Kedjenou - WCFC2014 : Cote D'Ivoire

Today's dish in the World Cup Food Challenge is from the Ivory Coast, and is the last of the first round dishes I'll be cooking.  Whichever teams go through to the next round will get another dish, those who go home, well... I'm never eating anything from their country again.

Before we get to the food, let's hit up some Cote D'Ivoire facts, for your edification and mine...
1. The Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa beans
2. You've heard of the Nobel Peace Prize, but have you heard of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize? Named after the first President of the Ivory Coast, amongst its recipients was Nelson Mandela
3. The national motto of The Ivory Coast is Unity, Discipline, Labour. Which, whilst being inspirational, is also a bit dull

One of the fun things about the World Cup Food Challenge, as well as compiling my fun facts, is researching the recipes, finding out what fun and unusual ingredients I might need for a dish and where to find them.  Some of these things are relatively easy to find - Plantains are found in most supermarkets, if you're lucky, Cassava in good markets, duck tongues in any Chinese food suppliers, but then some things are almost impossible to find.

When I googled Ivory Coast cuisine, I found that giant land snails were an ingredient that is eaten in that country, which peaked my culinary curiosity, but alas, no giant land snails were to be found anywhere (and I didn't want your common or garden small snails.  Where's the fun in that?)

I finally found a dish that sounded fun - a stew called Kedjenou, traditionally cooked in the embers of a fire, but seeing as there are court orders preventing me from setting fire to things (not really) I decided to do mine in the oven - of which more later.  Kedjenou can be made with a variety of meats - beef and chicken seem to be most common, but then I can across Kedjenou avec Agouti.  Ooooh, what can that be, I thought and promptly searched for it, only to be greeted with... this

A Cane rat.  I giggled.  Where the heck could I get a cane rat from? I checked, I asked twitter, I considered stealing the next door neighbour's Guinea Pigs (But their grandkids would be heartbroken) but sadly, my search was frustratingly drawing a blank.  So in the end, I had to settle for chicken.  Bah! I feel defeated.  Still, the kedjenou was delicious, but it just goes to illustrate that even in the days of being able to get most things from Amazon, it's still a struggle to make some dishes authentically

Ingredients
4 Chicken Thighs (or 1 Cane Rat, quartered)
1 Large Onion
1 Aubergine
1 Red Pepper
1 Green Pepper
3 Tomatoes
4 Cloves of Garlic
2tbsp Chopped Ginger
1tsp Dried Thyme
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. In a large heavy pan, add a little oil, heat and brown the chicken pieces.

2. Add the vegetables, chopped and seasonings then cover the pan with silver foil before putting the lid on, to create as near to an airtight seal as possible.

3. Put the pan in the oven at 150ºc for 90 minutes, shaking the pan regularly to ensure that the ingredients don't stick.  You don't need to add any more liquid, the vegetables should provide enough to cook everything properly and make a sauce.

4.  Serve with cous cous or white rice.  Enjoy

Souvlaki - WCFC2014 : Greece

Our trip round the great (and not so great) footballing nations of the world has reached number 3 in Group C, and as is customary, we'll start with some fun facts about Greece

1. Greek citizens are required by law to vote in elections.  This is presumably because they invented the whole democracy thing...
2. Greece is the world's leading producer of Sea Sponges
3. Football is the national sport of Greece.  They must be good at it then (checks results. Hmmm hold that thought)

And that brings us, in a roundabout way, to the dish I've chosen for Greece, souvlaki (Which has nothing at all to do with the Slowdive album of the same name, 90's shoe-gazing indie fans...) but it a fast food that is popular in Greece.

One of the things I hate is watching a TV chef lecturing me about how, instead of eating a burger, kebab or other fast food, it's really easy and healthy to make your own.  Whilst this may be perfectly true, it's kind of missing the point. When I want a greasy kebab, I'm usually drunk, on the way home from the pub and in no fit state to have a crack at anything more elaborate than opening a bag of crisps.  Therefore takeaway food is the perfect solution and all those multi-millionaire TV cooks so 'do one' in the parlance of the youth. 

The same thing goes for any restaurant that advertises 'dirty' burgers. No, sir, your burger is prepared with the finest ingredients, served on a clean plate that I sit in your tastefully decorated establishment to eat with a knife and fork.  There is nothing 'dirty' about it.  'Dirty' is a burger from a pizza/kebab/fried chicken/burger shop at 2am that drips with grease and assorted and unidentifiable other sauces.  Anything else is simply for people with too much money and too little sense trying to relive their student days in the safety of a street food vendors. (takes deep breath and thinks about meat to calm down...)

That being said... if I could get my hands on some awesome souvlaki at 2am, I would die a happy happy, drunk man. Its a tasty, meaty, sloppy delight and would work just as well for a family BBQ as a tasty snack. Still, I'm not trying to claim it will replace your takeaway treat, I'd never be that much of a hypocrite...

