Plantain, how do I cook thee? Let me count the ways...

Commonplace in many Latin American and African cuisines, the plantain is a member of the banana family. Its colour varies from green to black depending on its ripeness, and while inedible raw, this starchy vegetable lends itself to a wide array of both savoury and sweet dishes when cooked. Here in Colombia you can't go far without finding some platano somewhere along the line, and recently I've been testing out a few recipes. Starting with ripened plantains, here are two variations of how they can be served, either savoury or sweet.

The 'Jacket Plantain'

The other day, getting home tired and hungry, I routed around for some dinner. Faced with these simple ingredients:

I could feel a good late night dinner calling. To make this savoury, stuffed plantain, you will need:

-1 yellow ripe plantain

-2 tomatoes, finely chopped

-1/2 onion, finely chopped

-1 can of tuna

-1 avocado, sliced

-1 lime, for a bit of juice squeezing

-Adobo seasoning (this is just a mix of paprika, oregano, salt and pepper. Use these if you have!).

Method
1) Slice off the ends of the plantain and place it in an oven, heated to 190 degrees. Leave to cook for 20 minutes, and get on with your filling.
2) Heat some oil in a pan, and cook the onion until it takes on a translucent colour. Add in your seasoning followed by the tomatoes, and cook for 10 minutes.
3) Open and drain the can of tuna, add it into the pan. Turn off the heat and add in avocado chunks. By now your plantain will be cooked - take out of oven, carefully peel off skin and slice in the middle to open up like a book.
5) Place in your tomato filling, and finish with a squeeze of lime juice and avocado slices.

A quick and healthy dinner, in under 20 minutes

That's dinner done then! But what if you've already had your dinner, and are looking for something sweet to finish it off? Well here is potentially the easiest dessert recipe ever. With a similar cooking method to the 'Jacket Plantain', this sweet dessert contains the wonderfully exotic flavours of coconut, papaya and mango. 

Plantain 'Split'

-4 ripe plantains
-1 mango, cut into chunks
-1/2 papaya, cut into chunks
-1 can of coconut milk
-2 tbsp brown sugar
-Handful of desiccated coconut for sprinkling

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 190 degrees, cut the ends off the plantain and place them in their skins in the preheated oven..
2) While they are cooking, get on with making your coconut cream. Pour coconut milk into a bowl and add in brown sugar. Either with a whisk, hand whisk or blender, whizz up milk until it takes on a thicker texture. Once it looks like it has a bit of body, it's ready.

Curvaceous coconut cream.

3) When plantain skins are black (20 minutes or so), take them out of the oven and (just like for the jacket plantains) peel them and open up like a book.
4) Now pour/spoon over coconut cream, and pile on fruit. Sprinkle generously with desiccated coconut, and a touch more cream for good measure.

A tropical treat for any day of the week! Feel free to play around with the fruit you use to fill your plantains. Maybe you could go for some berries? Perhaps even some chopped up oranges with a dash more sugar would go well. It's a really easy dessert and a nice spin on a well-loved classic.

For the next recipe, I have looked to common food trends for inspiration. The popularity of dishes such as spaghetti squash and cauliflower crust pizza highlights how we can use vegetables to substitute certain carbohydrates. While traditional pizza and pasta is wonderful, a slightly lighter substitute every now and then is a nice way to try out new recipes, as well as being a healthy option. This next recipe replaces rice with green plantain, and works really well - give it a go and see what you think!

For my Plantain Fried Rice, you will need:

-1 large green plantain

-1/2 onion

-1 red pepper

-1 green pepper

-Half a can of sweetcorn

-Drizzle of honey

-Salt and pepper

-Dash of chilli sauce

-Lime zest (a tad)

1) Firstly you want to chop your plantain really small. I managed this with a box cutter, which pushes the veg through a grate, but this could be just as easily done with a knife.

Your 'rice' grains'.

2) Cook your onions for 2-3 minutes, just to give them a bit of colour. Then, add in your plantain, tomatoes, red and green peppers. Add in salt and pepper along with lime zest.

