Beans for three: Bosnian prebranac

Our last post was on 21 January, and in it we mentioned the domestic chaos that had been caused by some disastrous renovation works. Well, that’s still ongoing, but three days after that post, something else happened to throw Good Food on Bad Plates HQ into disarray: the birth of our son! Any parent will know that looking after a newborn does not lend itself to cooking elaborate meals, which is why we’ve been a little quiet lately. It’s also why GFoBP may take a slightly different turn for a while: so far, we’ve aimed to cook the national dish from each country, and sometimes that has involved hours of work. We hope you’ll forgive us if occasionally we choose a simpler traditional recipe if the national dish is too complicated for our sleep-deprived brains.

That’s exactly what we’ve done for our Bosnian dish, although actually not for that reason. The national dish of Bosnia and Herzegovina is ćevapi, a sort of lamb and beef kebab/sausage thing, but we made a version of that for Serbia, so we didn’t want to make it again. We were therefore very pleased to find a nice simple recipe for prebranac, or Balkan baked beans, on the ever-reliable Global Table Adventure. We made it for supper on Friday, after we’d been out for lunch and didn’t want a huge evening meal.

Prebranac

Ingredients
2 tins butter beans, drained
2 medium onions, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp flour
Salt
Pepper
Possibly a splash of water
Bread, to serve

Method
1. Preheat oven to 205C.
2. Heat the oil in an ovenproof dish over medium heat.
3. Add onion and cook until golden (don’t rush this – you want them to be nice and caramelised).
4. Add the garlic, paprika, flour, salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes until the spices are fragrant. (Depending on your pan, you may need to add a splash of water here to deglaze and prevent it all from sticking and burning.)
5. Add the beans and stir to combine.
6. Bake uncovered until crusty on top, about 15 minutes (a bit more if you’ve added water).
7. Serve with crusty or toasted bread
Serves 2 (plus a third, indirectly!) as a light meal

Well, it doesn’t get much easier than this, not least because all the ingredients are things we’d have in stock anyway. It also took less than half an hour from start to finish, which is the sort of thing you want with a new baby! It’s not a big, or particularly full, meal – it would actually work well as a side dish too – but is perfect as a light supper. Although there aren’t many ingredients, the sweet onions pair nicely with the slight bitterness of the paprika to really pep up the beans. The original recipe didn’t include the water, but wed’d have ended up with a burnt mess without it – it might depend on what pan you use (ours wasn’t non-stick which may have had an impact).

We’ll be back as soon as the boss baby lets us!

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Easing back in: Bhutanese ema datshi

It’s been a bit of a tumultuous time lately in the Mash House. Back in November, when we last blogged, we mentioned the renovations project we were in the middle of. Well, thanks to some unreliable tradespeople (that’s a rant for another day) and some unexpected hurdles, that project took considerably longer than expected. Truth be told, it’s still going, although the light at the end of the tunnel is gradually growing brighter. And whilst we’re proud to say that we’ve rarely succumbed to the lure of takeaways or ready meals, we have to admit that living in a perpetual state of chaos and mess has somewhat dampened our motivation to cook experimental or complicated dishes, so we’ve mostly been living on things we can cook without a recipe or that can be thrown together with whatever ingredients we have in the fridge.

However, this evening we decided it was high time we got our act together and returned to the world of Good Food on Bad Plates. The next country on our list was Bhutan, the national dish of which is a soup called ema datshi. The name refers to ‘chilli’ and ‘cheese’, which sounded like a good combination to us. We realised too late that we’d committed to a recipe for the Tibetan version of the dish, rather than the Bhutanese one, but the roots are the same. We also think that the fact that we’re finally posting again after over two months means you should forgive us.

Weekend baking: Antarctic chocolate chip cookies

Hang on – what? Antarctic chocolate chip cookies? Surely chocolate chip cookies are from America, not the Earth’s southernmost continent that doesn’t even have a native population and is only inhabited by scientists, researchers and the occasional transient tourist.

If you thought any of that when you read the title of this post, you’re entirely correct. Chocolate chip cookies originated in the USA in around 1938 when a woman called Ruth Graves Wakefield added chopped up bits from a Nestle semi-sweet chocolate bar into a cookie at the Toll House Inn.

