East Timor - home cooking

East Timor is one of the newest countries that we can expect to encounter during this project, as it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. (Although God only knows how many new countries will be formed by the time we actually finish the whole thing!). And it was fairly clear quite quickly that I wasn't going to find a restaurant in London serving food from this country specifically.

I opted for a recipe that I found in various places: a lamb and tamarind stew. The dish was an East Timorese twist on a traditional Portuguese dish, usually with fish instead of chicken. East Timor is a former colony of Portugal.

This looked like a fairly simple dish to make, with the majority of the cooking time set aside for the lamb itself, to ensure maximum flavour and tenderness. Like any other stew, really.

Rather than use a block of tamarind to create a paste, I skipped this part and just bought tamarind paste. There was also an option of adding lambs liver and tripe. I opted not to.

I started with about 600g of cubed lamb shoulder and browned this on a high heat, then removed and set aside. In the same pan I then fried two chopped onions for a few minutes until it started to soften, added 3 crushed garlic cloves, some chopped fresh ginger, three sliced lemongrass stalks, 6 chopped red chillies and some turmeric powder and cooked this all together for another couple of minutes. Already the kitchen filled with a fantastic aroma!

This is where the meat was returned to the pot and topped with around 650ml of water mixed with a substantial amount of tamarind paste. Once simmering, the pot was covered, heat reduced to low, and this was left to simmer away for two hours. 

I didn't need to top up the water at any point, and once two hours had passed I removed the lid, turned the heat up to medium and boiled off some of the excess water in the sauce. I then seasoned the pot with some salt and pepper, and finally stirred in some chopped fresh mint.

This looked and smelled amazing. The sauce looked really rich and the consistency was perfect.  It was served up with boiled rice.

The result? A seriously tasty meal. The sweetness of the sauce from the tamarind paste was so good! The lamb was gorgeously tender. The addition of fresh mint at the end really set this meal off, and worked so well with the tamarind. Overall, despite there being a good number of chillies in this meal, the spice was ever-present but nowhere near overpowering. It has to be said the lemongrass ended up being quite chewy and a little too abundant. It made difficult eating at times, but overall this was a seriously enjoyable meal.

Dominican Republic - La Tropical

Restaurant:  La Tropical

Location:  85 West Green Road, London, N15 5DA

Date of visit:  5 March 2017

Time of visit:  6pm

This is one we were looking forward to. Elle and I have visited the Dominican Republic twice. Once in 2005, and again ten years later. Neither of us would profess to have sampled a large amount of traditional Dominican food, as most of our time on both trips was spent within the grounds of a gigantic multinational hotel complex. Still, we spent a lot of time with the local people, listening to the music, and getting a feel - as best we could - for what life was like in the Dominican Republic.

As it happens, this restaurant was just a minute away from a previous restaurant on our quest - The Bash - which we visited for Cameroon. We headed to La Tropical on a rainy Sunday evening. As it seemed a bit more like a cafe in nature, I didn't feel the need to book ahead. Which was warranted when we arrived to find only a few tables occupied.

The table tops were clear. No menus. No cutlery or condiments. There was no greeting when we arrived, but we made our way to a table and Elle approached the counter to ask for some menus. She was greeted by a reaction which is quite a common occurrence for us on this project. An air of confusion. Almost like the restaurant worker was expecting to be asked for directions to the nearest pub, or if we could use their toilet. Certainly not "Could we please have a couple of menus". The primary purpose of this establishment was obviously for Dominican expats! 

Of which there is clearly a sizeable amount in this part of London, given the number of people who came and went, and almost everyone seemed to know everyone else well! 

I haven't mentioned the first thing that hit us as soon as we walked in. The music. Loud Dominican vibes. For some, this might have been off-putting. For me, it was what I was hoping for.

