Sautéed shrimps with orange butter and sumac.(stop-over in Lebanon)

Inspired once again by Rowe Silvena I took advantage of the beautiful local prawns for this recipe.
I nearly followed step by step her recipe, but it was was for 8 people with 16 prawns King prawns, pfff.
Why not to transfom the dish into a main course for 2,  why to restrict my self?
- The price is affordable
- It is not heavy
- It is not fat
- Cholesterol is found mainly in the heads that I removed
- We do not eat shrimps too often
- With a piece of bread, a salad and a vinho verde I am sure it is healthy.
 So, let us enjoy

Let us enjoy.

Ingredients for 2 persons.

1 k large peeled shrimp
a good pinch of saffron threads
½ tbsp sumac
50 ml dry white wine
juice of one orange
kaffir lime zest (or orange)

Instead of orange zest (not organic), I put a  kaffir lime zest  offered by

JPBrigand
50 g butter softened butter
1 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tsp ground cumin
Salt and pepper

Preparation

Put the saffron and sumac in a small bowl with 1 tbsp of white wine and let steep a few minutes before adding the orange juice and grated zest.
Mix butter with garlic, cumin and parsley.
Amalgamate the two preparations.
Place butter on a piece of plastic wrap, roll into a sausage shape and put it in the cold place.
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the shrimp until they take color.
Add the remaining white wine and half the butter.
Finish cooking and serve with remaining butter cut into slices for garnish.

Tuna kinilaw (stop-over in Dumaguete Philippines).

    

Actually I should not talk about "the" kinilaw because there is almost one kinilaw  recipe per family in the Philippines. I got this recipe from my young neighbour, Cherri Lyn Osoa, which helped me to maintain the house in Dumaguete.

It is nearly impossible to buy nor kalamansi, neither coconut vinegar here in the small village I am living in, that’s the reason why I used half lemon and half tangerine juice.

Ingredients.

1 k tuna

the juice of 3 lemons

a quarter of an orange peel

5 cl of rice vinegar

1 spring onion

1 Dungannut grated (heriteria litoralis)

1 tbsp salt

Preparation.

Cut the fish into thin strips
Squeeze the lemon juice
Peel the orange quarter
In a bowl put the vinegar, salt, lemon juice and orange peel and leave it for ½ hour.
Chop the onion and the greens

Place fish in a dish.

Sift the juice and vinegar, pour it over the fish.
Grate nuts over the dish. The nuts will give the juice an opaque white like the color of coconut milk.
Allow the fish to "cook" until it becomes opaque.
Add the chopped onion and top with onion tails.

Bobotie (stop-over in South Africa)

I ate a BOBOTIE, a well known South-African dish for the first time at Pilgrim's Rest in the Eastern Transvaal.

A little village whose name was given by the gold seekers on their route to discovery, a route often crossed by disappointed dreams.

Once gold founded, they finally had the great feeling that they could settle down for a while and enjoy a bit the hard price of their work ;-)

The famous Royal Hotel (a big name for that little obsolete establishment, in which young couples still go sometimes to spend their honeymoon) offers very few dishes on their menu, in which you can find the Bobotie.

We're far from the best South-African gastronomy, but it's the occasion to taste a traditional family dish and even best ... to appreciate the unique flavour of the "curry leaves".

BOBOTIE (origin South Africa)

Ingredients for 6 persons.

1 kg minced pork

1 slice white bread

375 ml milk

2 onions finely chopped

30 ml cooking oil

15 g curry powder

15 ml apricot jam or 10 ml sugar

Lemon juice or vinegar

12 crushed almonds

Curry leaves (or kalamansi leaves)

3 eggs beaten

Salt and pepper

Preparation.

Soak bread in milk

Sauté onions

Add curry

Add meat and remaining ingredients

Stir mixture with fork

Spoon mixture into a greased dish

Place curry leaves on top

Bake at 160° for 45 min

Combine topping ingredients by beating thoroughly

Pour over meat and bake for a further 15 min

Serve with yellow rice.

Rooster combs and testicles. Stop over in Asia.

