There is a lovely brightness to the marinade for these pinchitos morunos. We have enjoyed these many a time in Spain and as Moro is one of my favourite London restaurants, I was happy to see this recipe in their first cookbook.
As long as you avoid overcooking it, pork loin is an excellent meat to barbeque. Served with a tossed salad, this made a lovely, light evening meal, eaten outdoors. Continue reading
A simple salad of grilled peppers is the traditional accompaniment Portuguese grilled sardines. While some recipes dress the salad with red wine vinegar, I prefer to allow the flavour of the vegetables to come through.
The peppers and onion can either be grilled on the barbeque, or roasted on a baking sheet in a hot oven. If you make grilled pepper salad in advance, be sure serve it at room temperature (or even warm) to bring out the flavours. Continue reading
I fired up the barbeque for first time this season to grill these sardines for our dinner. You can fry sardines in a grill pan or in a hot oven, but they are so much nicer cooked over an open flame.
These were delicious served with a squeeze of lemon, some crusty Portuguese bread and the traditional grilled pepper salad. The only possible improvements would have been a seaside table and a chilled glass of vinho verde. Continue reading
Chicken tikka masala is one of Britain’s favourite dishes. Believed to be a local adaptation of India’s butter chicken, chicken tikka masala is such a part of the British culinary fabric, it goes by the acronym CTM.
Usually eaten in restaurants, or as a takeaway, I had never actually made chicken tikka masala myself. Continue reading
I served this simple Croatian cucumber salad to accompany the prawns alla busara we had for dinner last night. The recipe seemed so simple, I hadn’t intended to post it.
But it was so crisp, cool and refreshing that I changed my mind. Continue reading
I’ve been wanting to cook prawns alla busara ever since I saw Rick Stein prepare them on the Croatia segment of his Venice to Istanbul cookery show.
By the time he’d rustled up a delicious-looking plate of prawns bathed in a wine-rich tomato sauce, my mouth was watering. Continue reading
Before moving to the UK, I’d never eaten summer pudding. I was dead impressed the first time my mother-in-law served one up for dessert.
As she’s a very accomplished cook, I assumed summer puddings required patisserie skills I’d never possess. Turns out she’s a canny cook as well – and summer pudding couldn’t be easier to make. Continue reading
After tasting her salade liègeoise this evening, my older daughter remarked that what she likes best about trying recipes from different countries is recognising adaptations of familiar dishes.
“Like this salade liègeoise, for example – this is just a salade niçoise for people who don’t have tomatoes.”
She’s spot on, and it really brought home to me one of the reasons I cook the way I do. It a way of engaging with the world, of opening a window into different cultures – “dining table” travel, if you will. Continue reading
Mazurka (or mazurek) is a traditional Polish cake served at Easter and other special occasions. There are lots of mazurka recipes online – some for single-layer mazurka topped with fruit or chocolate and drizzled with icing; others with the fillings sandwiched between two thin layers of cake.
I chose this blueberry mazurka recipe for its similarity to the date squares my family makes at Christmas. It hadn’t occurred to me to use anything other than dates for the middle layer – my eyes are opened to all sorts of possibilities now…;-) Continue reading
Börek, burek, byrek, byorek… The vowels may change from country to country, but the delicious, savoury pastries found across Turkey and the Balkans are largely the same.
In Albania, spinach seems to be the most common filling for byrek. But they sounded so similar to the spanakopita I occasionally make, that I opted for a cheese version instead. Continue reading
Salata de vinete is a traditional Romanian dip or spread that is served with pitta or crackers. I did some research online – even watching a video of Nadia Comenici preparing salata de vinete – before asking my Romanian friend Dan for tips. Continue reading
The English asparagus season is coming to an end, alas… While the last of the crop is available from our greengrocers, asparagus risotto seems a fine way to represent Italy in the Euro 2016 championships.
This risotto gets its beautiful green colour by creating a purée from the stalks, which is stirred through towards the end of the cooking time. Continue reading
When I was a kid, we had a skipping song that included the lines, “Goulash, paprikash, one, two, three! Noodle, strudel, touch your knees! Rigatoni, macaroni…”
I can’t recall the rest, but I know that I hadn’t the foggiest idea what paprikash was back then – and until today had never made it. Continue reading
Gateau de Vully is a speciality from the French-speaking western part of Switzerland. While the sweet version (topped with cream and grated sugar cubes) is more common, after yesterday’s referendum the salty version better suited my mood.
