Mali: Timbuktu lamb stew with couscous

I love eating lamb, but until I started making this stew I forgot what a pain in the ass it can be to cook with. Most of the better cuts I've come across in the grocery stores involve large hunks of bone that make it difficult to salvage all of the meat from.

Either way, the effort is well worth it. I've done several other slow-cook stews that involve lamb, and I think it could just be the perfect way to cook it. The stewing process makes the sweet meat deliciously soft and tender.

This recipe is marked by just about every spice in the spice aisle. (That's a slight exaggeration, but you seriously use eight, not including the salt or garlic). It creates an amazing flavor combination that dances across your palate leaving hints of sweet, tangy and finally the hot from the cayenne pepper.

Anyway, for the most part I followed this recipe from recipehound.com, with some alterations with ingredients and techniques.

One of the most noticeable differences is that I used carrots in mine (in my never ending effort to use all of the food in my refrigerator). I also thought it could use some color. I was also fairly arbitrary about the spice adding.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil

About 2 pounds of lamb, cut into 2 inch chunks

salt

pepper

3 garlic cloves, minced

5 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks about the size of the meat

1 tbsp. cumin

1 tsp. fennel seeds

1/2 tbsp. ground cardamon

2 tbsps. ground ginger

more pepper

1 tbsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 can whole tomatoes

water

2 yellow onions

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 1/2 cup dates pureed

chopped parsley

couscous

What to do:

Season the lamb with salt and pepper (I usually do this before I cut it into the cube pieces). Heat the oil in a large soup pot or dutch oven. When the oil is hot, add the garlic and the meat and cook until browned. Add the carrots and cook a few more minutes. Next add the following spices: cumin, fennel seeds, cardamon, ginger, black pepper, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Mix well and cook a few minutes.

Then add the can of tomatoes and their juices. Add water to cover all of the meat and bring pot to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer and let cook for an hour.

When the hour is up, add the onions, date puree and cinnamon. Again, bring this to a boil then reduce to a simmer for another 30 to 40 minutes. You want to cook it until the juice thickens.

You can eat this dish over couscous, or just as is (which is actually what I did with a side of potatoes au gratin). Sprinkle with the parsley before serving.

Surprise detour ... through Comoros!

Well I decided to live really wild this week and spontaneously pull a country for a quiet Friday evening at home doing some cooking. The lucky draw was Comoros, a country in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.

I could not immediately locate a national dish for this country, so I started doing some Internet research to come up with a recipe.

Comoros must be a pretty nice island locale because over the years it was invaded by various groups from Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Persian Gulf region. France and Portugal also paid their own friendly visits.

Of course all of these people were kind enough to bring ingredients from their native countries and introduced them to the Comorosians. This inspired an eclectic cuisine that revolves heavily around rice and meat cooked with various spices, like cloves and saffron, vanilla and cardamon.

I found a decent recipe for a Comorosian chicken curry. I'd post the link, but the web site kept freezing my computer every time I visited it. Besides, I altered the recipe anyway to use up some of the building arsenal of ingredients in my refrigerator.

Without further ado, my version of a Comorosian chicken curry.

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (More if you are cooking for more people, obviously. I still have a ton of food frozen from last week so I need to start scaling back my portion sizes.)

Canola oil

1 yellow onion, sliced thin

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 serrano peppers, chopped

2 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated

5 tomatoes peeled, diced (You can use fresh, or canned tomatoes - whole or already diced. I used whole, canned plum tomatoes and diced them.)

6 whole cloves

About 2 tbsps. ground cardamon

About 1 cup of vanilla greek yogurt (let sit to room temperature)

1 tbsp. flour

About 1 tbsp. ground cumin

A pinch of saffron

Arborio rice

What I did:

Start by heating about 2 tbsps. of canola oil in a frying pan. Clean the chicken and when the pan is hot throw it in, searing the two pieces. Let the chicken sit for a few minutes on each side so you get a nice brown barrier that will lock in the juices. When done searing, pop the chicken in the over (pre-heated to 350 degrees) to let it finish cooking for (about 25 minutes).

Add the onions, garlic, peppers and ginger to the pan and let it all cook until the onions are soft. Then add the cloves and cardamon and let cook for a few minutes.

When the chicken is done, add it back to the curry and add the tomatoes. Reduce to low heat.

Meanwhile, mix the yogurt with the cumin, saffron and flour. Take a few tbsps. of the curry sauce and add it to the yogurt slowly, mixing briskly. This is supposed to gradually heat the yogurt so it does not curdle. Remove the chicken from the pan, and stir in thre yogurt/curry mix and stir quickly to prevent curdling. Cover and let simmer for one hour.

Meanwhile, cook the rice so it will be ready to serve the chicken over.

