No. 43 - Congo (again) - Killing Two Congo's with Two Quail (Twice)

You can tell that Sesame Street were responsible for my alphabet skills.  I still need to learn which letter comes after which without, at the age of twenty four, having to sing my ABC's. Next time won't you sing with me, for real. 

                               

This must be why (and I know I'm only on C) I've gone and (spatch)cocked it up and cooked Congo twice! I suppose that means I've subsequently cheated twice by combining the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo to make less work for myself.  Now I'm unsure if I've half cooked four countries (the two Congo's twice) or just cooked two countries adequately (the two Congo's once). 

I am willing to conveniently accept the latter - in this case two wrongs do make a right. Either way, I need to get a move on... 

Congo Spatchcocked Quail with Fried Potato, Chickpeas and Spinach                         8/10                                                     

(The Quail represents the Democratic Republic of and the potato dish the Republic of Congo)

I'm glad I didn't google what quails look like, not like chickens, like little birdies...

Before four ended up dead, plucked, with their insides still inside them and consequently their blood on my hands (and everywhere else) ...

Despite the gore, I had never tasted quail before so I was really looking forward to it. They're really good, like giant chicken wings but much better (you absolutely have to pick them up). The potato dish was also really good, better than I thought and much better than just a 'side' dish. I'll definitely cook it again. It was like a Spanish tapas dish.

For the Quail

4 quail
3 cloves of garlic
2 chillies
knob of ginger
1 tablespoon of oil
1/2 a red onion

Spatchcock your quail by putting it breast side down on your chopping board and cutting out its backbone with a scissors. I shouldn't be too difficult at all. If there are any internal organs pull (like me) or cut them out too. Rinse under a cold tap and carefully dab dry.

In a pestle and mortar, combine the garlic, chili, ginger, onion and oil. Toss the quail in the marinade the leave for an hour or as long as possible.

Grill or barbecue on a medium hot heat until cooked through. I put mine on for nearly half an hour but my grill is temperamental and likes to set off the fire alarm. Let them rest for a few minutes before serving.

For the potato dish

4 large potatoes, cooked and cooled.
1 red and green pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 tin of chickpeas, drained

a couple of big handfuls of spinach

oil for frying

Peel and cube your potatoes, fry in hot oil until crispy and golden. Soften the onion and pepper in a pan, add the chickpeas and spinach and stir until the spinach is wilted. Stir in the crispy fried potatoes and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Serve with your hot birds.

No. 40 - Chile and Easter Islands – Curanto - I'm a Chilian Whiner

Normally I would suggest that for a recipe like Curanto, vegetarians should look away, but this time a thief has saved them bother, as the photographs were stolen along with my iphone. Here is where I feel an uncontrollable urge to whine about what is essentially an incredibly first world problem. So I won't. I know that those of you who have or have already lost one understand and feel my pain. Those of you who don’t, rightly so, don’t give a shit.  

Whoever stole my phone, I’m sending you a great big Culinisation FUCK YOU!

Curanto                                                                                                                         8/10

Curanto is shellfish layered with meat layered with more meat and then more meat and then shellfish.  Traditionally clams would be used but they’re so expensive I opted for mussels instead. Basically you can use whatever meat and shellfish you like or have hanging around. Essentially this is a classic stew, with the added benefit of having ample juice from the shellfish and consisting almost entirely of meat. Throwing in half bottle of wine doesn’t hurt either. Neither does the remaining half.

Serves 4

1 red pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 kilo of mussels

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 large smoked garlic sausage, sliced into chunks

2 rashers, chopped

4 chicken thighs

a few new potatoes, halfed

half a bottle of white wine

In a large pot, fry the onions, garlic and chopped pepper in a little oil until soft. Then proceed to layer the smoked sausage, chicken, chopped rashers, potatoes and finally the mussels. Pour over the wine. Cover, bring to a simmer and leave to cook for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes and meat are cooked. Eat with warm bread and lashings of butter.

Note: Normally I would never recommend cooking mussels for 45 minutes and I was reluctant to do so here, but I did and they tasted delicious.

No. 37 - Cayman Islands - Better than OK Man!

