No. 27 - Botswana lick the plate!

Botswana, another country that’s fun to say in a Sligo accent.

Another day, another stew. This time potjiekos, which is a Botswanian stew, cooked on a three-legged cast iron pot over an outdoor fire. Literally translated ‘pojiekos’ means ‘pot food’ and is pronounced poy-key-cos. Luckily enough, there happened to be one of these pots lying around the house that my Granny P. picked up somewhere. It’s rarely used and so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get back to our African roots, light a fire and cook some good old-fashioned ‘pot food’.

I can imagine the women in Botswana, hunched and sweating over their potjiekos, the sun blazing down on their backs. Being in Ireland, it was of course raining. Being Irish, we didn’t let a little rain stop us and got a little turf fire lit (not very African) and the potjiekos on the go. The African Gods were obviously impressed by our potjiekos making perseverance because the rain stopped, and low and behold - the perfect African sunset.

Groundnut Potjiekos

I’m getting the feeling they have a thing for peanuts in Africa, which is fine by me because I love peanut butter. This stew quite obviously tastes of peanuts if you know they’re in there. If not, you might not be able to put your finger on it or wouldn’t know unless someone told you - and then after you’d be kicking yourself for not figuring it out.

The first mutterings over the dinner table were proclamations that it was “unusual”, which we all know is generally a bad sign. However everyone agreed that it improved with every mouthful and in the end it was so incredibly moreish, it was difficult to stop and we nearly licked the plates.

Serves 4 – 6

6 chicken legs

a little oil for frying

1 red pepper, diced

3 cups of water

2/3 jar of peanut butter

a piece of ginger, grated

2 tbsp brown sugar

120g tomato puree

1 tsp cayenne pepper

(Get a fire started outside. Anything will do, coal, wood, turf, whatever)

Prepare the sauce first. Whisk together the peanut butter, tomato puree, ginger, brown sugar, cayenne pepper and the water. Set aside.

 

Put your pot above the fire, heat your oil and fry the peppers and onion for a few minutes. Then add the chicken and brown on all sides. Cover with the peanut sauce and let simmer for roughly an hour. Serve with rice balls and some hot sauce (this time hot sauce is legitimate because the particular one we used was from South Africa (not that we ever need an excuse). Rice balls are just mashed rice rolled into balls. Careful not to burn your hands, although I can’t really see any way around it.

No. 26 – Bo-snia-il!

 I do try.

I know what it looks like - more beef wrapped in yet more pastry. But this is sheer coincidence and I had to cook this pita because the last burek (which this essentially is) failed due to my terrible filo making skills. This time the pastry came readymade in the form of jus-rol and was, as you’d expect – perfectly thin. With the pastry made there was nothing to worry about.

Well not exactly. (Minor) panic ensued. I had to work extremely fast, so the pastry wouldn’t dry out and become completely useless, yet not too fast so that I’d rip the delicate sheets. This lead to what I can only describe as a slow fluster. The sheer amount of butter needed to brush and glue sheets together, to make the mile of pastry was quite alarming. I therefore underestimated the amount to melt and I was left shouting “I need more butter! Get me more butter!” Pity then, that there was no one around.

Rolling a mile long sausage without tearing it was no mean feat either, but after a little self-assured pep talk, the only thing left to do was go for it. Recalling a lesson from my playschool days, I managed, with minimal tears, to roll the sausage and transform it into quite a beautiful snail, even if I do say so myself. I had great fun making this. It was after all, the food equivalent of play-doh, glue and paper, and who says you shouldn’t play with your food?

Bosnian Pita

Oh, and it didn’t taste half bad either.

Serves 4 – 6

oil for frying

500 g minced beef

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 tbsp paprika

1 tsp all spice

salt and pepper

grated cheddar cheese, optional

1 packet of jus-rol filo pastry (6 sheets)

½ cup of butter

Fry the chopped onion in a little oil with the garlic, until softened. Add the mince and spices and cook until browned and crumbly, but not dry. Allow to cool completely.

