No. 30 – Bulgarian Moussa.k.a Potatoes and Mince

(most desperate pun yet)

I feel like I am repeating myself, but this moussaka tasted exactly like its components – spuds and mince, blatantly obvious maybe, but the best and only possible description. This was the first time we marked a culinised dish out of ten - ten being a roast lamb dinner, zero being not worth naming. It turns out that our marking system became more complicated than I originally intended, but I take culinising very seriously and marking the dishes out of ten should give a sort of structure and order to the randomness.  I also tend to forget how good or lets say, less good some dishes are, and find some difficult to recall at all (Bulgarian moussaka in fact being one of them).

Our marking system was doomed from the start. You can’t compare minced beef to a leg of lamb, because a leg of lamb is intrinsically better and minced beef simply can’t and won’t ever compete. This didn’t seem fair though and so having thought about the dilemma for a while, we decided that the moussaka was a ⁴/₁₀ compared to roast lamb dinner (though it depends how much you like lamb) but an ⁸/₁₀ compared to other mince dishes. The final mark works out as a ⁶/₁₀  average.  By this system we could have gone down the road of comparing moussaka to steak, or lobster, or beans on toast, or liver, or marshmallows. We’re just going to have to come up with another system.  

Moussaka                                                                                                                           Rating: ⁶/₁₀

This Moussaka wasn’t what I thought it would be. I thought Moussaka was like some sort of lasagna with aubergine. Not in Bulgaria. I read somewhere that they claim to have invented it and who am I to contest?

It was a very satisfying and comforting sort of dinner. What else can you expect from spuds and mince with a dollop of yogurt?

500g potatoes, peeled and diced small

500g minced beef

oil for frying

salt and pepper

2 onions, diced

garlic, chopped

4 tomatoes, chopped

handful of cheddar or other hard cheese.

1 egg

500g plain yogurt

1 tsp flour

In a heavy ovenproof dish fry the onions and garlic in some oil until soft. Add in the mince and cook until browned. Season. Add the potatoes, tomatoes, cover and bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for about 45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

In the mean time, mix together the egg, half the yogurt, flour and cheese. Pour over the meat and potatoes and bake for a further 15 minutes until the top is golden. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and a few dashes of tabasco. 

No. 19 - Belarus-tic Beef Stew!

Belarus taught me that no matter how beautiful the kitchen, there is still no joy in peeling a potato (or figuring out how to use someone else’s oven). What was joyous, however was using Ide’s KitchenAid. For those of you who don’t know, KitchenAid is to mixers what Dyson is to vaccum cleaners. I have literally have never enjoyed anything so much, lowering the mixer and raising the mixer, lowering the mixer and raising the mixer. I had a total Nigella moment. Baking will never be the same again.

The KitchenAid may be the sole reason that Belarus was the first Culinisation country to incorporate a desert. That and the fact that I had plenty of time and space to swan around this borrowed kitchen, unlike at home where I can hardly find space to put a fork. Two course meals at home are therefore far and in-between. One can only dream of a glorious kitchen and a KitchenAid of my very own, don’t even get me started on a dishwasher. Truth is, I’m as close to getting a KitchenAid as I am flying to the moon.

Belarusian Beef Stew in a Pot.

Your bog standard stew really, beef topped with potatoes topped with mushrooms topped with sour cream. Ok, not technically bog standard, but the Belarusian answer to an Irish stew. Simple, yet effective and even better the next day. It also has the novelty factor because you get to eat it straight out of the pot.

Serves 2

400g decent quality beef, cut into chunks

3 garlic cloves, chopped

4 potatoes, peeled and diced

1 onion, chopped

a punnet of mushrooms, sliced

a small tub of sour cream or a few tablespoons

oil for frying

water to cover

Fry the beef with the garlic in a little oil until browned. In a separate pan fry the onion and mushrooms until soft. Now all you have to do is assemble everything.

Find a suitable sized pot with a lid and line the base with the beef making sure you have all the bits and juices. Season. Then layer on the diced potatoes and just about cover them with water.Season. Then layer on the mushroom and onions. Season. Finally top with sour cream, pop on the lid and bake in a 170 degree oven for 2 hours. Let rest for 30 minutes before serving. Eat straight out of the pot or serve on plates.

Belarusian Apple Pie

Like I already mentioned this was the most fun I’ve ever had baking although that has little to do with the recipe. This pie is really simple and has very few ingredients. It’s the kind if desert you can throw together without needing a trip to the shop. In name it’s a pie, but really its sponge-topped apples. The best bit is that the topping goes crispy and chewy like a meringue. I don’t know if that’s because I got a little to overexciting with the KitchenAid and over mixed/whisked everything but it really made this desert.

Serves 6

4 cooking apples

3 eggs

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of flour

butter for greasing the baking dish.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until fluffy. Whisk in the flour a little at a time. Line a greased baking dish with the apples and then pour on the cake mixture. Bake in a preheated oven, at 170 degrees for 50 minutes or until the top is crunchy. Serve with ice cream or custard.

No. 13 - Austria - Don’t be a Weiner!

