Country 20 - Bhutan

Bhutan is a Buddhist country in the eastern Himalayas. It is bordered by India and Tibet and is Asia's second least populated country. It is on the ancient silk route between Asia and Europe.        It's landscape ranges from the sub-tropical plains to sub-alpine Himalayas.                                      There is evidence that the country has been inhabited since 2000BC and it became Buddhist in AD7.  Today the country's economy is based around agriculture, forestry, tourism and selling electricity from its hydroelectric power plants to India. 

Bhutan has a rich and unique cultural history as it was isolated from the rest of the world until the mid 20th century. While Indian people can visit the country for free other tourists have to pay a daily fee which makes the country expensive to visit.

Bhutanese cuisine includes red rice, buckwheat and maise. Meat includes pork, beef, chicken and yak, and stews are popular flavoured with cheese and chillies. Ema Datchi is the traditional dish - it is a soup made from chillies and cheese!   

It has taken some time for us to pluck up the courage to try some food from Bhutan - mainly because soup made from chillies and cheese sounds quite unpleasant! However, we believe that food that has become a national dish - however weird it seems - must be good, so we decided to take the plunge!!!!! 😆

We made Ema Datshi, Pork Fing (because it had a funny name) and Hapai Hoentoe (you need to scroll down the page to find it). There aren't many recipes on the internet but these three seemed interesting!

We decided that we would make 3 courses and went for the Hapai Hoentoe first. They are like little ravioli but the 'pasta' is made from plain flour, buckwheet flour and water.

This is the filling - bok choy, poppy seeds, garlic, ginger, red onion, farmers cheese (we used local feta), chili powder, and Szechuan peppercorns (we couldn't find any of these so we used Shichimi Togarashi spice which contains them). The recipe also needed a lot of butter which needed to be clarified - we used ghee instead.

I used the pasta machine to roll the dough very thin.

I tried to fold the dough to look like the photo but failed miserably as the dough was so soft so I went for ravioli instead!

All ready to be cooked in boiling water.

 

The finished Hapai Hoentoe. We really felt there should be a sauce of some kind - but no recipes mentioned it.

 Gary made the Pork Fing. Onion, tomato, butter, pork, water and CHILLIES all put into water and boiled for and hour and a half. Then cellophane noodles are added.

The chillies and noodles aren't added until the end of the cooking time.

The finished dish.

Now onto the main event! Ema Datshi. Soup made from cheese and chillies - wierd!

The ingredients: lots of chillies, an onion, 2 tomatoes, feta cheese, garlic, and coriander leaves (cilantro). 

We tracked down this HUGE bag of red rice - we only needed a cup! Red rice is eaten with the Ema Datshi.

Our finished Ema Datshi with red rice

We really had low expectations for this dish. It looked a bit like a Thai curry - without the coconut milk - and we had added more cilantro because we had bought a huge bunch and the recipe called for 3 leaves! 

So we dished up a spoonful of red rice and one of soup and then, with some reluctance, dug in.......

The Verdict?

Well, we probably won't be cooking Bhutanese food on a regular basis but it was ok.

The Hapai Hoentoe were a bit bland but tasted alright. The Pork Fing - again not bad - more flavourful than we had expected with some chilli kick!

Now onto the Ema Datshi! 

After an initial small portion we went back for seconds and then thirds and then finished it off! It was quite morish. The cheese hadn't quite melted and gave a lovely salty creamy texture. The chillies weren't too hot and the sauce was tasty. We are sure that the dish would be a lot more fiery in Bhutan but our version was good and we were very pleased that we had finally decided to brave it and give it a go!

Country 19 - Benin

Benin is a French speaking country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo, Nigerian, Niger, and Burkina Faso. The majority of its population lives on the Atlantic coast on Bight of Benin. Benin is  tropical nation and is highly dependent on agriculture. 
The most common language is french but people also speak the indigenous languages of Fon and Yoruba. 
This coast of Africa was known - sadly - as the slave coast. When slavery was abolished France took over the country and it was known as French Dahomey. It became independent in 1960 and became known as Benin in 1991.

Rice, beans, tomatoes and couscous are staple foods and mandarin oranges, peanuts and pineapples are also very common. Meat is expensive but fish, chicken, beef, goat and bush rat are popular. Choukachou is the local beer made from millet.

For our visit to Benin we decided to forgo the bushrat and use beef instead! We made Beninese Beef Stew and Akkra Funfun (for obvious reasons!).

Today Gary did the cooking while I sat around and annoyed him by making 'helpful' comments - my forte! 

Actually we made the Akkra Funfun while the stew was bubbling in the oven but the photos made it to Blogger first and it's too difficult to re arrange them!

We used tinned cannellini beans for the white beans, maybe we should have used dried beans because, although they tasted good the beans refused to stay in balls and didn't looked like the photo in the recipe at all. In fact the first lot that we cooked just disintegrated into the oil.

For the stew we had to make our own West African curry powder using this recipe. It smelt good!

We had okra left in the freezer from another recipe - as it was already cut up small and par-cooked we added it for that last 5 minutes rather than 20.

Our Benin meal.

As we didn't have any Choukachou we drank some local 

Nova Scotian beer instead! 

The Verdict!

Really good! The best bit about the Akkra Funfun turned out the be their name but the beef stew was delicious. Just slightly spicy but full of flavour. 

We weren't expecting great things from Benin but were very pleasantly surprised.

Country 18 - Belize

Belize was formerly called British Honduras and is in Central America. It borders Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea. 
Belize is a very diverse country and the main language is English although half the population also speaks Spanish, Belize Kriol is an unofficial language. Belize culture is fed by its diverse history and the population is made up from Mayan, Creoles, Garinagu, Mestizos, German speaking Mennonites as well as a small amount of Asians and  Chinese.

