Thursday, May 26, 2011

Cooking in M-ville/Recipe of the Week


We like good food.  
I like to make good food, and we like to eat good food. 
That, however, is not always easy in this part of the world. 
Take Monday evening for example: Little T and I went to the bazaar (by car) with another expat family to pick up supplies for a team party we were throwing the next day.  The weather was gorgeous, Little t was in a great mood, we had a lot of fun browsing shops and finding what we needed. At 5:30, we were headed in the direction of home.  We stopped one more time and Katrina (mom of the family we were with) hopped out to pick up wrapping paper. I noticed what time it was and comment to Vesa, her husband, “it is nights like this where I really wish I could stop and get supper from McDonalds!”  Two seconds later Katrina re-enters the car and the first words out of her mouth are: “It is already 5:30, what are we going to do for supper?  Wish there was a McDonalds around!”
The moral of this story is not that McDonalds is good food. (Or that we even eat there that much at all.) Believe me, we are not so jaded as to think that. The moral of the story is that good food…or even not so good food…is not easy to come by in M-ville.
That said, I feel quite spoiled in this place.  Compared to our last location and some of the other places/situations that people live in, we can’t complain at all with where we are or what is available here.
But, spoiled as I sometimes feel, good food takes work. We don’t have a huge selection of veggies or good meat. There is no freezer section. Veggies are not pre-sliced, or even pre-washed when you buy them, and their availability comes and goes in a mysterious fashion. Rice has to be rinsed before it is cooked (usually 5 or 6 times) to make it edible. Beans and lentils are dried and must be picked through before soaking and cooking to ensure that all of the rocks, nails, birdseed, etc is out. Each step takes time and energy and…you get the idea. 
There is also the question of availability. Like I said, I realize I am somewhat spoiled here.  I have lived in Lal where potatoes and garlic are the only “fresh” vegetables available 9 months out of the year, so I complain carefully. Here, however, things vanish and I can’t plan on a meal with certainty because on that given day there is a very good chance that the vegetable I want to use will be completely absent from the bazaar.
For example:
 A few days ago, we had guests coming for supper. I found a really great recipe for eggplant burgers and was very excited to give it a go. First thing in the morning I sent kAkA to the bazaar to look for eggplants. He looked doubtful when I asked.  He replied, “I will try, but I can’t promise anything.  Two days ago Soile (lady we share our yard with) wanted them and I couldn’t find them. Yesterday, the bazaar was full of them – every shopkeeper had them! So, lets hope there are still some around.”  There must have a deep and burning desire in every cook in M-ville the previous night to have eggplant because he came back and said he couldn’t find a single one. 
Of course.
So, there I was, my supper plans dashed.  We ended up having some potato dish that was decent – not great – but food in our bellies.  That night, however, I was still dreaming of the beautiful eggplant burgers that were not to be.
The point of that is that I never know when things will just up and vanish and totally throw a loop in my best laid supper plans.  Like carrots. One day there were just no more carrots…couldn’t find a single carrot. And that was that.  Stir fry, carrot cake, steamed carrots, not possible.
In spite of the challenges, I keep getting lucky and coming across recipes that are really good and that work here.  I have decided to start passing them so that someone else in a similar situation may benefit from them (or ‘normal’ people back home, as they are really good).
This first recipe proves my point of good food taking work. 
We had guests for lunch two days ago so I decided to make this Minestrone Soup. I found this recipe in a book and we have eaten it often since then.  It is healthy and adaptable and I can usually find most of the ingredients here – in some form or another.  Little t eats bowl-fulls of it at a time, so that is a bonus!
So, this recipe has the potential to be really simple – use canned tomatoes and beans, a little chopping and viola! You have created a masterpiece!  Yesterday, however, it wasn’t quite that easy, it took some work.
First thing in the morning, I sent kAkA to the bazaar to buy potatoes, zucchini and tomatoes. 
I didn’t have canned beans, so after sorting and rinsing the beans (kidneys and garbanzos), I boiled them for 3-4 minutes and then soaked them for a few hours and then cooked them in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes.
I also realized half-way through that I was out of canned tomatoes (can’t get them here in M-ville) so I had to use fresh ones. They worked great, but it was an extra step to wash and chop them.
I also decided to use fresh green beans from the garden. This required going out to the garden, picking the beans, stemming them, washing them, chopping them and then adding them to the pot.
So, thankfully angel khAla’s daughter, Hope, was there that morning and did most of the chopping for me.  It wouldn’t have been bad, but I was also making BBQ chicken and baked potatoes for 30 people for that night, a cake for lunch and muffins for Little t (with Little t ‘helping’), so we had our hands full! 
After we got the beans cooked and everything chopped, the recipe was easy after that.  It was just the extra steps and legwork that made it seem tedious.  But we love love love this soup, so it was worth it in the end. 
Here is the recipe and I will add my modifications at the end. 
Mom’s Minestrone Soup   - Murree Christian School Cookbook
1/3 cup oil
¼ cup margarine
1 large onion, sliced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 large carrots, diced
¼ kg green beans, cut up
Cook vegetables in large pot in oil and margarine until lightly browned
Add:
6 cups water
1 kg (2 cans or 2 cups chopped) tomatoes
2 med zucchini, diced
½ small cabbage sliced
½ bunch chopped spinach
1 t. salt or to taste
2 cubes beef stock/bullion
Reduce heat to low; cover; simmer 40 minutes or until vegetable are tender. Do not overcook.
Add:
1-2 cups cooked kidney beans
1-2 cups cooked garbanzo beans
½ cup uncooked macaroni noodles
Cook 15 minutes or until noodles are cooked and soup is slightly thickened.
Modifications: 
- This time for veggies, I used potatoes, zucchini, onion, mushrooms, and green beans. Like I said, you can really throw anything in there, this is just what was available in my cupboard and the bazaar that day.  
- I also add 2-3 cloves of minced garlic when I add the potatoes and onion in the beginning.
- I add 1-2 Tablespoons of basil as well, usually toward the end of the cooking. Adjust to taste.
- I don’t use all of the oil – as I find it is too greasy if you use that much butter and oil.  So maybe half of 1/3 (math is my strong point, can’t you tell?!?)
- I also cook the pasta separately and then just add it to the bowls at the end. I find if I add it to the soup, it gets mushy and gross when used as leftovers. This make a lot of soup and the leftovers are awesome…but even better when the pasta isn’t soggy.
- We sprinkle parmesan cheese on ours and enjoy with a fresh piece of hot naan.
That’s it! Enjoy!  Let me know if you try it!

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