Thursday 2 August 2012

No. 36 - Cape Verde - Not So Foody Shades of Grey.


What cheese just isn't yours?
NACHO CHEESE!




Cachupa, as corny as culinisation and as rustic as rust. Know that when I say ‘rustic’ I don’t mean ‘rustic’. I mean ugly. Cachupa is not exactly about to win any culinary beauty pagents any time soon and if you were expecting any food porn here (Foody Shades of Grey), prepare to be disappointed.  In fact it (and I can only account for my version) was a dead ringer for something that somebody had already eaten, if you understand. I had pizza menus on standby.

BUT...

Once again it was actually fine. Story of my culinisation life. Stew always looks a bit shit and this one was no exception. If there was an ugly stew competition, my capucha would win hands down. Seriously. I googled ‘ugly stew’ to confirm my suspicions. Bitch please, it’s in an ugly league of its own. But like I said it was grand, we ate it, my guests marked it an eight out of ten (out of politeness). It was good soakage before a night out and it was even better when we got in, in a (wait for it) cac(hula)hupa.

Moral of the story? Don’t judge a stew by it’s colour. Ugly never tasted so damned good...



Cachupa

Sounds like a bit of a strange (and as we have already established ugly) combination; bacon, chorizo,  hominy corn, kidney beans, potatoes and then tuna? I left out the cabbage because no one likes cabbage unless it’s with bacon. (I know there is bacon in this so don’t be smart.) And I left out the carrots because there was just no room in the pot and I had lost all motivation. Need I mention the wine?




Serves 6-8                                                                                                 Rate 5/10

2 onions, chopped
2 mugs of yellow hominy corn
1 mug of dried kidney beans
a vegetable stock cube and water
smoked bacon, cut into chunks
100g chorizo, cut into chunks
roughly 500g of baby potatoes, quartered


2 carrots sliced (I left this out)
½ head of white cabbage (I left this out too)
a tin of tuna (do it)

Rinse the yellow hominy corn and the kidney beans. In a large pan, fry one of the onions until soft. Add the corn and the beans, a stock cube and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer slowly for about 3-4 hours. You’ll need to keep adding more water and stirring to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. Season.



In another pan, fry the other onion until soft and then fry the bacon and chorizo. Add this to the corn and kidneys when they are done alone with the potatoes, carrots and cabbage. When the spuds are done, you’re nearly there. Stir in the tinned tuna and let’s hear it for ugly food.








Finish with a beautiful chocolate and orange cake that your beautiful guest, Kate brought.



Stay bitchin in the kitchen.










1 comment:

  1. I'm so making this. made a Malian peanut and beef sauce last week and I was convinced to add white cabbage. did not expect it to taste as good. I may have also laughed a little when you mentioned googling 'ugly stew'. good work.

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