Democratic Republic of Congo: Bland isn't always bad

The lovely J of SoberSingleDC joined me for this one. She's vegetarian and I hadn't cooked anything African in a while, so I decided to make the Catholic Relief Services recipe for Saka-Madesu, or Greens and Beans, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I'd planned on making some mashed sweet potatoes I'd had in my recipe file for a while to go with it, but the Congo Cookbook site wasn't working so I settled on Akara, or black eyed pea fritters. Congolese cuisine also seems to include a fair bit of grilled meat and meat stews, but those were obviously out.

The thing that struck me first about the recipes was that they didn't contain salt, pepper, or spices. Then it occurred to me that those things probably aren't readily available if you're poor in the DRC. Still, I told J many times over the evening that really, there was excellent pizza a mere few blocks away if this was as terrible as I thought it was going to be. I took a couple of shortcuts with the recipes - frozen spinach and canned beans - and I think the food came out fine despite that. Unfortunately, the fritters were not quite as functional as some I've made before. I think pulverizing the peas in the food processor was a bad idea (mashing coarsely with a wooden spoon probably would have worked better), as was not adding flour or eggs. J was flipping like a champ, but a lot of the paste melted away. They stayed together a bit better after I added some flour to the second batch, but I still wasn't happy with the texture. The stew was a pleasant surprise, though. Despite its only seasoning being a cube of vegetable bouillon, it was remarkably tasty. It probably helped that I salted the rice a fair bit.

The South Pacific: Cheating a little?

When I was in high school, we all had to draw a developing country out of a hat at the end of junior year and write our senior paper on it. Apparently my teachers hadn't done their research, because the first one I drew was Nauru. I'd never heard of Nauru, but I gamely went to the CIA Factbook and checked it out. It turned out Nauru was approximately the size of a postage stamp in the middle of the Pacific. It had no written language (problematic since part of the paper was to be literary analysis), and its economy was based on bird crap (ok, phosphates) that was supposed to run out within ten years. After I brought these findings to my teachers, they let me pick again and I ended up with Algeria.

But Nauru stayed with me. I later learned that the South Pacific has a number of inhabited postage stamps that are members of the United Nations. I looked for recipes from each, but Samoa was the only one for which I had any luck. Consequently, for this post I've combined Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

The islands are relatively diverse ethnically, but as their climates are much the same, so too is their cuisine (as far as I can tell - if you have different information, please share it in the comments!). They're very tropical, and fruit and vegetables are common, particularly yams, breadfruit, cassava, taro, bananas, coconut, mango, papaya, and greens. Pork and fish seem to be the most common proteins, although I've also seen some chicken recipes. I found a great resource in The Pacific Islands Cookbook, available online here.

I decided to make banana rice, yam fritters, and a coconut tuna ceviche called poisson cru, or oka i'a in Samoa. The oka'i was only supposed to marinate in the lime juice for 10-20 minutes, so I thought it was important to use sushi-grade tuna. Kenny was my hero with regard to the tuna. After questing all day Saturday, I finally gave up and bought some tilapia on Sunday morning (the nice lady at Harris Teeter promised me I was unlikely to die from eating it raw), only to get a call from Kenny saying that he had found sushi grade tuna at Eastern Market and would bring it over for me. The oka i'a was delicious, so I'm pretty sure he saved the meal!

I was joined for dinner by James of Jimbaux's Journal, who wanted a cooking lesson. I put him to work chopping and grating and mixing, explaining everything I was doing and why. It was a great time, and he seemed to think everything was delicious! All photos are courtesy of him.

Armenia

Armenian cuisine is fairly typical of the Mediterranean and Eastern European regions. Fresh ingredients are usually more important than spices, and common elements include lamb, bulghur, rice, yogurt, apricots, nuts, zucchini, and stuffed fruit and vegetables.

I planned to make zucchini fritters, a pilaf with bulghur, and apricots stuffed with beef. I was pretty sure this meal was going to be an epic disaster. Here is a list of the things that went wrong before I even started cooking:
1. I got home later than expected and had about an hour less to cook than I had hoped for.
2. Trader Joe's did not have bulghur and I scraped my car on a pillar in the parking garage (pretty sure this was divine punishment for stopping there on the way home instead of parking at home and walking the two blocks over).
3. I didn't think to label the ziplock bags of meat in my freezer and accidentally thawed pork instead of beef (hello, cultural inaccuracy).
4. Shoppers didn't have apricots to stuff with said pork, so I turned to zucchini. Unfortunately, they also only had tiny zucchini. So I figured I would just have to deal.

I assured my friend Anika that there was excellent pizza only a few minutes away if it all proved inedible, but ended up being pleasantly surprised. The pilaf turned out pretty delicious with rice instead of bulghur, and the fritters were excellent. I didn't keep the leftover stuffed zucchini (the recipe didn't say to cook the rice beforehand, so I didn't...and maybe I should have? It was crunchy and I did not find it delicious), but we each ate one.

Turkey

Turkish food is quite similar to other Mediterranean food, with lots of meat, feta, yogurt, and fresh vegetables. Lamb and beef are common, but pork is not as most citizens are Muslim. When I was in Turkey, my mother and I ate almost nothing but döner kebab (the Turkish version of gyros) and were totally all right with that. Unfortunately, making it involves taking ground lamb and beef, seasoning the crap out of it, and slow-roasting it on a spit. So when I decided to make Turkish food it wasn't an option.

