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All about cooking great food from all over the world.

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Aleppo Sour Cherry Meatballs

Aleppo Sour Cherry Meatballs

Looking for some exotic inspiration in the meatballs department? Have some cherries in season or in the freezer? Make this now! These are so delicious and warming with a hint of spices like ginger, cinnamon, Aleppo chili in the background. The fresh coriander ties it all together and brightens up the flavors. This is a lovely sweet, spicy and tart dish from the levant region. Aleppo in…

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Tangy Chicken Tacos

Tangy Chicken Tacos with my Salsa and Better than Guac dip! This is an amazing Mexican marinade for making chicken tacos or even to roast a whole chicken or pieces. If you are making taco’s use boneless skinless chicken thighs or chicken breast. I have used both successfully. Cook them fast on high heat under your grill in the oven to ensure they are juicy. If you are lucky enough to barbecue…

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Better than Guac Avocado Dip!

Better than Guac Avocado Dip!

So this came about a few years ago in New York. I had some avocados that needed using up, I was going to make guac but saw I had no tomatoes! As I was borderline bored of guac anyway I decided to go make something with what I had at home and it was so good, that I have never made regular guac ever again since! Serve with corn chips or as an accompaniment to taco’s. Better than Guac Avocado…

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Easy Butter Chicken

Butter Chicken is probably non vegetarian India’s favourite dish… so yummy is its tomato creamy, not so spicy gravy, that you can even forget the chicken and happily just eat naan and the sauce.  I remember so looking forward to eating this dish as a kid who lived in New Delhi, it was my favourite…. still the thing I love most when I haven’t had Indian food in a while. I can literally remember…

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Feta and Yoghurt Dip

Feta and Yoghurt Dip

Here is another gorgeous dip I discovered in my quest to find some amazing new ones and give the hummus a break for  a bit. Very simple, ready in five minutes… this goes really well with the Houriyan dip I posted about earlier…so good together!

80 g (3 oz) feta cheese

300 g greek yoghurt

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove crushed

2 Tbsp chopped dill

2 Tbsp chopped mint

salt and pepper to taste

Mix…

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Yes, strange name, but its meant to reflect the way the little bits of mince pork coat the shiny lustrous bean thread noodles… if you like Chinese food you can’t miss this dish. It’s certainly got a spot on my fave noodles list.

This is a super delicious and relatively quick and easy recipe. You just soak the noodles in hot water, marinate the pork mince for ten minutes, while you chop some spring onions, ginger and garlic, mix up the sauces and are ready to toss it all into your wok and start cooking. A very quick meal in minutes which is so tasty and satisfying, also very authentic and you won’t find it in Chinese restaurants. If you have you basic Chinese pantry ingredients you will have the meal ready to devour in a big bowl in front of a good movie in 20 minutes.

Soak noodles in hot water

Marinade meat, chop veg, mix sauce ingredients

mung bean noodles

I love the ready chopped ginger and garlic in the freezer section of supermarkets here in France, it makes life extremely easy! Picard, the French frozen food supermarket which I am a little obsessed with since I moved here even stock  giant bags of ready chopped garlic which are very handy if you cook a lot like me. They even do frozen chopped french shallots/ red and yellow onions and all the fresh herbs you could need in these mini cardboard boxes with pour out lids… absolutely brilliant and time saving. Because they are freeze dried they retain all the flavor and make cooking a breeze.

I usually double the pork and add a bit more noodles so I have left overs for the next day.

(for marinading meat)

125 g or 4.5 oz minced ground pork or beef

1/2 tsp light soy sauce

1/2 tsp Shaoxing rice wine

1/2 tsp roasted sesame oil

  125 g bean thread noodles

1 tbsp oil (flavorless)

2 spring onions finely chopped

1 Tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 garlic clove chopped

1 teaspoon to ban jiang chili bean paste

2 spring onions finely chopped (for garnish)

  Sauce: (mix together all ingredients in a bowl)

1 Tbsp light soy sauce

1 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1.2 teaspoon roasted sesame oil

250 ml (1 cup) chicken stock

Soak mung bean noodles in hot water. Mix the minced meat with marinade ingredients and let sit for 10 minutes). Chop all vegetable and keep ready.

