Day/Country #3 -- United States of America

USA Flag

Fast Facts:

Land Area: 9.826,675km²

Population: ~317,466,000
Capital: Washington DC
GDP (PPP) per capita: $52,839
Official Language: (American) English
Known For: LOADS of stuff, some of it
good, some not so much...

Day Three and we're going red, white and blue (...they do know other countries have flags with that colour scheme too right?!).

With such a large country and such a contrasting array of fare on offer, it was always going to be hard to choose a cooking style let alone individual recipes--anything ranging from Native Alaskan dishes involving whale blubber and seal flippers, to the famous southern cajun-style cooking, to the popular fast food that's high on grease and low on nutritional value...

Obviously with so much to choose from the USA is a contender for being a repeat-country in order to maximise
the variety of flavours we are trying to explore (although, I'm not sure seal flippers and whale blubber is something I'd be keen to try outside of the Arctic Circle!).

This time around Mum went with another trifecta of dishes to try and capture one branch of American cuisine: southern style hotdogs with homemade buns, avocado and homemade Ancho Sauce; Caesar salad; and homemade onion rings (again, we wanted to avoid deep fat frying if possible so Mum oven baked them).

The overall result was predictably tasty in that slightly fatty, boldy-smearing-itself-all-over-your-tastebuds kind of way. The hotdog buns turned out a bit dense meaning the hotdogs were extra filling...not so good when we'd already gone for enormous portion sizes in true American style.  The dogs themselves were southern style-inspired sausages rather than the chipolatas we in NZ normally associate with American hotdogs (which meant they had infinitely more flavour and rank comfortingly lower down in the disturbing 'mystery meat' stakes). The Ancho sauce was the tastiest part and the thing Mum was most proud of (we've bottled the rest to use at a later date).

Caesar salad is an old familiar to western palates so while nice, couldn't stand out as an exciting new flavour.  Finally, the onion rings were a hit; being homemade they were far less processed and had far more flavour that the frozen crumbed rings you buy from the bulk freezer in the supermarket--mainly because you can throw whatever spices you like into the crumb coating.

Rating (out of 5):

Southern Style Hotdogs 2.5/5
Ancho Sauce 4.5/5
Caesar Salad 3/5
Onion Rings 4/5