3) Stir well and make sure it doesn't burn. As you don't want this to be greasy, if it looks like it's sticking to the pan add in some water. 

4) Cook for a further 10-15, add in sweet corn, and just before taking off the heat add your drizzle of honey and chilli sauce. Finish with a squeeze of lime and that's it! 

A great veggie meal in itself, or why not thrown in some grilled fish or seafood on top?

Continuing on with our green plantain and healthy alternatives, we arrive at the popular dish that is patacones. Patacones are fried plantain rounds that often sit alongside many other fritos, which are a typical street food. Cheap, tasty and filling, these fried snacks will certainly keep you bouncing until lunch.

30p for a frito...i'll take 3 please!

Patacones are not once but twice fried green plantain rounds. While delicious, they obviously aren't the most health-giving food out there, so I took on a challenge. Could I make healthier, baked patacones,without making any Colombian abuelita shudder in disgust at the very concept?

The answer? Yes! Easy to make, and far better for you than the original, these baked patacones will allow you to sample some Colombian food while watching your waistline. For this recipe you will need:

-1 green plantain

- Drizzle of olive oil

-Salt

-Lime...

And that's it! And as if this wasn't simple enough, we're even going to use a microwave. If you don't have one, just stick it in the oven, but for double the time.

Method
1) Cut off the ends of the plantain, and slice the skin all along one side, so steam can escape.
Microwave at full force for 6 minutes, or in the oven at 200 degrees for 12-15. 
2) Chop diagonally into 3-4 cm slices and use whatever you have to hand (a pan, a chopping board, a glass) to flatten each slice into a flat round.
3)Place on a baking sheet, generously cover with olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lime juice. Bake at 200 degrees celsius for 15-20 minutes, turning over once or twice.

And out come delicious, crispy baked patacones! Sure they taste different to their fried siblings, but they are still darn good. These serve as a great base for a whole range of toppings - try your hand a typical colombian hogao (a tomato and onion sauce) or why not try some guacamole? Equally you could try some cooked up mince meat, or even a poached egg. Or, serve as they are, with another shake of shake and squeeze of lime.

With four different recipes, ranging from savoury to sweet, you've got no excuse not to give these dishes a whirl. Put down your dreary old potato and try something more exciting. Rich in vitamin C and A, plantains are paleo-friendly and are incredibly versatile and easy to cook with. So what are you waiting for? Head on down to your nearest international supermarket or large supermarket and get cooking!

Stomach soup, fried pig ears and building roofs - and it's only lunchtime!

'Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper'. Or, if in Colombia...just eat lunch. Because here, lunch is not to be taken lightly, both in the figurative and literal sense. The typical almuerzo corrientazo (lunch offer) consists of a side of soup, rice, either beans or lentils, possibly plantain or yucca, a salad and a piece of meat or fish.The price will range from COP 5,000-10,000 (£1.50-£3.00). This makes this midday meal a great way to sample the local cuisine without breaking the bank. Here's a look at some of my recents lunchtime eats here in Barranquilla.

I've found myself in a few comedores (cheap eat places) where a health and safety officer might have a heart attack, but as I'm still standing to tell the tale and continuing to seek out these places, I'd say the dubious state of hygiene only adds to their rustic charm.

Who needs a kitchen when you have some pots on the street?

Tatuzmo is probably 'rustic charm' personified. This cornerside comedor, with it's thatched roof and outdoor kitchen, is about as low-frills are you can get. The speciality here is soups, which all come accompanied with rice and agua panela (sugar cane water).

Sopa de Mondongo

Each soup comes served in a bowl of totuma - the dried and hollowed out shell of the fruit from the totuma tree. The photo above is an enormous bowl of mondongo - tripe soup. Now this may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I absolutely adore this dish. And given that it's a delicacy here I'd say that's not just my weird offal-loving self speaking either. This whole meal cost COP 6,000 and is the best mondongo I have ever had (but ssssshh....just don't tell Juan Miguel. If you don't know who he is, check out my previous post). To anyone over here in Barranquilla, this place is a must visit. Find it at Carrera 56 # 49.

