Libya, almost to the middle, or is it the middle east?

مرحبا

Libya is another Middle Eastern country and another country where lamb is popular.

We decided to cook a Libyan dish of lamb with couscous. A very nice dish with lots of juices, probably too much in the way of juice as it was almost like a soup.

وداعا

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Liberia, a meaty meal

Hello,

Liberia is an interesting country as it is the only African nation that was colonised and controlled by freed African-American and ex-Carribbean slaves as a free state and a homeland to live. This theme of freedom is seen in many places with the motto “The love of liberty brought us here”, in fact, the name Liberia refers to the “Land of the free”. Sadly, the country is rather corrupt placing 87^th most corrupt in the world.

For this country we cooked Liberian Jollof Rice which is a beautiful combination of chicken, beef and bacon with cabbage and rice. The meal was seasoned with salt, pepper and tomato, very tasty.

Bye

Sam’s rating: 9/10

Lesotho, a vegetarian meal

Hi,

Lesotho is a mountainous landlocked country surrounded by South Africa where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line of $1.25 USD per day. Typically, the Basotho people have very little meat in their cuisine.

We made a dish called Afrikaanse stoofschotel which is a vegetarian dish consisting of cabbage, tomatoes and potatoes with spices. Despite being vegetarian, the meal was surprisingly tasty.

Bye

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Lebanon and leftovers

مرحبا

Lebanon is a very ancient country situated in the Middle East.  we had riz ala’ dajaj which is chicken and lamb with rice and a Lebanese salad.

 The dish was fairly tasty with a lot of cinnamon flavouring, the lamb didn’t add too much to the taste of the meal. The leftovers didn’t do any favours to the dish!

وداعا

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Lativia, a touch of pork

sveiki

Lativia is a country that I hadn’t heard of until about two years ago situated in north-western Europe. The meals according to Wikipedia are generally quite fatty with few spices.

For this meal we decided on karbonāde (pork cutlets with chanterelle cream sauce) which is battered pork that is fried and served with vegetables with a mushroom sauce. It took a while to hunt down a mushroom mix that contained 25% chanterelle mushrooms.

The meal was quite nice although I am not really that fond of mushrooms.

ardievas

Sam’s rating: 8/10

Laos, a salad for the nation

สวัสดี

For this country situated near Thailand sharing the same language we decided to cook laap muu which is essentially minced pork with a fish sauce flavour served on a lettuce.

There was a mild spice taste to the pork and the fish sauce made the smell very different, in fact it had us wondering whether the mince was off!

ลา

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Kyrgyzstan, a contender for the top soup

Здравствуйте

Kyrgyzstan, so many of these countries I cannot pronounce, I will have to pay careful attention next year when I announce the countries at the Rio Olympics that is for sure.

For Kyrgyzstan I decided to cook kesme, a noodle and lamb soup. I do like a good soup and this one is probably the best soup we have had to date. The recipe was a little unclear about what spices to add but according to google, cumin is one of the key ones and the only one I used other than those specified by the recipe.

As mentioned, the soup was nice; I would have given it a 10 except that would put it on level with mum’s Chinese noodle soup and also her bacon bone and vegetable soup. No soup can join those at that level so it had to settle with the lesser score of 9.

До свидания

Sam’s rating: 9/10