Caribbean curry chicken (bet you read it chicken curry) is Savage, with a capital S. Like a glorified unbelievablely delicious ‘3 in 1’ (chips, rice and curry sauce), except the chips (cubed pa-tay-tas) are already in the curry. Why didn’t we think of that? Good anytime; on the couch watching Geordie Shore (not a great destiment to my character I’ll admit) and not just after the pub. Those Cay men and women have it sussed. If you’re in a really uncultured mood, grate nasty plastic cheddar cheese on top. Mmhmm.

In the Cayman Islands they would serve curry chicken with rice and peas. For those of you who don’t  already now ‘rice and peas’ are actually rice and kidney beans. And the ‘what constitutes a pea’ and ‘what constitutes a bean’ conundrum continues.

Curry Chicken

I used a Caribbean curry powder; coriander, tumeric, cumin, chilli, fenugreek, salt, garlic, fennel, pepper and ginger. I don’t know what makes it particularly Caribbean and quite frankly I don’t care, and neither should you. Just do it.

Serves 1                                                                                                                 10/10

1 chicken breast, cut into bitsized pieces

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

½ small onion, chopped

a small sprig of thyme

1 chili, chopped

1 ½ tbsp Caribbean hot curry powder

salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

1 potato, diced

Combine the onion, farlic, thyme, chili, curry powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the chicken and coat in the paste. Leave to chill in the fridge for two hours.

In a pan, heat up some oil and seal the chicken on all sides. Throw in the diced potato. Just about cover the potato and chicken with water. Leave to simmer until the chicken is cooked, the potato is soft and the sauce has thickened. Serve with rice and beans.

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. 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. 25 - Bolivia’s Saucy Soggy-Bottomed Saltenas!

Saltenas are perfect snack for those complete write-off days, when you’re too hung-over to leave and would rather stay home ‘crawling’ the couch. They’re loaded with carbs and meat, salty, spicy and of course sumptuously fatty - a hangover cure in a mouthful. This was of course no use to us, as once again we discovered too late that saltenas take a little longer to prepare than we were willing to wait. A whole lot longer, in fact.  Turns out the mixture needed a quiet night in (the fridge) to quite literally, chill - much like ourselves. Instead, we had them the next day for lunch before embarking on our next hangover.

Saltenas

Choosing to make saltenas, was really just another excuse to eat empanadas (see Argentina), under another name and another country. They are pretty much exactly the same, but the filling is much saucier. You can get away with dodgy pastry sealing and greedily overstuffing empanadas, but when it comes to saltenas you’re better off taking your time and doing it right. Needless to say, I ended up with a baking tray full of burnt filling and some seriously soggy-bottomed saltenas. Not to worry, like I’ve said before, in my eye’s there is absolutely nothing you can do to ruin puff pastry. And the puff pastry is a total cheat, by the way (see Albania) so if you want the authentic recipe for saltena pastry I suggest you google it.

Serves 4 – 6 (really 6 – 8)

a little oil for frying

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and diced quite small

1 cup of peas

225g minced beef

1 cup of stock (I used a stock cube)

½ envelope of gelatin

1 tbsp black pepper

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp cayenne

ready made puff pastry, rolled out as thin as possible

1 egg, for brushing

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add the meat, spices and fry until browned. Add the stock and simmer for roughly 30 minutes.

In another pan of salted boiling water, cook the potatoes and peas until tender.

Add the potatoes and peas to the meat mixture, along with the gelatin dissolved in a little water. Stir very well to ensure everything is thoroughly incorporated. Allow to cool and let chill in the fridge over night.

The next day…

Roll out the puff pastry and cut out as many circle as you can (I cut around a little saucer). Dollop a tablespoon or so of the cold filling onto the centre of each pastry circle. Brush around the edges with beaten egg and (attempt to) seal the edges using your thumb and fingers, making an empanada half moon shape. Lay on a baking tray, brush with more beaten egg and cook in a preheated oven at 200 degrees celsius for roughly 15 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Say a prayer the filling doesn’t leak! Scoff hot.

No. 23 - Bermuda Whyangle – Why So Much Yucca?

Thanks for the title Gretta. It’s inspired. But any yucca, is too much yucca.