This is an out of beaten track recipe.

I am not sure you will find testicles in your supermarket but, should you have friends living in the  country side, maybe they could help you to find a supplier.

Rooster combs and testicles.

Ingredients for 8 persons.

500 g  combs and testicles

125 ml gin

80 ml water

6 slices ginger

7 tbsp soja sauce

20 g palm sugar

1 chilies

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp Hoisin sauce

2 star anise

1 small piece of cinamon stick

To garnish :

2 green onions chopped

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.

Cook covered for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and reduce sauce shaking it frequently until the meat is well coated.

Serve hot and garnish with the green onions and sesame seeds.

Yon can find the french version of this recipe on my french blog .

Stop-over in kinshasa RDC for some kamundele.

Argh, putting back aliments in tins goes against all common sense!!! But why not, let’s give it a try!

The fun in that a cooking challenge requires the search of one solution, the good one, for an idea! What kind of tin could I use?

We live in a big and old house! There are so many places and cupboards... it's like to start a treasure hunting! I will find my quilts, my old pictures, all my artquiltdesign material, tons of African fabrics…waouw, it's a mixt of fun and irritation, lots of discovery but after a while, you'd like to find what you're searching for ;-)! I'm sure, it happened also to you one day!

The more space you have, the more you keep everything, even more when you've lived in Africa, where NOTHING is thrown away! We keep every "taplubesoin" (no need that), closed family's expression!

Yeah, it's a good occasion to give a new life to those "NIDO" tins (tins from trade mark powder milk sold in africa), decorated by Rwandese artists who sold them painted to win a bit of money.

What's "kamundele"? Kebab's in lingala

What's "lingala"?

 It's one of the local languages of Zaïre, invented a long time ago by some priests.

That language has only 508 words "lingala french" and 656 words french lingala ;-)

Why complicate things when you can make it easy ;-)))

 To say "to the left", you just need to know the word "go straight forward" while pointing to the left with your hand! Easy isn't it?

What's "Aloco"? It's almost a sacred word in Ivory Coast. It's simply means: cubes of banana plantains (sort of hard bananas which can be fried), fried in palm oil. It goes well with kebabs.

Kamundele.

Ingrédients for 2 persons:

500 g beef

2 cm ginger root

2 tbsp mustard

1 Maggi beef cube

2 garlic cloves

half a lemon juice

2 c à s d’huile d’olive

1 plantain

palm oil

Préparation.

The day before cut the beef into pieces.

Place all ingredients in a small blender and mix.

Coat the meat and marinate overnight.

Thread onto skewers and grill.

Or you can cut plantains into mini cubes and dip them in frying oil until golden brown

You'll probably be surprised by my way of talking, dont be complexed, at my age, 71, I'm lucky not to have any complexes any more! Laugh, it's free and think of those who pay for laugh therapy!
Thank you!

Stewed trotters. Stop-over in Kenya.

As I started  my african culinary stopovers in Congo with the moambe,  let us continue the trip and rest for a while in Kenya to enjoy some “stewed trotters”. I am an offals lover as  the famous writer Anissa Helou

You can find lots of offals recipes on my french  blog La triperie There is a Google translator engine waiting to help you.

Ingredients :

2 pigs trotters cleaned and cut into pieces

1 large onion

1 sprig rosemary

salt and pepper

1 glass red wine

1 blade of mace

1 egg yolk

juice of one half lemon

2 handful white breadcrumbs.

Preparation.

Boil the trotters pieces in salted water during about 2 hours or until the flesh floats off the bones.

Strain the liquid and remove the flesh, place in a dish with the rest of the ingredients.

Bring to the boil and simmer for half an hour, stirring from time to time.

Add the breadcrumbs and stir well to amalgamate the mixture.

Leave it for a short while.

Beat together the egg yolk and the lemon juice and stir vigorously into the stew.

Serve with mashed potatoes.

You'll probably be surprised by my way of talking, do'nt be complexed, at my age, 71, I'm lucky not to have any complexes any more! Laugh, it's free and think of those who pay for laugh therapy!
Thank you!

Stop-over in Sotchi.

