Dégué -dessert from Ivory Coast

  Dégué is a typical dessert from Ivory Coast, also from Mali or Mauritania, and from Senegal where the dessert is called Thiakry. It's a tasty dairy dessert that may remind you of a kind of rice pudding, but made with another cereal, millet.

The dessert is usually prepared for baptisms or weddings. It's also very simple.

Ingredients:

- 300 grams evaporated milk.

- 200 grams millet couscous.

- 300 grams yogurt.

- 200 grams fresh cream.

- 100 grams sugar.

- 1 teaspoon Vanilla.

- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.

- 10 grams Butter.

Method:

1- To cook millet couscous, pour boiling water over it until it covers everything, then let it stand for half an hour until the semolina has absorbed all the water. In case you find not completely soft, you can continue cooking it for 5 minutes in the microwave.

2- Add the butter to the millet, mix well.

3- Pour evaporated milk, fresh cream and yogurt into a bowl and mix well.Add sugar, vanilla, and millet, continue stirring well.

Then add nutmeg and to garnish, some raisins.

4- It is served cold and it can last in the refrigerator for several days.

You can also watch the recipe on my Youtube Channel:

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Ivory Coast

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Endives with apple and walnuts

                                                                                                                      Receta en Español 

We are going to make a halt on our culinary world travel to prepare a healthy salad valid for every meal.

Endives have a slightly bitter taste that combines very well with the taste of the natural yogurt, apple and nuts.

We are going to make a fresh yogurt sauce good for salads and some meats like chicken.

Ingredients for the yogurt sauce:

- 2 natural unsweeted yogurts.

- 1 lemon juice.

- Ground garlic.

- Salt.

- Pepper.

- Parsley.

Ingredients for the salad:

- Endives.

- Walnuts.

- 1 Apple.

- Lemon juice.

- Salt.

Method:

1- Put the yogurt in a bowl, add ground garlic, salt, pepper, parseley and lemon squeeze. Mix well.

Cover the bowl with transparent film and let stand for 2 hours in the fridge. ¡There you have the sauce yogurt! 

You can keep it in the fridge for 3 or 4 days.

2- Cut the apple in pieces and squeeze some lemon juice over the pieces to prevent the apple from oxidize.

3- Take the endives leaves, put them on a plate, put some apple pieces and nuts in every leave and add some yogurt sauce.

This is ready!

You can also watch the recipe at my Youtube Channel:

Here you have my  favourite cooking tools: https://viaja-en-mi-cocina-english.blogspot.com/2023/05/shop.html

Kalon prama or Samali from Cyprus

                                                                                                                        Receta en Español   

kalon prama or Samali is a semolina cake very popular in Cyprus, kalon prama means 'good thing' , so you can imagine how delicious this dessert is. It is made with wheat semolina, almonds and syrup, very easy to do.

Ingredients:

- 250 grams yoghurt.

- 150 grams sugar.

- 1/2 ground orange rind.

- 2 eggs.

- 100 grams butter.

- 350 grams semolina.

- 1 teaspoon baking soda.

- 2 teaspoon baking soda.

- 1/2 teaspoon mastika or anise.

- Almonds.

Ingredients for the Syrup:

- 400 grams sugar.

- 400 ml water.

- 1 cinnamon stick.

- 2 tablespoon lemon juice.

Method:

1- Mix semolina with sugar, baking soda, baking powder, ground orange rind, butter, yoghurt , eggs and anise or mastika.

Mastika is a tree resin or the liqueur made from that resin. It tastes like anise so you can use anise in case you don't find Mastika.

I made the cake with the liqueur of Mastika:

I found it in Madrid at this store where you can find other Bulgarian products: http://www.tiendabulgaraenmadrid.es

Mini mercado 4M Ezequiel Solana 78, Madrid

Mix well:

2- Mix until you have an homogeneous dough.

3- Put in an ovenproof recipient, make squares along the dough with the help of a knife, put an almond on top of every square.

4- Preheat oven at 170 º C cook for 30 minutes at the same temperature.

5- While the cake is cooking , lets make the syrup. Put in a casserole sugar, water, cinnamon stick and lemon. Put on a low heat and cook until all the sugar has been disolved. Then let it cool.

6- Once the cake is cooked, redo the squares on the cake, and pour litle by litle all the syrup over the cake.

7- You can consume it hot or cold, as you want. It is delicious!

Sour Cream

                                                                               Receta en Español

Sour cream is an ingredient very useful for a lot of recipes, it has a similar effect as greek yogourt. In fact you can use this yogourt in those recipes you have to use sour cream and you don't have it at hand.

But you should know that you can obtain sour cream in a very easy way. 

Don't mistake sour cream for fresh cream.

To obtain sour cream you need cream and yogurt, to obtain fresh cream you need whipped cream and butter.

Sour cream is an excellent sauce that can accompany boiled potatoes or endives, as you can see in the next photo:

Ingredients:

•   200 ml cream 35.1% fat.
•   50 ml yogourt.

