Simple and few ingredients are what make this dish stand out. Calabria is a coastal region in Italy which has a rugged geography where fishing is their bread and butter and where farming is difficult due to an expanse of mountains. Because of agricultural challenges, residents have developed a simple cooking style that makes best use of sparse – but good – food resources.
Essentially all you’re doing is pan-frying (I used a cast iron pan) potatoes and red/yellow peppers for a really long time in a healthy amount of oil (I used sunflower oil for its health properties and ability to cook at relatively high heat compared to olive oil). Somehow, cooking alchemy takes place during the frying process and the sweetness of the peppers melds with the creamy potatoes and you end up with an excellent, easy side dish.
In our house, peanut butter rules. Second only to our late night addiction to cereal, a peanut butter and jam sandwich is an easy way to solve the absence of dinner or lunch. So even though I just chose the gado gado with peanut sauce, I couldn’t resist trying out this recipe, which includes a peanut-based dipping sauce to accompany the wedges.
Let’s be honest – sweet potatoes aren’t as pretty as their close cousin, the yam. However, nutritionists swear that sweet potatoes are crammed full of vitamin goodness. A choice of either baking or deep-frying is given with this recipe and being the healthy type, I chose baking.
The sauce recipe includes a spicy chile pepper but advocates seeding the pepper. I’m not sure why you would take away the source of the spice so I left most of the seeds.
I served the wedges with some baked snapper and steamed chard. Together, it made a simple meal that you could serve to friends or family even on a weeknight where you don’t have a chance to start cooking until after 6pm (like me tonight).
The sweet potatoes turned out creamy and the sauce was addictive, a perfect amount of spice and not too heavy. Although the recipe was supposed to serve four people, we ate pretty much everything, even with our fish.
Having never cooked a cauliflower the way the recipe suggests, this recipe appealed to my sense of curiosity. The basic idea is to steam the cauliflower slowly, giving all the ingredients an opportunity to meld together. The book instructed to not cut the cauliflower at all before cooking, simply pull off the green leaves and then use them to line a heavy sauce pan.
Then, place the cauliflower on top with the remaining ingredients and place on low stovetop heat for quite a while. I’m skeptical how this will turn out. The amount of green olives seemed a bit obscene but I’m willing to give it a chance….
To be honest, the cauliflower was a bit strange. Not only did it take twice as long as suggested to almost cook, but it was a bit challenging to eat. But it looked good before we started eating and would make a nice addition to a buffet table… Or, better yet it would make a good participatory appetizer for the beginning of a casual dinner party because all your guests could gather round with a fork and dig right into the one serving plate. The combination of flavours leaned a bit heavily towards green olives. Next time I would decrease the amount of olives in order to achieve better flavour balance.
The final product:
