Paraguay - Cuisine

I set myself a challenge of making three traditional Paraguayan dishes.  I took ideas from different sources, but probably the best source I found for Paraguayan recipes was http://www.pyadopt.org/recipe.html which has a free PDF version of Flavours of Paraguay:  A Cookbook by Lynn Van Houten. 

Payagua Mascada

The first dish I made was Payagua Mascada which are cassava patties with beef and onion.  I'd never cooked cassava before and had no idea how to prepare this root, so it was fun finding out - I watched a video on YouTube of a woman in Africa preparing cassava root, so I took my lead from her.

Cassava has an unusual texture and taste.  The peel is almost like a bark and I couldn't help feeling that I was eating some kind of tree.  I fried some minced beef and onion, boiled the cassava and mashed it, mixing all the ingredients together (with cumin, salt, garlic and cornflour), then made patties which I fried on a pan.

Sopa Paraguayana

Probably, the most traditional dish in Paraguay, Sopa Paraguayana is a type of cornbread.  I've made cornbread before, by mixing cornflour with wheat flour, however this bread is cornflour only, lots of cheese and milk, also fried onions and tomatoes, which was really delish!



Zoo-Tosopy

My main dish was Zoo-Tosopy, a traditional Guarani beef stew.  The recipe said I should boil the minced beef in water, but I couldn't bring myself to do that, so I made sure the minced beef had cooked through properly before adding water to it. 



I then fried onions, tomatoes and plantain, adding them to the beef, with some long-grain rice and a dash of hot-pepper sauce.  Just like cassava, I had never cooked plantain before, so that was cool and the banana aroma was tantalising.  The overall taste was a bit bland, so I would recommend having some hot-pepper sauce to hand as a garnish, or perhaps using tinned tomatoes, to give the stew a more tomatoey taste.  My pot was probably a bit too small as well, just about managed to get everything in!

It took me about three hours to prepare all three dishes.  I'm not sure whether these dishes are meant to go together, but I wanted to learn how to cook cassava and plantain, and I think the tastes kind of complemented each other.  I ended up making a lot of food, so I imagine we'll be freezing some of it.  The whole lot cost me about 14 GBP, which is approximately $21 and 99,000 PYG (Paraguay Guarani).  

Image credits 

All photos were taken by me.    

The Netherlands - Limburg Beef Stew with Apples

As I was learning about Limburg, I came across a really interesting website called http://www.worldcook.net/   It's available in English and Dutch, which makes me think it must be hosted by someone in the Netherlands.  Anyway, as I spent last weekend with my sister, chilling out in Leeds, I decided to cook a traditional Limburg Beef Stew with Apples.  The full recipe can be found at http://www.worldcook.net/Cooking/WorldRecipes/Limburg-recipes.htm

To be honest, it's dead easy to make, so the recipe is only really needed as a rough guide.  Something I've meant to do in the past is photo-document the entire process, so I've done this here, as a kind of experiment.

First, the ingredients.  Some beef casserole pieces, 2 or 3 onions, some nice (in my case, Irish) butter, 3 green apples, 5 cloves, 3 or 4 bay leaves and two tablespoons of sugar and of vinegar. 

For my mash, I prepared potatoes and parsnips - the parsnips weren't part of the original recipe, but I like to mash them with potato, as they give it a slightly sweeter taste.  I also added a spoonful of butter and a splash of milk to my mash to make it softer. 

The next step was to fry the meat in butter until it browned, then adding the chopped onions until they softened.  This took about 15 minutes in all.  After that I added the cloves, bay leaves, sugar and vinegar - stirring them into the mixture.  I topped this with two cups of water (I decided not to use any stock, as this wasn't in the original recipe and I think this was a good idea). 

I brought the stew to the boil and then covered and simmered it for one hour.  The original recipe says simmer the stew for two hours and then another hour with the apples in - but I decided this was too much and it still turned out really yummy.

After stewing for one hour, I prepared the apples, mixing them into the stew.  I thought the pieces (which you can see in the photo) were way too big, so I took them out again and halved them, although I'm not sure it made much difference in the end, as the apple stewed so well, it formed a kind of sauce with the liquid and spices.  I stewed the mixture with the apples for a further 45 minutes.

Whilst the apples were stewing, I boiled the potatoes and parsnips and prepared the mash, then served it all up and, although it doesn't look like much, after nearly two hours work - it sure tasted delicious!  One thing I might add next time, to see whether or not it works, is a sprinkle of cinnamon on the cooked meal, might be quite nice and I think apple and cinnamon go well together.

Image credits

The Liimburgish flag is copyright free and the photos of the Beef Stew with Apples were all taken by me.