Central African Republic

Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country surrounded by 5 different countries. It is considered one of the poorest country in the world and it tops the ten of the poorest country in Africa. Much of the country consists of flat, or rolling plateaus with 8% of it covered by forest.
CAR is slightly smaller than Texas. The climate is tropical with hot, dry winters and mild to hot, wet summers. There seems to be not so much information about this country. Even when I did a search on Wiki, there was not that much history about the country. In terms of cuisine, this country tends to be very traditional and does not have too much influence from the Western world. They use the cassava, plantains and peanuts a lot in their meals. Some of their dishes are very similar to Congolese food. I tried to stray a bit away from it this time and only cooked two dishes made of their commonly used peanut butter stews.

Kanda ti Nyma Recipe (Beef Meatballs with Peanut Butter Stew)



Ingredients
450g minced beef
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
1 chilli, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves ,finely chopped
2 tbsp palm oil or groundnut oil
12 okra, sliced into rings
100ml peanut butter
200ml warm water
Preparation:

Mix the beef, half an onion, chilli, garlic and eggs together, Shape into small balls and place in the fridge to set.

Fry the remaining onion in the oil until browned then add the okra and fry for a few minutes. Mix the peanut butter and water together and blend to a smooth paste. Pour into the pan, bring to a simmer and add the meatballs. Continue cooking for abut 25 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through and the okra is tender. Serve with rice.

Honestly, this dish was delicious. Besides the weird peanut buttery sweet with the savory taste, the meat balls were divine. It was my first time ever making meat balls from scratch and now I am encouraged to make it more in other forms of dishes. I can not wait. The peanut sauce was pretty good except that I did not follow the complete directions from the recipe. I added only a small amounts of the peanut butter sauce as I did not want it to be too sweet. I suggest doing that from experience. The cassava with peanut butter from the Congo recipe was way too sweet that I did not enjoy the dish. I was very glad I made this dish and it was delicious.

Spinach Stew (recipe byEsther Westerveld westher)



Ingredients:
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons oil
2 tomatoes, peeled, and sliced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 pounds fresh spinach, chopped,
OR
2 small packages frozen spinach
1 teaspoon salt
2 chili peppers,
OR
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons peanut butter

Preparation:
In a heavy skillet or stew pot, saute onions in moderately hot oil until golden. Stir in tomatoes and green pepper. After a minute or so, add spinach, salt and hot pepper. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Thin peanut butter with several tablespoons of warm water to make a smooth paste. Add to the pot. Continue cooking for another 10 - 15 minutes, stirring frequently, and keeping a close watch to prevent burning. Add small amounts of water as necessary so that the stew doesn't stick to the pot bottom. Serve with rice or a stiff porridge.

The spinach stew was decent. Greg enjoyed it thoroughly. I thought it kinda of had a hint of the cassava peanut butter dish from the Congo. It was not as harsh with the peanut sauce because I did cut my use of it, but it still had that vibe. I can live without the dish. BTW, I went to Safeway to get my ingredients and it was freakin' expensive. I am now trying to stay away from that supermarket for now on. They are a rip off.

As much as I did not want to cook African food this week, I was satisfied with it. I think partly because I have not eaten African food for awhile. Let's see how long this will last. I let Greg pick the next one as he commonly rubs it in that he never picks countries in Africa! Well, guess what he picked this time?



South Africa....Well, at least he had good timing because it is where the World Cup is being held. I guess we'll celebrate to that.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: from actual experience!

Bosnia and Herzegovina is situated between Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro; it is almost a landlocked country. There is one little area in between Croatia, where Bosnia jets out into the Adriatic that splits Croatia into two. In the 1990's and before, Bosnia used to be part of Yugoslavia. I remember hearing about the horrific wars that occurred there. Remember the Olympics in Sarajevo? When looking at their cuisine, it does not seem to have too much seafood although it is right next to Croatia where seafood is plentiful. Having an almost landlocked country, a lot of the food consists of meat, bread and vegetables. Their food is very Middle Eastern mixed with Turkish and Mediterranean influences. They seem to have lots of spices, but they are not overwhelming.

