Recipes from Bolivia

Some years ago I was invited to a friend's house for a Mexican meal, which was served with salsa on the side. I passed up the salsa because I tend to prefer unspicy Mexican food (to me, Mexican food is all about the cheese). When I said that fateful "no thank you," my friend then hit me with a snide "Oh, is it too spicy for you?" remark, which I guess I took badly. In defense of my honor, I invited her to dinner a few weeks later and served a Thai curry that was so spicy she couldn't even finish it.

Bratty, I know. But by telling you this story I'm admitting that the ability to eat and tolerate spicy food is kind of a badge of honor. Now before you get all defensive, yes it is true that many people (and I'm one of them) enjoy spicy foods for reasons other than machismo. But let's face it, there comes a point when the actual flavor of the food gets lost under all that heat, and it really is just about enduring the pain.

Which brings me to Bolivia. Now Bolivians, I am told, like it spicy. When I embarked on my Bolivian journey, I was thinking that probably meant hot Mexican-American salsa spicy, not London curry house spicy, which is several notches above the spiciest Mexican food you can get here in the US. So I was unconcerned.

The star of our show: Bolivian fritanga.

Bolivia, as you probably know, is a South American nation. It is respectably large—in fact, at just over 424,000 square miles, Bolivia is the 28th largest nation in the world. It is also a high-altitude nation, with bragging rights to the world's highest elevation capital, La Paz, Bolivia, which is 11,942 feet above sea level. But wait, that's nowhere near the highest point in Bolivia—the highest point is the peak of Nevado Sajama, which is a whopping 21,463 feet above sea level (to put that into perspective, Mount Everest's peak is at 29,029).

Bolivia, the 28th largest country in the world.

With more than half its population living in poverty, Bolivia is not a rich nation, but it is culturally wealthy with traditions influenced by its native Quechua and Aymara populations as well as by Spanish colonialism. Likewise, its cuisine is a marrying of Spanish style with local ingredients.

Now despite the relative enormity of Bolivia and what I have no doubt is a rich culinary tradition, online resources for Bolivian food were scarce. I kept encountering the same small handful of recipes wherever I went, so I ended up choosing a meal based on sadly limited options. But the three recipes I did pick sounded pretty good, and here they are:

The appetizer: Pukacapas
(From Boliviansfood.com)

For the dough:
 

• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten (for brushing on top)

For the filling:

• 1 large onion, minced
• 1 small red pepper, minced*
• 1 small green pepper, minced*
• 1 tomato, minced
• 1 green onion
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup green olives, chopped
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 cups queso fresco, crumbled

* I took this to mean bell peppers, but I now think I interpreted it wrong. I ended up with way too much filling for the amount of dough I had, and because I have elsewhere seen this recipe called "spicy cheese empanadas" and there was nothing else in the ingredients that could be called "spicy," I now think that the "peppers" called for are probably not bell peppers but their smaller, spicier cousins (such as jalapenos).

This is queso fresco, available in most grocery stores.

Next recipe: Fritanga
(From Boliviaweb.com)

• 2.2 pounds pork rib meat
• 2 cups cold water
• 2 cups white onion, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 cup tomato, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp mint, finely minced
• 1/2 cup parsley, finely minced
• 1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup ground cayenne pepper
• Salt to taste
• 4 cups water or broth
• 1 cup green onion, thinly sliced
• 4 eggs, beaten

Yes, that's right. A half cup of cayenne pepper. That is not a typo. Next recipe:

Arroz con Queso (Rice with Cheese)
(From BoliviaBella.com)

• 2 cups short grain rice (I used sushi rice, which seems to be the only short grain rice going around here)
• 1 1/2 cups crumbled queso fresco (kolla cheese is traditional, but most Bolivian resources seem to agree that queso fresco is a good substitute)
• 1 tsp garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp red onion, minced
• 1 cup milk
• 6 cups water
• Salt to taste

I started by making the filling and dough for the pukacapas, which I'm pretty sure I did wrong. Here's how it went:

First mince and or chop all the ingredients.

These are the filling ingredients. Colorful, aren't they?

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan and put everything except for the cheese into the hot oil. Saute for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. Then take the pot off the heat and stir in the cheese.

Saute until the vegetables are soft, then take off the heat and add the cheese.

