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

Day/Country #9 -- Turkmenistan

Day Nine and I'm ashamed to admit that due to unscheduled circumstances Mum is doing the cooking for a third time in a row (I promise to make it up to her somehow).

Consequently our culinary journey took us not to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, but to the opposite side of the world...to Turkmenistan.

 Turkmen Flag

Fast Facts:

Land Area: 491,210 km²

Population: ~5,125,693

Capital: Ashgabat

GDP (PPP) per capita: $7,846

Official Language: Turkmen

Known For: Turkmenbashi, national censorship,

Bukhara carpets, Darvaza Gas Craters

Turkmenistan, lying in the heart of the Middle East, gave Mum a bit of trouble, both in terms of finding a traditional dish to cook and because of her aversion to the country's national censorship (websites such as youtube, twitter and facebook are banned, among far more important things) and its politics (having declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 after 69 years of Soviet rule, Turkmenistan was run by 'president for life' Saparmut Niyarov who banned things like opera and the circus for not being 'Turkmen' enough).

We can't do much about the country's politics (which have become more democratic in recent years, with the first ever opposition party being established in 2012...a small step on a long road; according to Wikipedia residents are restricted in their international travel, and universities are encouraged to reject applicant who do not have Turkmen surnames), but Mum did make progress with the food.  On further investigation she discovered that most of the popular dishes in Turkmenistan are essentially Turkish with a Russian twist.

With that Mum came up with a variation on a dish called Pel'Mani, involving lamb and onion-stuffed dumplings (homemade!) served with curry-oil (curry powder, tumeric, garlic and chilli mixed with oil), tomato sauce/salsa and yoghurt (we substituted sour cream at short notice as it turned out our yoghurt had turned into a small ecosystem all its own).

Mum was dubious but I, an avid dumpling fan, tucked in...and of course it was fantastic.  The lamb gave the dumplings a good strong flavour, but they wouldn't have been so nice without the trio of sauces drizzled on top.  The zesty combination of flavours made us both glad that Mum had made enough dumplings for us to have a second meal of them again--probably soon!

Our drink for the day was another original cocktail made with iced green tea and vodka which Mum dubbed Darvaza Crater in deference to the burning crater formed when, while drilling for natural gas in 1971, the Soviets tapped a massive gas cavern that subsequently collapsed (drill rig and all).  Concerned about the discharge of poisonous gases the geologists set the pit on fire, thinking it would burn itself out in a matter of days.  Forty-two years later the crater is still burning and has become popularly known as 'The Door to Hell'...which is where this cocktail belongs!


After the first sip it was clear it needed...er...something, but even dosing it with copious amounts of sugar syrup only made it register on our rating scale, but certainly not move up it!

Rating (out of 5):

Pel'Mani 4.5/5

Darvaza Cocktail 0.5/5