Bulgur Pilaf (Armenia)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Bulgur is a typical ingredient in Armenia and other Middle East countries. It is boiled wheat that has been splitted and dried afterwards to preserve it.
Here you can read about bulgur (it is in Spanish)
Bulgur

Bulgur is similar to rice, we can use bulgur instead of rice in many dishes, I present today a recipe typical from Armenia a pilaf made with bulgur.

This is the basic recipe, you can add more ingredients.
I read this recipe at this website with more recipes from Armenia:
Thearmeniankitchen- bulgur Pilaf.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of Bulgur.
• 2 cups of vegetables or chicken  broth.
• 15 grams of butter.
• 1/2 cup of little noodles.
• 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce.
• Salt.

Method:

1-  Melt butter in a casserole at low heat.

2-  Add noodles cook and stir until they get light brown, in the pictures you can see how they get.

Before

After

3-  Add bulgur and cook 1 more minute.

4-  Add broth, cover and put on a medium heat until it reaches boiling point, at this point put it on a low heat during 15 minutes or until the broth has disappeared and bulgur is tender.

5-  Let stand covered for 5 or 10 minutes, then stir with a fork.
Now you can serve it!!.
You can eat it like that or like a side dish of a meat dish.

My comments to the recipe

It is really very similar to rice in its appearance, the taste is a little different but very good, the mixture with the noodles is nice.
It is very easy to cook and very healthy!




Armenia

Lobster Crurry

                                                                               Receta en Español

Seafood is the star in Bahamas, the most typical is the rock lobster, a very big lobster that looks like a rock.

I was looking for lobster tails but all of them were finished because Christmas was approaching. I found a frozen lobster.

Ingredients:

• 1 Lobster.
• 1 onion.
• 85 grams butter.
• 2 grounded de curry.
• 1 tablespoon flour.
• 1 cup of milk.
• Lemon juice.
• Salt.

Method:

1-  Let the frozen lobster into the fridge for 12-14 hours.

2-  Open the bag, there will be ice in it. Take a big casserole, pour some warm water with salt in it, place lobster inside.

Cover the lobster with more water.

This must be done to avoid the claws to break.

3-  Leave lobster 1 h and a half until it has thawed.

4- Now is time to take the meat out of the lobster , you can use a big knife and a hammer to hit the knife , this way you make the enough strength to break the shell:

5- Put butter in a pan , sautée onions.

6- Add flour,curry and salt.

7- Add milk and put on a low heat until it boils, add more milk if it gets dry.

8- Add lobster and lemon juice, boil for half an hour.

9- Serve accompanied by rice.



Bahamas

Papaya Salad (Bahamas)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Papaya salad is a fresh salad with a lot of vitamins!!, Very easy and you can prepare it very fast. This is one of the most typical salads in Bahamas.

Ingredients:

• 1 piece of papaya.
• 1 little green pepper.
• 1 little tomato.
• 1 little onion.
• 2 boiled eggs.
• 57 grams salami.
• 4 tablespoons oil.
• 4 tablespoons vinegar.
• 1 tablespoon persil.
• grounded white pepper.
• Salt

Method:

1-  Cut pepper and onion into strips.
2-  Cut papaya and tomato in pieces.
3-  Put the ingredients from steps 1 and 2 in a bowl add salami and boiled eggs diced.

4-  To prepare the dressing add oil,vinegar,persil, salt and pepper in a jar. Shake well.

5- Pour the dressing over the salad, and you have it!!.

  



Bahamas

Benin

By Fawaz.tairou - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Books from Benin

Recipes from Benin that I cooked:

 

Dja Sauce

Atassi o Watche (Rice and Beans)

Yovo doko (benin fritters)

      

Benín

Yovo doko (fritters from Benin)

                                                                      Receta en Español

This is the most typical dessert in benin, people send it at bus, train stations or street stalls.

They are called Yovo doko but they really are fritters, cooked in Peanut oil that provides a special taste.

Ingredients (5 or 6 people):

• Peanut oil.
• 500 grams wheat flour.
• 170 grams sugar.
• 1 sachet sugar vanilla taste.
• 1 sachet yeast.
• 1/2 liter water.
• Salt.

Method:

1-  Put flour, yeast, salt, sugar and water in a bowl. Mix with your hands until the mixture is uniform.

2- The consistency of the mixture should be like in this picture:

3- Heat oil in a frying pan.

4- Fill a spoon with some dough and pour it in the frying pan to fry it.

5- You can see that the dough swell when it is heated, you fry it until it gets golden, 10 or 15 minutes.

6- Sprinkle powdered sugar over the fritters, to do this use a strainer to sieve the sugar.

 

My Comments to the Recipe

it is very easy , and the test is very good . The Peanut oil is very good to fry because it endures high temperatures and its taste is very interesting.

Where to find Peanut oil

Here you can see where I bought this oil:Peanut oil.




Benin

Fidji Islands

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

 By Gringer (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Recipes from Fidji that I cooked:

Alu Bhindi (okra and potato curry)

 Kokoda (Fish marinated with coconut)

Yucca and Banana cake from Fidji.

Fidji

Atassi or Watché (Rice and beans from Benin)

                                                                         Receta en Español

Atassi is also known as Watché, it is a very popular dish in Benin.
It is made with basic ingredients like rice and beans.
The different touch is given by  Dja Sauce (I presented you the recipe in my last previous post), very typical in this country. 

Ingredients:

• Dja Sauce.
• 250 grams beans , sokaed overnight.
• 250 grams rice.
• 1 l water.
• Salt.

Method:

1-  Put beans in a pressure cooker together with 1 liter water. 
Close pressure cooker, put on high heat, when steam comes out from the valve put heat on low heat and cook beans for 1 hour.

2- Add rice, cook for 20 minutes without a cover, take care of the quantity of water, if it is dry add a little water.

3- Serve accompanied by  Dja Sauce.

Benin

Dja Sauce

                                                                    Receta en Español

This is a very popular Sauce in Benin, it is made with tomato's concentrate ,spices and dried prawns that provide the taste from the sea.  Benin is a big exporter of prawns, they even export to Europe.

This sauce can be used to accompany rice, Amiwo, Igname and Atassi. This is a sauce full of taste and very easy to cook.

Ingredients:

• 100 g onions.
• 4 tablespoons Peanut oil.
• 600 g mature tomatos.
• 2 dessert spoon ground dried prawns.
• 1 dessert spoon paprika.
• Salt.
• Pepper.
• 1 dessert spoon ginger.
• 1 dessert spoon ground garlic.

Method:

1-  Pour peanut oil in a pan , sautée onion.

2-  Add diced tomatos. Put on a low heat.

3- Crush tomatos with a wooden spoon, cook until the meat is well separated from the skin. 

4- Use a food mill to obtain the meat of tomatos without the skin and seeds.

5- Grind dried prawns.

6- Put salt, ground dried prawns, pepper, paprika, ginger and garlic together with tomato meat. Cook on a low heat for 30 minutes to have a concentrated sauce.
If you are using pear tomatos you don't need so many time, 10 minutes is ok.

My comments to the recipe

This is a sauce full of taste , it is a great sauce to accompany rice and other food.

Where to buy the ingredients

Dried prawns and peanuts oil can be bought in Madrid at General Margallo street, metro Tetuán.

Benín