This tired pregnant girl wants comfort food the African way. After all, I want our child to have adventurous taste in food so it's never too early to start right?
I picked up a couple of fresh octopus in our local supermarket last week and they've been waiting patiently in the freezer. In fact, this supermarket is a small one in pretty non- culturally diverse area so it was a pleasant surprise recently to discover that they sell one of our favourite ingredients. Two octopus cost me just over £4 so cheaper than chicken or steak.
I can't take the credit for the recipe though - this is one from my partner Issam, who's originally from Zanzibar, an Indian Ocean island off the coast of Tanzania, where octopus are abundant and a staple of the diet. Combined with coconut milk and a few other simple ingredients, cooked slowly until creamy and tender and served with rice and Swahilian Spinach it's simply pure comfort in a bowl. And once you've practised the preparation of the octopus a couple of times it's actually a pretty simple and fuss-free dish to prepare.
Sam took me through the prep step by step so I've included photos too. I hope you'll give it a try and enjoy it as much as we do. We hope in a few years to be introducing it to the next generation so maybe you'll try it on your kids too!
(See recipe pages for Zanzibar Octopus and Sam's Swahilian Spinach.)
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Why doesn't everyone eat octopus?
Despite the abundance of ingredients available to us today from all around the globe, I'm amazed at how little some people cook, how much we rely on convenience foods, and even more so that so many adults are reluctant or afraid to cook and enjoy the foods I love.
My grandmother told me once about her first meeting with spaghetti as a child in the 1930s. It was of course a new and exotic food in working class Stockton-On-Tees and, having no other idea how to cook it, the family tried to fry it. 'What a long way we've come!' I hear you cry, but have we really? Yes, dried pasta is now a staple of even the most conventional store cupboard, but how often is it paired with a jar of bought sauce - the modern equivalent of Spam or Campbells soup?
I was encouraged to start this blog by two friends and faithful fans of my cooking. Some of the recipes will be quick and easy suppers, some guilty pleasures and others something a little different to cook for friends and family. I'm certainly not aiming to be pretentious and I don't flatter myself that I'm a contender for Masterchef. My mission here is simple: I want to encourage everyone to cook good honest food more often and try the foods that scare them; to show you that something you think of as a treat on a restaurant can be cheap and easy to do at home, and will often taste better than it did in the restaurant anyway.
In short, a world where everyone eats octopus...
My grandmother told me once about her first meeting with spaghetti as a child in the 1930s. It was of course a new and exotic food in working class Stockton-On-Tees and, having no other idea how to cook it, the family tried to fry it. 'What a long way we've come!' I hear you cry, but have we really? Yes, dried pasta is now a staple of even the most conventional store cupboard, but how often is it paired with a jar of bought sauce - the modern equivalent of Spam or Campbells soup?
I was encouraged to start this blog by two friends and faithful fans of my cooking. Some of the recipes will be quick and easy suppers, some guilty pleasures and others something a little different to cook for friends and family. I'm certainly not aiming to be pretentious and I don't flatter myself that I'm a contender for Masterchef. My mission here is simple: I want to encourage everyone to cook good honest food more often and try the foods that scare them; to show you that something you think of as a treat on a restaurant can be cheap and easy to do at home, and will often taste better than it did in the restaurant anyway.
In short, a world where everyone eats octopus...
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