Bahamian Duff

                                                                              Receta en Español

This is a tasty and typical dessert from Bahamas, I found the recipe at this site written by a bahamian girl  http://bakerchet.weebly.com/my-blog/bahamian-duff

In Spain we have a similar dessert called 'Brazo de Gitano' , the way we prepare the sponge cake is different from Bahamas, I present to you the way they do it in Bahamas.

I had to repeat this recipe 2 times because the first time I didn't seal well the dough and it didn't rise.
You can see the difference between both preparations in the pictures I will show you during my presentation of the recipe, Here You have the dessert when I sealed it right:

  

Ingredients for the Filling: 

• 1 can of guava 480 grams.
• 110 grams brown sugar.
• 1/4 dessert spoon of ground nutmeg.
• 1 pinch of Salt.

 Ingredients for the dough:

• 270 grams flour.
• 2 eggs.
• 90 grams brown sugar.
• 75 grams of butter.
• 1 pinch of salt.
• 2 dessert spoons yeast.

Ingredients for the Sauce:

• 150 grams butter.
• 85 grams brown sugar.
• a splash of rum.
• 170 grams condensed milk.
• Guava pulp (The remains of the guava can).

 
Method for the Filling:

1-  The filling can be cooked the previous day , it has to be cold to fill the dough.

2- Separate the inside pulp (full of seeds) from the rest of the pulp:

keep aside  the inside pulp with the seeds, it will be usefull for the sauce.

3-  Cut the pulp without seeds into little chunks, mix it with sugar, nutmeg and salt.

4- Stir well and cook on a low heat for 30 minutes.

5- Let it cool (Better if you use it the following day).

Method fot the dough:

6-  Take another bowl, mix sugar and butter until you get an homogenous mixture.

7- Add eggs to the bowl and beat.

8-  Add flour and yeast with the help of a sieve to prevent the flour from making lumps.



9- knead the dough until everything is homogenous. We know it is ready when we touch it with a finger and the print of the finger remains.
Let the dough stand for half an hour:

You can add a little milk if the consistency of the dough is very dry, I didn't have to.

10- Spread a little flour on a surface and place the dough on it, take a rolling pin and strech the dough until it is half a centimeter dick.

11-  Pour the filling over the dough, leave the rims free of filling:

12-  Roll the dough as you can see in the pictures.

13- Wrap it in a parchment paper and then into 2 layers of foil paper, seal it with insulating tape to prevent water to get into the dough. Foil paper should be a little loose to let the dough swell.

14-  Preheat oven at maximum temperature.

15-  Place the dough in an oven proof recipent, pour water until it reaches half of the dough.

16-  Cook in oven at maximum temperature during 1 hour and 20 minutes. When it has been 40 minutes in the oven turn the dough the other way so the water covers the other half of the dough.

Method for the Sauce:

17- Take the remaining guava pulp, get rid of the seeds with the help of a potato masher:

18- Put butter and sugar in a casserole, stir well and put on a low heat.

19-  Add condensed milk , guava pulp and rum, cook for half an hour.

20- Cut the duff into slices, serve it with the sauce over it.

You can see in the following pictures the differences in the result when you seal the paper in the right way or not:

Good

Bad

Good

Bad
  

Where you can find ingredients

At the following link you can see where I found the guavas: Guayaba

My Comments to the Recipe

Guava is an excellent fruit to use in your desserts, the sauce is marvellous too.
The key to have a good result is a good sealing so be careful and you will be able to achieve a good Bahamian Duff.





Bahamas

Trinxat (Andorra)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Trinxat is a catalan word that means carved or smashed, it refers to the way they prepare the dish, all the ingredients are smashed with the help of a fork.

it is popular in Cerdanya and Andorra.  

Today I present to you how this dish is prepared in Andorra.

Ingredients (2 people):

• 300 grams cabbage leaves.
• 1 potato 300 grams.
• 2 bacon slices.
• 2 garlic cloves.

Method:

1-  Wash and cut cabbage and potato into pieces. 

2- Put cabbage and potato into the pressure cooker, add a little water, you can use a steamer basket. Close the pressure cooker , put on a high heat.  Once the steam starts to come out,  put on a low heat and cook for 30 minutes.

Don't put any salt! the salt taste will be provided by the bacon.

3- Now put the cooked cabbaged and potato into another pot without the water, smash it with a fork:

4- Fry bacon with a little quantity of oil, put bacon aside:

5- Use the same oil to sautée chopped garlic.

6-  Add the mash of cabbage and potato to the skillet , stir well until the mash has absorved all the oil.

7-  Serve the mash accompanied by the bacon.



 My comments to the Recipe:

It is an easy recipe, the mixture of cabbage and potato is tasty. Besides bacon provides a wonderful taste and all the salt that needs this dish.

If bacon is too salty you can cook it in boiling water, this way it will lose some salt.



Andorra

Cheese Kadaif

                                                                               Receta en Español

I already have made a dessert with Kadaif to present Albania: Nuts Kadaif , the same dessert can be eaten in Armenia, it is delicious, but in Armenia they also make cheese kadaif.

This dessert is also called Kunafa.

Ingredients:

• 340 grams of butter.
• 500 grams Kadaif.
• 400 grams fresh mozzarella cheese.
• 80 grams goat cheese.
• 400 grams sugar.
• 1/2 liter water.
• 1 sachet vanilla sugar.
• A splash of lemon juice.
• Pine nuts or other kind of nuts.

Method:

1-  Extend Kadaif for 2 hours to make it get dry ,turn it on the other side and let it dry for another 2 hours.

2-  Spread half of the Kadaif on an oven proof dish, if Kadaif is very long you can cut it.

3- Prepare ghee, it is clarified butter. It is important to make this clarification to prevent butter to get burnt into the oven , given that the white part of the butter is the part that gets the higher temperature.

Heat butter , once it is liquid , turn the fire off. Take a spoon, and get rid of the white part of the butter that remains on the upper side.

4- Pour half of the liquid butter all over the surface of the Kadaif.  

5- Cut both cheeses into slices and put them over the Kadaif , building some layers.



6-  Spread the rest of Kadaif.

7-  Pour the remaining butter.

8- Preheat oven at 200 ºC. Cook in oven for 25 minutes until it gets brown. Let it cool.

For syrup:

9 - Take a pan, combine sugar, water, vanilla and a dash of lemon, bring it to a boil. Stir until sugar is well dissolved. It should take 30 minutes. Then turn off the heat and pour the cold water.

10 - Once Kataifi is cold, pour Syrup over it. Sprinkle pine nuts and let it cool at least 1 hour to let the syrup dry. The more you wait the more delicious it will be. Then cut in pieces and serve.

Where to buy Kataifi in Madrid

You can buy Kataifi near Madrid mosque, at Antonio Calvo street , I bought it at 'El Hogar'.

My Comments to the recipe:

When I made Nuts Kadaif I noted that I should pour all the syrup and the taste of the dessert is marvellous 24 hours after it has absorbed all the syrup.
In this case, it is not the same because cheese doesn't allow Kadaif to absorb the syrup, it is better to eat it when still hot.



Armenia

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