Olympic Food Challenge: Qatar - Shakshooka

Finding a recipe that summed up Qatar for the Olympic Food Challenge proved to be tricky.  I thought I was onto a winner when I discovered that the Qatari Embassy website has a food section.  Sadly the Embassy's website is a poor indictment of Qatar's athletes who picked up two bronze medals* during the Olympic games.

Every link on the site led to a broken page and every google result took me back to the same home page via a different route.  I was ready to throw in the towel when I came across this You Tube recipe for Shakshooka.  Until that point I had never come across shakshooka but it turns out that it is not all that uncommon a dish.  It seems to stem out of North Africa and has moved from country to country with every nation taking on their own twist.

With that in mind I decided to stray away from the video and come up with my own variation based on the many recipes that I found and what I happened to have in the house.  I started as per the video instructions with sliced onion and immediately veered off course with half a chopped pepper.  I was back on track with some fresh chopped plum tomatoes**.  The vegetables bubbled away, softened and collapsed into a sauce over a low heat. 

According to the You Tube recipe the eggs are mixed into the cooked sauce to create a tomatoey scrambled egg mixture.  Again, I decided to ignore the recipe.  I added a handful of spinach to the sauce to wilt and then broke a couple of eggs into wells in the mixture to cook.  The only addition was some salt and pepper and a nice breakfast/lunch dish was born.

*Mutaz Essa Barshim in the men's high jump and Nasser Al-attiyah in the men's skeet.
**I have no problem with tinned tomatoes but while they are in season I love fresh tomatoes.

Olympic Food Challenge: Sudan - Maschi

We are back to Africa for tonight's Olympic Food Challenge, Sudan to be precise.  I'll admit that I didn't do much research into the cuisine of Sudan.  This because the first site that appeared after my google search had a full three course meal, serving suggestions and a potted history of Sudan.

I decided not to go the whole hog and cook all three courses.  We try not to eat too much during the week.  Instead we focussed on the main course Maschi, or Tomatoes Stuffed with Beef.  Unlike the stuffed tomatoes of the 70's these required a little bit of patience as they need to remain intact so hacking the top off was not an option.  I cut a slit in the side wall of each tomato and, using a grapefruit spoon*, I scooped out the contents.  The toms were then filled with a mixture of minced beef, rice and fresh dill.

The stuffed tomatoes were then baked with a tomato and cinnamon sauce.  I was unsure of the dill and cinnamon combination but I'm happy to report that it works.  The Sudanese meal planner suggested a carrot and cabbage salad with parmesan cheese as the side dish.  After fourteen days of quite rich and heavy food, I was more than happy with a salad.  We went for a green salad, including yet more tomatoes and some bread.

Sudan managed to win a silver medal in Men's 800m at the last Olympics in Beijing.  So far they have not managed to repeat their success.  We will be repeating the Maschi in the future, so I hope they can take solace in that.

*what else would you use?

Olympic Food Challenge: Azerbaijan - Musembe

When I sat down to meal plan for the Olympic Food Challenge I made sure that we wouldn't be eating the same thing two days in a row.  I separated out the beef dishes, the fish dishes and the chicken dishes.  It appears that I wasn't paying attention to what the meals consisted of.  Tonight's meal from Azerbaijan, is the third meal in four days to consist of meat and vegetables braised in a turmeric rich sauce.

Unlike the previous two meals Musembe requires a little construction rather than throwing everything into a pan.  The meat* is cooked in water until it is tender before turmeric and cinnamon are added.  Once the spices have been stirred into the beef, the vegetables (onion, aubergine, tomato, pepper and potato) are layered into the pan so that they steam over the meat for the rest of the cooking time.

I was a little concerned that the dish would dry out, but the liquid that the vegetables gave off produced enough liquid to finish cooking the beef** and make a great sauce.  Luckily for us we had a guest around for tea tonight, as I ended up cooking enough for a handball team.  H has been following Tonight's Menu for some time and was not in the slightest bit phased by an Azerbaijani dish that she knew nothing about.

The layering of the dish meant that its preparation took more time than I had anticipated, but it meant that the girls had plenty of time to "catch up" before we sat down to eat.  I only wish that I hadn't been so fastidious with the layering as my tetris like tessellation was destroyed as soon as the dish was served.  We plumped for wild rice to have with the musembe and there is still a portion left over.  As Azerbaijan is famed for its soup, it seems only fitting that the leftovers are headed in that direction.

