Potato Curry

Curry used to be such a foreign concept to me. I mean, we had it on special occasions and what not, but not regularly. However, when we came here it seemed like everybody ate it! So much so that we were sick of it during our first two months here, which I didn’t think was possible. It’s not a regular staple on our Guyanese menu, but, from a cultural standpoint, it is a noteworthy one. It’s worth a shot if you feel like stepping out of your metaphorical, cuisineial, cultural box or you just want something different.

Diced and peeled potatoes

Garlic

Onion

(Sweet/Bell Peppers)

Curry Powder (you can make it from scratch, but we buy it pre-mixed)

Ground Cumin

Oil

Water

Heat up oil in a Kaharee or pan. Sauté Garlic, Onions, and Sweet Peppers. Then, add the potatoes, adding some cumin and curry powder until the potatoes are covered.

Add water to the potatoes and company along with more curry and cumin powder

Heat until it boils, and then bring it down to a simmer.

Cover and let it “curry” for about 20 minutes or so (or until you think the potatoes are soft enough). (Add a bit more water if it seems to be reducing too much.)

Serve over/with rice or Roti.

That dish on the side is a stir-fry Sara concocted. It was pretty grand.

Home Made Pina Coladas

One of Guyana’s hidden gems is their Rum. We’ve been in country for little under 7 months, and the first time we had Guyanese Rum was our first night here. I fell in love. Several times I have said that I appreciate alcohol in all its forms. From the fermented goodness that is beer (so much so as to brew it back home) to the grape-wonders of wine (thinking of learning how to make it) to the warmth and fruity flavours of spiced spirits (or any spirits for that matter from Gin to Rum to Whiskey). However, there isn’t much variety here and one can only mix so many things with Rum, but on one blessed Friday night the Linden 4 were sitting around after a wondrous meal and a thought occurred: What’s in a Pina Colada? Being Bartender back home I said "Primarily coconut milk, pineapple juice and rum." Wait? What things does Guyana have no lack of? That’s right Pineapples, Coconuts, and Rum—let’s make some Pina Colada’s from scratch!

Pineapple
Coconut
Rum
Sugar
(Passion Fruit)

Peel and cube a pineapple and place in blender with some sugar. Blend it up until it has a liquid consistency. (if you have passion fruit, peel it, cut it and de-seed it and blend that too). Set aside.

Crack open a coconut and grate/cut out the “meat.” Place the meat in the blender with some water and blend it up fairly fine. Strain out the chunks of coconut from the blender set aside.

You can either put some rum in a glass with some ice and pour equal parts of the pineapple juice and coconut milk and stir.

Or you can place some coconut milk and pineapple juice in a blender with some rum and maybe some ice and blend it up.

Serve.

The pineapple juice and coconut milk

Birthday Enchiladas

To continue our Mexican food extravaganza I wanted to share with you our most recent concoction. We made these for Chelsea’s birthday, and I have to say it was quite impressive. However, we may have cheated a little bit because we had to use some enchilada mix from the States, but birthdays are special things, right? Happens only once a year or something. Well, this meal made me wish everyday was a birthday. Heck, maybe I will just make up celebrations like “Gooey-Melted Cheesy Day” or “Christopher Columbus Brought Pasta to South America Day” or “It’s Hot and Humid in Guyana Day” Let’s celebrate with some enchiladas! Just thinking about them makes me want to celebrate their existence with a Christmas tree. They were real good.

6 flour Roti (or tortillas if you got 'em)
Enchilada Mix (we used powder mixed w/ water, you can also use canned sauce)
Cheese
Chicken
Black eyed Beans
Corn (We got the canned stuff rinsed as to lower the sodium content)
Diced Onions.

First, you want to butcher your chicken. Unfortunately, we don’t have boneless breasts here so we have to cut it away from the bone. Once you have it off the bone (or if you’re a lucky individual who can get it boneless than by all means do it (and know my envy for you)), then dice up the chicken into cubes.

Mix the powder with water and boil it. Add the diced chicken into the Enchilada Broth. Continue boiling until chicken is cooked. (We had to add some water and more powder due to reduction. But we also didn’t know how much broth to make, the Mix came in an unmarked container…Thanks, Emily and crew J …so if you know the measurements it should be okay. Or if you have the canned sauce, cook the chicken in that.)

