Floridita Provisional Menu

The opening day for Floridita is still over the horizon but I am busy, with the help of a friend of mine in Australia, putting together the Floridita website. I want to include the menu and links to recipes. When I light the burners for the first time, I want to simultaneously go on line.

The menu relies heavily on locally available produce, both out of necessity and a desire of mine to become a local food hero. If you come all this way, do you really want a burger and chips or would you prefer the fresh produce you know was hauled out of the sea by artisan fisherman, was dispatched at dawn by the discharge from an ancient Baikal or dug out of the ground and rinsed clean the day you eat it?

I will flip you a burger if you insist but shan't be particularly impressed.

Entrées:

 Prawns and Mabanga (local clams), poached in a fresh coriander, garlic and gindungo (local hot pepper) spiced coconut cream sauce (mild), on a bed of fresh watercress with sliced sweet fruit of the season. Apart from the fruit garnish, a warm dish.

 Prawns on a bed of sliced avocado, shredded salad leaves, baby tomatoes with a rich cocktail dressing. A cold dish.

 Spring rolls with sweet & sour and spicy dips

 Liver paté, toast, butter

 Sliced Presunto (cured smoked ham) served with sliced honey melon

 Lagosta (Steamed or grilled Lobster)

 Carangueijo de Namibe (Steamed Namibe Crab; small, sweet and full of flavour)

Soups

 Spicy Fish with sliced spring onion, lemon grass, tomato and cayenne.

 Cream of Butternut.

 Sopa de Feijao (bean soup, very popular here)

Main Courses

 Chicken Curry, steamed rice, sliced Mango or Pineapple, Minted Yoghurt on the side.

 Chicken Satay, steamed rice, mixed salad

 Fried Chicken drumsticks and thighs served with chips and mixed salad.

 Charcoal grilled Steak with herb butter, black bean sauce, fried egg, steamed rice, chips, mixed salad (they call it Bife a Portuguesa here).

 Chilli con Carne with steamed rice and mixed salad.

 Lasagne with a mixed salad.

 Guinea Fowl in a rich red wine sauce, with späetzle, red cabbage and cucumber dill salad.

 Forest Buffalo filet medallions served with a cream mushroom sauce, spaetzle and red cabbage.

 Tagliatelli Carbonara, fresh green salad

 Poached fish of the day with butter, steamed potatoes, green beans/steamed asparagus with sauce hollandaise

 Fish of the day poached in fresh coriander flavoured Coconut milk sauce, steamed rice, mixed salad.

 Garouper Grelhado (grilled Grouper filets), lemon butter sauce, chips or boiled potatoes, mixed green salad.

 Fried fish filet, steamed baby potatoes, watercress salad with natural yoghurt sauce.

 Choco Grelhada (grilled squid), steamed potatoes, green salad, onion and parsley flavoured olive oil and vinegar dressing.

 Bacalhao com natas (salted, dried cod that has been soaked for 24 hours before being shredded and braised in cream and other select ingredients, a huge favourite in Angola and I love it too).

 Chicken and mushroom pie, green beans, mashed potatoes and a rich gravy.

Desserts

 Flambeéd Fruits of the season with vanilla ice cream and cream

 Fruit salad made with fresh fruits of the season, with or without vanilla ice cream

 Pudim flan (Crème Caramel)

 Ananas (pineapple) fried in brown sugar and butter with a dash of dark rum, coconut cream sauce and ice cream.

 Crepes suzette, flavoured with mountain honey and lemon

 Barbas de Camelo (a dessert made of layered, powdered Marie biscuits, a custard type sauce made with eggs and condensed milk and cream. The literal translation is Camel Spit. Tastes delicious though).

 Bananas fritas with hot cinnamon flavoured buttered mountain honey.

I realise that I should have posted this on my other blog, 'Cooking in the Front Line' but having ignored it for so long, no-one is reading it anymore. What I will do now is cook everything on this menu and, apart from the boring chicken or steak and chips dishes, photograph the meals under preparation and post the menus over at the other blog.

Feedback, no pun intended, gratefully received.

Addendum

It would appear that an 'All Day Breakfast' is in demand. I shall have to call it the 'Fisherman's Breakfast' to remain in keeping with the theme of Floridita but it will consist of any, or all of the following:

Bacon, Eggs fried or scrambled, baked beans, South African Boerwors (best sausages in the world), black pudding, fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, devilled kidneys, onion gravy, roasted sliced normal and sweet potatoes, honey roasted carrots and parsnips, sweet and spicy chutney, English mustard, fresh bread, fried bread, ordinary toast, mountain honey (Americans pour honey on their bacon not just their toast, a taste I too have acquired, witness my expanding girth), various other jams, natural home made yoghurt, coffee, tea, fruit juice, a selection of cereals, fresh milk and anything else you want that I might have in my fridges or behind the bar. Like a beer to wash that lot down.

My father, and he should know because that's what he died of, used to call such a feast a heart attack on a plate. But you ask the golfing crew that pile round my house most weekends for a post Golfista 'snack', what they think of the brunch I knock up.