Frente Cumbiero Competition

An exciting opportunity is coming your way! By sending an email to INFO@COLOMBIAGE.COM outlining the correct answers to our three questions below, the lucky winner will receive:

- 2 tickets to FRENTE CUMBIERO LIVE IN LONDON this 31 May together with the chance to meet the band backstage.

- An original copy of FRENTE CUMBIERO’S 7″ VYNIL, a collector’s item, signed by the members of the band.

- A delicious dinner for two at London’s leading Latin American restaurant SABOR in Islington.

Questions are as follows:

1. In which studios in Medellín, Colombia, will Frente Cumbiero’s Ondatrópica project gather a group of the best old school Colombian tropical musicians together with the new generation to record an album?

2. What are the names of BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy’s 2012 apprentice and mentor respectively?

3. Name one of the four panelists that accompanied Colombiage’s Director, Landa Acevedo-Scott in February at Unconvention 2012 Colombiage’s panel “Culture is Propaganda: Is Colombia’s new wave of cultural stars changing the image of a troubled nation?”

Participant emails will be received until 29 May at 5:00 pm and the winner will be notified via email. His/her name will appear in this very page shortly afterwards. A special mention will also be published here after the concert.

Don’t miss the chance to see FRENTE CUMBIERO LIVE IN LONDON at Brixton Jamm this 31 May at 7pm accompained by DJ Russ Jones aka The Hackney Globe Trotter.

Best of luck to everyone!

The Colombiage Team

Circus Party with Circolombia

Sabor is very proud to support Salida Productions on a Circus Party this 3rd of May, from 7.30 pm till 2am, at the Old Vic Tunnels, in Waterloo, Leake Street Entrance, London SE1 8SW
Circus Party is an exciting fundraising event that will include DJ’s, Colombian food made by Sabor and drinks with special guest artists Circolombia’s Urban and Friends. All funds raised will go towards 'Macbeth', a Circo Para Todos project for Autumn 2012 .


Salida Productions  will be collaborating with Circolombia (www.circolombia.com) in Cali, Colombia on a brand new version of Macbeth this Autumn 2012. 

Ajiaco

Photos by Pablo Salgado

Ajiaco is a chicken and potato soup, and a regional variation on the better-known sancocho. It originates from Colombia’s capital, Bogota, in the Altiplano region of the country. This region lies 2,600 meters above sea level, making a warming winter broth a suitable local favourite. The key ingredient in the soup is guasca, a herb only produced in the area from which ajiaco originates. It is this herb that gives the dish its distinct flavour.

In the Altiplano, there is less variety in the crops available than in Colombia’s warmer regions. Consequently, whereas sancocho is made with a variety of different vegetables and tubers, the recipe for ajiaco typically uses three or four different types of potato, with each providing different tastes and textures.

SABOR’S AJIACO
(Chicken and potato soup from Bogota)

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
3 cloves of garlic
2 red onions
salt to taste
2 litres of chicken stock
12 small yellow potatoes (also known as papa amarilla, yellow potatoes can be found in South American shops in Brixton, Elephant and Castle and Seven Sisters)
2 corn cobs, cut in half
4 medium white potatoes, peeled and cut into 5mm slices (new potatoes or jersey royals are ideal)
4 purple potatoes, peeled and cut into 5mm slices (also known as truffle black potatoes, purple potatoes can be found in the supermarket. Red potatoes can be used instead, as they also retain their shape when cooked) 1 bunch of spring onions
1 bunch of coriander
8 tablespoons of guasca (this herb can be found dried in Brixton, Elephant and Castle and Seven Sisters; soak the dried herbs in water before use to get a more aromatic flavour)
250 ml of double cream or sour cream
4 tablespoons of capers, drained
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and thinly sliced

Method
First, marinade the chicken breasts with the salt, onions and garlic and leave over night.

The next day, place the chicken breasts into a heavy 4-litre casserole dish. Add water, cover the dish and cook until the chicken is tender. When cooked, remove the chicken from the dish. Remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Cut the chicken into strips.

Cook the yellow potatoes in the casserole dish with the chicken stock, until the potatoes start to disintegrate. At this point the soup should be thick and fairly smooth.

Add the spring onion, coriander, sliced white and purple potatoes, guasca and corn halves to the soup, and continue cooking.

When cooked, remove the bunches of spring onions and coriander.

To serve, divide the chicken strips between four deep bowls and pour over the soup. Dress each bowl with 3 tablespoons of cream and 1 tablespoon of chopped capers. Place the slices of avocado over the top, and serve.

Caipirinha

The caipirinha is the national drink of Brazil. Its main ingredient is cachaça, which is a wonderfully sweet sugar cane rum.

1 lime, quartered

2 teaspoon brown sugar

50 mls cachaca

Chill a rocks glass with cracked ice. Place the lime quarters in the bottom of a mixing glass; add the sugar, and muddle, extracting the juice and the oil in the skin from the lime quarters. Add the cachaca to the mixture in the mixing glass, dump the ice from the rocks glass into the mixing glass, and shake well. Pour the entire contents of the mixing glass back into the chilled rocks glass and serve. We can have as many variations as you like, just replace some of the lime juice with another fruit.

Pisco Sour

Peru and Chile both claim that the pisco sour is their invention.. What is known, is that the Peruvians they blended it. Pisco is a grape brandy made from the muscatel grape.

50 ml Pisco

25ml of egg white

1 or 2 depending on taste teaspoon of sugar

25ml of fresh lime juice

Angostura bitters (optional)

Crushed ice

Place the Pisco, egg white, sugar, lime juice, and ice in a cocktail shaker or a blender . Shake vigorously. Strain into a martini glass and add the bitters. You can also serve in an old fashion whisky glass as we do it at Sabor.

Mojito

Invented long ago in Havana’s Bodeguita Del Medio bar in Havanna, this drink has been enjoyed by Cubans for generations.

2 tender sprigs of fresh mint

2 teaspoons of caster or brown sugar

30mls fresh lime juice

50mls Havana Club Anejo

Soda water

Muddle one mint spring with the simple syrup or sugar and the lime juice in the bottom of a mixing glass. Add the rest of the ingredients and shake with ice. Strain over cracked ice over the highball glass, top with soda, and garnish with the remaining spring of mint.

Margarita

No one knows who invented the margarita. Its origins are as mysterious as the pyramids, but with more hangovers. Margaritas are pretty ubiquitous, and you can get them from some horrible frozen margarita machine, one of my pet hates!!!!!! But the real deal is so much better. Stop buying that horrible day-glo green mix and go back to the basics:

50mls tequila

25mls Cointreau

30mls fresh lime juice

Combine the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass with a salted rim. Salting the rim: Rim the edges of the cocktail glass by rubbing a lime piece on the outside rim of the glass, then dipping the outside rim into a saucer of course salt.