I really enjoyed this dish. The seared chicken was tender and juicy and the curry sauce is a nice balance of the full flavors of the spices and the kick of the serrano peppers. The ginger also helps cool the palate from the peppers.

Next up ... Mali

So the next draw from the wine bag of fun and adventure ... Mali. I'm just planning on one country this week - for now - since the weekend is already shaping up to be pretty busy. But I have big plans to pick up my slack next weekend and do my first multi-country feast. Maybe I should have called the blog Cooking Around the World in 80 Weeks?

Mali does not appear to have a national dish that I could easily find, but it does have the legendary city of Timbuktu. I learned this when I found a decent-looking recipe called Couscous De Timbuktu, a stew made with lamb, dates and spices served over couscous. Sounded pretty good to me so I'll be making it this weekend.

In other news in my world of food, the Travel Channel's Man Versus Food filmed an episode in Sarasota that will air tomorrow (Wednesday). The word on the street is that host Adam Richman visited the Salty Dog Cafe, Munchies 420 and Yoder's Amish Restaurant, where one can find a variety of different yummy pie products.

The show will be on at 10 p.m.

Myanmar: Mohinga, Part II

Well for starters, looks like I was right in the first place about Myanmar being Myanmar. It's been brought to my attention that it was Burma up until just last year when they changed their name back to the original Myanmar (Huh?). Right. Apparently there is still some confusion even in the mainstream media about what to call the place. Anyone who is really interested can read up on it. I was more concerned about making my mohinga to pay too much attention.

Today I realized that many of the dishes I may make are going to seem iffy at first, and some may not really be appealing at all. My goal in all of this will be to elevate the traditional recipes into something yummy and edible.

In the course of making the mohinga I feared this could be one of those challenges.

I had trouble finding many recipes for the dish, but Wikipedia did have a list of traditional ingredients that included chickpea flour, garlic, onions, lemongrass, banana tree stems (huh?), ginger, fish paste, fish sauce and catfish. This is all cooked in a rice broth and served with vermicelli and garnished with various things like lime juice, more fish sauce, spring onions and crushed chile peppers. I did use most of these, with the exception of the fish paste and banana tree stems.

As I indicated in an earlier post, I was a little wary of the catfish. I had never tried it, but it strikes me as one of those dirty kind of bottom feeder fish with little flavor. My parents feed them in the murky pond behind their house, and they don't look like anything I'd ever want on my dinner table. Sorry Emily. One we call "lips" even has some sort of weird, red ball on its mouth that my sister suspects might be a tumor.

But I digress...

I learned a few things making the mohinga. 1) Catfish is in fact tasteless, in my opinion, but a meaty, hearty fish 2) Fish sauce smells absolutely terrible and 3) Crushed dried chickpeas smell equally as awful.

All this had me a little worried what the heck I was going to end up with. Despite the above, this soup came out surprisingly tasty. The broth has a bit of a tang to it, but I added cayenne pepper to the recipe so that gave it a little balanced kick.

Without any further ado ... My mohinga.

Ingredients:

About 1 cup of chickpea flour (you can make this my grinding dried chickpeas in a food processor)

4 tbsps. coriander

3 tbsps. cayenne pepper

salt

pepper

1 lb. catfish

1 packet of vermicelli noodles

4 yellow onions

4 cloves of garlic

2 tbsps. lemongrass (I used a paste I found with the fresh herbs)

2 tbsps. grated ginger

3 tbsps. fish sauce

2 limes

1 cup of chopped green onions

1 cup crushed, dried chiles

How I did it:

I start by bringing a pot of water to a boil and cooking the rice noodles. The instructions on the bag actually say to let them soak in warm water for 20 minutes, but I find it works just as well to boil them a few minutes until they are somewhat tender. As I drain the noodles, I reserve the water to use for the soup later. I figured this counted as the rice broth.

I wanted to season the catfish a bit before cooking in an effort to give it some semblance of flavor - based on my assumption it has none - so I make a rub with about half of the chickpea flour, half of the coriander, half of the cayenne and some salt and pepper. I heat a few tablespoons of canola oil in a soup pot while I rub the catfish fillets. When the oil is heated I drop the fish in and cook it. When the fish is done, I remove it and set aside for later.

Then I scrape the seasoning left in the pot off the bottom and add 1 grated onion, the garlic, the lemon grass the ginger and about half of the fish sauce. I let this cook for a few minutes. Then I add the rice broth back in. You may want to add some additional water depending how much you have, the rest of the chickpea flour, coriander and cayenne and bring to a boil. When it is boiling, I add the catfish (cut in chunks) and the rest of the onions (also cut in chunks) and let simmer. The broth thickens pretty quickly, but that's ok. It should be kind of thickish when served.

I toss the vermicelli noodles in the rest of the fish sauce and the juice of two limes. Serve the soup over the noodles and garnish with the onions, chiles and more coridaner (if you feel like it).

