Eating the World Cup!

Unless you've been living under a rock, you are probably aware that the Fifa World Cup is on. And even if you were living under a rock then someone with football fever has probably kicked your rock as a ball subsitute and you're still aware it's going on.

Growing up football wasn't a thing in our house, it was rugby rugby rugby, not that I'm particularly devoted to that either. There was sport on in our house, rugby, tennis, cricket, athletics, horse racing, bowls, and for a short period of time even 10 pin bowling. But never football. I've never been one for organised sport (gods I hated PE), so these were background noise (apart from the 10 pin bowling which was kind of fun).

So the feeling of being forced to enjoy a sport I have no relationship with by my peers at school when major tournaments rolled around was always annoying, especially as voicing support for any team other than England, or pointing out their poor track record was met with verbal abuse. We are a nation of nostalgia lovers, and love nothing better than remembering that one time 50 years ago when we were good. But there we are, I hated football and after leaving school I could just let it wash past me.

But now, over 10 years later the World cup is not the massive pain that it used to be. It's actually sort of fun to discuss it at work, I have co-workers from all over the world who want to support their own team, it would be weird to be cocky about England being great when you work with people from better footballing nations like Brazil (although her kids are weird because they'd pick England over Brazil, but then kids are stupid), Germany, Spain and Portugal. And of course there's the office sweepstake that means people are supporting teams because they were pulled out of a hat. I'm sure as the teams are whittled down the energy will change, but at the moment I'm almost enjoying it.

And it's office sweepstakes that have lead me down a bit of a foodie rabbit hole. I haven't taken part, but my husband drew Japan in his, so I thought it might be fun if we had some Japanese food to eat while watching their first game. Bit of a mis-calculation on my part as it turns out it was on during the day, but it didn't stop us having supermarket katsu curry and dim sum that night. And some where along the line I've decided to try and eat something from every country in the world cup.

This is ridiculous I know. I have a spread sheet with ideas on, but I know I can't be too strict with this. I don't have all the time and money to be making completely authentic dishes from scratch, so some countries just have things like “coffee” or “waffles” (yes Belgium, that's you) next to them. But it's going to be fun.

Japan

I've never had Sushi, the closest I've come to eating Japanese food was a katsu curry sandwich from Waitrose and I wasn't sure how close to the original dish it was. I always worry about food being too spicy, especially if I'm not making it. I'd had a look at Katsu recipes in my Hairy Biker Asian Adventure book, and although it seemed to have a lot of ingredients nothing stood out as “spicy”, except the mustard. Sainsburys have been expanding their ready meal selection and Chicken Katsu curry was one. They also had some DimSum in the range which I thought might be fun.

The curry was nice, actually kind of sweet because of the coconut in the sauce. I know “curry” is such an umbrella term and wasn't expecting it to be anything like an indian curry, but it wasn't really like Thai curries I'd had either. Now I've had the curry I'll probably try and make it my self at some point knowing it's something I like.

The Dim Sum was ok, I think it's more an issue of being pre-made and then steamed in the microwave, they came out a bit rubbery. They were fun but I think proper, freshly made ones would be much nicer.

And maybe I'll try Sushi one day.

Peru

Unusual and delicious.

Again, this one was another bit of a cheat. There was a new range of cooking sauces in the “exotic” food aisle. The sauce was Peruvian Chilli and lemon, cooking instructions on the back was to fry pepper and chicken strips, mix in sauce and serve in wraps. Very quick, simple and really tasty, and although we mostly eat veggie during the week this might make a return, although with rice rather than wraps. Also served with tortilla chips with salsa and guacamole because they're also from South America (and just in case the chilli was too much).

Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Egypt

I know these are very different countries with different cultures and back grounds and stuff, but their foods are quite similar. While doing research a few things kept coming up for each of these countries, sweet and sour tagines involving fruit, fancy rice dishes and similar spices.

For Morocco I had a lamb tagine that I had made previously and put half in the freezer. Made with lamb, lots of fruit like cranberries (not many barberries around here), and apricots, it definitely had the sweet and sour thing going on.

Tagine and fancy rice will never make a sexy photo.

Iran was Jewelled rice. I recently saw a tweet that said something like “the reason restaurant food tastes so good is all the butter that goes in it”, and for this I think it really helped. I'm not all that confident with rice, I'm normally a boil lots of water and chuck it in sort of rice cooker, but this recipe needed the spices cooked in a chunk of butter before simmering the rice. I did worry it was all burnt to the bottom at one point, but it was just my rubbish pan and was a really nice consistency. The fried onions for the top didn't come out very crispy but that was probably just me.

For Egypt I wanted something a bit different, already having the rice and stew. A carroty side that was so nice I've kept the left overs for lunch during the week. It was also really easy to make and who doesn't love bashing things in a pestle and mortar?

Saudi Arabia was represented by hummus and pittas, because who doesn't love hummus?

Now to go plan where we're eating from next week!