the bread pan that I had cooked it in. The proportions were right and it tasted great.
Cooking Ferran Adriá’s The Family Meal — The Errata