The final country in the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013 is Spain. Given this is the 39th country I'm going to take advice from the great Terry Wogan and just get on with it!
While there are so many great songs from Spain to include here I thought I'd choose an historical moment as well for those inquisitive minds learning about the food and the contest.
In 2010 Spain's Daniel Diges performed Algo Pequeñito (Something Tiny) twice on the night as during the first performance the stage was invaded by a serial pest, although many didn't notice at first or thought it enhanced the act.
I also held concerns for the backing singer that makes a late entrance just in case security thought he was another intruder and tasered him. They came 15th and I suspect it had more to do with the song and final note rather than the space invader. (see what I did there, funny!)
This "having 2 go's" also happened in 1958 with Domenico Modugno's Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) as there was an issue with transmission and some countries didn't see this opening song.
I also served on a bed of rice that was amazing when combined with the sauce.
Don't think I have got off the hook lightly by not creating this recipe, wait till you see what's coming up just before I announce the winner of the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013.
This year will see ESDM sing Contigo Hasta El Final (With You Until The End), hopefully invader free.
Ciao tutti, come state oggi? Siamo arrivati in L'Itallia, penultimo paese in questa Chow Down a Eurovision 2013.
Unlike France I could probably continue this post in L'Italiano but I wont, Italy is our second last country in the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013.
The essence of Italian food is simplicity and when it comes to cucina povera it's about making do with what you can.
Today's dish is what I lived on when I was studying in Italy, not only could I eat it by the truckload but it was something I could actually say it! "Vorrei mezzo chilo di broccoli, grazie" once you have that half kilo of broccoli, pasta con i broccoli is the only way to go.
I also really love Italian cinema and spent a lot of time at the movies, I even saw Australia dubbed into Italian which was weird but there was a sneaky home sick tear shed.
Fiumi di Parole (river of words) by Jalisse was another surprise Eurovision treat when it featured in the movie Ex. She also won Sanremo in 1997 with the song but came 4th in Eurovision and Italy wasn't seen at Eurovision for 14 years!!
Pasta con i broccoli Ingredients
1kg dried pasta any shape (penne or anything that holds the sauce)
500g broccoli
160g bottle of anchovies
3 tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
200g parmesan or pecorino
Method
Add pasta to a large pot of boiling salted water
Cut the broccoli into pieces and add to the pasta pot once water is back to the boil
Cook pasta till al dente and drain
Return the pot to the stove
Over medium heat add anchovies including their oil and olive oil to the pot
Crush the garlic and add to pot and stir
When anchovies have broken down add pasta back to pot and stir to coat
Take off the heat and stir through the cheese
Buon appetite
You can also add a knob of butter or a touch more oil if you prefer
The size of the broccoli is varies when I make it so it breaks down more but size if up to you.
Italy will host the 2014 Eurovision song contest, eh magari!! (I wish)
Marco Mengoni will sing his Sanremo winning song L'Essenziale in this years final, can he do better than Jalisse and win both? I can't cope with another 14 year Italian absence!
Bonjour, bonsoir, bienvenue Madame et Monsieur, while French is an official language of Eurovision if I keep going on with this things could get messy. France is famous for its cuisine and today's recipe comes from a Frenchman I worked with several years back, let's call him François shall we. He was 6 foot, early 40's salt and pepper hair with more salt than pepper and always dressed with such style people would actually swoon.
I used to find it hilarious that when he spoke, not a word of a lie, there were times when people audibly gasped. One day while dodging lusty bypassers we were discussing offal as one does.
He told me of a childhood treat of pan fried liver with raspberry jam, I told him he was nuts but as adventurous as ever I had to try it. While his voice did nothing for me I did love his liver, you know what I mean.
Catherine Ferry sang Un, Deux, Trois with such energy in 1976 that she came 2nd and made it to the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013. No matter how hard I try I just can't get the clap, I hope you have better luck.
Liver and
Jam
Ingredients
1 small liver (lambs fry)
Seasoned flour
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. oil
Method
Cut liver into thin slices
Coat in the seasoned flour
Pan fry in butter and oil on medium heat for about 1-2 minutes till cooked through
Serve spread with raspberry jam, just trust me, oh and François.
Raspberry Jam Ingredients
300g raspberries
150g sugar
Juice of ½ a lemon
Method
Simmer on
low for about 30 mins, till the jam holds it shape on a chilled plate.
Too simple!
Amandine Bourgeois will try her best for France on Saturday night with L'enfer Et Moi.
Love, shine a light it's time for the United Kingdom to plate up their offering to the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013.