The funny thing was that I had cooked Bosnian food six months ago with some friends, Kevin and Laura, and honestly I loved the food. I never wrote about it as you all know I took a hiatus from this food blog. To my surprise, last month I went to Neum and Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was able to experience the foods I cooked and the foods cooked from that nation. It was my first official connection from when I started this blog! Of course my food was not as great as the ones I tasted when I was there, but I mimicked it quite well. I must say so myself.
Bosnia started to be an area that seemed to be thriving especially with tourism. It was quite awesome to see the remnants of the old Bosnia with buildings covered with bullet markings, and the contrast just across the river that demarcated the separate religions. There was a huge religious war that caused so many deaths and damage to such an amazing city. Religion... That is another story that which I will not bother you with....

Burek (Recipe by Assalam Mualaikum)
(http://muslimvillage.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4588.html)



Ingredients for pastry:
500g of Plain flour
25g of butter
Salt
Warm water

Ingredients for filling:
500g of minced Veal
250g of minced beef
4 onions, 25g of butter
2 egg yolks, Salt and Pepper

Preparation:
Mix flour, melted butter, salt and warm water to prepare the pastry. Cut the pastry in four equal pieces. To prepare the filling mix the meet, melted butter, chopped onions, egg yolks, salt and pepper. Roll the pastry out on the table until very thin and leave for few minutes to dry.
Cover the pastry thinly with melted butter. Put the filling at the edge of one side of the pastry and roll it up to create sausage roll like pastry. Take the round dish and create the spiral with the pastry starting from the middle of the dish. Before completely baked pour either the double cream or butter melted in warm water.

I was completely running late when making this dish as an appetizer that Greg had to help me make the dough. Don't add too much water, but slowly add it to the flour until it becomes a nice consistent dough. In Bosnia, they actually used filo dough which you can buy at any supermarket which will make this so much easier. Just remember that when you use filo dough it will be thinner and so you might want to stack several together. The meat is a little juicy and so it can cause the dough to get too soggy. In the end, my friends, Greg and I loved this dish. I even made this dish a couple weeks later because it was that good. This dish was very much like a Stromboli without the pasta sauce, but filled with yummy meat. I'll be making this dish for my kids and my grand children. In Bosnia and Croatia, I seriously at this every day for breakfast. It is that good!

Musaka(Recipe by Assalam Mualaikum)
(http://muslimvillage.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4588.html)



Ingredients
1 kg potatoes
400 gr ground beef meat
1 large onion chopped
4 eggs
3 dl milk
salt
pepper
Oil

Preparation
Heat oil in a pan. Add onion and cook untill it gets golden brown. Add meat, salt and a lot of pepper. Fry it until meat gets brown. Remove the pan from the heat.

Cut potatoes in slices similar as for chips but not that thin (about 2-3 mm). Put 2 teaspoons of salt in potatoes and mix it well. In casserole put oil, than potatoes until it covers the bottom. Put meat to cover potatoes and than potatoes again. Mix 4 eggs in a bowl, add milk, mix well and than pour over potatoes and meat and put in owen for about 40 minutes or until potato on the top gets brown.

This dish was very much like a meat lasagna sandwiched with potatoes. My potatoes were not cooked completely so it was a bit hard. The seasoning from the recipe really needed more salt. I can see it tasting very delicious as I am a meatatarian, but somehow this dish was not impressive the night I made it. I was almost thinking of having mash potatoes on top and bottom and the meat in the middle... kind of like a Shepard's Pie. Overall, I want to make this again some day and just cook the potatoes more and add more flavor to the potatoes.