I enjoy with a nice cold glass of Santa Alicia Chardonnay!

Myanmar: Setting things straight, and on to mohinga

First things first, a little Internet research has indicated that the Union of Myanmar included on the Wiki list of nations is actually modern-day Burma. Just so there is no confusion for anyone country tracking.

Second, I found a few recipes for the national dish mohinga. It is a fish soup made with catfish, ginger, lemongrass and other spices. It sounds similar to what the Vietnamese call Pho.

I started out with a grocery list of ingredients that included chickpea flour, crushed toasted rice, 4 garlic gloves, 4 onions, 1 tsp. lemongrass, a banana tree stem, 1 inch ginger, fish paste, fish sauce, catfish, 4 tbsp. rice flour rice broth, rice vermicelli, lime, crisp fried onions, coriander, spring onions and dried chili.

Issues with the grocery list: no chickpea flour, crushed toasted rice, banana tree stem, fish sauce. or rice broth.

Going into the grocery shopping, I wasn't even confident I'd be able to find lemongrass or catfish. I've never cooked with either one before. And to be honest, I don't think I've ever ate catfish and was skeptical they would sell this somewhat inferior fish at my local Publix.

It's important to note at this point that I live in a master planned community. My Publix sells fine cheese, duck, quail and creme brulee ice cream. One of my friends once insisted that all Publix's sell fishing bait and didn't believe me when I said I had never seen it there, despite having scoured like every inch of the store. Big surprise, we could not find the large buckets of bait they sell at Publix stores in Port Charlotte, and left with some frozen fillets. Another big surprise, we didn't catch anything.

So yeah, I was iffy about whether the Lakewood Ranch Publix would have catfish sitting side by side with swordfish.

I was indeed surprised that they did, but even more surprised that they had lemongrass in a little tube in the fresh herb section. Now, on to all of the other stuff in the list of ingredients.

In the future, I need to be a little bit more on top of it when it comes to pre-meal grocery shopping (one of my friends pointed out that all Publix's have the plantains required in my Panama dish ... I pointed out this is true, except when I need them). With a little effort and visits to specialty stores, I could probably find most things.

But the point of all of this is to have fun, and I guess I'm somewhat resigned to the fact that things like chickpea flour (also known as gram flour) may not be common mainstays in American supermarkets. So I will figure out how to do without them, or improvise.

In the case of the chickpea flour, we're going with improvise.

I've been meaning to buy a food processor for quite sometime, but like many other things in my life have not been moved by necessity to do so. But as I wandered the aisles of my fairly small Publix this evening wondering where else I could find ground chick peas I thought "Seriously. What do you really think chick pea flour is, besides ground chick peas?" So for $24 I threw a food processor and bag of dried chick peas into the basket.

I'm cutting my loss on the fish paste and banana stems (Seriously? Where the heck would I find those?). And how much fish flavor do we really need? Since I'm all up on the new food processor think I'll make my own crushed, toasted rice. Jury is still out on the rice broth.

Ode to my favorite wine, ever ...

... or at least for now.

If you haven't familiarized yourself with Chilean wines stop whatever you are doing immediately, call the nearest wine store you think will be open and steer yourself in that direction. I don't think it's even fair to call Chile an "up and coming" wine region anymore. For those of us that really enjoy our vino, it's here!

Chile is getting a lot of mainstream attention for its cabernet sauvignons and even sauvignon blancs. While these are both great wines coming out of the country, I challenge the real aficionados to get a little more adventurous. Pick up a carmenere.

Carmenere is a bold, full-bodied wine that is usually spicy, and sometimes smoky. These wines are tougher to come by. For example, for such a great wine, the local Total Wine only has about a half dozen of them.

The problem with carmenere - or at least selling it - is that the flavors in the wine are so bold only really seasoned palettes can appreciate it. Maybe in a few years though these Chilean wines will gain the same popularity of some Spanish wines on liquor store shelves.

In the meantime, look for my favorite label of the moment Santa Alicia. I've had a number of different wines - chardonnay, shiraz, malbec ... - from this Chilean winery and they've all been fantastic. Get an $8 bottle of carmenere and it will hold it's own at any tasting against $20 California bottle.

If you are in Sarasota, you're in luck. Whole Foods has had an ample supply of Santa Alicia carmeneres, malbecs and chardonnays for $8. If you buy six bottles, you get 10 percent off, and if you like bold and flavorful wines you'll drink that no problem.

The pleasure of a one pot meal, especially when recovering from too much fun lately

It's been a long week. Or rather, it's been a long three or four of them.

Let me start by saying that I'm the kind of girl who likes a lot of down time. I like to be able to squirrel away every few weekends all by myself with a few bottles of wine and new recipes. Just me, all by myself, doing whatever it is I feel like at any given moment in my little apartment with all of my things close by me. Too much fun, too much excitement will drive a girl like me to temporary seclusion. Call it lame. Call me old, or a loser. That's just me.

