Peru – Dinner party

Tags

Balsamic vinegar, Beef tenderloin, Broiled, Brown Rice, Brown sugar, Caster sugar, Chilli, Cinnamon, Cloves, Coconut, Condensed milk, Corn on the cob, Corriander, Dried Fruits, Egg whites, Eggs, Evaporated milk, Lime juice, Pecans, Peru, Port, potatoes, Prawns, Rasins, Red Onion, Red wine vinegar, Salt and Pepper, Shrimps, Soy Sauce, Star anise, Sweet Potato, Tomatoes, Vanilla esscence, Water, Yellow pepper

We find ourselves tonight sharing our evening with friends, something you may have gathered already we love to do. Why should tonight be any different so we decided again to share our dining experience with our friends. We spun the globe to land in Peru…

The republic of Peru is situated in Western South America, to its West The Pacific Ocean, South is Chile, Bolivia is to the Southeast, Brazil to the East and Colombia and Ecuador to the North. Peru is an enormous biodiverse country with environments extending from the “dry plains” of the “Pacific Coastal Region” in the west to the pinnacles of the Andes mountains spreading from the North to the Southeast reaching the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest.

Peru is divided into 25 regions and is a representative democratic. A country that is developing with a high Human Development Index score. The predominant financial activities comprise of agriculture, fishing, manufacturing and mining. There is a population is approximately 30 million and is very multi cultural which include Europeans, Amerindians, Asians and Africans with Spanish being the chief language spoken. However, there are a considerable number of Peruvians speaking indigenous languages. Because of the combination of traditional customs Peru is widely varied in areas such as literature, music, art and cuisine.

Peru has fantastic gastronomy and this has grown equally from immigrant and local customs. Foods enjoyed and cooked by ancient customs are still enjoyed in today and also profit from African, Asian and European influences. The natural characteristic “harvests” of Peru is very mixed with, the greatness of seafood, potatoes, grains and tropical fruits.

Peruvian food has really expanded over the world and equally is loved on all parts of the globe, thanks to its fresh and exceptional flavours and meals are never rushed.

The staples of indigenous Peruvian cuisine are corn, potatoes and chillies, and these have prevailed through centuries of colonial rule and immigration.

The amount of food being served at a dinner party in a Peruvian household,because of their class, is normally large amount, even by US standards. Potatoes and rice will be served along with bread and other starches. On completing your meal you would place your cutlery diagonally across the pate, with the points facing to the 10 O Clock position on the plate.

The host and the honoured guest usually sit next to each other (males to the right of the hostess, and females to the right of the host); if there is a hosting couple they usually sit together.

For our dinner party we/I opted for some traditional Peruvian food and hopefully we will do it justice and our friends will love what we have offered them..

Our appetiser/starter is a Hot Stone Shrimp(Prawn) Ceviche – Peru is one of the countries that states ownership to ceviche, which is made of raw fish and chilies, cured in lime juice and it has become their national dish. It has been one of South America’s best-kept secret for centuries, but Ceviche has become a very trendy starter/appetiser. The birthplace of Ceviche is argued between Ecuador and Peru, but with both countries having wonderful varieties of seafood, it could have come from either from the ancient Incas. Each South American country has given the ceviche a twist of its own by adding extras. 

Cape Verde

Tags

Bacon, Bay Leaves, Beans, Beef, Black eyed peas, Broiled, Cabage, Cape Verde, Chilli, Chorizo, Coconut, Cornmeal, Garlic, Lemon, Lime, linguica sausage, Molasses, Olive Oil, Pancetta cubes, Red potatoes, Stew, Sugar, Sweet Potato, White wine

Today is Sunday and our family is only three today, but as promised we set the globe spinning and Rory landed on Cape Verde…Just to the left of it actually, but we said we would go to the nearest place. Somewhere I would love to go and have added it to my dream board. I am told it s very BEA – U – TIFUL…..        Please let me know if you have been.

The Island of Cape Verde is an archipelago of islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Known as the Republic of Cabo Verde, there are 10 volcanic islands which are approximately 300 miles off the West Coast of Africa. The Islands themselves cover a little over 1.5 thousand square miles.

