Ceviche - Olympic Food Challenge : Panama

A man, a plan, a canal – Panama! And so we reach the end, the final dish, and like Usain Bolt, this one is a sharp lunge towards the finish line!  Panama had lots of dishes to choose from when I went a-looking, and like a lot of South and Central American countries, there was a preponderance of beef (There's a band name if ever I heard one...) but looking back on the dishes I had already cooked there was a paucity of fish (that will be Preponderance of Beef's first album...) so I plumped for this dish.

Someone asked me the other day how I got into cooking.  Thinking back, I was a pretty terrible cook for the first 25 years of my life - tinned curries, stews and cheap burgers were the order of the day; and then a few of my friends and I decided to do 'Gourmet Night' once a month and push the boat out, cook-wise.  It was great and I cooked more interesting dishes than I had ever done, caught the bug and now here I am, a moderatly amusing food blogger with a black pudding and dumpling obsession

But what does this have to to with the Olympic Food Challenge, I hear you yawn... Well, when I was doing Gourmet Night, there were two notable failures - one, the Sticky Toffee Pudding disaster, has gone down in history (n.b. Sticky Toffee Pudding needs flour in it, or it resembles brown snot; admittedly tasty brown snot, but it looks awful nonetheless)

The other disaster was ceviche, which was made with frozen cod and had the texture of boot leather soaked in lime juice.  And yet here I was again, about to attempt the same dish and make it look (and taste) impressive as befits the last entry into the Olympic Food Challenge.  And guess what, it was rather nice this time!  Having fresh fish is the key it seems, but the length of time you marinade it for is up to you.  Some recipes suggest as little as 2 hours, whilst we did it overnight with good results.

Sidvudvu - Olympic Food Challenge : Swaziland

At least one member of Team Soup is from South Africa, which made finding a dish to cook from Swaziland (A tiny little country that borders SA, also birthplace to Richard E Grant, if memory serves) a bit difficult.  Every website we looked at for inspiration, I was informed that all the nice-looking dishes were South African.  Grrr, I gritted my teeth and pressed on.

Pretty much every African country seems to have a version of this dish - made with maize or other starchy floury thing, which can be prepared in a number of ways, from a soupy paste through to a solid dumpling to accompany other things.  I held off making any of these as they looked, well, a bit boring.  But as the Olympic Food Challenge barrelled to a close (One more dish to go after this one...) I finally gave in and made Sidvudvu, which we served with, ummm, boerwors (Yes, I know this is South African, but my search for Impala steaks bore no fruit, so to speak...)

Also on the sadly non-authentic side is the sour cream, which I am reliably informed should really be something called amaas, a fermented milk product.  I hope you will forgive these small inaccuracies as it's been a long 19 days and I am now hallucinating foods of the world...

Dim Sum - Olympic Food Challenge : Hong Kong

Like many other entries in my trip around the culinary world, Hong Kong has such a mixed bag of influences that it has been difficult to pin down a dish and say 'this represents Hong Kong like Yorkshire Puddings represent Yorkshire'  Cantonese, western and other Asian styles mix together to form a melting pot of food, as you would expect from a region famous for its trading and port city. (ooh, I came over all 'rough guide' there, didn't I?)

To fully appreciate this meal, one has to picture themselves standing in a neon-lit, Blade Runner-esque street in the rain, eating Hong Kong street food from a vendor with a cart and a plastic umbrella, surrounded by sky-scrapers in a city perched between mountains and the sea. We did a mix of dim sum, sometimes referred to as Cantonese Tapas (As I'm not wikipediea, I refuse to cite any sources so you will just have to take my word for all of the above) as it is said that the best dim sum is served in Honk Kong, rather than mainland China.

A trip to the same supermarket that yielded Duck's tongue also provided us with wonton and dumpling wrappers, some straw mushrooms and char sui sauce.  I wanted to do steamed chicken's feet as well, but the store was fresh out (Much to Mrs Soup's joy, I suspect...)

At this year's Olympics, Hong Kong won a Bronze in the Women's Keirin, where she was beaten to the gold by the nation's sweetheart Victoria Pendleton

Deep Fried Duck Tongue - Olympic Food Challenge : China

 I've become aware, as I have been doing the Olympic Food Challenge, that I could have been a bit more adventurous in my choice of dishes for some countries, and in others maybe tried to find a few more strange and exciting ingredients.  So as today's meal rolled round, I knew that it was time to push the boat out a bit.

