A touch of Greece

γεια σας

This ancient country is making headlines at the moment in the finance world due to their debt situation. For Greece, we cooked Moussaka, a yoghurt, eggplant, potato and mince casserole with cheese.

I found the dish easy to cook and very tasty. The timing on the recipe is pretty incorrect and took closer to an hour to cook (including preparation).

αντίο

Sam’s rating: 8/10

Ghana, typical African with a twist

Hi,

Ghana, another African country with British heritage and influence the recipe seemed pretty typical of an African country, beans, rice, tomatoes and garlic.

Interestingly though, for the first time in my life I used celery leaves, the celery leaves always seem to be discarded in general cooking but in this recipe the leaves were used with other ingredients to make a puree for an African stew. The stew was served with Waakye, a very popular dish in Ghana.

Bye.

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Germany, it has to be sausages

Guten Tag,

Germany is well known for beer, sausages and black forest pudding among other dishes. We decided to settle for Kielbasa and Kraut. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find Kielbasa so we had to settle for another type of sausage although we did you German beer.

The meal wasn’t too bad, it was satisfying to see the thick gravy that was made with it, I must have done something right after quite a few of my previous versions of “thick” gravy have turned out a bit watery. The taste was quite nice, the sauerkraut took over a bit in terms of flavour and I am sure the proper sausages would have helped.

Auf Wiedersehen

Sam’s rating: 8/10

Georgia, not bad

მიესალმები

This country has made world headlines a few years ago for all the wrong reasons, a former member of the Soviet Union, the country seems to have a rocky relationship with Russia.

In any case, we decided to cook Chakhokhbili, a chicken dish that is served with rice. My housemate froze my share so I didn’t taste it straight out of the pot but it wasn’t too bad.

მშვიდობით

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Gambia, the shape of the world

Hi,

This country is an interesting shape, the country is surrounded by Senegal and it is amazing how such borders come into being. The nation follows the Gambia river and is a former colony of Britain. Amazingly, the slave trade ended in Gambia just over 100 years ago.

We cooked the national dish Domoda, it seemed typical to many African dishes that I have made with peanuts used as a flavouring. Sadly, I can never get too excited about peanuts so my rating was fairly ordinary.

Bye for now.

Sam’s rating: 6/10

Gabon, peanuts again

Bonjour,

For this French speaking African central west African country I decided to cook Poissonsen sauce aux arachides, otherwise known as Fish in Peanut Sauce. I am not really fond of peanuts but peanut sauce seems to be typical of this area of the world.

The fish was quite nice, even smothered with peanut sauce, I must say I prefer my fish with lemon rather than peanuts but different all the same.

Au Revoir

Sam’s rating: 7/10

France, my tastes are not refined

Bonjour,

The French always have exquisite taste about their food and in fact all things French. The possibilities were quite broad for France, fish eggs, frog legs or snails? Or maybe I will just cop out and go for the Blue Cheese, Bacon and Chive Stuffed Pork Chops.

Or so I thought it was a cop out. I have never been much of a fan of cheese, my idea of cheese is that it is best in Chicken Kiev, on pizza or in a burger. Blue cheese added a new taste to my taste buds, not for the best though!

I’m sorry, but my tastes are not quite refined enough for the French.

Au Revoir

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Finland, more fish soup

Hei

Finland, when my parents were in Finland dad tried a reindeer steak. Well Rudolf only visits Australia once a year and I am quite sure many children will be upset if I had a Rudolf steak. Nevermind we settled for Finnish Lohikeitto, a traditional salmon, potato and leek soup.

This soup was much better than the other fish soups I have tried so far, not as watery and more flavour.

näkemiin

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Fiji, I can’t eat without frowning

Hello,

Fiji, well we had to have fish, more precisely Fijian Kokoda. I knew as soon as I read that it was raw fish that it would certainly test my stomach. The fish is actually “cooked” in lemon juice over night or for 8 hours and served with lettuce, onion, chili and tomatoes among other ingredients.

Eating it, well it must have been funny to watch me eat it, I couldn’t stop frowning, certainly too much lemon for my taste, I felt like I was sucking on lemons.