If you have been on this journey with me from Austria or if you followed this blog before the Chow Down, firstly I love you! And secondly you may have noticed I can be a bit odd, some dress it up as quirky but I'm happy with plain old odd.
My good friend and hairdresser tells me I'm simple, but as English is his second language I don't think I should feel hurt, it just means I'm no fuss....I think.
Anyway the point of this story, and yes there is one is to talk about travel souvenirs.
Most people end up with postcards, trinkets, or statues but I seek out recipe books.
I love food magazines but my favourites are the free ones from supermarkets or in newspaper lift out as they are a bit like a time capsule.
Only available for that particular time when I happened to be in a certain place, you can't see them on line or order them from amazon.
Are we still in the territory of quirky odd or have with hit down right weird??
Today's recipe comes from a Waitrose winter cookbook I picked up the last time I was in London. I think it is a supersized memory trigger for all the senses as not only do you get the enjoyment of imaging cooking and tasting the recipes but you remember back to the place and scene where you found it.
Don't play that Song Again was the UK entry in 2000, a risky title in a song contest and resulted in Nikki French placing 16th which was the UK's worst result till the off key Jemini. (dead last with nul points) Nikki shares a link with this year's contestant Bonnie Tyler as they both had top 5 hits with Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Luxury Salmon and Caper Pie based on Waitrose winter cookbook Ingredients
500g piece of salmon fillet/s
350ml milk
150g butter
50g plain flour
150ml white wine
110g baby capers
400g green prawns
1kg of potatoes for mash
Method
Add potatoes to a boiler of cold water and boil till tender (peeled or unpeeled)
In a deep frypan cover the salmon with the milk
Simmer on low for 7-10 minutes
Remove the fish but reserve the milk
In a saucepan melt 50g of butter and add the flour to make a roux
Add the wine and the milk and whisk to avoid lumps
Continue to heat and whisk the sauce as it thickens about 2-3 minutes
Remove from the heat and add the capers and prawns and stir through
Break up the salmon and add it too the sauce
Mash the potatoes with 100g of butter, a splash of milk and salt to taste
Pour sauce into a baking or pie dish and cover with the mash potato
You can go fancy old school and pipe it or just spoon it on
Bake in a 200°C oven for about half an hour.
Doesn't photograph well but is the ultimate in loving comfort food, get me a blankie and a spoon toot sweet!
Believe in Me is Bonnie Tyler's plea for Malmö, will she do as well as Nikki or Jemini?
Good Luck!
Amazingly with the power of the internet I was able to locate a rough demo first draft of Bonnie's Eurovision song, this may have been a better option?
The first of our big 5 players this year is Germany. I managed to get to the Eurovision host city Dusseldorf in 2011 only 4 months late and at 6am on a speeding train bound for Amsterdam but I have the picture to prove it.
Sorry about your eyes with that one.
Germany's dish de jour comes from another of my class mates in Rome, Selin with the help of her friend.
We had some great times in and out of class when she and Yuka came for lunch and I cooked for about 20, mind you they did have to travel past all the sheep to get to my flat. Although the highlight of our class time was our performance of a scene between 2 mothers in Italian about a baby sitter.
We were brilliant but it probably came down to our professionalism and commitment to the craft as we took to the project as Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, I can't remember who was who but I can still remember our lines "SHHH parli piano!"
Selin got to know the real me well in a very short space of time, I gave her an alarm clock for her birthday as she may have occasionally been a little late to class, she said it was very thoughtful and a little bit mean, yes she knew me pretty well indeed!
Thank you Selin for the contribution of this Beef Gulasch I hope that one day we can all be back together, maybe receiving Oscars for our portrayals of Kate and Meryl.
54 years ago Alice & Ellen Kessler gave us a first glimpse of how choreography would play a role in Eurovision, they did a brilliant job with a space smaller than most people's bedrooms. I wonder what they would think about the elaborate staging the contest offers now, let along the hurricane of wind machines!
This is the recipe given to me, I have also done a Sarah Weiner again and made a Gulasch sauce that can be used to accompany a steak or meat of your choice.
Beef
Gulasch by Selin and friends
Ingredients
800g beef ( beef for ragout or stew/ cut in pieces, it’s a really soft meat after boiling it)
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
3 tbsp. paprika powder mild
1 tsp. paprika spicy
Salt/pepper
2 tbsp. tomato paste
1 cup red wine
1 cup water
2 tbsp. flour
100ml sour cream
Method
Peel the
onion and cube it
Mince the garlic and add it to the onion
Heat up some oil
in a deep frypan and brown the beef
Add the onion and the garlic to the
beef
Reduce the heat to low
Mix the paprika with the beef
Add the wine
Simmer on low for 1.5 to 2 hours
Add water
and season to taste
Add the flour and stir to thicken the
gulasch
At the end of the cooking you can put some sour cream in it to make it
more creamy
Serve the
gulasch with Spätzle, potatoes, dumplings or bread.