Ingredients (Makes 4)

For the Souvlaki
500g Shoulder of Pork
30ml Lemon Juice
3tbsp Olive Oil
1tsp Dried Oregano
1tsp Dried Mint
1tsp Chili Flakes
4 Cloves Garlic
Salt and Pepper

For the Peppers
3 Peppers

For the Flatbreads
200g Self Raising Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
200g Greek Yogurt

For the Tzatziki
1/2 Cucumber
200ml Greek Yoghurt
1tsp Dried Mint
4 Cloves Garlic
2tbsp Lemon Juice

Method
1. Mix the ingredients for the marinade and cover the meat. Put in the fridge overnight.  At the same time, soak 4 wooden skewers to stop them from burning when you grill/BBQ the meat

2. Grate the cucumber, then squeeze as much of the liquid out of it as you can.  Add this to the yoghurt along with the mint, crushed garlic and lemon juice. Mix well and refrigerate until needed

3.  Heat your grill to maximum and put the peppers under it.  Keep turning them until the skins are charred and black on all sides.  Remove from the heat and put into a bowl, then cover with cling film and allow to cool.  Then remove the skin, seeds and stalk and cut into strips.  Put aside until needed.

4.  Make the dough for the flatbreads by combining all the ingredients and kneeding for 3 minutes.  Then cut into 4 chunks and roll into flat circles about 15cm in diameter.

5.  Put the meat on the skewers and then put under a hot grill (or BBQ) until they are cooked through - about 10-15 minuted, depending on the size of the chunks. 

6.  Heat a griddle pan and cook the flatbreads for about 2 minutes per side

7.  Assemble the dish - put some tzatziki on the flatbread then peppers and finally chucks of pork.  Eat them with your hands, not knife and fork, and from a polystyrene carton for that '2am takeaway' feeling, or possibly overlooking a sunny Mediterranean beach for that authentic Greek feel

Japanese Feast - WCFC2014 : Japan

Mrs Soup is a bit of a Japan-o-phile, so I turned over responsibility to her for this dish.  I was good and didn't even hang round in the kitchen, fussing and 'helping' like I often do when someone else is cooking for me.  What I got in return was a rather magnificent feast.

First a bit about Japan, which, it turns out has never been attacked by Godzilla. 

1. Japan has the worlds largest population of robots! Over 800,000 of them live and work in the country, although none of them play for the national football team (as far as I know)
2. Japan has the world's oldest national anthem - Kimigayo - which dates back to 1880, but is based on a waka poem from the Heian period (794–1185) but it doesn't feature any lines about pouring gifts on people, like the British nation anthem does.  (This is why it's considered bad form to give the Queen a present of soup)
3. My Neighbour Totoro, a Japanese animated film directed by Hayao Miyazake is THE BEST FILM EVER MADE

So, anyway - now that you know more about Japan then 97% of the people who actually live there, on with the food. Rather than cook a single meal, Mrs Soup opted for a number of small dishes served at the same time.

All the recipes came from a book called Hashi by Reiko Hashimoto, which is a brilliant introduction to Japanese cuisine, I can't recommend it enough and I'm totally hooked on it.

Amongst the dishes were Tamago-yaki, which are slices of sweet omelettes with ham, sweetened with sugar and mirin, then sliced thinly and served cold.  Like most Japanese dishes, everything is served sliced on the plate to make them easier to eat with chopsticks (although I opted for a knife and fork as I lack the co-ordination for chopsticks, or walking in a straight line for more than 4 meters)

Next up was Spinach with Gomadare Sesame Sauce, which was blanched spinach leaves again served cold accompanied with a sauce made of tahini, caster sugar, mirin and sesame seeds. This sauce definitely had umami coming out the wazoo, so to speak.  This is a brilliant way to make spinach a tasty dish without actually doing much to it. 

And finally (unless you count the aubergine and miso dish which was somehow left in the oven and burnt to a rather exciting purple crisp, but we wont mention that...) we had prawn and vegetable tempura with ponzu sauce.  2 things I learned watching Mr Soup prepare this dish was that 

1) Chopsticks are a brilliant utensils to aid in the deep frying process, great for making sure the food doesn't stick together and perfect for grabbing things from the hot oil

2) Ponzu is a sauce, not an elaborate insurance scam, made with lime juice, soy and dashi.

Also, being a Northerner experiencing oriental food, I was excited to find that tempura comes with scraps like you used to get from the chippy.   Well, maybe it isn't actually meant to be part of the dish in the strictest terms, but the light golden and crunchy batter was so amazing that I couldn't help just eat it on its own....

