- Some restaurant food is easier to adapt to home cooking (and I prefer to share original, easy to cook homestyle recipes the way I learned to make them, with minor substitutions for  local ingredients and tools), but the tandoor oven itself is tough to replicate, the clay walls enveloping the food or breads in heat, far away from the coals (my first attempt to recreate this dish on a bbq grill resulted in charred meat instead of even cooking)

- No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get the brilliant red colour that is synonymous with tandoori chicken (I even bought a box of ready made tandoori mix to see how that compared, but it was not as complete as my recipe, with only a handful of spices mixed together, no bright red result (as depicted on the box), and the necessity to mix in all of the fresh ingredients anyway)

- Sanjeev, my North Indian mentor left a comment on my original post, advising me to be careful with the spice mixes, as changing the contents would ultimately change the taste

That said, I know the taste of my original recipe was great, but to make things clearer, I thought I should state how I adapted/simplified the recipe, including additional recommendations that make the preparation slightly more time consuming, but slightly more authentic at the same time.

My first investigation was into the deep red colour of tandoori chicken: I spoke with my mentor Sanjeev, and he told me that the secret is in the kashmiri chillies, which I unfortunately did not carry with me out of India. The flavour is rather light, something like paprika, but the hue is much more magnificent. If you can’t find kashmiri chili powder, don’t make the mistake I originally made in trying to replicate the colour by adding a lot more paprika or other red chillies; they’ll overpower the flavour, and do nothing for the colour. There just doesn’t seem to be any replacement colour-wise for the real thing.

The first simplification I made is with the graham flour paste. Knowing that chick pea flour is not super common around the world, but chickpeas themselves are, I originally suggested taking a handful of chickpeas, and mashing them into a paste to be added to the tandoori marinade. I’ve adjusted this step from my original recipe to include the other ingredients in Sanjeev’s graham flour paste (cardamome, bay leaf and cinnamon), either blending them together and heating/browning them in oil, or when I don’t have a blender, I place the whole spices together with the mashed chickpeas and heat them on low, allowing the flavours to infuse the chickpea paste before it’s cooled and added to the tandoori marinade.

With the garam masala, Sanjeev’s homemade recipe includes coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cardamome (both black and green), bay leaves, cinnamon, whole black pepper, cloves, star anis, nutmeg, and mace (a second spice that surrounds nutmeg when it’s in the fruit, and is dried and used separately). The spices are dry roasted in a pan, and then blended together into a spice. Use as many of them as you can get your hands on. In my experience, the coriander and cumin spices are a must.

For the tandoori marinade, the original used mustard oil, which has a potently strong flavour; to replace this, I recommend using a mustard like ‘Country Cape’ or ‘à l’ancienne’, which both have whole mustard grains in them, and a much stronger taste than the yellow stuff you’d buy for burgers and sandwiches.

Sanjeev’s original tandoori marinade also includes fenugreek powder (which can be difficult to find) and chat masala, which in addition to the spices already used in the recipe, includes asafoetida and dried mango powder (amchoor), giving it a sweet and sour taste. These are difficult to reproduce without buying the spice prepackaged, but adding a bit more lime to the dish does help with the sour sensation.

The next big difference was the process: at Blu Cheez (Sanjeev’s restaurant in Chandigarh), they first marinate the chicken in ginger/garlic paste, salt, chili powder, white vinegar, and mustard oil, leaving it for at least an hour before squeezing out the excess water and then coating it with the tandoori marinade. During my tests, I found that in making one chicken, the quantity is so small that there’s not a lot of water that ends up squeezing out, so the extra step doesn’t add much to the taste. Instead I combined this step by mixing these ingredients in with the tandoori marinade, coating and leaving the chicken for at least an hour before cooking.

At the same time, when dealing with such a small quantity, I don’t find it necessary to hang the yogurt: if you can get a rather thick (Greek or Bulgarian) yogurt, placing it in a cotton cloth and letting it sit in a bowl for 15 minutes will allow the cloth to absorb much of the water, and the yogurt will be ready to use.

And finally, when cooking the meat, which is best on a bbq, you must keep it far from the flames, turning regularly to avoid burning (and with the tiny charcoal grill design in Mozambique, it’s a laborious manual task).

However you choose to prepare it, this (and my simpler) tandoori style chicken will never match that made with the tandoor and all of the spices, but it will definitely take your tastebuds to India, and it is much better than the tandoori style recipes you’ll pull out of a prepackaged box.

Enjoy!

Learning to document and prepare food started out as a combination of three passions: culture, French language, and ethnic dishes. My first hand-written recipes come from Mbalmayo, Cameroon, where I rented a room in 2004 for three months (after volunteering around the country for six), staying with a local family for roughly $17 per month. Years earlier, a tree had fallen over and broken half their house down: the washroom had no roof (providing magnificent skylights!); the door was off its hinges and had to be physically lifted to open and close it; the walls were covered in a beautiful melody of weathered paint, and half a papaya tree trunk grew through one of the walls. There was no fridge or running water (the kids would fetch it from a pond or well and carry it back on their heads), and we cooked fresh ingredients from the local market over an open wood fire, complimented with luscious fruits from our trees; a perfect way to expose myself to the local life and recipes as part of the family, while I learned to start speaking French for the first time.

From Africa, I moved to French Canada to continue studying. I started with language classes, but they didn’t work: all my classmates could speak fluently, but had trouble reading and writing; I was the complete opposite. So I came back to my passion, and studied cuisine full-time for one year, where as the only anglophone in the school, I was forced to learn to speak French, and it was much easier to do while studying something I love!

From there, I travelled to French speaking countries in West Africa, learning common comfort foods by staying with friendly local families. This became a full-time research project for over two years, and fifty five countries later, I’ve learned so many practical tips and tricks from Asia, Africa, and Europe that I want to share this insight, so others can see how easy it is to make completely different dishes with familiar, basic ingredients.

