Day 10: Austria and Palatschinke mit Marillenmarmelade

Grützi Raffies!

The big 1-0 has arrived! The first 10 days of this challenge are over and I wanted to thank you all for accompanying me in my journey. Still 187 dishes to go!

I must admit that I did not know about the Pancake Day and that when I was choosing all the dishes for the challenge, I wanted to change from the main-course-type of challenge once in a while.
My grandma used to live close to the Austrian border, which means that I grew up with family in Austria and a very close relationship to this country.
I know that Austria is famous for its desserts and pastries and this is why I decided to go for a dessert. One of my favourites as a kid was Palatschinke. This is basically a pancake traditionally filled with "Marillenmarmelade", apricot jam. Other versions are obviously also common, like Nutella or fruits, ice-cream, etc. So here is my Austrian contribution to Pancake Day: Happy Pancake Day, everybody!

Did you celebrate Pancake day?

See you tomorrow for the last country with the letter "A"

Love,

Raffi

Day Nine: Australian Meat Pie

You come from a land down under...

Today we are in Australia and we are going to enjoy some typical Australian meat pie!
And since I must confess that I am no big fan of ketchup, I decided to make the ketchup myself.
It would have been awesome, if I had had smaller meat pie molds, but you can't have everything, right?
The recipe took less than previously expected and turned out to be a success.
Next step would be enjoying a meat pie in Australia..

For this dish I have actually followed more than one recipe and I have made my own ketchup, but here is a nice recipe for a gorgeous looking Australian meat pie.

See you tomorrow!

Love,

Raffi

Day Eight: Armenia and Armenian Eech

Hello Raffies and welcome back!

And a week has already passed..that was quick! Well, today we are going to Armenia, a fascinating country that I have always wanted to visit one day. Once again, choosing from the dishes Armenia is famous for was not easy, but as a big fan of bulgur, I wanted to make Armenian Eech.
The dish was very easy and quick to prepare and I was even lucky enough to find grape leaves!
You could accompany it with some meat, but I wasn't feeling like it, so I decided to go with the vegetarian version. It was delicious!

Have you ever tried this dish? This recipe can help you out with your version of Armenian Eech.

Love,

Raffi

Day Seven: Argentina and berenjenas en escabeche

Hello Raffies!

Moving over to the American continent. Next on the list is Argentina. I wanted to make an asado, a traditional barbecue, but the weather in the Netherlands is far from allowing any barbecues. Therefore I decided to challenge myself in something I had never done before: pickles!
To be perfectly honest, being married to a Japanese got me to make Japanese and Korean pickles, but I had never pickled anything in the Western style.
Thus, I made berenjenas en escabeche, pickled aubergines, with carne a la plancha, grilled meat, and some salsa chimichurri. I know that it would have been better, if the aubergines had had more time to ferment properly, but even after a day in their marinade they were awesome!

Here is one recipe you can follow for your dish.

See you tomorrow!

Love,

Raffi

Day six: Antigua and Barbuda and their Pepperpot

Hello my dear Raffies,

Today is Antigua and Barbuda's turn with their national dish: Pepperpot with fungee.
Unlike with fufu, I had already made fungee and since I so happen to be Italian, I had the luck to grow up with polenta, which resembles fungee. As for the pepperpot, it was an interesting mixture and the flavour happened to turn out more harmonious and delicate than I had previously expected.
Up until now, I have only been cooking dishes I had never tried before nor cooked before and I have liked every single one of them so far!

If you are curious on how to make this dish, here you can find a nice recipe.

Well, it is rather late and I am off to bed!

Hasta mañana!

Love,

Raffi

Day Five: Calulu de peixe from Angola

Hello Raffies,

Today we are going to Angola. This country's dish is a clear example for its Portuguese influence. To accompany the Calulu, also known as Caruru, I made fufu. It was my first time making fufu and I think I managed quite well. I was surprised by how filling the fufu itself was! One thing is for sure, for the remaining African countries, there will be a lot of fufu coming up and I can't wait to improve my skills!
Have you ever tasted this dish or tried making it? I have used this recipe to help me make this dish.

Goodnight, everybody!

Love,

Raffi

Day Four: Jamón amb mel from Andorra

Hello Raffies,

This time we are going to a very small country that is often skipped: Andorra.
Due to its position, the cuisine resembles a lot the Spanish one. Therefore, I decided to pick jamón amb mel. Ham with a honey-vinegar sauce. Very easy and fast to make and very delicious. I paired it with a nice salad. Afterwards, I decided to go practice my skating on the ice-ring.

I have a recipe in Spanish for this dish, but it is very simple. Just mix vinegar, honey and olive oil. Depending on whether you want it more or less dense or more or less acid, you can adjust the amount of vinegar and honey.

See you next time!

Love,

Raffi

Day Three: Algerian Hariri

Good evening Raffies!

I hope everything is fine with you!
Today I was in bit of a hurry, since as a newcomer to the Netherlands, I am following a Dutch language course after work, which interferes a bit with my schedule. Thus, planning and timing are key: I prepared everything for this soup before leaving for school and left it simmering on the stove while I was gone (my husband was home, so no problem with fires).
It might not look like much, but it was so incredibly flavourful and delicious that I brought the leftovers with me as lunch the following day. I'll have to make it again, definitely!

For this recipe, I have used the one on my homemade book, but this recipe is very similar to the one I have.

Have a nice evening!

Love,

Raffi

Day Two: Albanian Byrek

Hello Raffies!

It is time for dinner again and this time we are going to Albania!
Trying to vary a bit from eternal meat throughout the challenge, I have added several vegetarian dishes. One of them is this awesome Albanian Byrek. It is basically a pie made out of phillo dough, feta cheese and spinach. It was so delicious that we almost ate up the whole pie in one single meal.

If you are curious and want to try this dish at home, here is the recipe I used.
See you for the following country!

Love,

Raffi

Day One: Afghanistan and its Kabuli Palaw

Good morning, Raffies!

When I was planning my world food challenge, I was considering several ways of organising the flow of dishes. Since I had bought one of those scratchable maps, I would have enjoyed proceeding per continent, but I thought that it would have been easy for me losing track of the countries and dishes. Ultimately, I decided to stick to the easy way and proceed in alphabetical order.

The first country on the menu was Afghanistan. I am fascinated by this country, its culture and cuisine. Among the countless deliciously looking recipes, choosing one was all but easy. In the end, I decided to go for the Kabuli Palaw. Palaw, also known as pilaw, is a fruity rice, usually served with raisins, nuts and saffron. In addition, the rice is cooked with lamb or mutton and served on a big plate in the typical mountain shape. The result was amazing. I had feared for this dish to be quite dry, but not at all. The meat was tender and juicy and the rice was fantastic. For those of you who do not eat meat, there are several vegetarian variations too. Kabuli palaw is often referred to as the national food of Afghanistan. It was definitely a good start into this challenge!
For those of you who want to try to make this dish at home, I have followed this recipe.

See you tomorrow with the next dish!

Love,

Raffi

Raffi's World Food Challenge

Good morning dear Raffies!

For those of you who already know me, I love to cook. For some unknown reason it relaxes me and makes me happy. I love cooking dishes from distant and foreign countries, because it gives me the feeling of getting to know the country and its people, at least to some extent, as long as I cannot jump on a plane and discover the culture and country in person.

This is where this challenge came from. In 197 days cooking 197 dishes from 197 different countries. As I am a person who gets easily overexcited about something only to lose that initial enthusiasm and ultimately give up, I think this is a good chance to stick to my plan and finish what I've started.

Do you also struggle to finish your projects?

Love,

Raffi