Now as I mentioned above, I'm pretty sure now that you're supposed to use smaller, hot peppers and not bell peppers, though the bell peppers did taste good in this. Using bell peppers I ended up with way too much filling.

While the filling is cooking, make the dough. First blend all the dry ingredients with the butter, then add the milk and eggs. Blend until you get a smooth dough.

Blend the dry ingredients, then add the milk and eggs.

If you're making this ahead of time, you can shape the dough into a ball, cover it with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until you're ready to use. Just let it warm up at room temperature for about 20 minutes before rolling it.

Blend until you get a smooth dough.

When you're ready to bake the pukacapas, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Roll the dough out pretty thin (mine were a little too thick, which made the pastry-to-filling ratio too high). Cut into circular shapes. To assemble the pukacapas, drop some filling into the middle of one of the dough rounds, leaving enough space around the filling to join the two pieces of dough.

Put a little bit of the filling into the center of the dough round.

Cover the filling with another piece of dough, then moisten the edges a little with water and pinch together.

Cover with another dough round.

Now crimp the edges. At this point I was having momo dumpling flashbacks.

The original recipe did not say anything about cutting a slit in the top to vent steam, but you do need to do this (I didn't, and my pukacapas split open at the seam when baking). Just put a couple of little slits in the top like you would in a pie.

This is what happens if you don't cut slits in the tops of your pastries.

Now beat an egg and use it to brush the tops of each pastry. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden.

From a certain angle they look pretty good don't they?

Well before you put these in the oven, you should start on the fritanga, which needs to stew for a couple of hours.

First cut the pork meat up into bite sized pieces. If you have a fat-phobic husband (as I do), make sure you remove each infinitesimally tiny piece of fat from the meat, or he may use it as an excuse not to eat what you cooked.

OK yes I'm just the tiniest bit bitter about the fat thing. Because rib meat is, after all, a pretty fatty cut of pork, and I'm guessing that this recipe wouldn't have called for rib meat if the fat wasn't traditionally included in the dish. Now, I already knew that my husband is grossed out by fat, so I cut a lot of it off. So much, in fact, that I ended up with well under the 2.2 lbs of meat that this recipe called for. But I did leave some of it on because I didn't think I could do the recipe justice without it. Sigh.

Anyway, take your fat-free pork meat and put it in a pot with the cold water. Heat it to a boil and let it keep boiling until all the water is gone.

Boil the pork in the water until the water has burned off.

Now take the meat out of the pot and set it aside. Add the onions and a dash of salt and fry until translucent.

Yes, frying onions.

Then add the tomato, herbs and all the spices except for the cayenne pepper. Cook for two or three minutes until the tomato softens up a little. Now add the cayenne pepper. You'll get a really thick paste, which you should fry for another minute or two. Avoid the fumes or they might actually kill you.

If this photo fills you with fear, it should.

Add the water or broth (I just used chicken broth), followed by the pork. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for two hours, adding more stock as necessary to keep the amount of liquid in the pot at more or less the same level.

Five minutes before you are ready to serve, remove the pot from the heat and stir in the green onions.

Add the green onions ...

Add the beaten eggs, stirring quickly to keep them from scrambling. They will thicken the stew. Now serve. If possible, put on some kind of body armor to prevent your family or guests from retributively murdering you.

Look pretty innocent, doesn't it?

Finally, let's do the rice. It only takes about 30 minutes, so start making it about an hour and a half into the fritanga.

First boil the water with the salt, then add the rice and keep boiling, uncovered, until almost all of the water has been absorbed or cooked off. The rice should still be pretty wet, but without pools of water and definitely not fluffy.

Meanwhile, sauté the garlic and onions in a small amount of oil for maybe four or five minutes. Take care not to let them brown.

More frying onions, but these are red!

When the rice is nearly ready, bring the milk to a boil (warning, milk scalds easily so don't take your eyes off of it). Now add the milk, cheese and onion/garlic mixture to the rice. Cook over low heat, stirring, until all the cheese has melted.

After adding the milk and cheese.

So I already knew that this was going to be way too spicy for my children, because duh. So I made this meal just for me and Martin. Starting with the pukacapas:

They needed a few things.

First, more salt would have brought out the flavor a little. I attribute this more to the cheese substitution than anything: although most Bolivian resources seem to agree that queso fresco is a good American substitute for Bolivian cheese, I've read in at least one place that Bolivian cheese is saltier than queso fresco, which makes perfect sense since I've always thought queso fresco was really bland. So I should have used more salt in the filling.

