Well after several weeks of laziness I decided to drop the December Holiday Yums box entry.
The 2019 Holiday box had 13 snacks from 13 different countries; Spain, Uruguay, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Philippines, France, Jordan, Austria, Croatia, Belgium, Japan, and Poland. There were a couple of repeats from previous boxes but mostly it was new stuff. My favorite was a repeat.
The Jabri Mixed Baklava was my favorite from last year’s Holiday box as well. The regular is great but the birds nest version with pistachios is just a special treat. It did have some competition this year in the form of a Belgian treat.
If I haven’t said it before I’ll say it now, white chocolate is not my jam but add some cinnamon cookie bits and I’m inviting you to the party. It was like an uber-sweet snickerdoodle. A little went a long way sort of like the most unusual paring of the box.
The Spanish weighed in again with a twisted chip flavor because someone thought, “you know what this chip needs? Raspberries!” It really didn’t. It was better than I expected but I had the bar pretty low going in. The raspberry flavor was reasonably muted so it was more like a distraction from a quality chip that an enhancement. The French, not to be left out of the chip wars said “hold mon bier”.
Roasted chicken chips? I had high expectations in spite of past experience with most “meat” flavored chips. First chip had me impressed and thinking “by golly these do have a roast chicken flavor” by about the 4th chip though I was over it. It was just too much of the roast chicken flavor, which is something I never imagined saying. I could’t even finish the bag. Croatia managed to come in with powerful entry though that I did finish.
As soon as the package was opened the garlic smell ventured forth like it was planning to conquer the world or at least the room. The pretzel sticks were good and crunchy even with the hollow core that was loaded with garlic. I do mean loaded. It was so garlicky I had to go brush my teeth and gargle just so I could move on with my day.
Most interesting taste sensation goes to the Polish gingerbread.
This was actually the first thing I had from the box. Gingerbread snacks have been hit or miss but this entry with black currant icing was tasty and light with a hard glaze icing. For the interesting taste sensation. As I was biting it I got a strong hint of black currant that was like a combination of scent and taste but it hadn’t yet hit the tongue. This certainly has happened with other foods but this was probably the most remarkable because the black currant taste on eating it was very subtle until I was finished and then it lingered. Good start, good finish.
The other snacks were mostly good with a couple of so so but the grade for the Holiday box was an A-.
The next blog entry will have me out and about again for a lunch at one of a couple of new (to me) restaurants I’ve found.
The Culinary Passport has been gathering dust recently and I need to get that turned around and do some searching for new restaurants. Until that happens here’s another box review. Goodies from Spain as curated by Universal Yums.
I didn’t have any ideas what the folks in Spain may be snacking on but if the box is a good representation they have a bit of a sweet tooth. I was definitely looking forward to trying them out.
The snack I enjoyed most was the Lucasas Trufas, cocoa dusted chocolate truffles.
These little treats were a chocolate lovers friend. The chocolate was very good quality showcasing the why people would go to the dark side for their chocolate. Very rich and smooth and more than enough to enjoy over several days. The cocoa dusting was a good addition from a flavor standpoint but it was kind of like glitter in that it got everywhere.
My second favorite was about as far away from the truffles as you could get and still be a sweet.
The Gummi Spicy Mangos were definitely a fun treat. Of course they have the chewy, stretchy gummi consistency and a pronounced mango flavor that lulls you into a false complacency. I was thinking to myself, “these aren’t too spi…Hey now!” That spice comes out of nowhere to tango with your mango. It was quite the surprise and the combo was great.
There was a tie for the worst snack. Unlike some other months where that is really just my least favorite these were just not good.
The first one was supposed to be a ham flavored corn puff but it was mostly just puff. The flavor was not good and the texture was more like a decades old cheese puff without the cheese flavor or the unnatural orange color. The second was also supposed to be a corn based snack that was ketchup and mustard flavored. I was skeptical of these off the bat and they lived down to my expectations. The flavors were just nonexistent. The best use for them was as packing material to make sure the other snacks didn’t get damaged in transit.
The most unusual was probably more of a mental thing plus some bias based on hearsay.
I figured this one could go either way. I’d heard people who’d tried egg chips before comment they were nasty, smelled bad and / or were just weird. With that feedback I opened the bag with mild trepidation as I expected an assault on my nasal passages. There was not so much as a skirmish. I even decided to get in there and take a good whiff and while it did smell a tad eggy it wasn’t as bad as a boiled egg. The flavor was mildly eggish and not unpleasant at all. The chip was a quality chip to boot so I enjoyed them even if it was a combo I would not have put together.
