Jordan: Where in the World Wednesday!

How is it Wednesday already?? How time flies by!

My friend, the lovely Miss Jamie, is our guest tour guide today and brings us to Jordan. Although presently residing in Northern Virginia, Jamie travels a lot and in the past few years, her travels have brought her to extended stays in Jordan. On her trips, she has stayed in the capital, Amman, and some of her other favorite spots have been were Petra, the Dead Sea, and Wadi Rum. Thanks so much Jamie for taking part in Where in the World Wednesday!

(1) Describe food in Jordan in 10 words or less:

Traditional mezza style. Delicious and healthy! Lots of chick peas.

(2) Are there any dishes that you think are traditional of Jordan? Have you come across any favorites?

Traditional Jordanian dishes include hummus, tabbouleh, baba ganoush, falafel, and chicken/beef shawarma. I love them all! My favorite is simple hummus with olive oil and bread as a starter and chicken shawarma for the meal.

(3) Do you find that Jordanian food is influenced by certain ethnicities or cultures or religions? If so, which ones?

Jordanian food is similar to the foods of its neighboring countries. They have a lot of mixed BBQ and kebabs which is actually Lebanese in origin.

(4) If you were putting together a food gift basket representative of Jordan to take home for a friend, what would you include in it?

Hummus, olive oil, bread, various Jordanian cheeses (unfortunately I don't know what any of them are called but they have a lot of different types of white cheeses) and lots of Jordanian pastries and candy. The most popular one is called Kanafeh, which is a flaky stringy pastry.(7)

(5) Have you had any particularly memorable Jordanian food experiences? Anything you've heard about that you want to try?

On my first trip, we stayed over night in a traditional Bedoin camp in Wadi Rum, a desert in southern Jordan. Our hosts made us a feast for dinner including chicken that was baked in coals and then buried 3 feet in the sand. The chicken baked this way for about an hour. It was the best chicken I've ever had, the meat literally melted off the bones. I guess baking it in the sand and pressure allowed the chicken to marinate in its own juices making it extremely tender and savory.

Thank you Jamie for taking part!

BB: Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

Oh so behind, again, in posting for Barefoot Bloggers! The end of July meant for very tasty peaches and blueberries... perfect for this Peach and Blueberry Cobbler selected by Aggie of Aggie's Kitchen for the second July Barefoot Bloggers recipe!

I love both peaches and blueberries. Love love love. So the idea of warming them up, making them oh so gooey, and bringing out their best flavors sounded divine to me. After just a few minutes after popping this cobbler into the oven, our house smelled SO GOOD. Cinnamon-y, peach-y... everything warm and comforting with a touch of summer.

Now, I decided to make my cobbler in one large ceramic container instead of the individual ramekins. This worked out just fine -- all the fruits cooked up very nicely. But this resulted in lots of excess crumbles... I ended up dumping part of the crumbles because it just seemed like too much for the top of my cobbler. But I was wrong. I think if you were to do this, you should probably use all of the crumbles. Because when I would reheat up bits and bites of the cobbler a few days later, the crumbles would just get lost in all the fruit -- more crumbles I think would have solved this problem ... at least in part.

I quite liked this cobbler. Loved all the flavors involved. I would try it again -- and probably try mixing up the fruits a bit depending on the season.

The Recipe: Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

For the fruit

• 2 lbs firm, ripe peaches (6-8 peaches)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (1/2 pint)

For the Crumble

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 lb (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced
  

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Immerse the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until their skins peel off easily. Place them immediately in cold water. Peel the peaches, slice them into thick wedges, and place them in a large bowl. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, granulated sugar, and flour. Toss well. Gently mix in the blueberries. Allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes. Spoon the mixture into ramekins or custard cups.

3. For the topping, combine the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the butter is the size of peas. Rub the mixture with your fingertips until it’s in big crumbles, then sprinkle evenly over the fruit. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and back for 40 to 45 minutes, until the tops are browned and crisp and the juices are bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature. If you want to make these early, store the unbaked crumbles int he refrigerator and bake before dinner. Serves 5 to 6.

Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica: Where in the World Wednesday!

"Where in the World Wednesday" brings us today to the west coast of Costa Rica on the Nicoya Peninsula. Our guide today is Martha, who creates beautiful pottery in her studio in Costa Rica (see above for some of her pieces!). Martha moved to Costa Rica in 2005.

