“Jah-Make-In” Meat Patties

Merry Christmas to everyone! It’s Christmas time in Guyana so that mean’s lots and lots of food!!!! Christmas here is all about friends, family, and even strangers coming over for a good gaff and some good eats. So in honor of this tradition of cooking and eating, as well as the Linden 4’s last Christmas in Guyana, we’re posting a special recipe for Jamaican Meat Patties. We learned this recipe from our fellow Volunteer, Tka, and what a good time we had learning it. We made them, ate them, and then are bringing some by for our neighbors to try. These patties are really, really, good, and fairly easy to make, especially if you have experience baking pastry’s (which, of course, I had none when I tried this recipe, but it worked out all the same). Notebly, this is one of the few recipes on Hobbit Food that requires an oven, so it in addition to the cooking, we had to make a food field trip to our nearest oven. Worth it. Try it and see!!!

There are two parts, a filling and pastry. I will post the ingredients for the filling first, then the ingredients for the pastry and then give the directions for making both in that same order. It’s up to you which you want to make first. We give measurements in this recipe, since that’s how we copied it down, but like all good food, you can mess around if ya like!

Filling:

1 ¼ Tbs Olive Oil

5-7 cloves of garlic

2 large onions

1 ¼ Tbs curry powder

1 tsp of cumin (geerah) or tumeric

1 ¼ tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 cup of bread crumbs

1 cup of chicken stock

2 ½ green onions

(and cause we like it spicy, add some hot peppers!!!)

Pastry:

2 ½ cups of all-purpose flour (we used one cup of wheat flour for some goodness)

1 ¼ tsp turmeric

1 tsp curry powder1 ¼ dashes of Salt

1/3 cup of butter (maybe lard or shortening too if ya want)

½ cup of water

Directions to make the filling:

1. Heat oil in Skillet

2. Add onions and cook for about 10 minutes, or until they are soft and almost translucent

3. Add cut up garlic and cook for a few more minutes

4. Add meat (we used chicken, but you can also use beef), curry powder, cumin, salt, and pepper

5. Cook until meat is brown (if beef) or until meant is done for chicken

6. Stir in chicken stock and toasted bread crumbs

7. Simmer until liquid is absorbed (probably about 10 minutes or so) Everything should be soft and moist, and then stir in the green onion for some color and flavor.

Directions to make the Pastry and bake!

1. Combine flour, turmeric, curry, and salt

2. Cut ¼ cup of butter and shortening and mix, until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs (this may take more butter, but mix it and combine well)

3. Stir in water and mix until firm. Then form it into ball of dough

4. Shape the ball into a log and cut into 10 or so equal sections.

5. Roll each section into a 6-inch circle (then cover with damp towel, or not)

6. Spoon equal amounts of filling into each pastry circle. Fold the dough over (See the video) making a half circle, then press the edges with a fork. Fold edge over again for extra protection.

7. Poke your fork into the top of the pastry, then brush top of each pastry with beaten egg.

8. Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

9 . Remove and eat!!!!

Enjoy the patties, and enjoy the season! But these patties are good all the time!

Watermelon Two Ways

So on that same bonanza we made Watermelon Two ways. Both were awesome and exciting....kinda like bringing me back to the days of college where experimentation was key...not really taste :)

Vodka infused with Watermelon

750 ml of Vodka and about 4 lbs of Watermelon

Skin and cut up the watermelon into small bits, and toss them in the blender

Pour half the bottle Vodka into the melons.

Blend

Pour the rest of the bottle in.

Blend some more, until its fine.

Strain (for there will be bits of solid watermelon)

Put into a container and chill.

Pour a shot or two into cup*

Mix with sprite and/or water.

****WARNING: do be aware when you're pouring this drink you're basically pouring shots of vodka, don't let the taste fool you, this is potent! As we learned to our joy and sadness.

Watermelon infused with Vodka

750 ml Vodka and

Whole Watermelon (size not a big deal, the bigger it is the more Vodka can be infused though)

Cut a hole (the size of the mouth of the Vodka bottle) in the top of the watermelon so you can see the bright, beautiful redness inside.

Take the top off the vodka, then tightly place the watermelon on top of the bottle of vodka, so it sticks

Turn the watermelon over so the bottle is vertical (see picture) and let it infuse for about 24 hours or more.

