Empanadillas De Atun and Classic Tapas

In keeping with the idea that goats and their cheese were brought to France through Spain by the Saracens, I have decided to start my dishes for this week in Spain and then move into French cuisine. Empanadillas are the smaller version of an empanada. The name is derived from the Spanish verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. However they can be made by wrapping a pastry or a bread dough around a filling. This dish was possibly influenced by the "fatay", a dish brought into Spain by the Saracens during their occupation of the Iberian peninsula. This dish is essentially a Galician dish, Galicia being in north west Spain, but there are variations across Spain and even into South America. I have chosen to make empanadillas stuffed with tuna, goats cheese, pine nuts, capers, olives, onion, garlic and spiced with smoked paprika. Paprika is an essential spice in Spanish cooking and "La Chinata", smoked paprika, is amazing with a deep rich smokey flavor that emparts a wonderful flavour to your food. In Brisbane you can buy it from Black Pearl Epicure for around $8. I used puff pastry which is not a traditional option but for the purposes of time efficiency worked out well.



In keeping with my tapas theme I thought I would also choose a few other classic Spanish tapas. We had "Alcachofas En Vinagreta Aromatica", boiled artichokes with a vinaigrette spiced with cumin, chilli and coriander powder. This dish was another nod to the Saracens influence on Spannish food.



Dish number three is definitely a Spanish classic which I have eaten in Spain while I was there: "Patatas Bravas". This dish involved twice-fried potato cubes served with a tomato sauce, spiced with paprika and cayenne pepper. The double frying of the potatoes keeps them extra crisp and prevents the sauce making them soggy.



Another classic on the menu was "Garbonzos Con Chorizo", or chickpeas with chorizo. Chorizo is the classic Spanish sausage made from pork and paprika, and chickpeas are also a very classic component of Spanish cuisine. The chickpeas were cooked in chicken stock along with a bay leaf, cinnamon quill and cloves. This gave the chickpeas a mouthwatering mildly spiced flavour that really added complexity and depth to the dish.



The last dish was an afterthought brought about by spotting some thin sweet peppers at the markets at West End on our weekly shopping trip. "Pimientos Rellenos", or stuffed peppers, are probably a dish many people have had or heard of. I stuffed mine with rice (par cooked in chicken stock), ground beef and spiced with cayenne pepper and paprika.

Well that is it for my Spanish feast. Next stop... France!

Goats Cheese

So the ingredient for next week has been delivered, and the winner is GOATS CHEESE. An interesting ingredient which opens up a world of choices for this week's dishes. I think I will aim for three dishes this week - two mains and a dessert as well. Well, off to do some research and try and put together some great dishes that accentuate the characteristics of the ingredient, as well as illustrate its culinary history.

I looked back at the history of cheese generally and found this interesting story of its inception. Sure, it may not be strictly historically accurate, but I like the idea.

"Cheese was said to be discovered by an unnamed Arab. He is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he stopped to quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse. The nomad, unconcerned with technical details, found the whey drinkable and the curds edible"

However it came about, it is perhaps more accepted that goats cheese was there at the beginning of the discovery of cheese. Goats were among the first domesticated animals alongside sheep in around 10,000BC. Around 8,000BC farmers in the eastern Mediterranean began keeping small herds of goats for their meat, skins and milk. The milk could be made into cheese which was less perishable, making ideal for these nomadic people. In Homer's "The Odyssey" the cyclops, Polyphemus, place goats curd in moulds made from rush. Goat cheese spread around the Mediterranean with the Islamic conquest of the area by the Saracens. They also invaded France from Spain and from there they moved north, taking with them their goats and their cheese. Another point of note is that when the Sarcens reached the Loire river, which at that time was a major trade and transport route, they did not cross the river and were eventually forced slowly south. This perhaps accounts for the many varieties of goats cheese to be found south of the river.

So if an Arab invented cheese and if the Saracens took goats and their cheese from northern Africa through Spain to France so that is the same path my dishes this week will take. Stay tuned for the first dish this weekend.

Polenta Con La Saliccia

I have headed to Italy for my second dish. There are two common types of polenta: fine-grained, pale yellow Veneto polenta; and large-grained, bright golden-yellow Lombard or Piedmontese polenta. The first is generally served with the texture of mashed potato, and the latter is more often served firmer. I actually chose my recipe from a book called the Silver Spoon which, according to the blurb on the cover, is "Italy's best selling cookbook for over 50 years". It is a great book and more like an encyclopedia than a cook book. The recipes are simple and honest, and illustrate well the Italian view towards food. As I mentioned earlier while southern Italians dined on pasta, in the north it was rice and polenta. In keeping with that theme I have chosen a simple hearty northern Italian dish with a mirepoix (carrot, onion and celery) cooked with tomato and Italian pork sausage, served on polenta. The simplicity of the dish had me a little unsure of the results, however I was pleasantly surprised. The key to the dish was perfect seasoning of the stew to bring out the flavour in the tomato, while being careful not to over season once the salt from the sausage released into the sauce. It would have been improved with a higher quality sausage - so off to a good deli next time! The polenta was a great match and held its smooth yet slightly grainy texture, while absorbing the sauce. The delicate corn flavour was also enhanced by the stirring in of a knob of butter just before serving. I will endeavour to get away from the peasant dishes for the next challenge, but there is something rewarding about simple food, done well.