'The city centre....is inhabited by wild street commerce - it's actually one market stretching to the river like a flatttened shanty town'. Welcome to my city! This extract comes from a Lonely Planet guide to Colombia, and it is indeed true - the city centre of Barranquilla is a lot like mayhem. But those people who endure its chaotic streets, merciless bus drivers and general disorder will be rewarded.

Food in the centre has character, personality, and quite frankly I'll take that over sterile, soulless chains serving me my food in air conditioned shopping centres any day. From every fresh fruit under the sun to fried pig ears (really), if you're looking for a bit of excitement this is the place to go. On my most recent trip into town, I was on a mission to find the best almuerzo around. Upon recommendation, I headed to Osteria Yeimar for a corrientazo.

Osteria translates as oyster bar, but given that this is downtown Barranquilla, it was less oyster bar and more fisherman's shack. But a very fine fisherman's shack, serving everything from cocteles de camaron (special seafood cups, not alcoholic cocktails) and cazuelas of seafood, which are gorgeous seafood stews. I opted for the set lunch, but when choosing my fish, my Spanish failed me - I was left clueless as to what anything on offer actually was. Not to worry, as the owner simply took me to the kitchen to select whatever fish I fancied.

I went for the mojarra, and while I'm still unsure of an English translation, all I can say is it was a good choice. A meaty fish with not too many bones, it came whole and deep fried, accompanied by coconut rice, patacones and salad. When having to choose between a typical costeño lunch in the heart of the 'wild street commerce' and a Subway sandwich in a shopping centre? You know where to find me.

Osteria Yeimar, Cra 43 Calle 34, centro.

The ever-smiling Ede

Ede works in our school, and her general job is to keep everything clean, everyone happy, and as a side - well fed. With Ede you can order your own almuerzo corrientazo straight to the staff room, for the wonderful price of COP 5,000. Below is pollo guisado (chicken in a tomato based sauce), coconut rice, yuca and avocado salad. The soup on the side is mote de queso - a typically costeño cheese and yam based soup.

Aswell as teaching at my school, I've also spent a fair bit of time at our nearby university taking dance classes. It's a huge university which offers up a wide array of places for students and staff to grab a bite to eat. You can dine at one of the fancier restaurants on campus, or, of course, grab a corrientazo. One particularly good place is called Rancho Norte, just outside the uni. 

This was carne gusiada (beef in a tomato sauce) with white rice, black eyed beans, salad and plantain, Oh, and should be leaving hungry, there's chips too. The soup is actually sopa de hueso, which is bone soup. If you think of it as just a tasty meat stock (which it is), the weird sounding name shouldn't phase you. That enormous jug of drink is all for me, and is iced tea, which is very popular here. A sad moment when I was first offered 'tea' and thought I had landed in a country that drunk tea like the brits. Perhaps, but theirs is ice cold with tons of sugar. PG tips : I miss you.

 Here in Colombia I've been working with a charity called Techo, which means roof in English. Techo is an organisation which helps build emergency housing for people living in substandard housing throughout Latin America. I work in the area of detection, and each Sunday we visit certain neighbourhoods to carry out interviews with families.Through these interviews we then assess the needs of each family, and from there assign housing to those in most need. It's an incredible charity, and if you want to find out more click here.  

The families who receive emergency housing are obliged to provide a percentage of the cost for the housing. As a means of raising this money, after one of our visits to a neighbourhood in nearby Galapa, we were all invited by a family to a delicious almuerzo.

This lunch consisted of a lentil, plantain, yucca and beef soup, which came alongside pollo guisado, rice and salad. It was a really tasty lunch and just what we wanted after a tiring yet rewarding mornings work. The price we paid for the lunch all went as a contribution to the families portion of the cost for their new housing. 

Happy volunteers on a Sunday visit to La immaculada, Galapa.

Aswell as leaving satisfied and well-fed, it was great to know we were also able to be a part of the families fund-raising efforts for their new home. 

From stomach soup to the wild city centre and it's fried pig ears (but far more enticing fried fish), to cheese soup and being part of a families fundraising efforts, you've caught a glimpse into lunch in Colombia. It is a time to take a break from the day, sit back and enjoy a proper meal. And I like this way of living a lot. How many people eat lunch at their desk? How many people have skipped lunch, due to a lack of time? Take a note out of Colombia's book, and eat lunch. And plenty of it too!