For me the Spanish box was a mixed bag or box in this case. In addition to the favorites covered I really enjoyed some lemon cookies, a smoky snack mix, some dark chocolate covered peanuts and the Cortadillo Relleno de Crema that was OMG sweet but tasty. But there was also an olive oil, almond and spice cookie thing that couldn’t commit to being sweet or savory and suffered from the indecision.
The December box is a holiday box that is a virtual UN of snacks with 13 different countries represented and I already tried one from Poland and it was delicious.
The October box from Universal Yums had delicious snacks from Austria.
I had some high expectations for this one and there was plenty of chocolate plus some savory items that left me with a positive impression of the snack scene in Austria. There was nothing I didn’t like at least a little so the “worst” item will be the least liked.
My favorite was the Pischinger Mandel Ecken, little chocolate covered, almond topped wafers with almond creme in a tasty little square.
The milk chocolate was decent quality and the almond crunch paired with the crispy wafer worked well. There were a generous number of them and as an accompaniment to a cup of coffee it was outstanding.
My second favorite was a toss up between some Cool Mint Lemon patties and the winner, Schoko-Erdbeeren.
This was a big old bag of strawberry shaped treats. The dark chocolate shell covered a strawberry filling of an interesting consistency. It was like a cross between cream and jelly fillings, very odd but full of artificial strawberry flavor. It was weird and delicious.
My least favorite wasn’t bad but just the laggard in a decent box.
The Milch Wafflets also had strawberry flavor and chocolate but it just wasn’t in the same class. The wafers were not as crispy as the ones in the several other snacks that had wafer cookies. They were a bit styrofoamy. So they were meh.
The weirdest one in the bunch was the Big Banana.
It was a chocolate shell very much like the strawberries but not quite as dark. That shell covered a banana flavored core that again shared a consistency with the strawberries but the artificial banana flavor was not top of the line. It was pretty darn big though.
Everything I’ve highlighted was sweet but there were a couple of savory snacks as well; some Paprika Chips of the potato variety and some Creamy Onion Mini Fritts french fry sticks. There were some additional chocolate snacks and a gingerbread cookie that had hazelnuts, almonds, honey and candied orange peel. Overall the box was loaded with leckerein.
Next box is from Spain and I have no clue what to expect.
The September box from Universal Yums was loaded with treats from the land of Greece. I’ll say up front it was a mostly solid box with nothing being awful but there were a few I’m ok with never having again.
We’ll start off with my favorite and also the winner of the least photogenic of the snacks.
The poor Serenata Triplo Hazelnut did not fare well in transit due to the ovenlike temps we were having. As much as it looked like something that would empty a public pool it was quite tasty. The milk chocolate was good quality, the hazelnuts were big generous pieces while the wafers and cream filling provided a delicious platform adding even more textures. A case of don’t judge the snack by it’s melty cover.
The second place finisher was a baklava variant call Soragli.
Phyllo pastry dough, almonds, walnuts, a hint of cinnamon and syrup wrapped in a roll, how can you not like that? I will say it did spike the old blood sugar but in small doses it’s a straight up winner.
I didn’t have a “This was nasty” experience so instead of a least favorite I have a most disappointing.
OK look at the package, now look at the inside of the cake. Notice the difference in the size of the cocoa cream filling? I know the pictures always show a best case scenario but come on that’s just false advertising. Aside from being a tad dry the bread itself wasn’t bad and the filling had a decent flavor even if it was spiced with disappointment.
Most unusual goes to another one that was also a bit of a let down.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw the donut shaped, cakey looking item with the grapes on the package. I did expect something grapish about it though and that expectation was met only minimally. It was a wheat cake that was sweet and the 8th ingredient was grape juice and it tasted like that’s where grapes were in the priority. The texture was crumbly and wasn’t overpoweringly sweet in spite of sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sorbitol beating out the grapes on the ingredient listing. It went ok with some strong black hot tea. There are too many other better snacks though to bother with this one again.
I want to give a shout out to the candies from the Yum Bag.
They were all three a hit with me and each was very different from the others. The white ball was an ouzo flavored hard candy that had a great anise taste. The middle one was a honey flavored toffee chew that nailed the honey flavor and the toffee just about melted in my mouth as I chewed it. The pomegranate jelly candy had the tartness of the pomegranate and the consistency almost like a Turkish delight with a light dusting of sugar crystals. All nice little nuggets of goodness.
