Seswaa (crumbled meat) with Bogobe

                                                                               Receta en Español

Seswaa is a traditional dish in Botswana, it is prepared on great occasions such as weddings, they use to cook it in a big,3 legged cooking pot over a bonfire.

It is mostly prepared by men because you need to be strong to hit the meat and turn it into crumbled meat.

It is a simple dish with only 2 ingredients; meat and salt,the way you prepare it provides its special taste.

They use to accompany this meat with Boboge, flour and water cooked until you get a puree. This kind of puree is very common all over Africa, made with different types of flour.

Ingredients:

• Osso buco or veal, it is important to use this part of the meat because of the bone (I cooked 400 grams for 3 people).
• Salt.
• Water.

Ingredients for Bogobe:

•  Millet or sorghum flour (I used millet flour). (100 grams for 3 people).
•  Salt.
• Water.

Method:

1-  Salt meat both sides and put it in a casserole, cover with water and cook for 4 hours on a low heat. Stir from time to time.

2- Once the meat has been cooking for 3 hours, it is time to take out the marrow from the bone and reserve it.

3- Once the meat can be removed easily from the bone , you can consider the meat is done.

Then we get rid of the bone and we mix the meat with the marrow.

We start to hit the meat with a mortar pestle until it separates its fibres:

4- The meat stock can be reserved , but we take four tablespoon that we put in a casserole and then add the meat, fry some minutes, the meat will fry in its own fat.

5- The meat is accompanied by Bogobe, the way to make it is as I told you to make  Funge  from Angola, the difference is the kind of flour that is used in Botswana (millet or sorghum).

Where to buy the ingredients:

Millet can be bought in Madrid at Lavapies, there are a lot of shops along Miguel Servet street which sell food from africa and India.



Botswana

Miguelitos from La Roda

                                                                               Receta en Español

The most famous dessert from Albacete is called 'Miguelitos'.
They are very popular all over Spain ,especially in Madrid. People travelling on holidays from Madrid towards the Mediterranean sea at Valencia , have to pass through Albacete. These travellers are used to buy those little cakes to bring back them as souvenirs.

Ingredients: (32 Miguelitos)

• 2 Sheets of frozen shortcrust pastry.
• Custard Cream. (The recipe on this link has already the quantity of ingredients you need for Miguelitos).
• Powdered Sugar.

Method:

1-  Let shortcrust pastry thaw at room temperature.

2- Cut pastry into 5 or 6 cm long squares, you will obtain 16 Miguelitos per sheet.

3-  Preheat oven at 200ºC (heat upand down) .

4- Put parchment paper on the base of an oven proof recipient, place 'Miguelitos' inside the recipient, leave some space between them.

5- Cook in oven for 15 minutes (at 200 ºC), until you see the cakes are golden and have risen 3 or 4 cm:

6-  Once they are cool. With the help of a knife ,open the cakes in the middle.

7-  Put inside some quantity of Custard Cream (It must be already cool).

8-  Place 'Miguelitos' in a dish , sprinkle over the 'Miguelitos' some powdered sugar with the help of a little siever:

9-  You can keep 'Miguelitos' in the refrigerator if you protect the dish with some cling film.




Albacete

Custard cream

                                                                               Receta en Español

Custard cream is a basic cream for fillings used for many desserts.

You can modify the quantity of each ingredient as long as you keep the proportion between the ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 liter whole milk.
• 1/2 cinnamon stick or vanilla rod.
• 125 grams white sugar.
• 40 grams cornstarch.
• 4 egg yolks.
• 1 lemon rind.

Method:

1-  Put 450 ml of milk in a casserole together with the cinnamon stick and lemon rind, Put on a medium heat.

2-  Once it reaches boiling point , turn off the heat and let cool.

3-  Put sugar in a bowl , add sifted flour.

4-  Mix well, add 50 ml of milk.

5-  Mix well.

6-  Separate yolks from whites ,beat yolks.

7-  Add the yolks to the mixture of the step 5.