She told me that the Nicoya Peninsula is one of the 5 blue zones where people are said to live the longest on earth. The research conducted on the blue zones was shot in the mountains in this part of Costa Rica.

Martha was so kind to answer my questions about Costa Rica! I visited Costa Rica in 2007, but only a brief trip to Arenal and Tamarindo. But that was enough to whet my interest (and my appetite!) about Costa Rica...

(1) How would you describe "Costa Rican" cuisine, particularly in your area?

The Nicoya Peninsula is part of the Guanacaste province. Until it was annexed to Costa Rica in, I think 1824 it was a separate country and has a little different culture and cuisine. It could be compared to Texas in the US. It is a ranching area, where stick to your ribs food is customary.

(2) Are there any dishes that you think are traditionally Costa Rican?

Costa Rica is especially fond of chicken. They fix it many different ways. Typically very well cooked, we might call it overcooked. Cooked to death. Rice and beans with everything. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, with salsa, of course.

And for drinks, they usually have fruit juices. I especially like Tamarindo, it is fruity and sweet. Mixed fruit drinks are popular, using watermelon with citrus.

Here in Junquillal, to make money, some of the local ladies cook and sell door to door. I have tasted pastries that the locals truly relish and I can hardly stand to eat. Their idea of sweet is nothing like in the US, they use lots more cinnamon and less sugar.

Tamales are a big deal, made and shared at Christmas the way we do Christmas Cookies in the US. They are made with corn meal, meat in the center, wrapped in banana leaves and boiled till done.

(3) Do you have a favorite local dish or restaurant?

When I go to town, I love to eat at Rico Pollo Rico (Rich Chicken) where you get great fried chicken and fries. They always give you mayonnaise and ketchup for dipping. (?)

Another restaurant I like is a "tipica soda", meaning Costa Rican restaurant, called the Tortilla Factory. They serve great food with hand made tortillas cooked in an outdoor wood heated oven. The rest of the food is cooked inside the restaurant on wood fires. Huge pots full of rice, beans, chicken, beef, pork, vegetables and they like cheese on the side, of course sour cream and HOT salsa.

I lived in North Carolina for 35 years prior to moving to to Costa Rica. Fried food and "pulled" barbeque were the staple. Probably why I like my fried chicken here in Costa Rica. But miss the fried flounder you get at the fish camps in NC. I miss hush puppies, but the corn tortillas are great!

4) If you were putting together a food gift basket representative of Costa Rica for a friend that was visiting you from overseas, what would you include in it? (also assuming that none of the food items would go bad in the basket!)

Certainly would have to include coffee. The best I have ever tasted. There are several great brands, I like Rey in particular.

Bananas and pineapple are grown here and very cheap. But the favorite fruit among Costa Ricans is the orange. You can find them sold on street corners everywhere, with a man using an orange peeler, taking off only the orange skin, leaving the white part. They sell them in bags, peeled. You punch a hole and suck the juice out, squeezing it until finished. The skins are everywhere. When I first came here, I couldn't figure out what I was seeing on the beaches, and on the streets. But it beats plastic bottles littering the streets.

(5) Do you find that the food in Costa Rica has been greatly influenced by certain ethnicities? If so, which ones?

Typical Central American food, like in Mexico. I'm not sure though if that is influence, or normal for the continent.

(6) Where could you get a good meal and a drink for the equivalence of US$15 and what would you get?

I hear many speak about the great seafood they get locally at reasonable prices, less than $15 a person. A typical Costa Rican restaurant is very inexpensive. But international restaurants tend to be quite expensive. Here in Junquillal, a couple can spend as much as $175 for an Italian meal, which I heard tasted very good.

Thank you Martha for participating!

Cookie Carnival: Lemon Ricotta Cookies

This month's Cookie Carnival invites us to join the lovely Giada de Laurentiis in the kitchen (who I love!!). Ok, so not "literally" in the kitchen with Giada, but we bake up one of her dessert recipes -- LEMON RICOTTA COOKIES WITH LEMON GLAZE.

Now when I say cookies, I really should be saying CAKE here. These somehow decadent but light cookies came out to be more like cake (think...the top of a cupcake) -- which really, I don't mind. The lemon is fresh and really brightens the cookie, but is not overwhelming. The icing on the cookies came out a little bit thin for me, but added a sweet kick to the cookies.

Loved these. Would definitely make them again. And they were so easy to make! (Although I did cut myself on my lemon grater... oops.)