There was also a peanut and honey bar that was reminiscent of a peanut plank, some oregano potato chips, a bruschettini pizza cracker, and some mini breadsticks with pesto flavor plus a chocolate coated wafer cookie that rounded out the box. According to the hints the next box should be an assortment from Austria. Looking forward to seeing what that includes.
OK this is multi-day blog so it’s longer than the average entry.
A couple of weekends ago a number of family members went to Arlington, VA to have my Father’s urn placed in Arlington National Cemetery with the accompanying military honors. The service was on Monday so my sisters, their husbands and my two youngest nephews met up the Friday before and started our dining experiences at Ireland’s Four Courts pub just a couple of blocks from our hotel. My sisters both went with the Chicken Boxty and my brothers-in-law both got the Shepherds Pie. Both dishes got high marks. My choice was the traditional Irish Breakfast.
If this is a normal breakfast I don’t understand how all of Ireland isn’t a bunch round people just rolling off the island based on the quantity of food. There were eggs, sausage (kind of bland), beans, fried potatoes, roasted tomatoes, toast, black and white pudding and hiding in the picture are two rashers of bacon. I’ll tell you right now this did not all get consumed but damage was done. The white pudding was the only new item for me and for taste was just a bit milder version of the black pudding. I guess the blood does make a difference. Since I had low expectations of the sausage links I was not disappointed and overall I enjoyed the breakfast for dinner alongside a Magner’s Irish Cider, which was just OK.
Our next group meal was in DC at a place just off the Mall, b DC Penn Quarter. Their sub-title is burgers. beer. bourbon. I can vouch for 2 out of 3. We’d been to one of the Smithsonian museums and had built up a thirst and appetite. Many burgers were ordered and water consumed in large quantities. My choice of burger was the 3 Shrooms.
Now I’ll admit the picture doesn’t look appetizing but let me tell you it was fantastic. The burger was a 7 oz patty of in-house ground beef with sauteed mushrooms, a mushroom spread, truffle mayo and lots of melted Swiss cheese on a soft bun. If you’re a shroom fan I don’t need to say much more and if you’re not I’d be wasting my breath so I’ll just leave you with the fact that I left an absolutely clean plate. To partner with the burger I selected a local beer, Devil’s Backbone Vienna Lager. It was a light easy drinking beer that went well with the very flavorful burger. Oh and there were crispy tots involved too.
The evening meal was Italian with local friends not seen in person for 40 or so years. We knew them from Geneva, Switzerland and the wonderful years we lived there. This was automatically going to elevate the meal. The place picked for us by our VA friends was Pazzo Pomodoro. Now the expectation got ratcheted up quickly as on the way in a gentleman I was holding the door open for to exit stopped to tell me this was the best Italian food in the area and I’d love it. Since I had no local frame of reference for Italian food I’d have to take his word for the first part but the second I’d decide for myself. I elected to try one of the Chef’s signature dishes.
The Involtini di Vitello was veal stuffed with prosciutto, fontina cheese, and wild mushrooms in a marsala sauce with vegetables on the side. I just realized the mushroom theme of the day. The veal was tender and the stuffing was savory and delicious. I had some local beer that I didn’t bother to keep track of because I was honestly more interested in catching up and enjoying the company of friends. I don’t know if this is the best Italian food in Vienna, VA but the dish I had was well worth the going for.
The next day we decided to get our cheese on and headed to The Swiss Bakery in Springfield, VA. This is a great little place that is a bakery with a side of Swiss market and oh yeah a restaurant. The cheese several of us got was raclette over potatoes. I went to the drink case to pick a beer but saw the Sinalco and had to get that instead. It is a citrus soda that was the first Swiss drink we had at my dad’s bosses house the night we arrived in Geneva so I had to get that. It was just like I remembered.
As mentioned I got the raclette cheese over potatoes which also came with bread, dried beef slices, pickled onions and baby dills. I also got a side bratwurst.
If you’ve never had raclette before I’ll say up front it smells like feet, after a long walk, but it is good. The pungent cheese and the plainness of the potatoes go well together. The salty dried beef and tangy pickled vegetables are perfect pals to have with this. The bread clears your palate so you can load it up with flavors all over again. The brat was good but really I could have done without it and been just fine. Since this was also a market we may have purchased some Swiss chocolate and there’s a possibility some pastries were procured.
The next day the international theme of meals continued when we walked the short distance from our hotel to MeJana Lebanese restaurant. It was just a little too warm for outside dining so we got a booth by the window so we could still have a good view of the street. We started with some hummus and warm flat bread and then right into various kebabs. I got the mixed grill.
