Late Posts: South Africa & Malaysia

We have been cooking plenty but not writing these last couple of weeks. We've had two Around the World dinners since our last post. The first was on April 10. In honor of South Africa hosting this summer's World Cup soccer tournament, we made a South African dinner. We made two courses, a main and a dessert. The main course is a popular South African street vendor food, bunny chow. It is curry served inside a bread bowl. The bread serves as the container and the utensil and is supposed to have originated as a way to serve workers who couldn't afford their own spoons or bowls. We chose to fill our bread with a simple chickpea and tomato curry that I make frequently and which is a family favorite. For dessert, we made Malva pudding. The recipe came from Recipezaar, one of my favorite go to spots for recipes. The recipes for Malva pudding is here. I agree with the review declaring this "the most fab pud ever!"

Last Wed, we made a dinner from Malaysia, in order to see what Dad (aka Steve) would eat on his business trip to Penang, Malaysia. We made Malaysian rojak, a salad made of pineapple, cucumber, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts. The dressing is usually very spicy but I left out the chilis and just used honey, vinegar, and a little olive oil. Steve and I added red chili paste to our salad. M isn't a fan of bean sprouts but still enjoyed the rojak. I also made Char kway teow, a Malaysian Chinese dish which is kind of like fried rice, except with rice noodles instead of rice. I don't have a good link to the recipe, as I mixed several recipes together. I've always had a hard time making fried rice at home and the char kway teow had a similar problem; it didn't seem as "fried" as it sounded like it should have been. But it was still tasty. I look forward to hearing about the char kway teow that Steve is trying in Malaysia and having it for myself at a local Malaysian restaurant (Peninsula Malaysia) to see how close I got it. M saw a Mango and Tofu stir fry on Peninsula's menu and is eager to try that one!

On location: England

We've just returned from a 10-day trip to England. What a beautiful country, with a rich history. And great food. I know no one associates England with good food, but we have eaten so well on both of our trips.

One of the culinary highlights was a goat cheese tart at the George Inn in Lacock Village. The tart was delish and the setting was perfect. The village of Lacock is fully owned by the National Trust and the town has been featured in many movies and TV. The cloisters in the town abbey were part of Hogwarts, one of the buildings was in the miniseries version of "Pride & Prejudice," and another house is Judy Dench's character's house in the British TV series ("Cranford"), among others. The George Inn has had a liquor license since 1362. No, that's not a typo, 1362!!

In London, we had two dinners at the Prince Edward pub. Prior to our trip, I had set my Google status to "London Calling." Guess what started playing as soon as we sat down the first night at the Prince Edward? I was so excited that I had to text a friend in the States to tell her.

M's interruption:
I liked Pizza Express. We ate there in Bath, London, AND York! I also liked the pizza at Garfunkel's at Heathrow Airport. Mom also found FIFA trading cards at the airport. I also got English Premier League trading cards and watched Bolton v. Manchester United on TV at one of the pubs.

Yo Sushi! was also very cool. Instead of ordering, you take your food from a conveyor belt. Bowls are color-coded so you know the price. Surprisingly avocado rolls and edamame are among the cheapest. I had 3 bowls of avocado rolls, each bowl has 4 rolls, so I had 12 avocado rolls!

Back to Mom.
Yes, we ate in Pizza Express three times. Among the best pizza I've ever had. I especially liked the Fiortina, which had spinach and a fried egg on top. The egg worked much better than it sounds. Really. One thing that I noticed and really appreciated about Pizza Express and other chain family restaurants is that they said that they avoided using GMOs. Wish it would happen here, but I'm afraid that the agribusiness lobbies are too strong.

Tonight, we're making our first post-vacation Around the World dinner. Keeping with M's interest in the FIFA World Cup, it'll be a South African meal ("bunny chow" and Malva pudding). Look for a post tonight or tomorrow!

Mothering Day/ Simnel Cake

Happy Mothering Day! Yesterday morning, after we changed all our clocks forward an hour, we saw that the calendar said that it was Mothering Day in the UK. We're getting excited for our spring break trip to England so we're interested in all things UK. Thanks to Wikipedia, we learned that Mothering Day is the fourth Sunday of Lent and Mothering Day traditions are hard to separate from Lent/Easter prep. One tradition that started with Mothering Day and is now also an Easter tradition is the Simnel cake. Who can resist a recipe that calls for a pound of marzipan -- even if it means Mom has to be in the kitchen on Mothering Day?!

I used the recipe here, which even includes step by step pictorial directions! My Simnel cake didn't turn out quite as pretty as theirs, but tastes wonderful!!

Indonesian Rijsttafel

For dinner last night, we made an Indonesian meal, a rijsttafel (Dutch word meaning, literally, "rice table"). M said it was like a "rice bar" -- rice with lots of toppings! Indonesian food is usually very spicy. We toned down the heat on ours since M isn't used to eating very spicy foods.

M's interruption: (M is eating his lunch (he has the day off from school) so he is dictating his interruption to me.) My favorite four foods were the yellow rice, the cucumber, the banana fritters, and the tofu.