Second, I didn't roll the dough thin enough, and the pastry (while good), overwhelmed the flavor of everything else.

Third, as I've already mentioned, I should have used jalapenos instead of bells. 

They were still pretty good, but Martin and I both thought they could have been a little better.

OK now for the fritanga.

Martin took one bite and burst out coughing, then leapt from his chair and proceeded to have a dickie fit over an unopened package of paper towels, because as you know there's nothing like a good hot spicy meal to clear your sinuses. I took one bite and about fell out of my chair. It was hot.

Now, "hot" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In the US, people (on average) tend to have a lower threshold for spicy foods. So just to put this into perspective, up until now the hottest thing I've ever eaten was a chicken vindaloo in a London curry house. It's been probably a decade since I ate that vindaloo, but I'm about 95% sure that this was hotter, which means it's most likely the hottest thing I've ever eaten.

But I did eat it, because my ego wouldn't really let me do otherwise. I will say that I did not enjoy it. I have no idea what it tasted like. I do know that the pork was wonderfully tender, in fact I don't think it would have been any more tender if it had been sitting in a crockpot for eight hours. I just wish I could have tasted it.

After his initial coughing fit was over, Martin had a few more bites and then encountered a chunk of fat. Thinking it was a potato, he ate it and was then so disgusted he threw the rest of it away. Yes, my husband has a severe over reaction to fat. I should have known this. Of course, not wanting me to think that he'd woosed out over the heat, he then poured himself a meat-free bowl of fritanga sauce and ate it with a few of the leftover pukacapas and the rice. So we were both in pain, but with egos intact.

Oh yeah, the rice. I don't have any idea what it tasted like, either, because the normal function of my mouth wasn't restored until at least 30 minutes after the meal was over.

Now I won't say that Bolivian fritanga is too spicy for you or anyone else reading this blog, because you may be one of those rare people who can not only handle ridiculously spicy food, but actually likes it for reasons other than simply preserving your honor. But if you want to cut back on the cayenne pepper by say 80%, I won't tell anyone.

Next week: Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For printable versions of this week's recipes:

• Pukacapas (Spicy Cheese Empanadas)
• Fritanga (Spicy Pork and Egg Stew)
• Arroz con Queso (Rice with Cheese)

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Recipes from Bhutan

You probably already knew this, but food and happiness are intimately connected. Bhutan, as it turns out, is the happiest nation in Asia and the eighth happiest nation in the world. So I'm pretty sure I know the reason why.

Sadly, this map is the best Wikipedia could do. I guess you can probably pick out that tiny green spot.

Located in South Asia at the eastern end of the Himalayas, Bhutan is a landlocked country of about 15,000 square miles and 700,000 people. It is bordered by India and China and its climate ranges from sub-tropical to sub-alpine. Almost everyone who lives in Bhutan (about 80 percent) is supported at least in part by the agricultural industry, which produces various grains, chilies, dairy and root crops, among other things. Bhutan has the great distinction of being the first nation in the world to ban the sale of tobacco, as well as one of the last nations in the world to introduce the television (its nationwide ban on TV and the Internet wasn't lifted until 1999). How much this has to do with the Gross National Happiness Index (and Bhutan is the only nation in the world to measure such a thing) is anyone's guess, but I personally would be pretty unhappy without Facebook and True Blood, so I'm guessing it at least helped. Mostly, though, I think it's the food. Because Bhutanese food is yummy.

Momo dumplings with ema datshi, served over Bhutanese red rice. Yum!

Recipes from Bhutan were actually not that easy to find, though, which is a shame because I would love to have a whole cookbook full of them. I was lucky enough to find a couple of recipes that looked really good, for the following reasons:

1.       Cheese

2.       Chilies

3.       Yak

OK you were probably with me up until I said "yak." But after my very positive experience eating kangaroo burgers back in Australia, I really wanted to try some yak. So I set out on a yak hunt that actually lasted several weeks.

Surprisingly, yak is not that easy to find in my area, even though it is farmed here in the US. My friends at Corti Brothers in Sacramento couldn't get it, and although I did find one Sacramento restaurant that has it on their menu I decided against calling them up to beg a pound off of them since with the price of gas the drive down there would have actually cost more than just ordering it, even with two day shipping.