Having visited a rather amazing Chinese restaurant in Leeds called Red Chili, I couldn't help but stuff my face with as many dishes as I could that I hadn't tried before, including eel, tripe, heart and tongue.  I would have gone for the frogs legs and crystallised pig's uterus as well, but the horrified faces of the people I was meant to be sharing the banquet with told me it was time to stop.

I love the fact that Chinese cuisine uses all sorts of bits of animals that we would throw away - when I was buying the tongues for this dish, I mistakenly picked up a packet of pig's tendons instead (Come to think of it - I may go back and try those later...)  - and duck's tongues are no exception - they are a strange thing to eat, not least as they have a little bone running through the middle of them, and have a creamy, fatty texture to them.

A quick straw poll of of consumers that tried the tongue (me & Mrs Soup) was that it tasted lovely but looked  like something from the film 'Alien'... (Also, please do not google anything to do with the sex lives of ducks 0 they are perverts.... just sayin'...)

On a more olympic related not - China have won all the medals that are not in the posession of the US or UK teams.  They are quite good at this whole sports malarkey...

Goat Curry - Olympic Food Challenge : The Bahamas

When I found out we had drawn The Bahamas in the in the Challenge, I knew that I had to a) Do a curry, and b) use Goat as it's something else that I've never eaten before, and it seems like this journey around the world in 19 meals is all about trying new things, so I thought 'why not' and set off (Yet again) to Leeds market.  In fact I think the Olympic Food Challenge should be sponsored by Leeds Market as I know I'm not the only blogger who has found obscure or strange ingredients amongst it's stalls.  Leeds Market - the hungry and adventurous bloggers of Yorkshire salute you and your endless supply of goodies

Goat meat, as it turns out, didn't really taste that much different from the mutton I had a few days ago, but perhaps the subtleties of its flavour were lost amongst the other flavours of this spicy curry, which as I was eating it, all I could think about was Bureaucrat Hermes Conrad from Futurama "I call this my Jamaican Drain-o"*

*Geography note : Jamaica and The Bahamas = 2 completely different places...

Lamb Chektyrma - Olympic Food Challenge : Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was a bit of a challenge.  But then It's not called the Olympic Food CHALLENGE for nothing, I guess!  As with so many other places on the globe, country boundaries seem to be rather arbitary lines that don't represent the cultures that they are meant to define.  As such, whole areas claim very similar dishes as their own.  This seems to be very much the case with Turkmenistan which shares cusines with many of it's surrounding countries.

Is this a traditional Turkmenian dish?  I hope so, but if there happens to be any Turkmenians reading, you will let me know, won't you?

Anyway, this soup was rather amazing, light and summery, which was a surprise as cooking it involved no finesse, just boiling the hell out of some lamb until it surrendered...

FaiKakai and Mango Pineapple Sorbet - Olympic Food Challenge : Tonga

Tonga is today's stop on the Olympic Food Challenge and, ummm, this was a bit of a distaster...  "What on earth could go wrong?" you ask  "After all, it's dumplings and we know you are crazy about dumplings Dan".  Well, a lot of things, it turns out - the sauce turned into toffee and set like concrete - and I have a slight phobia about toffee after losing teeth to the awful stuff.  Also, the dumplings more or less disintegrated in the pan, leaving a gooey, sludgy mess, over which I tried to pur the aforementioned sauce.

Now the kitchen is strewn with plates, dishes and pans that are glued together with toffee, and I am a bit cross for messing things up.  Bah!

Still - the sorbet was amazing..

Chicken Lap Lap - Olympic Food Challenge : Cook Islands

Today's dish is Chicken Lap Lap, which involved a few new experiences and ingredients for me.  Not least amongst these was using Taro.  Not even knowing what it actually looked like, we were quickly educated by a lovely man in Leeds Market and left with one huge vegetable.

The same trip also provided us with banana leaves , which again, I'd never used.  This was in some small way a voyage of discovery - which is appropriate in a number of ways, not least that the Cook Islands are named for Captain Cook, who planted a flag there and named them, erm, The Hervey Islands...

