Cape Verde - home cooking

Although I do pride myself on my geographical knowledge, especially when it comes to countries and borders, I wasn't initially sure if Cape Verde was going to be the next installment of our restaurants project or not. I had never been sure if the territory was an autonomous country in its own right, or a dependency of another. 

But it didn't take much research to realise that Cape Verde is indeed a nation, and as such has a national dish. It also didn't take much research to ascertain that there are no restaurants in London that cater for Cape Verde's cuisine. So it was back to the kitchen.

During the aforementioned research one uniquely national dish popped up again and again. Cachupa - a stew of corn, beans and meat. Going a little deeper than that, cachupa rica added a few more ingredients than the simpler version of the meal. All ingredients that sounded bloody good to me.

There are many variations of even this version of the dish, and I think there is also permitted use of creative licence when it comes to adding even more. I ended up using a recipe of a Cape Verdean student in London, guessing that this was as authentic as I was going to get.

The first ingredient I attempted to buy was dry corn or hominy. No luck. So I took the easy way out and went for sweetcorn, to add later in the process rather than cook with from scratch. I used dry kidney beans as red beans. Also in the meal was olive oil, onions, bay leaves, vegetable stock, garlic, chorizo, pork, chilli powder, potatoes and a sweet potato, white cabbage, carrots and tomatoes.

As I used dry beans, and bought them on the day of cooking, I flash soaked them for an hour to soften them up. After sauteing one chopped onion with a bay leaf I added the beans (and usually the corn) followed by one litre of both vegetable stock and water. This cooked for 40 minutes.

While this was on the go, in another big pot I heated four tablespoons of olive oil and to this added the other chopped onion, four crushed garlic gloves and one bay leaf. Once the onions started to soften I added one sliced ring of chorizo, half a kg of diced pork, and a tablespoon of chilli powder. This all cooked together on a low heat for around 20 minutes, stirring often as the mixture was quite dry.

Both pots were ready at pretty much the same time. One was added to the other, and at this point the rest of the ingredients - 4 small potatoes (quartered), 1 sweet potato (quartered) half a cabbage (sliced), 2 carrots (sliced), and 2 tomatoes (peeled and sliced) - were added, mixed together thoroughly and cooked for another 20 minutes. This is also the point where I added a drained tin of sweetcorn.

A word of advice. Use the biggest pot you have for this. The recipe used here was to feed six, and I would even say that was a bit of an underestimation.

When serving, I was careful to leave as much liquid in the pot as possible as ideally it should be served on a plate. And it was hugely enjoyable. I always want to use the word "wholesome" when it comes to cooking a stew like this, and wholesome is a good word to describe it. I love cooking with rich items like chorizo, as the flavour really soaks into everything else in the pot in the best way possible.

The potatoes added some real substance to the meal, as did the pork. The beans and corn made this a thoroughly filling meal. I'm still not really sure what bay leaves do in cooking, and the chilli powder seemed to have negligible effect. Still, this was a fantastic dinner that also became lunch a couple of days later.

Elle also enjoyed the meal, but it contain three things that she doesn't really eat - kidney beans, chorizo and carrot. She gave it a good go though, and discarded only the kidney beans. She actually was complimentary about the chorizo such is the positive effect the spicy sausage has during the cooking process.

Canada - The Maple Leaf

Restaurant:  The Maple Leaf

Location:  41 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7LJ

Date of visit:  23 August 2015 

Time of visit:  7pm

Canada was always going to be a fairly simple, non-exotic affair. We were already familiar with the Maple Leaf after a couple of visits for a drink and some pool (I swear there was once a selection of pool tables, although they seem to be gone now). I also assumed this was the only real option when it came to Canadian or Canadian-themed bars/restaurants, which seems to be the case.

As for Canadian cuisine... I don't even know what to write. One of the top "national dishes" of Canada in a recent survey was the "Kraft dinner" (macaroni cheese from a box). 

On checking the menu ahead of the visit, the selection was fairly standard. Burgers. Steaks. And one single dish on the menu that looked uniquely Canadian. Poutine. Chips, cheese and gravy. Off we went.

We arrived on a Sunday evening and the venue was fairly busy. It's definitely much more of a pub that does food, than a restaurant. Actually, I think this was the first time we had visited such a venue since the project began. Nevertheless, we felt quite at home.

After a little mulling over the menu, Elle approached the bar to order. She came back a few minutes later with a story of how the barmaid was hungover, finding this out after her colleague joked about it behind the bar. She got confused taking the order, but got there in the end. Despite the hangover, she still tried some upselling, including upgrading fries to "criss cross fries". We politely declined.

For starters we went for a couple of dishes to share. Poutine and six ghost chilli chicken wings. For mains we both went for the "Maple Leaf" burger, one with ghost chilli pulled pork (Steve) and one with peri peri pulled pork (Elle). And a pint of Fosters and Aspalls respectively.

As we waited, I spotted live Spanish football on the TV's around the pub. I guess there were no live ice hockey games on in Canada at the time (is it even ice hockey season?).

The food arrived in fairly good time, the starters first. The poutine looked and tasted exactly like it was described. Chips, cheese and gravy. But it was *just* chips, cheese and gravy. There was nothing particularly unique about it. I've seen the cheese in poutine described as "cheese curds". This was almost certainly grated cheddar. And a "light brown gravy-like sauce" in this case was definitely simply beef gravy. Don't get me wrong, to this Scotsman and Black Country girl, it was absolutely as good as chips, cheese and gravy should be! Maybe we just expected some kind of twist.

The starters may have lacked twist, but certainly made up for it in kick. The ghost chilli wings were pretty special. I've had hotter wings (namely the Orange Buffalo stall near the Truman Brewery in East London - ridiculously intense!!) but these were pretty good too. Good size of wings too. It's too easy to be served budgie wings these days. We also received 8 wings instead of the advertised 6. Bonus!

At this point I was hugely annoyed with myself. This blog has recently included photos of the food. Yet I neglected to take a picture of the starters! As for the main...

There was no forgetting to take a picture of the main, for it was served on a slab of tree. For some reason this instantly irked the both of us. All I could think was that this burger was going to get messy. And this plank of wood wasn't going to help contain it much. Plus, I've had it somehow instilled in me that wood is unhygienic for preparing and serving food. The wooden chopping board effect. 

Elle very politely asked for two plates instead, which seemed to confuse the staff who asked "Don't you like our wooden boards?". He seemed more amused than anything else. I think I decided that this wouldn't even have been an issue were we at least ten years younger. Anyway, let's not dwell on that.

Oh, and another thing. When I read "pulled pork mixed with sauce" I expect "pulled pork mixed with sauce". Not "pulled pork with no sauce, with a small pot of sauce for you to somehow mix into the pulled pork on top of a burger". I can't even say I'm nitpicking now. I wanted minimal effort, and all of a sudden there was effort involved! How hard would it have been to do, in the kitchen, what it claimed in the menu?

I don't even think I want to read those three paragraphs back. I'm already disappointed in myself for writing them. I don't really know what I've become. Let's just say, when all was said and done, it was a really good burger. Freshly cooked, maybe a little lightly. If you don't like your burgers pink, this might not have been your thing. It was a little worrying that Elle's was fully cooked and mine wasn't, so I can't be sure it was the house style. Just undercooked.

This review will either read like an awful experience, or make me sound like a moany wanker. Neither are true. Honest! The menu is really decent, and the food was good. As was the service. It was a really standard meal, experience and night.