As the chicken is cooking you can make your “tortillas” or in our case Roti. With flour, water mixed together, folded into balls (with some margerine), and then rolled out and placed on the tawa to cook (more in-depth instruction to come). If have some pre-made tortillas you can skip this step.

When the chicken finishes, remove it from the pan (or Kaharee in our case) with some of the sauce, then sauté the onions in a little of the enchilada sauce that's left in the pan.

Now here comes the fun part: putting the enchiladas together! If you have an oven you can probably use a pyrex type cassorole dish; however if you’re in Guyana without an oven you must be resourceful. We used two tawas and a cooking pan (see photo below)

Place an open tortilla in the dish or pan (perhaps a little butter or oil on the bottom of the pan/dish to prevent sticking). Add the cheese, chicken (covered in sauce), corn, and onions (also covered in sauce) into the tortilla and add a bit more Enchilada sauce. Roll the tortilla up with the open sides against the bottom of the pan, so it doesn’t roll open. Do the same procedure with all your Roti/Tortillas, organizing them so they all fit into your pan/dish. *

As you fill up your dish/pan pour the rest of the sauce on top of the enchiladas then cover with a copious amounts of cheese.

Place them in the oven (not too sure about temperature), or in your pan sitting on a tawa and covered with a tawa. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until you think they’re done. Serve.**

* to make it vegetarian you can leave out the chicken, add more cheese or whatev, it will still be good.

**try them with the salsa obsession or some rice on the side. It will melt your face off with flovour.

Here was our makeshift oven. My kingdom for an Oven!

The finished product all gooey and good. Happy B-day Chelsea! This was served with lots of love.

Salsa Obsession

When Chelsea and I decided to join Peace Corps we imagined going to some Latin American country where cultural understanding would come from enticing cuisine. Visions of tantalizing Tortas, bristling with barbacoa and avaricious avocado, raced through our minds, while Mole, spicily simmering for days amidst cocoa and chilies, came in a close second. Beans and Rice would sit on the sidelines happily striving to add completion to this montage of Mexican food, and then Street Tacos would laugh, their limey, cilantro and onion filled laugh knowing they are just a snack. It was a grandiose vision, perhaps a mere dream, but the bottom line is we are obsessed with Mexican cuisine. We even miss the occasional southern California specialty of carne asada fries, or the simplistic, but completely filling rice, bean and cheese burrito. Even an enchilada would do nicely, lathered in cheese and Pico de Gallo salsa. Which brings me around to this next recipe. SALSA! We have been craving it for a long time. We have pepper sauce here, which we’ll add later, but it just isn’t the same. This next entry was thrown together with the inspiration of some tortilla chips (which don’t exist here) sent for Sara from the states. It was exactly what we needed.

-Tim

6 tomatoes

3 Sweet Peppers (bell peppers) with seeds.

3 or 4 cloves of garlic

Half a medium onion

1 hot pepper (I think its called Tigers Teeth or something…HOT HOT HOT! Deseeded)

1 Tbs (maybe more, not sure) of Apple Cider Vinegar

Toss it all in a blender and blend it up until it’s the consistency you want. We made more fine, but it’s up to you. Place it in the fridge to chill or simply enjoy right there.

Side note from Sara: I just had to post something on this Salsa Obsession. For those of you who already know me, you know I LOVE salsa, especially chips and salsa! Living in South America one would think chips and salsa would be a staple right? Well, not in Guyana. So, receiving a bag of tortilla chips was awesome and making homemade salsa and having a chip to dip into the spicy tub of love was heavenly!

French Toast

French toast!? Aren’t we in Guyana? Shall we call it Guyanese Toast? Because French Guiana is on the other side of Suriname, right? Names and geography aside this here recipe is a house staple. It’s really easy and it doesn’t require many resources: bread, eggs, milk, and some spice, all things readily available here. I mean, how much easier can it get? When we’re cooking for Peace Corps friends from across the nation it’s always a fan fave.

Bread

Eggs

Milk

Cinnamon and nutmeg

Crack some eggs into a bowl. (Chels and I use about 2 or 3 for us two, but the more you add the more batter you’ll make) Pour a little milk in the mix. Then sprinkle in your cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir it all nice and right.

