Honduras - Plato Tipico
Chismol recipe from https://www.whats4eats.com/sauces/chismol-recipe
Carneada, or plato tipico (which, as you may well guess, translates to typical plate) is considered one of the national dishes of Honduras. The dish is a lovely combination of various flavours and colours which can all be enjoyed together.
The recipe I followed marinated the beef in orange juice, mustard, thyme and oregano for 3 hours before cooking, and then served it with rice, chorizo, chismol (a salad of green pepper , onion and coriander), avocado, a tortilla, refried beans and fried banana. The fried banana was interesting, and I'm not entirely sure how traditional it was; different sources suggest banana, green bananas and plantain. It was all very tasty though!
Haiti - Griyo
Recipe from https://haitian-recipes.com/griot-de-porc/
Diri kole ak pwa recipe from https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/diri-kole-ak-pwa
Griyo is considered as the national dish of Haiti. Similar to the beef in Honduras' carneada, the pork in griyo is marinated in orange juice, along with lime, rosemary, thyme, parsley, garlic and a seasoning new to me, epis, the chunky green sauce you can see above. Epis is a spicy seasoning of quite a few ingredients blended together, including green pepper, parsley, coriander and scotch bonnet chilli (though I must admit I used a much less spicy pepper, not just due to supply issues). The marinated pork was then fried and served alongside diri kole, a mixture of kidney beans and rice flavoured with spring onions and garlic, and avocado.
Ethiopia - Doro Wat
Injera recipe from https://www.linsfood.com/injera-ethiopian-flat-bread/#recipe
Ethiopia's doro wat is a chicken stew, predominantly flavoured by berbere, garlic and ginger. I think what surprised me most, however, about the seasoning was that the recipe called for dried basil. Though the picture here does not quite do it justice, the result of the recipe did create a lovely thick sauce. As you can see, the doro wat also includes hard boiled eggs, which I personally was not 100% certain about, but I see no reason not to cook it to a soft boil instead.
I served the doro wat on injera bread, which is made from a batter of teff and rice flour fermented for a few days and then cooked in a pan. It added a nice tang to complement the chicken.
Denmark - Stegt Flæsk
Recipe from https://www.copenhagenet.dk/CPH-Map/CPH-Recipes-Stegt-Flaesk.asp
"Stegt Flæsk med Persillesovs", or fried pork belly and parsley saucem, does exactly what it says on the tin. Well, other than the fact that I chose to oven cook the pork. There's not much to say about this dish; the parsley sauce is a nice and simple bechamel with added cream, nutmeg and parsley. The potatoes and peas were boiled, and it was all plated up together. That said, it was one of the tastiest dishes I have made, with the fat well rendered and crisped up in the belly, and the parsley sauce beautifully complimented the saltiness.
Austria - Tafelspitz
Recipe from https://www.austria.info/en/things-to-do/food-and-drink/recipes/tafelspitz
Austria's Tafelspitz is veal boiled for approximately 3 hours alongside various root vegetables, leek, onion and bay leaves. As far as I can tell, though, how you serve it is pretty much up to you. Some recipes suggest leaving the beef in its cooking broth and serving it all as a soup. Others suggest straining the broth and having as a starter, whilst serving the beef alongside various accompaniments such as as roast potatoes and creamed spinach. I've plated up an amalgamation of these, as it felt a waste to discard the root vegetables I had cooked up, but I also had some potatoes that needed using up and roasting them seemed like a good idea.
I think the key to this recipe was skimming the broth very regularly so that it was as clear as it could be without any excess fat or impurities, but I think that this was worth it in the end, as the broth was well flavoured and complex.