Poverty Food

It's Tuesday and it was Fine Dining, poverty style.  What do I mean, you ask?  Cultures that don't have grains as a staple, use root vegetables.  Potatoes mostly.  Cold climate regions where simple dishes are put together with root vegetables, left over meats and salt dried fish.  First up was Gnocchi.  I love gnocchi.  Potato dumpling or pasta?  You can call it either way.  Fairly simple to make, easy to season and cooks up in minutes.

Then we made Borscht.  Made with beets, cabbage, leeks, onions and we throw in some brisket. That's the left over meat I mentioned earlier.  The broth is veal stock with sugar and red wine vinegar.  It needs to have a sweet and tart taste. Topped with a dollop of sour cream, it was very good.  And red!  We added a bit too much sour cream, as the picture points out.  If we had stirred it in the borscht, we would have had pink borscht instead of red borscht.  I like saying borscht.

I made Bolinhos de Bacalao.  A Portuguese dish of riced potato with onion, garlic, cilantro, parsley, some cayenne and completed with Salt Cod.  Salt cod is interesting as it is cod fish that is preserved with salt and can be kept for years.  It comes hard, then you let it sit in water to hydrate.  I just simmered it in water that just covered the fish until it softened and got flaky.  Then you put all the ingredients together and make balls.   Cod balls!  Covered in panko crumbs and deep fried.  I made an aioli for the dipping and they were excellent.