This was really hard to quantify. Or maybe very hard. At least somewhat hard.

I was teaching a scientist; he got this almost immediately.

The Chimichurri I didn't wait long enough for -- Argentina, but not until at least tomorrow.

This fellow has some strong things to say about Chimichurri, and I suppose I should take his word for it.  Apparently it's one of those things that's become just popular enough for Food Network to get it wrong?

In any case, I couldn't wait to try it out. So much so that I forgot to read the recipe COMPLETELY through... Ah. See that, at the bottom of the page there? Yeah, where it says "make at least the day before." Hmm. I can happily report that this recipe, when made incorrectly, makes the world's most delicious salsa. No worries -- I kind of wanted to share Argentina Week with friends, and this was just a one-off with some sauce that looked good. Still, I have to admit that I won't actually know what a single food from Argentina tastes like until tomorrow, at the earliest.

Worst name for a love hotel ever?

Sometimes I teach

So I teach ESL, and today's lesson included the question, "Have you ever eaten something you didn't like?" The lady I was asking could only manage to remember one word at a time, so we started with "intestines."
"Wow," I said, "What kind?"
"Uh, fish intestines."
(I write this up on the white board and draw a little picture of fish with intestines to check that that's what she means.)
She consults a dictionary. "Anglerfish intestines?" I draw a little lure on the fish's head. She nods.
"Raw anglerfish intestines."
...
"Sushi."

Antigua and Barbuda -- Pork Chops with Banana and Bacon

Banana and bacon is not a flavor combination that I would have imagined, left to my own devices. That's why this recipe intrigued me.

Not the most attractive, is it? Roasted, the banana had a slightly sweet, but mostly starchy quality that complemented the pork chops fairly well, and you really can't go wrong rubbing pork chops with salt-cumin-black pepper butter, but like the Cocada Amarela, it just wasn't amazing.

D'you think maybe they meant that I should use a plantain?

Angola -- Cocada Amarela

Sorry about the long hiatus. More explanation to come, but at least for now, for Mom, a photo:

This is a dessert made of coconut and egg yolk -- surprisingly creamy. Very sweet. Not too difficult. Flavored with clove, cinnamon, and orange blossom water (optional.) I think it would be a good side to a bit of chocolate cake, and it isn't bad by itself, but it wasn't mind-blowing enough to make again. Still, a nice change from Salt Pocky, which are, in a word, an abomination.

Andorra -- Pa amb Tomaquet

The Catalan region has a recipe for TOAST. Which is good, because nobody had time to make Trinxat this week. It's called Pa amb Tomaquet (bread and tomato), and the recipe is as follows:

1. Take hunk o' bread.
2. Rub with halved garlic clove.
3. Squeeze half a tomato onto it. This is possibly the best use of tomato innards ever.
4. Salt, olive oil.
5. Toast or grill.

Forgiving, tasty, requires very little thought or effort.

Pictures to come someday. This is basically all I've cooked for myself all week, with whatever bread's around at the time. It turns out that while I could imagine myself eating Fidhe when I'm sick or tired, in practice, P&T is way, way more appealing.

Update: Photos!

Served with an almost equally lazy side salad:

Put fresh greens in a bowl.
Sprinkle with walnuts.
Put some softish cheese on it.
Black pepper.
Paprika.
Consume.

Chakchouka -- Algeria

One set of things my mother learned about me the hard way is this.

1. I don't really like hot, soupy, tomatoey things.
2. I don't really like cooked green peppers.
3. I don't really like vegetarian chili.

Unsurprisingly, I suppose, I didn't really like chakchouka. Chakchouka is a dish in which onions, garlic, tomatoes, and a bell pepper mix are cooked together like a stew, and eggs are then poached in this mixture. The harissa paste that accompanies it was so good, I had to give it a try. Sadly, not my thing. The eggs were alright, but it lacked a certain earthy, hearty flavor to ground it as a proper dish. Cook's fault -- or, more accurately, cook's tongue's fault, I'm sure. It reminds me of the time I made "Ramekin Eggs" following the recipe on "My Healthy Cooking Coach" for the DS, and while my family stood around saying things like, "Wow, these are great!" I was asking, "So you think they're supposed to taste like that?"

One variation calls for lamb sausage to be added to the mixture, which would, in my opinion, perk it right up. If you like vegetarian chili, or hot tomatoes, or are in any way less picky about stupid things than I am, I suggest you give it a try.

Besides, it looks neat.

To cheer myself up, I came up with this very lazy concoction:

Store-bought Japanese "cream" flavored pudding (innocuous and sweet) with an almond sprinkle, served with dried figs, apricots, and raisins. Perhaps not entirely authentic, but the ingredients are, and it's so awfully good, and so wonderfully impossible to mess up.

UPDATE: Cooled down and served over the sausages I currently have at hand, erm, well, little smokies, this tomato stuff is actually pretty nice. Little smokies are probably the least Algerian meat choice in the world, but think of this as just one of those times that food crosses borders, gets adapted, and ends up becoming vindaloo and mole, among other things.

Albania - Gjellë me Arra (Walnut Chicken) and friends

Sorry about the blurry photos! Everyone was hungry, and we wanted to get eating.

Albania, for a small country, has a lot of regional variation in cuisine. I went with a little of everything -- a fish dish from the coast, a chicken dish from... the north? (Albanian recipes are kind of hard to find, but I did find a general overview of ingredients used, and walnuts were mentioned, but not specified by region.) The pita bread is a bit of a stretch, but we decided that it was close enough, as Albania shares a border with Greece, and, well, we really like feta.

It would hardly be worth it to include a recipe for the salmon. It was just brushed lightly with olive oil and lightly sprinkled with salt and pepper. Albanian food is fairly lightly spiced, and spices are generally not mixed, it turns out.

Walnut chicken!

This dish never seems to look all that good, but it tasted great, so it sort of redeemed itself in the end. The sauce is thickened with roux and egg yolks, almost like a savory pudding (in the American use of the word "pudding".) Not something I've done before, and a little nerve-wracking on a night when I was planning on serving 6 or 7 people, but it turned out in the end.

Sauce:
Butter
Flour
Garlic
Egg yolks
Crushed walnuts
Sage (My addition; it complemented the walnuts well.)
Salt to taste

If you would like to follow along, here is the recipe I used. Enjoy!

Hard To Follow

The ingredients for a delicious Albanian dish, according to Google Translate:


3 vez
18 trough sheath
18 sugar
1 cups oil
1 cups qumsht
1 peciv
3 trough Cocoa
ara to grind or hazelnut
pudink to qokollates or slag ready


Ben: "Well, slag shouldn't be too hard to find."