Baking tool:

• greased non-stick springform pan,
• bottom inside 18 cm,
• raised edge 7 cm

 

Filling:

• white beans from a tin,
• net weight about 750 g
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 1 tsp dried savory
• or fresh herb to taste

 

Dough:

• 350 g white bread flour
• 150 ml cooking liquid from the beans
• 50 ml olive  oil
• about 50 ml lukewarm water
• 6 g salt
• oil for brushing  

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At a meeting in the Vredespaleis (Peace Palace) in The Hague I met Gazmend Barbullushi, ambassador of Albania. The cuisine of his country, during the regime of Hoxha for a long time isolated from the world, is regrettably almost unknown to the rest of Europe. This situation I presented to the ambassador. Not long after that he was so kind to send me 1000 Receta gatimi (Tiranë, 2008) written by Evgjeni Harizi with the announcement that I could always ask his help for the translation of a recipe from this authoritative cookbook.

When looking at the pictures and the names of the dishes you can see how joyful Albanians are cooking. You see Turkish as well as Italian or French influences, but when it comes to pastry they are choosy: Albanian. I chose Petanik me fasule from Korçe in South East Albania (Petanik means layered). People there are rightly proud of this sustainable vegetarian pie, a kind of pancake tart. I got the promised help, also from Mrs. Edlira Barbullushi, who told me that you can definitely not use filo pastry, because that will become mushy by the bean liquid.

Baking material:

• muffin-pan for 12 pieces, 38×27 cm,
• diameter muffin about 7 cm, contents 125 ml,
• lightly greased

 

Crust (for 12 pieces):

• 250 g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (2 g)
• 100 g cold butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 100 ml cold water
• extra flour for rolling out

Filling:

• 2 tablespoons (palm) oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 chopped green bell pepper
• 2 chopped hot red peppers (without seeds)
• 2 egg yolks
• 150 ml creamy coconut milk
• 400 g cooked and peeled large shrimps
• 100 g palm hearts in pieces (tin),
• patted dry
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander leaves
• about 5 tablespoons coconut flour
• coconut milk

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From a culinary point of view one can safely say that Brasil is for Latin America what France is for Europe. Eating is something very important there. It is said that a Brazilian foodie will swim the whole Bay of Rio when he hears that the empadas on the other side are better.

Here I offer a recipe for Empadas de camarão. These can be made smallish (empadinhas) and then are served as appetizers. The bigger ones are eaten seated at a table and served with a truly Brazilian salad.

Our filling originated in Cozinha Baiana, the kitchen of Bahía, the most famous of the six Brazilian culinary regions, with strong African influences. Most important ingredients: palm oil (dendê), coconut, fresh coriander, shrimps and hot peppers, ingredients all found here.

Baking tool:

• (flexible  silicon) form
• for 6 muffins (à 125 ml)

 

Muffins (makes 6):

• 200 ml milk
• 100 g buckwheat
• 2 g salt
• 2 eggs (L)
• 100 g cottage cheese
• 50 ml crème fraîche
• nutmeg, pepper

Garnishing salad:

• 1/2 thin cucumber
• 100 ml crème fraîche
• 1 spring onion
• ½  clove garlic
• 1/4  teaspoon caraway seed
• black pepper, salt
• cayenne pepper to taste
• dill branches

Mushrooms:

• 200 g chanterelles
• 2 tablepoons butter
• 1 minced onion
• pepper, salt
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley

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This is a combination from the North-Slovenian region Gorensjka, where mushrooms grow lavishly, you just have to pick them. But buckwheat is expensive nowadays. In contrast to the past, writes Professor Janez Bogataj in European Cookery (2004). He is an ethnologist and an authority on the cuisine of his country. Wheat was always scarse. And so legumes and cabbage were staple food until buckwheat was imported in the fifteenth century. That changed the food habits drastically. Then came the potato, which was welcomed with so much enthousiasm that the buckwheat had to make way for it in the seventeenth century. But what tastes nice endures the centuries. That is why we still see Peçena ajdove kaša z gobami (baked kasha with mushrooms). Here with cucumber salad from Prlekija (Prleške murke). Wine: a Slovenian rosé such as Vipava or else a Spanish Rioja rosé.

