Cooking in Colombia: Can’t beat them ...join them!

You travel, you linger and you pick up habits (hopefully some good!), before you know it your cooking style is infused with these vague memories of taste bombs, that now (years on) seem second nature.

Like paprika from Hungary with lashings of yoghurt in your spicy bob gyülas (bean goulash), or the sofrito a granny lovingly passed onto you for safe keeping in Galicia, or the Shopska Salata of Bulgaria….

Fusion of flavours a roving appetite!

Cooking- secret ingredient a soda pop marinade for Chirozos Rancheros (farm style sausages)

So this morning, before heading off for a hot weekend outside Medellin, (San Jerónimo 28 degrees, year round!), I took the plunge …went native and cracked out a Paisa style, home cooked breakfast.

A colourful healthy brekky plated up to go

The secret ingredient (several actually) was fizzy pop …yes a soda pop …as a marinade for my Chirozos Rancheros.

This is not a sponsored product placement 😂 any fizzy drink will do

When I saw a promo girl in my local supermarket handing out sample, cooking using a carbonated tropical fruit juice drink. Sounds disgusting right? ….wrong! …delicious and it’s my top Colombian cooking tip of the week …gotta try that!

So several trial and burnt sugar caremalizing on pan, attempts later and I finally got it sussed.

Keep a low to medium heat, add a splash of water to the pan then chuck fresh garlic,

Pre-peeled whole garlic cloves in olive oil

simmer a bit, throw in the chorizos (sausages) let them warm through then splurge a dash of pop (Fanta type drink), then let the lot boil down and the sausages brown up before tossing in the pre-cooked calentado (rice mix).

I also had a gigantic avocado the size of a small cannon ball knocking about, so it went in for good measure along with a dash of Lulo juice (a citric fruit found here), a squeeze of lime will do.