In the Kitchen with Juanmi

It's safe to say since arriving here in Colombia, I've tried my fair share of comida colombiana. However, my interest in food isn't limited to just the eating part - I absolutely love cooking it too! After trying so many new and delicious things, I felt inspired to start cooking up some Colombian food of my own.

But could I, a newcomer to Colombian cuisine, do it any justice? What chance did any arepa or empanada of mine have against that of an abuelita, who has spent many a year perfecting her secret recipe? Fear not, because help is at hand. Todays blog post is a special one, as it features a very important guest. Les presento a Juanmi.

Since I arrived in Barranquilla, I have been living with two very wonderful people. Sara, originally from Canada, has been living in Colombia for the past 13 years. She is married to Juan Miguel (Juanmi), who is from Cartagena, and believe it or not his Spanish is even harder to understand than that of the Barranquilleros! As hungry for the end of their words as I am for Colombian food, Cartageneros eat up pretty much every last syllable of each word, making tough work for my extranjero ears. Still..it's all good practise.

Juan Miguel loves to cook. When coming in after a long day, I am almost always greeted with a new and delicious dinner, and living with them has been a great insight into Colombian cuisine. Did you know that the burnt rice at the bottom of the pan (cucayo) is actually a delicacy here? Or that if you cook up pineapple skin with pasta, it makes a delicious thick and creamy drink (chica)? These are just some of the things Juanmi has taught me, as well as the recipe I'm about to share with you today.

The kind of thing I get greeted to daily. Yum!

As mentioned in my first post from Barranquilla, Ajiaco is a soup traditional to the capital, Bogotá. Less commonly seen in Barranquilla, Ajiaco was still on my 'to try' list. And what better way to try it than homemade, with the help of the very knowledgeable Juanmi? Not difficult to make once you know what you need, this dish is a wonderful mixture of flavours. A comforting garlic, coriander and chicken broth is thickened by a mix of 3 different potatoes types. Topped with a dash of cream and the very tangy flavours of capers, the final addition of avocado adds to the creamy comfort of this dish. With those cold winter months approaching in the UK, warm yourself up by bringing some Colombian flavour into your home.This should make enough for about 6-8 people, so invite your friends round and get cooking!

Ingredients

-3 Chicken breasts, skin removed
-250ml water
-3 fresh corn on the cob, each cob cut in half
-Salt and pepper to taste
-2 chicken stock cubes
-1 onion, finely chopped.
-1 green pepper, finely chopped

-4 garlic cloves, minced
-A large handful of coriander, stalks included
-250g new baby potatoes (papas criollas here)
-2 large 'normal potatoes' (imagine jacket potatoes)
-2 large red potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/6ths
-2 tbsp dried guasca (a key ingredient for the soup, this Colombian herb might be hard to find in your local Sainsbury's. Fear not: after extensive research, it seems that a mixture of crushed bay leaves and parsley will substitute. Hurray!)
-Drizzle of double cream for each serving
-1 tsp capers for each serving
-1 Avocado, cut into quarters lengthways (one slice per serving, or more because it's just delicious).

Method

1) Firstly, get your water on the boil and add the chicken stock, salt and pepper. Then, add in your chopped vegetables, coriander and chicken breasts. Cook this all on a gentle simmer for a little more than half an hour, and when chicken breast is cooked through, remove from stock and keep aside.

2) Strain out all the onion, pepper and coriander, and bring stock back to heat. Now add your chopped potatoes, guasca (or bayleaf/parsley substitute) and corn.

3) Shred your chicken with a fork, and return to heat.

4) Your delicious soup is now ready! Serve each portion in a deep bowl, making sure each serving has a portion of corn. Top with some thick heavy cream, and a teaspoon of capers per bowl. Add in a slice of avocado, and more coriander to garnish if you desire.



This is actually meant to be served with rice as well, but I found it amazingly filling as it was! Should you feel extra hungersome, by all means serve it up on the side.

