World Food: On a Mission

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This blog is now officially on a mission!

I'm determined to cook and blog foods from countries all around the world - particularly those countries who don't get a lot of media coverage for their food. We've all read a million cookbooks on Indian Food and seen a million pseudo celebrities doing food tours of Italy, but what about a documentary on food from Botswana? What about trying some recipes from Tahiti or Cambodia? Therefore I'm asking you, as readers, to suggest countries for me to tackle. Each month I will pick a new country and make sure my blog posts include some recipes inspired by that country (possibly not authentic cuisine - as we will have to make it vegan!), and of course I will definitely screen them to make sure that only the tastiest ones get blogged! Don't worry I'll also keep blogging all the other tasty every-day recipes!

So please help me out by commenting below and suggesting some interesting countries which you think the cuisine of doesn't get enough attention!

Can't wait to hear from you!
~ K-bobo

UPDATE (January 2012) - 
Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions guys! I now have a big list of countries, one for every month of 2012! But please keep the suggestions coming as I love to hear what you guys want and adding it to the list! A-dizzletron and I are having so much fun exploring these cuisines that we previously knew nothing about and I hope that you are enjoying reading them to! We have just finished our last entry for January - Croatia Month, which was requested by an anonymous commenter and we would firstly like to thank him/her/it for such a great suggestion - it was delicious! I'd also like to thank all the fantastic people who helped us out by providing their knowledge of Croatian food. If you'd like to check out the recipes we came up with, here are the links for the 9 Croatian dishes we posted up this month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça (Fluffy savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles - one of my favourites from the month)

Paprenjaci (Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma (Rice filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca (Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza (with "kulen sausages" and vegan feta cheese!)

Kupus Na Zagorski & Blitva (2 delicious vegie side dishes)

Šljivovec (AMAZING plum pie)

It's quite a list of recipes! All of them were delicious (of course, otherwise we wouldn't have posted them!) but I would have to pick my top 4 as the Yumuşacık Poğaça, Paprenjaci, Croatian Pizza and the Šljivovec. But then the Posna Sarma and Makovnjaca were pretty special too... you see I just can't pick! So you'll have to give them all a try!

So - we are leaving Croatia behind (for now!) and moving on to our February featured country which was requested by Sophie - CHAD! Yes, in February we will be delving into the Northern African landlocked country of Chad (something tells me there will be less sea food then there was for Croatia!). We can't wait to share what we find with you and I hope that if you know lots about food from Chad then you will contact us and let us know! 

Yours deliciously,

~K-bobo


UPDATE (February 2012) -
February has been a truly delicious month!! Special thanks to reader Sophie for suggesting such a great country for us to feature - Chad! I didn't know a single thing about Chadian food before I started this quest for Chadian recipes and now I feel a whole lot wiser on the subject! It was a much bigger challenge than Croatia Month was because of the general lack of recipes from Chad out there (possibly something to do with the fact that they are one of the poorest countries in the world) and because I have absolutely no contacts with anybody who has been to Chad (not surprisingly really). However, here are the 7 recipes we managed to find and post up:

Chadian Breakfast Bouille (Rice and peanut porridge)

Millet Balls with 3 dipping sauces (Chadian Peanut Sauce, Saka Saka Sauce and Harissa Lime Sauce)

Chadian Sweet Potato Fritters

Chadian Irio (Mashed beans, potatoes and vegetables)

African Loz (Almond and Pistachio Bites of Amazingness)

Kachumbari  (Light and delicious African salad)

Maharagwe (Kidney beans in a lightly spiced coconut sauce)

We did also have two other dishes that we made which didn't end up posting, one because it just wasn't really up to standard and the other because it was absolutely delicious but the photographs didn't turn out very well so I will have to make it again and post it later! It was a thoroughly delicious month but I have to say that my favourite was definitely the African Loz - those little bites of almond, pistachio and orange blossom water were out of this world!! They also went down an absolute hit at out Chadian dinner party and we had guests fighting over the last one (we ended up having to cut it into six pieces so we could all have a bit!!). My other favourites, however, were definitely the Chadian Sweet Potato Fritters and the gorgeous Peanut Sauce which I made to go with my millet balls! The Maharagwe was also a huge hit with dinner guests!

So! Onward with the next theme! I'm excited to announce that March will be Bosnian Food Month, a country suggested in the comments below by an anonymous reader. Firstly thank you to him/her/it/them for your great suggestion! To start the month off I have posted my first recipe: Bosnian Zeljanica (Vegan Spinach and Cheese pie). I also have to announce that this month I will be doing it solo, as A-dizzle has decided to move on to bigger and better things (and the best of luck to her!) - so bear with me while I adjust to this blog being a one man show!

Yours hungrily,

~K-bobo

UPDATE (AUGUST 2012)
I have stopped adding the recipe links in this post, as it just would have gotten too long! Instead I have made a recipe index which you can check out by clicking here or by going to the World Food Challenge Recipes link at the top of the page.

~K-bobo