You can tap the melon occasionally to spread the vodka more quickly. If the melon is small you won't finish the bottle (we used only half of the bottle)

Take out the bottle after 24 hours.

Chill the melon

Cut into it and enjoy the fruity alco-holy goodness inside.

The Drink Stays in your Cup ( a Saturday drink making bonanza)

So it's been awhile since we've written, but there has been a few changes to our line up. The Linden4 have become the Linden 5. As of a few days ago a new volunteer moved in with us name Cassie. Cassie spent these last months of her service out in the savannah of southern Guyana. She's learned all sorts of things that she is willing to share with us in the Linden house. The first of which are Fruit drinks. Well okay, fruit wines would be more appropriate. So on this election week where we're to stay near our house, we had a wine making party. It brings me back to those old brewing days...and we been brewing “Drink” as they say down south.

A lot of these recipes are simply fruit blended up with tons of suger then put into a bottle to ferment.

Cherry Wine

Cherry wine of all the wines we're talking about in this post is the one that ferments the quickest. Approximately 3 days.

Bag of Guyana Cherries

Sugar (hmm not sure the amount but it was a lot, 2 cups per bag of cherries)

Water

Rinse off the cherries, and pluck the stems off if you don't have a thin enough sieve.

Put the cherries in the blender, and add water (just enough to barely cover the cherries)

Add suger (when we used two bags of cherries, we filled the rest of the blender up with suger....basically after making 4 drinks we went through 2.5 kg of suger.)

Blend.

Pour into plastic bottles (skins and all) and put the bottle cap on. Let sit in the sun (if possible) for at least 3 days. The longer you leave it the more alcoholic it will become (that's for you Beat Attack Shackers)

Shake the bottles and release the built up gas at least twice a day. (release the gas by unscerewing the top a little bit then squeezing the bottle.)

When ready to drink, strain out the bits of skin and so on, and be left with the great juiciness that is cherry wine.

***for a little added flavor, pour in a splash of Sprite into the the cherry wine before you drink it.

Passion Fruit Wine

Passion Fruit wine has a few more steps and it takes longer to ferment (4-5 days), but we've been told its bomb...we'll find out soon enough.

Passion Fruit

Sugar

Water

Same rules apply the more sugar you add the more alcoholic it can become, we used lots of sugar.

Cut open all the passion fruits and spoon out the inside, seeds and all, of the fruit into a bowl. (You can toss the skins of the Passion Fruit into the compost)

Add water to the blender

Add Sugar

Blend up fairly fine.

Pour the blended juice with sugar into a bottle, cap bottle, and set to ferment for 5 days (again the longer you ferment the more alcoholic it becomes.

Shake the bottles at least twice a day and release the gasses.

Strain, chill, and drink when ready for a sweet, sweet, treat.

Pine Wine

Well we did a modified version of pine wine. In the bush they eat the fruit of the pineapple, but then use the skins and core to create pine wine. You can through the skins and core into some water, with sugar and lef it to sit for a week, or you can do what we did.

Can you guess the ingredients?

Pineapple

Sugar

Water

We skinned the pine, then cut up the fruit and put it in a blender.

Add Water

Add Suger (again don't be suger free on this guy)

Blend.

Lef it to ferment for at least 5 days (more, if necessary. Possibly 7 days? Pine takes the longest)

Strain, chill, and drink.

Those are some of the wines we tried out there are others as well, “Cane Wine” with cane sugar, Jamun (kinda plum like fruits) Guava, etc.

Korma....

Ummm so it's been awhile since we wrote a entry but here is a good one!

• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 potatoes, cubed
• 4 carrots, cubed
• 1 fresh hot pepper seeded and sliced (fresh jalepeno, seeded and sliced for those state side)
• 3 tablespoons ground unsalted cashews
• 1 (4 ounce) can tomato sauce (or tomato paste with water)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder (or more if you want, we put in a fair amount)
• 1 tablespoon of masala powder
• 1 can of sweet green peas
• 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup of coconut cream

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and cook until tender. Mix in ginger and garlic, and continue cooking 1 minute. Mix potatoes, carrots, hot pepper, cashews, and tomato sauce. Season with salt and curry powder. Cook and stir 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
2. Stir peas, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, and cream into the skillet. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. You can also stir in these last ingredients earlier then simmer for 20 minutes with everything. or until all the ingredients feel too your liking.

Enjoy!