The source I eventually settled on was a company called Exotic Meat Market, which (among other things) sells a lot of really weird things like crocodile, beaver, camel and lion. Yes, that's right, lion. Now in case you were thinking that a lion steak sounds like it would really hit the spot, an 8 to 12 ounce cut will actually set you back around 500 dollars. So I didn't order any lion, because I don't have 500 bucks, but also because ew. I did find ground yak meat on their site for $30 per pound plus $27 to ship. Pricey, I know, but hey, you can't put a price on new experiences. Unless it's 500 bucks for a lion steak.

Now I did have some minor trepidation about ordering meat over the Internet, since as you know I've ordered cheese online and had it arrive warm. But my order actually came the very next day packed in a Styrofoam container and still frozen solid. So it looks like I've found my new source for weird meats.

Yak patties. I actually have two of these still in my freezer.

In case you didn't believe me ...

If you don't personally care to try yak or if you just don't want to spend a foolish amount of money in doing so, they do actually eat beef in Bhutan and beef is considered an acceptable substitute in this recipe:

MoMo Dumplings

From ThingsAsian.com

For the dumplings:

• 1/2 pound ground yak or beef
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 ounce xiaoshing (Chinese wine, found in most Asian grocers)
• 2 tsp flour
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeds removed, finely minced
• 1 package round wonton wrappers
• A few large lettuce or cabbage leaves

For the dipping sauce:

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp chili oil

This is xiaoshing, also called "shaohsing," among other things.

The next recipe I chose is a fairly simple concoction of chilies, tomatoes and cheese called "ema datshi," which is not only the national dish of Bhutan but also the source of great Bhutanese pride. Traditionally, ema datshi is made with—you guessed it—yak's cheese. So I set off on my next quest.

Sadly, though, this time my quest was unsuccessful. I couldn't find yak's cheese online and I couldn't find it in any brick and mortar cheese shop. I finally emailed Eddy Sanders from Grunniens Yak Ranch in Colorado (another source for yak meat, by the way, though they were sold out by the time I was ready to place an order). Eddy told me that there isn't anyone in the US producing yak cheese at this time, mainly because regulatory requirements just don't make it practical to do so.

So I decided to cheat, because I really wanted to make this recipe. It's not like I've never cheated before, after all, and I usually try to do it the way I think a national living outside of his/her country might do it. So I poked around online and found some Bhutanese posters debating the best US substitute for yak's cheese in ema datshi, and finally settled on a 50/50 combo of feta cheese and Danish blue, which at least a few Bhutanese transplants agree is a decent substitute for the real thing.

So here is the Ema Datshi recipe, as shared by Kunzang Namgyel on "The Bhutanese Food Site," which has a small collection of authentic recipes. (My interpretations and changes are noted below).

• 9 oz chilie peppers, sliced lengthwise into four pieces each (I used jalapenos, which are roughly the same as the peppers used in Bhutan)   
• 1 onion, sliced*
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 2 tomatoes, chopped*
• 4 1/2 oz feta cheese *
• 4 1/2 oz Danish blue cheese*
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed 
• 3 stalks cilantro, chopped *
• 1 cup Bhutanese red rice

(*Recipe notes: Kunzang's recipe called for onions "chopped longitudinally," which I took to mean sliced, since I've never actually seen that word used in a recipe. The recipe also didn't say what to do with the tomatoes or cilantro, so I assumed chopped. And as mentioned above, the combination of cheeses I listed in this recipe is a result of my research on Bhutanese forums. Lastly, Bhutanese red rice is imported from Bhutan and can be found at various online gourmet shops. I got mine from iGourmet.com.)

And finally, I did want to try doing a dessert, though I couldn't find any referenced on any of the Bhutanese websites I found. I did find a few desserts in the Bhutanese section of Recipes Wiki, though I don't necessarily trust that they are authentic since (like all wikis) anyone can post anything on that site and call it whatever they like. But I decided to do one of them anyway, so if you are from Bhutan and know for a fact that my choice is Just Wrong, please send me a note to let me know. Here it is:

Sweet Banana Soup with Tapioca

• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 14-ounce can coconut milk
• 1/4 cup quick-cooking tapioca
• 2 large bananas, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1/2 tsp salt

The dumplings are the most time consuming of these three recipes, so let's start there:

With your hands, thoroughly mix the ground meat with the onion, garlic, xiaoshing, flour, soy sauce and jalapeno. 

