Olympic Food Challenge: African Banana Coconut Bake - Equatorial Guinea

With a population of just 676,000 - making it the 166th biggest country in the world, Equatorial Guinea actually has the 29th highest GDP per capita due to recently discovered oil reserves boosting its economy.  Sadly, like most countries, the majority of the money lies in the hands of just a few.

Given the size of the country, I was unsurprised to learn that they sent just two competitors to the main London 2012 event (they left empty-handed) and they didn't field any athletes at the Paralympics.

So on to the foodie bit.  The detail from Wikipedia is as small as the country and gave me little help at all.  It did indicate that meat is very prevalent - specifically game, chicken and bush meat.  Knowing that I was unlikely to be able to source chimpanzee from Ocado, I went with fish.  Next problem, recipes are few and far between but eventually I happened across one for Pick a Pepper Stew which is basically fish cooked with peppers and herbs and served with rice.  Simple.

Well you'd think.  The recipe called for snapper but after a lot of effort by the fishmonger at my local Morrisons, they were unable to source any and recommended Tilapia instead.  I collected said fish yesterday afternoon and although it was gutted and descaled, I was left to my own devices to fillet the fish.  I should never have let the thought of 'how hard can filleting a fish be?' float through my head.

I've always had a bit of a fear of fish with their eyes in ever since my mother terrorised me with a dead trout when I was a child.  And then I owned a psychotic goldfish that kept jumping out of its bowl onto the kitchen floor.  I'm sure this is why I have a phobia of swimming in the sea. I really don't like fish.  Seriously. Unless they're battered with chips; in a fish finger sandwich; or in a meuniere sauce.

Tilapia must have the measliest amount of flesh to bone ratio of any fish ever.  Seriously, it's like a goldfish on steroids.  I managed to scrape two two-inch square bits of fish from it and was left with a massive fishy carcass, which I'm sure would make some fabulous fish stock if I didn't live in a house where the chief resident complains of any non-Captain Birds Eye fish smells.

So I ended up having to think on my feet and with a lack of bananas, I made Chef Jeena's onion bhajis. Fast forward to today and rather than doing the fish thing again with different fish, I settled on making African Banana Coconut Bake.  It's about the only dessert I can find with any reference to Equatorial Guinea.  The other choice was something containing raspberries and bread which sounds suspiciously like bread pudding.  At least this is vaguely exotic with its citrus fruits and coconut.

It's a really simple and scalable dish.  I made it just for me so rather than baking it in a dish, I just wrapped it all up in foil, a bit like a Cornish pasty, and baked it for ten minutes.  The sauce was amazing - although it made the coconut soggier than I would've liked.  Definitely one for the barbecue if we ever have sunny weather again.

And that is definitely the end of my Olympic Food Challenge contribution.  I only hope we finally hit the 204 mark on Sunday.  I'd like to say a mahoosive thanks to the team Coach - Ewan Mitchell - for letting me join his 'games'.

Olympic Food Challenge: Botswanan Chicken Pie - Botswana

With four competitors in two disciplines at the main London 2012 Olympics, Botswana managed to gain a silver medal in the Men's 800m.  Unfortunately, Botswana had to pull its team from the 2012 Paralympics due to financial irregularities in their Olympic Committee.

Moving swiftly on to the food (sorry for the short post), Botswana has its own unique cuisine, but is also influenced by its neighbouring countries.  Having already made Pap and Chakkalakka (just because I liked the name) when I did Lesotho, and lacking a three-legged iron pot (commonly used for cooking), I plumped for Botswanan Chicken Pie as chicken cooked for a guest shows special hospitality.

Mmmmm....pie....

Sadly I had no guests and I was just cooking for myself.  The appeal in this recipe was that it was for individual pasty-style pies so I could make just one.  I must confess I cheated a little as I was trying to hone my pastry making skills which leave a lot to be desired (see the Apple and Rhubarb Pie and Quiche Lorraine trials) and so I'd a piece of Dan Lepard's Shortcrust Pastry lurking in my fridge instead of the pastry recommended by the recipe.

Whenever I make pastry, it's too short and consequently crumbles everywhere.  As a last resort, I put my faith into Dan.  This is the best pastry ever.  He recommends using half butter and half lard.  I didn't have any lard so went with the 'you can use all butter' caveat and it turned out to be the tastiest, butteriest pastry I have ever had the pleasure to eat.  I expected nothing less and yet again, Short and Sweet delivered.  Miss A even now refers to Short and Sweet as 'Mummy's favourite recipe book' even though I have never uttered these words in her presence.  I'm pleased her two-year-old mind is capable of forming such opinions already.

As for the pie filling - it's a mix of chicken, apple, onion, tomato and currants.  If it wasn't for the OFC, I never would've tried the sweet and savoury thing.  But I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it.  It just worked.  The recipe mentions the filling as being a little dry so I roasted a chicken breast at 190c fan for 17 minutes so it was barely cooked.  I immediately chopped this and popped it into the pan to fry, thus finishing the cooking and stopping it from being too dry in the finished product.

Do try these. My picture is a bit rubbish as I wanted you to see the filling of the pasty and the crisp pastry meant it shattered perfectly, but wasn't very photogenic!

You can find the recipe for the pie here and watch Dan making one of his shortcrust pastry recipes here although I used his basic eggless pastry from Short and Sweet.

Olympic Food Challenge: Chrov Plav - Kazakhstan

Out of all of my Olympic countries, I think Kazakhstan did best at the London 2012 Summer Olympics, gathering a haul of seven golds, one silver and five bronze medals.  Looking at the disciplines they got them in, I wouldn't ever want to mess with a Kazakhstani - they seem to excel at Weightlifting, Boxing and Wrestling (with a gold in Cycling and another in Athletics for a little diversity).

They've fielded seven competitors in three different disciplines at the 2012 Paralympics - some have already sadly not advanced, but they still have some hope left in certain categories.

Moving on to the food angle, their cuisine revolves heavily around horse meat and mutton.  Of course, eating horses is (thankfully) frowned on in the UK so I didn't have to go down that route.  According to the Beeb, the Kazakhstani team even tried to bring their own horse meat sausages with them as they believe that their protein rich diet is key to being amazing in the Powerlifting arena.  I couldn't find out whether or not the UK Borders Agency permitted to bring them in but based on their prowess from the stats above, either they did or maybe they'd have medalled (I hate myself for using that term!) even more than they did.

