Andorra - A small country in the Pyrenees
Once again I find myself behind on blogging about our pancake adventure, but I am determined to catch up this week. Thus, here is the first of what I hope will be 4 posts this week.
So in researching Andorra this week, I learned quite a bit about this tiny country. The first thing I learned is that it is located in the Pyrenees mountain range between France and Spain. I will admit, I had no clue there were any countries other than Spain and France in that area. I also learned that it is the 6th smallest country in Europe, with a land mass of only 181 square miles and a population around 84,000 people. Given it's location, you can correctly assume that the cuisine in this country is similar to Spanish and French mountain cuisine.
I think I'm getting better at finding the pancakes for each country, because instead of an hour or so of research, I found the Andorran pancake in about 10 minutes. It's called a trinxat, and it's made of potatoes, bacon, and cabbage. Cabbage you say?!? My first thoughts were yucky! Seriously, I'm not a huge cabbage fan, raw or cooked. In fact, I will frequently pick it out of a salad when it's in a salad. Anyway, as always, I digress. It took a bit of convincing, both from myself and my husband, to give this a try with the cabbage in it and not just skip Andorra.
Now that I had mentally steeled myself to making trinxat despite the cabbage, let's move on to the recipe. Here are the ingredients:
1 green cabbage, cored and quartered
1 lb potatoes, peeled and quartered (about 3 medium)
3 strips bacon, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
olive oil
salt, pepper
Of course, I made this vegetarian style, so I substituted fake bacon, as it's called around my house, for real bacon.
This is how I made the trinxat:
First I chopped the cabbage up slightly smaller than quartering it. I wanted to make sure that it all got cooked and was easily mixed in with the potatoes so that I wouldn't bite into some random large piece of cabbage as I was eating it.
After chopping the cabbage, peeling the potatoes, and chopping the potatoes, I added them all to a fairly large pot with hot water. I brought the pot of water to a boil and continued boiling until the potatoes and cabbage were cooked through and mashable.
While the cabbage and potatoes were cooking, I cooked and chopped the fake bacon.
When the potatoes and cabbage are cooked through, use a colander to drain off all of the water. Then return the potatoes and cabbage to the pot, and with the heat on low and the pot uncovered, continue to heat the potatoes and cabbage so that you can steam most of the excess water off. If you don't do this, the potato pancake will fall apart during the frying process. After steaming the excess water, add the garlic, salt, and pepper and mash the cabbage and potatoes together with a potato masher.
When everything is mashed together, you now can make small potato pancakes or one large potato pancake. We opted to make one large potato pancake. If you opt for the smaller ones, make sure to mix in the bacon before making them into small rounds that are flat and about 2-3 inches in diameter and fry in oil. If you opt for the one large potato pancake, spread the bacon and oil in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Then press the potato and cabbage mixture over the top. Cook on the stove until the bottom is brown.
When the bottom is brown, lightly spray the top with oil and place in the broiler until the top is lightly browned as well.
Now slice it into pieces, garnish with parsley, and eat it.
I will admit this pancake was a bit bland, but it was exactly what I expected after reading up on the cuisine of this mountainous country. If I were to ever make this again in the future, here are a few tweaks I would make to the recipe:
So in researching Andorra this week, I learned quite a bit about this tiny country. The first thing I learned is that it is located in the Pyrenees mountain range between France and Spain. I will admit, I had no clue there were any countries other than Spain and France in that area. I also learned that it is the 6th smallest country in Europe, with a land mass of only 181 square miles and a population around 84,000 people. Given it's location, you can correctly assume that the cuisine in this country is similar to Spanish and French mountain cuisine.
I think I'm getting better at finding the pancakes for each country, because instead of an hour or so of research, I found the Andorran pancake in about 10 minutes. It's called a trinxat, and it's made of potatoes, bacon, and cabbage. Cabbage you say?!? My first thoughts were yucky! Seriously, I'm not a huge cabbage fan, raw or cooked. In fact, I will frequently pick it out of a salad when it's in a salad. Anyway, as always, I digress. It took a bit of convincing, both from myself and my husband, to give this a try with the cabbage in it and not just skip Andorra.
Now that I had mentally steeled myself to making trinxat despite the cabbage, let's move on to the recipe. Here are the ingredients:
1 green cabbage, cored and quartered
1 lb potatoes, peeled and quartered (about 3 medium)
3 strips bacon, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
olive oil
salt, pepper
Of course, I made this vegetarian style, so I substituted fake bacon, as it's called around my house, for real bacon.
This is how I made the trinxat:
First I chopped the cabbage up slightly smaller than quartering it. I wanted to make sure that it all got cooked and was easily mixed in with the potatoes so that I wouldn't bite into some random large piece of cabbage as I was eating it.
After chopping the cabbage, peeling the potatoes, and chopping the potatoes, I added them all to a fairly large pot with hot water. I brought the pot of water to a boil and continued boiling until the potatoes and cabbage were cooked through and mashable.
While the cabbage and potatoes were cooking, I cooked and chopped the fake bacon.
When the potatoes and cabbage are cooked through, use a colander to drain off all of the water. Then return the potatoes and cabbage to the pot, and with the heat on low and the pot uncovered, continue to heat the potatoes and cabbage so that you can steam most of the excess water off. If you don't do this, the potato pancake will fall apart during the frying process. After steaming the excess water, add the garlic, salt, and pepper and mash the cabbage and potatoes together with a potato masher.
When everything is mashed together, you now can make small potato pancakes or one large potato pancake. We opted to make one large potato pancake. If you opt for the smaller ones, make sure to mix in the bacon before making them into small rounds that are flat and about 2-3 inches in diameter and fry in oil. If you opt for the one large potato pancake, spread the bacon and oil in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. Then press the potato and cabbage mixture over the top. Cook on the stove until the bottom is brown.
When the bottom is brown, lightly spray the top with oil and place in the broiler until the top is lightly browned as well.
Now slice it into pieces, garnish with parsley, and eat it.
I will admit this pancake was a bit bland, but it was exactly what I expected after reading up on the cuisine of this mountainous country. If I were to ever make this again in the future, here are a few tweaks I would make to the recipe:
- Use more bacon
- Use more garlic, and actually cook the potatoes and cabbage with some of the garlic in the water.
- Use a little more parsley and mix into the potato cabbage mixture when I added the garlic.
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