New Zealand - Rewena Bread and Pipi Chowder
This week's meal was probably one of the trickiest I have attempted yet in this challenge. I had several hurdles in this one which were overcome in the end, but at least I learned something new, and honestly this wouldn't be very interesting if every week was a total success!
So, for my New Zealand themed dinner, I decided I would like to try some Maori recipes. As I was doing some research of what to make, I found that "Kai Maori", or Maori food, "is made up of kaiwhenua - food from the land, and kaimoana - food from the sea." In keeping with this idea, I decided that Rewena bread, a popular New Zealand recipe, would be a good choice for my kaiwhenua, and clam chowder would work well for the kaimoana.
Let's start with the chowder, as it went a little better than the bread did. I had to cheat with this recipe a little bit, as it I could not get actual Pipi clams, which are found in New Zealand and Australia, so I used small clams I could find here in Canada. I also bought pre-cooked, un-shelled clams, for a couple of reasons. Firstly because I was too nervous to try cooking raw clams at this point in my life, and secondly because I don't really have the proper tools to get the clam meat out of their shells. In the end, the stew still tasted very good, and I felt safer eating it this way.
Now, as for the Rewena bread, it was a little bit of a mess. This bread requires a starter, which I had to leave to ferment for a couple of days. This part was very confusing, as it only calls for a cup of water in which you are supposed to boil the potatoes, but of course the water boiled off. So, I kept adding more water until the potatoes were cooked, but by the time I added them, there was not enough liquid to mix with the flour at all. The starter, apparently, is supposed to be more like batter, so I ignored the recipe at this point, and added more water. From here, things were going fairly well, until it came time to make the actual bread dough. I added the very sticky starter to the bread mixture, but once again, there was not enough liquid. This time, the recipe suggested to add water if needed, so I did, but apparently I added too much, because the dough turned into a ridiculous, sticky mass, which would not and could not be kneaded and shaped into dough under any circumstances. I ended up having to add even more flour to counteract the liquid, and after ages of kneading the unbelievably sticky and heavy concoction, I had something resembling dough, which I threw into the pan to bake. It took a long time to bake because my dough was so thick, but once it came out, it was actually quite good! It looked and smelled like proper bread, and it tasted very nice. So, unbelievably, this absolute mess of a recipe turned out alright in the end.
Overall, this dinner turned out fairly well, despite my difficulties with it. It was a nice, hearty meal which served us well in our cold, Canadian winter.
FIRSTS THIS WEEK:
- Made bread with a starter
- Cooked with clams
RECIPES I USED:
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