My mother’s borscht was a vegetarian, austere affair. It was “cheap as chips” as the British say and the recipe made gallons. In my student days, I could live on a pot of borscht for a week.
This beef version is a richer, rib-sticking affair, more akin to goulash. Continue reading
A well-made lasagne is a delightful thing. Unfortunately, the dish that passed for lasagne in my childhood did not fit this description.
According to the index card, mum got the recipe from a neighbour on our block. It calls for an entire tin of tomato paste, Kraft cheese slices, and a large tub of sour cream.
It was years before I ate lasagne again, and was happily surprised to discover how good it can be. Continue reading
I’ve gone for Cornish pasties to represent England in this year’s World Cup cook-off.
Yes, it’s a shameless crowd-pleaser, but I suspect that England needs all the help it can get – both in the kitchen and on the pitch.
Strictly speaking, if it’s not made in Cornwall, it’s not a Cornish pasty.
But if I’d made these in Penzance instead of London, I think they might pass muster. Continue reading
Between Swedish meatballs, Italian spaghetti and meatballs and Algerian meatballs with chickpeas (not to mention the pork-courgette meatballs I make for banh mi) we’re pretty well covered on the meatball front.
But this year’s World Cup cook-off is an opportunity to represent Germany with these solid, trustworthy königsberger klopse from Fern’s Food.
Picadillo de platano verde reminds me of the hamburger mince gravy my dad made each week.
A colourful, exotic Latin cousin perhaps, with its chunks of red pepper and golden plantain, spicy with cumin and paprika.
I found it interesting that Worcestershire sauce turned up in most of the picadillo recipes I looked at.
Like great-uncle Arthur’s chin or great-aunt Nellie’s hooded eyelids recurring across the generations. Continue reading
Until last year, we had a corner-store/deli where I’d occasionally treat myself to a Jamaican patty for lunch.
Since it closed, I’ve been going without my patty fix, until it occurred to me that I could make my own.
Delicious warm or cold, Jamaican patties are great in a packed lunch or as an after-school snack. Having experimented with different fillings, curried beef and squash & corn are the clear family favourites. Continue reading
Beef goulash is one of the first dishes I learned to cook on my own. The original recipe is from Seventeen magazine – that’s how long I have been making this dish…;-)
Beef stroganoff is one of my life-long favourite meals – I can remember choosing it for my special birthday dinner. I recently unearthed a class cookbook from first grade, and there in all its faded mimeographed glory was “Beef Stroganoff, by Andrea”.
Stroganoff was where my love affair with rosemary began. So I was genuinely stunned that in a survey of numerous beef stroganoff recipes online, not one of them included rosemary.
To my mind, rosemary is an integral part of the dish – it simply wouldn’t be stroganoff without it. (The poppy seeds on the noodles are non-negotiable as well.) 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
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
Pearl barley is the very definition of comfort food for me. It takes me straight back to childhood – to lunches of homemade soup and grilled cheese sandwiches round the kitchen table to fortify us against whatever winter weather northern Canada was serving up outside.
I read somewhere once that “Canadians eat for ballast”, to ensure they aren’t swept away by an Arctic blast when they venture out of doors. There may be some truth in that…;-)
Whatever the reason, beef barley soup is the kind of thing I crave now that winter is making a belated appearance in the UK. Continue reading
Seco is a traditional Peruvian stew. Chunks of meat – lamb, chicken or beef – are simmered for hours until the meat is tender to the point of falling apart.
Like dhania chicken, seco is definitely for coriander lovers only. It’s also pretty spicy, so I tone things down a notch when preparing it for the girls.
At some point in my childhood, the responsibility for cooking the family meals shifted from my mum to my dad. I don’t remember what brought on this change – I’m not sure that I ever knew.
Before that point, I can recall him making only two things – the occasional roast dinner and his delicious sourdough bread. Once he became the main cook, Dad brought a typically structured approach to feeding the family. Continue reading
Szechuan celery with beef has become a family standby. As a lapsed vegetarian, I’m drawn to recipes where meat plays a supporting roles, and the celery is definitely the star here.
While there’s a bit of faffing around up front – peeling and blanching the celery, mainly – it comes together very quickly after that. Continue reading
Mum’s meatloaf is my dad’s favourite meal, and he’d always request it for his birthday supper. I included her recipe in Fern’s Food, but over the years I’ve made a couple of changes. I doubt my dad would approve, but this is the way we like it. Continue reading
We celebrate Burns night every year, hosting a supper with friends. As dinner parties go, it’s an easy meal to prepare. I toss a Macsween haggis in the oven, peel a big bag of potatoes and a couple of swede (much tastier than turnips), make with the potato ricer and that’s about it.
We usually start with mackerel paté and oatcakes – homemade this year as the local shop was out. Before tucking in, we stumble through a reading of Burns’ “Address to a Haggis” – delivered in a range of appalling Scottish accents – before toasting the “chieftain o’ the puddin’ race” with a shot of whisky.
Spaghetti bolognese is one of those family meals I make so regularly that I no longer follow a recipe. I always start with a soffrito of onion, carrot and celery – sautéed in olive oil with a couple of cloves of garlic. Continue reading
I’ve never eaten Swedish meatballs in the IKEA café, but I have bought bags of frozen köttbullar from their food hall once or twice. They were nice enough, but these homemade Swedish meatballs are in a different league – crispy on the outside, soft and juicy within, and coated in a velvety cream sauce. Continue reading
Stirfries are standard mid-week fare in our house, especially if I have beansprouts to use up. The vegetables vary with the contents of the fridge, but I always like to have carrot, peppers, onion and something green like mange tout, snowpeas or broccoli.
Marinating the beef before stirfrying adds a nice depth of flavour to the dish.
Nikujaga (or simmered beef and potatoes) is no-frills, homestyle Japanese cooking – something a Japanese mum would make on a busy weeknight the way I might make macaroni cheese. The Japanese call this sort of cooking ofukuro no aji, which means “mother’s taste”.
There’s a nostalgia associated with these dishes – while others may cook them, nobody’s tastes quite like your mum’s version. That’s because hers tasted of home and childhood… and love. Continue reading
My first thought on seeing this recipe for kimchi meatloaf was “why didn’t I think of that?” I tend to find meatloaf a bit meh – too often it’s dry and lacking in flavour. Because meatloaf is my dad’s favourite meal, mum would serve it for his birthday every year. Otherwise, it seldom made an appearance. Continue reading
It wasn’t that easy finding a Dutch World Cup meal I thought we’d all enjoy eating, especially as a lot of the food seemed more like winter fare. I eventually settled on slavinken — ground meat seasoned with herbs and wrapped in bacon before being panfried – which I served with appelmoes (applesauce). If I make these again, I’ll cook six and freeze six for another meal — Adam ate two, but the rest of us were fine with one. Continue reading
I occasionally make the veggie version of Chilean corn pie from the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. This original meat-based version turns out to be very tasty as well. Actually, neither of the girls liked it much – I think the relative sweetness of the corn topping put them off. Ideally, the topping should have firmed up a bit more – I added extra milk while blitzing the topping mixture, which was probably a mistake. I made it following a recip on the Quericavida website, which I adjusted slightly. Continue reading
This Algerian recipe for m’touem b’marqa hamra (meatballs and chickpeas in garlicky red sauce) is awesome. Meatballs are a bit time consuming, but worth the effort for this dish. I found the recipe on The Teal Tadgine website, and followed it pretty much as written. It claims to serve four to six people, but if it had made more, the four of us would have eaten it. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 