Cuba

Platillo Moros y Cristianos


I made this dish on Thursday, July 28, 2011 for Andy and me.  Platillo Moros y Cristianos translated to Moors and Christians Dish.  It is a black bean and rice dish; the black beans represent Moors and the white rice represents Christians.  This dish had the potential to be good, but even though I followed the recipe to a tee, I severely undercooked the beans, which caused a chalky texture.  It ended up going down the garbage disposal.  If I were to make this again, I would be sure the beans were done more before adding them to the rice or I would used canned black beans.

Ingredients:
- 1 lb. dried black beans
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 T. cumin
- 1/2 c. green pepper, chopped
- olive oil
- 3 T. tomato paste
- 2 c. chicken broth
- 1 c. long-grain white rice
- salt and pepper 

Directions:
1) Cover beans with water.  Bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and let stand one hour.  Drain.
2) Sauté onion, garlic and green pepper in olive oil until tender.
3) Add tomato paste, beans, cumin and chicken broth.
4) Add rice; cover and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until rice is fully cooked, about 30 minutes.
5) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Croatia

Turkey with Mlinci and Blitva

I made this national dish of Croatia on Wednesday, July 20.  Andy and I both really liked this one, even though it was super salty.  This must be the result of Vegeta, a flavoring from Croatia that I ordered off of amazon.com:

Vegeta

Proof it's from Croatia!

It smells and looks like the flavor packet in chicken flavored ramen noodles, but is made mostly of dehydrated vegetables.  This is the dry rub used on the turkey and the flavoring used in the blitva.

The turkey was really moist.  I bought a 9.43 pound turkey, and it took about 3 hours, 15 minutes to roast to 165 degrees in a 325 degree oven.  I basted it every half hour.  My oven tends to run hot, so I bought an oven thermometer and realized that my oven runs about 100 degrees hot!  Isn't that ridiculous?  I'm glad I bought the thermometer, and I'm also glad to be moving out of here to greener pastures and better ovens.

The mlinci were easier to make than I thought.  They start out as cracker-like, but become chewy once they are baked with the turkey drippings.  These, too, were very salty, which is not suprising considering the amount of Vegeta that was part of the drippings.

The blitva was very easy to make, and very tasty.  It reminded me of Trinxat, a similar side dish that I made for my Andorran meal.  This is something I could see myself making as a side dish outside of my international cooking.

TURKEY WITH MLINCI

INGREDIENTS

MLINCI

-3 c. flour

-1/2-2/3 c. lukewarm water

-1 tsp. salt

-2 T. oil

TURKEY

-1 turkey (10-18 pounds)

-Salt

-1 c. water

-Vegeta

-olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

1) Rub salt and Vegeta to taste into turkey.  Let rest overnight.

2) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a dough from flour, oil and lukewarm, salted water.  Knead well.

3) Divide dough into 4-5 lumps.  Roll each into a round shape, about 1/8" thick.  Bake each piece on a sheet pan, 25 minutes.

Before baking

Mlinci baked

4) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Before roasting, brush turkey with olive oil.  Place in a roasting pan with water.  Roast 20 minutes per pound, basting it in its own juice, until a meat thermometer inserted into the thigh reads at least 165 degrees.

All ready to go in the oven!

Done cooking

5) Remove from oven and roasting pan and let stand in a tinfoil tent 15-20 minutes.

6) Meanwhile, remove fat from roasting pan.  Break mlinci into small pieces and mix into roasting juice.  Bake briefly.

Mixed in and ready to go in the oven

Post-baking

BLITVA

INGREDIENTS:

-2 bunches Swiss chard, stemmed and ripped into pieces

-2 potatoes, cubed into 1/2" chunks

-garlic

-1 T. Vegeta

-3 T. olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1) Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Add garlic and Vegeta.

2) Add potatoes and Swiss chard.  Cook until done, about 10 minutes.

3) Drain well, top with oil and serve.

Côte d'Ivoire

Kejenou


I made this meal on Wednesday, July 13 for my younger sister Sarah and me.  It is the national dish of Côte d'Ivoire, or Ivory Coast, in Africa.  On the website from which I got the recipe, it is described as "traditional Ivorian (from Côte d'Ivoire) recipe for a one-pot dish of chicken and prawns with rice in a chilli, tomato and white wine sauce."  We loved it.


I made a few changes to the recipe: I cut the chicken into chunks, which I'm thinking may be the reason that the chicken was so unbelievably, scrumptiously tender.  I also used three jalapeños instead of two habaneros because Cub was out of habaneros when I went shopping.  I used large shrimp instead of prawns because Coastal Seafoods didn't have any prawns, and, finally, when the recipe said to cook for 35 minutes, I opted to cover the pan to help the rice steam.  These changes rendered a sumptuous meal, which had spices that reminded me of Indian food and the dishes I made for Afghanistan and Bangladesh.  There must be some Asian influences in Côte d'Ivoire.


Kejenou

INGREDIENTS:
-4 chicken breast halves, cut into chunks
-6 large prawns, peeled
-2 tsp. salt
-7 cloves garlic, minced
-2 tsp. paprika
-2 T. olive oil
-2 onions, diced
-4 large tomatoes, pureed
-1 T. tomato paste
-1/2 c. water
-2 habanero peppers (I used three jalapeños), diced
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-1 tsp. nutmeg
-1 tsp. turmeric
-1 1/2 c. long grain rice
-3 c. chicken stock
-1 c. white wine
-chopped parsley (which I forgot to use)


DIRECTIONS:
1) Marinate chicken and prawns in salt, 1 clove garlic and paprika for two hours.
2) Fry onions and garlic in olive oil in a large pan until softened.
3) Add chicken, tomatoes, tomato paste, peppers and spices.  Cook for 5 minutes.
4) Add rice, chicken stock and wine.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 35 minutes.
5) Add prawns and cook until they turn pink.  
6) (Garnish with parsley) and serve immediately.

Bringing to a boil

All cooked in the pan

Costa Rica

Gallo Pinto

Country #50 is completed!  I made Costa Rica's national dish, Gallo Pinto, on Wednesday, July 6 for Andy and me.  It is a black beans and rice dish, flavored with chicken bouillon and a special hot sauce I ordered from Costa Rica called Salsa Lizano.  The website from which I got this recipe tells me that it is the Salsa Lizano that makes gallo pinto different from other countries' rice and bean dishes.  It tastes like Worcestershire mixed with some tabasco.

Both Andy and I thought the meal was fine; he was a bit put off by the onions and peppers, and I thought that the Salsa Lizano overpowered every other flavor.  I didn't even feel like I could taste the rice or beans!  I ate my whole plate though, and will eat the leftovers for dinner tonight.

Gallo Pinto

INGREDIENTS:

-1 c. cooked rice

-1 c. cooked black beans, flavored with chicken bouillon

-1 small onion, diced

-1 small red pepper, diced

-2 cloves garlic, chopped

-1 T. vegetable oil

-1/4 c. cilantro, chopped

-4 T. Salsa Lizano

-1 chicken bouillon cube

-pinch of black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1) Fry onion, red pepper, garlic and cilantro in vegetable oil until soft, about three minutes.

2) Stir in black beans, Salsa Lizano, black pepper and chicken bouillon.  Cook for several more minutes.

3) Stir in rice.

4) Serve with sour cream and eggs (and fried plantains, which I didn't do).