Togo

Togo

Moving along in Africa and we're going to Togo next. I have a friend from university who lived in Togo for awhile and I meant to email him to get his perspective on these dishes (or Togian? food in general) but just haven't gotten around to it.

Papaya Salad

So as I mentioned before, I've been doing regular trips to the Avondale market. Primarily for unripe papaya's to use in making Som Tam (a Thai papaya salad). However, the last few I got have been ripe, despite being green and having a bit of a hollow sound when you tap them. Not being a huge papaya fan, they have sat in the fridge and it could not be more serendipitous that they were needed for a recipe as I hate to waste food.

This was a great salad - all ingredients worked well and the mint made it very refreshing to eat.

Togo Tofu with Baked Ugali

By the authors own admission this dish is more Togo inspired than truly authentic. Which is a little disappointing.

While the recipe says you can marinate overnight, I didn't and only had the tofu in the broth for about an hour and a half.

While the tofu was marinating, I made the sauce and left it to simmer quite awhile and ultimately left the tofu chunks in there for a good while to pick up any extra sauce and taste before I fried them.

This was delicious. In fact, Matt said it is the best tofu dish he has ever eaten. That's definitely a compliment! The tofu had just the right amount of crunch and the tomato paste in the polenta gave it a subtle addition of flavour.

With the papaya salad

Black Baked Bananas

Given there was only 2 of us, I halved the recipe ingredients. I liked the idea of assembling your own and so put all the ingredients into soup spoons on the plate.

Wow! This is probably the simplest dish with the nicest flavour for the smallest amount of effort you need to do. The lime and sugar with the cream were beautiful on the warm banana and again the nuts added nice texture. I loved this so much I sent the recipe to 2 colleagues the next day. Since one of them couldn't have peanuts due to a mild allergy, I suggested she substitute chopped almonds instead.





Overall a great combo of dishes for Togo and one of Matt's all time favourites!

Ghana

Ghana


And across we go to Africa.


Having only been to Morocco I had no idea what to expect with these dishes.


Avocado with peanut dressing


This country would be hard for anyone with a nut allergy or on a low fat diet.


While avocados have lots of the good fat (aka monounsaturated). But, in my opinion (which is just that and based off no study or knowledge in this area) you can have too much of a good thing which is why I only used half an avocado in this recipe since it was just Matt and I having dinner.


Paprika and cinnamon are an interesting combo and I was afraid I would not like it, but this was nice. I'm not sure I could eat a large amount of this salad (it's really just avocado and nuts) but it tasted good. The nuts added a nice crunch (might be interesting to add some chopped almonds in the mix) and the creamy-ness of the avocado was a nice complement to the warm stew.





Nkate nkwan (peanut soup)


To make the peanut soup, I used my favourite peanut butter - Pic's. If you ever get a chance to taste or try it, I'm sure you will want to buy it.


The soup itself was quite straight forward and really easy to make. I wasn't sure how tomatoes and peanut would work, but you couldn't really taste the tomato by the end and the peanut was not over powering.

Omo tuo (rice balls)

If you can recall my last entry, I mentioned my skills (or lack thereof) with rice. I used the white rice we had in the house which was a combination of jasmine and some other medium grain one. Surprisingly the rice balls came out alright and were relatively easy to roll.

The would definitely have to be in the stew / soup above (otherwise it's just a ball of rice with no real flavorings) so I'm not sure why these are separate recipes. Together those this was definitely up there in terms of my favourite dishes in the cookbook so far. It was perfect for the cold winter nights we have been having and the simplicity of the dish seemed in keeping with the country we were cooking.

Muhallabia (ground rice pudding


When I read saw this dish, I was quite surprised. I have seen this before but have always thought of it as a middle eastern dish, not an African one.


I had a look around my local shops for rosewater with no luck. I know there are some Persian shops on Dominion Road that would have likely had it (again being what I know to be as a middle eastern ingredient).


So when like gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or in this case, when life doesn't give you rosewater, make your own!


To make the rosewater, I went and picked a bowl full of rose petals from the roses in the garden. Knowing I wanted a nice color I used a combination of pink petals and white petals from 2 different varieties of rose. I have no idea what kind of roses we have in our garden - the pink ones are smallish and more bushy. They're currently growing along our fence. The white ones are the more traditional (English?) rose variety.


I then poured boiling water over the petals and let it infuse while on a low heat for about 15-20 minutes. I then strained the petals off and voila - rosewater!

