Dinner #5: ESPAÑA! olé olé!

POR FIN, lleguemos a ESPAÑA! Happily, we all love Spanish cuisine- and are completely thrilled with this country having been pulled from the bag. 

Giuseppe had appetizers- and created a wonderful Green Gazpacho, which none of us had ever had before. 




Amaly was in charge of the main course, and attempted Seafood Paella. Perhaps an interesting choice seeing as we are completely surrounded by desert sands and mountains, but COSTCO and Sams should be able to provide adequate quality seafood, even if frozen.

Will and Tara watching the clams and mussels open as they cook, actually something which fascinated us all. 

The finished Seafood Paella. Tasted pretty good, but unfortunately, the pan (better known as the Wok in our house) was rather ruined. The problem we encountered was ensuring that the different types of seafoods were all cooked enough so we wouldn't poison ourselves. We had no issues, thankfully!

Will chose to make Drunken Pears??? Which entailed cooking pear halves in a mix of red wine and sherry for about half an hour (while everything else was cooking). 

These were altogether, amazingly delicious. The white cream was a great addition. 

Dinner #4: Guuuuuuuuuatemala!!!

We have managed to FINALLY make our way completely off of the Euro-Asian continent, and over to South America.

Everyone was very excited- yet apprehensive. After talking with some of our Tbird friends from Guatemala, who assured us that "the traditional Guatemala cuisine is very ugly and weird, there is very little that is delicious", we all did our best. There was some trouble finding completely authentic and individual to Guatemala cuisine, as there is a lot of sharing of dishes between the different South and Central American countries. In the end, we had the following line-up:

Appetizers: Pupusas
Entée: Guatemalan Stew of some sort
Dessert: Rellenitos de Plátano

Amaly searched and found something called 'pupusas'. For those of you familiar with Mexican cuisine, they resemble gorditas that one can find on the streets of Guanajuato and DF. Pupusas are also claimed by El Salvador, a fact that escaped Amaly until a few days after the dinner. Follow this link for the pupusa recipe that Amaly used. We ended up frying the pupusas in hot oil (varying degrees of success with that) because we lacked the correct pan (comal) to cook them on.

 Will and Tara decided to try their hand at a Guatemalan stew. Filled with potatoes, carrots, green sauce based from tomatillos, and chicken. SUPER DELICIOUS!!

Giuseppe was on desserts, and decided to test us with a concoction made out of black beans, powdered sugar, and fried plantains, called 'Rellenitos de Platano'. It wasn't something any of us really thought sounded amazing, but we were willing to give it a try.






          






We had some issues with the making of the rellenitos- the dough was very sticky and was hard to manipulate (see gooey hands) and then the temperature of the oil was difficult to regulate, so our first attempts at frying them turned into blackened messes.

When we had the final products, eaten with some trepidation, we decided that it definitely was not our most favourite dessert, and most likely would not be attempting this recipe again. But if you want to try it, here is the recipe Giuseppe was following!

Dinner #3: WILDCARD! Czech Rep, Iraq, Croatia

At the end of dinner #2, we had all done an entree, and decided to go with a new rule- after every one has done an entree, we will pick three countries for the following dinner, and have a very eclectic menu.

We seem to still be slightly stuck in the Eastern European bloc, with the Czech Republic and Croatia- but hopefully Iraq is the start of a new direction for us. 

It looks like the CR, Serbia, Croatia and the Ukraine all have the same emphasis upon meats...Czech Rep cuisine has "both influenced and been influenced by the cuisines of surrounding countries. Many of the fine cakes and pastries that are popular in Eastern Europe originated in the Czech lands. Czech cuisine is marked by a strong emphasis on meat dishes."(we have definitely noticed this trend among the eastern bloc!) Croatian cuisine: "heterogeneous, known as the cuisine of regions, since every region has its own distinct culinary traditions."

And surprisingly, Iraqi cuisine is not going to be the odd one out. From the descriptions of Iraqi foods, it seems that the Mesopotamian cuisine had far-reaching effects which can be traced in the Mediterranean cuisine as well, and because of this, in Serbian, Croatian and Czech cuisine as well.

***Menu***
Appetizer from the Czech Rep: Vegetable Salad (Will & Tara)

Entree from Iraq:  Timman Z'affran (Saffron rice with meat)

Dessert from Croatia: Bajadera (Amaly) a chocolate pie sort of thing

Vegetable Salad:

Kara chopping eggs and preparing the appetizer...

The Timman Z'affaran was a great success, it was really delicious! Giuseppe used chicken as the meat, and didn't seem to have that bad of a time making it- just a lot of steps, including mortar and pestle to make the base of the sauce. 

He also added some hummus and pita as a side dish. The recipe he used for the Timman is found here. 

Bajadera: 

Follow this link to the Bajadera recipe. We found it pretty tasty, but rather difficult to eat- we may not have let it cool long enough.  

Making it was easy- here you see the dark chocolate being layered onto the first layer of nuts, butter and sugar. 

And the final product: 

  

Dinner #2: SERBIA

We are in SERBIA!!! 

Serbian cuisine is thankfully, very different from Ukrainian cuisine. It is very eclectic and heterogenous, with influences from the Mediterranean (Byzantine Empire/Greece), the Oriental (Turkish) and the Hungarian cuisines. (And, we are so very excited to be able to get away from the trauma of dumplings!!)
"It has unique mix of various traditions; Serbian confectioneries are places where koljivo, baklava, nut roll and sachertorte live in perfect harmony."