This soup is like a big warm hug in a bowl. The mixture of flavours works so well, and serves a crowd perfectly. Give it a go and let me know how it turns out, and keep on reading to stay up to date with my culinary conquests here in Colombia.  

Comiendo en Cartagena

A month has now passed since I touched down in Colombia, and one of the real beauties of living here in Barranquilla is its location. An hour or so out of the city you can find small hillside villages, the glitz and glamour of exclusive beachside resorts, world-renowned national parks and some of the best diving to be found on the continent. Last weekend saw me headed to Cartagena. Declared part of the UNESCO World Heritage in 1984, Cartagena is a gorgeous city with beautiful Spanish colonial buildings, a nugget of the Caribbean coast seemingly frozen in time.

A mere two nights was not sufficient time to fully explore the beautiful old city, and I feel sure I will return again many times to fully explore what the city has to offer. My first trip did however offer up something very special - a trip to one of the islands off the main city, the Isla de Rosario. Once we reached the island, of course the question on everybody's lips (perhaps mine the most), was - "What's for lunch?". 

To be brief, this fellow below:

Now some people might think it weird, or cruel to hold a live creature in their hands (or fingertips) just before they proceed to chow down on it. But hear me out. I think with all the convenience of supermarkets today, where you can buy cleanly wrapped, pre-packaged portions of meat and fish, it's easy to lose sight of where the produce initially comes from. So when presented with the opportunity, I took the chance to get cosy with my lunch. An hour later I found my new friend served along with the traditional sides here on la costa, coconut rice and patacones (double fried plantain chips). 

A traditional Colombian costeño lunch was followed by a trip to the less traditional, but no less loved chain restaurant of Crepes and Waffles. Absolutely huge over here, Crepes and Waffles serve...you guessed it. There is a huge variety of savoury crepes to choose from, as well as great salads and filled pittas. After such a huge lunch, I opted for the lighter salad bar option, which permits you the freedom to fill your own plate with delicious and nutritious nibbles such as vegetable quinoa, roasted aubergine, many nuts and seeds, eggs, all the vegetables you can think of. And then obviously there's room for waffles for dessert, which I ate with such enthusiasm I forgot to take a photo (apologies!). But let me reassure you - nutella, hazelnut ice cream and waffles make a damn fine combination.

What is also particularly great about this chain restaurant is their employment ethos, where they hire a solely female workforce, providing work opportunities to single mothers who would have perhaps otherwise struggled to find work. So, you can eat your waffle and feel good about it. Excellent news.

(Read more about their employment ethos here : it's in Spanish, so test your language skills...or use google translate).

Sunday was the last day of our brief trip, and allowed me to retry some of the dishes I briefly mentioned in my last post, starting with a traditional costeño breakfast of arepas con huevos. Perfect for those of us who want a bit of protein with our carb, this is a normal corn arepa, opened and fried with an egg cracked inside. And why not double the dose of that morning protein with some ground beef in there too? Although I'd already tried this coastal speciality, I hadn't had it made by this woman:

Frying her arepas in 35-degree heat on the beach, I felt like she was a woman who knew her stuff. While everyone else seemed to be able to sit in the blazing sun with their breakfast snacks, I waited to get inside to enjoy the blissful fried ball of egg and meat in peace and cool. 

Before we hit the road, we thought it only right to get some lunch on the way home. Lunch in Colombia is a large affair, often consisting of a soup, rice, beans or plantain, and meat - meaning dinner is often a lighter snack rather than another huge meal. Although not what I'm used to, it is more a nutritionally sound form of eating, giving your body time to digest your biggest meal of the day, rather than just snoozing straight after it. And I would need a lot of time to digest what El Pibe was about to provide!

A typical cheap eatery over here, nothing on the menu exceeded COP 20,000 (about £7), and although the owner himself is Argentine, El Pibe serves up nothing but good, hearty Colombian fare.What better place to try what is arguably the dish of the country, Bandeja Pisa? Known to be notoriously large, I felt this dish might defeat me somewhat, so opted for the 'Bandejita Paisa', the supposedly 'half-sized' portion.