Unable to find an English recipe for a savoury Vully tart online, I had a go at translating a French one with the help of Google Translate. This resulted in a few puzzlers, such as “form a lace around the cake” or “streak the dough with a roulette”, but I forged ahead nevertheless… Continue reading
This is Mum’s borscht, which I grew up eating – she got the recipe from a Ukrainian neighbour who lived on our street.
I had a strong childhood aversion to beets. I didn’t like the sweetness of them, and remember hating how beet juice would seep into everything else on your plate.
Maybe that’s why I never minded borscht. For one thing, it was sour. Plus the seeping was a done deed, and everything stained a consistent shade of purply red. Continue reading
I grew up eating what we Canadians called antipasto – a mixture of fish, vegetables and olives marinated in a sharp tomato sauce – and these Romanian mushrooms reminded me of it.
While I really liked them, the rest of the family had their reservations. Lyra hated the mushrooms but loved the sauce, Nova found them too spicy, and Adam thought they were too acidic. Continue reading
I’ve been meaning to make a kladdkaka for a while. I live with a houseful of pudding lovers, and I expected this would go down a treat. Apparently, it’s very popular in Sweden, and it’s easy to see why. Dense, gooey, chocolatey – what’s not to like? Continue reading
Pide are Turkey’s answer to pizza, and surprisingly easy to make. The dough came together in minutes, and by the time I’d made the toppings, it was risen and ready to roll.
I went with two traditional toppings – spicy ground meat and spinach and cheese – but there’s definitely scope to experiment here.
I divided the dough into four pieces, and made four largeish pide, but you could just as easily make six individual ones.
Note that the recipe below is for the amount of filling you need if you plan to make both types of pide. If you want to make only one, either freeze half the dough to use another time or double the quantity of filling. Continue reading
Herring under a fur coat – now there’s an original name for a salad… Chopped herring is buried beneath layers of vegetables and cooked egg, as snug and warm as if it were under a fur coat.
Having looked at a number of recipes online, I chose this version because it seemed relatively light, with just a thin spread of mayonnaise on top, instead of each layer.
Some people make a large mound of salad and decorate it (similar to salata de boeuf), while others create individual portions using ring molds. I liked the idea of making it in a glass bowl so you could see the layers. Kind of like a herring trifle…;-) Continue reading
Tarator is a chilled yogurt and cucumber soup that is eaten throughout the Balkans. Apparently, it’s considered to be hangover cure, though I’ve yet to test that claim.
It’s very refreshing, and dead easy to make. I’d happily have a jug of tarator in the fridge for quick lunches on hot summer days.
Not that we’re overburdened with those in the UK… It’s probably best to make your tarator on the day and hope the thermometer hasn’t plunged by the time you were planning to serve it…;-) Continue reading
Schnitzel was on the menu pretty regularly when the girls were small. Kids generally love breaded food, and it was a safe dinner option for playdates. (I once made a little girl cry by serving her a bowl of chickpea pasta soup…)
While veal is the traditional schnitzel cut in Austria, I’ve never used it myself. Chicken, turkey, or pork – they’ve all been pounded flat, dipped in egg, and rolled in crumbs and shallow-fried round here. Continue reading
With a daughter called Nova, I would have chosen this dish for its name alone. For a girl whose first word was “cakey”, cherry bubble cake is tres Nova, indeed… 😉 Continue reading
Cabbage rolls are the most Ukrainian of dishes, but they are also very Canadian. After all, Canada is home to more than 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians, – the world’s third largest Ukrainian population (after the Ukraine itself and Russia).
Where I grew up, buffets and potluck suppers always featured platters of cabbage rolls alongside the baked ham, potato salads, scalloped potatoes and tuna casseroles topped with crushed potato chips. Everyone seemed to adore them – everyone except me… Continue reading
This Euro 2016 challenge has made me aware of how many eastern European teams are competing – the menu plan for the next month is a bit cabbage-tastic. Potatoes are well represented too – and Slovakian potato pancakes feature both.
Seasoned with majoram and garlic, these differ from the potato latkes I usually make. Unlike latkes, they also include a significant quantity of flour, resulting in a breadier pancake.
Iceland’s presence in Euro 2016 is a dream come true. Much as I’d like to see their unlikely success continue, it seemed expedient to fit an Icelandic meal into the schedule early on.
After some research, I settled on roast cod fillets with egg and butter sauce. It was delicious, and couldn’t be simpler to make. Continue reading
Barmbrack is a traditional Irish bread made with dried fruit that has been steeped in tea. Often served on Halloween, I chose it to represent Ireland in our Euro 2016 food challenge.
