No. 56 - East Timor - Timorese Two Time Tuna!

Round One:

As a ‘food blogger’ one must never underestimate the power of natural light and a sober photographer. I first made this Timorese Tuna (last April) for a few girlfriends after an afternoon of shopping for hen party 'things'. After drinking a few tins of cheap beer out of plastic champagne glasses through penis straws, we sat down at 12am to a pile of dishevelled tuna and posh rice strewn with spring onions and yet more penis straws. The result - unusable, blurry photographs, penis censorship and a hangover.

The perfect excuse for round two. 

Round Two:

A much less exciting round. Feeling the need to make up for my previous food styling disaster, I arranged the tuna carefully on a platter and patted myself on the back before demolishing it. The result - a delicious tuna dinner.

Timorese Grilled Tuna with Wild Garlic Pesto

For the Garlic and Walnut Pesto

Although not authentic (here we go), I had just made a batch of wild garlic pesto and at the time, just couldn’t resist putting it on EVERYTHING. The original recipe requires covering the tuna with garlic butter already, but in my opinion, you just can’t have too much garlic. It’s also an excuse to share the recipe and make sure I myself don't forget it!

We found the an amazing spot to forage for wild garlic in St. Anne’s Park in Dublin. It grows abundantly there under a couple of big trees. You'll know you're getting close because you can smell it a mile away, just follow your nose. I recommend making a big batch and giving it to your friends and family, but make sure you keep enough for yourself. It’s a sad day when you realise you'll have to wait ten months for the next season. Not to mention, it's practically free. 

3 big handfuls of wild garlic leaves, washed with stems removed.

About 300ml of extra virgin olive oil

100g walnuts

100g good quality strong cheddar cheese

Salt and pepper

Bung everything into a blender until it's smooth. Transfer into a sterilised jar and keep in the fridge.*

*I made about 6 batches of the above recipe in half an hour and it lasted for about two months in the fridge before it was all eaten. It didn’t show any signs of spoiling so next year I’ll be making double (at least). 

For the Timorese Tuna

1 fresh tuna steak, about an inch and a half thick

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons of softened butter

Coarse sea salt

1 spring onion, sliced

rice to serve.

Combine the garlic and butter in a bowl. Smear the garlic butter on your tuna steak and set aside. Heat up a heavy pan until its smoking hot and sear the steak for a minute on each side. Cut the tuna into slices and season generously with coarse sea salt. Top with the sliced spring onion and serve with rice and garlic pesto.

No. 55 - Dominican Republic - Stew-pendous Sancocho!

This must be the only time I have ever sat down directly after eating a Culinisation meal and done what I’m doing right now. Sometimes it takes a day or two, often longer. Sometimes I even cook the next country before finding the time to write up the previous one.  After all, we gotta eat. Naturally enough, in these few passing days, I taste the dish a little less in my minds mouth.

No chance of that happening tonight though. Firstly because I literally still have the taste in my mouth and secondly, because instead of tasting like nothing I’ve tasted before, Sancocho tastes like everything I have tasted before. I (and everyone in Ireland) practically grew up on the stuff. Yup, it’s stew. In our house, it was this very recipe – some pork chops (lamb if you were really lucky), a few sausages, a tin of beans and some spuds (very likely leftover).

We ate it. We fought over the sausages. We loved it.

What makes this stew ‘exotic’ and I use this term so loosely it’s floating around in space with George and Sandra, is the plantain. I have never been a huge fan of this African banana. Then again, I have only ever cooked them myself and eaten them once. Remember ‘No. 34 - Do a twirl and Cameroon to yourself’? Of course you do. It was the best title to date and who remembers the food anyway? This time, the plantain could easily have passed as a turnip.  Neither delicious nor offensive, just you know, there. Sancocho is also a little spicier and a little sweeter than your average ‘Irish’ stew.

So the verdict? Stew is stew.*

Paddy and Rina have just arrived home after some post work pints and are raving about it! It clearly has nothing to do with the pints. I don’t know if they even heated it up. Paddy says he wants to make it every Wednesday (?) and Rina says it reminds her of the food her parents make at home. They are from Madagascar, close enough (joke), so I’m counting this as a victory!

I obviously know nothing about stew. Or countries. Remind me why I’m doing this again?

Sancocho

There is now a big pot of stew in the kitchen that has had all the meat picked out. Understandable. So I’m going to freeze what’s left over, defrost it on a rainy day, add a few more cooked sausages and keep the party rolling. 