One of their most well-known dishes is Manti - or lamb dumplings.  Having already done the dumpling thin "in Nepal" a few weeks back and being tight on time, I went for a different, pudding based dish.  Chrov Plav.  I can't for the life of me remember how I happened across this particular recipe as most of my research turned up recipes in how to preserve mutton and lamb - very important to the Kazakhstanis  due to their historical nomadic lifestyles.  The ingredients for Chrov Plav reflect this with a heavy reliance on dried fruits and rice - all of which would transport pretty easily without spoiling.

Sadly, I'm not a fan of Chrov Plav.  I think it's because I probably wanted it to be like an English rice pudding - creamy and comforting.  The lack of full fat milk and/or cream and lashings of sugar probably makes this really good for you.  It is sweet, but the sweetness comes from the dried fruit and honey - I don't really like honey.  If for some bizarre reason I did try making this again, I'd probably throw some cardamom pods in to give it an additional flavour dimension.  I'd also think about swapping the honey for maple syrup and while I was at it, substitute the water for milk.  At which point it would be nothing like the Kazakhstan dish - and I'd probably just be better off making the Stovetop Coconut Rice Pudding I was so enamoured with earlier this year (ie a totally different dish).

If you want to make it, here's the original recipe.

Serves 4

• 1 cup Rice uncooked (it didn't say which kind of rice so I used basmati)
• 1/4 cup Chopped almonds
• 2 tbsp Currants
• 2 tbsp Raisins
• 6 each Prunes dried, pitted, & coarsely chopped
• 3 tbsp Dates chopped
• 4 tbsp Butter
• 1/4 cup Apricots, dried, pitted & cut into strips ¼"x1"
• 1 tbsp Honey
• 2 cup Cold water

1. Soak, dates, currants, & prunes in a bowl of warm water for 15 minutes. Then remove them, pat dry, and mix with the other dried fruits. 
2. Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over high heat. 
3. Add the fruit mixture and the almonds. 
4. Reduce the heat to low and stir for 4 minutes, stir in the honey, rice, and water. 
5. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 25 minutes. 
6. Serve hot.

Olympic Food Challenge: Non Bread - Tajikistan

Today, my Olympic Food Challenge journey has entered Tajikistan.  Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Asia, bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China and Kyrgyzstan.  The cuisine is largely influenced by the food of these neighbouring countries with the national dish being pilaf.  

My non bread - but it is real, honest!

Meals are usually served with non, a flatbread found throughout Central Asia. If a Tajik has food but not non, he will say he is out of food. If non is dropped on the ground, people will put it up on a high ledge for beggars or birds. Legend holds that one is not supposed to put non upside down because this will bring bad luck. The same holds true if anything is put on top of the non, unless it is another piece of non (source - Wikipedia)

I loved the above bits of trivia and the beautiful designs shown in pictures that I found when I was looking for a recipe so I knew this was the dish for me.  Plus, it gave me some bread to go with the cauliflower soup that I made yesterday - and now I'm stuffed to the gills for the rest of the day.

Traditional non bread

The recipe was pretty easy to do, if a little time consuming.  My sponge went a bit bonkers and so I managed to short-cut a little of the time.  The resulting bread was nice and soft although do pay attention to the bit that says to have the toppings to hand for when you take the hot trays out of the oven.  I didn't and ended up flinging salt at them so had to brush quite a bit off when it came to the eating.  

I just wish I had a fancy bread stamp and had thought to find out what the traditional ones are glazed with to give them their lovely golden hue.  You can find the recipe that I used here.

As for their Olympic and Paralympic entries, they won a single bronze medal in the weight lifting at the Olympics and have one competitor in the Power Lifting at the Paralympics although their Paralympians have yet to win a medal.

Olympic Food Challenge: Hoppin' John - Bermuda

Ask anyone what they know about Bermuda and they will tell you about one of two things.  The Triangle or shorts.  In honour of this post, I'm writing it whilst listening to Barry Manilow singing Bermuda Triangle.  Yes, it's in my iTunes collection.  Hell, if you've read any other posts on this blog, I've probably told you worse things about me than that I have Bazza's Greatest Hits.  It's all because I love Copacabana.

In fact, I could tell you something worse about my husband.  Some of you may know that we disagree about most things.  It drives me potty when we go out in the same car that he'll change whatever I'm listening to.  I started listening to Radio 5 Live because of him but this summer I've not been allowed to listen to it because he only likes listening to the football commentary and not the news.  He grew up in the eighties, and being a massive eighties fan, I like most of his CD collection - but he won't let me listen to them in the car.  When we went to Scotland in the summer, I swear he chose eight hours of music he knew I'd hate on purpose.  Anyhow, recently, I got into the car with him and pre-emptively switched from the CD and he actually changed it back.  Because the CD had Copacabana on it and apparently he loves it.

Maybe we'll be like the Ballad of Tom Jones, but rather than being saved by Tom, we'll eventually stop fighting like cat and dog and be saved by Bazza's Greatest Hits.

I digress. Bermuda.  I'm supposed to be talking about food and the Olympics.  Right.  Okay.  Well the first thing that surprised me was to find that one of the most popular dishes in Bermuda is fish and chips.  But not a fancy foreign version.  Good old English fish and chips.  I never realised that Bermuda is British territory.  Or that it was quite so far away from the Caribbean - I'd been expecting the cuisine to be more akin to West Indian food.  Every day is a school day.

So after discounting the majority of the dishes listed on Wikipedia, I settled on Hop n' John which is apparently the national dish.  Wikipedia states that it's a dish of rice and peas which I know is common in the West Indies - if you were to ask my half sister what's for tea, she'll tell you she's having 'rice and peas and ding' every day.  But like most simple 'ethnic' dishes, there were a zillion and one recipes for Hoppin' John out there.  Mostly with a creole bent.

In the end, I just made up my own recipe.  About the only thing all the recipes agree on is that you need white rice and black eyed beans.  Or peas.  But I believe the beans and peas to be the same thing.  Then you can add any of the following - red and/or green bell peppers, dried or fresh chilli, herbs (commonly coriander, parsley or thyme), onions - regular and/or spring, tomatoes, bacon, ham, sausage - frequently chorizo, chicken and so on.  I didn't come across a dish that specifically used seafood in it but you never know.  This is definitely my kind of dish and it's now my new favourite storecupboard tea.