The base for your momo dumplings.

Mix well with your hands.

Lay out a few of the wonton wrappers and spoon a small amount of the filling into the center of each. Fold the wonton wrapper in two and then pinch the edges to make a tight seal. Alternately, the recipe says you can "pinch the dough into a series of tiny pleats, gathering the edge together into a tightly puckered rosette at the top." Like that's going to happen.

First drop a small amount of filling onto the center of the wonton wrapper.

Now fold in half ...

... and pinch the edges. Done! With one of them, anyway.

After you've made about four million of these things, you may take note of the fact that your bowl of filling does not appear to have diminished in the slightest. I attribute this to some strange rift in the momo dumpling space-time continuum, which you may want to ask Steven Hawking about because I do not personally have any interest in understanding it. 

So anyway, just ignore that sinking "this is never going to end" feeling and keep making dumplings. Eventually, you will reach the bottom of the bowl (I promise). In the meantime, avoid stacking your dumplings (as I did in the following picture) because they do tend to stick to each other (the wonton wrappers are tough enough that you can get them apart, but it's a little challenging). If you are making them in advance, you might want to dust your plate with a little bit of flour and just lay them down in a single layer.

My plate of dumplings. If you stack them this way, you will regret it.

When you're ready to cook the dumplings, line your steamer basket with the cabbage or lettuce leaves (the recipe says to use a bamboo steamer, but I used my electric one and it worked just fine). I'm still not sure what the exact purpose of this step is, but I suspect it's to keep the dumplings from sticking, although I think the cabbage leaves also lent a little flavor to the finished dumplings.

Put the dumplings on top of the leaves (don't let them overlap) and steam for 30 minutes. 

Steam the dumplings for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the dipping sauce ingredients. Serve the dumplings hot with the dipping sauce. 

The ema datshi comes together quickly, so you don't really need to start making it until the dumplings are underway. Here's how:

First make the red rice, which takes about 20 minutes to cook. 

This Bhutanese red rice came from iGourmet.com.

It doesn't actually look a whole lot like rice.

Add the rice and 1 1/2 cups of water to a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. 

It still doesn't look that much like rice.

Meanwhile, put the chiles and onions into a pot with the water. Add the vegetable oil. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to medium. 

These vegetables just need to be boiled in a little water with some vegetable oil.

Boil uncovered for 10 minutes, then add the tomato and garlic. 

Add the tomatoes and garlic ...

Continue to boil for 2 more minutes, then add the cheese and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes. Add the cilantro and remove from the heat. 

Stir and cover. Let stand for two minutes before serving over the red rice. 

It's not the prettiest dish, but it is oh-so-good.

And finally the dessert, also simple:

Put the water and coconut milk into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Then add the sugar, salt and tapioca. 

Bring the water and coconut milk to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often. Add the bananas, then remove from the heat and let stand for 15 minutes. 

Tasty, and light compared to most American desserts.

You can serve this hot (as I did) or you can let it chill it for a few hours.

So I know you are dying to hear what I thought of this meal, because I didn't make it obvious enough early in the post with all that talk about food being one of the keys to happiness. So I'll say it again: we loved this meal. At least, Martin and I did. The kids really didn't care one way or another. Dylan and Natalie ate their dumplings but couldn't be convinced to go back for seconds, though they remained blissfully unaware that they were eating yak (though I really don't know the word "yak" would have actually meant anything to them anyway). They also ate the rice, though I just topped it with a little feta cheese since I thought the ema datshi would probably be too spicy for them. Henry wasn't interested in any of it, which is pretty out of character for him, and Hailey was also not interested in any of it, which is completely in character for her.

I thought everything was delicious. The yak was sweet and mild, and although I thought I could detect a little gaminess I now think it was probably just the differentness of it, since almost no one else says yak tastes gamey. The ema datshi was oh-my-god good, and the red rice was slightly nutty with a little bit of a chewy texture that was not at all unpleasant (reminiscent of brown rice, which I usually don't like). The banana soup was good, too; it was light and fruity and made a nice change from all those heavy Easter desserts we've been eating over the past week.

So yes, I have to say that overall my personal Gross Happiness Index went up a bit this week. These recipes are going into my family cookbook, which is good because I actually still have about 3.9 million momo dumplings left in my freezer.