Serves 6

6 fat spicy sausages

4 pork chops on the bone, cut into pieces

1 onion, roughly chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 red pepper, roughly diced

2 tins of kidney beans, drained

1 tsp of oregano

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 plantain, sliced

2 sweet potatoes, cubed

1 vegetable stock cube

salt (paramount) and pepper

rice and coriander to serve

Cook the sausages in a little oil in a hot frying pan. Once nice and brown, remove and slice into circles. Pop them in your ‘stew pot’ (we all have one), off the heat. Brown the chops in the same frying pan you cooked the sausages. Add them to the sausages. Finally fry your onion, pepper and garlic in the same pan again (add a touch more oil if necessary). Add them to the pot with the sausages and chops.  Add a splash of water to the pan and scrape up all that meaty goodness that is stuck to the bottom. DO NOT SKIP THIS or your stew won’t be worth eating.

You could of course do all of this cooking in the pot that you’re going to eventually stew your stew. If you want your meat to brown and not stew (obviously we want it to stew later but not just yet) you’re better off doing it in batches.

Into your ‘stew pot’ add everything else (kidney bean, oregano, sugar, plantain, sweet potatoes, vegetable stock cube (not authentic but definitely worth it), salt and pepper. Barely cover with water and simmer until the sweet potatoes and plantain are soft. Then add more salt. I cannot stress enough how important it is to season this (and all) stews. When it comes to stews, salt is, and forever will be Queen. 

Make like Jamie Oliver and throw coriander EVERYWHERE. Serve with rice.

A :)

*If I’m ever going to get to the end of this culinary adventure, I’m going to have to come with a lot more interesting things to stay about stew.  All comments welcome below.

No. 54 - Dominica - Mountain Chicken - It's not easy being green!

It has certainly been a while since my last post but we are in it for both a good time AND a long time.

Since then, I have found a new job that I love, with the help of my family I have landed a great new house (with a fabulous kitchen designed by yours truly) and a beautiful puppy called Penny. Not to mention two wonderful house mates. Needless to say I have held on to my boyfriend.

The reason this post has taken to so long is because the recipe for Dominica's national dish, 'Mountain Chicken' as the name wouldn't suggest, requires frogs legs. For a while there, when visiting Sligo, I did consider attempting to catch some 'local organic' frogs legs in the garden. Back in Dublin, all that was needed was a quick phone call to Fallon and Byrne where a charming Spanish butcher took my order for 1kg of frozen frogs legs. Next day delivery he said, clearly impressed by my order. I am both ashamed and embarrassed by the length of time it took me to get this far.

I feel now though, that it's time for a pun or too (or many). I make a lot of puns, so I've been toad. Although personally I don't think any of them are worth ribbetting.

To mark the return of Culinisation, we had a few friends over for a whopping hopping frog leg feeding frenzy. I think that from the 1kg of frogs legs (and copious amounts of chips) I fed about ten people. Everyone got two frogs legs each so not exactly a generous portion. When I say 'frogs legs' I mean a pair so I guess that's really four actual frogs legs. They come in pairs connected at the hip. It's nice that they remain together until the very end, unless you're squeamish and would rather your meat not resemble its living counterpart.

Q: Did you ever consider that the splash of milk you put in your tea every day is actually milk from hundreds of cows, not just one?

Before being 'dressed' in their little floury trousers, their little legs look altogether naked and well, lets say it's all a bit awkward. But after they have been deep fried, any squeamishness for the most part dissipates. You could almost forget they're frogs. Ribbet.




And yes, they taste like a cross between chicken and fish.


Mountain Chicken (Deep Fried Frogs Legs)

1 kg frozen frogs legs
5 tbsp plain flour
Milk for coating
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp thyme (ain't nobody got thyme for that)
Oil for deep frying

Mix together the flour, salt and thyme. Dip your defrosted frogs legs in the milk.

Coat them in the flour mixture. Once they have their little flour trousers on it gets a little less awkward.

Deep fry them at 170• C until golden brown.

Serve with chips, wedges of lemon and cold(ish) beer.

Ribbet.

No. 53 - Djibouti – Shake Dja-Bootian Skoudehkaris

Djibouti. The punibilities are endless, so endless in fact that I better not start. For those of you who don’t know, Djabouti is prenounced Dja-Bootie. I trust you can use your imagination. 

I’ve had ‘(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Dja Bootie’, by  KC and the Sunshine Band stuck in my head for as long as I’ve known Djibouti was pronounced Dja-Bootie. 

Then I found another version of 'Shake Dja Bootie' by a certain Lil B. 

Swag swag swag swag woop bitch shake your booty

Swag swag woop woop swag bitch shake your booty

Swag swag swag swag swag bitch shake your booty

Woop woop woop woop woop bitch shake your booty

The lyrics are of course appalling (annoyingly catchy) and Culinisation wants down with this sort of thing.  