“Mom's” Guyanaed Pasta

Back in the states we used to cook a dish we called “Mom's Pasta” pretty regular. (Named after Chel's Mom). It was an amazing dish dealing with noodles, broccoli, olives, snap peas, bell pepper, italian sausage, and pine nuts with some olive oil and seasoning for flavor. (sometimes parmesan cheese) We had a craving for it recently maybe because it's been 18 months and our culinary minds have been stretched to the limits, or maybe we wanted a piece of home. Anyway, we had to modify the recipe a bit, but it came down to one of the most delicious and simple dishes we could possibly make.

Pasta
Onion
Garlic
Cut up (chipped as they say in Guyana)Bora (asian string beans)
Shaved Carrot
Cut Olives
Corn (we used canned)
Diced tomato
Olive Oil
Seasoning (Salt or Adobo or Bragg or whatever you want really)

Boil your pasta.

Cut up and Saute the onion and garlic in Olive Oil

Add the Chipped Bora and Carrot (a few minutes)

Add Corn and Olives

Add the Tomatoes

Stir in the cooked pasta. Add more olive oil if you want for a nice sauce and your seasoning.

Fry and stir for a few minutes (but not so long as the veggies start to wilt. You still want them to have a crunch.)

Serve.

Simple and delicious!

Gnocchi

Who doesn't love gnocchi? Well if you're not a big fan of potatoes, you probably don't. So it's been a while since we've posted some recipes, but fear not the Linden 4 still try to experiment and try new things Guyana style! Here is one of our most recent achievements...homemade Gnocchi!! In the states we wouldn't have thought it was possible for us to make homemade gnocchi (granted we never tried...and if we wanted some gnocchi we'd head down to Trader Joe's and grab a packet). But since Trader Joe's isn't down the street we had to get creative and courageous (and a little inspiration from Emily and TJ). In all reality gnocchi is quite simple and extremely satisfying...especially with a good sauce like a pesto or Alfredo...oh man I am getting hungry already...

2 pounds of potatoes
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 egg
salt
An Ice Bath

First, peel and dice up the potatoes. Then boil them until they are soft. Set aside the potatoes until they are cool (a couple hours? This is the time consuming part...maybe if you wanted to make the gnocchi that night, boil up the potatoes a earlier in the day or the night before. We put them in the fridge overnight)

After the potatoes are cooled, mash them. Then, create a little well in the middle of your mashed potatoes and pour the flour all around.

Put some water on to boil.

Make your Ice Bath.

Crack the egg and put some salt in the middle of the well of potatoes and scattered flour. Start mixing until it looks like a ball of dough. (it should be dry).

Break off balls of this dough and roll them into longish dowels that can easily be cut. (look below)

The dowel is on the left

After all the dough is doweled up, start flcking off 1-inch or so pieces of the gnocchi dough. (see below)

Place the little gnocchi balls in the boiling water. They should boil for a bout a minute. Then they will float to the top of the water. As the balls float to the top remove them from the water and place them in the ice bath.

Use all your dough! Now you have some gnocch!!

Serve with your choice of sauce!!!! This is Alfredo below!

You can also remove them from the bath and put them in the fridge after you toss them with canola oil.

Coconut Oil

I was so excited to learn how to make my own coconut oil! Especially being some place where I can't just run to the store and buy it. Although it's cheaper to make my own...but it's kind of a long process.

Coconut oil is good for you and better for you to cook with. It also makes your house smell good and adds a nice flavor to your food.

Here's what you do:

Get coconuts, I used 4. Break open.

Remove the "meat".
I used a knife to chip away at the coconut meat, it took awhile and my hands hurt afterward.

Grate the coconut. Again this takes some time.

Place shredded coconut in a blender, add a little water to cover the blade.

Blend until you get a consistency like this.

Milky.

Squeeze coconut pulp to get all the milk.
I highly recommend a strainer for this part.

You get coconut milk!


Set container of milk in the fridge over night.

The fat from the milk floats to the top and you should get a solid type consistency.
This is what you fry to get coconut oil.

Place milk fat in a skillet (my kahari was a little difficult to catch the oil, but it worked okay) and let boil, you don't want to burn the oil so watch it and stir every once in awhile.
Do you see the oil at the top?

Use a spoon to catch the oil or carefully try and pour the oil into a glass container.

Coconut oil!

Keep stirring and trying to squeeze out more oil.

In the end you'll get this.

