No. 42 - Columbia - Pulled Pork - Columbi-yeah!

Apologies for the terrible photo quality. Someone buy me a camera or even better, give me a job so I can buy me a camera.

It could have been Columbi-off, but it wasn't. It was Columbi-on.

Columbia became another welcome excuse to have a few stray heads who didn't quite make it to Electric Picnic over for a few beers, to pig out on pulled pork and shake our asses like we come from Columbia.  Not that I ever need an excuse for any these things, but it definitely beat hankering after the Picnic. So we had our own, Electric Pignic if you will.

This Columbian pulled pork recipe literally forces you have to have an Electric Pignic. You can't make it for one or two people and if three's a crowd, twelve's got to be a party. And where there's an enormous slab of pork, there are inevitably leftovers, even when feeding a herd of strapping young lads.  I was still (happily might I add) pigging out on it four days later. At the risk of seriously overdoing it, one could even go as far as to say the pulled pork was Columbelievable. And the lips don't lie.

Columbian Pulled Pork

Serves 12

3 kg shoulder of pork, (cut into big chunks to make it more manageable)

2 cups of tomato ketchup (1 whole bottle)

1 cup of brown sugar

1 head of garlic, chopped

knob of ginger, chopped

tbsp chili flakes

2 vegetable stock cubes

1 tbsp mustard

salt and pepper

Throw all of the ingredients into a large pot and mix around. Add just enough water to cover the meat, cover with tinfoil and a lid and bring to a simmer on the hob. Transfer to a 110º celsius oven and leave there for anywhere between 8 and 15 hours. The longer the better. I left mine in over night.

Then carefully remove the meat to a bowl and shred it with two forks. It should literally fall apart. Reduce the sauce left in the large pot by about half . Return the shredded pork to the pot and toss in the juice.

Serve with floury baps, Columbian red beans (recipe below), coleslaw,  sour cream, cheese and hot sauce. Columbi-hell-yeah!

Mhhmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmmmm isn't the word.

Colombian Red Beans 

6 rashers of bacon, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
a couple of tomatoes, chopped
3 tins of red kidney beans, including liquid.
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp cumin
handful of chopped coriander

In a pan fry the bacon until crispy. Add the onion, tomatoes and cumin and cook until the onions are soft. Add the kidney beans, stock cube and sugar. Bring to temperature and simmer for ten minutes. Finish with a handful of chopped coriander. 

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.

          

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. 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.8 – Antigua and Barbuda put a foot in it!

Fungi and pepper pot conjures up delicious images of a steamy clay pot full of mushrooms and peppers - at least that’s what I was looking forward to. In reality fungi and pepperpot is a ‘simple’ stew similar to any other stew, reiterating that every country in the world adds meat and veg to water and comes up with pretty much the same thing.

Fungi (pronounced foon-ji) are dumplings made from a cornmeal paste that is thickened with okra. In Antigua and Barbuda it is eaten with pepperpot, a pork and vegetable stew that contains everything except the kitchen sink. All the pepperpot recipes I found added all sorts of piggy parts including skin, bones, snout, feet and ears. I settled with adding a couple of pigs’ totters but I did remove them after about an hour. There was no way they were going to be eaten (pigs trotters are skin, fat and bone and smell pretty piggy) however they did give the stew a meatier flavor. I’m sure that you could leave them out (I like the novelty of weird animal parts) but I would recommend adding a decent meat stock instead of water if you are.

The verdict - fungi and pepperpot is a tasty stew, similar in fact to an Irish stew, although notably it does have much more flavor (due to a hell of a lot more ingredients, and a chili). But what is a stew without a spud? I craved a potato and not the funny fungi, although the butternut squash did the job well enough.

I liked this dish because this is the kind of food that all nations have in common - a pot where you throw in a few scraps of meat, whatever vegetables are lying around and season with any spices you can get your hands on – and bobs your uncle – pretty much the national dish of any country in the world. Have I cracked any major secrets of gastronomic world? Not likely, but I think I’ve definitely made a fairly basic (and obvious) discovery.  I feel I’ll be eating a lot of stews in the upcoming months!

Fungi

Fungi, fungi, fungi. The best part of fungi is how fun-gi it is to say! It tastes of cornmeal and its texture is like slippery paste, this is of course exactly what it is, but if you are going to embark on making the stew, embark on making the fungi (if only for the name). The okra struck me as bizarre but it is actually an essential ingredient because when you cook it releases a kind of green slime, which is what holds the fungi together. Do not leave it out as I nearly did.

Serves 3

1 and ½ mugs of water

1 mug of cornmeal

3 okra, sliced into rounds

salt to taste (I added quite a bit as you can imagine it tastes of nothing otherwise)

butter, to grease a bowl

Cook the sliced okra is the boiling water until tender. The water will go slightly green and become slimy. Remove a mug full of water and reserve. Add the mug of cornmeal to the remaining water and okra and mix up as best you can. Then keep adding the reserved mug of water, bit at a time. The idea is that the cornmeal gets cooked so keep that in mind – keep kind of mushing it together so everything gets a chance to cook from the heat of the pan. It should take between 5 and 8 minutes altogether to cook the cornmeal.

When all the water has been incorporated, grease a bowl with a little butter and dollop a spoonful of the paste into the bowl. Try and cover the spoonful with a little butter and then pick it up and shape into little dumplings. The butter will stop your hands from getting covering in goo (on second thought you could maybe just grease your hands!) Serve with the pepperpot

Pepperpot

What can I say - pepperpot is a good old-fashioned stew – perfect, hearty comfort food. It’s as simple as bung it all in and let it do its thing. This recipe is very adaptable so don’t feel you need to add absolutely everything (although the okra thickens the stew), similarly feel free to add absolutely anything you have lying around (the more meat the better). Like I say, pigs feet are optional but then so are snout, ears, cheek and God knows what else.

Serves 3

Vegetable oil

100g bacon, roughly chopped

100g minced beef, made into little meatballs

2 pigs feet, optional

Vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

2 cloves

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

a few sprigs of thyme

1 birds-eye chili, seeds left in, chopped

1 aubergine, cut into cubes (neither peeled nor salted)

a handful of okra, halved

½ butternut squash, peeled and cubes

a handful of frozen peas

half a bag of baby spinach

lots of salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large pot and fry off the little meatballs and bacon pieces until brown. If you don’t have room in this pan which you inevitably won’t, brown of the pigs feet in another pan. To the bacon and meatballs add your chopped onion and garlic and sauté for a few minutes. Next add absolutely everything (this includes the pigs feet), excluding the peas, squash and spinach. Cover the vegetables with water. Simmer for about an hour.

After an hour remove your feet and skim of any excess fat. Continue to simmer for an hour. Check the seasoning – you do not want a bland stew!

After another hour add the butternut squash and peas. (This is when I got on with the fungi)

After fifteen minutes, when the squash is cooked stir in the spinach and serve with the fungi.