Before I give you my version of the recipe, a little about the Olympics.  Despite sending eight competitors to London 2012 to contest in five different disciplines, Bermuda left empty-handed.  They have just one athlete competing in the Paralympics in the 100m, 200m and 400m.  I wish her the best of luck.

Recipe - Serves 4

• 1 medium onion, finely sliced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 rashers smoked back bacon, snipped into small pieces
• 75g chorizo, cubed
• 1 small red or green bell pepper, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 400g tin black eyed beans, drained
• 200ml fresh chicken stock
• Handful of fresh parsley or coriander, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, deseeded and diced
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• salt, freshly ground black pepper and garlic granules to season
• 300g basmati rice (dry weight), cooked according to package instructions

1. Heat the olive oil over a medium flame in a large frying pan.  Gently fry for 5-10 minutes until caramelised.  Remove from the pan and place to one side.
2. Fry the bacon and chorizo in the pan for 3 minutes until starting to colour.  Add the celery and pepper and cook for another two minutes.
3. Pour in the chicken stock and beans and cook for a further five minutes until the beans are tender. and the stock has mostly evaporated.  Return the onion to the pan and heat through.
4. Season to taste with the salt, pepper and garlic granules then stir through the parsley or coriander.
5. Divide the rice between four plates, top with the Hoppin' John and garnish with  the spring onion and tomatoes.

Olympic Food Challenge: Ginger Beer - Sierra Leone

If you've been following the Olympic Food Challenge, you may know that sadly we didn't quite meet the original goal of our illustrious team coach.  Despite sterling gold medal shows from Tonight's Menu, Soup Tuesday, Feast and Glory and Come Dine With Rach, we fell about forty countries short of the final total thanks to our silver and bronze medallists.

Undettered, Ewan has rallied some of the troops to complete his original mission during the Paralympics.  Because some of us were so keen to maintain that post-Olympic haze of glory in our lives, there weren't enough countries for us all to do one meal a day for the whole of the Paralympics but we will hit 204 by 9th of September come hell or high water.

Jamie O's idea of sexy is wildly different to mine

To do my bit, I will be cooking recipes from Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Khazakstan, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Bermuda.  I'm not quite sure how I managed to be so unlucky as to bag all the rubbish ones, but hey-ho.

So we start tonight in Sierra Leone, a country that is sadly most famous for its child soldiers and blood diamonds.  Located in Western Africa, Sierra Leone has only sent one competitor to the Paralympics in the past, that event being in Atlanta in 1996.  According to that tome of truth otherwise known as Wikipedia, however, they are sending a competitor to London 2012 to attempt the mens 100 and 200m race.

As for its cuisine, there's really not much on the web.  Okay so I had far less time to navel gaze when I should've been prepping my recipes this time round.  But most of the dishes, I already discounted when I did the OFC earlier this year.  And those I would've done, I've already done such is the similarity in recipes in Western Africa.

Apparently though, ginger beer is the big thing so I decided to give that a go.  After a little research, I decided to avoid the more traditional recipes when Hugh F-W mentioned that you should use a 2 litre lemonade bottle rather than the fancy glass bottle I'd planned to use because there's a risk of the yeasted beer causing the bottle to explode.

Having performed a risk assessment - dogs that sleep in the kitchen, a toddler, a husband with a short temper - I settled on a Jamie O recipe that basically bungs a lot of stuff in a jug to make a 'sexy' drink.

Jamie, if you think that this drink is sexy then I pity poor Jules.  It's okay.  I'm sure if it was hot and sunny and there was a barbecue going on in my garden then I might have been more appreciative of the drink but as it was peeing down outside, it was also a Wednesday night and I had a random assortment of fridge leftovers for tea, the drink didn't quite have the wow factor for me.  Plus it's a massive waste of decent fresh ginger.  But if you're as rich as Jamie O, you can afford to be extravagant.

You can find the recipe here.  PS: Just like I've said before, the result looks nothing like the lovely professionally-styled picture on the Jamie website.

Simon Rimmer's Turkish Poached Eggs

Yes, okay, I can't leave the Olympic Food Challenge thing alone.  I'm now impatiently sitting on my thumbs in anticipation of Ewan Mitchell releasing the remaining OFC countries to the hungry masses for the Paralympic Food Challenge.  In the meantime, with a course (requiring nightly homework of 2+ hours) and two exams to complete I'm still doing the quick breakfast, quick blog thing.

The recipe is again courtesy of some weekend Googling as the scant offering of breakfast recipes in my collection of cookbooks only yielded things that are a) ridiculously high in calories (sausage, bacon and egg muffin anyone?) or b) time consuming (skinny blueberry, apple and muesli muffin anyone?)

Watery spinach and nary a breadcrumb in sight

Poached eggs are my favourite ever breakfast.  With a pile of maple cured bacon on the side.  No sausages (unless you absolutely insist).  Just some crisp buttered sourdough toast underneath.  So this breakfast was a slight departure for me having to pour a garlic yogurt sauce over the top and with spinach underneath (my own addition to the recipe).

Only point of note on the food styling front is that it's essential to double dry your spinach.  In between drying mine and getting the eggs on the top, the spinach had managed to leak its residual moisture all over the plate.

It was an interesting recipe.  I might do it again if I was cooking breakfast for someone else.  Like my friend who's an utterly committed vegetarian unless someone would like to cook bacon and eggs for her.  Whilst I sit there and eat my own bacon and eggs.  Mean?  Me.  Absolutely :)

You can find the recipe here.

One more thing on the C4 food stylist's work.  Wondering why on earth they've sprinkled those lurid orange scotch-egg breadcrumbs over the top of theirs....??

And yes, here's the Turkish flag.  I couldn't resist.

Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

Sings tunelessly ♪ ♫ "Chim chim-eny, chim chim-eny, chimichurri"♪ ♫ 

I really only chose today's recipe just so I could include a reference to my favourite film ever.  Mary Poppins for the uninitiated.  I have watched it approximately eleventy-million and one times in my life.  I know it word-perfect.  I want to be Julie Andrews in that dress when they jump into the chalk picture. Still.  

More sauce than steak

If Sir Jimmy Savile (RIP) was to pop up and ask me to name my price, I would without a doubt eschew the chance to have enough plastic surgery to deal with my wobbly belly, wobbly thighs, squirrel flaps and sagging boobs; a massive lottery win (although that would also deliver the Poppins-dream); and the chance to snog any of my guilty crushes (although there is one I'd possibly pick over the Poppins-dream) in order to wear that dress and dance with Dick van Dyke (as he was then, not as he is now).