Clear yourself a large work surface and dust with flour. Melt the butter and begin to assemble your filo strip. Lay three of the six sheets side by side (longways) and brush butter where they overlap to glue them together. Brush the entire surface of the now long sheet and lay the other 3 sheets on top. You now have the finished sheet.

Place the mince mixture down the middle of the sheet, sprinkle with cheese and brush either side with a little butter. Proceed to roll it up so you have a giant sausage. Now roll it up into a snail shape, transfer it to a suitable greased dish and brush with the remaining butter. Bake in a 220 degree oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Serve in slices, hot or cold with cucumber and yogurt.

No. 25 - Bolivia’s Saucy Soggy-Bottomed Saltenas!

Saltenas are perfect snack for those complete write-off days, when you’re too hung-over to leave and would rather stay home ‘crawling’ the couch. They’re loaded with carbs and meat, salty, spicy and of course sumptuously fatty - a hangover cure in a mouthful. This was of course no use to us, as once again we discovered too late that saltenas take a little longer to prepare than we were willing to wait. A whole lot longer, in fact.  Turns out the mixture needed a quiet night in (the fridge) to quite literally, chill - much like ourselves. Instead, we had them the next day for lunch before embarking on our next hangover.

Saltenas

Choosing to make saltenas, was really just another excuse to eat empanadas (see Argentina), under another name and another country. They are pretty much exactly the same, but the filling is much saucier. You can get away with dodgy pastry sealing and greedily overstuffing empanadas, but when it comes to saltenas you’re better off taking your time and doing it right. Needless to say, I ended up with a baking tray full of burnt filling and some seriously soggy-bottomed saltenas. Not to worry, like I’ve said before, in my eye’s there is absolutely nothing you can do to ruin puff pastry. And the puff pastry is a total cheat, by the way (see Albania) so if you want the authentic recipe for saltena pastry I suggest you google it.

Serves 4 – 6 (really 6 – 8)

a little oil for frying

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and diced quite small

1 cup of peas

225g minced beef

1 cup of stock (I used a stock cube)

½ envelope of gelatin

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

ready made puff pastry, rolled out as thin as possible

1 egg, for brushing

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add the meat, spices and fry until browned. Add the stock and simmer for roughly 30 minutes.

In another pan of salted boiling water, cook the potatoes and peas until tender.

Add the potatoes and peas to the meat mixture, along with the gelatin dissolved in a little water. Stir very well to ensure everything is thoroughly incorporated. Allow to cool and let chill in the fridge over night.

The next day…

Roll out the puff pastry and cut out as many circle as you can (I cut around a little saucer). Dollop a tablespoon or so of the cold filling onto the centre of each pastry circle. Brush around the edges with beaten egg and (attempt to) seal the edges using your thumb and fingers, making an empanada half moon shape. Lay on a baking tray, brush with more beaten egg and cook in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for roughly 15 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Say a prayer the filling doesn’t leak! Scoff hot.

No. 24 - Bhutan - It's a Pork Fing!

After a long day of flat hunting, smelly van endurance, missed viewings and late estate agents, the first fing I needed when I got in was a glass of wine. And the last fing? A pork fing. I was too tired to cook, yet too hungry to contemplate not eating. We’ve all been there and it’s this situation precisely, that make’s dodgy takeaways an absolute fortune. And no Jamie, sometimes we don’t even have 30 minutes to make a meal, let alone a two course one, like that’s possible for mortals anyway. Upon learning that pork fing potentially takes an hour and half to (there’s that word again) stew, I hate to say it but a wok in a box was looking like our best bet.  I was under the impression that all Asian food was fast, another extremely wrong generalisation on my part. Oh Culinisation, how you enlighten me.

Somehow, a few timing tweaks, a pot too small for the noodles (damn all you too-small-pots), a broken wine glass (empty at least) and a mini breakdown later, pork fing was on the table. Just.