Half size? Come off it! Kidney beans, rice, arepa, chorizo, ground beef, plantain, fried pork rind and a fried egg make up this beautiful dish. And yes, I ate it all. A full-size portion though? Give me a few more months practise and then let's see how I go.

Back in Barranquilla, I'm continuing to eat new things daily. Strange animal parts, exotic fruits I've never seen before, a variety of deep fried, delicious snacks...and I've got so much left to try. Who knows what's next?!

Bidmead in Barranquilla

I write this current post to you from Barranquilla, Colombia, otherwise know as my new home while I work over here as an English language teacher. Situated on the Caribbean coast, Barranquilla is known for its roaring carnival in February, which is Latin America´s second largest after Rio. Other than that, despite it being Colombia's fourth busiest city, Barranquilla isn´t that highly rated as a must-see attraction in the country as a whole. While it might lack the metropolitan vibe that Medellín has become renowned for, or the sheer size of Bogotá, its kinda got its own thing going on. People from the coast, aptly named costeños, are happy, smiley, friendly people, and since I arrived just over three weeks ago I've received nothing but kindness from these great Barranquilleros. And it´s not just kindness I've received, because oh boy...do these people know how to eat!

Flag of Barranquilla

Before coming to Colombia, I´d heard mixed reviews in regards to the cuisine. While some people told me it was wonderful, I´d also received a fair few lukewarm to negative reviews of the food. What could I expect? As someone who wholeheartedly embraces all new cuisines, intestines and all (quite literally), I felt ready to sample the comida of Colombia!

And you know what? I am beyond thrilled. Colombia is particularly interesting in its cuisine, as what is available depends so much on the region you find yourself in.

Bandeja Pisa

Land into Medellín, located in the Antioquia region, and you'll find Bandeja Pisa on the menu. Not a dish to be taken lightly, it consists of (prepare yourself) - beans, rice, shredded beef, pork belly, chorizo, fried egg, plantain, tomato sauce...not something to be approached with anything less than a roaring hambre. 

Caught up in Columbia's chilly capital, Bogotá, you're likely to find many places selling Ajiaco, a warming chicken soup with no less than 3 types of potato, capers and cream.

Ajiaco a la Bogatano

But what's everyone comiendo aqui en la costa? An obvious start is fish. Fresh and plentiful here by the sea, it is served fried, accompanied with arroz de coco (coconut rice) and patacones, which are fried plantain rounds. The saltyness of the fish, accompanied by the sweetness of the rice and plantain is an absolute delight - a must-try dish for anyone around this part of the country. I was lucky enough to experience it home-cooked by a woman living in Puerto Colombia, a port town just north of Barranquilla, and it is something I will be having again very soon!

Gracias a la Señora Elizabeth por este plato tan rico!

Breakfast here in Colombia is fairly different to UK standards. Again it depends massively on whereabouts in the country you are, but so far fried chicken, pork belly, rice, plantain and soup (to name just a few things) have all managed to make their way onto my breakfast plate. I was lucky enough to have been provided with buffet breakfasts during work training in Bogotá and Barranquilla when I first arrived, which gave me a great chance to sample many of Colombia´s desayuno delights.

Hayaca, fajita, arepa con huevo, empanada y bollo. 

Hallaca, the banana-leaf covered item above, is a yucca based dough which inside has chicken, onions and raisins. Just above that is a chicken fajita, and the large circular beige item is an arepa con huevo - a cornmeal based patty, filled with an egg inside. Below the arepa is the half moon shaped empanada, a treat found across south-america but different wherever you go. Think of a pasty, Latin American style, and you're half way there.The circular thing to the right of that is bollo, which can be made from yucca, cornmeal or fresh corn (mazorca).

Will I ever be able to eat just porridge again?

While this plate above might look like a filling lunch or dinner to most readers, I'll let you know this was a yet another breakfast, with the classic caldito (soup) on the side - apparently it helps a hangover better than any painkiller! Again we have empanadas and bollo, a skewer of chorizo, some ham, pan de bono (cheese rolls), and calentado, which is a fantastic mixture of rice, beans, shredded meat and plantain. All accompanied by fresh watermelon juice and cafe con leche. If you thought an full English breakfast was good, think again, because the Colombians here seem to have done one better!