Japrak (Recipe by Assalam Mualaikum)
(http://muslimvillage.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4588.html)



Ingredients:
½ kg of mutton
½ kg of veal
100g of rice
50g of onion
1 egg
2 cloves of garlic
100g of butter or cooking oil
250ml of double cream, Pepper
salt
paprika
fine chopped parsley
100 grapevine leaves
Beef stock

Preparation:
Boil the grapevine leaves for 20 minutes in salty water. Drain the leaves and leave to cool. Melt the butter in the frying pan and then fry garlic and parsley and add it to the meat, rice, egg, pepper, paprika and salt. Mix it thoroughly and gradually add 100ml of cold water. Fill the grapevine leaves with the mixture creating small cylindrical parcels. Fill the dish tightly with the parcels and than add beef stock until all the parcels are covered with it. Cook slowly for few hours. Serve with it's own stock and double cream.

This dish can also be called Dolma in Mediterranean food. It has meat this is wrapped with a grape leaf that is edible. It was tons of work to make this, but in the end it was all worth it. I did not use mutton or veal, but I used ground beef instead. It was hard to find ground mutton and veal anywhere. The other thing I would substitute in the future is the beef stock. Use chicken stock! The beef stock was way over powering where it made the dish very heavy. I thought the dish turned out spectacular. When we were in Bosnia, they did stuff the grape leaves with more stuffing which made it even better. Next time, that is what I'll try to do. Great dish, but lots and lots of work wrapping this stuffing.

Baklava (Recipe by Assalam Mualaikum)
(http://muslimvillage.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t4588.html)



Ingredients:
1 lb. Phyllo dough. 4 to 5 cups walnuts, chopped coarsely. ½ cup sugar. ¼ tsp. ground cloves. 1 tsp. cinnamon. ¾ lb. sweet butter.

Preparation
1. Combine nuts, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar.
2. Melt butter in a saucepan.
3. Use pastry brush to brush inside of a 14 X 10 ½ inch pan with melted butter.
4. Line bottom of pan with one piece of Phyllo dough. Fold under excess Phyllo.
5. Alternate sides with each piece of Phyllo, brushing the top of each layer with melted butter.
6. Repeat five (5) times, making five layers.
7. On the 6th sheet, sprinkle evenly with nut mixture.
8. Continue until all nut mixture is used and last six (6) buttered sheets of Phyllo form top crust.
9. Use a sharp knife to cut into diamond shapes.
10. Bake at 300° F for about 1 ½ hours or until lightly brown.

The Syrup:

2 ½ cups of water.
3 cups sugar.
3 tsp. lemon juice.
1 tsp. vanilla.

1. Combine syrup ingredients. Boil syrup for about 10 minutes and then allow to cool.
2. Pour cooled syrup over hot pastry.

This dish was tons of work, but man was it worth it. Remember to get Filo dough that is bigger than the pan. I tried making this at home again and it did not work because it was too small and the Baklava just broke apart. The crunchiness of the nuts and dough mixed with the mildly sweet flavor made this a perfect end to the night. The baklava turned out heavenly and I will be sure to make this again!

Bosnia had excellent food in general. I will always remember this as the first place where I have cooked and visited from this blog. As for our next country, we had Laura pick it for us and of course you know where it took me....hence my break from doing this blog for so long.




Central African Republic

I am BACK!

I am finally back after a 6 months vacation from this blog. Part of the reason for this long delay is that I gained so much weight eating all this food every week. I realized that I have to portion control the foods I cook now. Eating the same fatty left over foods for the next week does make it so hard to keep my awesome figure! The other reason is that I just got sick of cooking African cuisine. It tended to be very monotonous. The last meal I did cook was from Bosnia and I had not written anything about it yet. BUT, within the last 6 months I was able to visit Bosnia though, so be prepared to hear what I say. It was such an awesome experience to have cooked the food that I ate in the country that it was from. It really got me excited to continue this journey. After I finish all these dishes from each and every country, no matter where I go, I'll have this special connection to the country already. So hold on to your hats as we continue on my journey around the world!