With bellies full of lentils and chicken in red sauce last week, and the fun of the experience still fresh, we threw our next dinner dart immediately after our first Dartmap Dinner last week, so we would have ample time to prepare and anticipate.
Okay - so the first dart we threw landed in Kenya. I didn't even look, but it just FELT too similar to Ethiopian, so we made a new rule that we can veto a dart if we have eaten from a similar region in the past few weeks. So, Kenya was our first vetoed dart.
I threw our dart again. THIS time, we got Corato, Italy. Now, Corato is just a small town, so we expanded our cuisine search to the Puglia (or Apulia) region of Italy. It is the region that makes up the heel of the boot.
The region cooks a lot of seafood, and mussels seemed prominent in recipes for the area, but they also seemed like a lot for little ol' me to handle.
Luckily - I found a recipe for an orichette pasta and a beef braciole in tomato sauce. Well, the braciole recipe actually calls for horse meat - but it gave the option of beef, which I thought was nice because, frankly, I'm not cooking horse. I wouldn't even know where to find it.
Here are the recipes I used:
For the orichette: http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/pasta-with-ricotta/
Once again, the toddler wasn't a big fan, but everyone else was! My teen said, "I'm really glad that we are able to cook and do this around the world thing!"
Okay - so the first dart we threw landed in Kenya. I didn't even look, but it just FELT too similar to Ethiopian, so we made a new rule that we can veto a dart if we have eaten from a similar region in the past few weeks. So, Kenya was our first vetoed dart.
I threw our dart again. THIS time, we got Corato, Italy. Now, Corato is just a small town, so we expanded our cuisine search to the Puglia (or Apulia) region of Italy. It is the region that makes up the heel of the boot.
Puglia was settled by the Mycenaean Greeks in the 8th century BC.
We definitely wanted to shy away from anything we typically eat with Italian roots, but we also didn't want to get too complicated.
The region cooks a lot of seafood, and mussels seemed prominent in recipes for the area, but they also seemed like a lot for little ol' me to handle.
Luckily - I found a recipe for an orichette pasta and a beef braciole in tomato sauce. Well, the braciole recipe actually calls for horse meat - but it gave the option of beef, which I thought was nice because, frankly, I'm not cooking horse. I wouldn't even know where to find it.
Here are the recipes I used:
For the orichette: http://culinariaitalia.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/pasta-with-ricotta/
For the Braciole: http://www.charmingitaly.com/article/top-5-puglian-recipes
Because Broccoli Rabe is often made with the Orichette, and because I couldn't find broccoli rabe, we cooked some broccolini and added it to the pasta. We did not cook them together because the kids are against all things green.
The braciole was not hard to make, and my teen loved the pounding of the steaks. I placed them in a freezer bag a few at a time so he could flatten them for me. The wrapping wasn't too hard, but there was a little learning curve. The recipe doesn't say - but you will need to simmer these for about 45 minutes. Also - I forgot to add the basil to the braciole at the end. That probably would have been better, but... everything was SO good! The meat was tender and the flavor was great! The pasta was nice and creamy, too!
Once again, the toddler wasn't a big fan, but everyone else was! My teen said, "I'm really glad that we are able to cook and do this around the world thing!"
Me too, sweetie.... me too.
We had a cherry gelato for dessert and were so blissful (and ready to watch GoT) that we forgot to throw our dart! I DO recommend having a week to plan though, so we will throw today - and we'll see you next week!
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