Pincho de Txaka

Pincho de txaka is Basque, the kind you see across Donostia bars when the counter is full and nobody is pretending lunch needs to be grand. Txaka means the crab-stick mixture here: surimi, boiled egg, mayonnaise, sometimes a little onion, mounded on bread and held with a toothpick if the bar is busy. It is not a neighbor's gilded seafood salad. It is cheap, cold, soft, and very useful.

The method that decides it is the chopping. Grate the surimi and egg fine, or chop them small enough that the mayonnaise can bind them without drowning them. Big pieces slide off the bread. Too much mayonnaise turns the pintxo slack. Taste before you salt the mix, because surimi already brings salt with it, and a heavy hand makes the whole thing taste tired.

If you are far from the Basque Country, no hace falta haber pisado España. Use refrigerated or frozen crab sticks, thawed and dried well. Real cooked crab is good food, of course, but it is not the everyday Donostia txaka; it tastes sweeter, costs more, and needs less mayonnaise. Follow the small cut, the dry bread, and the short rest in the cold. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.