I TOLD you I'd Do It!!

I meant it when I said I will make anything someone suggests and that's exactly what I did tonight! While the Congo isn't a place I can imagine wanting to visit, I wouldn't mind trying some local cuisine native to that crazy part of the world. So I'm doing some research on Congolese recipes and unfortunately many of them had Okra as an ingredient... Now, I love me some veggies but Okra for SURE is not something I ever want in my mouth... That slimy texture mixed with a generally bad taste is enough to produce a slight projectile of vomit... Luckily I was able to find a nice chicken dish that is wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Sounds interesting and healthy... LET'S DO IT!

There are some Vietnamese dishes I make requiring banana leaves so I good thing I already had some in stock. Only problem is I hate and will never be good at wrapping the damn things! None the less, I always put up a good fight so those banana leaves can suck it!

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 banana leaves soaked in hot water for 30 minutes
• 1/2 cup yellow mung beans soaked in hot water for 1 hour
  
• 1/2 lbs chicken cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1/2 onion chopped (size is up to your preference)
• 1/2 peanuts
• paprika, salt, pepper, red chili pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS:

1. boil the peanuts in water for 15 minutes
2. reduce to simmer and smash peanuts using a potato masher
3. add chicken and mung bean to peanut mixture and simmer for 10 minutes
4. take two banana leaves and slightly overlap the leaves
5. sprinkle the leaves with salt and pepper
6. spoon 1/4 of meat/peanut mixture on leaves
7. sprinkle paprika and pepper flakes
8. wrap the leave much like you would a burrito and tie with string to keep closed
9. steam for 1 hour

This wrapping and tying business is no easy feat! The banana leaves can tear and trying to hold it together while you tie is no fun! But I got it done, steamed those mofos, and the result...

Meh....

It was just aaiiiiiight... nothing to recommend... If you look at the ingredients you know it's going to be bland. I was very tempted but was able to resist the urge to use more spices. The good thing was that the onions were super soft and the beans and chicken did have the banana leaf flavor which made it better.... but just .. meh...

But wait!! It didn't just stop there! Since I had to wait a full hour for it to steam, I decided to make a dessert which I picked out of the Omaha World Herald a couple of weeks ago. It sounded so good and I haven't had a chance to make it yet... so I thought this would be a perfect time. This dish turned out even better than the picture in the paper and I will have to post the recipe because it was BO------- OMB! Just to give you a looky looky at it, here's a picture I took after I took the crust out of the oven. The crust is topped with a honey cream cheese sauce, then a white wine fig caramel sauce, topped with freshly cut figs! Normally I would tell you to enjoy, but the enjoyment is all mine this time!!!
DPM