Travel BidmeadBites (Part 2)

Picking up where I left off, the Bidmead sisters travels around Colombia continued, as did my culinary adventures - kicking off with chontaduro in Cali. Eaten with honey and salt, the taste of this fruit resembles (as my sister so correctly noted)...baked beans.

Chontaduro - or a can of beans?

I happen to love baked beans, and therefore these went down quite well. However, eating what proclaims to be fruit while visualising beans on toast makes for a slightly odd attack on the senses. Still, the caleños love the stuff and I guess I did too!

In Colombia, carne reigns king. Baring in mind my sister is a veggie, headed to a restaurant serving typical caleño food (which happens to be particularly meat-centric), her options were limited to say the least. She could eat one thing on the whole menu of about 30 options, which was aborrajados (fried plantains with cheese). Did I feel bad?

Don't know about my sister, but I certainly wasn't going hungry! 

Clearly I had other things to preoccupy me, like this chuleta de pollo (breaded marinated chicken breast). I should mention this portion was to share with a friend, alongside another dish of lengua en salsa (tongue in tomato sauce). For those of you who are now squeeming - tongue is a delicious, tender and flavoursome cut of meat, which I urge you to try!

Champús...a no no for me.

Moving on to something a bit lighter, champús is a sweet drink prepared with the Colombian fruit lulo, orange, pineapple, dark sugar and...corn. It sounded good until the corn bit right? Despite its popularity in Cali, this drink was just not for me. Next time, I'll be keeping the corn on the cob and the fruit for the juice.

As our time in Cali came to a close we headed to Palomino, a small beach town on the Carribean coast, two hours from Santa Marta. Being back by the beach meant it was time for some fish. The great thing about fish in Colombia is the variety, and the option of lots of fish not found in England. This fish below is corvina, found mainly on the Pacific coast, and other tasty Colombian fishes include mojarra and lebranche, found more commonly on the Atlantic coast.

Corvina, rice, beans, yucca and salad

Leaving Palomino we skipped along the coast to my new-found home Barranquilla, and I was determined to show my sister the best of my city. It couldn't get more barranquillero than dinner in Cucayo. From the bright colours, old-fashioned signs and various adornments on the walls, it screams Barranquilla from the inside out.

Soaking up the colours and cuisine in Cucayo

The food itself is also a tribute to all things costeño: traditional snacks such as matrimono, butifarra and various fritos feature, as well as typical sancochos (soups) and picadas (mixed plates). Me and my sister opted for sancochos (soups), mine of gallina (hen) while hers was a cazuela de mariscos (creamy seafood soup).

Cazuela de Mariscos, with coconut rice and avocado

Overall it was a great dining experience and a perfect place for my sister to get a feel of what Barranquilla is all about.

Some of the gorgeous cupcakes in Nancy Cabrera

Cucayo is owned by Nancy Cabrera, who is perhaps most famous for her cakes here in Barranquilla - queue a visit to her namesake cafe. Nancy Cabrera's reknowned trufa de chocolate is the crown jewel of many delicious sweet treats, so naturally me and my sister felt obliged to see what the all the fuss was about.

The famous trufa de chocolate (chocolate cake)

It was really quite the cake. Rich but not overly so, moist but not soggy, this chocolate cake has earnt its reputation. Me and my sister were big fans, and I will definitely be returning to sample the very beautiful looking cupcakes (nutella sounded particularly good).

Who knows what came over me, but even I ordered a veggie meal!

From savoury to sweet, and onto a sad but inevitable end to the holiday. For our last night, we headed to Arabe Gourmet, a highly recommended arabic restaurant. The menu was excellent, and despite tempting carnivorous options such as marmaón (israeli cous-cous with shredded meat or chicken) and arroz de almendras (rice with almonds, mince meat, chicken and spices), we ordered two vegetarian platters, which were a feast of falafel, hummus, tabuleh, babaganous, fattoush salad and stuffed aubergine.

Just like the aubergines we had consumed, we left stuffed, and very satisfied. I bid farewell to my sister the next day as I headed back to work, feeling rested and ready to get back to my life here on the coast. 6 months in and I've got plenty more eating (and cooking) to do here, so stayed tuned for the next post from Bidmead Bites!