RECIPE: LEMON RICOTTA COOKIES WITH LEMON GLAZE
Ingredients:
Cookies:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 lemon, zested

Glaze:

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 lemon, zested

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cookies:

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the large bowl combine the butter and the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie) onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes.

Glaze:

Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Spoon about 1/2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours. Pack the cookies into a decorative container.

England: Where in the World Wednesday!

Nathalie's Raspberry Mess - Yum!
The FIRST Where in the World Wednesday brings us across the pond (or at least across the pond for me) to England. Today, we're featuring two lovely ex-pats who both reside in England's capital city of London. Both were kind enough to be the first features and definitely offered me some insight into the food side of London and England generally. I hope that you enjoy our first of many weekly trips... Enjoy!

Brief background on both ladies:

Elaine has lived in London now for over three years and previously lived in both Maryland and New York. After living in New York and growing up surrounded by the food industry, she's no stranger to good eating! Now she offers me weekly (if not daily :)) insights into all the food London has to offer (not to mention the delicious cookies and chocolates she brings me when she comes to visit).

Nathalie, although living in London now, has lived all over the place including Israel, Belgium, Florida, Paris, Toronto, and Frankfurt. She shares my love for food and cooking and welcomes any cooking challenge (feel free to send her a recipe or two and she'll show you how it turns out on her blog! ... I'm working on picking out the right recipe for the challenge!). She also makes beautiful jewelry, which is actually how we first met.

Now, for your brief tour of British eats (on a sidenote, quite interesting to get two points of view... every week will be slightly different, so some weeks we'll have more input and some less):

Are there any dishes that you think are traditionally British? Do you have a favorite (include a recipe if you'd like!)

Elaine: There are tons of traditionally British dishes: Fish and Chips, Bangers and Mash, Steak and Ale Pie, and let's not forget the yummy desserts - Trifle, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Bakewell Tart, Bread Pudding, Mince Pie.

Nathalie: Oh there quite a few: fish and chips, Lancashire Hotpot, Yorkshire puddings, bangers and mash, Shepherds' Pie, and of course the typical full English breakfast. As meat features rather heavily in these meals and as I don't eat meat I never got to sample most of them.

I do have a sweet tooth so I like most of the local desserts (or pudding as they call them) such as shortbread, treacle tart and even the Christmas pudding. One of my favorites desserts is this version of the Eton mess (see above!) -it's really easy to make and if you suck in the kitchen or in a rush you can buy ready made ingredients and just assemble it. (I stole the recipe from Ruth Watson).

Ingredients
250g mascarpone
600g fresh raspberries
350g creme fraiche

For the meringues
3 large egg whites
175g sugar

For the custard
425ml full fat milk
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
6 large egg yolks
115g caster sugar
1 tbsp cornflour

In the easy version (where you buy ready made ingredients) you just mix ready-made custard and mascarpone, then layer the ingredients in wine glasses in the following order:

1. 50g raspberries
2. 3 tbsp custard & mascarpone mix
3. crumbled meringue
4. 1 tbsp of creme fraiche
5. 50g raspberries
6. 2 tbsp custard & mascarpone mix
7. crumbled meringue
8. 1 tbsp of creme fraiche
9. A few raspberries for decoration

If you're doing it the hard way:
1. Preheat oven at 100C
2. make custard: heat milk and vanilla pod in a saucepan until just below simmering point.
3. Meantime whiz egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in food processor until thick and creamy
4. Take milk off heat and let it infuse 15-20 minutes.
5. Remove vanilla pod and add it to the egg mixture - blend but not too much
6. Rinse pan and pour the mixture back in. Return saucepan to a medium-high heat and bring to the boil whisking continuously
7. Still whisking, reduce heat and simmer for one minute.
8. Remove pan from heat and plunge the base of the pan in ice cold water
9. Continue whisking 2-3 minutes until the custard cools a little, then leave to chill stirring occasionally.

Meringues
1. Whisk egg white until you get glossy peaks that don't fall when you turn the bowl upside down. 2. Whisk a large spoon of sugar then fold in the rest - about a fifth at the time.
3. With a tablespoon dab small evenly sized mounds of meringue on a baking sheet
4. place baking sheet in the oven for 90 minutes then turn off the heat and leave in the oven for another hour.

5. Remove from oven and leave it to cool completely.

Assembly
1. Just mix custard and mascarpone, crumble the meringue and assemble as described above.