I forget what it's called but you can eat it, I think it tastes good. It's good with a little sugar too.

So there you have it, coconut oil!

~Sara

Sara's Salsa

Who doesn't love salsa? It's definitely one of my favorite things to eat, well, chips and salsa yumm! I'm surprised we don't make more salsa, yes, we don't have everything that makes salsa so good but that's where getting creative comes in!
I made salsa last night since we were having enchiladas and to be honest I just threw things together and man, we were blown away by how delicious it was!

6 Tomatoes
2 sweet peppers
1/2 hot pepper (chopped)
small hand full of green onions
small hand full of celery (celery here is thin and mostly leafy)
2 cloves garlic
1 red onion
Juice from 1 lime
A few pinches of dried cilantro (since we don't have fresh)
2 caps full vinegar

Cut everything up. Place in blender. Press chop. Enjoy!

Sorry I don't have a picture it didn't turn out

Tim and I have plans to get more creative with a salsa....stay tuned!

Falafels, an ode to the Glorious Channa

Chickpea/Channa, wondrous Legume, oozing versatility.

We use you in glorious ways, from hummus to Falafel goodness.

Even plain, with curry and cumin, your flavorful facets are revealed,

And you're not found wanting;

You're wanted.

We've never felt this way before about small beans.

How can we explain it with mere words,

With verbs and nouns, with adjectives and alliterations?

Fried or pressured, you let us into your delectable, disguised world,

And all I daresay,

Is try then enjoy.

These are bomb.

Ingredients:

Prepared Channa (chickpeas) (either from can or soaked then pressured)

Broadleaf Thyme

4 cloves of Garlic

An Onion

Egg

Oil (a little to saute, then a fair amount to fry)

Squeeze in half a lime (optional)

Crushed crackers (we use Crix) or Breadcrumbs

Directions:

Saute the Onion and Garlic Then Mash up the Channa/chickpeas in a large bowl adding the thyme (you can even use Guyanese Celery, or parsley), garlic, onion and lime. Then add in the egg and continue mashing.

Add in the Breadcrumbs or crushed crackers to thicken the eggy, channa mixture.

Roll up (using a Tsp or Tbsp) the falafel mixture s into either balls or thick disks with your hands.

While you're mashing and rolling, heat up oil in the Kaharee (or some other frying mechanism) in preparation of deep frying your falafels.

When the oil is hot, drop your balls/ovals it. Let them fry on all sides for about 3-4 minutes or until they're brown and hard.

Enjoy!!

*We've used these falafels in two ways. The first time we made some Roti, and wrapped the falafels in them with some cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and cream cheese (since we didn't have cucumber yogurt sauce). The next time, we just made a fresh salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrot, little cheese) and crumbled the falafels on top of the greens, and made a homemade vinaigrette (olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and some spices) This was really, really good. (if only we had some feta cheese....)

-TT

Hot Pepper Experiments

So as we've mentioned before there is a sauce/garnish here called “Pepper”. It's a mix of hot, savory, vinegary preserved goodness. It's similar to salsa, but waaaaaaay more spicy. I've been promising myself that I'd make it at some point, but just never got around to it. However, the other day we just returned from Town and the pepper bush in our kitchen garden had exploded with peppers. We saw a few green “fruits” before we left, but as we walked closer to our residence we noticed the green peppers had turned a hot shade of crimson. Funny story about this plant. When a neighbor first gave us the plantling we thought it would grow into sweet peppers, but Chelsea's burning eyes, and red rimmed nose (she had touched her face after she cut it) bear witness to our misconception. It was actually a hot pepper plant rather than a sweet. Ooops. So we had some peppers just dying to be picked, and we couldn't for the life of us use all of them just in our every day cooking, so I decided to stop the procrastination and make some pepper sauce.

Hot peppers, deseeded, (about half a pound, we used about 8-9 of them)

2 cups of Vinegar (We used Apple Cider Vinegar, it has a very distinct taste, not sure if I'd recoommend it)

Cucumber

2 Onions

4-5 cloves of Garlic

tsp of Oil

*I added some water to cut the vinegar...use your own discretion)

We cut up and blended all of the ingredients together to make a fine, fine blended liquid (like salsa)

Then we simmered the blended ingredients for 10 minutes and put the liquid in jars and let it cool

Voila! Pepper sauce. I am sure there are other recipes out there, this was just an initial one we tried.