Invention: Sun in a Spud

Hello! I would like to present a recipe I made up last week. This is not part of my usual Destination 206 Project, it's something of an extra. The recipe is called Sun in a Spud, and involves cooking an egg inside a potato and topping it with a mix of ingredients. I tested it and discovered that it was actually quite rich and rather tasty. After putting the entire recipe together and cooking it, I found out that the concept of putting an egg inside a potato had been thought of before, but as a breakfast food called Idaho Sunrise. I love that name but wanted to do something rather different. This is a slightly more elaborate dish that can be eaten at any meal (or every meal, which is what I would love), though it is still very easy to put together.

Here is the recipe! If you try it, please do let me know how it goes in the comments.

Sun in a Spud

Ingredients:

-6 potatoes
-6 eggs
-1 red onion
-6 rashers of bacon
-8 oz mushrooms
-dash of white wine
-cayenne pepper, optional
-1/2 cup of a cheese such as Parmesan or Pecorino Romano, grated

Instructions:

Boil potatoes until they are soft. Chop the onion and slice the bacon; heat a pan with some olive oil and add the onion and bacon at the same time. Saute until onion is clear, then add mushrooms. After a minute or two, pour in the dash of white wine, and season with salt and pepper. When the mixture looks caramelized and tasty, turn off the heat. Cut the tops off of the potatoes, and hollow out some of the inside. Pour in a raw egg and arrange each potato in a roasting tin. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and some cayenne pepper if desired. Broil at 500* for 10-15 minutes, depending on how cooked you like your eggs. Then, serve topped with the onion and bacon mixture and some grated cheese. Enjoy!

Algeria

Algeria was a great meal, especially because I decided to do a Tagine dish, and I love Tagine dishes. A dear family friend once cooked us a delicious Moroccan meal with a Tagine and the rest, as they say, was history. Anyways, I found the recipe on this blog called La Petite Paniere, which I need to investigate further as it seems like a great blog. The recipe was for a ‘Lamb with Peas and Artichoke Tagine’, and it pleasantly surprised me. Since finding decent lamb where I live is about as easy as nailing Jell-O to a wall, I used a cheap but actually quite nice cut of beef instead. 

I will direct you with great pleasure to the recipe linked below, with the suggestion to use less water than directed and to be liberal with the spices. At one point in the cooking, around 20 minutes in, I lifted the lid of my Tagine to find a watery broth that tasted vaguely of chicken noodle soup, for reasons unfathomable to me since it contained neither chicken nor noodles and was not meant to be a soup. I turned up the heat, added more Rag el Hanouk and threw in an eye-watering dose of cayenne for good measure. Things improved radically after that. Also, I didn’t add the peas and artichoke until halfway through the meat’s cooking time, instead of at the start, partly because my mother suggested it and she is always right about these things, and also because my Tagine would have overflowed (dramatically) if I did. As it was, there was hasty use of a turkey baster. Fun times!

I served this Tagine with buttery couscous (yum) and a smashingly flavorful eggplant recipe that can be found in a subsequent post. It was a pretty decent meal, though I do say so myself!

Up next: Andorra! (Drumroll please….)

Lamb Tajine with Artichoke and Green Peas:
http://lapetitepaniere.com/2014/11/08/lamb-tajine-with-artichoke-and-green-peas/

Albania

I have to say I was a tiny bit skeptical of Albanian food, mostly out of ignorance I think. But I found Albanian cuisine to actually be quite healthy, tasty and to use a lot of the same ingredients my family cooks with on a day to day basis. With, perhaps, a more liberal use of mint; seriously, there was mint everywhere. It tasted good though.

For my Albanian meal I prepared a spinach Byrek, some meatballs, and Pasul.

To start with we have the Pasul, which is a very filling, thick bean soup. It had great flavor and would be great for the winter on a cold night. In fact, after a decent bowl of it we really didn’t need any other dishes, but we made a valiant effort and pressed on.

Next on our plates were the Byrek and meatballs. The spinach Byrek (or Burek) is a dish I will definitely be making again. It was, in essence, a pie with a phyllo pastry crust and top, and a filling made of fresh spinach, raw egg, and cheese. It was really, really tasty. The meatballs were also good, with lots of flavor and a good deal of mint (something the Pasul was also notable for).

