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