Baking material:

• 40×35 cm baking tray,
• lined with non-stick baking paper

 

Dough (makes twelve pastries):

• 300 g plain flour
• 3 tbsp easy bake/easy blend dried yeast
• 1 egg
• 100 ml lukewarm water
• 3 tsp salt (6 g)

 

Filling:

• 250 g very small cauliflower florets
• 150 ml tahina (sesame paste)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 100 ml water
• 4 tbsp chopped parsley
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• salt

 

To cover the dough:

• beaten egg white
• beaten egg yolk
• sesame seed

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Cauliflower’s past is nebulous. It is firmly established that the vegetable stems directly from the prehistoric cabbage family. But the first recipes for cauliflower are written down not earlier than in medieval Arabic cookbooks (for example Al-Baghdadi, 1226) and the first description of the vegetable we find with two Arabic scientists from Moorish Spain: Ibn al-Awwam and Ibn al-Baitar, 12th and 13^th century. The name qarnabit is according to the authoritative Arabic-English dictionary of William Lane no loan word unlike the Dutch name bloemkool  which is just as English cauliflower a translation of Italian caviolfiore. Via that country the crop conquered Europe. And so it is possible that the Dutch owe their most popular vegetable to the Arabs.

Here you will find a Lebanese recipe: fatayer bil-qarnabit. Good in combination with a Lebanese egg salad salata bayd masluq. Which is made as follows: spread salad leaves, thin red onion rings and chopped red pepper onto a plate.  Sprinkle with a sauce of lemon juice, crushed garlic and salt. Slices of hard-boiled egg on top. Garnish with black olives and radishes.

Baking material:

 

• baking tray lined with baking paper

 

For 4 pieces:

Filling:

• 150 g chanterelles
• 100 g lean smoked bacon in strips (Organic)
• 50 g sweet onion, chopped
• 100 g frozen broad beans
• 3 tbsp. breadcrumbs (panko)
• 1 tbsp. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

 

Dough:

• 8 slices of frozen butter puff pastry
• (approx.12x12cm)

 

To cover:

• 1 beaten egg

 

Serve with:

• Small tomatoes

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For me, the chanterelle is the king of wild mushrooms. He cannot be tamed, yet. Too bad, because in the Netherlands he is on the red list in the vulnerable category. We don’t know exactly why. By picking these mushrooms too much? Because of the ‘acid rain’? How does the mycelium behave? So we often have to make do with the chanterelle from abroad. Season for Europe: June-October. In the Netherlands usually August. But I was quite surprised to come across them this year at the end of May. Never seen. Climate change? Or no more acid rain?

Anyway.. here is my family recipe for an enthusiast.

Serves four: 

 

Baking tool:

• casserole with high edge (4 cm)
• greased

 

Pie:

• 250 g cleaned leek
• (with some green leaves)
• 250 g fresh cheese (ricotta)
• 5 g salt
• 175 fine corn flour
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped dill
• butter
• 100 g grated hard goats or sheep cheese (or parmesan)

 

Side dish:

• crème fraiche, garlic, salt
• tomato
• lettuce
• cooked green beans

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Albania is one of the poorest countries of Europe, looted by many foreign conquerors. The Albanian cuisine does reflect this history. There are clear Turkish influences (since the Ottoman conquests in the 15^th century) in this predominantly muslim country. But you can also find restaurants with a purely Russian menu, such as Borsjtsj, Blinis and Steak Stroganoff. For centuries, fugitives from Albania have fled to their neighbours in Kosovo and South Italy. American corn reached Middle Europe in the 17^th century during a period of severe famines. It was quickly adopted in Northern Italy as a replacement for spelt porridge. The coarse maize porridge polenta, known as mamaliga in the Balkan, is still a replacement for bread. In the mountains of North Albania, however, a bread is baked from it, as it is in Portugal (Broa). Here an in-between version: Lakror me misri, which shows how a maltreated people can retain its identity through original food.

Currently there is even a movement among chefs to draw attention to the original cuisine. Until recently most people had the idea that foreign food was better. Below is a slightly edited recipe based on Rezepte aus Albanien by Frauengruppe der Deutsch-Albanischen-Freundschaftgesellschaft (1995).