Anyway, the Cook Islands are kinda special to me as the aforementioned Capn' is my Dad's hero, and also, the starting point of his historic journey was, of course, Whitby, which is the informal spiritual home of the Soup family (in that we went there on holiday every year when I was a sproglet)

Anyway, without further rambling - Chicken Lap Lap

San Bei Ji (3 Cup Chicken) - Olympic Food Challenge : Taiwan

As if to illustrate how fraught this whole Olympics malarkey is, and how diplomatic one has to be when putting your words up on t'interweb where anyone can see them, my initian post about the Olympic Food Challenge (Back when it seemed like a good idea and before I started hallucinating flags and endless combinations of stews, soups and ingredients) someone got in touch to a) find out what dish I would be doing when I reached Chinese Taipei, and b) tell me that no matter what the Chinese or the IOC may think, there is no such place as Chinese Taipei, but Taiwan is doing just fine thank you.*

Well, who was I to argue, as said person (hello, if you're reading this btw) lived in Taiwan.  I only hope that they think I've done this dish justice, as it is said that "A restaurant that cannot cook Sanbeiji is not a true Taiwanese restaurant." Oh, I also tried making some little (and not strictly accurate) crisps from the skin of the chicken, but the less said about them, the better...

*If the Chinese Authorities are reading this, ummm, sorry...

Daraba - Olympic Food Challenge : Chad

Today we hit Chad.  Not the South African Swimmer Chad le Clos (His Dad was brilliant, wasn't he?) and not a hanging chad (whatever they are) but the central African country.  Chad have never won a medal in the Olympics and have sent 3 athletes to London.  One of them is competing in the Men's 100m.  Could he upset Mr Bolt?  We'll have to keep our eyes peeled and find out...

Another country, another stew!  This one however is missing one ingredient that I usually insist on in ever meal - MEAT!!!  However, the addition of peanut butter makes it a wonderful, savoury dish.  Simple and healthy, but also cheap, which has proved to be important as  we cross the halfway point in the Olympic Food Challenge, where weird and wonderful ingredients are king and pockets need to be deep (Not complaining by the way - I'm loving trying new and unusual things...)

Tongabezi Chicken Curry - Olympic Food Challenge : Zambia

The nation of Zambia is the next country we have been sampling the cuisine of.  Zambia have won a grand total of 2 medals in their Olympic history, and this year they have 8 competitors in 4 sports, all hoping to live up to the glory of Samual Matate in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, who won a sliver in the 400 meters hurdles.  As always, check out the wikipedia page to see if they have added to this total by clicking here...

This African curry is a much lighter and fresher affair than Indian curries, more akin to a Thai curry in some respects, and the fried sweet potatoes were a wonderful accompaniment.  I could have just eaten a plate of those on their own...  I served it with some fresh wilted spinach in lieu of some greens, mainly because we had just had some delivered as part of our weekly vegetable box, so that part of the dish is not necessarily accurate...

Ojingeogul (Squid Soup) - Olympic Food Challange : South Korea

Blimey! Hasn't today been exciting for Team GB? Two golds and a bronze to add to the nation's mantelpiece!

Today on the Olympic Food challenge, we reach South Korea (And I'm really glad I didn't get North Korea, although Glorious Leader Kim Jong-Il did have a fondness for lobster, or so I'm told...)

South Korea have won plenty of medals in their time at the Olympics - 215 in fact - which a high percentage of those in the archery, which makes them the 17th most successful nation in the history of the games, but remember, it's not the winning, it's the taking part (In which case, why don't they just give everyone a gold medal and be done with it?)  This year they will be fielding 245 Olympians in 22 sports.  As always, you can follow their progress here

I love me some squid, as I think I've mentioned before - when purchasing some, the fishmonger once asked if we wanted the tentacles, to which both Mrs Soup and I let out a child-like giggle of glee.  Tentacles - brilliant...

Today's new ingredient was Mooli - the radish used in this soup, which I've eaten but never cooked with before, so this was another new chapter in my culinary education...

Pie Floater - Olympic Food Challenge : Australia

Australia are one of the big boys when it comes to the Olympic games.  Over it's history, they have won 432 medals, 131 of those being all golden and shiny and are the 11th most successful team competing on medal ranking alone. They have already gotten a haul of 4 medals so far, including a swimming gold..

When we were planning the menu for the Olympic Food Challenge, and found out that we had drawn Australia, Mrs Soup, who has visited parts Antipodean, suddenly became very animated and say "you have to make a pie floater"! Now, Australia is renown for some amazing fusion dishes with lots of Asian influence, but I wanted to do something a little more old school, so this was perfect...