I also tried to find ground rice. I saw lots of "rice flour" but in the absence of knowing whether it was what I needed I didn't get it. In the end, I took a blend of rices from the house (brown, medium grain white and jasmine) and ground them myself in my Vitamix.

This recipe of Muhallabia was quite thick and very filling. Interestingly a neighbour of ours who used to live in Dubai came over the next night. He tasted it and said while it was good, it was nothing like the one he knows of from Dubai, so perhaps it is truly an African version.

Brasilia

Brazil


I'm back in full swing and even though it's almost winter and the Belgium winter stew would fit in well, I'm going to continue on and go back to it later.


Up next is a bit of a zig-zag down to Brazil, before we go to Africa.


I'm not sure what I think of when I think of Brazilian food. Other parts of South America, like Argentina, remind me of big meat fests. I think the only Brazilian thing I could name would be a Caprihiana, which is a cocktail made which sugar and muddled limes (not all that dis-similar to a mojito).


I went back to the Avondale market again to get the lovely leafy vegetables that are in the tart and I thought I would get creative with the sorbet.


Let's skip to the dessert first because that was one I had a lot of fun making.


Guava Sorbet with pomegranate syrup


I had decided that rather than try and buy guavas, I would take advantage of those growing in my backyard. For those that know NZ it's feijoa season right now. A feijoa is of the guava family (other wise known as a pineapple guava) and thrive here. But, they are not the only guava relative that we have.


Before the house next door to us was demolished, they used to have this huge tree which would drop these little red fruits onto our driveway. It would get a bit crazy due to the quantity and for a short period, it was almost as though there was a small area of red carpet we drove over.


Sadly, the house (and trees) next door were demolished. But last year I noticed we had a new tree growing in with the cactuses and succulents that line our driveway. It had the same fruits as that tree and some of the fruit must have made its way into the garden bed and grown. I still at this point had no idea what it was though (or even if it was edible). Red fruits in my mind seem to scream POISON! In any event, with the help of my friend Google, I found out this plant was a Chilean Guava, or otherwise known as a Strawberry Guava, and was definitely edible.


With this in mind, I knew I had to use the guavas from the garden for this sorbet.


This is what the strawberry guavas look like

Since the recipe had mentioned using juice, I found a recipe on the internet on how to make a juice from these (ideal for a jelly).

Basically you cut the flower end off, cover with water and boil.

I added in a feijoa for extra taste/flavour and then after it had had long enough to infuse, used a plunger to squeeze and other flavour out of the fruit.

Oh my gosh! This juice is AMAZING! Even without putting any sugar or anything in it, it tastes wonderful. Kind of tart and warm (is that a flavour?) all at the same time. Oh yum.

Having not actually paid much attention to the recipe (thinking that I only needed guavas) I hadn't realised orange juice was required. Lindsay's garden to the rescue and I picked a few almost ripe mandarins to juice and then added some honey for a bit of sweetness.

I had spent awhile trying to find pomegranate syrup at the market with no luck and so had to settle for putting seeds on top of the sorbet.

It was my first time making sugar baskets (and using demerera sugar). Unfortunately I think I had it too hot and the sugar wound up tasting a bit burnt.

But, it looked good and the sorbet was fresh and delicious.

Vegetable maionese salad

Rather than go the vegan route with this one, I opted for convenience and used real mayo. And the other secret I used here was garlic stuff olives. I've never had olives (or artichoke hearts) in a potato salad before but this was really good. The garlic seemed to give things a bit of a pizazz. For easiness and yum factor I think this ranks up there.

Brown Rice Tart

I've never heard of a rice tart. I also have a secret confession here. I'm not good at making rice. There's something about it that I just seem to struggle with. Mine always winds up too wet, or sticky or underdone. We don't have a rice maker and it is not something I make very frequently. So it's not something I have ever even thought about mashing or blending together.

For the leafy bits on top I used;

-Beetroot (with 2 different varieties (one with purple leaves and one with green)

-Broccoli rabe (aka rapini)

-Carrots (I used a peeler to get super thin slice bits

-Red onion

-Yellow capsicum

-Spinach

As the recipe talks about herbs and edible flowers, I put some of my favourite staples from the garden on there - nasturtiums, rosemary, and oregano. The nasturtiums were only added after I cooked it.

In my tin

When it came time to pull this from the tin, the dish was nowhere near as firm as the picture looked. It kind of sagged in the middle and I suspect this was due to my rice being too wet when I added water and blended it.

Despite this, it was delicious and I could see this pairing great with a nice glass of wine for a special lunch.