Place slices of bread in the batter, being sure to get both sides covered in eggy-nutmegy-cinnamony goodness. (Our buddy back home says the only way to go is stale bread, but fresh works just as well). Place on a Tawa or in a pan and get both sides cooked to a little browness.

We like to stack them like Jenga set, it makes it more interesting.

Pumpkin Carrot Frittatas and Spicy Apple Chutney

Just because this is my (Chelsea) first post on Hobbit Food does not mean I have not been contributing to the deliciousness that comes out of the Linden House kitchen. To prove this, I present to you one of my contributions to our culinary adventures. This recipe is not entirely our own, as Tim and I learned how to make it in San Diego. Back home we were avid Farmer’s Market shoppers and were inspired to look up fall veggie recipes. Here in Guyana, we found similar fall favorites, like pumpkin and carrot are available year-round (although carrots are imported from the U.S.A. which I find a bit ridiculous). When we make this dish for the whole household we make two versions of the frittata, one with carrots and one without. This is because Tony is violently averse to cooked carrots. If you ask him why you will hear a story about farts. But no matter how you mix it, with or without the difficult childhood memories of carrots, you will find this vegetarian dish delicious and nutritious.

Pumpkin Carrot Frittata Ingredients:

1 small pumpkin (in Guyana it comes in slices, so we buy about 1/4 of a mondo pumpkin)

1 small red onion

2 small carrots

Stale or toasted bread

4 eggs

Geera (Cumin in Guyana)

Salt

Cooking oil

Parmesan cheese

Grate pumpkin and carrots. Dice onion. Toast bread and smoosh into crumbs (I like to put the toasted bread into plastic bags and smash it against the wall). Scramble eggs. Add bread crumbs and parmesan cheese to whisked egg. It should be a thick, glue-like consistency as it is going to hold together your pumpkin and carrot patties. Mix the pumpkin, egg-bread mixture, onion, carrots, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of cumin. Form into patties. Lightly oil pan or tawa and cook until golden brown. Flip patties and brown other side. Serve with Spicy Apple Chutney and enjoy.

Spicy Apple Chutney Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. oil

1 small onion, diced

2 apples, diced

1 cup apple cider (or any other juice you have around)

1/4 cup honey

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper or 1/4 tsp. minced fresh chili pepper

Salt

Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Add oil and cook apples and onions for about 10 minutes. Add pumpkin pie spice, hot pepper and a pinch of salt and cook 1 minute. Add lemon juice, vinegar, sugar and cider and bring to a boil, scraping bits from bottom of pan, until cider is reduced and slightly thickened, about 4 minutes. If lemon juice is not available, use additional vinegar instead. We have often made this with other juices, since apple is sometimes hard to find. Don’t worry about precision in measurements here, since you really can’t go wrong with spicy apples. Serve atop pumpkin frittatas.

Methem (Met Him)

This is a Guyanese dish that I (Sara) fell in love with after my host mom prepared it for me one night. It's full of yummy tubers and coconut, of course I would love it. However, many moons ago, when we first moved to our site and started cooking together I mentioned I wanted to try and make this dish to share with my fellow amigos. The looks on their faces was enough for me to see this did not sound appetizing to them but they were great sports about it and humored me. It was definitely an experiment gone well.
Now, remember it's because of these tubers that hobbit balls were created and therefore the notion of developing this blog.

Ingredients:

Eddo

Cassava

Potato/ Sweet potato

Plantains

(1-2 of each above just depends on how much you want to make)

Coconut milk

Garlic

Onion

Cumin

Salt

Cut Tubers into bit size pieces and boil until a little soft, drain and put back into cooking pot. Grate 1 coconut to get coconut milk or use ½ can coconut milk pour over tubers and add water to make a soup broth. Add in chopped garlic and onion, cumin and salt (to taste) bring to a boil.

Cheers to tubers!

Dahl, Dhal, Daal, or Dal

Before a few months ago I had never heard of dahl, now it’s one of our favorite dishes. It’s simple, cheap, and remarkably tasty. Doing a quick search online I saw that Dahl is an East Indian dish, which makes sense since we had it for the first time with our Indo-Guyanese host families. However, since those first few months of culinary exposure we’ve refined it, got some hints from our Lindenite neighbours, and are slowly mastering this split-pea soup-like substance. (Say that five times fast!)