What really makes my posts special is the personal touch from first-hand contact with cultures: the recipes are much more than authentic recipes from faraway lands; you get transported to the places and people who taught them to me, sharing a piece of their pride with your own friends and family at the dinner table.

Speaking of dinner, here’s an easy way to create delicious Chinese (and other) steamed dishes on a regular stove top. My friend Yin’s mom was the first to teach me this cooking method in Hong Kong, and I must say, the whole process is simplified in a Western kitchen if you replace the pot I used in this example with a large flat base wok (many woks in Asia actually have a rounded base sitting comfortably over gas flames, which allows you to easily manipulate the food without any edges on the inside).

To transform the wok into a steamer in China, there’s a small metal three-legged stand that sits inside, and can have a plate placed on it. What I use as a substitute is a bowl, half filled with water, placed in the bottom of the wok or pot. The water in the bowl prevents it from shaking or rattling when the heat goes on; this is exactly what can happen if you turn the bowl upside down.

With the bowl (or stand) in place, pour hot water from a kettle around it, filling the pot/wok no more than half-way up the bowl/stand’s height. The higher you fill it, the more likely the water is to boil over onto food being steamed, but if there’s not enough water, it can dry up and burn the pot.

Cover the pot and heat it until boiling, and you are now ready to steam! Below is one of many extremely simple and tasty fish recipes to get you started:

Chinese steamed fish with ginger and spring onions (Yin’s mom’s variation, from Hong Kong)

white whole (or sliced) sea fish (in Africa people often deep-fry denser fish in unhealthy, re-used oil, so I’ve also adapted this recipe to use  mackerel or sardines, pictured below), ginger juliennes, 5cm long spring onion juliennes, peanut or sesame oil (vegetable oil won’t give off the same aroma, but can be used if others aren’t available), salt

- clean fish, dry with paper towel
- place bottom half of spring onions on a plate, then fish, then ginger, salt
- carefully place plate/fish in steamer (this is much easier if the diameter of the pot/wok is significantly larger than the plate; for these photos, we used wooden spoons to place the plate in the pot, then a crazy Mozambican friend took it out with her strong, bare hands! In Chinatowns, you’ll find practical plate lifts.)
- check on the fish after 3-5 minutes, and if you see that the water is boiling over onto the plate, remove it by carefully tipping the plate and allowing the liquid to drain back into the pot, then consider removing some of the liquid from the pot to prevent another flood!
- re-cover, and be careful not to overcook (time depends on fish: the ones in these photos took under 15 minutes from start to finish)
- add spring onion tops to fish, re-steam 1 minute, remove from heat
- heat oil in a small pot or pan, ladle over fish, add touch of soy sauce on plate next to white fish (rather than directly on it), or for denser fish, put the sauce directly over it (I also add a bit of the steamed water to the plate to mix with the soya sauce, creating a nice dip for drier meat and rice)

Enjoy!

It is named after the three-legged iron potjie pot, originating in South Africa, but popular today in most of the southern countries. The pot retains a lot of heat, ideal for low maintenance cooking over a number of hours.

Every restaurant and home has their own recipe, most of them today using prepackaged spice mixes for this dish. You could do it with any type of curry spice, but when creating it for a restaurant in Namibia, the chef and I made this house recipe from scratch.

The combination of thyme and apple sweetens the meat and goes great with the flavour of chili and turmeric. For the photos, I quickly made this on the stove with boneless springbok meat, but we would normally use chopped pieces of game, the lower leg perfect, as the meat falls off the bone, and the bone marrow thickens the sauce. If you don’t like bone in your stew, you can use flour or cornstarch to thicken the sauce instead. And remember, the longer you let the meat cook, the softer it gets, and the more time the spices have to saturate the meat with flavour.

Southern African potjiekos

oil, sliced onions, chopped garlic, chunks of tough meat (not sirloin or fillet), tomato paste, cumin powder or seeds, turmeric powder, paprika, chili powder, cinnamon, cloves, ground black pepper, bay leaves, salt, coriander powder, thyme, hot water, raisins, cashews, sliced apple, potato chunks, carrot chunks, flour or corn starch to thicken sauce

- heat oil, add onions, garlic and spices
- once transparent, add meat, stir until all sides are coloured
- cover meat with hot water, leave covered to boil and tenderize meat
- add potatoes and carrots once meat is tender
- if sauce needs to be thickened, mix some flour or corn starch with water and add
- once vegetables are cooked, add raisins, cashews and apple for a few minutes, and enjoy with rice!

In French, the dish is known as ‘poisson trop cuit’, meaning overcooked fish. It gives it a super crispy texture, and the way the body is scored with little squares, you can easily pick them off one at a time, enjoying them with the savoury carmelized onion sauce, the mustard enhancing its sweetness.

I often make this with chicken, and you get that same crispy effect if you leave the skin on and deep fry it (or turn the oven up really high to crisp the skin before dropping the temperature).

Crispy fish or chicken in African onion mustard sauce

whole mackerel (or similar fish) or chicken quarters, yellow onions, vegetable oil, salt, pepper, paprika, French mustard, water

- if making fish, clean it and cut deep incisions along each side of the body both horizontally and vertically, so that the meat has a square pattern on it
- if making chicken, cut the quarters in half
- cut the onions in half, then slice horizontally and vertically into 1-1.5cm squares (about the same size as the square pattern on the fish)
- heat oil to medium heat, add onions, paprika, salt, pepper, allow to brown slowly
- add mustard to onions, stirring before adding enough water to barely cover the onions
- leave to reduce and carmelize into sauce, mixing in a touch more mustard just before serving
- heat oil in another pan, fry fish or chicken super crispy (I usually seal the outside of the chicken by deep frying it, then finish cooking it in the oven)
- serve sauce over crispy meat, and enjoy the textures and flavours with some bread!