Pork Fing

Bhutan is renowned for its love affair with chili’s, but we had a korma eater in our midst and so I halved the number of chili’s required by the recipe. The resulting pork fing was boring yet comforting after the day we’d had. There's not really that much to it. You really need those chili’s to spice up the otherwise bland noodle and pork combo, although really I put the bland factor down to my own impatience, tiredness, unwillingness to follow the authentic recipe (I barely glanced at it) and my I-just-do-not-give-a-shit-anymore attitude. Turns out a splash of soya sauce and a drizzle of sweet chili sauce was just the ticket anyway. I would definitely recommend making this, and I will again. Next time, however I’ll unleash the chili beast and won’t have to worry about dodgy areas, security deposits and landlord references.

A flat was secured the next day, by the way (although I don’t want to jinx anything) and the kitchen is amazing! I’m moving up in the world!

Serves 3

3 pork chops, cut into chunks

a nice knob of butter

rice or cellophane noodles

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 onions, chopped

1 ½ chili’s, seeds removed and cut into strips (add as many as you dare, 3 or 4 would do nicely)

about a cup of water

half a head of broccoli, cut into florets (optional)

salt and pepper

Fry up the onion, tomatoes and pork in the butter. Add the water, salt and pepper and simmer for about an hour and a half. (I however completely skipped this and lacking patience only just waited for the pork to be cooked through) Then add the florets or broccoli and when they are cooked but still crunchy, throw in the noodles and sliced chili. Give it all a toss and serve in bowls with soya sauce and sweet chili sauce, if like me you’re not afraid to waver from authenticity for authenticity’s sake. 

No. 23 - Bermuda Whyangle – Why So Much Yucca?

Thanks for the title Gretta. It’s inspired. But any yucca, is too much yucca.

If you hadn’t already gathered, the main ingredient for this Bermudian dinner was the unfortunately named and not so aesthetically pleasing yucca. Yucca and I didn’t hit it off so well to begin with. First of all, it was expensive, annoyingly heavy to carry home and then nearly impossible, with my physical attributes at least, to get a knife through it – a chainsaw would have been more effective. Once inside the almost impervious bark, there’s nothing you can do to a yucca that you can’t do to a potato. The difference of course being that yucca is fibrous and lumpy, and potatoes are fluffy and simply delicious. Yucca pretends to, wants to be a potato. It’s a potato impersonator. An imposter. A phony. A fake. But we’re Irish, come on now. We can’t be fooled. We’re a bit more spud savvy. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Yucca Pie

This recipe is really a form of baked spud bol or in this case yuc bol (apt or what?), but that’s an argument that’s already been had. Yuc bol is just one of the many sacrifices, we make so that you guys can laugh about how hilarious it is that we have to eat weird stuff for dinner. On the plus side, the filling is bolognese with the added bonus of sausages. There is nothing can’t be improved by adding pig in some form or another.

If I was doing this recipe again I would half the quantity of yucca/potato and double the quantity of meat, but that’s just me. And for the record, yucca is not that bad so don’t be put off. But it has squat on potato, so just use potato instead and you’ll be laughing. Best of yuc!

By the way, still no camera charger.

Serves 4 – 6

1 kg of yucca

a large knob of butter

a handful of grated cheddar

a generous splash of milk

2 eggs

more grated cheese for sprinkling

For the filling:

3 sausages, sliced into rounds

250g minced beef

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

salt and pepper

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until soft. Add the mince, sausage and brown for a few minutes. Add the tin of tomatoes, salt and pepper and simmer for around 30 minutes.

Peel and dice the yucca/potato, cook in salted water until tender (between 10 and 20 minutes) and drain. Return to the pan, add the milk, butter, cheese, eggs and mash.

In a baking dish, layer half the mash mixture, top with the bolognese, and then the last of the mash. Sprinkle with cheese and bake in a preheated oven at around 180 degrees, for half an hour or until the top is golden and crispy. Dig in but be careful not to burn yourself, as underneath the yucca lid lies molten bolognese.