Global Recipe Project

Since it was a high of 107 today and I spent the better part of the afternoon in the pool, I wasn't super thrilled about having a ridiculously carb-heavy meal of cepelinai. Oh well. Cepelinai are potato dumplings filled with ground pork, beef or veal. They are then drowned in a bacon, sour cream sauce. Hearty. Although all the recipes I found called for "grated potatoes" this is a lie. If you grate potatoes then you will get fine angel-hair like strands of potatoes and they will not mix well and when boiled will fall apart. Instead, you need to pulverize the potatoes. Ingredients:        Dumpling Mixture: 4 lbs Idaho potatoes, peeled and finely grated pulverized 1 lb Idaho potatoes, peeled, boiled and riced 1 teaspoon salt, more or less to taste            Meat Mixture: 1 pound ground pork or 1/3 pound pork, 1/3 pound beef, 1/3 pound veal 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped 1 teas...

Middle-Eastern food makes me happy.  The play on savory/sweet makes my tongue tingle and belly smile. Tonight is Pakistan. I know. We've been gone for a while. Okay. A very very long while. However, we had a kid and were learning how to live with another human being in the house. We think we have the hang of it now so we decided to re-start the recipe project. Tony relinquished the job of picking a country from the jar in favor of baby M. She picked Pakistan and I decided to make Chicken Chapli Kababs. It was delicious. The Middle-Eastern version of turkey burgers, but better. And, with chicken. I loosely followed the recipe here. Baby M, Tony and I loved it. Heidi's Rating: 7 out of 10. Delicious. Tony's Rating: 7 out of 10. Yum.

Tonight's country is San Marino which, if you are like me and have no idea what/where it's located, is an independent republic smack in the middle of Italy.  Apparently it has enjoyed independence since 1291 though my American educated self has never heard of it before. It doesn't have an army and I'm not entirely sure you would know you crossed any borders if you traveled through on a road trip in Tuscany. I was seriously tempted to make nidi di rondine (a rolled pasta/prosciutto dish smothered in bechamel) but, prosciutto isn't really included in my pregnancy diet so I opted instead for pasta e cece (pasta and chickpeas).

Botswana is the African country sandwiched between Nambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.  The national dish is "Seswaa" which is essentially pounded meat. I served it with Sadza and wasn't terribly enthused with the result. Seewaa Ingredients: 1 lb chuck roast or similar meat 1 large onion diced Pepper to season Salt to taste Preparation: Rinse the beef and pat it dry.  Place it in a large pot with the onion and pepper and cover with water. Simmer for 2.5 hours. Pound the meat till it shreds and softens. Heidi's Rating: 4 out of 10.  This is really just shredded meat with little flavor.  Tony's Rating: 3 out of 10.

Of all the African countries, I have been looking forward to Morocco the most.  The sweet/tangy/spicy flavor combination is totally tantalizing.  I made lamb tangine and loved it so much I made this recipe twice.  Once for the official blog and the second time for a Father's Day dinner for my french in-laws. Served with simple couscous and fresh fruit it is an amazing meal. Heidi's Rating: 9 out of 10.  Truly a fabulous dish. Tony's Rating: 8 out of 10. "I think I need to reserve the 9 and 10 marks since this is only like the 20th country and who knows what the other 130 countries will taste like."

The traditional dishes I could find for Kazakhstan almost always call for horse meat.  I didn't have any.  I also didn't know where I could find any. So, instead I opted for another dish quite popular in Central Asia--the dumpling. Tonight was manty with mint sauce. Although my recipe source was not completely authentic, I checked it back with multiple other manty (manti) sources and they were all similar.  The recipe I followed was from Food.com . However, I cut the salt quantity in half and used fresh mint. Of all the dishes I've made so far, this one by far brings the biggest smile to my face.  Although time consuming, it was a completely satisfying experience. Making dough, preparing filling and then steaming the final product was all very creative and somewhat therapeutic. I had some leftover dough in the freezer from Russian night and thus made some Kazakh Pierogis.  They were amazing. Additionally, that mint sauce is so simple and versatile. I for...

Coconut Chicken Curry? Yes, please. I've never been good at curries.  Mine are always too dry or too mushy.  I have not mastered the art of the curry sauce until tonight.  This dish is simple and amazing. I followed the recipe from MalaysiaFood.net which can be found  here. The recipe calls for Malaysian meat curry powder which I didn't have, could not find and could not order.  Therefore, I made my own concoction using: 10 whole cloves 10 whole black peppercorns 4 whole cardamom pods 1 cinnamon stick (about 2-inches/5 cm) 4 whole dried red chilies 4 tbsp coriander seeds 2 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp turmeric  Essentially, you toast all ingredient then grind them to a powder.   Rating: Easy 8.5 out of 10. The flavors were lovely and the consistency of the sauce was delightful.  The only drawback was the small bits of spices that didn't thoroughly grind in the mortar.  Next time I will invest in a coffee grinder and ...