The mixed grill had one chicken, one lamb and one kafta kebab plus rice and some vegetable matter on the side. The kafta was the most flavorful but a bit chewy. The chicken was probably the best overall as it was spiced just right and very tender. It was a ton of food and under other circumstances I might have carried some leftovers home but instead I plowed through. Thank goodness for the walk back to the hotel.
My final day in DC found me at the National Archives and the Smithsonian castle working up a lunch appetite. Checking out Yelp for stuff in walking distance I did a double take on the USDA Cafeteria and the high ratings it had so I needed to check this out for myself. After going through security and getting a visitor’s sticker I followed the stream of people to the cafeteria.
Wow this was one bad-a$$ cafeteria. It had a salad bar and hot bar that you pay by the pound plus deserts including cold and frozen options. Around the perimeter of the cafeteria are specialty stations like Korean BBQ, Italian, Deli, Mexican, and at least one more I’m forgetting but the choices were quite varied and the food all looked fresh and delicious. I decided to go for the Korean bowl, specifically the regular bowl. The small would have been sufficient.
The way this worked is you picked your carb, I got brown rice, then 4-6 vegetables, your meat or tofu then sauce. For vegetables I got some kimchi, something else spicy and pickled, some broccoli and sprouts. I got the beef and house sauce that was tangy and spicy. It was very good but I only got about 2/3 of it eaten before I had to tap out. The beef was good and the sauce was just spicy enough to make me sweat just a bit.
That pretty much wrapped up the culinary experience for my northen Virginia / Washington DC trip. I do want to say thank my family and friends who shared various meals with me; Lynn, Keith, Dee, Chris, Alex, Haley, Lauren, Jesse, Jay, (we missed you Paige), Ellie, Jackie, Shelley, Stephanie, Kallianna, Kyle & Julie. The meals were all enhanced by your presence.
Apparently I wasn’t done with French food in April although it wasn’t a close to home experience. I was on a work trip to Latrobe, PA and the first night I went to a long time staple when staying in Latrobe, Sharky’s Cafe.
My intent when I headed over was to get a stromboli, which has been a comfort choice on more than one occasion but instead I decided to try something new. In this case something new was their French Onion Burger.
This 10oz burger was topped with caramelized onions and a Gruyere and Swiss cheese sauce. Actually topped is an understatement, smothered is probably a much better word choice. Let me tell you when the server dropped that off and I looked at that and the one napkin the silverware was wrapped in I knew that wouldn’t do. When she came back around I let her know this looked like a multi-napkin affair and it was. The bun also wasn’t structurally sufficient to the task either and this was just a delicious mess that I’d recommend to anyone. As a side note dredging the tots through the excess cheese sauce was a pleasant experience.
On my last evening I didn’t feel like a restaurant but I wasn’t in the fast food mood so I was scrolling Yelp looking for something different and came across French Express just down the road. This was a take out cafe that just like the name says specializes in French cuisine. If I live in Latrobe I’d be a semi-regular here.
It’s a nice little shop with a few tables in the front of the store and some spices, honeys and other food stuffs around the edges of the store. You have the counter where you can order hot and cold items ready to eat or take home and heat. I selected a crepe, a slice of quiche and desert. The crepe and quiche were both larger than I expected so either would have been sufficient alone.
The quiche Lorraine was very good, light, fluffy, cheesy and hammy. Couldn’t ask for much more. The crepe was the biggest surprise. I went with a smoked salmon crepe which came in two separate containers. The crepe was very large with diced cucumbers wrapped up in it. The smoked salmon was in it’s own container and there must have been a half pound of quality salmon. So I embraced the roll-your-own philosophy and ate about half before I had to tap out. Nice choice and it was a great value for the price. Lastly was the desert. I don’t recall what it was called but it was a flaky pastry with a hazelnut flavored filling that on top of the other items capped evening and just put me over the top into a food coma.
So while Latrobe isn’t a local spot for me I found a couple of local spots while there that did the French cuisine thing proud.
What’s this you say? That’s not the correct spelling of macaron. Well you are correct but that is the spelling of the company name that I got this box of assorted macarons from.
I was enticed to trying these because being originally a French confection so that put them squarely in the culinary-passport purview and they were colorful plus unusual flavors not to mention sprinkles and gold leaf. I had a lot buttons being pushed here people.
