Uzberkistan, a night of plov

Salom,

I decided to cook a national dish of Uzberkistan, lamb and rice pilaf. The lamb, onion and grated carrot was cooked in a casserole dish before currents (with lemon juice to substitute for barberries), coriander, cumin and pepper were added.

After the combination was fairly well cooked the rice and salt was added to finish it off. The meal was flavoursome and aromas. It tasted similar to the other plov dishes I have made.

Xayr

Sam’s rating: 7/10

Uruguay, the impossible sandwich

Hola,

Uruguay, located in Latin America, Uruguay has a sandwich style national dish called chivito. Traditional comfort food, there are a lot of versions to this national dish. I decided to cook it with thin rib steak, pancetta, eggs, ham, Monterey Jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and roasted peppers.

The meal is similar to many meals found in cafes, what I call an impossible sandwich since it is impossible to get your mouth around it. The chivito was really nice. It had aioli rather than butter which makes a nice alternative. Monterey Jack cheese is a very soft cheese and is perfect for melting. I had never had pancetta before and I really liked the flavour it added to the meal.

I would make a sandwich using some of these ingredients and this has taught me a thing or two about sandwiches. However I would like to get my mouth around it.

Adios

Sam’s rating: 8/10

United States, hamburgers

Hey y’all,

So for the United States there was no other alternative but to cook the hamburger, a very appropriate national dish for the USA.

The meat patties contained mustard, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, onion and mince. The patties were fried and then put on the bun with additional mustard, tomato sauce, bread and butter cucumbers and goula cheese.

Overall, the combination was really tasty, including the cucumbers which I found rather surprising considering I don’t particularly like either cucumber or mustard. A very nice meal overall, I would like to put my own twist on it with pineapple, bacon and bbq sauce, maybe next time I cook them.

Bye

Sam’s rating: 8/10

United Kingdom, it feels a lot like England

Hello,

Today everything seemed to have a wee touch of the mother country to it. The day started by waking up to a misty, drizzly, wet, winter’s day with a breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato, sausages, baked beans and toast. The breakfast was to use up food but it turned out to a rather English affair.

For England I had decided to cook a roast beef and vegetables with Yorkshire puddings. The roast beef was marinated with English mustard and seared over a frying pan prior to roasting in the oven. I had never cooked a roast this way before and the searing helped keep the juices inside the meat. The potatoes were pre-boiled and shaken in a strainer to rough up the edges, the potatoes were roasted covered in duck fat, garlic and thyme. I also cooked parsnips, peas, broccoli and carrot to serve with the meal.

The Yorkshire puddings were made with flour, eggs and milk, so simple and so very tasty. Oil was added to cupcake dishes and heated in the oven. Once the oil was hot the pudding batter was added to it and it was cooked until golden, the result was a big success, I really like Yorkshire puddings with gravy. Yorkshire puddings are pretty much just stomach fillers but so good.

The gravy contained juices from the roast, red wine and plain flour. It was simple to make and is quite nice, the quantity of red wine called for in the recipe is a touch high in my opinion. The gravy added a different taste to a traditional Australian gravox gravy.

I always like a good roast, this roast was better than most, all due to the humble Yorkshire pudding.

Bye

Sam’s rating: 9/10

United Arab Emirates, ghee I wonder

مرحبا

Al harees is a meal consumed across the Arab world, particularly at Ramadan. The UAE considers it to be one of their national dishes and the key ingredient was pearled wheat.

I also found ghee in our supermarket which was great, ghee is quite easy to make using unsalted butter but it will be nice to give it a taste and see if my version and attempt at it was accurate.

The pearled wheat was soaked overnight before being cooked for half an hour. Then the chicken which was salted in water was added and the combination was put over low heat for three and a half hours. The result, as always was a consistency similar to porridge. Cinnamon was mixed with the ghee and poured over the al harees.

Pearled barley is much nicer than what I cooked for Tanzania, boko-boko, an Arab influenced dish consisting of cracked wheat and rice which gives a similar sort of texture to al harees. Surprisingly, it was nicer than expected, filling but interesting enough given only three spices went into it, salt, pepper and cinnamon. I left the sugar out to make it more authentic according to other recipes. It is the sort of meal that you want to eat fresh as it doesn’t freeze well.

وداعا

Sam’s rating: 6/10

Ukraine, a hearty soup for winter

Здравствуйте

Heading into winter the Ukraine meal was quite appropriate to cook. The meal was a traditional red borscht soup. This was a very hearty soup with sausages, beets, carrots, potato, tomatoes and cabbage with garlic, salt and pepper for seasoning. It is the first soup that I have ever had with sausages, interestingly you take the sausages out of their case before you start to cook.

The soup was topped with sour cream and parsley. The sour cream does add a different flavour to the soup and initially it tasted nice before it started to curdle and go throughout the soup.

I was quite apprehensive in tasting the soup but it was much nicer than I had expected, lovers of tomato soup would also like this one given the tomatoes in it.

до побачення

Sam’s rating: 8/10

Uganda, a pleasant surprise

 Habari,

Uganda, another African country with dishes similar to elsewhere in the region, this time however I decided to cook rolex, not the watch brand but a food that is typically sold on the street. I guess the watches would also probably be sold on the street there, maybe more so in Thailand.

Anyway back to the cooking, rolex was made with a chapati, I enjoyed making the chapati but unfortunately I had trouble without a rolling pin to get it very thin, I think mine ended up too thick. Never the less, the chapatti dough was rolled out and fried. To make the rolex, an egg was beaten and put in the frying pan, once cooked it was transferred gently to the chapati with tomato and cabbage added before being rolled.

I thought this meal might be quite bland but I really liked it. As a sucker for garlic, I enjoyed the flavour of the chapati and would make it again. I would probably put more of a western twist to it, maybe some bacon, chicken and maybe even beans would go well.

Kwaheri

Sam’s rating 9/10