The only ingredients that I would say are standard for this recipe are flour, egg, and chopped cabbage; after that, you can go nuts throwing in leftover vegetables, pieces of meat, seafood, etc., and if you want it to taste Japanese, at least one ingredient with a Japanese flavour (such as dashi instead of water, bonito shavings (katsuobushi), or nori flakes). These items are super cheap in Japan, and can often be found in Chinese or other Asian supermarkets.

The topping is usually okonomiyaki sauce (worcestorshire sauce is a  perfect substitute), mayonnaise, nori powder/flakes, and bonito shavings (you can actually buy pre-mixed packages of the topping, as in the left side of the photo to the left). But again, use what you can find, and the less Japanese ingredients you have, the closer the pancake comes to the Korean version, called chon!

This is the recipe I put together for the photo shoot, which was my first attempt making it since leaving Japan. One tip: make sure the batter is thick enough; my second attempt was too runny, and didn’t look anything like the one above!

okonomiyaki

flour, water, egg, cabbage cut into thin strips, spring onions sliced into jardinieres, bean sprouts, salt, pepper, japanese bread crumbs (panko), bonito shavings, oil, 4mm slices of smoked ham, mayonnaise, nori flakes

- in a bowl, mix all ingredients minus the oil, meat, mayo and nori flakes (save half the bonito shavings for the topping as well), adding water or flour until the texture is a thick batter, not runny
- in a pan, heat oil on medium, adding the meat to sear one side before flipping it over
- pour the batter mix over the meat, let cook slowly, carefully flipping once the one side crisps, and the top starts to dry (as you would do with an American pancake)
- check the middle with a fork to ensure it’s fully cooked before transferring to a plate
- cover the top with mayonnaise (if you have the okonomiyaki sauce, put it on first, then squeeze lines of mayo over it), then cover with the nori flakes and top with bonito shavings

Enjoy!

“First up: Nara Café Youan, about an hour by train from Kyle’s place (my home base) in Itami. Mayumi’s created a homey setting to serve lunch, and she shared all of her delicious recipes with me. It’s interesting to see things like niku jaga, which taste very similar to meat and potato stews back home. I’m told a number of dishes in Japan were incorporated into the cuisine by adventurous travellers, who enjoyed foreign flavours abroad and adapted them upon their return to use locally available products.” (p.18)

The first thing many people associate with Japanese food is sushi, but if you’ve been lucky enough to stay with a Japanese family, you’d know that it’s on rare occasions that people will go out and eat it, mainly due to its expensive price tag (in all the time I spent in Japan, I think we only went out for sushi two or three times). Home style comfort food is much more common, and in the places I lived, it would usually consist of a lot of rice or noodles, soups, salads, and small amounts of meat or fish.

Japan has incorporated a lot of foreign foods into their culture, and most of them have somehow been ‘Japanized’ during the adaptation. For example, it’s very common to find pasta restaurants all over the country, but the ingredients in Japanese style pasta would almost certainly make an Italian cringe.

Something I’m curious to know is how long it takes for a Japanese dish adapted from foreign food to be written as a ‘Japanese’ recipe; hiragana and katakana are two different Japanese alphabets that are pronounced the same, but the former is used to write Japanese words, and the latter typically used for foreign words.

Anyway, I personally love Japanese food, but when I’m in Japan, I do notice that almost everything tends to have that same underlying Japanese taste. Part of the reason is the fact that they use the same basic flavouring agents for most dishes. It’s even believed that the order they’re added to a dish (in addition to the often used dashi stock) affects their ability to work their magic (I’ve had scientific conversations about the size of the molecules affecting the flavours’ ability to saturate the ingredients!).

The five vowels associated with the Japanese ‘s’ sound, when pronounced in alphabetical order, tell cooks what to add next (it was one of the first ‘tricks’ shared with me, and I’ve often heard friends rhyming them off as they cooked away):

sa – sato = sugar (bigger particles cannot penetrate foods well when obstructed by smaller particles like salt)
shi – shio = salt
su = vinegar (will evaporate when heated and lose flavour, don’t add too early)
se – seuyu (an old name for shoyu) = soya sauce (can also lose flavour if added too early, add near end or as a dip)
so – miso = fermented soybean paste (for additional flavour)

I didn’t ask where additional flavourings like mirin and sesame oil fit into this hierarchy, but if anyone wants to add their knowledge to this post, I’d be happy to hear it!

Niku jaga (literally meaning meat-potato) is a very popular dish, and as mentioned above, is similar to western stews, except that there is little liquid left in the end (the vegetables absorb most of what’s put in). Many of the cooks I learned from were quick to refer to a cookbook for these types of dishes, ensuring that they got the exact proportions of shoyu to sesame oil to sake, but when Mayumi taught me, she was less strict, so I’ll leave you to play with the flavours that are sure to add a welcome change to a classic dish.

Red meat in Japanese (and other Asian) cuisine is usually cut super thin, so if you are going to use bigger pieces of meat, you’ll need to let them cook a bit longer before adding the other ingredients. But I’d recommend cutting the meat as thin as you possibly can, so that everything has the chance to cook together in minimal liquid.

niku jaga (beef and potato) from mayumi, nara cafe

potatoes cut large, yellow onions cut chinese-style, carrots cut large diagonally, beef slices, corn or white sesame oil, sugar, dark shoyu, sake

- heat oil, satay beef, add onion, carrots, then potatoes, then sugar, shoyu, sake
- cover and heat until cooked, adding flavour (shoyu, sake) to taste

Serve with rice and enjoy!