There were nine distinct flavors and all of them were quite sweet and most of them had additional qualities that made them worth mentioning. Two of the macarons were March specials and not on the card, there were the Irish coffee couplet in the back of the middle row and the Lucky Charms dark green one in the right hand row.
The Irish coffee tasted of coffee but not that much like whiskey but that’s ok it was still a favorite. Lucky Charms surprisingly tasted a bit like the cereal bits in the box but not so much like the charms so as you might imagine it didn’t rank among the top. It was sharing basement space with the Fruity Pebble macrons. I didn’t like them when I was a kid and that didn’t change by morphing them into a fancy cookie. Those flavors kept Pistachio from being the least favorite. It had a mild pistachio flavor but it was a nice color so it had that going for it.
The cotton candy and birthday cake both lived up to the names on first bite but the sweetness hit hard. The galaxy and brownie batter were both great and they had gold and silver shiny bits respectively. They shared their blinginess with the Ferrero Rocher macaron and all three had chocolaty goodness going for them. I expected more from the Ferrero Rocher but it really didn’t have much hazelnut flavor. In spite of that it was in the top half of the group.
If you want to try some interesting flavors you might not get at your local French bakery you can check these folks out at ma-ka-rohn.com. I’m glad I did but I think I’ll support the local bakery next time I have the urge for a macaron.
P.S. I tried something that falls squarely in the France category so I’m throwing this postscript on the blog.
I enjoy going to the grocery store Lidl, which is a German based grocer that often carries European sourced products. They have things you just don’t find in the domestic based stores. As I walked through the other day I saw they had this:
“James we don’t know what that is.” I hear you saying so let me tell you. Those are puff pastry stuffed with escargot topped with parsley garlic butter. Some of you are now gagging and others are going “Yum!”.
In spite of living in Geneva for almost 3 years and eating at more than one French restaurant in the many years since I’ve never tried these mobile home carrying slugs. I figured I might as well bite the bullet in the privacy of my own home in case I felt the need to regurgitate. After baking they came out looking interesting if not exactly appealing.
I steeled myself and tried the first one. It was almost a disappointment because I think I wanted it to be gross so I could feel justified in my years avoiding this garden pest. Turns out the puff pastry and garlic butter overpowered any flavor the snail might have had so the only contribution of the snail was a bit of chewiness in the center. The snail was like a fried clam or maybe a piece of calamari after it starts to cool down and get chewy.
Having cleared this hurdle I might try them in a restaurant in the future where I’m sure digging them from the shell with a tiny fork will be a treat.
The March box of goodies hailed from the country of Ukraine and looked promising right off the bat with the amount of chocolate I could see. Before I get on to the snacks let me say that the little booklet that comes with this as well as the intro card are educational and interesting so if you have kids at home these boxes are educational as well as mostly delicious.
Now on to the goodies. The one I liked the best was a pack of little chocolate squares that had a caramel and cinnamon filling in the center.
I was kind of skeptical at first but the bitterness of the dark chocolate paired with the sweet caramel was a given winner and the hint of cinnamon was a very nice add in. The number two snack was also a chocolate based snack.
I had not read the description in the booklet and took this at face value expecting nothing more than a milk chocolate bar. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to have a creme brule center. That was the kind of unexpected good fortune that cements a high rating in the snack competition. Another surprise, without the same result, garnered the middle of this trio the weirdest snack title.
If you look closely you can see a dark spot in the center. The outside of this was like a cross between a jellied candy and a gummy worm and in the center was a viscous liquid artificially flavored core. There were a mix of flavors and none were bad per se but just an odd combination of textures and flavors. No the only bad snack was the hands down winner of the worst snack moniker.
I had mixed feelings going into this trial. When I saw the flavor was meat jelly I recalled the Russian snack that was meat jelly flavored and how unappealing that was. On the other hand I was hoping the novelty of the potato planks and horseradish might redeem it. My hope was for naught. These smelled disgusting as soon as the package was opened and the flavor was every bit as noxious as the Russian snack had been. It left a foul aftertaste and gave me heartburn even though I only powered through a couple of the chips.
There was another box of chips with dill and sour cream flavor and they at least redeemed the company’s name and let me enjoy the unique chip. I have to say I was digging the packaging and long slender potato crisps. They were kind of like Pringles in texture but a touch thinner. Very little wasted space unlike our 1/3 filled bags of chips.
Other snacks in the box included french fry shaped snacks made from corn with potato flakes added. Two varieties were included, one onion and one veal and adjka flavored. There was a pack of really nice caramels with a great dairy taste. For breakfast one morning I had the ham and mustard corn puffs. Aside from the little candies there was a big bar of dark chocolate with bits of dried fruit stuck to the outside.