   

Method:

1-  Take a jar made of glass, put the cream and yogourt inside the jar and mix well with the help of a spoon.



 2-  Cover the jar with a paper cloth , let stand for 18 or 24 hours in a place where temperature is 24 ºC.

I put the jar on a heater, after 18 hours it already had the consistency of a cream, as you can see in the pictures.

That is!.

Soyutma Lamb

                                                                               Receta en Español

Lamb is a food largement consumed in Azerbaijan, today I present to you 'Soyutma Lamb'.

Soyutma means slow cooked, it is the key on this dish, it is a piece of lamb cooked very slowly to obtain a different texture and taste.

Ingredients (For two people):

•   1 leg of lamb.
•   2 medium sized potatoes.
•   1 medium sized onion.
•   Some saffron strands.
•   Pepper.
•   Some fresh mint.
•   Salt.

   

Method:

1-  Wash the meat. Then add salt and pepper to the meat.

Put in a casserole, cover with water and set fire on a medium heat until water boils.

2-  Once it reaches boiling point, you can observe some foam on the surface, get rid of this foam ant put fire on a low heat.

3-  Now add the whole onion.

4-  Now let it cook for 3 hours at low heat. After the 3 hours, add peeled whole potatoes, make some cuts to the potatoes, this way they can cook faster.

Add salt, pepper, mint and some saffron strands, cook until potatoes are done.

5-  Now you can serve it, put a potato for each people , the dish should be accompanied by some yogurt with garlic (tipical from Azerbaijan).

Where to find the ingredients:

I found the mint near Madrid mosque, at arab shops at Antonio Calvo street.

My comments to the recipe

This boiled lamb is very tasty, because it is cooked very slowly , all the spices match very well with the lamb as well as the fresh yogurt.



Azerbaijan

Tava Elbasani (Lamb with yogurt)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Elbasani is a city placed in the center of Albania, this recipe comes from that city.

Ingredients: 4 Serves

• 900 g de lamb in pieces.
• 2 cups of water to boil the lamb.
• 2  tablespoons butter.
• 2  tablespoons flour.
• 3     eggs.
• 500 grams greek yogurt.
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper.
• Salt.
• oil.

Method:

1. Salt lamb to taste.
2. Pour a little oil in a great pot. Over medium heat cook lamb both sides, the pot should not be crowded ,cook a few pieces at the same time.
3. Then fill the pot with water and add all the roasted lamb pieces and cook over medium heat for 1 hour.
4. Meanwhile melt butter in a pan over medium heat, add flour and stir to mix well. Once the mixture begins to turn brown , put aside and let cool.

1. Preheat oven at 175 ºC.
2. Beat eggs in a bowl , add yogurt, pepper and butter sauce, salt to taste.
3. Place lamb in a baking dish. Pour the yogurt mixture over the lamb. Cook in oven for 45 minutes and serve immidiately.

This is the result:


Tava Elbasani

My comments to the Recipe:

This is a nice way to eat lamb, it is a new flavour that makes lamb softer.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Albania

Black Bean Cakes (Antigua and Barbuda)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Here I present you this popular recipe of Antigua and Barbuda:

Ingredients:

For cakes:

• 2 cups black beans.
• ½ cup chopped onion.
• 1 and a half teaspoon of ground cumin.
• 1  tablespoon chopped chili pepper.
• 2 tablespoon olive oil.
• Salt.

For the Sauce:

• 1  small chili.
• 5 tomatos.
• ½  onion.
• Salt.

For coriander yogurt:

• 1/2 cup natural yogurt.
• 2 tablespoon chopped coriander.
• Half a lemon juice.

Cooking the Sauce:

1. Wash and cut tomatos and chili into small pieces.
2. Pour a Little oil in a pan, add the chopped onion and sauté until it gets golden.
3. Add tomatos, chili  and salt. Cook over medium heat  until tomatos are well done, that is when you press tomatos, they are  soft.
4. Pass the misture through a purée sieve.
5. Cook again over medium heat until sauce is reduced to de desired consistency.

How to do Coriander Yogurt:

6. In a bowl mix coriander, lemon juice and yogurt.

How to do Black Bean Cakes:

7. The night before soak beans for at least 12 hours.
8. Once beans are soaked, add water and beans in a casserole. Cook over medium heat for 1 hour.
9. Water should be evaporated almost completely , in case it is not evaporated cook a little more.
10. Add onion, cumin and chili to the cooked beans . Mix with a blender until you obtain a dough.
11. Take 2 spoons of the dough to make every cake. Fry every cake both sides in a pan for 3 minutes  or until you see them fried. 
12. keep cakes warmed until they are served.
13. Serve the cakes with a little sauce and coriander yogurt on top.

My comments to the recipe:

It is an original and tasty way to eat black beans. tomato sauce and coriander yogurt bring freshness to the dish.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools



Antigua y Barbuda