Skoudehkaris

So down with this sort of thing and down to business - Djibouti’s national dish, called Skoudehkaris, is a traditional stew made up of tender chunks of lamb, braised slowly in a number of fragrant spices - in case you're interested, all beginning with the letter C - cardamon, cinnamon, cumin, clove. On the off chance that I sound a bit too foodie here, I’m not totally sure if that is the correct use of the term ‘braised’ but it sounds about right (a lot better than ‘cooked’ and this is a food blog after all).  It is very delicious although I did alter the recipe to suit my mood as I often seem to do and in true Culinisation fashion served rather non-traditional accompaniments.

It makes your house smell amazing.

500g lamb, cubed.

1 onion, chopped,

oil for frying,

1 tbsp of cumin

pinch of ground clove (I didn’t have any so left this out)

½  tsp of ground cardamom  (I didn’t have any so I put in one whole cardomom pod, crushed in a pestle and mortar)

¼ tsp of  cinnamon

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 cup of water

1 non-authentic sneaky stock cube

The obligatory salt, pepper and oil for frying

Preheat you oven to 180 degrees celcius.

In a large ovenproof pot that has a tight fitting lid, fry the onion in a little oil until soft. Push the onions to one side, turn up the heat, then add the lamb and seal so it has coloured on all sides. Then add in the spices, toss so that all the meat is coated and continue to fry for another couple of minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, water, sneaky stock cube, salt and pepper and stir.

Put on the lid and pop into the oven for approximately 2 and ½ hours or until the lamb is super tender. You may want to check it a couple of times just to ensure the liquid hasn’t completely evaporated.

Traditionally Skoudehkaris is served with laxoox, a flat bread, but I fancied it with mashed potatoes, rocket and yogurt. 

*I was correct. Braised in fact means cooked with a combination of dry and moist heat – seared at a high temperature and finished in a covered pot with liquid. A-braising! 

No.52 - Denmark - One Great Dane-ish!

'oh-my-god-this-is-so-seriously-delicious-seriously-though' 

The plural of danish is danishes. Danish which is of course origionally an adjective (Danish) does not have a plural form . No such thing. When you turn the word 'danish' into a noun it become ‘danishes’ and this is perfectly correct.  

The same does not apply, in the case of eating a 'chinese' or 'indian' for example. Maybe it’s because no one has the appetite two eat to 'mexicans'. Not true. That’s totally possible. Obviously it’s because 'koreans' and 'morrocans' are not foods, they’re cuisines.

Something to think about next time you go for a danish and then fancy another danish.

Ironically the double danish dilemma is not relevant  today. This recipe makes one great dane-ish! Wayhey!

One Great Dane-ish

1 sheet of ready rolled puff pastry

100g pecan (hold a few back for decoration)

3 tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons of maple syrup plus extra to glaze

3 tablespoons of soft brown sugar.

6 tablespoons of icing sugar

Bung all of the ingredients (except the puff pastry) into a blender and blend until,  well blended. 

Lay out your sheet of puff pastry and mentally (remember mentally) divide into three lengthways. Then get a knife and cut the outer thirds into strips approximately 1.5cm – 2cm wide, just like the people who leave their number on notice boards for people to rip off.  (I realise this makes no sense but I was feeling a bit over enthused at the prospect of getting all ‘Great British Bakeoff’ on well, my own ass and forgot to take a photo.)

Spread the pecan mixture onto the central strip which, as long as you haven’t gotten to ‘knife happy’ should remain intact. Overlap a strip from the left side of the pastry over a strip from the right side of the pastry (over the pecan mixture) and repeat until it vaguely ressembles a plait. Maybe a plait after a night out and morning in bed.

If you fail miserably at this step, which lets face it is a distinct possibility with yours truly for guidance - it doesn’t matter. When your pecan is all puffed up and beautiful, your friends won't care. When they taste it, it will be in their mouths and then you will be their favorite person.  Hell, I was my own favorite person for being so clever as to make something so gratifying and eye rollingly 'oh-my-god-this-is-so-seriously-delicious-seriously-though' kind of scrumptious. AND it's a breakfast food for Christ's sake. 

Jeez, I was so busy congratulating myself there I nearly forgot to finish the recipe. 

Brush the pastry with some milk or ess, whichever you have handy and bake in a preheated oven of 200ºC oven (I learned how to use the degree symbol on a MacBook - more self congratulations is in order I fear) for approximately 30 minutes. 

If you can manage, allow it to cool and make yourself up some icing - mix a few tablespoons of icing sugar with a drop of water until you get a dropping consistency. Brush your great dane with the remaining maple syrup and decorate with the reserved pecans.  From a height, drizzle with the icing and pat yourself on the back for a job well done .