For those who have peanut allergies, you can replace the peanut butter with cut and boiled spinach for a different flavour (and those who eat nuts can also add the spinach for another common variation of this recipe). It takes only minutes to prepare, and adds a special taste to an African (or any other) meal!

chiguinha

sweet potato or cassava (mandioca) peeled and cut into 2-3cm chunks, salt, water, peanut butter (or pounded peanut powder), spinach cut into thin strips (optional)

- In a pot, put sweet potato or cassava, salt, peanut butter/powder, and enough water to cover about two thirds of the contents. Cover and bring to a boil, then lower the heat, remove lid and allow to thicken.
- If using spinach, first boil for a few minutes in a separate pot.
- Once the sweet potato/cassava is soft, remove from heat and mash. If using spinach, mix/mash it in, and serve as a side.

Enjoy!

“A lot of people go to restaurants for a fast bite, but many mothers prefer to cook dinner at home, to make sure their kids are eating healthy (schools often provide lunch).

“I’m told the new generation of moms, who work and raise their kids, don’t have a lot of time or interest in learning the traditional methods for making kimchi, etc; their moms will often make it in large amounts and deliver it to the family to be frozen/stored.” (p.48)

When in Korea, it doesn’t matter if you’re eating in a fancy restaurant, or a fast food joint for a quick bite: expect to receive at least a few small dishes of delicious kimchi with your meal.

Outside of Asia, many people will associate kimchi with one of Korea’s more famous food exports: spicy fermented cabbage. But the word is used for all types of little dishes, from sweet to salty and everything in between. With time, I’ll share all sorts of delicacies, but I’ll start off with a very simple dish.

All you really need to make an authentic cucumber kimchi is cucumber, salt, water, and chili. The salt will release a lot of the water from the vegetable, and give it something of a pickled taste, while the chili adds a nice little bite. The trick is to make sure you taste the cucumber before adding the chili and serving; if it’s too salty, you’ll need to wash it again (and again) until you get the mild taste you desire.

Korean cucumber kimchi

thin slices of cucumber (you can make them thicker if you want to turn it into a salad), lots of salt, water, chili powder (Korean chili will give it an authentic flavour (and Koreans are very Nationalistic with their food products, with packages stating the percentage of Korean chili and Chinese chili inside), but you can use Chinese too)

- place the cucumber slices in a bowl, cover them in salt, mix and leave for a few minutes
- pick up the cucumber, a handful at a time, and squeeze it over a sink in the palm of your hand, to break the fibres and help release the water
- rinse the salt off by filling a bowl with a lot of water, soaking the cucumber for some minutes, squeezing it again with your hands, and repeating with clean water
- taste the cucumber, and repeat until it’s not too salty
- drain the water from the bowl, add a bit of chili, and mix with the cucumber by hand
- place a pile of the cucumber in the centre of a bowl/plate, and decorate with a bit more chili
- serve as a side dish, or add additional ingredients (like toasted sesame seeds, thin carrot juliennes, some spring onion or chives, and a touch of soy sauce and sugar) to turn it into a salad

Enjoy!

The combination of fresh ginger, juicy chunks of orange, and aromatic greens (either garlic greens, chives, or spring onions) creates another light, rejuvenating meal.

As with Chinese cuisine, this dish will be extremely fast and easy to prepare if you organize your ingredients (including cooking the noodles and eggs) as a first step, putting them all out, ready to be added quickly to the wok/pot, as in the accompanying photo.

When using flat Thai rice noodles, I usually boil water, turn off the heat, and add the noodles, leaving them in the water until they feel al dente. In this photo, I used round Vietnamese rice noodles (the only option I had), and they worked very well (seeing as there isn’t any sauce in this dish that needs to stick to a broader surface), though they take much longer to cook (I had to boil them, not just leave them in water). If you leave the Thai noodles in hot water too long, they’ll fall apart; be sure to rinse them in cold water after softening them, to ensure they stop cooking.

I like to make the eggs salty, strongly contrasting with the sweetness of the oranges, and bringing out the flavour of the other ingredients. Shrimp also works great in this dish, marinated for a few minutes in chili, a bit of juice from the orange, garlic, ginger, sugar and salt. If you want to make it vegan, you could replace the eggs with semi-firm tofu, lightly frying the outside crispy with garlic before throwing it in. The variations are endless; this is more of an inspiration than a fixed recipe!

orange and ginger thai noodles

Thai (or other) rice noodles, fresh red chili, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, a touch of sugar, bean sprouts, fish sauce, eggs, salt, oranges cut into bite size chunks, toasted sesame seeds, chopped garlic greens or chives or spring onions, crushed roasted peanuts (optional, i prefer this one without)

- boil water, cook rice noodles as described above, rinsing in cold water to stop them from overcooking
- heat a bit of oil and garlic in a frying pan, beat the eggs and salt together, cook lightly, breaking into smaller pieces in the pan while remaining moist (they will continue to cook when thrown into the final dish, and shouldn’t be too dry)
- in a wok or pot, heat a bit of oil on medium with ginger, garlic, chili; when you can smell the ginger, add the bean sprouts, then a minute later, add the noodles, sugar, and fish sauce (fish sauce can be quite strong, so add very little to start, maybe half a teaspoon if making enough for two)
- throw in the aromatic greens, orange, eggs, and sesame seeds, reserving a bit for decoration (throw the peanuts in at this point as well if you’re using them)
- mix well for a couple minutes, taste with a piece of egg, orange and noodle, adjust salt and fish sauce if necessary
- serve warm or cool, and enjoy!!

The book is Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop, who was the first foreigner to study at one of the culinary institutes in Chengdu. She has beautifully translated much more than recipes, but the culture, history, and many secrets of Sichuan cuisine. I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in Chinese and Asian food.

It was explained to me that the name of this dish can be confusing to some, as the meat is hardly boiled, but rather steamed in the remaining vegetable juices after they’ve been prepared.

This may look like a lot of ingredients, but the dish comes together quickly, as long as you cut and chop everything in advance.

The recipe calls for a bit of pea flour: if you don’t have any, you may want to substitute corn starch (if anyone has another suggestion, let me know!).

