Madagascar - May 3rd 2008

I have most definitely fallen behind on my entertaining curve lately. In fact this was my first alphabetical dinner of 2008 and we’re already in May; at this rate, I expect that the world will have changed shape 3 times over by the time I manage to go over all the countries – what the hell, with all these wars happening left and right there are bound to be different borders in the near future.

However, the war isn’t what’s kept me away from my culinary journey. Work has. Lots of it – more than I care to think of when I don’t work so I’ll stop right here with this line of thinking.

We hadn’t seen Ann and Tony in a while and she and Eric had arranged for us to meet for drinks last Saturday night but I thought it would have been nice to have dinner instead. And it was the turn of Madagascar. So, as it’s my usual, I spent some time trying to find recipes that would make a nice dinner. I was lucky enough to find a whole menu on a website and even some customs on how the Madagascan entertain their guests (although I didn’t really ask anyone to sit on the floor – not my idea of comfort).

Ned and Melissa came too and given the fact that vegetarianism is not heard of in Madagascar (and Melissa is vegetarian), I decided that I could try and make 2 versions of some of the dishes – one as required by the recipe and one vegetarian. Mind you, in Madagascar they do eat a lot of veggies and fruit, but it seems that all dishes are prepared using some kind of meat flavoring (in some cases, meat bones).

We started the meal with Lasopy – Veal vegetable puree. And this is exactly what it was: a vegetable puree cooked really slowly and flavored with veal bones. Unfortunately, I was unable to find veal bones – even at the farmers market – and so I used beef bones instead. As a result, I have now made my very first stock. Eric has kept it so he can use it in some other recipes – he always says that stocks are really important and that he’d like to learn more about them. I made a separate one for Melissa using some miso paste for flavoring and I believe she quite liked it (despite the large bolt she found in her soup – turned out it fell off the pepper mill, which isn’t a pepper mill really, it’s a coffee grinder that Eric bought in Istanbul many years ago and have always used as a pepper mill. I ended up ruining the food processor but I still didn’t find it; Melissa did).

As a main course, I made Varenga (roasted shredded beef – and no, there was no vegetarian option for this) and we all thought this was lovely. The meat was really really tender; I cooked it for over 2 and half hours on a simmer and I was able to tear it apart with a fork it was so tender). This is served with a really hot sauce which is made with smashed chilly flakes and oil. I also accompanied the beef with Vary Amin Anana, rice and greens which I really enjoyed. I have discovered that I truly like mustard greens when mixed with rice. The flavor is something that I can’t quite describe. It reminds me of something but I can’t think of what. Maybe some day it’ll come to me. As another side, I made Lasary Voatabia (scallions and tomatoes salad) and this ought to be a favorite diet dish that I am sure I’ll make again. The dressing was just water and a few drops of Tabasco sauce and a little salt but mixed with the strong flavor of scallions, you could not tell the dish was entirely fat free.


For dessert, we had a fruit salad. As I discovered, the Madagascan have so much wonderful fresh fruit that they don’t really serve anything else after dinner. This was dressed with syrup made with quite a lot of vanilla essence and as a result had a lovely smell and flavors. I don’t know what to make of the lychee nuts – I wouldn’t say I didn’t like them but I wouldn’t rush out to buy more either. The pineapple and the cantaloupe though went well together I thought. As it’s usual, Eric wouldn’t have any of the fruit. There’s no changing his mind. He’ll be happy when I get to France, I guess, so he can get a cheese plate. As it happens, I couldn’t really find any cheese in any of the Madagascan recipes I found on the web.

All of this was, as usual, accompanied by large quantities of red wines so we had a really good time. And Tony got over his disappointment that I didn’t serve monkey meat (yuk).

I guess I should have done a bit more research on Madagascar but I only had time to shop and cook this time round. But I have to say, I am quite curious about this country. It has quite a large Indian population, Eric says, and the name of the cities are quite curious: Antananarivo for example (the capital) or Fianarantsoa or Morondava… they just don’t sound Indian to me.

When the $ picks up again (or should I say if) I guess I will try and make this a holiday destination. It has a really exotic appeal and who wouldn’t want to visit an island in the Indian Ocean (well, maybe my husband… but surely he can be persuaded).

Here is the menu with the scores:

Appetizer

Lasopy (Veal Vegetable Puree) : 7.9



Main Courses

Varenga (Roasted Shredded Beef): 9

Vary Amin Anana (Rice and Greens): 8.1

Lasary Voatabia (Fresh Dices Scallions and Tomatoes): 8.4



Dessert

Salady Voankazo (Vanilla-spiced Fresh Fruits with Lychee Nuts): 7.75



Until next time, so long. And I promise that I won’t wait another 10 months… Who wants to come for the “N” dinner? According to the alphabet, the next N country should be Nauru (it's in the South Pacific) but I won't be able to find any recipes unless I go there (unlikely) so I'll have to skip to the next one: Nepal.