Last week I had a bit of a win on the dinner front in that I managed to get both Miss A and the husband eating steak.  So Thursday's was declared as steak night and with that in mind, I decided to whip up some chimichurri sauce after reading all about it on Tonight's Menu during the Olympic Food Challenge.  And it gave me an excuse to open the blog with the Chimichurri pun.  

It's dead simple - a lot of parsley, a pile of garlic, some onion, lemon juice, olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt and chilli flakes.  Mix it up, dollop onto steak.  Perfect for a Thursday night tea.  And my colleagues will be eternally grateful that I'm working from home tomorrow because boy, did the raw garlic have a kick to it.  Although I'm wondering if all the parsley negated that? 

It made the steak more enjoyable than my usual staple when I'm dieting which is just simply pan fried with salt and pepper.  Although it had oil in it, the green bits at least made me feel I was being a bit healthy.  And having chosen a portion of angel hair pasta on the side, it became clear that the spare sauce would make a good raw pesto.

I chopped all my ingredients by hand because I couldn't be faffed with cleaning out the food processor. Looking at different recipes, they mostly agree on the basic recipe for the sauce with variations on the herbs but some advocate the herbs being hand chopped and the garlic and onion only going in the food processor while others process the lot.

Whatever.  If you have really fresh parsley - I had a mahoosive bunch from the Morrisons Market then it's definitely worth a make.

And it means I get to post the Argentinian flag on my blog tonight.  Huzzah!

Even better, I've volunteered to help complete the sweep up for the Olympic Food Challenge during the Paralympics so watch out for more foreign dishes (and flags!) heading to this blog shortly.  Happy days!

Argentina - previously colonised by Ewan from Tonight's Menu

Lil Ms Squirrel's Cheat's Blinis

There have been accusations in the past that I am rubbish of letting go of things.  Whilst I like to protest that this is untrue, the last couple of days has made me realise that it's time to face up to my denial and admit that I am unable to let go of the Olympic Food Challenge.

It was just nineteen short days in length and yet, here I am two days after, still mourning its passing.  I must adopt a 'Feel the Fear...' approach to this and do some kind of ritual with candles and consign the OFC to a happy chapter in my past.  But for now, there's still a smidgen of caviar in my fridge and it would be a shame to let it go to waste, which is why I found myself troughing on blinis this past lunchtime.

A blini to the uninitiated is a Russian drop scone, made using buckwheat flour and yeast and served with caviar.  You also see it commonly served with prawns and smoked salmon too.  As I had the leftovers from Sunday's Danish open sandwiches to play with, it seemed like the obvious choice for a fast, tasty and posh working-from-home lunch.

Having run out of yeast at the weekend though, I faced the dilemma of whether or not the recipe would work without the extra lift.  Then I remembered an oft-used trick for pancake recipes that require a little extra bubble in them.  Fizzy water.  Or as Miss A calls it 'Funny Water'.  With some baking powder and whipped egg white, this worked a treat giving me soft, light pancakes which were perfect topped with some Philly and the aforementioned caviar and prawns.

And because they originate from Russia, I will plaster a Russian flag on the post because I can.  It's all part of the letting go.  Now I just need to come up with a non-country-specific recipe tomorrow to break the flag-waving habit.  And if I'm struggling to let go of the OFC, how on earth am I going to let go of my own blog in just 43 days time???

This is how I made them.

Makes six blinis (based on a Mary Berry recipe)

• 35g plain flour
• 35g wholemeal flour (use buckwheat if you can get it for the nutty flavour)
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 medium egg, separated
• 55ml skimmed milk, warmed
• 25ml fizzy water
• pinch of table salt



Flag addict alert! Russia

• spray oil

• caviar, prawns, lemon wedges (I forgot this in the pic!) and cream cheese or sour cream to serve

1. Whisk the egg yolk, water and milk together then combine with the flours, salt and baking powder to a smooth batter.
2. Whip the egg white until it forms stiff peaks.  Fold into the batter carefully.  Decant into a measuring jug.
3. Spray a frying pan with the spray oil and heat over a medium heat.  Pour the batter into 2-3 inch diameter circles, spaced 1-2 inches apart.  Cook for two minutes until the bottom is set and and bubbles start to form on the surface.  Carefully flip over and cook for a further minute.  Slide onto a warmed plate and continue cooking until all the batter is used.
4. Serve with the accompaniments.

Dan Lepard's Saffron Peach Cake

There's a rumour going around that I'm writing a cake blog.  This is not true.  I'm writing a blog where I try and cook something new every day for 366 days.  The original idea was to attempt to broaden my family's food horizons.  I thought I was doing pretty well, having clocked up 322 different recipes on consecutive days.  In fact, sometimes I've made more than one new recipe each day, but they haven't always made it to the blog.  I've survived two weeks on holiday, Christmas with my fussy family, various bugs and so on and every day made something new and written about it.  And yet, everyone still thinks I'm writing a cake blog.

Summer in a cake

Admittedly, these opinions have come from two sources.  My best friend who has discovered the delights of baking and whom I have gone from talking geek-speak to, to discussing the merits of Willie's 100% Cacao and the joys of owning a bundt tin.  The other source of the rumour is from my work colleagues who have been the (lucky) recipients of the majority of the cakes I've made over the past (nearly) year.

This is probably because it's where my 'knack' (I hesitate to call it talent) and passion lie.  In baking.  I enjoy cooking from scratch but when you live with someone who has to eat a dish that tastes exactly the same every time you make it, the joy can be taken out of cooking when you fear the reaction if you happen to have run out of xyz and replaced it with abc just this once.  With cake, most people are polite/complimentary about it.  I can't remember ever giving anyone (apart from the husband) a bit of cake and them not at least saying thank you, but more likely they provide very positive feedback.

The one thing I've gotten from this year of cooking and blogging is the confidence to be a little more creative and experimental in the baking department although I still have much to learn.  The fabulous Great British Bake Off is back on our screens tomorrow night.  It was watching that this time last year that inspired me to do this rather strange challenge to myself.  The only way to progress in something is to practice and evolve.  I have learnt so much this year about cooking and baking and flavours and little twists that I feel I'm in a better place than I was a year ago.  I will be watching avidly this year to see what other gaps in my knowledge I should consider plugging once I get underway with my new blog.