Sichuan pepper is known to have a numbing sensation in the mouth, but when used in small quantities with red chili powder, it gives off a wonderful aroma and flavour. Sichuan red chillies (both the small ones in the photo and the roundish ones) also have particular flavours that add to the dish, but if you can’t find them, use what you have (Indian chillies aren’t a bad substitute). And don’t be afraid to use a lot of chili: the last step in the dish kills some of its bite.

The meat should be paper thin (I often buy it in Asian markets), and for those who are lucky enough to have an electric meat slicer, you’ll know that it’s easiest to cut the meat yourself if you partially freeze it first (so that it doesn’t fall apart or break into strings).

Finally, the broad bean chili paste can have a strong fermented flavour (I’ve had complaints about it in the past, but there were none when recreating the dish for this blog entry), so use it sparingly, if at all.

Sichuan ‘boiled meat’ from Chengdu, China

thin, tender slices of meat (pork, beef or lamb are great), egg white, Chinese soy sauce, pea flour, sliced ginger and garlic, whole dried red chillies, broad bean chili paste, Chinese cooking wine, a touch of water, half a head of yellow Chinese cabbage cut into 2-3cm strips, cucumber jardinières, garlic greens cut jardinière, spring onions chopped round, ground Sichuan pepper, dried red chili powder, oil

- mix meat with egg white, soy sauce, pea flour, leave 20 minutes
- heat oil on medium, add ginger, garlic, whole dried chillies, chili paste, fry a few minutes without burning
- add wine, a bit of water, cabbage, cucumber, garlic greens, cook covered for a few minutes until cabbage ‘falls’, reserve in serving bowl, leaving liquid in wok/pot
- add meat to wok/pot, boil/steam through (only takes a few minutes), place over vegetables, topped with remaining liquid
- cover meat with generous amounts of red chili powder, Sichuan pepper and spring onion
- heat oil in dry wok/pot/pan, ladle it over the spices (it will make a wonderful sizzling sound, so I usually do it in front of my guests), serve hot with rice

Enjoy!

“As the bus pulled out and Marina could be seen in the distance crying and waving, the memories from the past weeks started to flood my mind:

-  The whole family’s pride in talking about Volos, their hometown where tavernas full of mezze (small plates of appetizers) and tipuro (local alcohol) rule.
-  Late night walks and ice cream with Marina, when she would finally get home from a very long day running around town to teach private English lessons.
-  Fighting with the door handle to my room, sometimes locked in for more than twenty minutes while I tried to figure out the trick to opening something that’s been broken and left unrepaired for years.
-  The variety of food Mama Zoe taught me: over my stay, we didn’t eat any dish twice! And though many recipes had the same base of olive oil and lots of dried oregano (as opposed to the Italians’ use of fresh herbs), the subtlety of the flavours achieved was only matched by the innumerable uses of the salty feta cheese, both cooked and cold.” (p.149,150)

I was torn in Athens between wanting to learn new recipes at lunch time with Mama Zoe, and wanting to wait anxiously for Marina to come home every day for lunch, when, if her mom hadn’t prepared something, she would make me this refreshing dish (at my request) with smiles and pride. It’s extremely simple, and after eating it again this week, I remember why I love it so much (and it will probably be eaten a couple times per week as long as I’m in Namibia, with feta cheese easily at my disposal): aside from the perfect combination of flavours, it really gives me a boost of energy, like a concentrated blast of the fresh feeling I sense when cutting up cucumber (why, I have no idea!).

Dakos are traditionally a recipe from Crete, and the dry, crunchy ‘rusk’ they are served on is the size of a small piece of bread. There are South African rusks on the market here, but they are shaped more like thick, rectangular biscuits. What I use instead is a heavy whole wheat bread (there’s lots of German options here), toasting it dry. The Cretan base is often soaked in water or another liquid before serving (I used to leave it super-crunchy), so this alternative gives you a bit of the moisture (in the middle) and crunchiness in one.

dakos

cretan whole wheat dried rusk (bread biscuit) or small slices of toasted whole wheat bread, grated meaty tomato (I often cut the tomato in half, squeeze the water out, then grate the meat directly over the toast), small green pepper juliennes, pitted olives, lots of crumbled feta, olive oil, lots of oregano, red onion slivers (optional)

- top toast/rusk with tomato, olive, peppers, feta, olive oil, oregano, serve immediately

enjoy!!

“The riad where he works is quite nice (it’s a traditional Moroccan house with interior garden, converted into a hotel). Youssef explained that normally, guests who want to learn to cook have to pay for the lesson plus the meal (twenty five euros), so in order to teach me, I’d have to wait until the evening, around 5 or 6pm each day, and once the owners were gone, I could sneak into the kitchen and learn to my heart’s content.” (p.224)

For those who have been to Morocco, you will certainly have had your share of tagines. It’s the name of a dish, as well as the clay vessel it’s cooked in, usually with a cone lid and a knob for lifting it without burning your hands. In the streets, you’ll see simmering tagines slow cooking on coal-heated stands. But in modern restaurants, gas ovens are common, and some will cook part of the meal (usually longer-cooking meats) with pots and pans, before reassembling and dressing the final dish in a tagine for presentation.

As with crock pots and other earthenware, the physical vessel adds to the flavour of tagines. With this popular dish, however, the eggs and sauce do most of the work (you’ll get your first flash of what’s to come when you smell the refreshing ingredients blended together), and you can achieve great results by cooking in a simple frying pan.

This recipe traditionally has two ‘spices’ that may be hard to find: a colouring agent, used instead of saffron (which is too costly for many small kitchens); people also use turmeric as an alternative, which should be easier to find (it does have a distinct flavour though, so don’t add too much). The second ingredient is kefta spice mix, which despite numerous tries, I was unable to acquire a recipe for. Youssef would buy it from the local butchers, who mix it in with the ground meat that they sell. I searched the net for the secret (it can be bought online), but what I did to prepare for this blog entry (instead of using my kefta spice) was to add salt, cumin powder, ginger powder, chili powder, coriander powder, and cinnamon to the beef. Chopped garlic, cilantro, and red onion could also give it a kick.

