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.    

Oklahoma - How I made cornbread

I must admit that this isn't the first time I've ever made Cornbread, as it's a recipe I've used many times before. 

Nevertheless, I thought I would include it in this blog, as it's such a staple from the mid-West US.  I've made it a little bit spicier than usual by adding chillies and my recipe was inspired by http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/

First to start with the ingredients: 

200 g of Plain Flour
150 g of Corn Flour (that's Cornmeal to my US readers!)
2 tea spoons of Baking Powder
40 g of butter
A good amount of grated cheese
2 eggs
2 green chillies (or red, but green looks better)
150 ml of milk, more or less

Prepare the cheese, chillies and eggs, sieve the two types of flour into a bowl

Mix the Flour, Baking Powder, Chillies and Cheese together in one bowl and the eggs, milk and (melted) butter in another - then combine them together and mix gently

You end up with a fairly sticky dough, although you can add more liquid to this according to taste, I think I'll up the quantity of milk next time, as I like my bread kind of fluffy!

Once, you've mixed it together, pour it into a container (bread tin or cake tin) and pop it into a pre-heated oven (200 degrees) for 30/40 minutes

Easy-peasy - the result is a very yummy bread that will impress the whole family - I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it!!

Image credits

All photos were taken by me, please feel free to copy and use them within the terms of the Creative Commons License, including accreditation and a link to my blog :-)