Top of the learning list is that when you use something up, remember to put it straight into the Ocado shopping app so when you have the urge to bake, you don't wind up having to adapt and cut corners on certain recipes.  Or if you happen to be going to the shops for one ingredient, double check the cupboards before you go to make sure you've got everything you need.  Which is why I ended up making an almost almondless almond cake.

I still can't let go of the Olympic Food Challenge

I always always always have two or three bags of ground almonds in my cupboard plus a big jar that I pour all the ends of packets into.  Usually because I forget I've got some and then buy another bag when I'm baking something so build up a stock.  So when I picked this cake, it was with some confidence that all I needed to buy was saffron.  Not so I discovered when I turned all the cupboards out to find every permutation of nut (Brazils, macadamias, walnuts, pine nuts, pecans, pistachios...) but nary a bag of ground almonds to be found.  I'd put them all in my mum's chocolate and coconut birthday cake the other day and not replaced them.  Oops.

So I ended up flavouring the sponge purely with almond essence and replacing the almonds weight-for-weight with more flour.  It seemed to work okay although the little slice I tried was quite crumbly.  I'm sure the almonds would've made the sponge much moister.

But this is a fabulously cheery cake with it's sunny saffron hue and topped with sliced peaches.  The perfect antithesis for a miserable August day.  You can find the recipe in Short and Sweet or on the Guardian website.

Olympic Food Challenge - Smörgåsbord Open Sandwiches on Black Bread with Pickled Cucumber - Denmark

It's all over.  This is my final Olympic Food Challenge Post.  The last medal has been contested and the UK won a silver.  I never thought I'd be sad to see the end of the Olympics, but it's been an amazing nineteen days that has bought most of the country together and encouraged me to learn more about the world and have fun whilst doing it.

Nom! is all I have to say about this

Denmark have had an okay games.  With 113 athletes competing in 17 disciplines, they will be heading home tomorrow with two golds, four silvers and three bronzes for their troubles.  And they even managed to swipe a gold medal in the track cycling which is pretty impressive given how well Team GB dominated that domain.

As for the foodie side of things, Denmark is the only place on my list of countries that I've actually been to.  I was about ten and my mother took me to Legoland.  My overriding food memory was of this really posh woman with an awful, horsey voice who used to spend all her time whinnying on about how 'Daddy has a private jet' and 'Daddy has a 40ft yacht' and how 'Tarquin and Ophelia are privately educated, don't you know'.  And yet every day, whilst everyone else stumped up the two Danish Kroner for a packed lunch, she used to save herself a few bob by taking enough food from the Smörgåsbord breakfast table and slipping it into a carrier bag to be consumed later in the day.  She even emptied bowls of rice krispies into bags.  I guess this is why I'm not rich.

Other than that, I remember eating a lovely, red spicy dish with frankfurters in it, potato salad and drinking Apfelsaft which bemused me because it was orange juice and not apple.  We may or may not have had Danish pastries.  We might have had bacon.  But there is nothing that I could put my finger on that I ate that I wanted to make again (25 years does a lot to dull the memory).

Not quite black, but close enough

So, having already tried making Danish pastries on this blog several times (cherry Danish, quick apricot Danish, disaster Danish and Dan Lepard's Amazing Danish), I wanted to try something else.  Before I picked Apple Cake for my Romanian offering, I really wanted to make Aebleskiver which are little apple dough balls from Denmark.  Trouble is, you need the proper pan or you don't get to make them as they come out in little spheres.  A bit of Googling told me there's not much else you can make in the special pan other than Aebleskiver and having already bought a bamboo steamer, I decided to try and keep on the husband's good side and not buy yet more things to clutter up the cupboard with.



Further Googling led me back to Smörgåsbord and a picture of Danish Open sandwiches.  Bingo.  I could get through today by trying a new recipe to satisfy my own blog criteria (however loose they are and how ever much I bend the rules to get through the 366 recipes!) and by making something remotely Danish looking, I'd tick the box on the OFC too.

I chose Dan Lepard's Black Bread recipe as I'd already done his Black Pepper Rye.  I know Scandinavians eat lots of rye bread.  Whether or not Dan's recipe is anywhere near what you'd find in Denmark, I have no idea, but I knew it would work and I'd most likely enjoy it.  And it did.  But I didn't go much on it sliced and buttered as I'd do with normal bread.  However, topped with cream cheese, pickled cucumber, prawns and caviar, the bread really came into its own and the liquorice flavour from the fennel seeds really complimented all the other flavours.

Labelled Elsinore but made in Sweden

I am seriously not a fan of licorice and only went with fennel seeds because I couldn't find my cumin seeds (hubby has been 'tidying' again).  If I make it again, I'll definitely go with the cumin seeds and replace the treacle with honey (as suggested by Dan).

And my new addiction is pickled cucumber.  This was a last minute addition as I suddenly got a bit panicked about what to put on the sandwich.  I already had the caviar and prawns but wondered if I could do two different types.  T'interweb suggested pickled cucumber and pickled herrings.  I found a recipe and made my own cucumber - simple, addictive, making more once this blog is posted.  Sadly(!), Sainzlebobs were all out of pickled herrings.  I was devastated.

So we go out on a high with me having tried some more new stuff, and enjoyed it.  I would like to thank Ewan Mitchell for hosting this challenge and encouraging us to experiment (although I draw the line at SoupTuesday's Deep Fried Duck Tongues).  Do go and read all the other amazing posts too.  You can find links on the Olympic Food Challenge blog.

Bread recipe can be found here (and also in Short and Sweet) and the one for the cucumber is here.

Olympic Food Challenge - Chicken Momos - Nepal

So here we are on the penultimate day of the Olympic Food Challenge and, for that matter, the penultimate day of the Olympic Games.  Team GB have just clocked up another amazing win from Mo Farah in the 5,000m.  Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I was able to view this feat on my phone whilst perched on the toilet seat in the bathroom as Miss A had her bath.

Sadly for Nepal, their athletes (five competitors, three disciplines) will be returning empty handed.  But thanks to their presence at the games, I got to make one of my favourite recipes from this challenge.  More on that shortly.

They are actually dumplings.  Not garlic bulbs!

As for a bit about Nepal, well this is where I've really failed.  Some years ago, one of my most lovely friends decided that he and I needed to take a trip to Nepal.  I have no idea why he chose this location.  I'm sure he must've said at the time but I was too busy nursing a broken heart after being dumped by my first serious boyfriend.  I think it was something that F had always wanted to do and thought that dragging me along for the ride would be entertaining.  I duly went out and bought a guide book to Nepal, scared myself silly as it was totally not my kind of holiday but thanks to Fate, F got a shiny new job, the moment passed and all I have to tell for the tale is that guide book.

