Cook & Learn About the World: Angola: Chicken Muamba

II first started adding these posts as a way to explore dishes from other countries in an attempt to widen my children´s palettes and also teach them about different countries around the world. Life however got iin the way and cooking the world kind of got put on a backburner...until now...when again my interest iin trying out new dishes,flavours and ingredients has been piqued.

 So, finally, we move onto Angola, an African country, which I  know little about including it´s cuisine. I drew on Global Table Adventure¨s recipe for Angolan Muamba Chicken Stew  for my inspiration, with only a few tweaks to the recipe. Instead of using a  whole chicken, quartered, I used half a chicken, quartered, which was plenty for the four of us. I also only used 2 tomatoes and 200g pumpkin. As I cannot buy okra where I lived , I substituted it for 100-200g courgette. I don´t like very spicy food and as we couldn´t buy any chilli peppers, I omitted it from the recipe. I also added less chilli powder,about 1/4 of a teaspoon as opposed to 1 1/2 teaspoons. As red palm oil is not very healthy and also because I cut down the amount of chicken and vegetables, I used only about half a 1/4 measuring cup of red palm oil ,which I then filled the rest of the 1/4 cup with mild olive oil.I also added salt & pepper to season the stew.

The result was a tasty chicken stew, with the chicken meat being very tender. However, I think it did lack a little in flavour for me so I would add more of the chilli powder and/or the chilli peppers if I were to make it again! 

 

Cook & Learn about the world: Afghanistan:

 So welcome to a new regular post I´m going to be blogging about frequently: Cook and Learn about the World. Inspired by the Global Table Adventure blog, I decided that I wanted to also cook the world so my family could try new cuisines and dishes from different countries, eat more variety and hopefully encourage my daughter to be less of a fussy eater while at the same time learn about these countries and cultures and become more tolerant and open-minded. And after the recent attack in London, it couldn´t come at a better time.

The first country on the list is Afghanistan and I was excited to try this cuisine as I´ve never eaten Afghan food before. I turned to Global Table Adventure´s Afghan recipes and decided to make the following recipes:Burani Bonjon (or Spicy Braised Aubergine with Seer Moss(Garlic Mint Sauce);Kabeli Palau(Twice-cooked Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots)and Firnee (Cardamom & Rose Water Custard). I chose these particular dishes as they were the ones that I liked the sound of the most but also because I thought that my children might like/eat these better than the others.Although I used Global Table Adventure´s recipes for Afghanistan, for other countries I might use other recipes I find in addition to those of Global Table Adventure.

The first dish I made was the Kabeli Palau(Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots). I made the slightly quicker version using chicken breasts and chicken stock(yes, with an Oxo cube!) and even though I made the "quick" version, this recipe did take quite a lot of work but in the end it was so worth it.The rice with tender chunks of chicken lightly spiced is reminiscent of Indian cuisine(one of my favourites!) and the crunchy yet sweet carrot and nutty garnish just finishes off the dish perfectly. I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish.It was a real hit with everyone except my daughter who only ate the rice(and that was with loads of ketchup!!)


The second dish I made was Burani Bonjon(Spicy Braised Aubergine)& Seer Moss(Garlic Mint Sauce) I made this as a side dish. Unfortunately I didn´t make all these Afghan dishes on the same day as it would have made an ideal side dish for the Basmati Rice with Chicken & Carrots. I knew my daughter probably wouldn´t try this dish with it being a vegetable dish but you can live in hopes....I think my 18mth old had a little bit although I think he spat the aubergine out. This was tasty without being too spicy and the garlic mint yoghurt sauce was a great accompaniment to it...very garlicy. I had to use dried mint as didn´t have any fresh so I think the mint flavour was lost a little. Again, I´d definitely reccommend trying this dish.

 Finally, I made Firmee(Cardamom & Rose Water Custard). Both of these flavours were pretty new to me,especially the rose water...which I managed to find in a Morrocan food shop. The recipe itself is pretty easy to make(just make sure you add warm milk to the cornflour not cold otherwise it won´t thicken..I realised this later on but corrected the problem and managed to thicken it up!!)I couldn´t find peeled pistachios so peeling the pistachios was probably one of the things that took up most of the time in this recipe and then grinding it and the cardamom...luckily I had my trusty Thermomix! Unfortunately, we weren´t very keen on this dessert as it has a very strong, perfumed taste despite me only making half the recipe and using half the amount of the rose water.Neither of my children tried this dessert either.