Heat the wok over high heat, add oil till very hot. Stir-fry the minced meat mashing and separating it, till it changes colour and starts to brown. Push the meat to the side of the wok, add the spring onion, ginger, garlic and chili paste and stir fry for 5 seconds, or till fragrant. Return meat to centre of pan.

Add the sauce to your meat mixture and toss lightly. Add the noodles and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Sprinkle with remaining spring onions to garnish and tuck in!

    Ants Climbing Trees Noodles Yes, strange name, but its meant to reflect the way the little bits of mince pork coat the shiny lustrous bean thread noodles...

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Tunisian Spicy Carrot Dip - Houriya

Tunisian Spicy Carrot Dip – Houriya

If you need some interesting new dips to serve with your pita, you are in the right place… I was bored of hummus and tatziki amongst others when I came across this recipe for a Tunisian carrot dip. Now I have had some carrot dips in Lebanese/Middle-eastern restaurants as part of mezze and never really was bowled over by any of them. Enter Houriya courtesy of Diana Henry’s recipe… and I am finding…

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Tom Yum Noodle Soup with Prawns

Tom Yum Noodle Soup with Prawns

I cannot explain to you how much I love Thai food. I could seriously just go to Thailand and eat my way through and do nothing else, so deep is my love for their hot and spicy cuisine (well maybe I’d fit a few of their amazing massages in).

A real proper Tom Yum Soup on the streets of Bangkok is just truly sublime… so much chill, so much lime, so much full on flavor, just hits you in your face…

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Cherry, almond and spelt cake

Cherry, almond and spelt cake

A lot has happened since I last blogged! I have moved from New York to Paris and been here for ten months already! The reality of living here is far different to the dream, and its been a lot of getting used to the French ways which can often be frustrating and and only later  when you reflect on some of the comical situations you end up in a it can be a tad amusing with the help of passing time…

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Pasilla Chilie Pulled Pork Tacos

If you are in the mood for pulled pork tacos, give these beauties a go...

  I tried making pulled pork for the first time this summer. I was really into making tacos and after having success with shrimp and chicken I had to try my hand at pulled pork tacos. I used a boneless pork shoulder, but instead of roasting it whole, I decided to cut it up into large chunks of meat and slow cook it in the oven. It’s something I do when making Indian lamb, and wanted to avoid the…

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Trout with Fennel & Potatoes

Trout with Fennel & Potatoes

If I had to pick one fish to eat for the rest of my life (though I would never want to!), it would have to be Trout! It is so tasty and just so beautiful and full of flavor. I love it! This is a nice one pot/roasting tin recipe to make a lovely dinner anyone would be over the moon to eat.  The juices from the fish mix with the veg and the potatoes and impart beautiful flavor to them as they cook.…

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Spicy Corn Pancakes with Citrus Greens

Spicy Corn Pancakes with Citrus Greens

These fritters are beautiful and light with sweet delicious fresh corn coming thorough in every bite. I think it’s a great weekend brunch dish which I made because I had two ears of beautiful fresh corn from the farmers market, and knew not what to do with them other than the usual grilling or boiling! So when I cam across this Ottolenghi recipe, I was happy to give it a go, and so glad I did! I…

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Shrimp Tacos with Mango Avocado Salsa

Ok! So these are just fabulously easy to put together and will be the best taco’s you ever ate!! Big claim I know, but they really are just so wow!!! Give them a  shot and see! Ready to attack! Build your own… Drool worthy… MANGO AVOCADO SALSA 2 avocados, chopped 1 large mango, chopped same size as avocado juice of 2 limes 3 tablespoons chopped coriander 1 green chili, chopped 1/2 teaspoon chilli…

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Cherry Clafoutis

So with all the amazing cherry’s floating around the last few weeks I have been making a lot of this beautiful French dessert. Its not too sweet with only 1/4 cup of sugar and is really delicious! Its so easy that my two girls made it last night and it came out perfect.  It is tradition to leave the stone’s in the cherries as the stones impart an almost almond like flavor into the clafoutis. It’s…

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Banana Mango Coconut Bread

Seriously good stuff! Make anyone worship the ground you walk upon with this offering for breakfast! It’s such a treat for breakfast giving the normal banana bread a beautiful tropical twist, making it perfect for summer when you have nice sweet mangoes in abundance.  It’s pretty quick to put together and extremely tasty. You may or may not want to add the sultanas but if you don’t, I would still…

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Crispy Fish Taco's with Lime Crema