Next week: Bolivia

For printable versions of this week's recipes:

• MoMo Dumplings
• Ema Datshi
• Sweet Banana Soup with Tapioca

Read More

Recipes from Bermuda

For the past 60 years or so, people have been saying that airplanes and ships will sometimes mysteriously vanish into the so-called "Bermuda Triangle." I'm pretty sure that's where most of Bermuda's good recipes have gone, too.

OK so it's really just a matter of personal opinion. I did find recipes. A few. And none of them really sounded all that good to me, so I wound up settling.

I'm still a bit surprised by my general lack of good luck in Bermuda, because these touristy-type island nations are usually as rich in culinary tradition as they are in beaches and sunny weather. Of course Bermuda isn't really in the same category as the other island nations I've covered--though it is an associate member of the Caribbean Community it is actually located far to the north and is in fact significantly closer to Martha's Vineyard than it is to The Bahamas.

Sorry, this map is the best Wikipedia could do.

Bermuda was uninhabited for more than 100 years after it was first discovered (in 1505 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez), and it wasn't until a ship wrecked there in that anyone actually thought about settling it. That's not because Bermuda isn't a beautiful place to live but because for a century it was known as "The Isle of Devils," which is a nickname people took literally. The name was derived from stories of the spirits and devils that lived there, which turned out to just be foraging wild hogs and a nocturnal seabird now called the "Bermuda Petrel," both of which like to make eerie noises late at night.

There are 181 islands in the territory of Bermuda (which is just that, a territory of the United Kingdom rather than an independent nation). It is roughly 20 square miles in total landmass with a total population of about 64,000 people, none of whom particularly seem to enjoy sharing recipes online. Despite Bermuda's reputation as a tropical vacation destination, tourism is in fact only its second biggest industry, with the first being offshore finance. This is because Bermuda has very low taxation on personal and corporate income, which makes it a great place for entrepreneurs who want to export financial services such as insurance, reinsurance and investment funds.

So maybe Bermudans really just aren't that into food, or are just too busy to bother with blogging and recipe sharing. I did find one half-hearted attempt at a Bermudan food blog (which only contained a handful of recipes), some chef recipes, which I don't usually like to use because they tend to be not very traditional, and a few scattered recipes on sites like Bermuda2u.com (which was sadly short on main courses) and CaribbeanChoice.com.

Looks yummy doesn't it? :-/

So here's what I settled on:

Fish Chowder (which actually came from Suite 101 writer Heather Zorzini, who promises it as an authentic Bermudan recipe). Here are the ingredients:

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 3 medium onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 green peppers, chopped
• 5 cups water
• 1 1/2 lbs red snapper fillets
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 10 peppercorns
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves or 6 whole cloves
• 1 28-oz can chopped tomatoes, with juice
• 1 10-oz can beef consomme
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 tbsp Worchestershire Sauce
• 2 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 ribs celery, diced
• 6 carrots, diced
• 2 tbsp Outerbridge's Original Sherry Peppers Sauce
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 8 lemon wedges
• chopped parsley for garnish
• freshly ground pepper

Ingredient note: "Sherry Peppers Sauce" is popular in Bermuda and I gather is kind of important to the authenticity of this recipe. I got mine from The Great American Spice Company.

My next recipe came from that one sparsely populated Bermudan cooking blog (Bermuda Traditional Recipes):

Cod Fish Cakes

• 1 lb cod fish
• 3 cups mashed potato
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 tsp seasoning salt
• ¼ tsp thyme leaves
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 small onion, chopped or grated
• Cooking oil
• Flour

And for dessert (from CaribbeanChoice.com):

Sweet Potato Casserole

• 3 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup heavy cream (if needed)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup self-rising flour
• 1/4 cup melted butter

So let's start with the fish chowder, and let it be known this important fact:

I hate carrots and celery.

OK that's not strictly true, I like raw carrots and celery (with dip and in salads) and Martin makes these candied baby carrots that are pretty ridiculously good. I can tolerate grated or pureed carrots in a recipe as long as they aren't overwhelming but as a general rule I do not tend to like recipes that contain cooked carrots and celery. And this recipe has a lot of them. But because I like my Travel by Stove recipes to be authentic, I chose the route of the martyr and decided to leave them in.

Do I chop it fine, thus making it less noticeable, or do I leave it in chunks,
thus making it easier to pick out? Dilemmas, dilemmas.