My view:I really enjoyed the food from Afghanistan and would love to try more dishes now including the other recipes featured in Global Table Adventure. However, dessert was a little disappointing.I´ll definitely be making both the rice and the aubergine dishes again in the future.Delicious!!

My children´s view: Not such a success with the kids. The rice was the most successful especially with my 18 mth old and we mananged to encourage my daughter to eat it with copious amounts of ketchup and by saying that it was a special "paella".

Now for the learning part, you can find educational activities about Afghanistan on both Activity Village & Enchanted Learning,however you have to pay to become a member to obtain these activities.I found the following page with various educational activities about Afghanistan and printed out the Afghanistan flag for my daughter to colour.However, we haven´t done anything else so I was a little disappointed that she hasn´t learnt more about this country. I´d love to know of any books aimed at children about Afghanistan or any other activities....please feel free to share them with us. I´d also love to hear if you make any of the dishes too!

Just adding on this quick. I´ve found a book about Afghanistan at my local library(and even better it´s in English!) which looks like a great way to teach my daughter a bit about Afghanistan. It´s called The Sky of Afghanistan by Ana A.de Eulate and illustrated by Sonja Wimmer. I´ve only just borrowed it from the library so we haven´t read it yet but it appears to be a lovely story about an Afghan girl, a dream and a song for peace and it is also beautifully illustrated.

Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge: Avocado: Creamed chicken & Avocado

One of my New Year´s resolutions is to eat a more varied diet,as I believe that a varied diet is healthier and also because there are many ingredients I either hardly eat or cook with or don´t like. So, I came up with this Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge to try and encourage me to eat more things I don´t like or don´t eat very often and discover recipes that use these ingredients in ways I like. I also want to encourage my daughter to try more things and also eat a more varied diet as she is quite fussy.

For letter A, the ingredient I´ve chosen is avocado.I neither dislike nor love avocado...it´s just something I don´t eat much of...in fact I only eat it in guacamole.I used to buy them for my daughter and mash them up for purees when I was weaning her and she loved them but as she got older I stopped buying them and needless to say, she stopped eating them!!

Avocados contain a lot of fat but it is "good" fat and they are also rich in B vitamins, K vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and potassium so they are a great ingredient to include in your diet.You can read more about the nutritional benefits of avocados here.

Of course, the obvious choice of recipe to make with avocado is guacamole,which I want to do one day, but I was looking for something different and more original and came across the following recipe for Creamed Chicken & Avocado, taken from Delia Smith´s Complete Cookery Course. The avocados didn´t appear to be ripe and I found this trick on the Internet about how to ripen avocados quicker by placing them in a plastic bag with a banana as the banana contains something which speeds up the ripening process, so I did this and it worked for one of the avocados but not the other.Unfortunately, I couldn´t persuade my daughter to try even the smallest bite of this dish but we thought it was absolutely delicious and my husband even went so far as to describe it as being in his top 10 of sauces so I will definitely be repeating this dish despite it not being maybe the healthiest dish!! I served it with wholemeal pasta which is great with the creamy sauce and it´d be lovely with some crusty bread to mop up the sauce!

If you´d like to join in with the Eat More Variety Alphabet Challenge all you have to do is post a comment or send me an email, write a post on your blog using this month´s ingredient: avocado and link it back to this post and at the end of the month, I will write a post linking and sharing your recipes. The recipes can either be sweet or savoury. I look forward to seeing and trying your avocado recipes!!