You'll probably be surprised by my way of talking, dont be complexed, at my age, 71, I'm lucky not to have any complexes any more! Laugh, it's free and think of those who pay for laugh therapy!
Thank you!

This is a recipe inspired by Chris Walker’s recipe, he was one of the half finalists 2010 Masterchef.

To satistify a whim of salmon there was just a recipe I wanted to try for a long time.

I just love salmon eggs since I ate some on Sotchi's beach, in URSS in 1965!

We were spending hollidays at the club med! Too great, I know!

A lovely trip: Moscou, Leningrad, Erivan, Tbilissi and a week in Sotchi with a french cook to high up our mood as the local food was boring.

There, we could go to a seller who had a little shop on the beach, and buy bread with some eggs. As I'm talking to you, I still have as much pleasure as when I was there, my memory recalls the feeling of each little egg exploding in my mouth!

Tonight, I'll feat with the rest of the little eggs jar, and a bit of vodka on the rocks.

Ingredients for 2 persons.

2 salmon steaks

3 tbsp oil

1 quail eggs

2 minced shallots

1 stalk celery

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 leaf of laurel

some heads and fish bones

some cod eggs

1 tsp dill

salt and pepper

¼ cup dry white wine

¼ cup white Nolly Prat

¼ cup water

½ cream

Preparation.

For the creamed salmon.

Brown the shallots and garlic in 2 tbsp oil.

Add the fish bones and heads, the Nolly Prat, the water, laurel and dill.

Salt and pepper

Bring to the boil.

Skim the surface and simmer four 30 m.

Pour through a sieve to keep the liquid only.

Return to the heat and add the fresh cream to thicken.

Season the fish.

Heat a frying pan, pour oil and cook the fish

Poach the quail eggs.

Pour some soup in the plate.

Place the fish in the center?

Top whith a quail egg.

Sprinkle the dill on top.

Moambe.

Moamba is ranked 10th best plate of the world by CNN

Marine’s translation.

Moambe is the most well-known dish in central Africa.

As I guess that few of you know that dish, let me give you the recipe.

It is very easy, even a cook with two left hands can succeed with that recipe.

Called “moambe” or “sauce graine”, it is exactly the same recipe as the main ingredient for both is the pulp of the fruits from the Elaïs palm tree.

It is also known as "poto poto".

In Congo we should start cooking early in the morning as this sauce needs a long preparation.

Here in Europe it is easier, you can buy it in a tin.

There are different qualities of that product.

My best one is Ghana Fresh .

With one tin you can prepare two big chickens which give you a meal for 8 persons.

Click here  for Chicken moambe.

  

Click here for Piglet moambe.

Click here for Meatballs moambe.

I wrote the following part.

Please don’t forget that I am French speaking.

I do my best knowing that it is not the best.

Ingredients :

1 tin  moambe
2 chicken pieces per person
2 bay leaves
salt, pepper and PILI PILI course
1 tin  saka saka (cassava leaves)
2 tablespoons peanut butter

Preparation:

Remove the layer of fat that is on top of the fruit pulp
You can use that fat to brown the chicken pieces.
Add the contents of the tin and a little water.
Add salt, pepper, bay leaf and  the pili pili, each according to its sensitivity limit.
Cook slowly until chicken is done.
Attention, when the sauce is boiling, it splashed all over the stove.
For saka saka, heat the remaining fat and add the cassava leaves previously drained.
Add salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of peanut butter.
This does not require cooking.

Bon appétit.

Rhum-coco- yuzu truffles.

 

Here is my first publication that is at the same time my involvement with the challenge for the White Xmas contest.

White truffles with rhum and yuzu rind.

Ingredients

100 g white chocolate

6 cl liquid cream

30 g unsalted butter

2 cl rhum

grated rind of yuzu

3 tbsp confectionners’ sugar

Directions

In a large bowl, beat cream and melted butter.

Stir in melted chocolate.

Add the rhum and the grated rinds.

Mix well.

Refrigerate for about 1 hour.

Shape into 1 inch balls

Roll the truffles in confectionners’sugar