Dried split peas (1/2 pint or more up to you)

8 Garlic cloves

Onion

5 Sweet peppers (or bell peppers, but not sure how many)

3 hot peppers (or more depending on how spicy you want it. These aren’t necessary, but are a good addition)

Geerah (Ground Cumin)

Curry Powder

Salt

Put the peas into a pressure pot and cover with water and then some (more water = more watery). Place some ground cumin and curry powder in there. I don’t use measurements, but eyeball it; I like equal parts of both. Then, if you choose to use hot peppers, cut them up and place them in the pot as well. Let it boil and then place the lid on the pot. Let it pressure for about 30 minutes or so. (I think you can also use a regular pot, but I am not sure on the time, you want the peas to be mushy, like mushy pea soup.)

While the peas are pressuring, chop up garlic, onion, sweet peppers. When the peas are almost squishible, sauté, with a little more cumin and curry powders, the garlic, onion, and sweet peppers

Whisk, or mash the peas in the pot, pinch some salt in, then put the garlic, onion, and peppers in the pot then boil or pressure for about 5 to 10 more minutes. Stir and serve over rice or with roti. (Some Lindeners just put it in a mug and drink the stuff!)

Note: if it comes out too thick you can simply add more water to thin it out.

*Picture Forthcoming

Nghia's Fried Sweet Potatoes

So our dear friend Nghia, who is an awesome panda, ninja, stockbroker PC volunteer, came to visit us. We like it when people come see us because we are able to share our “cooking” experience with them and they are kind enough to show us a thing or two.
Nghia said he was going to make us a common Vietnamese snack…fried sweet potatoes. OK, so our blog is not just typical Guyanese dishes, it’s the food consumed in our Guyanese house that we think is worthy enough to go on this AWESOME blog.
Anyway, back to my story, so, we said yes to fried sweet potatoes. I mean, anything fried has to be good, right? And sweet potatoes are yummy as is!
These savory, sweet, fried, disks of goodness are pretty tasty, but you can only eat a few at a time.

Make a batter (kind of like pancake batter) with the following:
Flour
Sugar (maybe a teaspoon or two?)
Water
Wash, peel and cut sweet potatoes (1’ thick rounds)
Heat up oil in a pan/Kahari
Coat sweet potatoes in the batter
Place in the hot oil to fry, the batter should puff up

Thanks, Nghia

~S

Little Puffs of Goodness

The finished product

Sara and Ngia Share Culinary Ideas

Drunk...Uumm...Spaghetti

I am sure everyone has had one of those nights…just one to many beers. But with those nights comes two options #1 keep drinking and get sick or #2 cook some amazing food. I like option #2 best. And that’s just what we did one night. When we got home we were starving and looked around for something to eat. Behold, a bag of spaghetti. I know what you are thinking, “spaghetti, please, that’s so easy to make. And hello it’s Italian not Guyanese” Well, watery tomato paste from a small can just doesn’t cut it for us. So we made marinara sauce from “scratch” and it was divine! OK, OK, it might-of just been because of the beers before hand but we felt like we were Christopher Columbus discovering the New World for the first time. He did bring spaghetti off the La Pinta to South America right?

Again, we don't do measurements...just a pinch here and a dash there

Marinara Sauce:
Lots of garlic
Onion
Sweet peppers (known as Bell peppers)
Saute with a little olive oil
Add a can of tomato paste along with many diced fresh tomatoes
Stir and simmer about 10 minutes
Put over your favorite choice of pasta

Thank you Christopher Columbus.
~S

So this isn't from that night. In fact, its a completely different dish we haven't posted yet. But the homemade sauce is on top. (the meat is chicken caked in flour, parm, and some spices and then fried.)

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Okay, it’s not exactly original or even Guyanese, heck, I don’t even know what can be more American than a grilled cheese sandwich, well maybe apple pie, but that’s beside the point. Here’s our Guyanese Grilled Cheese Sandwich, nothing special, but it’s a great reminder of home.

Bread
Mayo
Cheese
Garlic
Butter/Margarine

Take bread (freshly baked if possible, a great Guyanese perk) and put mayo on both sides. Chop the garlic and put it on one side of bread. Slice the cheese put atop the garlic. Close the sandwich. Heat pan/tawa and put a little margarine on it and let it melt spreading it around. Put the sandwich in the pan and be sure to get butter both sides. I like to use a spatula to press the sandwich down and the flip it a few times until cheese s melted, garlic a bit cooked and the bread is nice dark golden color.