Bandeja Paisa - WCFC2014 : Colombia

Aaaaaand they're off. Oh, wait, that's horse racing isn't it? Well, the World Cup is under way and love it or loath it, you can't escape from it. My plan is to lock myself in the kitchen and cook so much food I can't even see a telly, much less a football match.  But there's a challenge to be undertaken that is football related, and I shall rise to it...

First out of the hat is Colombia.  I know nothing about the prowess of Colombia's football team, so here are some facts to distract you from my shocking lack of soccer knowledge (and why I suck at the sports rounds in all pub quizzes, although these facts may aid you should your pub quiz have a round about Colombia in it...)

1. Colombia is where 95% of the world's emeralds are mined
2. Women were first allowed to vote in Colombia in 1957
3. Colombia's national animal is the majestic Condor.

First port of call for me when I'm researching a country's cuisine is to find out what it's national dish is, closely followed by what gross or weird ingredients do they cook with.  In Colombia's case, the national dish is Bandeja Paisa, which, rather brilliantly is basically a huge fry-up, so that's the first dish I cooked in the World Cup Food Challenge.

Much like the English fry-up, there seems to be a few opinions in what goes in a good Bandeja Paisa, so I picked a few components that seemed to go together.  Other things you could add are steak, arepa (Colombian Cornbread) or black pudding.   The main philosophy of a good Bandeja Paisa seems to be More is better so if you're trying it at home, pile as much on the plate as is humanly possible (I didn't for the pictures because I don't want you all to think I'm a fatty, but as soon as I'd finished snapping, I doubled the quantity that you see here...)

Carne en Polvo - Powdered Beef

450g Braising Steak
5 Spring Onions
1tsp Cumin
Salt and Pepper

Cut the steak into cubes and rub with the cumin, salt and plenty of black pepper, finely cut your onions and then put everything in the fridge to marinade for 30 minutes.

Remove from the fridge and put in a pan, then cover with water.  Bring the pan to the boil and simmer for 45 minute to an hour, until the meat is cooked and starting to break up.  Remove from the heat, take the meat out of the liquid and leave to dry and cool thoroughly

Once it is dry and cold, put the meat in a food blender and process until it's a fine, powdery consistency.

Chicharron - Fried Pork

300g Belly Pork Slices
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1tsp Salt

Rub the pork slices in the salt and baking powder, and then fry gently for 10-15 minutes, until its golden and crispy on the outside

Frijoles Paisas _ Colombian Style Beans

200g Dried Pinto Beans
1 Large Onion
1Carrot
50g Bacon
3 Cloves Garlic
1tsp Cumin
1tsp Salt
1tsp Baking Soda

Soak the Pinto Beans overnight (or use tinned if you are totally lazy) in water with the baking soda to help the beans soften

Drain the beans and rinse, then add to a pan with some water, the bacon, cumin, chopped onion and carrot garlic and salt.  Bring the pan to the boil and then simmer for 45 minutes, until the beans are softened and cooked through.  Drain if some of the liquid if you don't like it too runny and then serve

Hogao

1 Tin Chopped Tomatoes
5 Spring Onions
3 Cloves Garlic
1 Tbsp White Vinegar 
1 Tsp Cumin
Salt and Pepper

Chop the onion and fry gently. Add the tomatoes, garlic, vinegar and cumin, then simmer for 10 minutes.  Season to taste

Serve the meal with Fried Plantains, Chorizo Sausage, white rice, avocado and a fried egg.  Enjoy!  This meal also works well as a breakfast to chase away a hangover caused my drinking too much during a game, or drinking too much trying to avoid a game...

World Cup Food Challenge 2014

Are we all excited about the World Cup? Who doesn't love a ball kicking festival?

Well we here at Soup Tuesday HQ are, if we're honest Football ambivalent.  I do enjoy the odd match but I don't go into mourning my team lose. Mainly because I don't have a favourite team.  But there's one thing I do love, and that's food (although you may be forgiven for thinking I'd stopped eating given the lackadaisical attitude to blogging I've shown over the last few months)

Anyway, after the success of The Olympic Food Challenge from a while ago, the lovely Ewan from Tonight's Menu has organised a new challenge  - The World Cup Food Challenge, and guess what, Im taking part.  You can follow the exploits of my fellow participants on the WCFC2014 blog and I'll be posting recipes from the coutries in my group here too (also, if you're on twitter, the official hastag is #WCFC2014 cos we're super high tech here at Soup Tuesday)

My group from the draw was Group C which consists of the following countries

Colombia
Greece
Cote D'Ivoir
Japan

I'll be cooking one dish from each country and then additional dishes from countries that proceed through to subsequent rounds.  It's an interesting mix of countries and hopefully I'll have some good dishes coming up.  Don't forget to check back for more, and also check out the rest of the blogs in the challenge.  Oh, also, remember to watch some footie, if that's your bag...

Wild Garlic Soup

It's springtime! The sun is (sometimes) in the sky and everywhere, nature is erupting from its winter slumber like an, erm, volcano of green things.  And one of the greatest things about this time of year is wild garlic!