The first element of the dish is the tomato sauce, which can also be used to spice up other recipes:

tomato sauce

a bit of water, red onion, fresh parsley, fresh cilantro, tomatoes cut into chunks, garlic, salt, bay leaf, black pepper, lots of cumin powder, ginger powder, chili powder, colouring agent, lemon ‘confit’ (lemons are pickled in Morocco (I actually managed to carry a bag of them out of the country and across continents with me), but what I use in this sauce when I don’t have any is some lemon zest)

- blend everything together, heat in pot/pan/tagine until reduced

tagine kefta

tomato sauce, ground beef or lamb, kefta spice mix (or your own adaptation of the suggested mix above), green peas or string beans halved, eggs

- combine spice mix with ground meat, and form bite-size balls
- heat tomato sauce in pan/tagine, add meatballs, peas/beans and cover, being careful not to overcook the meat
- in the last minute, crack the eggs into the sauce, cover to let steam (should remain runny), serve with lots of bread

enjoy!!

“I’m amazed by how much meat and how little fish is eaten in Athens. It’s only thirty minutes on the subway from the city centre to the port, yet people don’t consider themselves to be a seaside society, nor the fish to be ‘fresh’ (I guess the sea is relatively far when compared to the islands they holiday on).

“The food I’ve learned has been delicious! It’s a bit like my experience in Japan, where I was familiar with many types of restaurant food, but learned entirely new home-style dishes.” (p.146)

This is not a dish I’ve ever seen on a Greek restaurant’s menu, but it should be, if you ask me. I had actually written ‘delicious’ in parentheses next to the recipe in my travel notes, and as my nose lead me to the pot after recreating it, carmelized sauce bubbling around the chicken and onions, I was lucky not to have burnt more than a couple fingers and the tip of my tongue with my impatience.

The ingredients call for allspice, also known as Jamaica pepper (where it originates from). It’s a small dried berry, with a scent that recalls a number of spices (hence its name). If you can’t find it, I read that it can be replaced with equal amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. And knowing how strong those spices are, you won’t need more than a berry or two to flavour your dish.

chicken stifado

chicken quarters (dark meat, legs separated from thighs), olive oil, grated tomato, salt, pepper, water, vegetable oil, a lot of button onions or small red onions peeled and left whole,  allspice, nutmeg, garlic (I cut it in half to remove the germ, then throw it in), cloves, a bit of wine vinegar, bay leaf, cinnamon

- heat vegetable oil in a pan, fry whole onions until outsides are golden
- in a separate pot, heat olive oil, sear chicken until golden brown (the chicken I used (imported in Namibia from South Africa) had so much water and who knows what injected into it, that the oil was overwhelmed and the chicken started to boil)
- add salt, pepper, tomato, and water to half-cover chicken, bring to a simmering boil
- add carmelized onions to chicken with spices, vinegar, cook until tender
- serve with bread and enjoy!!

An interesting feature of these mackerel is their ‘scutes’, a bony external plate/scale running along each side of the body. It is extremely sharp on the back third of the fish, and should be removed as part of the cleaning, by sliding a sharp knife underneath its point on the tail end, continuing towards the head until it thins out and can be pulled off (see photo illustration). The arrow-like pattern will continue the length of the body, and you may find some thin scales over it that can easily be removed by running the knife over them.

I learned to prepare this simple dish from three street vendors in Bangkok, named Rai, Ying, and Jumpa (none of whom speak English). In what was probably built to be a garage, they taught me to make everything on their stand: 13 recipes (including pastes from scratch), in about five or six hours.

To cook the whole fish, they wrap each one individually in banana leaf, and grill them until golden brown. When I don’t have a grill or banana leaf available, I’ll use aluminum foil, though the texture is not the same (the fish steam rather than grill). The closest answer I’ve seen for the common kitchen is a technique used by one of my teachers in Japan: in a dry frying pan, she would place a sheet of wax or parchment paper (I’m not sure which one, as I couldn’t read the writing on the box), and lay the fish on it to cook with no lid. The result doesn’t have the flavour of being cooked on coals, but the golden colour and crispy skin are there.

thai baked/grilled fish with lime, chili, onion

fish (whole), salt, a lot of lime juice, sliced red onion, fresh whole chillies

- sprinkle a bit of salt on the outside of the fish, then cook/grill until golden
- garnish with lime juice, onion, chillies*, and more lime juice
- serve with fluffy white rice, leaving no sauce behind

*unless you have a really strong stomach, don’t eat the fresh chillies if they’re powerful ones (I made the mistake when I first went to Thailand, then I noticed that the tiny ones were left on the plate by locals too). If the flavour doesn’t pass on to the onions and fish, you can cut one or two chillies open length-wise and lay them on the fish (removing the seeds to ensure you don’t bite down on one). Then simply move the chillies to the side of your plate when you’re ready to eat.

Enjoy!

My friend Khaled’s family was very generous to host me in Tunis, and from the table spread in the accompanying photo, you can see how much effort his mother Yesmina went to in order to teach me as much as she could over a short period of time. This lamb recipe is extremely simple to prepare, but its rich flavour will leave your guests thinking you slaved over it for hours!

Yesmina’s sweet lamb ragu

Portion pieces of lamb, salt, black pepper, olive oil, turmeric, lots of spring onion cut into short sticks (jardinières), lots of chopped parsley, a touch of sugar, cinnamon stick, honey, toasted sesame seeds, almonds, butter, raisins, dried prunes, dried apricots

- heat oil, meat, onion, parsley, salt, pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, sugar together, once onions fall, add water, allow to cook slowly on low heat until tender, adding water if too dry
- in a separate pot, bring a small amount of water to  boil, drop in almonds, remove and drain once water comes back to a boil. Remove skin by squeezing/pinching almonds with fingers
- add dried fruits, honey to meat with a bit of water, cook about 10 minutes until fruits are hot and tender
- cut almonds in half length-wise, heat them in butter and decorate meat with nuts and sesame seeds
- serve with bread sticks to soak up the sauce

enjoy!