Ingredients:(2 people)
1 chicken breast(fried)or leftover chicken, about 250g,chopped
25g butter
25g flour
125ml milk
75ml chicken stock(I used an Oxo cube)
75ml cream
1tbsp dry sherry
lemon juice
1 ripe avocado
pinch of salt & black pepper
25g cheese,grated( I used extra mature Cheddar cheese)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200ºC
2. Melt butter in a saucepan and then add flour to make a paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring all the time.
3.Add milk, cream and chicken stock and bring to simmering point, then cook gently  for 2-3 mins, stirring all the time.
4. Remove from the heat and add chicken, sherry, salt,pepper & lemon juice.
5. Halve & quarter the avocado and remove the stone and skin, slice thinly and place in a casserole dish.
6.Spoon creamed chicken on top of the avocado and then sprinkle grated cheese on top and cook in the oven for 20-25 mins.

Cooking Spain Region by Region: Aragon: Chicken in Tomato & Pepper Sauce: Pollo al Chilindrón

Well, here we are about to start discovering more about the food from the Aragon region of Spain. I have visited some cities of this region quite a long time ago as I worked at a summer camp but I don´t recall trying any local specialities...in fact as I ate at the summer camp, I don´t recall the food being anything special so hopefully this culinary journey will convince me otherwise!!

I decided to kick off Aragon cuisine with a dish known as Pollo al chilindron, or in other words chicken in a tomato and pepper sauce. Yes, as you can see I am fond of chicken as I´ve already featured two chicken dishes when I cooked Andalusia!!! This recipe is actually a Thermomix recipe and is taken from the Imprescindible Thermomix TM 31 recipe booklet but I´m sure it can easily be adapted to cooking it on the oven hob. It is a really simple dish to make especially if you are using the Thermomix and is a really tasty dinner...another dish that will become a regular!The great thing about the Thermomix is you don´t have to be totally exact with the ingredients...I didn´t put the whole amounts given in the following recipe as sometimes I didn´t have enough of an ingredient but it still turns out delicious!

Ingredients (for 4 people)
4 chicken drumsticks (booklet doesn´t specify how many legs but says 1000g)
50g olive oil
3 cloves of garlic(peeled)
150g onion,peeled
150g green pepper, deseeded
150g red pepper,deseeded
50g white wine
50g water
200g tomato sauce
1 chicken stock cube(I used an Oxo one)
a pinch of black pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
250g sliced mushrooms

Method
1.Place the cloves of garlic and oil in the Thermomix jug and chop for 6 seconds at Speed 5, then programme for 3 minutes at Varoma temperature,Speed 1.
2. Add the onion, red & green pepper,white wine and chop for 4 seconds at Speed 5.
3. Programme for 10 minutes at Varoma temperature, Speed 1.
4. Add the chicken drumsticks, the water, the tomato sauce, the stock cube, the black pepper and the nutmeg and cook for 20 minutes at Varoma temperature, stirring to the left(anticlockwise direction), on spoon speed.
5. Finally add the sliced mushrooms and cook for a further 10 minutes at Varoma temperature, anticlockwise direction, spoon speed.
6. Serve with rice, pasta or sauteed potatoes and vegetables and enjoy!

Cooking Spain Region by Region,Andalucia, "Pollo con aceitunas" Chicken with Olives

Ok, you´re probably thinking that I´d completely forgotten about my plan to cook Spain region by region but you´d be wrong...I´ve just been struggling to find time to blog about it as per usual and I have to admit not having much success with some of the dishes. I´ve tried a couple of other dishes from Andalucia but didn´t have much luck with them, such as Rabo de Toro, Conejo con salmorejo & alboronia. Finally, I tried this dish and at last I stumbled across a hit recipe!Although it means I´m bringing you another chicken dish, "Pollo con aceitunas" or in other words, chicken with olives.

I´m not a olive lover, in fact I don´t even like olives but my husband and daughter adore them so thought I´d try this dish out and actually it turned out to be pretty tasty (I just didn´t eat the olives!!).I don´t remember the name of the book the original recipe is taken from but it´s something like Gastronomia Andaluza...here is my slightly tweaked version.

