Sunday, July 24, 2011

Stobá (Dutch Antillean meat stew)

Stobá can be based on beef, but we opted for goat. You have to buy goat with lots of bones. Bones give flavor to a stew. I ended up buying 1,5 kilo goat, which seemed like a quarter of a goat. Chop the goat in pieces about 10 centimeters big.



Rub the meat with lime juice and dry the meat.



Fry the meat in oil until it browns.



Add: two chopped onions, 3 chopped cloves of garlic, 3 tomatoes (cubed), 1 big tablespoon tamarind juice, a little sugar, nutmeg and (don't leave this out!): 1 or 2 madame jeanette peppers.



Mix everything so the meat gets coated with all the spices.



Add enough water to cover the meat, add salt according to taste and simmer for at least 2 hours.



Add one green bell pepper cut in small chunks and one big sweet potato (cubed) and simmer for another half hour. At this point I added a small can of tomato paste for extra flavor.



Add a handful of pickled caper and simmer another 15 minutes.



When you're finished the meat should really fall off the bone. It's almost like a soup. Since the stew contains sweat potato you don't even have to cook rice. But it's good to serve with pickled red onion.



A rare photo of myself in my kitchen:

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Pipe Rigate ai Piselli e Prosciutto

This recipe is both incredibly simple, tasty and rather laborious.

For the pasta I used rigatoni instead of pipe rigate.

Instead of piselli (peas) I used broad beans (Italian: fava, Dutch: tuinbonen). We spent the first half hour skinning the broad beans, first the pods, then the skin from each bean.



Next step: melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 2 cloves crushed garlic and add the beans or peas.



Add 150 ml chicken stock, wine or water. I used chicken stock. It's salty so be careful not to add too much salt. Sprinkle chopped parsley, season with salt and pepper and simmer for 5 -8 minutes. In the meantime boil the pasta.



Shred 100 gram of prosciutto crudo (dry-cured ham). I used Parma ham. It's expensive (5 euro per 100 gram) but worth it.



Add 100 ml panna da cucina and boil on high heat until the sauce thickens while stirring.



Add the Parma ham and remove from fire.



When the pasta is cooked add 1 tablespoon of butter and 100 ml panna da cucina to the hot pan.



Add the drained pasta.



Finally, pour in the sauce and toss. Sprinkle with fresh herbs before serving.