Overall the box was a winner in spite of the meat jelly assault. I can’t wait to see what’s in the April box from Israel.
The February box from Universal Yum was loaded with snacks from the best country shaped like footwear and like quality footwear even if it’s not your style it’s hard to say bad stuff about it. Nothing in this box fell into the “yuck” category although a couple were unusual enough to make you go hmmm.
It was hard to pick a favorite this month. Nothing really stood out far and away above the others but it’s hard to go wrong with chocolate an hazelnuts so here was the one that edged out the others.
The chocolate was good and the hazelnut chips, while not evenly distributed, managed to show up in every bite. Plus I like the packaging, no glitz just information. Interesting marketing.
Number two on the hit parade revisits the same combo.
That trapezoidal chocolate hunk in the middle is the runner up. The chocolate is silkier than the bar and the hazelnut flavor is fully saturated in the candy. As I’m writing this it occurs to me the reason this is in second place has more to do with size rather than taste. I guess it does matter.
The most unusual was a tie between a sweet and a savory.
The white chocolate bar with saffron was interesting. The white candy part was nothing special on it’s own but the saffron was a nice addition. It was subtle but obvious on first bite but the distinctiveness fell off with each additional square. After a break though the next first bite was interesting all over again.
The savory item was a lemon pepper wheat cracker sort of thing. After tasting the first one I decided this was going to be pared with some soup. In this case lentil soup. The tart lemon and spiciness of the black pepper were a perfect accompaniment to the earthy lentils. I’d not have thought about that combo in a cracker but it worked.
So my least favorite wasn’t really bad but just the back of the pack overall.
I feel like I should have liked these more but the truffle chips really just didn’t do it for me. The chips were crispy and their truffle game was strong but maybe too strong. I could taste the truffle before it even hit the tongue and it was just as strong on the last chip as it was on the first.
I have to give honorably mention to the almond crisp cookies.
After I had the first one I immediately got up and fixed a cup of coffee. Great almond taste and crispy and crunchy like nobody’s business. I don’t think I’ve a better coffee companion in quite a while.
The other items in the box were a carrot orange cake, tiramisu cake, rosemary crackers, pizza flavored corn puff rings, cappuccino chocolate ball and fizzy hard candies in lemon and orange flavor. All snack worthy.
I didn’t even crack the code for March. I figured I let it be a surprise.
Well it has been quite the hiatus for the Culinary-Passport for several reasons like the holidays, lack of food truck roundups, difficulty finding restaurants for new countries, plus a dash of laziness and a general dislike of the new WordPress editor. But I’ve put most of that behind me and figured out a work around for the no new restaurants issue.
The purpose of the blog is to sample foods of the world locally and it doesn’t get more local that my own kitchen so what I decided to do was occasionally pick a country, find a recipe or two from that locale and whip it up myself. There seemed to be no better place to start than alphabetically from the list of countries I downloaded from someplace on the internet. I’d covered Afghanistan so Albania it was.
I found the shishqebap me mish pule recipe first and went looking for something that might be a side that turned into the presh me oriz dish. You will find both recipes on the Tell Me More page.
Ingredients
Finished product
I made a couple of modifications by using a honey infused with peppers and since I couldn’t find the Albanian salami I used two different types of Italian salamis. Let me also offer a tip if you try to make this. Use only a teaspoon of the oregano. The proportions for the marinate were too heavy on the dry ingredients and I wound up with a paste that didn’t want to spread and once it was initially mixed more olive oil just wouldn’t blend.
At the end of the day it was tasty and the different textures were interesting. Definitely a dish that would go well with a frosty brew.
The presh me oriz or leek and rice bake instead of being a side really turned out to be a meal on its own.
Ingredients
Finished product
The only variation I made to this recipe was using chicken broth I happened to have on hand in lieu of the lamb stock. The ingredient list is relatively small but the end result is a ton of food. Also you will need a big pan as at one point you have everything getting sauteed and brought to a boil before transferring to the baking dish. I used a flat bottom wok and it was a perfect size.
This casserole is straight up comfort food. I hadn’t cooked a lot with leeks and I thought both the leeks and the onions would be overpowering but they weren’t. It was mild and with the ground lamb and rice made for a hearty filling dish that provided leftovers for days.
My Albanian experience was good. Of the two I’d probably be more likely to make the leek and rice bake again but the kebabs might make an appearance on a fall evening that called for grilling.