Now, never being one to back down from a challenge,  I had to find out what a pie-floater was, and after some research, it turned out to be a very maligned dish of a pie floating in mushy peas, smothered in tomato sauce, which was designated in 2003, a Southern Australian Cultural Icon.  And people say the Australians have no culture... (I jest, by the way, in case anyone challenges me to a game of 'knifey-spoony')  It appalled to me to make a somewhat more swanky version of what appears to be the Australian version of a drunken kebab on the way home from the pub. Find out more about them here

The pie floater was also a challenge as I had to make pastry, which regular readers will know, usually makes me cry tears of sadness and failure.  However, today was a success. The pie filling had to be lamb, of course (Chuzz-wazzer being unavailable in my local butcher*)  Also, I added green food dye to the mushy peas, as they didn't seem, well, green enough...

*Enough with the Simpsons references...

Suafa'i Banana Soup - Olympic Food Challenge : American Samoa

The islands of American Samoa are our next stop on the Olympic Food Challenge.   American Samoa have never won a medal in the Olympics, but the plucky little guys are sending 5 competitors to take part in 4 sports including swimming and wrestling.  See if they can break their duck by checking their progress here  (Their flag is amazing, I will be waving one for sure...)

After a bit of research, it seems that American Samoa, like a lot of other pacific island nations, favours bold, simple dishes with lots of flavour and little fuss.  I was originally going to make a fish and coconut soup, but was assured in no uncertain terms that Samoans like their fish on the bone, with the head still attached, so they can taste every bit of the fish.  Whilst I'm not that fussy with what I eat, I still can't bring myself to do the whole fish-staring-at-me-from-the-bowl thing.  So I didn't feel I could do that dish justice.  Bananas however have neither bones or eyes...

When is a soup not a soup?  That is a question I asked myself when making this dish, which reminds me more of sago pudding from my school days, either that or the brains of a zombie... (And today's brand new - to me, anyway - ingredient is tapioca, which I've often eaten from a tin, but never cooked with from scratch.  Who knew it looked like polystyrene packing balls in it's uncooked state?)

Either way, it's a simple, brilliant sweet dish that tastes brilliant when served chilled.  I could have eaten it all day...

Couscous de Timbuktu - Olympic Food Challenge : Mali

Today's country in The Olympic Food Challenge is Mali.  Mali have never won a medal in any of the games they have taken part in, but this year, they are sending 6 atheletes to take part in 4 sports, including Taekwondo, where they were apparently given a wild card.  Did they get it from Funky Pigeon I wonder?  Oh my sides... Anyway, see if Mali's atheletes are more succesful than my jokes by checking here

Another stew, and not at all what I was expecting with a name like that, as the couscous is pretty much an afterthought to a rich and hearty stew, with lots of spices and dates to give it a characteristic african taste and it's cooked for a long time, so the beef just falls apart.  It is rather wonderful...



In my personal opinon, it could have benefitted from the addition of dumplings, but then in my opinon, every dish should be served with dumplings...

Also, I do apologise for my presentation - I know that little towers of couscous are a bit passe, but it's the only way I can think of to make these things look pretty

Pabellon Criollo - Olympic Food Challenge : Venezuela

It's the first weekend of the Olympics, and wasn't the opening ceremony rather brilliant?  I cried like a baby and drunkenly twittered the night away - smashing! To celebrate, we're having not just a dish but a whole meal today!

Venezuela have won a grand total of 11 medals int their Olympic history, mainly for boxing, and this year their Olympic team is 70 strong, competing in 14 sports, including BMX, which I didn't even know was an Olympic sport (see, I'm learning stuff, I hope you are too...) so I imagine they will be doing some sweet bunny-hops and endos, with their trick nuts and awesome mag wheels, dude (oh dear, whatever came over me there...)

Check on their progress in the medal charts here...

The meal itself consisted of Pabellon Criollo which is a shredded beef dish,  Frijoles de la Olla - made with black beans, and fried plantains.  Today's new ingredient was the plantain, which I've never tried before, and now I realise they taste nothing like bananas...

Takusa Mutton Stew - Olympic Food Challenge : Niger

Wow, day 3 already, and the first day proper of the Olympics. And with the temperature outside actually summer-y, it's time for a stew, with dumplings... I really wasn't thinking when I planned these things was I? (Actually, I knew perfectly well what I was doing, because there is NEVER a wrong time to eat dumplings)

Today our journey round the world of Olympic cuisine brings us to Niger.  They have only won one medal in their Olympic history - a bronze in boxing at the 1972 Munich Olympics, so lets hope they have plenty of success this year, where they have 6 competitors in 5 sports (including boxing, judo, rowing and swimming) You can keep track of their progress here

Takusa (Mutton Stew) With Dumplings

Today's recipe is Takusa, or mutton stew with dumplings.  It's the first time I've ever cooked with mutton, and it did find a bit hard to get a hold of, but as ever, Leeds Market was my friend.  We also had some proper cinnamon, which I had been dying to use, and this dish gave me a perfect opportunity.  As always, I'm a sucker for a good stew and yes, I did make too many dumplings...

