Lianne – 18.10.21 As Lianne was pondering which Country Cuisine to choose for her upcoming S dinner, she remembered that the dinners she’d always enjoyed most were those long, slow, informal affairs, with large tables of friends laughing and chatting, passing around plate-loads of Tapas and bottles of Rioja, all wrapped in a cloud of …
Ra Ra Rasputin!
6th of September You’d think nothing would be more disturbing – as dinners go – than being served grasshoppers and squirrels to eat. But you’d be wrong. Having Premier Putin open Idit’s apartment door was much worse, and scared the bejeezus out of me. Well, Idit in a Putin mask. But it was still bloody …
Q – it’s QUARANTINE Time!
This one, my friends, offers quite the detour from our usual theme, and was, all round, a dinner-for-the-books, which tested both our mettles and our pallets. Q, like O, has only one country in it’s list: Qatar, which Bernhard and Dorottya have already had the first time round the alphabet. It’s cuisine is also rather …
P – Pots & Pork from Papua New Guinea
Monday, 19th of July 2021 By now, 16 letters and dinners in, preparing for a A-Z Dinner has assumed its own life cycle: First – when assigned a letter – choosing which cuisine to take on: finding all the countries which start with that letter, then considering which sounds interesting, not too similar to one …
Tahini Dip and Shata Dip Recipes
Shatta Dip (not quite Schoog, but an occidental-palet-friendly version…) 10 red chillies (or green) 4 spoons tomato paste 3 cloves of garlic 2 lemons Cut chillies (de-seed if preferred) and add into a blender and blend fine. Add tomato paste and garlic cloves. Blend fine. Put the mixture into a bowl and squeeze in lemon …
Omani Mishkak Recipe
Ingredients: 1kg beef steak, cubed 3 tbsp Fresh ginger grated 5 cloves of garlic ½ papaya fruit, chopped 1 ½ tbsp salt 3 de-seeded red chillies or 1 tbsp chilli powder 1 tbsp turmeric 4 tbsp vinegar (any kind is fine) 4 tbsp tamarind paste (this is a must!) 1 tbsp cumin powder 1 tbsp …
Kabuli Rice Recipe
Ingredients: 3 cups of basmati rice 5 cups of chicken stock 3 onions 5 garlic cloves 1 tablespoon Baharat spice ½ teaspoon whole cloves 1 teaspoon peppercorns 1 teaspoon coriander 1 teaspoon cumin seeds ½ teaspoon of salt Cinnamon stick Dried limes ½ cup raisins soaked in water ½ cup of dates ½ cup blanched …
Omani – Arabian Nights: take 2
O. Oh no. Omani again! Wait, wait, let me explain: Did you know there is only ONE country starting with O on the face of the earth?? So during the first, restaurant-based cycle of this culinary pursuit, Dorottya and Bernhard already had Omani food, and as they couldn’t find any Omani restaurants in London, Dorottya …
Rudolf (Reindeer) Stew
Ingredients (serves 6): 1 kg Reindeer meat, cubed 2 Onions – diced 4 Slices of Smoked back bacon, tough ends removed, copped 5 Large carrots, thickly sliced 5 Large mushrooms, sliced 2 Large potatoes, peeled & cut into large cubes 1 tsp of thyme 3 tbsp veg oil 2 cubes beef stock 1.5Lt boiling water …
Norway: Eating Rudolf
( Just Don’t tell the kids) We are back. For a time it seemed like being able to meet and share food & fun together is a lost art, an arcane tradition which will never return. But after many disappointing postponements, Covid restrictions are steadily easing, hopefully permanently, this time. So, where were we? N, …