Day/Country #13 -- Kuwait

Well it's been a hectic couple of weeks, but don't worry, even though I haven't been blogging, Mum and I have still been cooking our way round the world...but yes, I have a bit of blogging to catch up on!

Kuwaiti Flag

Fast Facts:

Land Area: 17,820 km²

Population: ~3,965,022

Capital: Kuwait City

GDP (PPP) per capita: $58,080

Official Languages: Arabic

Known For: Gulf War, Oil, Bedouin tribesmen

So the catch up begins with our Mum cooking a dish inspired by country #13 -- Kuwait.

Located at the tip of the Persian Gulf Kuwait shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and derives it's name from the Arab word for 'fortress'.  Historically it was an important center for long distance trade, but 20th Century trade blockades saw it undergo significant economic decline.  Today it is most well known in the western world for having been the epicenter of the Gulf War (code-named operation Desert Storm) in which a United States led 34-country strong coalition drove out the Iraqi army after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.  As they retreated the Iraqis set fire to 773 Kuwaiti oil wells; the fires burned for almost a year causing an environmental and economic catastrophe for Kuwait.  More recently Kuwait was used as the 'springboard' for the American-led campaign to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

A landscape of oil wells on fire in Kuwait, 1991 (image courtesy of
www.wired.co.uk.) 

Despite it's harrowing history Kuwait remains the eighth richest nation in the world, due to having the fifth largest oil reserves in the world (my cynical side piped up when I read this and thought 'well no wonder the world was so eager to help!').

Anyway, politics aside, the immediate issue for us was what to cook?!  After a little research Mum came up with a dish that is a kind of Middle-Eastern style biryani.  Consisting of lamb spiced with cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and lime, served with lightly saffron-flavoured rice and topped with pine-nuts and two tasty sauces: heshew (a tangy sultana pickle) and dakkous (tomato salsa-like sauce).  The dish looked delightful but unfortunately the flavours were, surprisingly, a little bland.  Happily the strong flavour of the heshew was able to rectify that situation.  The heshew was Mum's favourite aspect of the meal, but I was quite partial to the lamb (and may have been guilty of picking out a lot of the pieces once everyone had had their fill...).

Since Kuwait is a Muslim state Mum went with a mocktail to accompany the dish.  A mixture of pineapple juice, grenadine and vanilla icecream it was a sweet and cool fruity treat that we both guzzled down--restraint-free since it had no alcohol!

Rating (out of 5):

Machboos 2.5/5 

Heshew 4/5
Dakkous 3.5/5
Pearl City Passion 4.5/5