Living in New York there is amazing Mexican food all around to fall in love with, but I never really made serious tacos at home. That is until I suddenly got some inspiration watching one too many episodes of Taco Trip and decided to try out some home made fish taco’s yesterday, and they turned out fabulous! I think this has set me off on a Taco journey of my own, I have to do shrimp, chicken,…

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I have been really sick for the last few days with a really nasty cold mostly living on chicken soup. I had seen this beautiful bread on this lovely blog and been thinking about it since I saw it a week  or so ago! Anyway, I knew I had everything I needed in the house, so today when I felt slightly better, I decided to make it. I must say its the first time ever I have made a proper bread with yeast! I went on this crazy “I am going to bake bread” spree a long time ago when I moved to New York (cause I found all the local bread had way too much sugar in it, it  really took some time to find decent bread) and bought all sorts of stuff necessary to make bread. All these amazing bread making and other whole grain supplies have sat for two years in my kitchen cupboard. There was one time when right in the beginning my husband attempted to make some very beautiful looking bread. While it lived up to its looks, it was way to dense and felt like each bite took for ever to bite off and chew…you literally felt tired after eating a couple of bites of this bread, and had an ache in you jaw!

What an amazing drool worthy filling!

This one bad experience and the thought of all the effort required and the multiple rising periods was just too much and I never even attempted to make bread myself. Two years later, looking at all the space these unused ingredients take up I decided to start using them all up and emptying my cupboards to make space and feel lighter! A spring clean for the pantry! Anyway, thats why I ended up making a cornbread with chili and cheese last week (using up some never opeaned cornmeal packets, there is still so much left!) and now this very tasty little number which I am so glad I got to attempt. It just tastes that good. Now I am thinking I should make some soup for dinner to go with this…aah! I wonder what soup will go with this bread? … I will think about that later! Anyhow, here is the very delicious recipe for you. Please check out liz’s original blog post to see really detailed pictures for each step.

Now comes the fun part…

Fold over and cut into 10 strips, and roll up each strip to make little round wheels

Let it rise for an hour and comes above the tin… then bake.

Feta and Olive Pull-Apart Bread

Preparation: 30 minutes + 1½ hours standing time; Baking Time: 35-45 minutes; Makes: 10 pieces

Ingredients

450g all-purpose (plain) flour (1Ib, 3 cups Australian; 3½ cups US)

1½ teaspoons instant yeast (Fleischmann’s) 

½-1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¾-1 teaspoon salt or to taste

1 teaspoon castor sugar

150ml (⅔ cups) warm milk

180ml (⅔ cups + 2 tablespoons) warm water

½ cup coarsely chopped pitted olives

1/3 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes

150g Feta cheese, crumbled

3 tablespoons finely shredded oregano (or 1½ teaspoons dried oregano)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C) 15 minutes before baking bread. Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf tin (pan) with oil or cooking spray.

Sift the flour, yeast, pepper, salt and sugar into a bowl. Make a well in the centre.

Add the water and milk and mix to a soft but not sticky dough. Turn out on to a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth and free from cracks. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap (plastic wrap) and leave in a warm place for 50-60 minutes or until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough, sprinkle with flour, cover and let rest 5 minutes. Roll into a 16 x 10 inch rectangle. With the long side facing you, scatter the olives, feta and oregano lengthways over half the dough, leaving a half-inch border around the edges. Drizzle the olive oil over the filling

Fold the dough over the filling and seal the edges with your fingertips. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough, width ways into 10 slices. Roll up each dough tightly, lengthways and carefully place in the pan, cut side down.

Using your hands, press down on the surface of the dough to make it even. Cover with a large polythene bag and set aside in a warm place for about 1 hour until well risen to the top of the pan (tin).

Bake for 35-45 minutes until golden. When cooked the loaf will sound hollow if tapped on the base. Pull-apart and enjoy. This bread is best served warm.

**I weigh the flour and butter. I do not use cup measures. The weight of a cup of flour tends to vary based on individual interpretation, publication and size of cup used (from 125g to 130g to 155g per cup)

Cup measures based on assumption, 1 cup = 125g flour so that would be the US cup of 237ml, not the Australian Cup. The Australian cup = 155g flour so that would change cup measures.

A superb Feta, Olive & Sun Dried Tomato Bread I have been really sick for the last few days with a really nasty cold mostly living on chicken soup.