I built the meal around a boneless leg of lamb I had in the freezer and needed to get rid of before a Groupon for Springfield Butcher expired. I found a recipe for something called pink leg of lamb, which was supposed to be Turkish and looked manageable. I decided to alter the recipe a bit to make something more like Iskender kebab, which is a seriously amazing Turkish food (chunks of meat in tomato sauce with yogurt and melted butter). To round it out, I made fried zucchini (it's an informal goal to fry zucchini as many times as possible throughout this endeavor) with yogurt sauce, cigarette borek, olives and garlic with pita, and a basic rice pilaf with saffron. I also mixed up a little ayran, which is a yogurt drink that's super popular over there. I hate the stuff so didn't have any myself, but I made my friends Ben and Katie try some. In general, everything was tasty. I'd hoped the lamb would come out a little more tender, and was upset that the yogurt separated despite my efforts to stabilize it. I didn't follow the directions with the phyllo, but the cigars were still really good. I think my favorite part was the olives; I couldn't find pitted black olives at the olive bar and didn't want to use canned or jarred so I used kalamata. I had the leftovers sauteed with mushrooms and pasta, and they were incredibly flavorful.

Belgium

Belgian cuisine is heavily influenced by French and German cuisine depending on the area. Staples include meat, potatoes, and beer. Endives are a particularly popular, and mussels and french fries (moules-frites) are a common fast food near the border with France.

Until about 6 months ago, I refused to eat cooked seafood of any kind. Then I went to Granville Moore's in Washington, DC, one of the moules-frites joints that are becoming more common in the area. The fries were amazing, of course, and the mussels were served in a delicious garlic and white wine broth. Turns out there was nothing not to love, so I decided to make my own. I learned that the secret to Belgian fries is frying them twice, but since I was cooking on a Monday night after a long day I totally wimped out and bought extra-crispy frozen french fries that only needed to be fried once. I'm not proud of it, but they were delicious. The mussels were far more complicated. Not the cooking, that part was pretty simple. But I've never cooked any kind of seafood before, so I was a little neurotic about getting sick from bad shellfish. I got a bag of mussels from H Mart and the first thing to do was pick out the ones that were open. But you can also see if they close. So I was pretty sure the ones I took out were not going to close. Then I scrubbed off the remaining ones and removed as much of the "beards" as I could and threw them in the pan with the broth, then put the lid on. After a few minutes, most seemed to be open, so I dumped the whole thing into a bowl. The next thing to freak out about was that while most had opened considerably and a few hadn't opened at all, a few had only opened a little. I decided they were ok, but I was nervous until I realized I definitely had not gotten food poisoning.

The last part of the meal was endives braised in butter and lemon. They were good, and not as bitter as raw endives, but probably not something I'd make again.

Thailand

Thai cuisine is based on strongly aromatic ingredients like chile peppers, ginger, and lemongrass. Each meal is supposed to be composed of sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and optionally bitter flavors. Regional cuisine is influenced by neighbors including Malaysia, China, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma. Traditionally, one would serve more dishes than there are guests at the table. Staples include rice, noodles, fish sauce, and curry.

I'd certainly had Thai food before, but it's never been one of my favorite cuisines. I've never been able to find anything that excites me. So since I didn't expect to love this meal, my major priorities were nutrition and low hassle, which included easy ingredients and fast preparation. I left out the spiciness and bitterness, but I did serve three dishes for the two of us. The won-tons were easy (although the oil spattered like no other!) and tasty enough even without a dipping sauce. The curry (which was a last-minute addition after I realized I had half a can of coconut milk left over from Cameroon) was reasonably inoffensive, and if I make it again I might even use more curry paste. The noodles were downright tasty, and I'll definitely make something like that again. Blair agreed.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is located in the Caribbean, on the same island as Haiti. Culinary influences include the Spanish (it used to be a Spanish colony), indigenous Taino, and African (Africans were brought by the Spanish to be slaves), and is most similar to Cuba and Puerto Rico. Common dishes include rice and beans, pork, other stewed meat, and seafood (for coastal residents). Dominican food tends to be less spicy than most other Caribbean food, and dominant seasonings are garlic, onion, cilantro, and oregano. I've also heard that chicken bouillon cubes contribute to a uniquely Dominican flavor.

I came across the recipe for the chicken nuggets online and decided that anything marinated in rum was all right with me. Usually chicharrones are made with pork rind, but chicken is apparently the Dominican way. I used chicken thighs and marinated them overnight in a ziplock bag. The frying process was surprisingly painless and the nuggets were flavorful but not actually spicy. My friend Ben said that he'd only had them with pork before, but that these tasted just about right. My only regrets were that I could have fried a few of them longer and that I didn't have any lime wedges!

My friend Ashley spent some time in the Dominican Republic and told me that I couldn't skip rice and red beans. She was kind enough to pass along her recipe and some tips, and it was delicious! I used basmati rice, since it was what I had around. Next time I might chop the onion a bit smaller (the recipe calls for quarters), but it was surprisingly tasty and sweet. I'll definitely make this again! Maybe I'll even have it for breakfast topped with a fried egg.

Austria

I'm starting with Austria because Austria was the place I first learned about a cuisine and its cultural influences, and I think my love affair with excellent food really started there. As a bonus, I took a cooking class, so it was easy to choose recipes.

Austria is located in central Europe near Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Slovakia. It was, of course, the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, alternately known as the Habsburg or Holy Roman Empire. Consequently, culinary influences come from all over the former empire. Dumplings from Bohemia, sausages from Germany, breaded and fried cutlets from Italy, clear soups from France, and more.

Last night's menu consisted of Wienerschnitzel, Kartoffelkrapfen, green beans mit Speck, and Salzburger Nockerl. In English, that's breaded and fried veal cutlets, fried mashed potato pancakes, green beans with bacon, and a boysenberry-flavored souffle for dessert. Wine was a German Riesling, because I couldn't find an Austrian wine at Shoppers or Trader Joe's yesterday afternoon. I also couldn't find the traditional red currant jam for the schnitzel or nockerl, hence the boysenberry. This would have been a good meal for four people, although there could have been more veal.