‘Pátria Amada’ (‘Beloved Homeland’) is the anthem of which African republic?

Golden Circle Pineapple made a recent appearance at a wonderful feast cooked at our place by Elsa Licumba from Mozambique (who caters in the Newcastle NSW area elsalicumba@gmail.com) Anne.

From our correspondents in Kenya.

Our neice Alice and her husband Clinton are working on agricutlural projects in Kenya for 12 months, here is their personal insight into the splendors of local pineapple cuisine.

Pineapple has mostly been in traditional fruit platters. It is super sweet and delicious here.  In other forms, it has really only been in a salad of mostly grated carrot (which we have at least once a week at the work kiosk with lunch!) and once it was in an apple crumble.  Which was delicious to be honest, with lots of coconut and raisins etc.  A tropical version of the colonial classic. They love roast chicken here, so any roast chicken and pineapple dishes, while we haven't had them yet, would be quite appropriate! I will keep an eye out!

 

Last weekend we went to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant with some friends. All the food was amazing, and we ate ourselves into a bit of a meat coma for the next few days.  But the best course of all was a BBQ'd pineapple coated in cinnamon. They cooked them and served them on long metal skewers/spears and sliced off pieces directly onto your plate. It was DIVINE! I don’t know how they kept it so juicy... here are some photos to get your mouth watering, Alice and Clinton.

A taste of Mozambique.

My friend Elsa swept through my kitchen like a whirlwind to create a beautiful pineapple cake quite like she would make back home in Mozambique (she would have preferred fresh pineapple, also I set the oven too hot unfortunately, so the caramel was a little darker than intended). But it was truly delicious with a lovely texture! Elsa Licumba has started a catering business in Newcastle NSW if anyone is interested in a special event with an African flavour elsalicumba@gmail.com 0413538959, Anne.

Elsa’s Pineapple Cake.

1 X 225g can Golden Circle Pineapple Slices, 2 cups sugar, 100g butter, 4 eggs, 3 tspns vanilla essence (or optionally 1 tspn of cinnamon), 2 cups plain flour, 4 tspns baking powder.

Have butter and pineapple at room temperature.

Melt 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan on the stove. Swill around a warmed 20cm cake tin until evenly coated with caramel. Line the base of the cake tin with pineapple rings and let the tin cool.

Cream butter and one cup of sugar with an electric beater. Mix in eggs and vanilla essence. Add plain flour and baking powder. Mix well. Make sure this mixture is not too runny, but if it is too thick add a little pineapple syrup. Pour the mix into the cake tin on top of the pineapple and place in an oven preheated to 180°C for 45-50 minutes. Don’t open the door for at least the first 20 minutes of cooking.