The Menu: (This time, it seems we will actually be able to enjoy our  meal.)


Appetizer: Ajvar with artesan bread (Giuseppe): Ajvar is a type of spread made from bell peppers, eggplant, garlic and chili pepper. Delicious! And sooo easy to make.

Entree: Cevapcici with roasted potatos and tsatsiki (Amaly): Cevapcici is a grilled mix of minced meat (in our case, beef, pork and lamb) with other seasonings mixed in. The roasted potatos and tsatsikik are common in Greece as well, and worked really well with the cevapcici. The cevapcici were really easy to make, by just combining the meats together, throwing in the chopped onions and garlic and other spices- and then just rolling them out into sausages and patties. It took about 15 minutes to get the first ones on the grill after mixing everything together- so definitely easy to reproduce!       

Dessert: Baklava (Will): Delicious and oh so sweet! But extremely tasty at the end of such a spices-intense meal, and complemented with a strong, dark coffee.














***
This is definitely our first success story. The Ukraine was such a disaster that having such a delicious and simple dinner was an extreme relief.


Menu recipes:
Ajvar and Baklava are currently still not available...we will try to get them to you! 

Cevapcici:
1 1/2 pounds ground pork

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1/2 pound ground lamb
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
                                                   1/2 teaspoon paprika

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat a grill for medium-low heat.
2. In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, ground beef, ground lamb and egg white. Add the garlic, salt, baking soda, black pepper, cayenne pepper and paprika. Mix well using your hands, and form into finger length sausages about 3/4 inch thick.
3. Lightly oil the grilling surface. Grill sausages until cooked through, turning as needed, about 30 minutes.
   
   

Dinner # 1: UKRAINE!

Our first challenge was to be in Eastern Europe- the Ukraine.

Per various internet sources, Ukrainian cuisine is defined by "a rich history and offers a wide variety of dishes. The cuisine of modern Ukraine is based on traditional Ukrainian recipes...bears influences from its neighbors' cuisines like Russian, German, Hungarian, Turkish and Polish, Lithuanian, and what can be called the Soviet cuisine (dishes of mixed origins popular in the USSR) [this is what would become the defining factor of our experience!!!]... Meat (especially pork), potatoes, vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, berries, and herbs play a major part. Ukrainian food is intended to be filling, and should be served in large quantities."

The Menu: (recipes can be found below, but I don't know why you would want to go there...)

Appetizer: Varenyky (Amaly)- Basic Ukrainian fried flour dumplings, filled with shredded carrot, sauerkraut and onions. Making them was more fun than eating them, however they were among the least heavy of the 3 different types of dumplings we made, along the lines of what a Chinese dumpling would be if it were stuffed with Eastern bloc ingredients...and yet still was not light- very heavy to eat.

Entre: (Will & Tara)- delicious and hearty stew, complemented by potato dumplings of hockey puck size and consistency. The stew was a very nice combination of meats and vegetables, but would have been more appropriate to eat during the winter season, not when it was still 110F outside.

Dessert: (Giuseppe)- Fried flour dumplings, served 
with sour creme, canned cherries, and lots of sugar. This was the part that broke the camel's back- in the end, too many dumplings for us! The recipe actually didn't even call for any sugar or cherries, but that was the part that was able to slightly save the recipe. 

***

As you can see, we had dumplings served three different ways for dinner that night. We had a guest with us that night, Giuseppe's friend Bronwen from London, who joined us in being absolutely horrified by the heaviness of the food, the amount of times dumplings were present in the menu, and the fact that we felt like we had lead blocks in our stomachs at the end of the evening.
Not even multiple bottles of wine could make it better.

We decided that we would like to have the next challenge be outside of the former Soviet Union bloc- and had Bronwen do the honors of picking out the next country: SERBIA!!!!!!

We are obviously not on a lucky streak right now, however there is hope- Serbian cuisine is more influenced by the Mediterranean than by the USSR.


Varenyky with sauerkraut: Recipe and making them! 

Ingredients:
3 glasses of flour
1 egg
2/3 glass of water
2-3 onions
2-3 carrots
500 g of sauerkraut


Pour out flour on the table. Form it like a volcano with a hole in the middle. Break an egg into this hole and add water and salt. Beat the dough until it become of plasticine consistence, then cover it and wait for 30-40 minutes.
Cut onions and grate carrots. Fry them. When ready add sauerkraut and stew the stuffing for 20-30 minutes.
Cut the dough to pieces and roll each piece so it gets thin. Then press it with a glass to have circle forms.

 Gather the rests and roll again. Put the stuffing inside the circles and press the edges.
Boil for 5-7 minutes. When serving, add fried onions. 

Our first dinner

Highly organizational in content, and we had not developed any of the rules, the list of countries or structure of our challenges.

The Menu:
Appetizers: French Brie with apricots and walnuts, crackers and aged cheddar cheese
Main Course: Giuseppe's amazing pasta
Dessert: Silken Tofu Dark chocolate chili mousse

The country chosen out of the bag: UKRAINE!!

Our 1st real country challenge dinner is on September 23rd. Will & Tara are in charge of the main course, Giuseppe is desserts, Amaly is appetizers.