Turrón, a sweet Christmas (and all year round) treat!

Turrón is a type of nougat made with almonds which is eaten mainly at Christmas time in Spain.  It is eaten all over the country but is a traditional recipe from the Alicante province.  There are two main types - Turrón de Jijona (Turrón from Jijona) which is a soft type formed in rectangular blocks and packaged and Turrón de Alicante (turrón from Alicante) which is crunchy and brittle and is sold in a round shape the size of a plate.

I personally prefer the Jijona type which looks like this:

Turrón de Jijona

A friend of mine's parents run a factory making it in an artesanal way and ice cream as well, so it's called a torronería y heladería (turrón and ice cream sellers).  The main ingredients are toasted almonds, honey, sugar and egg.  A block of 300g (above) of this costs around 7€.

There is also slightly less soft version of this made with chocolate which includes cacao, milk and butter.

Turrón de Jijona de chocolate

They also make some rather nice Almendras Garrapiñadas, which are almonds roasted and tossed with sugar giving them a crunchy, sweet coat.

Almendras garrapiñadas

We also bought some Almendras Rellenas (filled almonds) which is an almond shape made from sugar paper and filled with soft turrón.

Almendras rellenas

If you want to try turrón and are not here at Christmas time there are some shops in Alicante city that sell it all year round.  You could try turrón ice cream that's great all year round, and also there is a bar called in the old town in Alicante city that serves a montadito (small filled roll) called Iván which has steak, rocket, parmesan, foie and turrón, and it's really delicious!

Enjoy!

Interview with BlogExpat

I had a short interview with Blog Expat last week who wanted to know a little more about how and why I came to live in Alicante. Click on the badge below to go to their website and specifically the page with the interview...

Price of petrol plummets

The cost of 'gasolina' (petrol) at the pumps has astonishingly gone down by quite a bit since the summer!  Last year and the beginning of this year the prices were rising for all types and it peaked at about 1.45€ per litre.  A few weeks ago I was amazed to see the price on the 'surtidor' (pump) showing 1.30€ per litre.

I have just filled up my little motorbike (it only costs me 5€ each week in petrol!) this evening and it was 1.21€ per litre!  I don't remember the last time it was as low as this and I'm certainly not complaining.

Something else to mention while on the subject is that over here there are lots of 'gasolineras' (petrol stations) that have assistants outside who put the hose in the tank for you during the day.  You can usually pay them if you are paying by cash but have to go inside to the till if you want to pay by card.
During the evening/night time there is never anyone outside and you have to go inside to pay.  At night you have to pay first and tell them how much you want to put in but during the day the pumps are usually open and you can put in your petrol first, then pay.

Diesel is about the same price as petrol over here which is worth mentioning as I've been told that in the UK, diesel is more expensive! 

What is the price of petrol where you are?