It was a memorable dinner last night. All of us met at Sascha and Romina's apartment near Hafen. It was only 2+ miles from my hotel. Juliana had me buy a canon slr camera for her from the states so we played with her new toy for awhile. I brought my ipad and now Romina wants one for Xmas!
Sascha & Romina made Pisco sour which is an alcoholic drink from Peru. When Sascha told us about this drink Juliana said she won't drink it because one of the ingredient is raw egg white. You actually whisk it so it's not the runny egg white that people would think. It had a lot of lemon and ice topped with a dash of cinamon and SO good. I took a sip and ofcourse felt it right away. I nursed it all night so it was fine. It's comparable to the caiprinhnia drink from brazil which I also really like.
When it was time to start the cooking Juliana took out a long scarf and proceeded to wrap her head with it. It actually looked very pretty on her but we asked why she did it. She said it was customary to wear a scarf so you don't get hair in the food, that's like a chef's hat or a cook's hair net but much more stylish. Sascha also brought out aprons for everyone. Vesselin didn't get one and felt left out so sascha gave him a ski hat with those long braids below your ears. He didn't care that he looked silly and wore it all night. We were laughing hysterically at him but he took it in stride.
Their kitchen was half the size as mine but there were 5 of us in the kitchen cooking at once. Most of my time was in the prep work cutting up the vegies and stuff for the salmon topping. I asked sascha to get me raw shrimp and salmon filet and he ended up with cooked shrimp and two tiny filet of frozen salmon. Such a typical guys! It ended up fine because we had so much food. Romina made a nice cold appetizer of cubed potato/tomato/lemon/egg salad scooped into a half avocado, it was very nice presentation and delicious! Vesselin made a nice fresh salad of cubed cucumber, tomato, parsley and feta salad. I was most excited about Juliana's dish which was a traditional Kenyan meal. It was made up of a meat mixture of cubed beefed sauteed in onions and tomatoes, a vegie mixture of thinly sliced greens sauteed with onions. She then made a mix that looked and felt like mashed potatoes but is made out of corn flour. Juliana felt sure we would not like this mixture but wanted to make it anyway. When she mentioned that at home people eat this meal with their hand so ofcourse we all insisted we do it the right way! SO Juliana showed us how to eat it with our hands. It's not just scooping the food up, their is a technique to it. You first take a tablespoon size of the mash mixture, fist it in our palm to a shape of a long egg, use your thumb to make an indentation in the middle, then with your thumb scoop the meat and greens into the hole. All this is done with one hand. When I started using to hands to coordinate I got yelled at! Eventually I got used to it and could do it with one hand. It's not as messy as one might think. You are really touching the meat and vegies with your thumb as you scoop it into the mixture so the mess is really minimum. It was so much fun and really good. The mixture was bland but perfect with the flavorable meat and greens. We were told that the construction workers in africa eat a lot of this cornmeal mixture as a staple to maintain their strength. Supposedly it has a lot of calories. My dish was last and we were getting full, so we took a break in the living room and Romina started to youtube traditional dances from all of our countries - the peruvian and kenyan dances were fun to watch, there was a lot of shaking your booties. Then we was the very tame bulgarian dance with the men in skirst and women wearing head scarves. The vietnamese dances weren't that much more exciting. It was fun to watch all though. Then we started eating again everyone got a kick out of wrapping their own salmon rolls. By the time we had Sascha's german pudding with almonds we were stuffed!
It was past midnight on a work night but we didn't want to leave! Sascha and Vesselin are talking about starting up a cooking school, espescially after I told them I had a hard time finding english speaking german cooking class. I can't wait to try the african meal with my friends back home. For sure I will get these recipes written down. Julianna brought her flour mix from Africa so I'm not sure if I will be able to find it at home!
Sascha & Romina made Pisco sour which is an alcoholic drink from Peru. When Sascha told us about this drink Juliana said she won't drink it because one of the ingredient is raw egg white. You actually whisk it so it's not the runny egg white that people would think. It had a lot of lemon and ice topped with a dash of cinamon and SO good. I took a sip and ofcourse felt it right away. I nursed it all night so it was fine. It's comparable to the caiprinhnia drink from brazil which I also really like.
When it was time to start the cooking Juliana took out a long scarf and proceeded to wrap her head with it. It actually looked very pretty on her but we asked why she did it. She said it was customary to wear a scarf so you don't get hair in the food, that's like a chef's hat or a cook's hair net but much more stylish. Sascha also brought out aprons for everyone. Vesselin didn't get one and felt left out so sascha gave him a ski hat with those long braids below your ears. He didn't care that he looked silly and wore it all night. We were laughing hysterically at him but he took it in stride.
Their kitchen was half the size as mine but there were 5 of us in the kitchen cooking at once. Most of my time was in the prep work cutting up the vegies and stuff for the salmon topping. I asked sascha to get me raw shrimp and salmon filet and he ended up with cooked shrimp and two tiny filet of frozen salmon. Such a typical guys! It ended up fine because we had so much food. Romina made a nice cold appetizer of cubed potato/tomato/lemon/egg salad scooped into a half avocado, it was very nice presentation and delicious! Vesselin made a nice fresh salad of cubed cucumber, tomato, parsley and feta salad. I was most excited about Juliana's dish which was a traditional Kenyan meal. It was made up of a meat mixture of cubed beefed sauteed in onions and tomatoes, a vegie mixture of thinly sliced greens sauteed with onions. She then made a mix that looked and felt like mashed potatoes but is made out of corn flour. Juliana felt sure we would not like this mixture but wanted to make it anyway. When she mentioned that at home people eat this meal with their hand so ofcourse we all insisted we do it the right way! SO Juliana showed us how to eat it with our hands. It's not just scooping the food up, their is a technique to it. You first take a tablespoon size of the mash mixture, fist it in our palm to a shape of a long egg, use your thumb to make an indentation in the middle, then with your thumb scoop the meat and greens into the hole. All this is done with one hand. When I started using to hands to coordinate I got yelled at! Eventually I got used to it and could do it with one hand. It's not as messy as one might think. You are really touching the meat and vegies with your thumb as you scoop it into the mixture so the mess is really minimum. It was so much fun and really good. The mixture was bland but perfect with the flavorable meat and greens. We were told that the construction workers in africa eat a lot of this cornmeal mixture as a staple to maintain their strength. Supposedly it has a lot of calories. My dish was last and we were getting full, so we took a break in the living room and Romina started to youtube traditional dances from all of our countries - the peruvian and kenyan dances were fun to watch, there was a lot of shaking your booties. Then we was the very tame bulgarian dance with the men in skirst and women wearing head scarves. The vietnamese dances weren't that much more exciting. It was fun to watch all though. Then we started eating again everyone got a kick out of wrapping their own salmon rolls. By the time we had Sascha's german pudding with almonds we were stuffed!
It was past midnight on a work night but we didn't want to leave! Sascha and Vesselin are talking about starting up a cooking school, espescially after I told them I had a hard time finding english speaking german cooking class. I can't wait to try the african meal with my friends back home. For sure I will get these recipes written down. Julianna brought her flour mix from Africa so I'm not sure if I will be able to find it at home!
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