I've done a few soups with wild garlic before, but out of every one I've tried, this is by far the best and the most simple.  On  Sunday afternoon, we had guests for a roast dinner, so I served this soup as a starter, which meant a quick walk down the the canal, following my nose until I smelled the unmistakable smell of the wild garlic, grabbed a carrier bag full of the stuff, headed home and an hour later the soup was on the table - how's that for 'straight from nature'?

Wild Garlic, yesterday, in a secret location

 Of course, it goes without saying, if you are going to pick wild garlic, make sure that you know what it is first, no picking deadly poisons and then trying to sue me, okay? Secondly, wash it thoroughly - there are lots of dogs and dog walkers around where I pick mine, so it needs to be cleaned properly.

Even more wild garlic. Surely no-one will miss a few kilos for soup purposes, right?

Bearing that in mind, wild garlic is about the easiest thing in the world to forage for, and its a brilliant ingredient that you never see in the shops, for reasons I can only guess at. Anyway, the addition of some cream, black pudding slices and croutons will make this a quick, easy and tasty soup.

Ingredients
150g Wild Garlic
1 Large Onion
1 Large Potato
40g Butter
900ml Vegetable Stock
100ml White Wine
Juice of half a lemon
Double Cream
Black Pudding Slices
Salt and Pepper

Method
1. Peel and chop the onion and potato.  In a large pan, heat the butter and then gently fry the onion and potato until they start to soften.

2.  Wash the garlic and remove any tough stems.  Add to the pan and allow to wilt.

3.  Add the stock, lemon juice and white wine, bring the soup to a simmer and cook for 25 minute.  Take off the heat and allow to cool

4.  Blend the soup until smooth, passing through a sieve to remove any lumps, then return to the pan and reheat gently, adjusting seasoning to taste

5.  Fry some slices of black pudding

6.  Serve with a swirl of cream, some black pudding slices and a few crunchy croutons.  Enjoy!

Budae Jjigae (Army Base Soup) - Korean Spam and Kimchi Soup

Here it is.  The pinnacle of my soup making career to date!  If you could create a recipe that combines my love of soups of the world with my love of unloved ingredients, combine something I've never tried before and sprinkle a bit of military history on top (yes, I'm a history geek as well as a soup geek) it would look something like this unholy but delicious dish.

The story behind this soup goes as follows... A few weeks ago, I got a craving for Spam - I have no idea where it came from except that when I was a kid, every Friday in the summertime we had a salad that featured either Spam or Pek pork, nestled alonside limp lettuce, pickled beetroot and sliced boiled eggs.  Maybe I was feeling nostalgic for those days, or maybe I'd just been watching Monty Python, but regardless, my recipe seeking brain went in search of things to make and do with Spam, and it eventually lead me to South Asia...

East Meets West.  It's like an episode of M*A*S*H in tinned form

After the Second World War (and the Korean War too) food in Japan, Korea and the Pacific Islands - recently devastated by a harrowing but highly cinematic conflict - was in short supply.  Indeed, the only regular supply of it was often to be begged, borrowed or stolen from the American GIs  who were still around.  And one thing they had plenty of was Spam. And since then it has become something of a delicacy in the region, even appearing as Spam Musubi (a form of sushi featuring Spam)

This soup (or stew) is made entirely of ingredients that could be scrounged from GIs, hence the name Army Base Soup, but its the sort of thing I would have eaten as a student, if I'd had access to kimchi.  It might now exactly be fine dining, but I'm guessing it's as authentic as any recipe from any cook book on your shelves, and doesn't it deserve some look as much as the pulled porks, confit potatoes, cronuts and quinoa stuffed, organically sourced alpaca steaks of this world?

If you can get Korean hot pepper paste, that is more accurate than the chilli powder that I used, and the instant noodles should be added without their soup powder mix!

Ingredients
200g Spam
4 Hot Dog Sausages
100g Mushrooms
100g Kimchi
1 Small Tin Baked Beans
1 Large Onion
Spring Onions
Red Chilli Pepper
1 Packet Instant Noodles
1tsp Sesame Oil
1tbsp Minced Garlic
1tbsp Rice Wine
1tsp Chilli Powder
1tsp Fish Sauce
900ml Chicken Stock

Method
1. Bring the stock to the boil, add the sesame oil, garlic, rice wine, chilli powder and fish sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes and then remove from the heat and set aside for later

2. Cut the hot dog sausages into small pieces, slice the spam, wash and halve the button mushrooms, peel and finely slice the onion.  Place the ingredients in a pan, along with the baked beans and then add the stock.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minute.

3. Add the instant noodles and simmer for another 5 minutes, until the noodles are soft.

4. Garnish the soup with thinly sliced spring onions and red chillies.  Enjoy!