Did you know Indonesia is made up of 13,667 islands? Indonesia's flag is very simple, so I didn't have to do much to make it.

Back to Anne...
Rijsttafel traditionally has many more dishes than we could eat -- or cook! -- we followed the mini-rijsttafel suggestions at The Rijistafel Company. Our menu was:
gado gado (raw veggies with peanut sauce)
bean sprouts (lightly boiled with a little sesame oil drizzled)
Cucumber bean salad (recipe at the Rijsttafel Company)
stir-fried tofu (I took the time to drain the tofu for a couple hours and was reminded why recipes recommend it!)
banana fritters (recipe here)
and rice colored yellow with tumeric.

Steve and I added spicy peanut sauce and Vietamese chili paste to our dishes.

Another big hit! M listed his favorites above, but really everyone enjoyed the whole meal.

Austria

On Sunday, we made an Austrian dinner. We focused on regional specialties of Salzburg.

The Menu:
Appetizer: Cheese dumplings (with a lager for the grownups)
Main Course: Broiled trout
sauerkraut
apple slices
Dessert: Salzburger Nockerl (a souffle-like dessert, served with jam)

While planning the meal, I discovered Wikipedia's cookbook, which I used for the cheese dumpling recipe and the Salzburger Nockerl recipe.

Steve and I loved all of it. M didn't care for the sauerkraut (too "pocky" -- M's word for sour). The cheese dumplings went especially well with beer.

My nockerl fell after coming out of the oven. But after reading this, how could I feel bad? To paraphrase them, "if they can’t make it in Vienna, you might think twice before trying it in Minnesota."

Chinese New Year

新年快乐! Happy Chinese New Year!

We celebrated last night by making a Chinese meal, technically in M's words a "Review of China" (review means our second or subsequent dinner from the same country). This meal may have been our biggest hit yet, little dinner conversation save "This is GREAT!" and almost nothing left for lunch the next day.

We made paper lanterns to decorate the table. Very easy craft for the kiddos, even Dad can make them. :)

The menu:
Chinese noodles with tofu and hazelnuts,
Clams steamed with ginger and scallions,
and
Toffee and Sesame Bananas for dessert

The recipes for noodles and the bananas came from the BBC's Good Food website, which I will be frequenting much more often.

M's Interruption
M is enjoying a Presidents' Day play date with a classmate. Right now they have the Football Guys out -- if you don't know about Football Guys, well, you should, check them out here.

Before his friend came over, M dictated his Interruption to me:
"Noodles...clams...toffee bananas, very flavorful. Yup, this was a very flavorful dinner."

Recipes
Chinese Noodles with Tofu & Hazelnuts -- I used my new KitchenAid pasta making attachment for my stand mixer. This is a wonderful recipe, but even better with homemade pasta!!

250g packet medium egg noodle
2 tbsp olive oil
handful coriander , roughly chopped (that's cilantro to the Americans)
300g mangetout (that's sugar snap peas)
1 red chilli , seeded and finely chopped (I left this out)
handful toasted hazelnuts , roughly chopped
349g pack silken tofu , cut into cubes
3 tbsp Chinese yellow beans sauce

1. Drop the noodles into a pan of boiling water, cook for 4 mins, then drain. Drizzle over a little oil and mix in half the coriander.
2. Heat a wok over a medium heat. Pour in the remaining oil, then throw in the mangetout and stir-fry for 2 mins. Add the chilli and cook for 2 mins more until the beans are just tender.
3. Tip the hazelnuts, tofu and yellow bean sauce into the wok and stir to warm through. Finally, stir in the remaining coriander, season if you want to, and serve with the noodles.

Toffee & Sesame Bananas
This is as heavenly as it sounds. I found vanilla bean gelato at the local supermarket. Muscovado sugar isn't easy to find around here. But, oh, oh, oh, it was worth the extra trips. It has a strong molasses flavor and makes a perfect toffee sauce.

* 6 large bananas , peeled and quartered
* 8 tbsp light muscovado sugar
* 2 tbsp butter
* 200ml double cream
* 2 tbsp sesame seeds , toasted
* good-quality vanilla ice cream, to serve

1. Toss the bananas in 2 tbsp of the sugar. Heat a griddle to medium, then cook the bananas, a few pieces at a time, until sticky and showing griddle marks. Keep warm in a low oven.
2. For the sauce, put the remaining sugar, the butter and cream into a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar has melted. Stir in the sesame seeds. Can be made up to a day ahead. To serve, put a few pieces of banana into 8 serving dishes, spoon over some of the caramel, then top with a scoop of ice cream.

Late Post: Haiti

In late January, we made an Around the World dinner from Haiti.
It was a big hit: salmon, black beans, and rice are always favorites here. Haitian black beans and rice are flavored with cinnamon, not a spice I usually use in bean dishes, but I might now. Yum, yum, yum.

For dessert, I made Pain Patate, a sweet potato pudding. Steve and I loved it. M wasn't as impressed as us. Here's a link to the Pain Patate recipe.

On a non-culinary note, if you want to read a different take on the situation in Haiti, I strongly recommend this blog entry by travel guidebook writer Rick Steves.