Eating my way around the world, one famous dish at a time. Yet another food blog.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
2. Turkmenistan: Palaw
Cheat #1: Turkmenistan isn't listed in the wiki list I'm going by, but it's what my perl get-a-random-country script came up with. Doing some research on Turkmen cuisine, pilav was by far the most-mentioned staple, so I went with it.
Cheat #2: I wanted to use a new cookbook a friend gave me, which I heartily recommend: Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey. The cheat? No Turkmen pilav recipe, so I used an Uzbeki one. Close enough? Probably not if you're from one of those countries, but good enough for this blog's purposes.
I do hope to cheat less in the future and strive for better authenticity, but sometimes, you just can't get goose tripe.
The ingredients were pretty standard: rice, carrots, some kind of broth to cook it in, currants (I used raisins -- a third the cost), saffron, and almonds or peanuts. Normally I would go with peanuts, but these needed to be raw almonds or peanuts. Ever have raw peanuts? They're nasty. At least my western palate seems to think so. They've got too much earthiness to them, and almost none of the flavor that's brought out when they're roasted. Raw almonds are so much better.
The nuts needed to be blanched and skinned, which is something I'd never done before, so I needed to google it. It's basically just putting the nuts in a bowl, pouring boiling water over them, and letting them sit for a minute. I needed to give them the water bath twice to get the skins to come off. This was probably the most involved or at least time-consuming steps in this recipe. Thank goodness for music in the kitchen.
I then had to heat some oil, and saute the nuts and raisins together, until the raisins had puffed a bit. Removing them with a slotted spoon and placing them to the side, I got to cooking the other ingredients in the same pan, in the same oil. Cumin seed (yum!) went in next, what an aroma! Then some chopped onion.
Like other, similar recipes, the rice goes into the hot pan in its raw, dry state. It gets a pretty lengthy sautee with the other ingredients (in this case: serrano chili, bell pepper, grated carrots), and then the broth gets added, and the rice is allowed to cook covered on low heat for awhile. It's essentially ready when the timer goes off, the almonds and raisins are added, as well as some chopped cilantro.
A great dish, and definitely more of a success than the Tavče Gravče. Make it again? In a second. I love pilaf, and this was a fun one to make. My kitchen smelled wonderfully for days afterwards.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
1. Macedonia: Tavče Gravče
Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tav%C4%8De_Grav%C4%8De
Recipe followed: http://www.mymacedoniankitchen.com/?p=428
About Macedonia
Capital City: SkopjePopulation: 2,114,550
Language: Macedonian
Official Name: Republic of Macedonia (Република Македонија)
"Balkan chili" is a good Saturday afternoon dish, particularly if you're using dry beans that need to soak or boil for a good two hours.
I did in fact use dry beans, so I boiled them with onions, bay leaves and a dry ancho pepper for a couple of hours. I wasn't sure what to do with the ancho, so half an hour before I took the beans off the heat, I removed the ancho and chopped it, mixing most of the pulp back into the beans and onions. The recipe calls for a dried red pepper, and settling for the dried poblano (which is what I had on-hand) was probably a mistake. It gave the resulting dish a different flavor than was probably intended.
As it turns out, great northern beans need to boil for a bit longer than what the recipe says. Were I to do this again, I would keep adding 1/2 cup water and stirring until the beans are at the desired consistency. And DON'T rely on the 30+ minutes of baking to soften your beans more. They really find their softness in the boil, and not in the bake.
A fun first dish, though, and one that I'll probably make again at some point, if only to fix my mistakes and taste Balkan chili as it's meant to be tasted!
And don't add the spices until the oil is ready! I mistakenly threw everything into the oil well before it was ready to release the flavor, and I'm pretty sure the blandness of the resulting dish has this step to blame. Sunflower seed oil, which is what I used, has a MUCH higher smoking point. My poor spice mixture didn't get the full treatment it deserved!
Next country: Turkmenistan. Should be interesting.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Token first post
It may be a few days before I put the first actual cooking-related post online. I just started this blog (4/12/2011), so I'm putting this here so you're not scared away by a lack of content.