Southern fried chicken, red beans and rice with corn bread and honey butter

I have decided to head to the southern states of America for my first dish. There is a restaurant in New Farm not too far from where I live called Blue Smoke BBQ. It is a Southern American restaurant that specialises in ribs which are smoked on the premises. The food is great, and perhaps one of the more unexpected highlights is their corn bread with honey butter and this is where I have started. There are quite a few versions of corn bread including corn pone, an old recipe that has even been referred to by Mark Twain, johnny cakes and hush puppies - a deep fried version. Each has their own story and place in American history.

Now if you are wondering how corn bread fits into my original challenge of polenta, I will explain. Polenta is Italian and refers to corn meal. A main in ingredient in corn bread is cornmeal, although a finer version of the one used in Italian cooking. Corn bread however is generally a side dish so I needed go decide what to serve it with. I trawled through Southern American food such as Creole and Cajun dishes including Jambalaya and Gumbo, to soul food staples such as black eyed peas and collard greens. Due to limitations in obtaining ingredients at short notice and a limited budget, I chose two simple classics.

The first dish I chose is one we are are perhaps most exposed to every day, Southern Fried Chicken. This dish first emerged in the southern United States when African slaves were brought to the south to work on the plantations. The Africans seasoned the chicken with spices they brought from home and as it was expensive to rear other animals, chickens, which were relatively inexpensive to rear, became a staple meat.

The second dish I chose was red beans and rice, a Louisiana Creole classic. Creole food blends French, Spanish, Canarian, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Deep Southern American, Indian, and African influences and comes from the greater New Orleans area.

So that was my meal, not on the top of the healthy list but a nice slice of southern American cuisine, kept very simple. The dish did not present like a work of art, but was very flavoursome. The corn bread was delicious served warm with a light spread of honey butter. The red beans and rice were cooked with a ham hock so the rice had taken on the smokey ham flavour. The fried chicken worked out well and was soaked in buttermilk for a few hours, and then rolled in lightly spiced flour.

My next trip to this cuisine though will definitely focus on some more complex dishes using seafood, as well as some "peasant" dishes using cheap cuts of pork.

Polenta

Ok, so the ingredient is in for this week and it is POLENTA. I have cooked polenta before but I must admit I do not know a lot about its origins, so off to do some research!

Polenta is basically ground cornmeal and can be ground coarsely or fine. My previous experience with it had been from an Italian angle, boiled into a smooth porridge-like consistency with butter, Parmesan and seasoning added. I had used it like a starch such as potatoes or rice and served alongside something else, such as a stew.

I did some reading and what was opened up to me was that corn meal, and similar products that are made from corn, form the staples for countries all around the world in a similar way that rice does in Asia.

In the USA when the corn is ground and passed through the screens, the finer part that comes through is cornmeal and the coarser remains form grits. Grits is a staple dish in the southern states of the US and is made from boiling the ground kernels into a kind of porridge, much like polenta. Further south into Mexico, cornmeal is used to make staples like tortillas.

In Africa, corn meal forms the basis of many staple food dishes called fou fou, ugali and pap. Quite often they form this mixture into a ball and make an indentation with their thumbs and use it to dip into a stew making it a food and a utensil in one. There are many varying forms of this dish throughout Africa, but all appear quite similar.

In eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Hungary, polenta is usually prepared in a special pot called a ceaun or tuci. It is prepared in a thick consistency and can be cut into slices and is served with varying types of cheese and sometimes sausage, or even sweet polenta will be served broken up into a bowl of hot milk which is a favourite among children.

In Italy, Polenta is often cooked in a copper pot called a paiolo. It is traditionally a northern Italian peasant dish and while the Italians in the south ate pasta, in the north, it was polenta. Some classic Italian dishes that use polenta are polenta taragna, polenta uncia, polenta concia, polenta e gorgonzola, and missultin e polenta. It is often cooked with cheese or can also be served with stews, such as slow cooked Osso Bucco. It has even made its way into Brazil as a result of northern Italian migration.

OK, so that has not helped narrow down my meal choices at all, but has definitely given me some food for thought (bad pun intended). I am definitely going to make an Italian-inspired dish, and I think a southern US/Mexican-inspired dish. I may even have a go at an eastern European version if I have time. You can make some sweet foods with Polenta as well, but I will steer clear from them this time. OK, I'm off to do some brainstorming. I will be back with dish number one...

Why?

Cooking has been a big passion of mine for a while now. I try to keep experimenting with new things, but sometimes you can find yourself cooking too many old favourites or cooking similar types of food, cooked and prepared in familiar ways. To help me learn and understand more I have set myself a challenge: My girlfriend is going to give me a new ingredient to experiment with every week. I will make 2-3 dishes using this ingredient, and try to find and create dishes that illustrate this ingredient's flavour and texture, as well as paying homage to its culinary history. I will include some of my research as well as the dishes I cook and why I have chosen them. Lets begin!