Try a food you might not have tasted.

[Globalti]

Surely @Cycleops your standard starchy snack in Ghana is plantain chips?

I'm in Addis Ababa this week where the national dish is injera, a weird sort of bitter-tasting wet pancake that looks and feels like a rubber bathmat. You use it to make parcels with spicy slow-cooked meats.

 

[mjr]

Pierogi. They're boiled usually-vegetable-filled small-pasties or large-ravioli, depending on your point of view. Depending on exactly where you're getting them from, they may instead be called pirogi, perogi, pirohy, pyrohy, pirozhky, pirosti or virtiniai. Some places use a similar word for buns or pies, though, so watch out!

I haven't seen them. Plenty of sweet potatoes, but not so much yams. I think you'd have to visit an Asian or Caribbean store for yams.

Greengrocer market stalls with a decent exotics section have them, such as Seekings on Lynn market.

 

[jefmcg]

Everything was bleedin horrible.

Unfamiliar food can take a bit of getting used to, and some of it is not going to be to your taste. I holidayed Japan as a young woman, and tried to experience all the tastes I could. After a few days I was suffering from taste-bud-PTSD. I could never guess what anything I put in my mouth was going to taste like. Sweet or savoury, or more often an unexpected combination of the two. And lots of emphasis umami, a concept that hadn't made it's way out of Japan at that time. So I had to try these things a few times, basically train my palate. You can't expect to enjoy a really unfamiliar taste the first time.

That being said, I generally enjoy most of the foods I have sampled from different Asian countries I tend to stick with main course rather than dessert options, and especially steer clear of sweetened drinks, because I really don't like them.

It actually makes me sad to think I may never try a really unfamiliar cuisine again - though I suspect there's a lot to sample in Africa.

As for original suggestion: Deep frying a starchy vegetable is half of traditional British cuisine. Serve it with boiled meat and cruciferous vegetables cook to a grey mush followed by dish of superheated fruit+flour+sugar+fat and you will hear Vera Lynn singing.

 

[Cycleops]

@Globalti I know, rather partial to Plantain chips. Another popular plantain snack here is Kelle Welle. Over ripe plantain with chilli and ginger.

In fact we have a few plantain trees in our garden.

I've also had injera but not in Ethiopia. (Sotto voce) I used to have an Ethiopian girlfriend. I used to enjoy it.

 

[annedonnelly]

South African sweet potato:

boil the sweet potato (cubed) in boiling water with a little salt .... when soft, drain and before mashing, add a tablespoon of brown sugar and a level teaspoon of ground cinnamon

I picked up a copy of the Co-op Food magazine today. They have a recipe which is basically yours BUT they then add a layer of sliced marshmallows and stick it all under the grill for a few minutes!

They go on to say that it can also be served as a dessert - with ice-cream.

 

[Cycleops]

Sounds delicious @annedonnelly .

 

[PeteXXX]

I see loads of lovely looking fresh fruit and veg displayed outside African shops in Northampton but never quite know what they are or whether they're supposed to be for dinner or pudding, or how to cook them.
I'll ask the folk there one day as I'm sure they'll be happy to help.

 

[dim]

one of my favourite winter stews is Oxtail .... My mom used to cook it often in South Africa

place the oxtail pieces in the oven at 200 degrees C to brown then add in a slowcooker with some chopped carrots, celery, chopped onions, 3 crushed cloves of garlic and add a packet of Knorr Minestrone soup, and just a little water, some salt and fresh ground black pepper, and a good splash of red wine

cook it all day in the slow cooker, then 1/2 an hour before serving, add some fresh frozen peas and some sliced mushrooms

serve with mash or rice and thicken the gravy by adding some bisto or similar and reducing it in a pan on the cooker

Oxtail is cheap here in the UK, and is one of the tastiest cuts. If buying from a butcher, ask for the large pieces and not the tail end

 

[PaulSB]

Pierogi.

Oh don't! How could you remind me? My Italian MIL used to make these for my Ukrainian FIL - she learnt from Ukrainian women. Filled with a combination of smooth mashed potato, soft onion and white cabbage and tossed in olive oil or butter before serving.

They were called Pyrohy. To die for!!! Probably some people have.

Sadly while my wife inherited her mother's wonderful Italian cooking skills she never mastered the Ukrainian recipes.

New Year at my MIL's was amazing. Living in Scotland there was NYE followed by Ukrainian Christmas.

Kutya was a great favourite - a starter pudding made by simmering wheat all day and adding berries, raisins, walnuts and flavoured with honey. A full size prosciutto posted over from Italy along with the panettone!

 

[Cycleops]

@dim That Oxtail recipe sounds great, have to try it. Unfortunately nobody seems to use want to these cheap cuts any more, but they can be delicious.

 

[dim]

try this next time that you cook mushrooms:

slice them, then fry then in butter or oil until nearly done

add salt and pepper, then add a level tablespoon of flour (self raising)

cook and stir for a while to cook the flour. The flour will coat the mushrooms and soak up the juices

then just before serving, add a good splash of balsamic vinegar

tastes totally different to the normal way of cooking them and this is the way my family cook wild mushrooms (works with normal mushrooms aswell, especially the brown ones from Tesco or other stores)

 

[Cubist]

@dim That Oxtail recipe sounds great, have to try it. Unfortunately nobody seems to use want to these cheap cuts any more, but they can be delicious.

Some of the more "archaic" cuts are by far the best! Cubester worked all summer at a wholesale butchers, and we often had a lot of what are now considered by some to be the "poorer" cuts. Pigs' cheeks for example, skirt, lamb breast, and an absolute revelation, hanger steak. Look it up, and if you like tasty coarse grain steak, try and source some. It's literally awesome.

 

[Cycleops]

The injela pancakes are not very nice on their own, they really needs the peppery sauce to off set it.

 

[srw]

a packet of Knorr Minestrone soup,

That would be something I've never tried.

Why not a tin of tomatoes and half a tin of borlotti beans instead? You've already got the carrots and onions, which are the other core components of a minestrone (at least in its commercial form)?

 

[ianrauk]

I love tasting new and different foods. There's absolutely nothing I won't try. There's not much I have found that I don't really like.
Coconut and Aubergine are not to my taste but doesn't mean I wont eat them again.
I tell Little H when he turns his 6yo nose up at food, try it, as it may be the best taste ever. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There's only one food I have aver come across that I thought tasted disgusting and that was some sort of Sea Anemone Milk. The thing is, I had to keep trying it as my brain couldn't or wouldn't compute that it was a food my tastes didn't like.