Moving onto dinner, there are some great restaurants here in Barranquilla. Given that it is a port town, Barranquilla has received a wide array of immigrants into the city over the past 200 years, which has resulted in many foreign foods merging with the traditional Colombian fare. A particularly middle-eastern influx into the city can be noted in the large amount of Arabic parillas (grills) that you can find dotted around. For a girl who lived in the bountiful land of beef that is Argentina, this is obviously music to my ears.

Parillada Completa at Zahle´s

Eating at Zahle, a highly recommended and well priced middle-eastern restaurant in the north of the city, I shared a parrillada completa. It came with various cuts of beef, chicken and chorizo, accompanied by yucca fries and a baked potato and suero (sour cream). Behind is a mixed mezze, with stuffed aubergines and cabbage leaves, chicken rice and a tabbouleh salad. 

This is but a mere peek into my first tastes of Colombian food, and every day I am trying new food, asking almost everyone I encounter what there is still to try, what they recommend, and if I can come and cook with their grandmas (really. I've had two invites so far!). So please stay tuned, and join me as I journey around this beautiful country, filled with wonderful people, and absolutely delicious food. 

Hasta la Proxima!

Good things come in 3's...not 1, not 2, but THREE chocolate cakes.

I wanted to do a post about chocolate cake. But then I had a think, and decided I could do better than that. So I thought - what's better than chocolate cake? Oh, I know. Three chocolate cakes! I present to you the Chocolate Almond Flourless Cake, the Chocolate Raspberry Buttercream cake and last but not least, Nigella Lawson's Sour Cream Chocolate Cake.

Yet strangely, chocolate cake just doesn't really do it for me. By no means am I one of those weird people who just doesn't like chocolate. So before you get all...

Steady on, because I love chocolate. However, chocolate cake...I just don't really get it. It's like chocolate in a poorer format. Mix it with all that flour and butter and I think it loses its sparkle somewhat. Now obviously many chocolate lovers out there would call this slightly blasphemous. So I'm working on my love of chocolate cake. A hard task I know, but someone has to do it.

It started with the discovery of a Flourless Chocolate Cake, which is cake 1 of 3 today. It uses ground almonds instead of flour, and gets its batter-raising credentials from whipped egg whites.

To make this gluten-free cake, you will need:

100g butter, diced, plus extra for greasing

flour, for dusting

140g best-quality dark chocolate, with 70% cocoa solids, broken into pieces

6 large eggs, separated

140g ground almonds

1 tbsp kirsch or Cointreau (optional)

pinch of salt

85g caster sugar

(Original recipe from BBC Good Food)

Firstly, preheat the oven to 170C/Gas 3/fan oven 150C. Grease a 23cm/9in springform cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Dust the sides with a little flour. Melt chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Heat until melted, then remove the bowl from the pan and stir until smooth. Now leave to cool while you get on whisking the egg whites.

Separate eggs. Yolks can be mixed in with ground almonds, while the whites need to be whisked with the sugar until soft peaks form. If you're unsure of what soft peaks are, this will help:

You want them sticking to your whisk, but not completely firm. While whisking, slowly add all the sugar. Now you want to slowly fold the whisked egg whites into the chocolate,almond and yolk mixture. I say fold, not just combine, as this step is very important in getting a light, airy cake. Check the quick video for a guide as to how to do this properly.

Once that's done, pop the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until well risen and just firm to the touch. Cool in the tin, and don't get disheartened if it cracks or shrinks. It's perfectly normal and will still taste fantastic.

This cake goes down really well, as although it's very rich the ground almonds add a real lightness to it. You can leave it plain or, like I did below, slice it in half and ice it. A simple ganache of melted chocolate and double cream (equal measures of both) is fantastic, and with a sprinkle of pomegranate seeds it's almost like one of your five a day.

Now time for the Chocolate cake with Raspberry Icing. Made with real raspberries, it's a perfect chocolate/berry combo. 