I think this was probably my favorite meal so far. The Pasul was good, but the other two dishes were even better and I have linked all three below. Give them a try!

Pasul: kuzhinashqiptare.com/en/traditional/pasul-recipe/

Byrek with Spinach: kuzhinashqiptare.com/en/traditional/byrek-burek-spinach/

Meatballs, Recipe 6 in this collection: albaniantranslators.com/recipes.html

Afghanistan

 After our Afghanistan meal, we had leftovers for quite a while. It was a really solid meal, so filling that I think I could have done just one of the two main dishes and easily made a meal of it. But it was fun to try them both, and the dessert was very interesting.

The main dish was Dolmeh-e-Kadoo, or Afghan Stuffed Squash. Luckily it was the right time of year and we had some Patty Pan Squash from our garden, so I used those and they worked very well. The ingredients were all very flavorful; the only one I didn't have was advieh, a spice mixture that can be found in Middle-Eastern markets, presumably. So instead I threw in some cinnamon, turmuric, ground cloves, cumin, dried coriander, and ground ginger, which worked rather well.

The side dish was Bolani Katchalu, or savory pastry turnovers with a potato filling. These were almost like an Afghan version of quesadillas. If I could go back in time I would make them rather smaller, since they were quite imposing and took up more than half of a dinner plate, But they tasted good despite my overzealous portioning. I'm actually getting hungry thinking about them, all golden and crispy. Moving on!

For dessert we had Sheer Yakh, an Afghan recipe for ice cream. Since it did not require sugar as an ingredient, I was expecting it to be on the edge of savory, barely sweet at all. You should have seen my surprise when I first tried it - it was one of the sweetest things I have ever tasted. Apparently the condensed milk was quite sweet...anyways, I wasn't used to the saccharine intensity and so it wasn't my favorite dessert. But others with a raging sweet tooth may find it very nice!

As always, the recipes are linked below, go have a poke around...

Dolmeh-e-Kadoo (Afghan Stuffed Squash):
afghankitchenrecipes.com/recipe/dolmeh-e-kadoo-afghan-stuffed-squash/

Bolani Katchalu (Potato Filled Turnovers):
afghankitchenrecipes.com/recipe/potato-bolani-fried-afghan-flatbread/

Sheer Yakh (Afghan Ice Cream):
afghankitchenrecipes.com/recipe/sheer-yakh-or-kulfi-afghan-ice-cream/

Abkhazia

The Country: Abkhazia

The Dishes: Adjika, Chicken with Bazhe Sauce, and Eggplant with Adjika



The very first country on my list is Abkhazia, a disputed territory on the Eastern coast of the Black Sea. In a nutshell, it is a very conflicted area, so while Russia, Abkhazia itself, and a handful of other countries consider Abkhazia an independent country, Georgia, the United Nations, and in fact the majority of the world consider it a part of Georgia's territory. There was a war between Abkhazia and Georgia in 1992-1993, and again in 2008, and Abkhazia is now considered a Russian-occupied zone. There is much more to say about this complex conflict, but I will move on to the food regardless.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed preparing (and eating) an Abkhazian meal. Abkhazian cuisine's staples include corn and corn meal, meat and dairy products, and vegetables. Meat is usually boiled or grilled, while vegetable dishes often involve seasoning green vegetables with walnuts, spices, and the famous Adjika sauce. Interestingly, every meal is accompanied by a platter of vegetables, with fresh vegetables in summer and both pickled and root vegetables in the winter.

The first dish I prepared, the night before the meal, was Adjika. In Abkhazia, people take Adjika very seriously. It is a spicy sauce or condiment with a tomato and hot red pepper base that is used to flavor many dishes. Apparently, each family has a slightly different recipe, which they keep rather a secret. This article is a wonderful read and does a much better job of explaining the spicy phenomenon that is Adjika. I used the recipe linked below, although I did add some dried oregano and powdered cumin to the recipe. Also, I used a food

processor instead of a meat grinder. Terrible, I know, but efficient. The result was a spicy, delicious sauce that was almost a cross between salsa and Sambal-Oelek.