Just saying…

Embracing cosiness: Albanian tavë kosi

We recently returned from a cosy ‘staycation’. We’re in the throes of renovations chaos in the Mash House, so the opportunity to escape the mess and spend a few days relaxing in the countryside was very welcome. Our first stop was Marlow, where we achieved the Tom Kerridge trifecta by eating delicious meals at The Hand & Flowers, The Coach and The Butcher’s Tap, as well as discovering the best hot chocolate ever in a little cafe. We found out afterwards that apparently The Hand & Flowers claims to serve the best chips in the world, but we’d already given that title to those on offer at The Coach – Ash ordered two portions!

A poultry dose of irony: Bahamian fish chowder

Another day, another Caribbean archipelago, another nation declaring conch as its national dish. Still unable to source this seafood anywhere other than in a William Golding novel, we once again looked further afield, coming up with two alternative options: fish chowder or steamed chicken. Both looked nice, but Ash pointed out that we tend to eat a lot of chicken anyway, so maybe we should give the fish chowder a try. The recipe we used is by Norman Van Aken, a chef we’d probably have heard of if we lived in the US, given that he’s been described as the ‘Walt Whitman of American cuisine’ (and that makes two literary references in one paragraph).

Poet or otherwise, he seems to know his stuff, so on Saturday, while Ash was continuing his work as a DIY wizard, Miranda retrieved some previously made fish stock from the freezer and set about rustling up a hearty soup (despite the unseasonably warm weather!).

Sort of healthy apple crumble… ish: Liechtensteiner ribel

Some facts about Liechtenstein:

· It is the sixth-smallest country in the world
· Despite its tiny size, it has one of the highest GDPs in the world
· It is situated between Austria and Switzerland, and as a result, its cuisine is significantly influenced by that of both countries
· We’ve never been there, but it looks pretty nice:

· Its national dish is käseknöpfle (basically mac and cheese)… which we made for Germany

A combination of many of these factors meant that finding something to make for Liechtenstein was a little tricky! A tiny country with big influences from neighbouring countries doesn’t have a long list of traditional recipes to its name, unfortunately. In the end, we opted for ribel (also spelt rebl), which a Liechtenstein tourism website describes as ‘probably the most traditional dish in Liechtenstein’ due to its origins as a staple dish for the country’s ‘poor population’. Traditional was what we wanted; a vague recipe for a slightly odd-sounding dish wasn’t quite, but a lack of other options meant that ribel was on our dessert menu on the weekend! (Is it even a dessert? We’re not really sure.)

Take us to the April sun: Cuban arroz con pollo a la chorrera

The nights are drawing in here in South London and we’re sure it’s only a matter of time before bitter temperatures follow suit: as ever, we’ve been promised the coldest winter ever with months of apocalyptic snowfall! Confident though we are that this is tabloid sensationalism, a visit to a Caribbean island would still be pretty nice. With some fairly significant renovations getting started in the Mash House, however, we’re going to have to imagine that warming sunshine vicariously through our cooking.

Today’s island nation is Cuba. We’ve never been there, but we know people who have! Ash’s sister and her husband went there on their honeymoon and amidst their adventures of swimming with dolphins, riding around in Cadillacs and drinking pina coladas, they were considerate enough to pick up some recipes for us (and some Cuban rum!) as Thomas Cook had left a handy folder of local information in their hotel.

According to Google, the national dish of Cuba is ropa vieja, which is a beef and tomato stew. This was one of the recipes in the folder, but we ended up deciding against it because ingredient number one was ‘1kg of brisket (previously used as boiling meat for a soup)’. Now, we love brisket, but prefer it when it has been smoked long and slow on a barbecue, rather than boiling all the flavour out of it in a soup base. Instead, we opted for arroz con pollo a la chorrera, which means rice with chicken in Chorrera style (interesting, given that Chorrera culture originated in Ecuador and didn’t make it as far up as Cuba – but if the Thomas Cook recipes aren’t 100% authentic, they still came from actual Cuba, so we went with it!).