For the record, Azerbaijan have already won a bronze medal in weightlifting.  Go Azerbaijan!

*I chose beef over mutton or lamb, mainly because Z doesn't like lamb and we have mutton coming up later.
**I used a combination of braising steak and shin beef.

Pasta with Tomato Sauce

Yesterday I decided not to watch the football.  Using man logic, I realised that I had missed all of England's goals during Euro 2012 for one reason or an other.  Not watching would guarantee England victory against Italy right?  Wrong.  Perhaps it was the fact that I listened to the game and therefore would have heard the goal that scuppered England.  Perhaps it was England's woeful record at scoring penalties.  Perhaps it was Rooney's new haircut ruining his aerodynamics.  Perhaps it was none of these things.  It did mean that I got some time on my own in the kitchen.

One of the ingredients on my shopping list for the mezze on Saturday was tomatoes.  I clearly hadn't been paying attention at the meal planning stage because I bought a catering pack of salad toms for a quid, only to find out that Z only required four of them for the salad.  I busied myself with knocking up a simple slow cooked tomato sauce.  I decided not to peel them but aesthetically the finished product would have been nicer.

The tomatoes were added to a fried red onion and some garlic and then left alone to collapse into themselves, over a low heat, for a couple of hours.  This really brings out the sweetness of the tomatoes.  In the past we have used the sauce at this stage to cover fish before baking it.  Tonight it has been used as a pasta sauce.  Oregano, basil and a little chilli were added along with a handful of chopped olives and the dish was finished with parmesan.  This was so good that for once Z finished her plate before I did.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

This morning, after dropping R off at nursery, I decided to cook our evening meal.  I miss cooking and the late nights at work are depriving me of the opportunity, so I grabbed this one with both hands.  I needed something that I could cook to completion but that wouldn't be harmed by being left and warmed up again later.  For some reason we had two packets of mince in the freezer so I pulled one of those out and got thinking.

I fancied pasta and spaghetti bolognese was the obvious choice, but that wouldn't slake my thirst for cooking.  Using the same ingredients I decided to make meatballs.  I started with the sauce, frying onions, garlic and celery until soft in olive oil.  I then added a glass of red wine, tomato purée, dried basil and oregano, a pinch of chilli flakes and finally a couple of tins of tomatoes.  I let this cook away for about an hour and a half before taking it off the heat.  I then blended it into a smooth sauce and set it to one side.

With the sauce made I turned my attention to the mince.  I like my meatballs to be relatively un-messed about with.  All I added to the mince was some fried onion, basil, oregano, salt and pepper.  Because I had the time I even fried off a bit of the meat so that I could test the seasoning.  Happy with the flavour I rolled golf ball sized lumps of meat and dropped them straight into the sauce.  I then cooked the whole lot together on the lowest flame possible for a couple of hours, turned off the heat and went to work.

When I got back home, Z had reheated the meatballs, saving some for R's tea tomorrow, and cooked some spaghetti.  All that was left was to serve the spaghetti and meatballs and grate some parmesan cheese over the top.  I now only have a couple of days of non-cooking before the weekend.  It is meant to be a weekend of food in Leeds but I don't think I'll see much of the Food Festival. We'll just have to wait and see.

Baked Potato with Ratatouille and Goats Cheese

While making last night's risotto, Z also managed to make a ratatouille from the vegetables that were knocking about in the fridge for tonight's meal.  We always have tomatoes, onions and peppers in the house.  They turn up in so many dishes, including salads for lunch, that they have a permanent place on the shopping list.  For some reason, we also had a pair of aubergines in the crisper.  I am not a fan of the aubergine.  I have only actually found one way of cooking it that I love.  But when it is mixed in with all of the other vegetables you hardly know it's there.

With the rat in the bag, all Z had to do before I got home was bake a couple of giant spuds that I bought on Kirkgate Market.  By the time I got home from work, everything was ready, including a couple of slices of goats cheese topping off the filled potatoes.  It turns out that it is national vegetarian week this week.  If I had known in advance I may well have changed the menu for our evening meals.  I think this would still have made the cut.