Bye!

Sam’s rating: 6/10

Ethiopia, new experiences

Firstly, Ethiopia’s language, Amharic isn’t on Google translate so no hello or goodbye this post, you’ll just have to imagine it. Eretria’s meals have some similarities to Ethiopia with the two nations side by side. For this country we decided to cook Zilzil Tibs and Injera.

ZilzilTibs, is an extremely spicy dish with berbere and spiced butter, water is essential, well, for me anyway.

Injera, apparently plain flour doesn’t really substitute the Teff flour but hey, I tried. The plain flour sat for 2 days, bubbled and smelt horrible. The mixture was then fried like a pancake but remained much more gooey then it should have.

All in all, it may have been better if I had used the right ingredients and had a bit of Ethiopian cooking experience.

Sam’s rating: 5/10

Estonia, smells fishy

tere,

For this Northern European country we decided to cook Fish Soup with Vegies. This soup sure smelt fishy, the smell was strong and the soup was a bit too watery for my liking.

hüvasti

Sam’s rating: 6/10

Eritrea, new ingredients, hot dishes

Hello,

Eritrea is an African country to the north of Ethiopia, the country has a history that is shared with Ethiopia and some of the cuisine is similar.

Part of the recipe called for spiced butter, this is essentially butter with spices used in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, I made the butter using the relevant spices of cardamom, ginger, garlic, cloves, onion, turmeric powder, allspice, oregano and fenugreek seeds.

For Eritrea I made Tsebhi Sga which uses chili, spiced butter, tomatoes, onion and beef. Typically, injera is served with it. Unfortunately, injera wasn’t an option as it takes two days to make. Ethiopia is getting pretty close though so maybe then.

The meat dish was spice, full of flavour and a touch hot for my liking.

Goodbye!

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Equatorial Guniea, fine simplicity

Hola,

Equatorial Guniea is another former colony of Spain but situated in central Africa. Equatorial Guniea is known for Succotash, typically a dish eaten as a side in America, Succotash would be frequently eaten as a main course in areas of poverty.

This dish is quick and easy to make consisting of corn, tomatoes and lima beans. Surprisingly, the dish is really nice, I decided to eat the dish by itself to get the full flavour of it. It was very buttery and would have been better with some sort of meat as well but overall it was nice.

Adios

Sam’s rating: 7/10

El Salvador, souped up

Hola,

Another country from Central America, given we are heading into winter here in Melbourne we are starting to look for warm recipes. For El Salvador we decided to cook a Salvadoran Chicken Soup.

Vegetables, vegetables and more vegetables went into the soup along with chicken, garlic and chicken stock. The end result was a beautiful soup. Unlike the Ecuador soup, the El Salvador soup left overs were very much appreciated.

Adios

Sam’s rating: 9/10

Egypt, fit for a king, well maybe a pharaoh

مرحبا

Egypt has a number of wonders of the ancient world, tonight it had a wonder of the culinary world. Maybe I was just hungry, maybe it was the waiting but Egyptian kebabs are the first meal that I just had to give a 10/10.

These kebabs, with a yoghurt based marinade, turmeric powder, mustard, curry powder, lemon juice, cardamom and vinegar were beautiful.

وداعا

Sam’s rating: 10/10

Not so good Ecuador

Hola,

For this South American country we decided to cook Quinoa Soup.

The soup was rather bland and almost porridge like in texture, maybe it is one of those meals where it must be eaten straight away and left overs are not good at all. I think I could only ever eat about half of what I had dished up due to the taste.

Adios, thank goodness.

Sam’s rating: 4/10

Dominican Republic, another nation with a similar name!

Hola,

Last night I cooked a dish from Dominica, tonight it is the Dominican Republic, an island to the north west of Dominica. Unlike Dominica though, the Dominican Republic is a former Spanish colony.

We decided to cook Pollo Guisado, otherwise known as braised chicken. This chicken is rubbed with lime and marinated with salt, onion, garlic, oregono and celery. It is then cooked with tomatoes, green capsicum and coriander. Served with rice, it is an extremely tasty dish.

Adios

Sam’s rating: 9/10