8-  Strain the cooked milk (step 2) to get rid of cinnamon stick and lemon rind. Pour a little of this milk into the bowl with the mixture with the rest of ingredients (step 7) , mix well.

9-  Once the mixture is homogeneous , pour the rest of the milk.

10-  Put the casserole on a low heat ,stir continuously until it starts to thicken, once it has the desired consistency turn off the fire and let it cool.

11-  You can keep it in the refrigerator protected by a plastic film.

Atascaburras

                                                                               Receta en Español

The recipe I present today , 'Atascaburras' , appears in the book '1000 recetas de Albacete y su provincia' from Carmina Useros, it is related to the village called Chinchilla de Montearagón but the dish is popular in all the province of Albacete.

The name can be translated into english as  'stuckdonkey' it comes from the similarity between the sound that we ca hear when we crush the ingredients with the help of a pestle and the sound of a donkey stuck in the mud stomping to set itself free.

Tradition tells that the origin of the dish comes from a group of shepherds who had nothing to eat but garlic,potatoes and some cod. They decided to cook and smash all the ingredients, the result was spectacular and the recipe became popular little by little.

This is a typical dish for winter but you can also eat it as a cold dish in summer.

It can be a main dish or a starter.

Ingredients:

• 100 grams of desalted cod.
• 4 potatoes (950 grams).
• 3 eggs.
• 3 clove of garlic.
• Some nuts.
• Oil.
• Salt.

Method:

1- Soak salted cod for 48 hours to get rid of the salt.

2- Wash and peel potatoes. Put in a pressure cooker together with cod ,add some salt and some water just to cover the potatoes.

Close the pressure cooker , put on a high heat. Once the steam starts to come out,  put on a low heat and cook for 10 minutes. 

3- Once cooked, crumble the cod (Keep aside broth , maybe you will need it later) .

4- Use a pestle to crush the 3 cloves of garlic until it turns into a dough.I did it in the same clay pot where I was going to present the 'Atascaburras'.

5-  Add little by little potatoes and cod , smash them. Add some oil to the mixture while you are smashing it.

6-  If the mixture is thick you can add some broth and keep on smashing.

7-  Boil eggs, cut each egg in two. 

8 - Flatten he mixture and place cooked eggs, nuts and a dash of oil on the surface of the dish.



Albacete

Solomon Islands

De Pohopetch - Trabajo propio, CC BY-SA 3.0, Enlace


By TUBS - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Recipes from Solomon islands that I cooked:

Pumpkin,coconut and lime Soup

Rice Solomon islands style

Yucca pudding

 

Islas Salomón

Bandera: De User:SKopp - Drawn by User:SKopp, Dominio público, Enlace

Alborea almonds soup

                                                                               Receta en Español

I found the following recipe in the book from Carmina Useros 'Mil recetas de la cocina de Albacete y su provincia' , it is a typical soup from the village called Alborea from Castilla , Spain. A Castilian soup where almonds are added.

Ingredients:

• 3 garlic clove.
• 3 yolks.
• 120 grams of bread.
• 70 grams of peeled and chopped almonds.

Method:

1-  Cut the bread into thin slices 1 cm thick.

2-  Pour some oil in a pan , fry the bread slices. Keep them aside.

3-  Take a big pot , pour oil and sautée garlic cloves.

4-  Add 1 liter and a half of water, add salt. Put on a low fire until it gets boiling point.

5-  Brake the bread slices into little chunks.

6-  Add bread and chopped almonds to the pot. Turn off the fire.

7-  A little time before serving the soup add yolks to thick the soup, do it as it is told in the following steps:

8-  Put yolks, who are at room temperature, into a cup . Stir well.

9- Pour two spoons full of some liquid from the pot into the cup , stir well. Add more spoons little by little and stir well after each spoon. This way yolks will heat very slowly.

10- Once yolks are at the same temperature as the rest of the soup , pour them in the pot and stir one more time.



Albacete