The perfect solitary supper and an indulgent treat for one - perfect if you fancy spoiling yourself, kicking back and enjoying the luxury of a veal chop home alone. This was the dream, but when I asked for a veal chop in the butchers, I couldn’t believe my ears when he weighed it and said it came to €6.15! For a skinny wee veal chop! Needless to say, I looked from the butcher, to the veal chop and back to my designated €5 note and hesitated for probably an embarrassing length of time. The butcher sensing my skepticism agreed that it was a bit expensive so I didn’t feel to bad sending it back to be replaced with a lousy pork chop. Another time, he said, when you want to treat yourself. Problem is, when I want to treat myself I buy a steak.

I wanted to translate the name of the recipe from wiener schnitzel (veal coated in breadcrumbs and fried) to the equivalent pork coated in breadcrumbs and fried. I discovered that schnitzel refers to veal coated in breadcrumbs and fried and Wieners are those sausages, so the jury is still out on what this dish is actually called but I would make a guess and calling it a pork schnitzel seems about right, even if Weiner makes me laugh.

Pork Schnitzel

Obviously a weiner schnitzel is the preferred schnitzel, but the pork one’s not half bad either. It’s really just a glorified breaded pork chop and I had mine with slow roast garlic tomatoes, which recipe doesn’t feature here because it doesn’t technically belong in Austria. I had loads of tomatoes left over from the barbecue and fancied getting rid of them all at once. Its just some crushed garlic, basil and olive oil spooned onto some halved tomatoes and roasted in a low oven for a couple of hours – in case you were wondering. Instead, make yourself a green salad, spritz over some lemon juice and you’re more likely to find yourself in authentic Austria territory. Oh and using a veal escalope might help!

Serves 1

1 pork or veal chop

a plateful of fresh breadcrumbs

a plateful of plain flour

an egg, beaten

vegetable oil for frying

Salt and Pepper

Lay out three plates in front of you with flour in the first one, beaten egg in the second, and breadcrumbs in the third. Lay the chop on a chopping board, cover in cling film and bash to flatten with a rolling pin (or the cling film roll in my case). Try and get the chop as flat and skinny as possible. Season the chop with salt and pepper on both sides.

Then dip into the flour, shake off the excess. Then into the egg, shake off the excess. Then into the breadcrumbs, shake off the excess. Heat the oil in the pan and ensure that it will come half way up the chop when it’s in the pan. Fry the chop in the hot oil for a few minutes aside until just cooked. Serve with a green salad and a spritz of lemon juice if you want an Authentic Austrian Supper.

No.9 - Don't burst on me Argentina!

Feet up in front of the telly, a colossal pile of my new favorite thing - empanadas with a spicy tomato dip, juice dripping down my face and arms, uncontrollable mmmmms and lets be honest, my idea of heaven. Spicy beef, olives and a hard-boiled egg all wrapped up in a puff pastry paradise – what more could you want? A glass of wine maybe? Done.

What more can I say? Beware though, they are extremely addictive!

Empanadas

These are the most worthwhile thing I've made so far. I love anything wrapped in pastry but there really are something else, not difficult just a little time consuming but fun at the same time (for me anyway) because they're so damned cute. My inexperience with pastry (in Argentina they use a kind of ‘over and pinch’ motion that I neither had the patience nor the knack for) and the fact that I crammed them with filling meant that they inevitably burst open in the oven. This doesn’t phase me in the slightest as I haven’t yet heard of anyone complain of too much filling in their pie. True to my word (see Armenia), I bought the pastry this time and will definitely be doing so in future. God bless Mr. Jus-rol!

Makes about 12

400g minced beef

1 onion, diced

I clove of garlic, minced

2 tbsp of cumin, maybe more

2 tbsp of smoked paprika, maybe more

1 tsp cayenne pepper

a dash of hot sauce, to taste

about 10 olives, sliced

2 hard boiled eggs, sliced

salt and pepper

1 packet of puff pastry

1 egg, for glazing

water for sealing edges

Soften the onions and garlic in a pan. Throw in the mince and allow to brown, then in goes the cayenne, cumin, paprika and a dash of hot sauce – do all of this to taste. Note: I added way more than in the photo (below) afterwards - spices in Argentina are seemingly more potent than spices from Tesco so I just lashed more in.

Roll out your puff pastry to as large as you can manage (I used the trusty mop rolling pin again) and cut out circles of pastry using any suitable implement. You can do the empanadas as large or a little as you like.

Pile a ‘small’ amount of the meat mixture in the centre of the pastry circles, then top with a slice of egg and a few slices of olive. With your fingers or a brush wet the edges of the pastry and proceed to fold the pastry over to create a half moon, making sure to poke and prod the filling to persuade it to stay in. Seal the parcels as best you can by folding the pastry over itself and pinching. Place on a baking tray and wash with beaten egg. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees. Eat with an empanada in one hand and a spoon for loading it with tomato in the other.

Spicy Tomato Dip

This is really just chopped up tomatoes with some lemon juice, pepper, salt and a chili but it is absolutely necessary to go with the empanadas. I found a recipe online that served them with a cooked tomato sauce but I thought cooking ripe tomatoes was too much of a shame (and truth be told, too much effort) so I made this bad boy.

Enough for the 12 empanadas

4 tomatoes, roughly chopped

I chili, deseeded and finely chopped

juice of ½ lemon

Salt and Pepper

Lash everything in a bowl and mix.