Lord knows where it is.  I'm sure it's probably still in one of the packing boxes from when I finally moved out from the house I shared with the ex (I stayed on for a year after that).  I've moved twice since then and have boxes scattered at my current house, my mother's house, my grandfather's house and there are still a couple at the ex's house that he keeps trying to convince me to take.


Rather than boring you with details you can find on Wikipedia, I will tell you what I know off the top of my head.  It's somewhere in Asia.  It's landlocked.  It's where Everest is.  Those three points alone put me off of wanting to do the trip 12 years ago (although F is an amazing mate and I would have gone despite my misgivings).

Had I made it, I hopefully would've gotten to try Momos.  They're basically a dumpling like Chinese dim-sum but filled with a curry-based mixture of either meat or vegetables.  For real authenticity, I bought a Chinese bamboo steamer (much to the husband's dismay - it's another piece of kitchenware that will eventually end up in my massive box of rarely used utensils in the garage).  I also went so far as to make my own wrappers - mostly because I wouldn't have a clue where to buy them in provincial Wiltshire.

Best flag of the challenge

It was all surprisingly easy.  Chop up some meat and veg finely.  Stick in a shed-load of spices and leave to marinate for at least an hour.  The wrappers are just a flour and water dough, kneaded for ten minutes and then shaped into small balls and rolled out to 3 inches in diameter.  You fill, twist the tops and then steam them for 10-15 minutes.  This also scared the husband because he has a thing about fire and got all twitchy when I put a bamboo steamer over a naked flame.  How he missed the whacking great pot of water sandwiched between the two is beyond me.  I swear he was one digit away from dialling 999.

The filling was tasty.  Kind of like a Chinese-y curry rather than an Indian one.  All the taste but none of the heat (despite me going overboard with the chilli).  It would make a good spring roll filling too and I intend to do this with the rest of the mixture and some filo pastry tomorrow night.  The wrappers came out well too.  I was worried they'd be a little doughy, but they were kind of like a soft pasta.  I must admit, I'd run out of regular plain flour so used 00 pasta flour which may or may not have made a slight difference to the texture.

A gold for this one and I'll definitely be playing with the steamer again.  I can see us investing in a fire extinguisher for the kitchen very shortly though.

You can find the recipe here.  I made a fifth of it and it was enough to make 12 dumplings.  There are also tons of other tasty momo recipes to try on that page (which I'll be doing soon!)

Olympic Food Challenge: Swayweih and Kahwa - Oman

Like a lot of my other non-European countries, I new little about Oman before the Olympic Food Challenge began.  It's all been very educational.  I knew it was a Gulf state but would have been hard pressed to pinpoint it straight away on a map.  What surprised me was the cuisine because it seems to be heavily influenced by Indian food despite there being a tract of sea between the two.  I ended up discounting a lot of the recipes because they were things I'd associate with India like Biryani - although the husband might have eaten that.

Coffee wasn't quite thick enough to stand the spoon up

Instead, as Friday is a working from home day, I decided to go with a breakfast option.  Mostly because it is served with Kahwa - or ridiculously sweet coffee, spiked with cardamom.  If there's one thing the Middle Easterners do well, it's coffee.  Dark and thick enough to stand your spoon up in.  Sadly, I had to make do with Colombian (my favourite, but I doubled the quantity of coffee to water) and for someone who doesn't take sugar in her coffee (unless it's a caramel latte and that doesn't count as coffee), it was really enjoyable.

As for the pasta with scrambled eggs, coconut, onion and sugar or Swayweih to give it it's proper name.  Well it was different.  I was expecting horrible.  Onion, coconut, eggs and sugar?  Hardly sweet and sour but neither savoury nor sweet.  But actually, it worked.  Laced with more cardamom (love the stuff although I know it's a bit of a Marmite flavour) and stirred through vermicelli it wasn't half bad and although I polished it off quite quickly, it kept me going from 7am through til 1pm - something I can normally only accomplish if I have a protein bar or get stuck in a meeting at work.

Omani flag

Would I eat it again?  If I'm honest, probably not.  I like my pasta dressed with parmesan.  I like my scrambled egg slightly runny and smothered in Heinz ketchup on top of thick, crusty sourdough toast that's been liberally slathered with salted butter (a once in a blue moon treat).  Onions, sugar and coconut? Not mixed in with my breakfast all at the same time.  But if I ever find myself in Oman and it's on the breakfast menu, I would consider it again.

That said, I think it's probably a good post-run breakfast with plenty of protein and carbs.  The butter will help keep the speed of the sugar release from the white pasta down and the coffee is sure to keep the adrenaline and metabolism pumping for a while after (I wish I'd gone to nutritionist school when I was younger).  You never know, I might just change my mind one day.

You can find the recipe here along with everything you ever wanted to know about Oman.

Olympic Food Challenge: Kebapche with Shopska Salad - Bulgaria

Bulgaria is forever tied to one of my childhood food memories.  My godfather used to travel there a lot for work in the eighties and for some economical reason or another, the Bulgarians couldn't get enough of Sterling.  He used to return home with bags full of Toblerone because apparently, whatever you bought, they gave you the change in chocolate.  One tale I remember quite clearly involved buying a bottle of pink champagne for just £1 and getting one of those mahoosive Toblerones you can only buy in Duty Free as change.  If only you could do that today - I'd be there like a shot.

Kebapche with Shopska Salad

The other food thing I remember was him complaining that all you ever got for pudding was yogurt and cherries.  Everywhere.  He's a chef with his own fancy pants fine dining company and so he's not the kind of person to seek out the most English of foreign restaurants when he's away.  He'll do his best to eat 'native' - short of accosting someone in the street and insisting that they take him home and feed him.  He said it put him off of yogurt and cherries for life.  At the time, I thought this was an amazing thing to have every night for pudding.  Muller Fruit Corners were in their infancy back then and I remember pleading with anyone who would listen to let me have one because I so wanted to taste that glorious shiny black cherry sauce with the snowy white yogurt.  Now, as an adult, I can see that it's not actually the be all and end all of desserts.  But if the restaurant gave you Toblerone as change when you paid, I wouldn't be complaining.


