Türkiye

Ah, Christmas. the most wonderful time of the year - at least, according to the song!  On occasion, Scrooge and I have been pretty close, and this year it appears he and I are friends again, since I did absolutely nothing to celebrate yet this year.  The kids and I are used to celebrating our Christmas whenever we can, since they spend every alternate year with their father, so honestly, it is sometimes hard to get into the spirit of the season.  I am sure it would be different if I was religious, but obviously I'm not!

It's not my turn to cook dinner this year, so while everyone else is cooking turkey, I decided to cook Turkey,  yes, solely due to the marvelous play on words! Once again, I enjoyed surfing around and learning something of Turkish cuisine, and consequently, Turkish history.  It brings to mind images of sultans and fabulous wealth, so I chose a dish called Sultan Sarma, tenderloin stuffed with mushrooms and pistachios, accompanied by a Golden Rice Pilaf.  Our MLCC does carry a Turkish beer, Tuborg, but unfortunately they did not have it in stock right now (apparently it is a special order item).  Well, there's a heads up for me for next time!  In any event, I had to substitute a Greek beer left over from the other weekend, sacrilegious though it might be!  Otherwise, the meal was thoroughly delightful!

                            
                                        Afiyet olsun!

Magyar Köztársaság

Sometimes it is really hard to choose what to make when I decide on a country, and sometimes the answer comes easily once I start looking into a country's traditional cuisine.  This weekend, I had decided to do Hungary, and I was really torn about what to choose.  The first thoughts that came to mind were goulash, or chicken paprikas.  After a bit of research, I discovered that Hungary's national dish is actually pörkölt, a stew, and not either of my first two ideas.  Well, that clearly had to be on my menu.  I also wanted to choose a salad to accompany the meal, so I made an uborka salata, a cucumber salad.  Once again, our local MLCC offered a selection of beverages from my chosen country, and I selected a dry red, Szekszárdi Vörös Kékfrankos.

Comments and observations - I found the stew to be a very simple dish, with a milder flavour than I had expected.  The cucumber salad was quite similar to a dish I have grown up with (and one that I love), consisting essentially of sliced cucumbers in vinegar.  The wine was pleasant enough, but I think I wasn't completely satisfied with it because I didn't have much time to choose (my own fault for going to the liquor store on a Saturday afternoon a week before christmas).  

One thing that I have noticed is that many of the national dishes are simple dishes, hearty meals with basic, commonplace ingredients.  Makes sense, really, when you think about it - for a dish to become synonymous with a country, it would generally be made by a majority of the population or as a regular staple. so the ingredients would need to be readily available and the recipe not too complex or time-consuming.  Also, in Europe certainly, there are many similarities between recipes and it is sometimes hard to find a recipe from the country of origin for a particular dish.  Again, not surprising, but simply an observation about what I am encountering on my cooking tour of the world.

                                Jó étvágyat kivánok

Ελλάδα

I was quite excited with the idea of "visiting" Greece, as I have a deep love of Greek mythology.  Our cats (and a dog and a hamster) have all been named after the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses - in fact, as I type this, Aphrodite is curled up just a few feet away, and Hestia and Hermes are upstairs.  Come on, anyone with cats named Hermes and Hestia has to know something about Greek mythology!!  What I found, though, is that many of their dishes include lamb, which is something I just don't eat.  Eating lamb would violate what my daughter calls my "too cute to eat" philosophy.  The way I look at is this:  calves - too cute to eat, so no veal, cows - not, chickens - fair game,  deer - too cute to eat (see Bambi), moose - well, you get the drift.  Plus, the kids were with me for the weekend, so I wanted something that would hopefully appeal to them.

In the end, we had quite an elaborate meal.  We started off with an appetizer of tsatziki dip and crackers - mmm mmm mmm!  Next up was a lemon chicken soup, simple and absolutely delicious, and the ubiquitous Greek salad, called the Country Salad in Greece - makes sense to me!  For our main course, we had Pastitsio, accompanied by a Santorinian vegetable mix.  Dessert was an old-style Greek treat of honey and sesame seeds called Pasteli.  The meal was accompanied (for me) by Mythos, a rather appropriately named Hellenic lager.  I did pause briefly at the Ouzo, but I just couldn`t bring myself to buy it, knowing it would be a long time before it was consumed (if that ever were to happen)!

Final results - the tsatiki appetizers, soup and salad were all fabulous!  I will definitely be making the soup again.  I am amazed, however, as it seems that every recipe called for copious quantities of butter and eggs - especially eggs!!  The pastitsio is a dish with layers of pasta and ground beef (in place of that too cute to eat ground lamb), topped with a bechamel sauce.  It was tasty enough, I guess, but a bit of a let-down after the soup and salad.  The Santorinian vegetable mix recipe seemed innocuous enough, but was, well, let`s just say it wasn't worth saving the leftovers!  I honestly don't think I have ever used so many eggs in cooking one meal!  The dessert was tasty indeed, even if it didn't solidify properly because I didn`t have quite enough sesame seeds - still tasty, though!

The more I do this, the more I have to acknowledge that it really doesn't do a country's varied cuisines justice by making just one meal, cobbling together a variety of recipes from different regions.  I wish I could be more true to the actual regional traditions, but it would make it impossible for me to keep to my goal of a new country every week!

                                         Καλή σας όρεξη

Россия

Russia is a large, beautiful and varied country with a fascinating history, so I definitely had a lot of fun searching for traditional recipes.  Choosing one, though, was not so easy, there were so many different tempting foods available.  Ultimately, my choices came as a result of the stories behind the two particular dishes that made up my meal.  I had the Salat Olivier, so named after the chef who created it.  Chef Lucien Olivier was a chef at the Hermitage Restaurant, one of Moscow's most celebrated restaurants, and this dish became the signature dish for the restaurant.  There is a story about one of his sous-chef's attempt to steal the closely-guarded recipe, which is what caught my attention and led to a lovely, filling salad.  For my main course, I had already subconsciously chosen Beef Stroganoff, and that choice was reinforced by the story behind the dish.  Apparently the chef who created the disease worked for a Russian diplomat, Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov, and the dish was created to impress a guest at the dinner table.  I'm not sure why, but knowing a bit about the history of the particular dish made it that much tastier! 

I was able to find Baltika, a Russian beer, at the MLCC.  Beer is the second-most popular drink in Russia, next to vodka.  Of course, having a Russian meal did mean that vodka would be a mandatory component.  I did try a couple of shots of Stolichnaya Vodka, but I must admit, that was a BAD idea!  I remember now why I don't drink hard liquour anymore....So, while I will definitely do these dishes again, I definitely won't do the vodka.  

                                             приятного аппетита