The Republic of Colombia is in northern South America, it is bordered by Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Ecuador and Peru. The Caribbean Ocean is to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Its capital is its largest city Bogota.
The country's population is about 50 million and it has been inhabited since about 12,000 BC, discovered by the Spanish in 1499 and colonized by them in the mid 16th century. It gained its independence in 1819.
More than 99% of the population speak Spanish but there are also 65 Amerindian languages, 2 Creole languages and the Romani language. The people are ethnically diverse: original native inhabitants; Spanish; Africans; Europeans and people from the middle east. Due to this diversity the influence on the cuisine is vast, the range of flora and fauna also impacts this.
We decided a few weeks ago what we wanted to cook but we needed pork belly with skin still on it. This is difficult to track down locally so we had to wait to source it from the excellent Osprey Roost butchers shop in Halifax.
Our menu is Chicharron Colombiano, Chupe de Papa and Ensalada de Frijol y Maiz.
First we made the bean salad so that it could marinate for a while. The recipe called for a range of beans - black, red, garbanzo and white - if we had bought cans of all those beans we would have had a huge bean salad so we bought a can of mixed beans. The beans weren't the same but similar enough. We also used cooked sweetcorn, red onion and cilantro (coriander). The dressing contained lime juice white wine vinegar, olive oil, cumin powder and chili powder.
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Next on to the potatoes.
The recipe reminded me of a slightly bland Dauphinoise potatoes - no garlic!
The recipe said you needed 4 potatoes - no mention of size or weight! and said to slice them into 4 - which way? Lengthways? Who knows? Anyway, we decided we would slice them like we do dauphinoise just thicker.
We just used two potatoes as they were quite big but as we added the milk and water we decided to use the whole recipe measurement for the liquid. We added ground cumin and salt and pepper to the milk/water. The recipe also asked us to add 1/4 teaspoon of 'colour'!!!!!!! We googled this and found that it is a spice called annatto, which as an orangey red colour to the sauce. We used paprika just to give a similar colour.
The potatoes were sticking out of the liquid so we had to turn them to make sure they cooked all over.
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We had to cut the pork belly into pieces and cut through the meat and fat so that the skin held the pieces together.
The pork is then rubbed with baking powder and baking soda and put in a pan with water and salt.
This bubbles away as the water evaporates.
Once the water had gone the pork started to crisp up. The fat spat everywhere and the kitchen filled with the smell of very hot oil! We forgot to take a photo of this - basically it got pretty dangerous to get too close to the cooker!
Suddenly the pork is very crisp and very dark coloured!
As a final touch we sprinkled grated mozzarella cheese over the potatoes and melted it under the grill (broiler).
Then we ate it!
We got some wine to have with our meal. For some reason we got Chilean wine - I think we got muddled and mistook Chile for Colombia - easy mistake! Same continent I guess! I'm not sure we would have got any Colombian alcohol in our local liquor store anyway!