If you hadn’t already gathered, the main ingredient for this Bermudian dinner was the unfortunately named and not so aesthetically pleasing yucca. Yucca and I didn’t hit it off so well to begin with. First of all, it was expensive, annoyingly heavy to carry home and then nearly impossible, with my physical attributes at least, to get a knife through it – a chainsaw would have been more effective. Once inside the almost impervious bark, there’s nothing you can do to a yucca that you can’t do to a potato. The difference of course being that yucca is fibrous and lumpy, and potatoes are fluffy and simply delicious. Yucca pretends to, wants to be a potato. It’s a potato impersonator. An imposter. A phony. A fake. But we’re Irish, come on now. We can’t be fooled. We’re a bit more spud savvy. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Yucca Pie

This recipe is really a form of baked spud bol or in this case yuc bol (apt or what?), but that’s an argument that’s already been had. Yuc bol is just one of the many sacrifices, we make so that you guys can laugh about how hilarious it is that we have to eat weird stuff for dinner. On the plus side, the filling is bolognese with the added bonus of sausages. There is nothing can’t be improved by adding pig in some form or another.

If I was doing this recipe again I would half the quantity of yucca/potato and double the quantity of meat, but that’s just me. And for the record, yucca is not that bad so don’t be put off. But it has squat on potato, so just use potato instead and you’ll be laughing. Best of yuc!

By the way, still no camera charger.

Serves 4 – 6

1 kg of yucca

a large knob of butter

a handful of grated cheddar

a generous splash of milk

2 eggs

more grated cheese for sprinkling

For the filling:

3 sausages, sliced into rounds

250g minced beef

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

salt and pepper

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until soft. Add the mince, sausage and brown for a few minutes. Add the tin of tomatoes, salt and pepper and simmer for around 30 minutes.

Peel and dice the yucca/potato, cook in salted water until tender (between 10 and 20 minutes) and drain. Return to the pan, add the milk, butter, cheese, eggs and mash.

In a baking dish, layer half the mash mixture, top with the bolognese, and then the last of the mash. Sprinkle with cheese and bake in a preheated oven at around 180 degrees, for half an hour or until the top is golden and crispy. Dig in but be careful not to burn yourself, as underneath the yucca lid lies molten bolognese.

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. 18 - Holy Mackerel it's Barbados!

 “Thou shall have a fishy, on a little dishy,

Thou shall have a fishy, when the boat comes in.” 

I’m not the keenest of fishermen, but as I have never been a keen hunter either (I’m more gatherer, if that), fishing is the only way I can catch dinner that has a head and a heartbeat. I don’t consider mussels and razor clams etc. to have neither head nor heartbeat. But what better way to capture the sun, shores and seafood of Barbados, than by trawling off the west coast of Ireland in search of some fresh, flapping fish of our own. Ok, so it’s not exactly comparable, but we do our best.  And sure enough, four hours later we returned with fifteen once lively mackerel, and one whopper fellow (caught by Luke) big enough to make a trout blush. 

Lazing about on a boat all day, wiggling a bit of line and eating a cheese and tomato sandwich also makes fishing a close contender for my favorite sport. The only sport that unfortunately leads to weight gain as opposed to weight loss. Also I hear that it is a sport where women hold a lot of the world records, so we were optimistic that I’d be the star fisherman and catch at least a couple - and that I did. Although I caught two or three mackerel (here fishy fishy fishy fishy didn't seem to work), my finest catch was Luke and Leo (whose line got tangled up with mine numerous times). Two very fine specimens, even if I do say so myself! However don’t worry ladies, there’s plenty more fish in the sea.

Grilled Mackerel

Needless to say the mackerel needs little to nothing done to it. Get your friends and loved ones to gut as many mackerel as you can catch, heads on. About two per person should do it depending on there size. Do nothing else but throw them on the barbeque until nice and blackened. Squirt with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Don’t forget to taste the eyes, although they taste like fish they break apart like dust in your mouth, not too appetizing.

Barbados Curried Sweet Potatoes                 

This is just a little something to accompany the mackerel. This also delivered my ever-increasing desire for a hit of heat (extra hot sauce included), whilst the sweetness of the potatoes goes well with the oily fish. I did a simple green bean and potato salad too. The recipe’s doesn’t feature hear because its just potatoes and beans dressed in lemon, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and mustard, lots of mustard.

Serves 6

5 sweet potatoes

the juice of 1 large orange

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp ginger powder

2 tbsp curry powder

1 tsp chili powder

Wrap the potatoes in foil and bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees. While they’re baking combine all of the other ingredients in a bowl.

Cut the potatoes into thick rounds and line an oiled baking dish. Pour over the sauce, cover in foil and bake for a further 20 minutes. Remove the foil continue baking until the top is nice and browned and the flesh of the potato is squidgy.