Baking tool:

• a (fluted) loose-based baking tin,
• top 28 cm /underside 26 cm /rim 2,5 cm,
• greased with butter

 

Filling:

• 650 g chicken leg, bay leaf, pepper, salt
• 30 g butter
• 200 g minced green bell pepper
• 150 g minced peeled celery
• 75 g minced onion
• 150 g cooked ham in cubes
• 1 minced red pepper (with or without seeds)
• 2 tablespoons dried tomato on oil in pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 30 g plain flour
• 100 ml broth of the chicken leg

 

Dough:

• 50 g vegetable fat for deep frying
• 250 g plain flour
• 3 g salt
• 1 egg, mixed with water unto 150 ml
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

On top:

• 1 egg , beaten

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Creole chicken pie from the Far South of America, particularly Louisiana. A melting pot of especially French, Spanish and African culinary influences. But in the first place an ‘ebony’ cuisine, designed by black female cooks with a lot of dedication and fantasy. White women of the South left their kitchen and their children to the care of their black home helps als long as the years 60 of last century. In her touching book The Help (2009) Kathryn Stocket shows how things were at the time of Martin Luther King. At that time too the first cookbook was published written by a black author: Freda DeKnight, who had collected extraordinary Negro recipes for The Ebony Cookbook, a date with a dish (Chicago 1962). This recipe is based on that book.

Baking tools:

• two 40×35 cm baking trays,
• lined with non stick baking paper;
• biscuit cutter 12 cm diameter

 

Dough (makes twelve pastries):

• 250 g plain flour
• 4 g salt
• 170 g unsalted butter, chilled
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• about 100 ml ice-cold water

Filling:

• 1 slice white bread without crust
• 50 ml milk
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 500 g lean minced beef
• 4 g salt
• freshly grated black pepper
• 100 ml blatjang*
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

For brushing:

• 1 beaten egg

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The abolition of ‘Apartheid’ in South Africa had from a culinary point of view the same effect as the gaining of independence in European countries: suddenly cookbooks were published, that showed the multi-coloured cuisine of the nation. A good example is Van Wyk/Barton, Kos wat ons ken (The food we know, Kaapstad 1993). They write: ‘The Malaysians added probably the largest contribution. From them we learned to develop a preference for mixing sweet and sour .. and also for the sauces, curries, blatjang and atjar, so typical of our cuisine.’ The Dutch are credited  with the South African pies ‘much favoured in 17^th century Holland’. But these kerriemaalvleispasteitjies are an African invention.

Baking tool:

• 40×35 cm baking tray,
• lined with non stick baking paper

 

Dough:

• 350 g strong white bread flour, protein about 12 %
• 6 g easy-blend/easy-bake dried yeast
• about 200 ml luke warm milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 x 50 g soft butter
• 6 g salt

Filling:

• 2 x 1 tablespoon butter
• 100 g buckwheat
• 1 egg
• 150 ml water
• 300 g white pollack fillet (instead of sturgeon)
• 1 minced onion
• 8 tablespoons minced dill leaves
• salt
• 350 g salmon fillet
• 200 g white pollack fillet

On top:

• 1 egg yolk, milk

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In  the 19^th century this pie was an indecent rich pastry with 12 layers of filling: meat, fish, mushrooms, roosters, eggs, game and in between buckwheat pancakes, described aptly by Anton Chekhov: ‘the Kulebyaka.. must lie there before you, naked, shameless, a temptation … the butter drips from it like tears’ (The Siren). Elena Molokhovets kept it more frugal in her famous cookbook A gift to Young House wives (1861). After having heard about the book of his contemporary the same Chekhov seems to have made fun of Helena’s soberness. But here you can taste how right she was in leaving out the meat and most of the tears.

Baking tool:

• a (fluted) loose-based baking tin,
• top 28 cm /underside 26 cm /rim 2,5 cm,
• greased with butter

Dough:

• 200 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (2 g)
• 40 g soft butter
• 125-175 ml milk

Filling:

• 15 g dried boletes
• 500 g fresh (or frozen) corn kernels,
• or “crispy” canned
• 75 ml whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 spring onions with green
• 150 g matured cheese, finely chopped
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• pinch of white pepper and nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons freshly ground Parmesan cheese

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Corn crept into the genes of Latin American people. This grain has been cultivated in that part of the world since 3600 BC where it became a basic food and as such an item of worship.

Early Olmecs (Central Mexico) had cob-shaped heads in honor of their Maize god. Their soft little baby heads were pressed between two little shelves in order to reach that holy appearance (to be seen in Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp, Belgium).

The Mayan’s holy book, the Popol Vuh, goes even further in its creation story. After the gods had tried in vain to make a man of clay and wood (it became a monkey!), they tried whether it would work with corn. Success! That made humans respectful. So an Aztec woman blew on the cobs before they entered the pan so that they would not be afraid of the fire.

No wonder that there are so many corn dishes. Here Tarta de choclo.