Gulasch Sauce
Ingredients
2 medium onions
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
30 ml red wine
½ cup stock
100ml cream
Method
Sweat the onions on low till transparent, you don’t want them to colour.
Add garlic, paprika, wine, and stock
Simmer for 15 minutes
Drain the onions and return to the saucepan
Add the cream and heat through
I'm sure Cascadawill continue the Germany tradition of making us want to dance this year with Glorious.
This year's Eurovision host country Sweden is the first cab off the rank in the final of Chow Down to Eurovision 2013. As hosts Sweden automatically qualifies for the final along with Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The remaining 20 spots in the final come down to your votes and will be announced tomorrow.
While I had a dish in my head to finish our journey to Malmö with I kept seeing requests for meatballs recipes on twitter from potential Eurovision party hosts. I was resisting doing meatballs as I didn't think I'd be able to get my hands on enough horsemeat, but I always like to give the Saucers what they want.
The twist is these are based on my memory of Swedish meatballs from my childhood when the grown ups had parties. I remember they came frozen in a large box of about a thousand dark brown pebbles that looked like something decorative from a garden shop, they tasted of a shipload of pepper and had a distinctive bounce to them.
This version doesn't have quite as much bounce and with the brown onion glaze will disappear quickly. I've also included in this post a Swedish cocktail to get you in the spirit, or possibly hospitalised if you play the Eurovision drinking game!
I had a very hard time picking the past Eurovision taster as Sweden has a smorgasbord of brilliant offerings so I thought I'd stick to one most personal.
There is something magical in the finding Eurovision in a non Eurovision setting whether it be Loreen's Euphoria in the final of My Kitchen Rules, the music in a shopping centre or an intimate stand up comedy routine with a Eurovision theme.
My most thrilling surprise Eurovision was during a 6am body pump class, yes not only awake at that time but out of the house and exercising! Around this same time I was body jam instructing so I was no stranger to the inside of a gym, I just didn't look it.
I was getting ready to lift the weights while day dreaming about being back in bed when I hear "never gonna run away" (what, no way) "I'm not gonna hide"(OMG can it really be!!!) "I know, just what I feel inside" and yes it was Carola from 2006 serenading the class with Invincible! It was like I was back in Athens.
The instructor was very accommodating as I sang at the top of my lungs and tried to wave the bar like a flag with 10kg weights on each end. Just like the backing singer in the semi final there may have been a well covered stumble that had the potential of doing one's self a mischief. (2.45 in the video)
Swedish meatballs with Onion Gravy Ingredients
500g mince (lamb, beef, pork, or combination)
250g sausage mince
11/2 cups bread or a bread roll
1/2 cup milk
2 brown onions, peeled quartered
3 spring onions roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. pepper
1 tbsp. salt
2 brown onions peeled finely sliced
Knob of butter
2 cups beef stock
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp. corn flour
Olive oil
Method
In a food processer add 2 brown onions quartered, bread, milk, spring onions, garlic peeled, and processer for 30secs till chopped
Add the meat, pepper, salt, process till combined, add more milk if needed
Roll into approx. 25g balls or to the size you prefer
Cook in batches in a frypan on medium heat with a good splash of olive oil
Move the frypan in a circular motion to move the balls around so that all sides brown
Cook for about 10 minutes till cooked through, alternatively brown in the frypan and finish in the oven for about 15-20 minutes on 180°C
To make the glaze sweat down the onions with butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, they should be transparent rather than brown
Add the stock and vinegar
Boil to reduce slightly
To thicken make the cornflour into a paste as directed and stir through
Serve hot with toothpicks, as a main with mash potato or in a butter bread roll
Swedish Polar Bear Cocktail Ingredient
30ml vodka (I have reduced the vodka to 1 shot instead of 2 as it is a long night)
30ml blue Curacao
Ice
Lemonade
Method
Add all ingredient to a glass
If you are playing the drinking game you could get an advantage by just having lemonade and blue food colour, it is cheating but could avoid a messy time!
And always drink responsibly, no one wants blue clean up.
Robin Stjernberg will have the home crowd support with his song You, can Sweden win 2 in a row?
