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. 28 - Cool Beans in Brazil!

This entry is going to be very short. I will not ramble. I am in the process of moving flat and so have many more important things to be doing than divulging the culinary attributes of Brazil. However I did make this nearly two weeks ago and I thought that if I don’t post this now, I’ll have forgotten what it tastes like, not to mention what I put in it.

This is a very loose interpretation of a Feijoada, or Brazilian Black Bean Stew.

Feijoada

In short, a sausage chili con carne made with black beans and without the chili. A fair description I think.

Note: I was yet again in Sligo for this one, making my parents fund the extensive shopping list once more and so I couldn’t get my hands on any dried black beans, or even tinned black beans for that matter, so I opted for (forgive me Brazil) black bean sauce - of the Chinese variety. Somebody should take away my right to have a food blog right now! I am terribly ashamed but it’s the closest I could get. To make up for my shortcomings, I also threw in some tinned mixed beans, I think there were kidney beans, pinto beans, probably some other beans and who knows? There may have even been some black beans in there too.

Warning: Vegetarians look away now.

Serves 8 - 10

1 large smoked sausage, say 500g, sliced

chorizo, 300g, sliced

300g Irish sausages, cooked and sliced

a few gammon steaks, sliced

any other meat you fancy, the more the merrier

1 large onion, sliced

a few cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tin of tomatoes

3 tins of mixed beans

1 large jar of black bean sauce

salt and pepper, to taste

Sauté the onion and garlic in some olive oil and then add all of the meat, beans, black bean sauce, and anything else I may have forgotten that is mentioned above. Stew for a couple of hours and serve with rice. And there you a have it, my woeful attempt at Feijoada and any carnivores wet dream.