Country 10 - Austria

Austria is a mountainous. landlocked country in central Europe.  It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. It is situated in the Alps and most of the population speak German or German dialects.

The Austrian cuisine has many diverse influences. Sachertorte and apple strudel originate from its Austro-Hungarian past but also the proximity to Italy, France and the Balkans has had an impact on the food too.

 We had friends to share our Austrian feast which was fun but also meant that I kept forgetting to take photos of the food! 

For our Austrian meal we made Weiner Schnitzel and Parsley Potatoes with steamed asparagus followed by Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce.

First I made the strudel dough. I followed the recipe but used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. I also used my food mixer to do the 10 minute kneading!

While the pastry was resting I moved on to the filling. 

The breadcrumbs had to be browned in butter and then combined with sugar and cinnamon.

                          

As well as breadcrumbs I used rum soaked raisins and Macintosh apples.

                         

Time to assemble the apple strudel!
The pastry needs to be very stretchy - like pizza dough. You begin by rolling it out on a board then you transfer it to a table cloth and just stretch it with your fingers - trying not to make any holes! Then you add the filling, roll it up and put it on a baking tray. This is our kitchen table all ready for the process to begin.

                          

Stretching the dough

                         

It needs to be so thin that you can read through it!

                         

You brush one half with melted butter and the 

other half you sprinkle with the bread crumbs

                         

Then pile on the apples.

                         

The table cloth helps when you come to roll the whoe strudel up.

                         

Once it has been rolled onto a parchment covered baking sheet it is brushed with more melted butter - all ready to be baked.

                         

Making the vanilla sauce. I forgot to take a photo of it when it was ready to eat! It looked, smelt and tasted delicious, dotted with tiny vanilla seeds.

                     

Preparing the schnitzel

We used pork cutlets. Joseph at Peasants Pantry in New Ross helped us decide on the best cut of meat, but we had the fun of flattening them using the wooden rolling pin!

                         

We cooked them just before we were ready to eat.

We made a production line of seasoned flour, beaten egg and milk and bread crumbs followed by the frying pan ready to cook them immediately.

                         

mmmmmmmmm!

                         

We changed the recipe for the parsley potatoes a bit. We roasted them in olive oil rather than frying them in margarine. I tossed in butter and parsley when we were nearly ready to serve the meal.

                         

Our finished meal. The asparagus was from our local farmers market and just needed to be steamed for a few minutes. Austrians prefer to use white asparagus but when you have the choice between using tinned white asparagus or fresh green then green has to win!

The finished apple strudel. I forgot to sprinkle it with icing sugar!

                           

I also forgot to take a photos of it smothered in vanilla sauce and ready to eat!

                          

I also forgot to take a photo of the Austrian wine that we drank with our meal - so here are the empty bottles instead! :D

                                        

The whole meal was a great success. The schnitzel was delicious, I was expecting to add more herbs to the coating but it was still well flavoured. The apple strudel and vanilla sauce was amazing - I will definitely make it again even with the faffing with the pastry - it was sooooooo good! 
Austrian wine is ok - I've tasted better but it went well with our meal.
Thank you David and Lori for sharing our Austrian evening with us!

Country 9 - Australia

 Australia is the world's sixth largest country and is a commonwealth comprising of mainland Australia, the Island of Tasmania and several other small islands. The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east and New Zealand to the south-east.  
Australia was inhabited for about 50.000 years before European settlers discovered it in the late 18th century. Therefore the cuisine is influenced by the indigenous peoples hunter-gatherer diet known as 'bush-tucker' as well as British and Irish traditional food.

So we had many 'traditional' Australian foods to choose from this week - shrimp on the barbie, kangaroo etc. In the end Gary asked a work colleague what he would consider to be a traditional meal. He suggested sausage rolls and lamingtons. Well, as we think of sausage rolls as being English, we made meat pie and lamingtons instead! (He did suggest meat pie too).

We don't usually make desserts but we decided to make an exception this time as lamingtons are such a favourite cake across Australia. In fact, they seem to have become so popular that July 21st is National Lamington Day!

I used this recipe. The cake itself should be made the day before so that is has time to rest and firm up before decorating. I was planning on making it Thursday evening but then I was given the option of going to the pub with friends! So needless to say I made the cake Friday morning and had to put it in the freezer to firm up instead! 

The cake recipe is the same as usual, cream butter and sugar together, add eggs then flour to make a batter then pour it into a lined tray and bake until firm.

Later the same day.....