Anyhow, whilst doing my research, I did toy with the idea of an easy-win by doing something with yogurt and cherries.  But I couldn't find a recipe for it!  I then decided to make a Bulgarian Wine Kebab which is basically pork sauteed in wine and served with mash.  But of course, the weather decided to buck its ideas up and I wasn't in the market for a heavy dish like that tonight.  The meat has now been placed in the freezer to languish there for a few months as I'm really not a pork fan.

Luckily, my back up recipe was for lamb kebapche with shopska salad.  Basically minced lamb kebabs with a chopped salad covered in feta.  Simple, fresh and summery.  If I'm honest, similar to a meal that I'd cook myself.  I was a little disappointed by the lack of taste in the meat - the recipe uses minimal spices and I find that lamb mince tends to need a lot thrown into the mix to stop it tasting like cardboard.  My go-to recipe for lamb burgers/meatballs/kebabs is definitely the Lorraine Pascale recipe that's the number two most read post on this blog.

As for the salad, I liked the addition of herbs which is something I wouldn't normally do and the red wine vinegar dressing worked for me.  I normally make the same dressing time and again (olive oil, balsamic, lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper) so it was good to have this lighter combination of flavours. I think I've got some learning to do about appropriate dressings for different salads.

The Bulgarian flag isn't stunted - it's white at the top!

For simplicity, taste and crowd pleasing abilities, this gets another silver for Bulgaria to go with the one they won in the woman's wrestling.  The only medal from the 63 athletes competing in 16 disciplines.

And finally, whilst on the subject of women wrestlers, a week or so ago I happened across a link on the BBC website that allowed you to compare your physique to that of an Olympic athlete.  I am closest to a shot putter or weightlifter (*horrified face*).  The only way I could get round this was by elevating my height to that of when I wear my stilettos - the extra four inches turning me into a footballer instead.  Amusingly, someone commented that pretty much every female they knew came out as a weight lifter, shot putter or wrestler and it must be a fix because nobody came out as a female volleyballer.  Nobody that is, except for one of my male friends.  That did make me chuckle!

Olympic Food Challenge: Bamya Alich’a Okra with Quick Injera - Ethiopia

If there is one certainty at any summer Olympics, it's that the Ethiopians will take home medals for running.  This year, they've fielded 35 athletes in just two disciplines (athletics and swimming) and have (so far) gained two gold and two bronze medals.  Running is 'my sport' - the one thing I actively participate in - and it's one of the few sports where the masses can participate in events alongside the greats.

I've been lapped at the Bath Half by some of the best runners from Ethiopia and there is nothing like the resounding cheers and applause from fellow runners as they speed off towards the distant tape whilst the rest of us trudge round on our second loop.  It always brings a little lump in my throat to be in the presence of such talent and I have enjoyed watching them race on the tellybox.

I went a bit overboard on the okra to tomato ratio

As for the cuisine, I was a little apprehensive when I saw Ethiopia on my list.  I was also slightly shocked at myself when I realised I had no clue about Ethiopia and it's culture other than memories of the terrible famines that have wreaked destruction across the country on so many occasions.  LiveAid and BandAid are rooted firmly in the memories of my childhood and I suppose I never considered anything other than the images of starving orphans that haunted the telly for endless months.  More shocking than that was the number of times that I heard 'all you'll need is a bag of grain with UN stamped on it' I mentioned having Ethiopia on my list.  It appears I'm not the only one ignorant of the country's own cuisine.

A typical meal is a stew with bread and grains.  Stews usually consist of a rich vegetable sauce, often with meat such as beef, chicken, goat or lamb.  Injera the most common type of bread is actually more akin to a buckwheat pancake then bread and is leavened using a sourdough starter.  One thing that surprised me is that pasta is commonly available in Ethiopia too.  And they snack on popcorn.

I really wanted to make Injera but struggled with sourcing Teff flour.  Teff is apparently a super-healthy   alternative to wheat (higher protein than wheat flour, easily absorbed iron source, lots of good nutrients)  and accounts for one quarter of Ethiopia's grain production.  It can be added to soups as a thickener or cooked like porridge.  Because the recipe also requires a sourdough starter to be left out in the sun, I must admit I did start to look at alternatives but eventually came across a recipe for quick Injera that uses regular flour and doesn't need the long fermentation time.


Being a sourdough expert now (ha ha), I know that the quick version of the recipe doesn't have the same taste potential of the proper sourdough, but it was good enough for a midweek meal.  The resulting batter made for very soft pancakes and because the husband has 'rationalised' my cooking implements after he had a bit of a barney with the utensil holder last night, I couldn't find my fish slice so ended up shredding them trying to toss them with my tiny icing palette knife.  But they still tasted good.

I chose an okra dish to go with the meal purely because the only time I've ever eaten okra before, they were disgusting.  We were on a trip to see my father in his native environment and I was already in a bit of a grumpy mood (unusual for me(!), but my father brings out the very worst in me).  We'd gone native for dinner.  The husband couldn't deal with the chicken and rice dish he had ordered not having come in plastic packets from Sainzlebobs and having been determined that I would try some of everything Vincenzian on the menu, I'd ordered fried okra.  I was expecting something akin to crispy little hairy chillis without the heat.  What I got was a plate of green slime.

But this is an Olympic Food Challenge and having barracked our esteemed leader @EwanMitchell about him having chosen breadfruit (another bad memory of Vincenzian cuisine - along with cassava, plantain and conch (or maybe it's just my stepmother's terrible cooking??)), I felt I should take one for the team and try cooking okra myself.  Ewan had said he'd had a less than good experience with okra in the past but has become an okra convert thanks to this recipe he'd tried for the OFC.  He inspired me to step up to the plate and try cooking it myself and yes, whilst I won't be rushing off to the supermarket to buy them by the bucketload, I won't necessarily shy away from dishes that include them in the future.

Even Miss A loved Bamya Alich'a Okra (minus the okra - she's a toddler and they "don't do green food") and she ate all of my Injera (she was supposed to be having pasta) so I will be awarding this dish a silver.  Give it a go.  You may just learn to love okra too.  Unless you're a toddler of course.

The recipe for the okra can be found here and the one for the quick Injera is here.

Olympic Food Challenge: Tavče Gravče - Macedonia

What another fantastic day at the Olympics for Team GB!  Medals for Sir Chris, Vicky P, the Dressage team and the Brownlee brothers.  And despite a poor performance on the Olympic Food Challenge front in my kitchen today, I am loving every minute of both The Games and The Challenge.