Ingredients ( for 3-4 people)
4 chicken drumsticks
1/2 onion,chopped
2 cloves of garlic,minced
a good glug of olive oil
12-15 pitted olives
about 1/3 cup (90ml) of brandy
about 1/4 cup (60ml) of sherry (I used Pedro Ximenez)
1/2 tbsp plain flour
about 1/4 cup of water
juice of 1/2 lemon
Yolk of 1 boiled egg,chopped
1/4 tsp dried mint
1/4tsp of frozen parsley
pinch of black pepper
pinch of salt

Method:
1. Season chicken drumsticks with salt & black pepper, then brown in olive oil to a golden colour and leave to one side.
2. Get rid of excess oil and then in remaining oil fry onion and garlic.
3. Add brandy and sherry and cook till the alcohol has evaporated,then add the flour and stir till sauce thickens and to avoid lumps forming.
4.Add the chicken to the sauce and the water,cover the pan and cook till chicken is cooked through.
5. When the chicken is nearly cooked,add olives,mint and parsley,egg yolk and lemon juice. Cover and cook for a further 15 minutes.

I decided to accompany this dish with pasta although I´m not really sure it´s the Spanish or traditional way but I think you could also possibly serve it with rice or potatoes....whatever you want really!!

Cooking Spain Region by Region:Andalusian Style Chicken (Pollo a la Andaluza)

I have been inspired by the blog Global Table Adventure and also by my desire to learn more about the Spanish cuisine and cook more Spanish meals,mainly so that my husband and daughter can enjoy this part of their culture. I am a particularly fussy person and there are many Spanish dishes that I am not particularly keen on but also there are many Spanish dishes that I don´t know or haven´t tried before so my aim is to cook two main courses and a dessert from each region of Spain.

I decided to kick this exploration of Spanish cuisine off by cooking each region in Spain in alphabetical order,much like in Global Table Adventure so the first region we are starting with is Andalucia. I came across this recipe for Andalusian Style Chicken or Pollo a la Andaluza  in the recipe book,Las 1000 Mejores Recetas de Cocina,liked the sound of the recipe and decided to have a go at making it.It was definitely a good choice, all of us enjoyed it and my husband even paid me the very high compliment that it was "in the top five dishes".it reminds me a little of Pollo a la Pepitoria.This recipe is a keeper and one that will be made again and again although probably at weekends as it takes a bit more preparation than other dishes.So,without further ado,on to the recipe:

Ingredients (4-6 people)
1 whole chicken,already chopped into pieces
1 onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 cloves of garlic
2 hard boiled eggs
1 bay leaf
1 small glass of wine (I used white cooking wine)
1 cup of chicken stock (I used an Oxo cube)
a handful or two of toasted almonds
a generous pinch of saffron
about 1 tbsp of fresh or frozen parsley (I used frozen)
salt and pepper to taste
 olive oil
*My recipe is a bit vague so I had to kind of guess the quantities of almonds, parsley etc but it turned out pretty tasty anyway!

Method
1. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
2.Place in a heavy based pan with abundant olive oil and fry the garlic cloves whole until golden brown and remove.
3.Brown the chicken in the same oil and remove.
3.Fry the onion in the same oil, then add the tomato. When softened,place the chicken back in the pan.
4.Add the wine and cook on a medium heat.When the wine has reduced,add the bay leaf and chicken stock,add more salt if needed.Simmer.
5.While chicken is simmering,put garlic cloves,egg yolks,toasted almonds, parsley and saffron in a pestle and mortar and grind together and add a little water.
6.Add to the chicken and leave to simmer till chicken is cooked thoroughly, roughly about 1hr-1hr 20 mins
** This recipe is supposed to be for 4 people, it did 3 of us for 3 meals(I froze the leftovers into two batches)although I suppose my daughter only counts as half a person!!!

When I was looking up typical Andalucian dishes, one of the main dishes that kept cropping up was Oxtail or Rabo de Toro and as this is one of my husband´s favourite meals, I am thinking of tackling that dish in the future and as for the dessert,I still haven´t decided yet,some of my choices are alfajores, amarguillos or poleá but would love to hear from any of my Spanish readers and what they´d reccommend.

Touring Vietnam & discovering its cuisine-Hanoi and Halong Bay

Originally we had booked to go to Thailand for our honeymoon but after all the trouble with the Red Shirts in Bangkok, we decided to change to Vietnam as it was still Asia and it also meant we could use our flight.