Belize isn't where I thought it was. In fact, I don't know where I thought is was, but it wasn't where it actually is! The food also isn't what I was expecting, although its proximity to the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico does explain many of the dishes.

We chose to make, Belizian shrimp ceviche, Stew Chicken and beans and rice. We were able to source everything except achiote paste but I was able to make a simila paste from paprika, white vinegar, oregano, garlic and cumin.  

The ingredients for Achiote paste

The resulting paste.

The chicken marinating in the achiote paste

We both love cooking - especially when we have a bottle of wine near by. So Gary made the shrimp ceviche and I made the chicken and rice dishes.

The result of this is that we didn't take any photos as we were too busy, cooking, chatting and slurping sav blanc and forgot!

So here are some photos of the finished meal.

Shrimp ceviche - mmmmmm! The lime juice 'cooked' the raw shrimp. Gary generously used a whole habanero chili because half didn't seem very much! I think my taste buds had disappeared by the time I finished eating!

The stew chicken was delicious. I had marinated it for a couple of hours and the chicken was very tender.

Sometimes it is difficult to make half a recipe! The result was a huge amount of rice. Luckily it was delicious and will freeze for future meals

The main course of our Belize meal.

Country 17 - Belgium.

Belgium is a country in Western Europe bordered by Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France and the North Sea. It is densely populated and made up from Dutch speaking Flemish people and French speaking Walloons - native Belgians.

Belgium has many Michelin starred restaurants and is famous for beer, chocolate, waffles and fries with mayonnaise. The national dishes of Belgium are steak and fries with salad and mussels and chips.

What a relief to travel to Belgium for this weeks meal. A country that we have visited and partaken of its traditional food and drink! What could go wrong?

So for our meal this week we made Tomate aux Crevettes and Moules Frites. Somehow we forgot the chocolate! 😮 We did find a disappointingly small selection of Belgian beer in our local liquor store - seriously only 2 types and one of them was Stella!

The tomate aux crevettes was  crazily easy to make - just hollow out some tomatoes and fill them with tiny prawns tossed in the mayonnaise, serve and eat with crusty French bread! 

The hardest bit was carrying the plates to the table without 

the tomatoes falling over and the prawns falling out!

We have made Moules so may times that Gary didn't actually need a recipe. Simply saute the onions and garlic, toss in the mussels with white wine and herbs, toss for a few minutes and Voila! (as they say in French speaking Belgium)

                                                    

                                           

                                      

Fries or chips really don't need a recipe do they?

Our finished meal with a side of mayonnaise to dip the chips in - delicious!

The beer - Stella for Gary and strawberry beer for 

Charlotte and me (because we are girls and like pink!!!! )

Mmmmmmmmmmm!

Verdict - I wish we had remembered to buy Belgian chocolate!!!!!!!

Country 16 - Belarus

Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe.

It is bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Until the 20th century it was part of many different states including  the Principality of Polotsky, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire.

Most people are Belarussian but there are also many people from the neighbouring countries as well as Jews and 'Tatars' - Turkic speaking people who live in Europe apparently!

Belarusian food is predominantly based on meat and vegetable dishes seen in all countries in this part of Europe. It has Slavic roots but is also influenced by Polish and Lithuanian food. Dranki is the national dish - a type of potato pancake.

We really struggled to choose recipes this week - while we enjoy trying different foods there was nothing at all which sounded tasty and made us want to cook it. In the end we looked at some other bloggers choices and worked from there.

Finally we decided to make Belarus' Borscht Soup, Kotleta Pokrestyansky, Mushroom stuffed Dranki, and for dessert, Baked apples with honey.

For reasons that will become clear this is a very brief blog. For a start Gary cooked as I was shelling peas - thousands of peas.

A Belarus Borscht differs from a Russian one because it has a lot of chunky vegetables in it.

                                

I'm not a great lover of beetroot but it is a pretty colour.

                                

Bob helpfully guarding the recipes 

- we should have left them there and gone out for dinner!!!!

                                

Everything keeps getting pinker and then redder.

                               

The finished dish.

Actually not that bad - Gary liked it enough to eat his and then finish off mine!

Pork chops!!!

                             

Now onto the main course and making the Draniki.

You had to grate the potatoes and combine them with egg, milk and flour.

                              

Then put flattened spoonfuls in the pan and add the mushroom mixture on top then another layer of potato - so the mushroom is sandwiched in the middle. 

                               

Flipping them to cook the other side was an interesting experience.

                               

The finished meal.

Ok, I'm struggling to write this now!

We have a freezer full of pork. A friend of ours raised pigs last year and so we have half a pig in our freezer. When Gary went to take out pork chops he spotted some wrapped in brown paper - not from our friends pig! Thinking that that pork needed eating first we decided to use that. 

It looked and smelt fine!

Now, as I said, nothing about any of these recipes excited us - but Belarus was the next country on our list and we were prepared to be eating a memorable meal!

It will be a memorable meal!

The meat must have gone off!!!!! 

It smelt fine while it was cooking but when we each took our first bite it was immediately apparent that this meat wasn't ok at all!

eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!! Why can I not get rid of that taste even 4 days laterrrrrrr!

In conclusion - never eat unidentified meat from the depths of the freezer!

And other than the Borshch, I have no idea what Belarusian food tastes like!

Oh yes desert. We never make desert! But luckily this week we did.

Baked apples with honey. So easy to make. Cut out the core and fill with honey and put in the oven to cook while you remove all traces of pork and mushroom product from the house!
Then eat with vanilla ice cream - mmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Oh yes Belarusian drink! 😁