14-16th March, 2021 – Daniel
About country: A West African country with a relatively small population and not very well known about on the world stage. The country was colonised by the French and French is also the national language.
Cuisine: The native cuisine of the country is largely lost and has been largely influenced by French cuisine. Being a coastal tropical country, seafood and bananas are popular.
Extra note: I wrote this blog post originally over 2 years ago now and sent to myself as an email, but never got around to publishing it. So I decided to finally do that after all this time.
Entree: Eggplant and seafood stew (March 14th 2021)
In Gabon this dish is normally prepared with okra, but okra is difficult to buy in our area and we both find it unappetising and difficult to cook with. We also found this recipe in French and then translated it into English in Google which is something I don’t think we’ve ever done. The eggplants were meant to be steamed but we don’t have a steamer. Instead we boiled them until softened, removed the skins and mashed up. We cooked the prawns separately to be safe and added tinned sardines right at the end so they wouldn’t cook. To serve we placed the eggplant skins in wooden bowls and spooned the mixture into the centre. We had some chilli flakes on top and had some with bread and butter. Although the ingredients are somewhat polarising, the dish was deceptively good. It was creamy, salty and delicious. It especially tasted good with bread and butter (3/3).
Main: Mustard chicken (15th March 2021)
I would have to admit my wife had to talk me into this dish. Although it sounded good, it just sounded too French to represent an African country. There was nothing African about it. However, the recipe appeared a lot for Gabon and their cooking style is very French so she talked me into it. It was a relatively simple cook. Frying onions, squeezing some lemon and frying some chicken. We served with rice and a basic zesty salad. The flavours were all there, it was sour and bitter and the rice soaked up the flavour amazingly. Although we agreed the chicken was overcooked and this let the dish down a little (2/3).
Dessert: Fried bananas with sour cream (16th March 2021)
Although this dish was similar to our last cuisine night and the one we made a long time ago for Brazil, we felt there was still sufficient difference. The bananas were made much like you would a schnitzel and were fried until golden. We topped with brown sugar and some sour cream. The bananas were slightly crisp on outside and soft in middle as you would want. However, there were some inconsistencies and some didn’t cook so well and didn’t taste good. Although enough of them turned out well (2.5/3).
Atmosphere/music: (I didn’t write anything about music at the time and there is no way I could try to remember this far removed). But as for the atmosphere it was a bit mixed for this cuisine night. For the entrée it was fine and for the dessert the boys were asleep. However, our youngest was difficult during the main and this probably led to it not being as good as it could have been (0.5/1).
Our next cuisine night takes us to the South of South America, Argentina!
Published by Daniel.
Cuisine Night 