Until the 15th Century Cape Verde was not inhabited then the Portuguese explorers came across the islands and decided to settle. The Islands were perfectly situated for the Atlantic slave trade and the islands grew with great wealth through the 16th and into the 17th century, and they enticed privateers, merchants and pirates. At the end of the 19th century saw the end to slavery but this then led to an economic decline and inhabitants leaving, although Cape Verde did eventually recuperate and became a significant business area and a stop off for ships en route to somewhere else on the globe. In 1951 it was combined as an overseas division of Portugal and then in 1975 the islands eventually became independent after much campaigning and since independence Cape Verde continues to be a steady and to be one of the greatest grown countries in Africa. Cape Verde has approximately 500,000 in its population and are of African descent and mixed European.

The cuisine on Cape Verde is varied and its dry environment and also Portugal’s settlement have influenced its cooking traditions. The Africans, that were part of the slave trade, gave knowledge of cooking the tropical crops, then the Portuguese brought cattle.. Cape Verde was used as a trial place for growing food such as Peppers, Pumpkins and corn also feed sailors from sailing ships passing through. Foods such as bananas, sugar and tropical fruits were relocated from Asia…In Cape Verde there is a profusion of freshly caught seafood including wahoo, bica, tuna and lobster.

The National Dish of Cape Verde is Catchupa – this is anything goes sort of stew with whatever meat/fish and vegetables you have to hand. Locals have been known to make up a pot for all to share by giving a what crop they have and this dish means home for the locals everywhere…

Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors – it’s how you combine them that sets you apart.

Wolfgang Puck

Yes we are going to cook this dish today…It will be different for a Sunday and there are only three of us…….There is a difference between Cachupa Rica(Rich) and just Cachupa Pobre (Poor). Rica traditionally was cooked by those who had meat and fish to hand, the dish is more lavish and was generally cooked only by the richer people or could be reserved for those “special occasions” when you wanted to celebrate. We intend to produce the Cachupa Rica 🙂

The recipe says to serve 8-10, so we halved it and just a point worth noting, am not altogether sure we needed half the amount of corn starch needed

Philippines

Tags

Adobar, Adobo Chicken, Bay Leaves, Braised, Broiled, Chicken, Fish, Garlic, Lechon, Longganisa, Madhur Jaffrey, Marinade, Philippines, Rice, Sauce, Seasoning, Soy Sauce, Vinegar

One day I will visit the Philippines as I have a pen friend there, but for now will have to be happy with dinner from there

The Philippines is officially known as the Republic of the Philippines and is a soverign island country in Southeast Asia and it is situated in the Western Pacific Ocean. There are over 7,107 islands and are are categorised under three main geographical areas. Mindanao, Visyas and Luzon. Manila is the capital where Quezon City is the most crowded and both these cities are part of Metro Manila. The cuisine and style of cooking that is related in The Philippines has evolved over many, many centuries from its Austronesian origins to a mixed cuisine of Spanish, Chinese, American and Malay. Also other influences such as Latin and Asian  have adapted native ingredients and also the local palate.

Dishes in The Philippines range from very simple, which would be a meal to salted fish and rice, to much more sumptuous and intricate like paellas(Spanish Origin), Spaghetti and Lasagne (Italian Origin). There are popular dishes such as whole roasted pig – which is called Lechon, or Longganisa – which is Philippine sausage. There was much to chose from but only being a Monday didn’t want to complicate the ease of cooking dinner.

Having searched our own library of cook books as well as the web it appeared that Adobo seemed a popular favourite throughout The Philippines. This is a dish which is Pork and or Chicken braised in garlic, Bay Leaves (fresh from our garden), vinegar, oil and soy sauce. Our recipe tonight is taken from Madhur Jaffrey’s Far Eastern Cookery.
Adobo is from the Spanish “Adobar – marinade”, “sauce” or “seasoning”, it is a popular process in Philippine cooking and can also be used with fish and vegetables.  It has been considered as the unofficial national dish in The Philippines.

The recipe can be found here this one uses chicken but we have used pork chops as our book as suggested.

Get people back into the kitchen and combat the trend toward processed food and fast food. Andrew Weil

Pork marinating in the listed ingredients

Initial thoughts from the family – “It smells amazing”
The proof will be in the eating – any time now….

The finished dish was served as suggested with plain boiled rice – we prefer Basmati and this is what we used.

