Andorra

(Original post here.)

Andorra

History: From 1278 to 1993 Andorra was co-ruled by leaders from Spain and France.  In 1993 it switched to parliamentary rule but retains the Spanish and French rulers.
Economy: 80% tourism
Size: 468 sq miles, 2.5 times the size of DC
Population: 84,500
Literacy rate: 100%
They do not have a military, and defense is the responsibility of France and Spain.

Andorra was...difficult.  They are so small that their recipes don't proliferate very much.  I looked for quite a while.  In fact, in my looking, I found other people complaining about the same thing.  Apparently this is not untreaded territory.  I was a little sad not to be unique.  But oh well.  This is about experiencing it, right?

Eventually, I found my way to the Andorran website.  The one ran by at least 1/84,500th of their population.  And there were recipes.  Perfect, right?

Not really.  A lot of them were veal.  We recently did that, and I would like to avoid it whenever possible.  Also, the directions were...vague.  Most of them didn't have amounts.  But that wasn't going to stop me, right?

I picked this recipe.  Oh, ye of little knowledge.  I did not know that morels were so expensive.  Or that that sausage would be impossible to find.  But I looked.  And looked and looked.  Just when I was ready to give up...

I did.

Onto a new recipe, I guess!  This time I went with something simpler.  A side, even.  It had measurements too!  I cut the recipe to 1/3 because...wow.


It doesn't sound very adventerous, and it really isn't.  But it is Andorran.  But there was something else that caught my eye, something to make it more complex.  That's right...3 liters of mulled wine!  And we get to set it on fire!  Let's get started, shall we?

First, we also wanted to make some chicken so that there was also a main course.  I wanted something that could at least be from that region.  Out of our 5 marinade choices, here were three of them:

Andorra is on the Equator, right?

Zesty herb it is!

This week Kevin helped the whole time.  There was wine and fire, what did you expect?  Also, all three of us (with the cat) had been sick that week, so help was good.

Pajama day for the sick.

Bota Box!

I got to working on the rice.  We didn't have the kinds of mushrooms they recommended, so I got a few different ones.

Triumverate.

We used a website to translate the European measurements for us this time.
Usually, when I cut mushrooms, I use an egg slicer.

Fancy.

It didn't really work this time, though...so everything was hand cut.

Everything put together.

Back to the wine!

There spices from Grenada come in handy again and again.

Swirl!

Orange peels float.  Dried apricots sink until it is boiling.

Because two things aren't enough, we also have the chicken!

Marinating.

The grill my parents got Kevin...it works great!

We're done, right?  Oh, there hasn't been fire yet!  We were a little worried because there wasn't a lot of alcohol in there.  There was sugar though...

Fwoosh!

Flame!

And...video!  Man, that thing went up fast.

Now that the fire is done, we can eat...

Serving mulled wine is difficult.

Drinking it is not (except for the burning).

Set table.

Rice.

Tesla ate too.

Final verdict?  Meh.  The rice was prety bland.  Maybe as a good side for something super-flavorful.  Not bad, just boring.  The wine was sweet, and I liked it.  Kevin didn't.  Over the next few days it got less and less sweet.  Therefore Kevin started liking it more and I started liking it less...c'est la vie.  Even with the recipe cut we still had a ton of leftovers.

Dan - Funny you should mention recipe plagairism.  More on that next time.
Nick - I'm glad I motivate people to log on!
Sylvie - I put kitchen scale on my Christmas list.  And I'm thinking of your friend with the plagairism thing.  How do you know her?
Laura - Come visit me!

Things will be getting busier soon, but I will hopefully try to keep up this pace...

Nap time?

Cat says yes.