I found five main leafy greens available in Maputo markets (and from street vendors selling small piles of fruits and veggies): Nhangana, which grow from planted vigna beans (and are appropriately known as bean leaves in other African countries); folhas de abobora, which are pumpkin leaves, and must have the strings (like celery) pulled off of the stems before preparing; ‘tseka’, a light leaf that loses a lot of volume (like spinach) and is often prepared with a touch of oil (all the others are usually cooked with steam and sauce); kakana, a small, very bitter leaf; and mandioca (cassava) leaves, which are pounded into a paste and used to make matapa (another famous Mozambican dish that I’ll post another time).

Locals will always use a particular leaf with a particular preparation (and the dishes are referred to by the name of the leaf): abobora or tseka with tomatoes, kakana or nhangana with coconut milk. After learning to cook in the market, I would go home and prepare the dishes for friends, sometimes adding some meat (sauteed with onions to start, then following either of the recipes below) or seafood in mozambican marinade (adding the shrimp and calamari to the tomato/peanut recipe for the last few minutes of cooking). They loved the adaptations (including my teachers back at the market), and never complained or noticed when I used the wrong leaf/sauce combination (they would, by contrast, give me an earful for breaking with tradition if I suggested switching leaves/sauces while learning in the market).

I’ve also had similar dishes in other African countries using different leaves, so I recommend using whatever leafy green you can get your hands on (for me, it is most often some form of spinach).

One of the greatest skills of African cooks is their ability to slice and chop with no surface to cut on: they do almost everything with their hands, from meat to diced tomatoes and onions, to the leafy greens in this recipe. It’s hard to appreciate just how skilled these women are with words, so I’ve included a short video demonstrating their method of cutting greens into thin pieces (they make it look easy, but I cut my hand trying, and am still extremely slow at it):

Another thing to mention about peanuts: Mozambicans use unroasted peanuts, pounded with a large mortar and pestle into a powder, which is traditionally added to the sauces. To make it easier to reproduce the recipes in countries where fresh peanuts are not common, I’ve tested the recipes with unsweetened peanut butter: it is still very good, though it gives the tomato recipe a bit of a West/Central African flavour (where roasted peanuts are often ground into a paste for cooking, with a texture similar to peanut butter).

Leafy greens in coconut/peanut sauce

Leafy greens (like spinach) cut into thin strips (on a cutting board works fine!), thinly sliced white onions, salt, coconut milk, a bit of peanut butter

- rinse greens well in a bowl of water, drain by lifting leaves out with hands (don’t squeeze them, the excess water will steam them), and place in a dry pot on medium heat
- add a bit of salt, cover until leaves steam/fall
- drain water, cover leaves in fresh coconut milk
- add onions, a bit of peanut butter (or pounded fresh peanut powder if you have it), leave uncovered, allowing it to simmer and reduce, stirring often (Mozambicans will usually cook it for a long time, up to one hour, which turns the vegetables into a tasty, soft, mushy texture; I tend to cook for less time, so the vegetable retain some of their form and texture)

Leafy greens in tomato/peanut sauce

Leafy greens (like spinach) cut into thin strips, thinly sliced onions, peeled tomato chunks, salt, peanut butter (or fresh pounded peanut powder), hot water

- rinse and drain leaves with hands (do not squeeze them), place in dry pot on medium heat
- cover leaves with salt, onions, tomatoes, cover to cook until leaves fall
- add peanut, mix together, leave to cook a few minutes
- add hot water, leave to boil and thicken to desired tenderness

Both of these dishes are delicious with rice, which soaks up the flavour.

Enjoy!!

“Their restaurant is called Dalhangari, and my first visit lasted six hours without even entering the kitchen! Lunch was great, and the conversation even better! Jungtae’s wife Hyun Ok is the head chef, and she’s taking me under her wing for a few days. She’s taught me to make a wide variety of side dishes (mostly vegetarian), a couple of tasty squid and octopus recipes, plus her super tender beef rib stew; serious comfort food.” (p.63)

I had a really great time exploring Korean food in Seoul and Busan, and my time at Dalhangari was definitely one of the highlights. The original recipe I learned works great for large quantities of meat, particularly when the short ribs are left in big, chunky cubes. I prepared it while teaching at a school in Buenos Aires, and it came out mouth watering soft, the meat falling off the bone.

But when preparing it at home with the thinner short ribs found in supermarkets, the meat will dry out and toughen up if cooked for a long time, so I’ve adapted the recipe as follows:

Simplified Kalbi (Galbi) chim: Korean Short Rib Stew

beef rib cubes on the bone, soju (a clear Korean alcohol)  or sake or rum, water, black pepper, kelp (if you have it), dried shitake mushrooms, honey (usually pear syrup* is used), soy sauce, garlic paste, sesame oil, dried red chillies, chopped onions, leeks, carrot chunks, potato chunks, fresh green chillies (there is also usually some chestnut thrown in)

- mix soy sauce, leek, black pepper, honey, garlic paste, red chillies, sesame oil, alcohol into marinade, mix/cover meat in it and leave refrigerated for 30 minutes to a couple hours
- soak dehydrated shitake and kelp (if you have it) in cold water for 20 or more minutes, until the mushroom stems are soft. reserve liquid and cut shitake into quarters
- heat kelp/shitake broth in a pot with onions on medium heat, until transparent
- increase heat a bit, add mushrooms, carrots, potatoes, stirring frequently
- when veggies are 75% cooked, add meat and marinade with fresh green chillies, stirring until meat is cooked tender (do not overcook!!)

