Our Favorite Food in Every Country!

We’ve had some amazing food in our 4 months of world travel and so we thought we would narrow it down to our favorite food from each of the three countries we’ve lived in so far!

Spain

We’re starting with Spain, a country with a beautiful gastronomy and a love for FREE Tapas!  There’s so much to choose from in Spain and the region we were in was famous for both delicious Tapas and Paella!  The food markets were stuffed with fresh seafood and the Jamon Iberico was delectable!  However, what topped it all was the sweet, hot, smoked, savory sauce served everywhere over potatoes and known as Patatas Bravas!

Every place has their own recipe and they’re all good.  But the best of them have been simmered for hours….  For those of you who known me you know I love to cook and so I try to learn a recipe everywhere I went and this was the one for me!

I started out the old way by roasting red peppers, chilis, garlic and onions as well as some pork neck bones.  The sauce is so rich and red that you assume it is a tomato based sauce but in fact, there are no tomatoes.  The secret to the sauce is the peppers and vegetables are roasted with both the Dulce and the Picante Spanish Smoked Paprika.

After I roasted everything I made a meat broth with the bones and pureed the vegetables.  The broth was then combined with the vegetables and reduced until the desired thickness.  Lastly, it’s strained and the result is a thick, flavorful sauce they we used on not only Patatas but everything else including the Calimari we made!  It’s often times topped with a Garlic Aioli to balance out some of the spice which is wonderful! Definitely our favorite food from Spain!

Portugal

Portugal had some good food also and we spent a lot of time on the southern coast again so the seafood was delicious and plentiful.  They also had a super cool dish called Cataplana there which was cooked in a special pot and a stew of sorts.

But our best dining experience for sure was in the lovely city of Sintra at a small restaurant right outside of our AirBnb called Bucca de Sintra where we were introduced to the Grilled Octupus!  We were a bit scared to try this steaming pile of tentacles on our plate but it was so good!   Never be scared to try new things!

South Africa

Ok, South Africa has some wierd food… with all of the different culture here it’s a hogdepodge of culinary recipes.  We tried Melkterts (kind of a no bake custard) and really liked the Potjiekos (a stew cooked in a Cast Iron pot).  South Africans also love to Braii (Cookout) but to be honest we found most of the meat here to be less than desirable quality wise.  However, our favorite favorite was something we almost didn’t try but we were talked into it by the friendliest waitress… Ostrich!

OMG, this steak was among the best steaks we’ve ever eaten in our lives!  It was unbelievably tender and the flavor was much stronger than beef without being over powering or gamey!  100% reccomend!