Tonight's meal was a toss up between Bulgaria and Macedonia.  Being neighbours, the cuisine of the two countries has many similarities between them and with last night's pick of Romania.  All have been part of the Ottoman Empire and so cheese pastries, lamb kebabs, salads laced with feta and strong coffee are all high on the list of popular dishes.

The sourdough toast was amazing. Shame about the beans

 I bought a lovely sourdough on the way home so plumped for Tavče Gravče, Macedonia's national dish.  In a nutshell it's a white bean dish, seasoned with tomatoes and paprika and baked in the oven.  Being time poor (as always) I spent some time looking for a quick version of the recipe that didn't involve having to spend hours boiling beans multiple times.  This was where my game plan went wrong.

The picture for the first recipe I looked at showed a dish reminiscent of well-cooked Frijoles Refritos (refried beans) with a gloriously sloppy texture, punctuated with the odd firmer bean here and there.  The quick version of the dish seemed to have more texture but still looked colourful and tasty.

Mine, unfortunately, came out crusty on the top with nearly crunchy beans (despite fifteen minutes of simmering and fifteen minutes in the oven).  The quick recipe uses canned cannelini beans and I think if they'd been less solid, they would've absorbed more of the flavour from the accompanying sauce.  Instead, they were just bland, bland, bland.

Macedonian flag 

This led me into further trouble when I tried to pass the husband my uneaten dinner and Miss A informed me that I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I'd finished every last mouthful.  The argument that there is one rule for Mummy and one rule for the two-year-old fell on deaf ears and I was forced to surreptitiously hide the offending beans in strategic places (under the dish, in the dogs etc etc) just so I could leave the table to get a drink of water.  Call it a lesson learned.

This recipe warrants a 'Did not qualify' which is the same reward that Macedonia's four competitors received in their events at London 2012.  However, I may try the long-winded version of it one day just because I'm sure it will be far better if cooked without trying to cut corners.

Olympic Food Challenge - Romanian Apple Cake - Romania

I think Romania is the first of my countries that I've blogged about that has actually won some medals at the time of me posting.  Of course, they've had just over a week to get going and have managed to amass two golds (gymnastics and shooting), four silvers (judo x2, weightlifting and fencing) and two bronze (gymnastics and weightlifting) so far.  In short, don't mess with the Romanians - they're a strong and agile bunch.

Not a Cheeky Girl in sight

Romania itself is probably best known for being home to Dracula's castle in Transylvania - a historical region in the centre of the country.  Depending on whether you love or hate horror stories, that could be seen as one of a few of the bad things that Romania is known for.  Other slightly unpalatable things that spring to mind are communist dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu, who was overthrown in the bloody revolution in 1989 (I vividly remember delivering newspapers splashed with images from this in my formative years) and, perhaps worst of all horrors, for giving the world The Cheeky Girls.

On the plus side Romanian has given the world a host of eminent scientists, artists and sportsmen and women - you can read about them here.

The cuisine - as one website states - isn't necessarily the first thing you would consider when visiting Romania.  Not being an expert on this subject, I would agree however that it does seem to have many similarities to food from other countries that formed part of the Ottoman empire.  On the one hand, it's diverse.  On the other hand, when you have Bulgaria, Cyprus and Macedonia in your Olympic Food Challenge list, you don't want to be too samey.

I eventually settled on a Romanian apple cake because I had to do at least one bake during these two weeks (I've also baked several new recipes that I've not blogged about thanks to OFC including a rather nice triple layer chocolate and coconut cake and a neopolitan bundt cake).  Baking is probably my own best discipline when it comes to food and if I was going to go for gold in any category, this would be the one.

Sadly, I think I let myself down with this recipe.  Or at least the apples I chose let me down.  The recipe calls for five apples, but doesn't specify which type.  I went for the Pink Lady variety because they normally have a great, fizzy flavour and have previously worked well when a recipe has called for eating rather than cooking apples.  Unfortunately, this particular batch lacked that little bit of pizazz to contrast with the very sweet-spicy sponge that the recipe produces.  Ten out of ten to the recipe for simplicity and a great bake result.  One out of ten to the overpriced apples from Sainzlebobs, giving this an overall result of a silver.

You can find the recipe here.

Romanian flag

Olympic Food Challenge: Abacate Com Atum - Guinea Bissau

What a weekend it's been.  Personally, I missed most of the sporting action because I was too busy enjoying myself in the bosom (not quite literally) of my extended family as we celebrated two birthdays and a wedding.  And with a huge haul of medals, Britain has literally become Great once more.  I've never been prouder to be British.  I was even pleased that dour old Andy Murray won.  Didn't get to see the final so I don't know if he actually cracked a smile, but I'm sure he deserved it.

Elegantly (not!) served in an avocado shell

As for Guinea Bissau, they have sent just four athletes to London to compete in two disciplines.  Much as I love that Team GB (the real Team GB!) are pocketing medals left, right and centre, I do still believe that it's the taking part that counts and the Bissau-Guineans should be just as proud of their competitors as we are of ours.

Known for its political instability - no elected president has served a full five year term - Guinea Bissau is situated on the west coast of Africa, bordered by Senegal and Guinea.  The official language is Portugese, although this is only spoken by 14% of the population with the rest speaking either Kriol (a Portugese version of Creole) or native African languages.  Having been colonised by the Portugese from the 16th century onwards, the cuisine still retains a huge Portugese influence.

One of the biggest problems I encountered when researching a recipe for today's post was finding something that is definitely from Guinea Bissau.  There are few recipes available online and those that are generally indicate that they're actually a Portugese recipe with no real confirmation that you would find the meal served in Guinea Bissau.

In the end, I settled for an avocado and tuna dish - mostly because I had all the ingredients to hand (I bought a huge pack of avocados last week and wanted to use the last one up).  Although not very photogenic - my food styling skills remain terrible - I did actually enjoy this dish.  I was unconvinced at the start because I thought it was trying to be a fancy prawn cocktail - minus prawns, obviously - but the addition of coconut worked really well and gave it a lovely tropical twist.

Guinea Bissau Flag

As I don't have evaporated milk and didn't want to waste a whole can on a single recipe, I used some Greek yogurt instead.  I also used grated creamed coconut rather than fresh.  I've already had one injury (burnt hand) during the Olympic Food Challenge, I didn't fancy another (hammered hand) by trying to crack open a coconut.

You can find the recipe here.  Definitely worth a try as an alternative dinner party starter.