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.

No. 4 - Andorra the explorer!

Escudella

I thought that this would be a kind of mediocre dish. It sounds a bit bland – a sausage stew with some past – boring. But let me tell you right now this is delicious! A massive hit with Teresa and Gretta who came over for a little Come dine with me Ireland launch night (sad, I know) which whet our appetites nicely, and Luke raved about it when we had left over’s the next day (and not like his usual “this is great babe”). It's savage.

I found other, more traditional recipes that involved using additional chicken, ham and adding marrowbones and ham bones to the stew. The bone part, I left out (although Luke would have loved that) because this dish was thrown together last minute and surprise surprise, I had no marrowbones in the fridge. If you do want to use them, I think you put them in with the water and remove them before you add the sausages. I would like to think that the recipe below is an unfussy escudella for the busy 21^st century woman. A cop out? Maybe. A cheap, tasty alternative? Certainly.

Serves 5-6

6 cloves of garlic, minced

1 onion, sliced

5 carrots, sliced

1 red bell pepper, sliced

5 new potatoes, quartered

A handful of green beans (just because they were left over from Algeria)

250g pasta (a chunky variety)

8 – 10 big sausages

Pinch of saffron

Chopped coriander (I had no parsley, it will not grow on my ledge!)

Tsp paprika

Salt and Pepper

Get out your largest pot. Fry the onions and garlic for a minute and stir in all the vegetables.  Pour in recently boiled water until it’s a couple of inches above the vegetables. Throw in the saffron and paprika and season well with salt and pepper. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. This should take about 45 minutes although I forgot about them so they cooked for about an hour and a half.  The peppers disintegrated but the stock was damned flavorsome.

Fry up the sausages and slice them into chunks. Add the sausages, green beans and pasta to the vegetables and cook until the pasta is al dente. Keep an eye on it incase you need to add a bit more boiling water. (Traditionally you cook the pasta in water and add in at the end but this way the pasta soaks up all of the vegetable stock). Serve in bowls and scatter with the chopped coriander. Go wild on the black pepper.