This one we made with a great find: Turkey Bacon!

Pizza Dough ( I will leave the toppings up to you)

Friday night is pizza night. This tradition gets us through the week. When things get tough, when we’re feeling a little down, pizza is the answer. Prior to Peace Corps, pizza (I love alliterations) wasn’t really a big meal of mine (or Chels and I ordered it out. San Diego had some great pizza joints), but then we met Tony, who used to make pizza for fun back home, and he brought this godly treat to our tantalized taste buds. Do give it a try, I highly recommend it. (It may take a few times to get it perfect, but practice, practice, practice! :) )

1 1/3 cups of water
1 tbs Yeast
3 cups of Flour ( and a little more)
1 tbs Oil
¾ tbs of Salt (added in pinches)
2-3 tbs of Sugar
Your choice of Seasoning (Garlic, Parmesan Cheese, Basil, Organo, Honey, etc) (We usually use Basil and Oregano, but honey is good too.)

1)Heat up the 1 1/3 cups of water to about 105 to 115 degrees F. (we do the touch test; it should feel a little hotter than a hot tub)
2) Take water off the heat, and put in a bowl and add the yeast.
3) Put the flour in the same bowl
4) Then, the oil
5) Then, pinches of salt
6) Then, the Spoons of Sugar
7) And, then add your seasoning. (Basil, Oregano, etc)
8) Mix it up in the bowl to get it consistent and stuck together; should be a little gummy, but not too hard.
9) Put some flour over a flat surface where you’re going the roll the dough in a ball.
10) Roll the dough into a ball and add a little flour now and then to prevent sticking.
11) Then Knead the dough like bread, pulling it (like your massaging it) and then putting it back on itself for about 1-2 min.
12) Put a little oil in an empty bowl, and coat the outside of the smooth dough ball by rolling it around in the oil.
13) Let it sit to rise for about an hour. (if it doesn’t rise, the yeast was killed. It may be more, dense but it will taste just fine, I just did this the other day)

This amount of dough will usually make 2 or 3 pizza’s depending on how thin you want to roll out your dough.

Once you roll it out you can put your toppings on it then stick it in the oven. I am not sure how long you bake it for. We usually leave it on for about 7-10 min, but then again we don’t have an oven but we do have Tawa and Kaharee to make a makeshift convenction oven.

The way Tony makes it is to roll it out, then put it on the Tawa, add cheese and build your toppings. Some favorites of ours are Barbeque Chicken (BBQ sauce, cheese chicken, pineapple and scallions) or Veggie (Sweet (bell) peppers, cheese, scallions, onions, avocado, and any other yummy veggies we have around). Tony recently came up with a lemon, broad leaf thyme (fresh), ginger chicken pizza. With cheese, lemon-thyme chicken, scallions, ginger and maybe we’ll throw some sweet peppers on there if we’re feeling festive. But experiment (we even made Dahl Pizza once, wasn't too bad), have some fun with it. You’ll be amazed at what you come up with.

Our makeshift oven. SCIENCE!

One of the first Pizzas

Pineapple, BBQ Sauce, and Green Onions (we have this one weekly)

This was one of our first attempts, we've gotten much better, now I will have get another pic up soon. Perhaps next Friday?

Crazy Rice

It's been way TOO long...we've still been cooking creatively and have recipes to share!
It's Sara here, and I wanted to post this recipe for my family...my other teammates have not tried this interesting dish but trust me they will. I seem to get a little crazy when I cook for myself...you know, boiled plantains, pumpkin, and coconut! I was indeed quite pleased with the end result. If anyone tries this one I would be interested in knowing how it turned out and if any modifications were used.

Rice

Black Beans

Grated pumpkin (or any squash)

Grated carrot

Green onion

Bora (string or green bean)

Boiled plantains (cut in 1’ rounds, boil until soft and bright yellow)

Garlic

Olive oil

Cumin powder

**Pineapple

Cook beans and rice. *You can cook rice in coconut milk (a Guyanese way known as Shine Rice) instead of water, so how ever much rice you are cooking use the water measurement for the coconut milk.

Sorry I don’t measure!

Sauté garlic in olive oil add veggies mix well then add in beans and rice add little cumin or other spices to taste

**Top with pineapple if you prefer

Happy Cooking!