Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Bougna inspired Hot pot

I have bought the wrong kind of bananas- bananes dessert - which are similar to plantains (starchy and not so sweet like you may think from their name!). So, I have decided to create a dish and boil them up, taking inspiration in flavour from New Caledonia's bougna- meat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, ignames and plaintains/ bananas covered in coconut milk and then all wrapped up in banana leaves before being cooked over fire/ hot rocks in the ground. Mmmmmmm Caledonian hangi! I am pretty sure there will be a similar dish here that I just haven't discovered yet. So now I'm making it up!

This is only going to vaguely ressemble an actual bougna- I have no meat and am boiling it so it won't have that beautiful smokey earthy flavour. It is also more like a soup/curry, but oh well! Hopefully it will work out!

Ingredients
1 clove of garlic, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 plantain bananas- chopped into medium chunks
3 medium potatoes- chopped into medium chunks

1 beef stock cube, dissolved in 300 ml of  warm water
1 can coconut milk (about 250 mls)
1 tsp minced chilli

1. Fry the onion in olive oil over a medium heat. Add garlic about 2 minutes later, once the onions have softened a bit. Fry for a further 2 minutes.

2. Add bananas and potatoes. Mix and fry for about 1 minute

3. Add stock, increase heat to medium high and bring to the boil. Boil for about 15- 20 minutes- until potatoes are softer and almost done.

4. Turn temperature to low/ medium low and add cocnut milk and chilli. Simmer for a further 5- 10 minutes untill potatoes are cooked through.

5. Serve over rice



You could make a lot of variations- curry and spices to turn it into a curry, add more veges and/or fish/meat to beef it out and give extra flavours.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Pikelets from Edmonds cookbook!

I have run out of breakfast foods, and am trying not to buy anything unless I really have to due to still not being paid (not happy! If they continue not to pay us I may not continue to come to work). So, although I've made pikelets  before, I wanted to keep it here so I can have an easily accessible record of the Edmond's recipe.

Wish I had brought an Edmonds cookbook with me!

Here's the recipe:

Edmond's Pikelet recipe


1 Egg
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Milk (about)
1 cup Flour
1 tsp Edmonds Baking Powder
1/4 tsp salt
25g (1 oz) butter optional


Beat the egg and sugar until thick and add with the milk to the sifted flour, salt and baking powder. Lastly add melted butter. Mix until smooth and cook in spoonfuls on a hot greased girdle.











Monday, October 31, 2011

Songs from the end of October

Whero was not played as much as he should have been during October. Being busy with French paperwork, finding a flat and getting my head around a new job, city and lifestyle took up most of my time. But, I did manage to work on some new (and old) tunes towards the end of the month.

Prompted by my friend Cat, I attempted to start on this version of  "Lately" by Stevie Wonder. It is for guitar, but it gives you the notes to work with. Beautiful song, fairly tricky for me to play beautifully with a run of awkwardly fingered chords in the chorus which sound gorgeous but feel a bit like hand yoga. I have also opted out of the key change at the end (which is how the original goes) and like to stay with the easier option of repeating the chorus a few times in the previous key, like in this beautiful version by the Taotua brothers. May you rest in Peace,Vini, you were gone too soon.

Seems October has been a melancholic month, and most of the new songs I have learnt are a bit emo. Guess I am feeling a bit homesick, and being homesick always eventually leads me back to Dave Dobbyn .
Luckily for me, Dave is good at making simple catchy tunes which generally transcribe well to uke... had already practiced Loyal with Uke Can't touch this (miss you guys!) so have been polishing that up. This version is specifically for guitar, but it gives a good general idea.  Don't worry about Cadd9 and Dadd11- for the uke it's fine to play C and D instead. Nice, easy sing along which is instantly recognised by Kiwis, almost like our unofficial national anthem. Nothing like hearing Loyal when you are thousands of miles from home!

Had a craving for You oughta be in love, (yay! not so emo!) so after some you-tubing of the old video clip, I found some chords  which were good overall, but need tweaking. Namely, in the first verse I play F instead of -F,  The lyrics are all there though, so that's grand as I really don't know the words outside of the chorus!


Some one like you Adele

Pink Who knew

Scalloped Potatoes





While waiting for the Focaccia dough to rise, I have decided to make Scalloped potatoes. This is due to a potato craving and the fact that I have a lack of ingredients currently as I have not been paid and most of the shops are shut because it's Toussaint (All Saints holiday).

This dish forever reminds me of meals at Grans when I was little. It seems crazy that I have never actually cooked this seemingly simple recipe for myself before.

The recipe was simple and easy and quick to prepare. I cooked for less time as my oven seems to be ridiculously powerful and always needs a lot less time than suggested. Result was yum and nostalgic!!Still, nothing can compare to Gran's home cooking!

The First Experiment- Focaccia Bread






Being out of bread, and not so impressed with the selection here in Guadeloupe, I decided to make my own, starting with an easy Focaccia Recipe.

I figured the climate here is ideal for rising bread- warm and humid!

Indeed, the dough rose perfectly just being left in my room for 30 minutes, no need for any extra heat!

After kneading and shaping the bread, I added chopped olives, salt , olive oil and dried herbs to the top before popping it in the oven along with the scalloped potatoes. It was at a lower temperature than recommended by the recipe, but seemed to cook fine and turned out well (this may also be due to the fact that my oven's temperature is probably way higher than what the dial says).

Nothing like fresh bread, as exemplified by me eating almost half of the bread within 10 minutes of it coming out of the oven.  My landlady and her partner tried a piece and came back for more, so must have worked out ok!