Quinoa, Sweet Potato and Spinach Baked Eggs with Berry Frozen Yogurt

You can't beat a good egg. Poached, fried, scrambled, in an omelette or a frittata, there're so many things you can do with eggs. They are also filled with goodness. Eggs contain a whopping 18 different vitamins and minerals, provide us with the highest nutritional quality protein of all food sources and are a source of omega-3 fats (the healthy fats). So it's fair to say these little-shelled beauties pack quite the nutritional punch. But should you be looking for something slightly more exciting than scrambled on toast, this could well be the dish for you.

Cooked in a tomato-pepper sauce with quinoa, spinach and mashed sweet potato, these baked eggs are a great lunch or dinner dish to share. Served with a mixed leaf, tomato, avocado and pomegranate salad and some quick homemade frozen yogurt, this dish was the main of choice for a summer lunch alfresco at mine with some of my very lovely friends. 

For this dish, you will need:

Egg Bake

200g quinoa (mine is red and white blend - I really like the colour and texture, but normal quinoa would work just fine)

3 sweet potatoes, peeled (add in 1 tbsp grainy mustard, a squidge of tomato ketchup and a generous grind of black pepper for mashing)

Half a big bag of spinach 

2 peppers

1 onion

Can of chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp of tomato pesto
1 tsp of harissa paste
1 tsp oregano

9 eggs

Salad

Big bag of mixed leaves

A couple handful of cherry tomatoes

1 large avocado

Any seeds/nuts you fancy to scatter over

Seeds of half a pomegranate

Maple syrup (or honey) and olive oil for drizzling
Good grinding of salt and pepper

Homemade frozen yogurt

150g frozen raspberries

250g yogurt of your choice 

2 tbsp of honey

Start with the frozen yogurt so it can chill in the freezer while you do the eggs. This really is the very simplest of desserts, and always goes down well. The ingredients are variable, and you can use any frozen fruit or flavour yogurt you fancy. I went for raspberries and used a mix of vanilla and greek yogurt.

Place the frozen fruit and yogurt into a blender, and blend until minimal fruit chunks remain and the yogurt and fruit are completely combined. Pop it into a tupperware like this one here:

And into the freezer it goes. It's good to serve when it's still a bit soft, as if you leave it to really freeze up it gets a bit crystallised. It's just an incentive to eat it all up in one go really!

Now let's get cracking on the eggs. Cook your quinoa for 15 minutes, and while this is happening you can peel and chop your sweet potato into cubes, ready for steaming or boiling. If you can, steam them as this retains more vitamins, and in a steamer like this:

It's dead easy. You want to steam or boil them for the same time the quinoa is cooking, and while they're both cooking away we can get on with the tomato sauce.

This is a simple tomato sauce with a few key add-ins.

The harissa gives it a slightly spicy, tomato-y tang, and the tomato pesto adds a rich creamy flavour. Oregano is to tie it all together making some form of italian-type sauce, but again...as with my energy bars, this recipe is a bit of an improvisation, so work with what you want to make a tasty tomato sauce!

Our sauce is going to have onions, garlic and peppers - I used one red pepper and one yellow. 

Cook the onions for 5 minutes and then add the sliced peppers. Here you want to add in your harissa, pesto and oregano, followed by the chopped tomatoes. If you have a hand blender feel free to whizz this up -I used my food processor, but it could equally be left chunky.

With the pesto, harissa and pepper mix you have a delicious tomato sauce that would trump any shop bought equivalent. With the sauce done, it's time to attend to our quinoa and sweet potato. Take the quinoa off the heat and drain, and mash the potato. Here I threw 1 tbsp grainy mustard, a squidge of tomato ketchup and a generous grind of black pepper. Now mix all together in the pan with spinach until wilted...

And you have the base for your eggs! Spread in a baking tray, and make little circular indentations for eggs to nestle in. Crack in eggs, and don't worry if the whites spill over their allocated mini-holes.

That goes into the oven at 200 degrees celsius for about 10-15 minutes, and now we can make the salad. There's no real art form involved in this, it really is just a combination of all the ingredients in a bowl, and for the dressing I chose a very simple olive oil drizzle with a touch of maple syrup - I use this slight sugary touch to really bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes. If you find the task of deseeding pomegranates slightly daunting, fear not. See this youtube clip for a quick and easy way to do it!

Serve all together, bringing out the frozen yogurt just before serving. 

The muffins served alongside the yogurt were baked by my wonderful friend Lily, and are from an Ottolenghi recipe. They were truly sumptuous - nutty and rich but not overly sweet, they went down a treat. I found the recipe reposted on the website What Rachel Ate, which is also a fantastic blog.

All this delicious food, and the company of some gorgeous girls and sunshine. A perfect afternoon!