If you were putting together a food gift basket representative of your country for a friend that was visiting you from overseas, what would you include in it?

Elaine: Tiptree Strawberry and Champagne Conserve (this is my favorite jam but the other flavors they make are excellent), Fortnum & Mason Chocolate and Macadamia Biscuits, a selection of Cadbury Chocolates, McVities Caramel Digestive Biscuits (don't be put off by the word "digestive, these are basically cookies covered in caramel and chocolate), English Scones, and Scotch Eggs (a shelled hard-boiled egg, wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried).

Elaine later shared with me that she wanted to add a few things that would likely go bad in a gift basket, but if she COULD include them, they would be strawberries and cream or yorkshire pudding (um, yum!).

Nathalie: Let's just make one thing clear here *looks severely a Jackie* England is NOT my country - it's just where I live right now :). And I'm ashamed to say I take perverse pleasure in making fun of their 'cuisine'.

But I do do the 'gift' basket whenever I go abroad (to horrify my friends more often than not...) (For more information on Nathalie's gift basket, check out her blog! She provides more details about each of these items...)

It usually includes the following:
Marmite (yeast extract),
Mint Kit-Kat (yes, they dared)
Twiglets (snack that tastes like Marmite),
Cheese and onion chips (or crisps as they call them here)
Jaffa cakes (orange chocolate cookie)
Hobnobs (a type of cookie - very dry!)
Roses (a type of Cadbury chocolate)
Terry's orange (very cool chocolate in shape of an orange)
PG tips (tea)

Do you find that the food in the UK has been greatly influenced by certain ethnicities? If so, which ones?

Elaine: The UK is certainly influenced by the Commonwealth countries, most notably India. You can get some amazing Indian food here.

Nathalie: Yes, it most definitely has (and it's a good thing otherwise I would starve....). I think the biggest influence is probably Indian/Pakistani and curry regularly feature on the list of the most popular British foods (and some years it even tops the list). Where I live there is a big concentration of Poles so there are quite a few Polish groceries stores. Supermarkets in general are quite good in stocking food from different countries. In my local supermarket I can find anything from Jamaican to Vietnamese food.

What is your favorite “local” restaurant and why?

Elaine: Sakura, is this little Japanese restaurant near Oxford Circus that serves really authentic food at very reasonable prices. It's always busy, usually packed with Japanese people which is always a good sign! The sushi is particularly good plus they have a lot of items on the menu that you wouldn't normally see, ie. Nasu Dengaku (Japanese grilled eggplant with sweet miso paste and sesame).

Nathalie: It's probably my local noodle place - I like Thai food and this restaurant is conveniently close and relatively cheap. They also have a good selection of vegetarian dishes.

Where was your last amazing meal in the UK and what was in it?

Elaine: Gordon Ramsay's at Claridges for my boyfriend's birthday. For my starter I had the Sautéed chicken livers, soft-boiled quail’s eggs, frisée and smoked bacon. My main course was the Cornish lemon sole, English asparagus, wild mushroom fricassée, citrus beurre blanc. The meal ended with a Valrhona chocolate fondant, mint ice cream and raspberries. YUM! (My commentary: Oh that Gordon... how I heart him as well).

Nathalie: Mmmmm.... let me think.... I don't go out very often.... And the places I go to offer good food but it's by no means amazing.

Where could you get a good meal and a drink for 15 pounds (or approximately $25) and what would you get? (Given the current economic times!)

Elaine: Aside from Sakura which definitely fits the bill, I'd say Waterloo Brasserie. In addition to their a la carte menu they also have fixed price menus for £12.95 (2 courses) and £16.95 (3 courses). There's also a website here called Toptable which has tons of restaurant deals like 50% off or cheap fixed price menus which change often and are well worth taking advantage of.

Nathalie: Wagamama would be a good place if you're an Asian food fan like me. For this amount you could get a main, a drink and either a dessert or a starter.

(My commentary: I LOVE Wagamama as well! The Wagamama in London was the first one I went to, and they're supposed to open one here in DC soon... here's hoping!)

Thank you so much to both of these lovely ladies for participating in the first "Where in the World Wednesday" ... stay tuned for next week which will jet us to a different part of the world. As always, if you'd like to take part, please leave me a comment letting me know! (On an aside, I'm quite happy to include other U.S. foodies on this, particularly because there are so many places I've yet to visit...).

Cheers!