As this is a blog and not a cook book where I'm going to try and sell you on everything I'm going to be very honest like I have been in some of the other posts. When I researched what to eat in Bolivia I was really disappointed (sorry Bolivia) - I didn't know 100% what to expect but I thought that like much of South America there would be similarities, which there was and I felt like I was navigating familiar territory at first. However, every dish that looked familiar to what I was used to had a twist and that just somehow couldn't overcome. A lot of the food looked very oily and carb heavy, and unfortunately for me and my IBS - Bolivia just wasn't playing ball.
Bolivia like most of South America has a version of empanadas called salteñas which I did consider for this week, they are similar to the Argentinian empanadas which are also baked - but in Bolivia they add gelatine to the meat mixture, let it cool so it congeals and then add to the pastry. This means that when you bit into it the empanada is almost self-saucing. This sounded quite interesting but living in a household of two we wouldn't have finished the whole batch and I wasn't sure how well the gelatined sauce would keep, if it would eventually leak through the pastry and how would they reheat... it seemed like cheating as well as I have already made empanadas for Argentina week.
In the end I decided to settle on a dessert which I'm glad I did as the cake was quite nice - however, after making it I found out from my sister that Bolivia is also quite well known for a peanut soup (WHY DIDN'T THIS COME UP BEFORE?) - So now it's on my wish list, a list of dishes that I have found during the challenge but didn't make the cut logistically for my weekly cooking! You'll have to forgive the slightly blurry photo here - not my best!
Ingredients
2 cups of flour
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 tin of pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
90ml of oil
2tsp all spice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup of raisins.
Icing sugar to dust
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 160C and grease and line a 9x13inch baking tin.
Mix the pumpkin puree, eggs, sugar and oil until the mix in homogenous.
Add the flour, all spice, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, nutmeg salt and ginger to the wet mixture. Mix well.
Add the raisins and then pour the mixture into the baking tin.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 35 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.
Leave to cool on a wire rack and then dust with icing sugar to serve.
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