The menus came to our table and we inspected the selection of starters and mains. The menu, like the restaurant in general, was on the whole generally Caribbean in nature, but with a particular focus on the Dominican Republic. This latter point is validated by the several national flags dotted around the restaurant, and slogans on their Facebook page (La Tropical does not have a website).

The menu selection was fairly vast, with a large number of the mains taken up by various different meat, rice and beans dishes. Strangely, a large number of those were in a section described as "starters and mains" although only one price was quoted.

Elle and I decided to go two dishes in a different "Meals" section anyway. Elle opted for the "pica pollo" - four pieces of fried chicken with plantain and salad. I absolutely could not resist the "yaroa de papa y pollo". That's chips topped with fried chicken and cheese. A ridiculously unhealthy Dominican speciality.

For drinks - which weren't on the menu - I was really hoping for a bottle of Presidente, a lager that sustained me on both holidays to the country. Unfortunately, they only had pretty much what the off-licence next door sold. Two bottles of Heineken it was then.

It was interesting to watch the comings and goings in the restaurant, and to listen to the music as we waited. My eyes were often drawn to the Dutch football on a Portuguese TV channel in the corner. As we waited, a waitress - who continued to serve us for the rest of the visit - brought us a small dish of sun-dried tomato stuffed olives. I love olives these days, and these were really good. Elle's mind still isn't made up on olives generally, but she also managed a good few with no problem!

We didn't have to wait too long at all for the mains to come out. They brought out Elle's fried chicken first, and it seemed that they weren't going to bring out the second dish until we had finished the first. Which then made us question whether they thought we were sharing both dishes, or had ordered one as a starter after all. Either way, we decided we'd split both meals anyway. This was a fantastic idea, for reasons you'll discover shortly.

The chicken was really very well fried. Not quite overcooked, but there was certainly no risk of it being undercooked. But this also meant that the spicy coating was really nice and crispy, and really quite tasty. Really nice big portions of chicken thigh, rib and leg which had loads of meat. Despite being deep fried, the chicken pieces weren't greasy at all. Really quite dry, but not in a bad way. The same goes for the plantain, which in the past has often been sloppy and greasy elsewhere. Not in this case. Consistency was fantastic. Cooked perfectly, and very enjoyable. Not very sweet, which - with the consistency - made me question if it was actually potato. It wasn't.

Just look at that. That is a plate piled with chips and fried chicken, topped with melted cheese, tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. A beautiful beautiful horrifically unhealthy beautiful thing. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to be able to get from a chippy back home on the west coast of Scotland. And it was exactly as you would expect it to be. I don't really know what else to say about it! It was a beautiful thing. If anything, the coating on the chicken seemed to disappear underneath the bed of melted cheese, but it was still there somewhere. Lots of a lovely pieces of chicken breast. And lots of lovely chips and lovely melted cheese. A beautiful beautiful thing. I would have had absolutely no hope of finishing this on my own. Just as well Elle and I split the dishes between us!

It's fair to say we were absolutely stuffed after this meal. Just after we had asked the original gentlemen who served us for the bill, the waitress was walking around with a large bottle stuffed with herbs and liquid. I can only imagine it was mama juana, which we had tried often in the past when in the country. She poured us a couple of shot glasses of this liquor. Minutes later, we felt it. Strongly! We suddenly felt quite merry. And very very chilled. At this point we started to question exactly what herbs were in this stuff! Absolutely not complaining though, especially as it appeared this was a freebie.

That was a really nice touch. And that coupled with the buzz, the music, the vibrant atmosphere, and how relaxed we were feeling, made me realise that this was starting to feel quite similar to the experience during our famous Angolan restaurant visit in Stratford, still the absolute finest experience we've had on this project. Not quite as good, but it felt similar.

We did have to ask for the bill again. And were pleasantly surprised when it came. Two good substantial meals and two bottles of beer for £20! Plus two free shots, and a complementary plate of olives. 

I had high hopes for this visit. While I won't be telling the story for years to come (like I will about the Angolan restaurant), this really didn't disappoint. A great visit.