Now, I know my dislike of carrots and celery isn't normal because it seems like about 90% of all beef stew recipes contain them, as do a billion or so other recipes. It seems like I'm always cutting carrots and celery out of something I'm cooking, so I guess my inability to enjoy them is quirky. Though Martin does share this preference, so I guess we're a quirky pair.

So with that confession out of the way, here's how you make fish chowder ala Bermuda.

First make the stock. To do this, chop up the onions and celery and squish the garlic.

Too bad these weren't the only vegetables in this chowder ...

Melt the butter and cook the onions, garlic and green pepper in it until soft. Then add the water and the fish filets. Add the bay leaves and thyme, then put the peppercorns and whole cloves (if that's what you're using) into a tea ball and drop into the stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 30 minutes.

This actually looks like it's going to be pretty good ... sigh ...

Now add the tomatoes, the beef consomme, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until well incorporated, then add the potatoes and those awful (or lovely, depending on your perspective) carrots and celery. Lastly, add the rum and Sherry Peppers sauce and bring back to a boil.

Hmm, looking a bit less good now.

Reduce heat and partially cover the pot. Simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

When the chowder is done, remove the tea ball and bay leaves, garnish with the parsley and top each serving with ground black pepper. Serve with lemon wedges, extra rum and Sherry Peppers sauce on the side.

Now on to the fish cakes, which can be served as an appetizer (as I did) or as a side, though I don't actually know how the Bermudans tend to like them. The blog where I got the recipe had them served with hot cross buns, which seemed a bit odd to me, so I just did them ala-carte.

First cook the fish. I steamed mine in a foil packet with a little bit of water (325 degrees for 20 minutes). When it's done cooking, flake it with a fork.

If you've never cooked fish in foil, just fold it over and roll the folds tightly to keep steam from escaping.

Mix the fish with the mashed potatoes. Beat the egg in a large bowl, then add it to the potato mixture.

Mix well, then season with the salt, pepper, thyme, parsley and onion (I grated mine, but I also patted out the excess moisture with a paper towel because the mixture was already pretty wet). Dust a large plate with flour, then shape the mixture into patties and arrange on the plate. Dust the tops with a little more flour.

Ready to fry.

Heat a generous amount of oil in a skillet and add the fish cakes. Fry on both sides until golden brown.

Fry until golden brown on both sides.

Now for the dessert. I'll admit I've never eaten a dessert made with sweet potatoes, because that sounds about as yummy as a dessert made out of squash (no I don't like pumpkin pie either). But hey, I was already venturing into the land of Stuff I Don't Like, so I decided to forge ahead.

First mix the mashed sweet potatoes with the sugar, coconut, raisins, eggs and vanilla.

This will become the base of the casserole.

If it seems too thick (compared to what, I don't know), add the cream. Mine didn't really seem too thick so it didn't get any cream. Now spoon the mixture into a well-greased casserole dish.

Combine the brown sugar with the pecans, flour and butter. Spread over the top of the sweet potatoes and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes (it's ready when the topping is golden brown).

Oven-ready sweet potato casserole.

I know you're dying to hear the verdict, so here it is:

The fish cakes were good but I did feel like they needed something a little extra, like a sauce (or maybe some hot cross buns). As I said earlier, I served them as an appetizer but in retrospect I think they would have been better as a side (to something other than fish chowder).

So you can probably guess based on all the above bitching how much I liked the fish chowder, which was not at all. It wasn't like I could even pick out the carrots and celery because there were so many of them, and they actually overwhelmed the flavor of the fish, which at the end of the cooking process had disintegrated to the point where you could barely tell it was even there. I didn't even finish mine. You might as well have just called it a "carrot chowder," because that's what it seemed like.

As for the sweet potato casserole, I thought it was the best part of the meal. Though I confess, I liked the topping a lot more than I liked the filling (it was just like a pecan pie). When we eat the leftovers I'll probably add some vanilla ice cream. As for the chowder leftovers, they went (tragically) down the garbage disposal. Don't let this put you off, though, Martin thought it was a good flavor overall and someone who enjoys carrots and celery would probably have a better opinion of it than I did.

Next week: Bhutan

For printable versions of this week's recipes:

• Bermuda Fish Chowder
• Cod Fish Cakes
• Sweet Potato Casserole

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