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Event: BM #44, Around the world (A - Z Series)
Choice of Country: Xīn Xīlán / New Zealand
Capital City: Wellington
Official Language: English, Māori and NZ sign language
People who follow my blog regularly might have noticed
that I have been on a blogging this marathon with the theme 'Around the World in 30 Days' - cooking from 26 countries around the world, going
in an alphabetical order. Today it is the turn of letter 'X' and since
there is no country starting with that letter we had a choice to cook
from any city in the world that started with the alphabet 'X'.
My
planning for the marathon started with this letter and without putting
much thought into it, I settled on a Mexican city called 'Xalapa' in the
first five minutes of my research since the city and the state that
it comes from had some dishes of their own. However recently I had a Eureka
moment when my daughter who was going through a story book connected to the old silk route innocently mentioned to me that Persia is present day Iran pointing to a map. I got the idea for checking out the alternative names for the countries and luckily landed here. I found 15 countries that had alternative names starting with 'X' in other languages. Valli gave a green signal that I could go with alternative names and so my pick for today is going to be Xīn Xīlán which is a Mandarin Chinese name for New Zealand.
New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific ocean. It has a diverse British-based cuisine and largely driven by local ingredients and seasonal variations. The main meal of the day when families gather is dinner which is also known as 'tea'. Lolly cake, Hangi food, Pavlova, Anzac biscuits and Hokey Pokey ice cream are some of the dishes that developed in New Zealand.
The recipe I had bookmarked earlier came handy earlier for today's post. Hokey pokey ice cream is a flavor of ice cream in New Zealand, consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee and is the most popular one after vanilla ice cream there. Hokey pokey is a New Zealand term for honeycomb toffee where as in the 19th and the early 20th centuries, it was a slang term for ice cream in several parts of the world. I had used honey instead of the golden syrup and these crispy bites add a nice twist to already yummy vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup / honey
1 tsp baking soda
Vanilla ice cream to serve
Method:
* Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil / parchment paper or a silicon mat and keep it handy.
* Add sugar and honey to a medium sized saucepan and stir constantly on low heat until it starts to boil.
* Boil for 5 minutes more on a very gentle heat taking care not to burn the mixture. (I had checked another recipe which gave a helpful hint
in avoiding this turning into a chewing mess. Cook until it reaches a
hard ball consistency.)
* Remove the mixture from heat and add baking soda to the pan and whisk vigorously until the mixture starts to froth. You would notice the mixture ballooning up and once it stops, immediately pour the mixture onto the prepare sheet.
* Let the mixture cool down and once when it is solid, break it into chunks. Store them in an airtight container.
* If you are preparing your own ice cream then you can stir it into the ice cream mixture before freezing it. Or add some chunks to your vanilla ice cream.
Comments
When I was looking around for Sindhi sweet dishes, I came across these sesame seeds laddus in Alka's blog. After reading her narration of the Sindhi harvest festival called laal loi, I was surprised to notice the similarities between their version and the ones down here in south. In Andhra, we have a same ritual of fire called as the bhogi mantalu during sankranthi and we celebrate the festival during same time. Indian harvest festivals may vary regionally in the way how and when they are celebrated but like the cultures around the world, it's a way to show how thankful they are for the bounty of harvest. It's a way to show their gratitude to the unknown powers.
Sesame seeds has a special connection with harvest celebrations across India. Sindhis prepare borinda - the sesame seeds laddus prepared with sugar syrup / jaggery or honey, as a religious offering during the occasion. What interested me is that this version uses honey. At home whenever we prepare sesame laddus, we just powder the sesame seeds, jaggery and
dried coconut together to make balls. I am also familiar with the store
bought jaggery / sugar syrup versions but have never come across the
version using honey. And so gave it a shot today. I concluded that the
jaggery version is the best of all, with a softer texture. This honeyed
version is more like sugar ones, good but a little bit on the harder side.
Ingredients: (Makes 8 balls)
1 cup white sesame seeds
1 cup honey (I used about 3/4 cup)
1/4 tsp salt (I did not add any.)
Optional ingredients: Pistachios / tutti frutti
Method:
* Heat honey in a pan for a minute or so. The consistency will turn thinner. Turn off the stove and keep it aside.
* Gently toast sesame seeds on low flame until they start to crackle. Take care not to burn them.
* If using pistachios, gently toast them as well.
* Add the sesame seeds and salt to the honey and stir to combine.
* Start cooking until honey changes a couple of shades darker and all the honey is absorbed by the seeds. Add pistachios / tutti frutti if using. Let it cool for a minute or so. If you try to handle it later, it would turn hard and stick to the pan. In that case, just heat it again. It will become softer.
* Dip your hand in a bowl of cold water and pull out a lime sized portion and shape into a ball. Repeat the procedure, dipping your hands in the cold water intermittently to avoid scalding your hands. Make sure that you can handle the mixture with out burning your hand.
Or pour the whole mixture into a greased plate and spread. Score with a knife to make squares when it slightly hardens. Allow to cool and cut them into squares.
Note:
I switched off the stove when all the ingredients came together into a mass but still when I tried to shape into laddus, I saw honey oozing out. Also after a few seconds, I saw the round ball slightly deflating. As they cooled down, they became hard as expected. Probably the quantity of the honey can be further reduced for these reasons, I think.
Check out here to know what other participating marathoners are cooking.
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