Two
and a half years ago, Davida and I moved to DC for me to take a position at the
National Science Foundation. Two months
ago, Davida moved back to Pittsburgh to continue her research at Carnegie
Mellon. Now it is my time to bid a fond
adieu to our nation’s capital. It will
be difficult to leave – not only did I have a great time at NSF, but we really
enjoyed being in Washington, participating in cultural and political (read
“protest”) events, and having a great time being so near three of our
children. But, I am looking forward to
returning to Pittsburgh to enjoy the city, see (and cook for) friends, be
director of the new undergraduate program in AI at Carnegie Mellon, and
(hopefully) pick up on my research.
Before
leaving, I wanted to make one last country meal (this meal was on August
19). Josh had recently come back from a
work-related trip to Liberia, and I was up to the letter "L", so it
was the obvious choice. I asked him what
foods he liked from his two-week stay in Liberia, but he hadn’t had much of the
local cuisine. He did say he liked a
dish called corned-beef gravy and fried plantains. OK, it’s a start… The guests included Josh, Katie, Noah, Emily,
and Hannah. Unfortunately, Davida couldn’t
make it back for this meal – I believe this is the only one she’s missed over
both cycles (38 meals, to date).
While
I have found significant thematic commonality in sub-Saharan cuisine, I wanted
to try some new dishes other than the peanut soup and jollof rice that I have
made several times before. Fortunately,
Liberia seems to have a rich food culture (maybe influenced by the Americas),
so I was able to find many new dishes to serve.
The
Soup:
I had some leftover goat meat from the
Ghanaian meal
that I wanted to use before leaving DC (ugh – I just realized how old it was;
glad I didn’t poison anyone!). As luck
would have it, goat is popular in Liberia and I was easily able to find a
recipe for pepper
soup that would use up all my diced goat meat. Obviously, I did not include the pig’s feet
or the shrimp that the recipe calls for.
Instead, I doubled the amount of goat, cutting it up into about
half-inch pieces. Other recipes that I
found for pepper soup called for a specific peppersoup seasoning mix, which I
was able to find at an African grocery store a few miles from our house (we’ll
see if I can find a similar store in Pittsburgh). I also used some gluten-free bullion instead
of the indicated seasonings. The soup smelled delicious and had just the right
amount of peppery “zing”, but I felt that it was too watery, so I added some
cut-up okra and chopped onion, to help thicken the broth, along with the whole
okras and quartered onions called for in the recipe. I also made some fufu to put
in the soup. I had made fufu, a
yam-based starch, for the Ghanaian meal and everyone seemed to like it. Though it is fairly bland, it soaks up
flavors very well and added a nice, spongy texture to the soup.
The guests mostly liked the soup –
the ratings ranged from 5 to 7, averaging 5.8.
I would think of keeping it, but it seems to rely so much on the goat
flavor, and I am doubtful about getting goat again, at least any time soon.
The
Main Dish:
I wasn’t able to find a recipe for
corned-beef gravy that Josh liked, but I did find a fairly popular recipe for chicken gravy,
which sounded similar based on Josh’s description. Again, the recipes I found called for shrimp,
which I naturally left out. Other than
that, I followed the recipe fairly closely.
There was a huge amount of chopping to do (I more than doubled the
recipe) and pureeing all the vegetables took time in the relatively small food
processor that I used. But, the flavors
melded together really well, getting better as everything simmered together. The rich, deep red appearance of the dish was
striking. While the dish is supposed to
be fairly peppery, I left out the cayenne pepper to make it more
palatable. Nobody seemed to mind.
I really liked the sauce, especially
over the rice (see below) and the crunchy green beans were a pleasant treat. The guests mostly liked this – average rating
was a 6.2 – but the ratings were either 5’s or 7’s (no 6’s), so there was a
significant difference of opinion. Personally,
I thought it was very tasty, but not exceptional. I’ll probably put it in my keepers folder,
just because it is rather unusual.