We booked a guided tour for 13 nights,which started in Hanoi and ended with a couple of days to relax on the beach in Nha Trang. I hadn´t tried much Vietnamese food before our trip so was looking forward to trying this unknown cuisine. As we had chosen to go on a guided tour, lunch in a restaurant, usually with a set menu,was often included in the day´s visit. I however think that this was a more Westernized version of Vietnamese food as during our whole visit, we didn´t even get to try one of Vietnam´s most well-known dishes, Pho!! I really enjoyed Vietnamese food and its fresh, herby, sour and sweet blend of flavours and the next few blog entries will be about my experiences and food discoveries. Hopefully in the future I´ll also include some Vietnamese recipes as I couldn´t resist buying a Vietnamese cookbook!

When we arrived in Hanoi, we had the first day to ourselves to explore so after dropping our stuff off at the hotel, the first thing on our agenda was to find somewhere for lunch.We found a little café,which unfortunately I can´t remember the name of, and ordered a sausage sandwhich and braised beef. Both were delicious especially the braised beef which was really tender. One of the main things that hits you when you first arrive is the amount of traffic especially motorbikes in Hanoi that there is and also how chaotic it is. Crossing the road is definitely an adventure and an experience-I was pretty scared each time I had to do it!

We wandered around the Old Quarter taking in the sounds, smells and sights of Hanoi. One common sight is women carrying all kinds of strange fruit or other things in special baskets hung on a wooden pole carried across their shoulders. You can also see motorbikes which are completely laden with products, like in the following picture:

The following day we visited the typical sights of Hanoi, such as Ho Chi Minh´s Mausoleum, One-Pillar Pagoda, the Museum of Ethnology, the Temple of Literature etc. In the evening, we ate at a lovely restaurant,Dinh Lang Thuy Ta, which overlooked the Hoan Kiem Lake. Although expensive by Vietnamese standards, it is worth it for a romantic meal with beautiful views, the wonderful food and service and also traditional music while you eat. We shared a lotus flower stem salad which had a crunchy texture from the lotus stems and the peanuts (pictured below)

I chose steamed chicken with lime leaves-the meat was lovely and tender and the overall dish had a nice taste although I wasn´t too keen on the lime leaves which seemed to overpower the dish a little.


My husband chose a beef dish, hot and sour I think (sorry I´m so bad with the names!!) which was delicious and I actually preferred it to my dish!

We took the waiter´s advice for dessert and chose lotus seeds and dried longans in a syrup . The lotus seeds had a nutty, almost white chocolatey taste which wasn´t too bad and the longans were a bit like raisins.

We also tried agar-agar with dried longans in syrup. Neither of us were too keen on either of the desserts unfortunately but of the two, the lotus seeds were the best. You have to try these things!!

After a couple of days in Hanoi, we made our way to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We stayed aboard a typical junko and took in the breathtakingly beautiful scenery of more than 2000 rocky islands jutting out of the sea.

As the food on the boat was mainly fish and seafood which I´m not that keen on we ordered something different for me. I got mainly meat dishes but one dish in particular looked a bit green around the edges but tasted fine. Unfortunately that night I started with bad stomach pains and both me and my husband, who had also eaten some of this meat, spent the vomitting and with diahorria!

Honey chicken drumsticks

Spring finally appears to be here, the daffodils and other flowers are blooming and the trees are blossoming. Everything looks beautiful especially the magnolia trees-there are some photos below . The weather is a little crazy though....it was snowing a couple of days ago!



I´ve been pretty busy these past few weeks which is why I haven´t been blogging too much although I have been trying out lots of recipes from other blogs and trying to come up with some of my own creations...so keep an eye out! Meanwhile, I thought I´d share this recipe for Honey chicken drumsticks from BBC Food with you as it´s really easy to follow, tastes really good , almost tastes like it´s from a restaurant and is also fairly economical and at the same time healthy. I used the breadcrumbs as didn´t have any sesame seeds and I also left out the chives but apart from that followed the recipe to the letter. I didn´t make the Waldorf salad as me and my boyfriend aren´t too keen on celery and as I had other leftover salad ingredients, I threw together a salad comprising of lettuce, cucumber, pear, goats cheese and walnuts with a little ready-made bottled ranch dressing to accompany the drumsticks, which made for a healthy,light but delicious meal!