I've been running toward this hermit status for so long I don't even know how long it's been.

All I know is it really started when my parents decided to fly down to help me replace the carpet in my apartment.

My family has been bugging me since the day I moved in more than six years ago to get my apartment's management to replace the carpet. I always figured I was lucky they gave me a place to live, and never thought I'd stay long enough to make it work the effort. And, to me, the carpet never seemed so bad in the first place. But my family always figured I was paying enough in rent each month to warrant a pet free, stain free, fluffy new carpet.

The one defense I always used to support my laziness was that the whole carpet installation was just too much work for me to deal with, me a successful, working journalist with far more important things to worry about. At some point this past year my mom decided she was sick of this BS and volunteered to come down with my dad and do it for me. (You may call me spoiled. I call this the millennial generation. Read up on it.)

So about three weeks ago they descended on Sarasota, and more specifically my sacred little refuge. Before I knew it, they were in my apartment turning my nice, settled life of six years upside down, packing and stacking up all of the books, knick knacks and photos that hadn't been moved in years and piling them up in the kitchen. Before long, there was nothing left in my living room but the carpet stained by years of accidentally spilled red wine and coffee. (Before this whole ordeal began, my friend Elaine and I talked about kissing the old carpet good bye with a baptism by red wine. But then we realized the wine would be put to better use if we just drank it).

All of my belongings hovered in towers on the counters in my kitchen, my furniture lined up next to bed, when the carpet people showed up at 8:30 a.m. I stood watching them tear up my living room in some sort of trance as my mother shooed me out the door to the office. It's a rare event I get my butt to work before 10 a.m., and I think my editor found it amusing the new carpet installation was traumatizing enough to propel me so early into the office.

It really wasn't such a big ordeal. In fact, I got through it doing next to nothing. It was the whole metaphorical process of picking my whole life up, moving it around and leaving it unsettled and disorganized - if only for an evening - that I found so traumatizing. To me, a new carpet also felt like a commitment. It felt like I was pledging to stay in this very place a good chunk longer to make it worth the while. This was also all happening the week before school started, so I was stressed and busy at work trying to file a bunch of stories.

I walked into my apartment at the end of that day, already tired from my back to school preparations and terrified of what new projects my parents might have found to take on that morning. I immediately smelled the new carpet odor, and as I took the few steps down the hall to see my new carpet found myself smirking.

"So..." my mom said beaming from my living room as she put all of my personal belongings back in all the wrong places. "What do you think?"

She was so excited that for a brief moment I thought about just lying. Pretending like it was the greatest thing since manchego cheese or a bottle of Santa Alicia. But at that point I was already too tired, too overwhelmed and too drained. I just found the whole situation amusing.

"It looks ... well ... the same as the last one," I said laughing. "I guess it is cleaner."

I started moving methodologically through the apartment putting everything back in its proper place. For a moment I thought "Maybe this is the time I should just mix it all up. Leave it somewhere new. Aw hell. I'll just get to it later." We were up and doing random "projects" around the house all night. We finally finished to break for dinner at about 10 p.m.

Thus began all the fun, all the excitement, all the stress and lack of routine that has left me in the drained state I now inhabit.

Before they left the sunshine state, my parents took me to Disney, where we wandered around an amusement park in the August heat, ate with Remy (of Ratatouille fame) and at Wolfgang Puck's and Emeril's. They left me one Sunday, and I woke up the next day for the first day of class at a brand new high school at 7 a.m., when I had my Starbucks confiscated. Then ensued all of the 28th birthday celebrations, all of the Bobby Flay, chicken wing festivals, workouts with my brother and blog project shenanigans. Not to mention all the thinking and reflection that comes with every birthday.

I was drained when it all started and I was drained when I came back to Sarasota this week. It was all I could do to make it for two more birthday celebrations : ) After my friend Dan took me for a birthday drink (or three) at some point this week I knew I had it. I was in bed that night by 9:30. Somehow I made it to the weekend, muddling through all the tired and all the cranky that follows all of this over stimulation.

So one might believe it was good karma that after all these weeks of stress, fun and excitement, that I pulled a country with a national dish that amounts to not much more than a comforting and hearty chicken soup. What better way to kick back, get back in touch with yourself and relax your soul than chicken boiled and simmered in a pot with a bunch of yummy veggies?

I will admit that even as I write this I still don't feel like I've really taken a break, or as Jimmy Buffett once sang "a weekend off to try and recall the whole year." But an evening home in my comphies with a delicious one pot dish is a little closer than where I've been lately. I'm on to some more carmenere and carrot cake.

PS - Hope this was sufficient Emily! I am so fortunate to have friends who always point me in the right direction : )