For the cake:

50g cocoa powder

6tbsp boiling water

3 large eggs

50ml milk

175g self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

100g soft butter

300g caster sugar

For the raspberry icing:

100g butter, cubed and at room temperature

75g cream cheese

150g raspberries

250g icing sugar, sieved

The chocolate cake recipe comes from the ever-fabulous Mary Berry. It's essentially just a chocolate victoria sponge mix and is a great base for a variety of icing and topping options.

Heat your oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Use 2 victoria sponge sandwich cases for this - grease and line bottoms. You then want to measure the cocoa into a bowl, add the boiling water and mix until you form a rich, chocolatey paste. DON'T eat it. Or do, and learn pure cocoa by no means tastes as good as it smells.

Deceptively delicious looking, tastes much like bitterness personified.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined - use a whisk and some elbow grease, or use a hand mixer or food processor - far easier. Now to just divide the cake mixture between the prepared tins and bake in the pre-heated oven for about twenty-five to thirty minutes until well risen and shrinking away from the sides of the tin.

For your icing, whip out my favourite...good old frozen berries! You can use fresh, but frozen works just as well. Defrost slightly in the microwave, then blend up.

Once blended, it's a little bit annoying but we've got to get rid of those pesky pips. So push blended berries through a sieve into a bowl, and you should be left with some delicious fresh raspberry puree in the bowl. Now you want to blend this with your butter and cream cheese, along with the sieved icing sugar. This results in a gorgeous pink, thick icing. 

Sieving out pips.

Ice the top of one cake, then place the other on top and repeat. Decorate with a few extra berries, and your raspberry chocolate cake is done!

Aswell as tasting great, it looks smashing too.

By this point, you might start thinking I'm not as reluctant to bake/eat chocolate cake as I initially set out to be. And with the discovery of this third and final cake, I feel sure my feelings towards chocolate cake have changed dramatically for the good. It's moist, rich, and really everything you'd want a chocolate cake to be. This is a Nigella Lawson recipe taken from her book How to be a Domestic Goddess. Make this cake and you will have more than earned your domestic goddess stripes.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake
For this cake, you will need:

200g plain flour

200g caster sugar

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

200g soft unsalted butter

40g best cocoa

150mL sour cream

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for Icing

80g milk chocolate

80g dark chocolate

75g unsalted butter

125ml sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp golden syrup

300g icing sugar, sieved

1/2 tsp hot water

Quite a lot of ingredients! But it's actually a complete doddle to make. All you have to do is mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream in a food processor or electric mixer and mix until you've achieved what looks (and tastes like...mmm) like a good, chocolately cake batter. Divide cake mix between the two tins and bake for about 25-30 minutes. When cake is done it will start to shrink away from the edges of the tins. 

While that's baking, make the icing. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave or over a gentle heat on the stove, combine fully and leave to cool a little. Now stir in the sour cream and vanilla. This is when it all starts to look fantastic.

Marble swirls of delight

Add in your golden syrup and sift in the icing sugar and whisk together. My icing was a little runny for my liking, so i popped it into the freezer for 10 minutes which worked well. As for icing the cake, you'll want to leave it to cool down beforehand, but pretty much...just slap it on! In an attractive manner, of course

I found some sugar flowers in my cupboard and decorated it with those - perhaps you could use sprinkles too? Or go very retro and dig out those silver icing balls from your birthday parties as a kid.

Three chocolate cakes down, and I've not only found a love for chocolate cake but also a whole variety of chocolate cakes for different occasions. Bake your flourless chocolate cake for something a bit posh, as its dense chocolate flavour is ever so sophisticated. The raspberry one is visually stunning and makes a great cake to bring to any party. And make the sour cream cake for when you seek nothing but pure, smooth, chocolatey goodness. They went down well with these lovely people and I highly recommend giving them a go!

Lydianna getting stuck in to some sour cream chocolate-y goodness...

While Johno quite literally couldn't get the chocolate almond cake in his mouth quick enough!

A very pretty Chocolate Raspberry cake...

Fitting for these two gorgeous girls!