Now we have arrived in Taganga neither if these things is true. There are not really any great places to get food here and we have a small kitchen in our room, well a gas ring, fridge and a sink, but you get the idea.
To be honest I fancied the challenge of sorting out a meal in this environment, there is no hot water, the cold water from the tap is not drinkable. There is no sharp knife, only a small frying pan and a larger lidded saucepan, a 4 litre measuring jug, no bowls (but we do have a large cup) and a chopping board that is so old and stained it would give my mother nightmares for months. Oh and there is only a single ring gas stove to cook on.
In the back of my mind i thought that a risotto may be the answer so I headed to the supermarket to see what I could find there. This was an interesting experience as the supermarket is not self service here, it is more like the old village shop where you tell someone what you want and they run off and get it for you. This is ok if your Spanish is acceptable, however for me it degenerated into a lot of "umms" and hand gestures to get what I wanted.
The haul I ended up with was...
2 chicken stock cubes
1/4 of a chicken (leg, bit of thigh, lot of rib)
1 bottle of butter flavoured cooking oil?!?!
2 Spanish onions
2 green peppers
4 plum tomatoes
Garlic
Parmesan
Rice (they only had one type, definitely not risotto)
5.5 litres of drinking water in a bag!
Planning when you only have one gas ring is pretty important, I needed it for hot water for washing up, for making the chicken stock, to help peel the tomatoes and of course for cooking the risotto itself.
First I put some water on the boil to make the chicken stock, while this was heating up I washed all the veges in tap water to get the worst of the dirt off before rinsing in drinking water. I then scored the tomatoes with a cross at the top and bottom and dropped them into the now boiling water for a minute or two. These were the removed and left to cool, when they were subsequently peeled. I then disolved the stock cubes in the water.
The biggest problem with the kitchen was actually the lack of any kind of sharp knife. Luckily I have my pen knife but the blade is at best 1 and a half inches long. I used this to chop the garlic, onion, pepper and tomatoes while the stock was boiling.
I used the jug to hold the rice while I rinsed it (we have no sieve so I poured the water off the rice using my fingers to stop the rice escaping) before putting the drained rice in the frying pan. I then put around 300ml of the stock in the frying pan with the rice (this pan is not on the heat) and put the rest of the stock in the jug.
Finally I prepared the chicken this was fun using only a penknife basically separating the thigh and leg by cutting most of the meat around the joint then pulling, i skinned these and left the meat on the bone, I then cut all the remaining meat of the carcass.
I heated some butter oil in the pan and added the onion and garlic, after the onion had softened I added the pepper and chicken and waited until the chicken had started to brown before adding the rice and half of the stock (something like half a litre) and the tomatoes. I then stirred this all in and put a lid on the pan and brought this to the boil before simmering for 2 hours while occasionally stirring and adding more stock.
Once finished it tasted pretty great, especially accompanied by a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon from concha y torro!
The total cost was around 20,000 Colombian pesos, or 8 quid but when you consider a steak and chips in a restaurant is only between 18 and 22 thousand I suspect I won't be going to the effort again in Colombia!
Pictured are the pan, the water bag, the finished risotto and the gas ring and preparation area.
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