Family Verdict:   A very tasty meal but very basic. Normally we would eat vegetables most nights so maybe we could have researched and added some vegetables from the area. The vegetarian option was cooked with a meat substitute and the flavours were absorbed into the fillet. This would be a meal that was easy to prepare and easy to cook and a great week night meal.

Our next stop is India – to the delight of Ian – he loves curry, but we will research the local area rather than cooking any curry that takes our fancy….Join us again on our journey.

Rory is loving this and so far has eaten everything that has been chosen.

Angola – Namibe

Tags

Baked, Broiled, Butter, Cheese, Chilli, Fennel, Grilled, Infused, Lemon, Olive Oil, Parmesan, Peppers, Pork

The next stop on our dining adventure, according to Google, takes 1 day 2 hours to get there from our last stop in Perth, travelling West over the Indian Ocean and passing over Mozambique and Zambia, over Angola and landing safely in Namibe, on the West coast of Africa on The South Atlantic Ocean.
Namibe is the capital city of Namibe Provence in modern day Angola and the cities current population is around 132,900 (source listed in Web links and Bibliography).

Angola is an African country in Southern Africa and sits between Namibia and The Congo. From 1575 until independence in 1975 Angola was a Portuguese colony. From 1975 – 2000 it suffered a post independence civil war and because of intense mining during the war, a lot of the land, the agricultural land is unusable and dangerous to use,therefore Angola does import most of its food. However, coastal areas are humid and hot and subsistence crops such as manioc, maize or sorghum are grown.

Approximately two-fifths of Angolans live in rural villages, which are traditionally wattle and daub construction with thatch roofs. Their lives follow ancient patterns as few communities have electricity or running water. As mentioned previously quite a lot of food is imported therefore this makes it very expensive.   Across the country as a whole, the main staple is funje, a thick polenta like food, this is made from the grown manioc, cassava or just from cornflour – when made form cornflour it is called piaro. Beans and and vegetables are served too.
Seafood is very popular with prawns and white fish like tilapia is used in may recipes. It is also easy to find meat such as that we eat here in the UK, chicken, beef and pork being most readily available.

Having researched Angola on various websites and I ask the question “What shall we have for dinner”?      Seafood tonight wasn’t an option as although we like seafood and  quite a few recipes have seafood in them, its not something we would eat every night. Looking on various foodie websites I needed to find something that all the family would eat and after a day at the day jobs, school etc rice and beans wasn’t going to “cut it”. I found a book called “The World Cookbook: The Greatest Recipes from Around the Globe, from the website listed in the web links and found something that we would all eat, given that my family can be very fussy….Apart from my daughter in law to be we are all meat eaters and although fish is popular, meat was requested. So like the good mother, wife I am I found the recipe for Angolan Grilled Pork (Costeleta de a Angolana)… We tend to have roast pork but find chops dry, but we will try and we are serving it with rice, as is served in rural Africa and an Angolian Lemon Salad, which consists of fennel, lemon and not much else…mmmm we shall see…..

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

James Beard

Angolan Grilled Pork (Costeleta de a Angolana), served with Angolian Lemon Salad

If you take a look at this recipe, it asks for it to be marinated (although my idea of marinating is with a substantial amount of liquid) this was only marinated for 30 minutes in Olive Oil with sat and pepper. It then asks for the chops to be grilled or broiled and to be honest, didn’t really fancy broiled chops and often when we grill they become tough (probably why we haven’t had them in a while), so we decided to bake them in the oven. We smothered them in the butter and chilli marinade and baked until the juices ran clear…..

The Angolan lemon salad  – well we followed the instructions and this picture does not do the salad justice at all…It wasn’t much to look at and lacked a lot of colour, but the flavour was amazing….A great combination of  fennel, lemon, Olive oil and Parmesan Cheese…

Family Verdict: The Angolan lemon salad complimented the pork chop immensely. Although initially in the bowl it lacked colour and looked boring, the flavours were “stunning” (if you can say stunning about food)… The pork chop was cooked to perfection and the butter and chilli that was pasted over the top had infused into the meat, which gave the chop an awesome flavour and was so tender just fell away from the bone.

The next leg in our journey is taking Ian and I to France, as we are going with the band he plays with…
Yes I probably will enter a post, about local food, we all love French food…. (Oh yes and the wine…..), but there will be no Globe to be spun, but we are home on Monday and know Rory will be keen to see what delights we will cook up for dinner Tuesday and WHERE FROM…..Watch this space……