An Edible Voyage

 August 2019 It quickly becomes apparent that Furnas is focussed around lunch.   Crowds begin to gather around the sleepy geothermal lake just before midday in anticipation.   Huge cauldrons of bubbling stew are hauled up from holes in the ground, slow cooked by the geothermal activity.   Each restaurant has their own hole, marked with a small flag, and it’s an early start for restaurant owners.   Taking their cauldrons down to the lake at sunrise, they are buried in time to allow around 7 hours of slow cooking before loading them in to vans to drive to their restaurant where lunch is served.    Quite the spectacle! The flavours of all manner of meats and root vegetable, including carrots, sweet potatoes, cabbage, taro root, pig ears, chorizo, chicken, beef, pork belly and black pudding, mingle together and are served with a selection of surgical-looking implements to attack it with.   The experience is definitely more enjoyable than the ...

June 2020 I am a complete convert to pomegranate molasses.  Always one to substitute ingredients for what I have in store, on first glance at this recipe sent to me by a friend, my immediate reaction was pomegranate molasses?! Definite substitution.  However coincidentally, later that day, another recipe caught my eye in a magazine and scanning through the ingredients, I noticed that too called for pomegranate molasses.  It seemed this was something I needed to invest in. And I'm so glad I did! This Iranian dish is typically eaten of the longest night of the year to celebrate the coming of winter, so I was a full 6 months out.  But it sounded so delicious, there was no way I could wait another 6 months to try it.   Fesenjoon is made from 3 main ingredients - walnuts, chicken and pomegranate.  Ground walnuts are boiled for 2 hours before any other ingredient is added, eventually thickening to the texture of an Indian curry sauce and giving a ric...