Dolma

                                                                               Receta en Español

Dolmá are some vegetables leaves stuffed with meat and rice. This dish is original from several countries of middle east: Armenia, Turkey, Egipt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Balkan countries, Greece , Iraq and Iran.

For this reason, you can find different ways to do dolmas.

Today I present the most typical dish from Armenia , I found this recipe at this website where you can also find some information about Armenia:

http://www.armenianow.com/features/mama_makes_it_better 

Ingredients (For 30 dolma):

• 500 grams mince.
• 1 chopped onion.
• 1/2 cup round rice.
• 70 grams butter.
• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce.
• 1 pot of preserved grape leaves.
• Black pepper.
• Cayenne.
• 1 dessert spoon basil.
• 1 dessert spoon parsley.
• 1 dessert spoon ground coriander.
• 1 dessert spoon dill.
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
• Salt.
• 2 tablespoon pine nuts.

Method:


1-  Sautée onions with a little butter until onion gets light brown.

2- Add rice and cook at low heat for 10 minutes.

3- Add the rest of the ingredients: (meat, spices,lemon juice,butter,tomato sauce and pine nuts) sautée for 2 minutes, the meat should not be overcooked because it will be cooked inside the dolma.

4- Let the meat get cold.

5-  Wash the grape leaves, use an absorbent paper to dry the leaves.
Cut the petiole of the leaf.

6-  Now it is time to stuff the leafs, follow this instructions to do it the right way.

Put the leaf on a flat surface, the same way you see at the picture, put a little quantity of meat in the middle of the leaf.

7- To fold the leaves , take the ends of the middle and fold one on top of the other, we can call it the 'arms' of the leaf:

8- Take the two lower parts of the leaf (we can call them 'the legs'), fold them on top of the 'arms'.

9- Now take the upper part of the leaf, 'the head', fold it over the rest of the dolma.

This is the result:

10 - Now it is time to cook dolmas. Take a big casserole, put some grape leaves on the bottom of the casserole. This is to prevent our dolmas to stick to the bottom.

11- Now place all the dolmas inside the casserole:

12- Pour water just to cover all the dolmas:

13-  Put a dish on top of the dolmas, and something on top of it to prevent dolmas to float up.

14- Cook for half an hour at low heat.

My comments to the recipe

The taste of the meat mixed with all the spices is delicious, the grape leaves provide a new flavour to the meat, it is a nice way to eat meat.

Where to find the ingredients

The grape leaves can be bought at the shops at Antonio Calvo street, close to Madrid's mosque.







Armenia

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