*one of my friends blends Asian pear and adds that with sugar instead of honey. I’d go for the pear with a bit of honey if I could find it.

Enjoy!!

In Not All Men Are Monsters, I had to choose one of two funny stories while learning at the above restaurant, for reading fluidity. The one I didn’t share was on one of my last nights, when a couple tourists came into the restaurant to eat. They were seated on the patio outside, and seconds later, I saw Italia, the waitress, come storming into the kitchen, asking me (in Italian) to go ‘speak to my people’. I thought they were Canadian or even American or something, so I followed her directions, and accompanied her to the table.

I was asked by the customers to translate the Italian menu into English. One of the guests ordered a soup, the other a pasta. Italia asked me to find out what they would be taking for their second course, and they let me know that the one dish would suffice. Off stormed Italia once again, exploding with sarcastic humour, letting the kitchen staff know that these foreigners (from Europe, not the Americas) really know how to ‘bouffe’ (which is not an Italian word, by the way!). She wouldn’t let up, joking that I should ask if they want dessert, or that I should offer additional bread instead, even as she stood at their table! Good fun, if not a little embarassing..

This recipe is easy to throw together, and with its limited ingredients, the fresher they are, the better:

Fagioli All’uccelletto

fresh pork sausages (I use what I can find, sometimes only ground (mince) meat mixed with dried italian spices, and formed into balls), canned white beans, fresh sage (I substitute fresh basil when sage isn’t available, which is probably a sin (with its completely different taste)), salt, peeled and chopped plum tomatoes (they often used canned ones in Italy, which still taste better than fresh ones in some countries), garlic, olive oil (lots), chili flakes

- put oil, garlic, chili, sausage (slit length-wise), sage in pan, heat until simmering
- add tomatoes*, simmer on medium to cook sausages, adding salt, beans towards end (the beans only need time, maybe ten minutes or so, to absorb the flavour of the sauce; if you leave them too long, they will fall apart into mush)
- Enjoy with bread to soak up the flavour!

*another trick to making a smooth sauce (which I learned to do in Greece) is to cut the tomatoes in half (through the middle, parallel to the cutting surface), and then grate the tomato into a pot/pan. The meat/juice will go through the grater, and you will be left with the skin in your hand, preventing small pieces of it from sitting in your sauce.

Its name changes (from fufu in West and Central Africa to pap in Southern Africa, to nshima or ugali in East Africa, etc) as often as the methods of cooking differ (it is beaten or stirred in different ways, giving it a different texture as more or less air in it allows it to fluff up or clump together). I find the Namibian and Mozambican methods easier to prepare, as they’re not as physically straining as in West Africa, but are much heavier to eat at the same time.

The main ingredient used here is maize (corn) meal, usually purchased prepackaged (see photo of some more popular brands), though you will find hand pounded flours in rural areas. It is a fine flour, not to be confused with cornmeal available in North America (and other places), or corn flour/starch. You can often find varieties of the flour in African or West Indian shops, or you could always ask in an African restaurant where to get it.

I’ve also tasted this dish prepared with cassava (mandioca) flour (made from the roots), and in Namibia it’s mixed with mahangu (millet) flour, to make oshifima. I’ve even learned to make the same dish in Nepal of all places (with pure millet flour), where it is called dhido, and is one of the national dishes according to wikipedia.

Whatever the name or form (it exists on just about every continent from what I’ve found), the main purpose of eating this is to fill your stomach. African portions of it are huge, especially when meat and veggies are scarce. It is usually eaten by picking up bite size pieces with your fingers (and sometimes rolling them into balls), then dipping it into a rich sauce, absorbing it and replacing the pap’s unseasoned flavour.

The cooking instructions written on the side of the ‘Top Score’ package are as follows, for four people:

- Mix 200g maize meal with 400ml cold water and stir until smooth and without lumps.
- Bring 800ml water to a boil in a pot and add a pinch of salt.
- Take the pot with the boiling water offf the stove and add the already prepared maize mixture
- Put the pot back on the stove and bring the porridge to boiling point while stirring continuously (in Namibia they use a whisk to stir it, and it works great).
- When the porridge starts to boil, turn the temperature down to low and let the porridge simmer for 5 minutes with the lid on.

Helena’s method of making xima in Maputo is a little bit different. Here is her variation, using the same quantities (200g maize meal, 1.2L water):

- heat 900ml of water on high heat until boiling
- while the water is heating, add 100g of maize meal to 300ml cold water, mixing with a spoon until it’s smooth
- add the water/maize meal mix to the boiling water, stir and leave to thicken, until the surface is bubbling (see photo), not boiling (this could take 10 minutes for small quantities, or half an hour for larger ones)
- add the remaining maize meal, stir in with wooden spoon, and beat by reaching spoon to the bottom of the pot, pulling it towards the body until it hits the side edge of the pot, then pulling up and repeating

- once the consistency is even (no clumps of dry flour can be found), lower heat and leave to thicken/harden
- serve using a cup or bowl to take a portion out of the pot, and on to a plate to be served with sauce, veggies, and whatever else you fancy!

This actually suits me fine, as I don’t need to eat huge meals, and often go days without eating meat anyway. When I have eaten it here in Maputo, whether chicken, fish, or beef, it is usually marinated in a simple mixture that must have been of Portuguese influence, but reminds me very much of Greek food:

Mozambican meat marinade

garlic, salt, lemon, olive oil, meat of choice

- with a mortar and pestle, or in a pot with the edge of a wooden spoon, crush together the salt and garlic

- add the salt and garlic to the meat/fish, squeezing fresh lemon over it and mixing

- if grilling the meat (or cooking in an oven), add some olive oil (or cheaper oil if olive unavailable), let sit for 30 minutes or more before cooking

- if frying, let meat sit for 30 minutes, heat vegetable oil, shallow fry until crispy

This goes great with a light salad, and is something simple that can be appreciated by guests across cultures.

Enjoy!