There are both yeast and quick bread versions of barmbrack – I decided to make a yeast one using a recipe I’d clipped from a magazine years ago.
I soaked my fruit in the morning, planning to bake mid-afternoon, in time for the Ireland-Sweden match, but the dough had other plans… Continue reading
Along with champ, the Ulster fry is Northern Ireland’s main claim to culinary fame. What sets it apart from the usual British fry-up is the griddle breads – soda bread and potato farl – that are cooked along with everything else in a single pan, absorbing flavour (and fat) from the meat. Continue reading
We’d intended to eat these Glamorgan sausages as a late family lunch before settling down to watch the Wales v Croatia match. However, events overtook us and I ended up spending most of the day at the hospital with my youngest daughter. Continue reading
I first encountered salata de boeuf when we visited some friends over the Christmas holidays, and were treated to a generous spread of Romanian delicacies. Continue reading
When World Cup fever struck the house in 2014, I came up with the big idea of cooking something from each of the 32 competing nations.
This led to a month of meals that expanded our food horizons and introduced us to new flavours, ingredients and cuisines. Some have become family favourites – Japanese chicken karaage or Brazilian brigadieros come to mind – while others are less likely to be repeated…
Eventually Colombia claimed the title, its mouthwatering barras de limón seeing off Nigeria’s fiery beef suya.
As before, we’ll start by eating each country’s food on a day that they are competing. (Though unless I correctly predict every team that progresses to the knock-out stage, we’ll end up eating for some countries after the fact.)
We’ll score the dishes as we eat, eventually awarding our own Euro 2016 winner.
With a mushroom hater in the family, chicken marsala had fallen out of my repetoire. I’m glad I gave it another try, because it’s a simple and delicious mid-week meal, and proved to be a big hit all round. (According to Lyra, “the mushrooms are easy to see and avoid.”) Continue reading
I grew up eating homemade sourdough bread. My dad got bitten by the sourdough bug (metaphorically, of course), and eventually built up a little business selling his extra loaves to colleagues and neighbours. He installed a second oven in the basement, doubling his output to four loaves a day. Continue reading
Guacamole is one of those things it should be impossible to get wrong. Mash and season a ripe avocado, serve with tortilla chips – the shortest recipe ever.
And yet, there is so much lousy guacamole out there, it seems worth writing a few words on the subject. Continue reading
Nanaimo bars are a national institution in Canada. I’d always assumed these delicious bars of nutty, creamy, chocolatey goodness were first in Nanaimo (a town on Vancouver Island) – and research bears this out.
Loved across the country, there was even a knockout round in the first season of MasterChef Canada where competitors had to make desserts inspired by Nanaimo bars. Continue reading
I’ve made salad olivieh before, but this version is a knock-out. The roasted fennel and mustard seeds add lovely warmth to the dressing, and the Greek yogurt makes it less cloying than dressings made with mayonnaise. Continue reading
The addition of pistachio nuts adds richness and texture to these lamb burgers.
Sometimes I roll this mixture into meatballs to fill pitta breads, or form it into kebabs to grill on the barbeque. Continue reading
Sourdough bread baking is on the rise (pardon the pun). To get in on the action, the first thing you need to do is acquire some sourdough starter.
There are three ways to go about this. The easiest way is to get some from a “culture-d” friend (like me). You can order dried starter culture through the mail, which should arrive with instructions on how to activate it. Or you can make your own. Continue reading
I can still remember the first time I tasted cheese saganaki (pan-seared Greek cheese). Having finished university, my then boyfriend and I were spending the summer travelling round Europe before moving from Vancouver to Toronto so he could start a law degree.
Woefully misled by a guidebook called something like Europe on $10 a Day, we’d spent a lot of nights sleeping rough or on overnight trains, and buying cheap food in markets and bakeries to make our money go further. Greece was the first country we could actually afford to eat out.
There are so many versions of chicken tortilla soup – some light and lime-fragrant with bits of chicken and tiny squares of tortilla like some sort of Mexican miso soup.
Others so packed with meat and beans and peppers and tortilla strips that you could do the perform a Mexican hat dance on the surface. Continue reading
What I now recognise to be a mighty close cousin of the British classic lemon drizzle cake, went by the more modest name of lemon bread round ours.
Christmas baking aside, lemon bread was my hands-down favourite out of everything mum baked. I particularly adored the way the lemon syrup crystallised on the crust before seeping down to creating that thin layer of sticky citrusy goodness. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 