On to making Aussie Meat Pie.

The ingredients were: ground beef (from Peasant's Pantry),

Worcestershire Sauce (pronounced like this!!!!!!!! :D or as most British people say Worcester Sauce, wooster!!!!!!!! - I digress) - stock and tomato ketchup or sauce. It's basically all fried in oil - I used olive, until the sauce becomes thick-ish.

                       

The meat filling then had to be left to cool.

This gave me time to have messy fun turning the cake into chocolate covered lamingtons. 

I had to cut the cake into 15 squares, adding a layer of homemade strawberry jam. I then put them in the freezer for an hour. While they were firming up I made the chocolate icing - icing sugar, cocoa powder, butter and milk.

Making the chocolate icing.

A lamington production line!

Into the hot chocolate icing.

Tossed in the dessicated coconut

VOILA!!!! :D

While the icing on the Lamingtons was setting I put the meat sauce into the pie. You use shortcrust pastry for the base and puff pastry for the top then brush with egg or milk.

                        

It's ready!

                        

Australians like to eat their meat pie on a bed of mushy peas. We made them using last years frozen garden peas blended with milk and lemon juice - they were very green!

                       

Our Australian meal was accompanied by a bottle of Shiraz.

Followed by a cup of tea and a Lamington - or two!

I haven't use ground beef in a pie for years - if ever - it was rather good, if a little sweet. I guess the sweetness was because I used tomato ketchup rather than sauce but who just has a tablespoon of sauce sitting around? The Lamingtons were excellent, although we had made so many that we had to donate them to our son! 

Country 8 - Armenia

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Armenia is a mountainous country on the borders of Western Asia and Europe. It is surrounded by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. It was part of the USSR and has a very long history as it is situated on the Great Silk Road. Its borders have changed many times and so it has many cultural influences.

Armenian borders have changed so many times that there are many influences to its cuisine. Cooks like to 'stuff, froth and puree' their food and lamb, aubergine/eggplant and bread are staples, they tend to use bulgur wheat rather than rice or maize.
Herbs are more popular than spices to flavour food with mint, parsley, basil, tarragon, thyme and oregano being the most popular.
The two national dishes are: Harissa - a porridge made of wheat and meat stewed together for a long time; and Khash - a type of soup made by boiling cows or lambs feet (tempting but we were unable to source the animal feet!)

For our Armenian meal we decided to make Manti, Dolma and Armenian Eggplant Casserole.

The trouble with making 3 unfamiliar dishes is timing and today I was working solo because Gary had meetings until late. Luckily, I like to keep a tidy, organized (sort of) kitchen and our large table allows me to spread out and keep everything in little groups. Both the Manti and the Doma needed slightly different stocks and I did get confused abut which was which a couple of times. In the end we managed to fit a small cocktail in before dinner was ready! :D

I thought dolma was a Greek dish involving vine leaves but apparently middle eastern countries use the term for any stuffed vegetable. 

I was only making a quarter of the recipe - Dolma - stuffing red peppers with minced lamb, green pepper, and I also added some courgette/zucchini. They needed to be roasted in a covered pot sitting in broth. The broth was made with stock - I used vegetable, lemon juice and chopped tomatoes.
   

Making the broth

Mixing the lamb, onion, herbs and rice. The recipe and tradition calls for bulgur wheat, unfortunately when I got our bag of bulgur wheat out of the pantry I saw the best before date was 2011 - I guess I haven't used it a lot recently!

Prepping for the Aubergine Casserole.
The herbs are parsley, oregano, thyme and basil

I had to add some water during the cooking, sometimes just
making a quarter of a recipe is tricky!

                                          

I was excited about making Manti.
They are crispy lamb dumplings - with the dumplings
made in the shape of little boats.
The whole dish is baked in the oven and served with broth and yoghurt.
The dough is a bit like pastry made from flour, egg,
melted butter, water and milk.

                                           

After you roll out the pastry you have to cut it into little 4 cm squares. Then you place the lamb, onion, garlic, fennel seed mixture, rolled into in small balls, in the centre of the square.

                                          

The edges are pinched together - just like a boat!
I forgot to take a photo before I put them into the oven!

                                           

Everything smelt delicious and we were excited to try our Armenian meal. We were not let down, everything was delicious, that's two weeks running now that we have actually enjoyed the food!!!

The dolma with some of the tomato broth.

                                           

Aubergine casserole served with sour cream!

                                           

                               

The cooked Manti with the broth to pour over and some yogurt too.

Delicious!