Papaya Pie - Olympic Food Challenge : Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda are today's stop in the gruelling marathon that is the Olympic food challenge... They have never won a medal in the Olympics, but are they down-hearted?  Like heck they aren't, sending 5 athletes to compete in 2 sports - athletics and swimming, so why not cheer your heart out for the plucky guys and check up to see just how well they are doing here...

Also, after last night, I'm feeling paranoid that I've put the right flag on the post.  It is a pretty flag though, isn't it? 

It's like sunshine on a plate... gooey, sweet and delicious, with colours that suggest a tropical paradise (Antigua is a tropical island isn't it?)  And yes, before you all shout at me or string me up from the nearest Mary Berry, I'm really bad at making pastry - even rolling out ready made stuff ends in tears, swearing and vows never to set foot in the kitchen again, so I used a pre-made pie base... Oh the humanity.  Anyway, if you are feeling more inclined to do this from scratch, I assume some sort of sweet short crust pastry will work well.

Today's new experience - Papaya. Apart from the crystallised stuff you get in bags, I've never had this before, and I have to say, it was pretty tasty, although there was some debate about how you can tell if it's ripe.  Mrs Soup, who has had more experience in this field than I have, got one that was spot on, although when they are ripe, the skin seems to go a rather unappealing shade of yellowy green...

 

Sopa Paraguaya and Bori Bori Soup -Olympic Food Challenge : Paraguay

Aaaaand... they are off! Both the women's football teams and the small army of insane food bloggers who signed up the the Olympic Food Challenge (We have our own hashtag for you twitter users (I refuse to say 'tweeps') which is #olympicfoodchallenge)

This is the first of the 19 dishes over 19 days that we will be blogging as part of the Olympic Food Challenge, and as we are Soup Tuesday, the first dish is from Paraguay and is, yes, you've guessed it, a soup... and something that sounds like a soup, but isn't...

Paraguay have a grand total of 8 Olympians competing in 6 sports, and have won a grand total of 1 medal in their Olympic history to date (A silver in the football in 2004, fact fans...)

You can keep an eye on Paraguay's progress here, and you can keep an eye on us as we attempt to cook our dishes without losing our minds here, don't forget to check back soon and see what we've been up to!

Olympic Food Challenge

It can't have failed to come to your attention that very soon the Olympics will be upon us with its wall-to-wall TV coverage of men and women in un-seemly tight clothes running, jumping and generally showing me up as being the slovenly couch potato that I am (although as I mentioned last week, I am trying to get fit...)

But apart from sitting on the sofa waving a little Union Flag and cheering on Team GB, what else could I do to bring me closer to the Olympian Ideal?  Nothing, or so I thought until I got involved in The Olympic Food Challenge!

A Traditional English Sport, taking place on a non-traditional un-rainy day (possibly)

Run by the lovely Ewan over at http://olympicfoodchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ the challenge is to sample foods from the 204 countries taking part in the games.  Now obviously, this would kill a person (unless he was Jeff Capes, but this is the Olympics, not The World's Stongest Man) so 11 bloggers split the 204 countries between them (That's 19 countries - more or less - for each blogger, I left the complicated maths up to Ewan) and the idea is to make and eat a meal from each country on our list and blog about it every day for the 19 days of the Games.

At Soup Tuesday, our countries are as follows

American Samoa
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
Bahamas
Chad
China
Cook Islands
Hong Kong
Mali
Niger
Panama
Paraguay
South Korea
Swaziland
Taiwan
Tonga
Turkmenistan
Venezuela
Zambia

Starting on the 25th of July, we will be blogging meals / foods from each of these countries over the 19 days of the games, but until then we will be in some serious research and meal planning (plus trying to find out where some of the countries are)

So I offer a plea to you, my humble readers!  If you or someone you know has ever visited any of the above countries and knows of some amazing dish that is waiting to be unveiled to the wider food blogging world, then please get in touch and tell us about it, and we will have a crack at cooking it.

In the meantime,  pop on over to the Olympic Food Blog to find out about all the other bloggers taking part (why not make friends with them too, possibly on twitter - this thing even has it's own hashtag #olympicfoodchallenge) and also... Go Team GB!