The
Starches:
The main rice dishes in Liberia
appear to be jollof and check rice. I
had made jollof rice several times before, so was eager to try something new,
especially since various websites indicated that it goes well with chicken
gravy (it does!). Check rice is
typically made with jute leaves, which I didn’t find, but the recipe for check rice
that I used indicated that a combination of spinach and okra was a good
substitute. I wasn’t quite sure how to
parboil rice, but I think I did it correctly (steaming the rice until it was
not quite soft), since the rice turned out somewhat chewy but not hard.
I was a bit concerned about how
rice, spinach, and okra would work together – it seemed like an odd
combination, especially with nothing else flavoring the dish – but it was very
good, even on its own. And, it was so
much better with the chicken gravy. The
guests were completely split on this dish, with ratings spanning from 2 to 6
(average 4). Definitely not a keeper.
When he was in Liberia, Josh really
liked his meal of corned-beef gravy over fried plantains, so I made a batch of fried
plantains as another starch/vegetable. I
didn’t really use a recipe, as I had made them several times before. I cut the
plantains in half, lengthwise, then cut them into about 3-inch pieces, rubbed
them with ginger powder, and fried them in canola oil. The plantains that I used were ripe but not
overly so, and they came out fairly sweet.
We mostly ate them plain, without the gravy – I think Josh was
disappointed that they didn’t compare to what he had in Liberia. He’ll have to go back there and bring me back
a real recipe. The guests mostly did not
care much for the plantains, with ratings of 3’s, 4’s and 5’s (average 4.2). Not great ratings – perhaps the plantains
were too oily, or maybe just not interesting enough.
The
Vegetable:
Various websites indicated that
fried sweet potato leaves were a common vegetable dish in Liberia. I had grown potatoes for years in my backyard
garden, and it never once occurred to me that the leaves could/should be
eaten. In fact, when I mentioned that I
was making fried sweet potato leaves, several people said that they hadn’t
realized sweet potatoes had
leaves. I was prepared to use a
substitute, such as collard greens, but I was lucky to find packages of frozen
sweet potato leaves in the African grocery store. As with many of the other Liberian recipes,
the recipe for fried sweet
potato leaves called for shrimp, which I left out. In fact, it also called for chicken, beef,
and smoked turkey (I 4guess the latter is one of the things Liberians got from
the New World), but all I used was some cut up chicken, and only about half of
what the recipe calls for. I didn’t have
any seasoned salt, but I did use some bullion and, instead of the hot peppers I
used some cayenne – not a lot, just enough to give the dish a bit of “pop”.
As with the Check Rice, I was
skeptical about the combination of ingredients, and the dark green color was a
bit off-putting. But, as I told the
guests, how can you go wrong with frying anything. Apparently, that’s true, as the guests mostly
liked the dish – most of the ratings were 6’s and 7’s, but a 3 and a 4 rating brought
the average down to 5.2. While I thought
it was tasty, I don’t think I’ll keep the recipe, since getting the sweet
potato leaves will be difficult in the future.
Although, maybe I’ll try the recipe using collard greens and see what
that’s like.
The
Dessert:
Yes!
Finally, a dessert that came out well and everyone seemed to like! It is not clear whether in Liberia rice bread
is served with the meal or as a dessert, but when I tasted it, it was sweet
enough that I thought it should be used for dessert. It is basically a banana bread (the recipe
calls for either bananas or plantains, and I used bananas, since the main meal
already had plantains), but with rice flour instead of wheat flour. Perfect for gluten-free guests! The texture and taste were a bit different
from regular banana bread, but in a good way. The guests agreed, giving the
rice bread an average rating of 6.5.
Definitely a keeper and, as Noah suggested, maybe I’ll put in chocolate
chips next time, like the banana bread recipe that we typically make. It surely cannot hurt!
Up next: TBD – so many good choices for “M”