My main dish was very simple, pan-grilled chicken breasts with a Bazhe sauce. The chicken breasts were very simply grilled in olive oil with a little salt and pepper. The Bazhe sauce was a real surprise; I had never tried a sauce like it. The recipe called for hazelnuts, but the local supermarket didn't have any. Around here, you can buy pig's feet and pig's skins and some people actually eat them, but no hazelnuts. So instead I used pecans and walnuts, which was still lovely, The sauce ended up being very delicate but with a quite complex flavor, helped by the white wine vinegar and the different spices. I would love to make this sauce again, perhaps with hazelnuts next time.

As a side, I tried making Eggplant with Adjika. The dish consisted of grilled eggplant slices topped with a mixture of mayonnaise, peppers, green onions, garlic, herbs, spices, and of course some Adjika. The dish was very strong in flavor, almost overpowering, and in future I might add more mayonnaise in proportion to the other ingredients, to try and lighten up the dish.

I served the meal with some pickled okra and a homemade Turkish country bread, both of which paired really well with the dishes.

It was a lot of fun to cook and to eat! Maybe someday I can visit Abkhazia and try the real thing.
 

Here is some background information and the recipes I used:

-An overview of Abkhazian cuisine:
http://abkhazworld.com/aw/abkhazians/culture/654-abkhazian-cuisine

-An great article by a man who is serious about his Adjika:
http://abkhazworld.com/aw/blogs/647-adjika-sauce-of-glory-pride-of-abkhazia-by-oliver-bullough

-The recipe for Adjika:
http://georgianrecipes.net/2013/09/29/ajika-with-tomatoes/

-The recipe for Chicken with Bazhe Sauce:
http://georgianrecipes.net/2014/05/25/chicken-tabaka-with-hazelnut-bazhe-sauce/

-And the recipe for Eggplant with Adjika, again a Georgian site:
http://georgianrecipes.net/2014/08/04/eggplant-with-ajika-and-mayonnaise/

Announcing a New Project

Today I have decided to attempt a challenge. I am going to try and cook a dish from every country in the world. According to this list, there are 206 sovereign states recognized by the UN, so it will certainly be a varied and unique project. I will mostly be doing web research on each country's cuisine, but if you would like to make a comment suggesting your country's 'classic' or best dish, I would love to hear it! To start with, I will go in alphabetical order, which means that our very first country will be Abkhazia, a conflicted state which used to be part of Georgia and whose independence is disputed. Why start simple?

Toad in the Hole - An English Classic

A traditional English dish is Toad in the Hole. I know what you're thinking; no, it does not involve cooking any actual toads, frogs or other amphibians. This lack, funnily enough, does not make the dish any less delicious. Basically, Toad in the Hole is Yorkshire pudding with sausages added to it. It's traditionally served with gravy and vegetables, often mashed potatoes and carrots. The first records of this dish originate in the mid-to-late 1800's; in one of the earliest records, the cook simply included "bits and pieces of any kind of meat, which are to be had cheapest at night when the day's sale is over" (Charles Elme Francatelli, 1861). During World War II, a variation was created which substituted Spam for the sausages.

Toad in the Hole 

Ingredients:

-6 sausages

-6 oz plain flour

-2 eggs, beaten

-10 fl oz milk

-salt and pepper

-1 generous glob of shortening

In a large skillet, brown the sausages. Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle, and incorporate the eggs and milk. Season with salt and pepper. The batter should be runny and of a smooth consistency. In your oven, heat a large roasting pan containing the glob of shortening and the evenly spaced sausages at 425*F (220*C). When shortening is melted, pour the batter carefully around the sausages. Cook for 25-30 minutes, until the batter has risen and is golden-brown. Serve hot with mashed potatoes, carrots and gravy. The dish is most delicious directly after it has been cooked, so we recommend you eat it all immediately. You can eat salad tomorrow, breakfast, lunch and dinner, to make up for it, but just for tonight - enjoy!

Browning the sausages

The Yorkshire Batter