29. The United Kingdom

British cuisine has a bit of a bad reputation in many parts of the world. The rumours say that the food is bland, oversalted, overpriced and devoid of fresh vegetables, and ultimately stems from traditions built on the extreme food rationing during the world wars. Having never been to Britain, I can’t fairly judge the situation. However, to me British food has a romantic haze around it from the comfort-food influences on Australian cuisine (roasts, fish and chips etc), as well as my childhood love of British books that described food so decadently. I grew up filled with fantasies of having tea, toast and sardines with Mr. Tumnus the faun, Elevenses with hobbits in The Shire, picnics of sandwiches, lashings of boiled eggs and ginger pop with The Famous Five, and a welcome feast at the Hogwarts great hall. British food originated as local ingredients cooked in simple ways, such as the typical “meat and three veg” home cooked meal. However, the cuisine has also had a long tradition of incorporating flavours brought in by its immigrants and discovered in the British Empire of old. This integration of flavours is perhaps best exemplified in chicken tikka masala, which was purportedly invented in Scotland with Indian-influenced spices, and has been listed on numerous polls and surveys as the most popular dish in modern Britain. It could be argued that the scarcity of fresh and varied ingredients during wartime rationing was an impetus for the modern generation to seek novel and abundant spices and flavours, and may have contributed to the integration of Mediterranean and Asian ingredients in modern British cuisine, as well the rise of so many celebrity chefs. How all of this has culminated in the current food climate, I can’t say, but I certainly enjoyed eating and looking at my interpretation of British cuisine this week!

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Sunday roast beef Wellington with all the trimmings

The Sunday roast lunch is a British tradition that originated as a family meal eaten after church on Sundays. So popular is the British roast that it came in at second on a poll of things Britons love about Britain – above Shakespeare, The Queen, The Beatles, and even Harry Potter! The Sunday roast can involve cuts of lamb, pork, chicken, duck, goose or turkey, which were traditionally put in the oven before church so that lunch would be ready upon the family’s return. There are typical accompaniments to each of these (although not exclusively), for instance, apple sauce with pork, mint sauce with lamb or sausage and sage stuffing with chicken. I elected for one of the most extravagant traditional British roasts: beef Wellington, which is commonly accompanied by Yorkshire puddings. The was puzzled to read that the origins of beef Wellington are quite mysterious, with no clear link to the Duke of Wellington, undisputed namesake of Wellington boots. It first came into recipes as late as the early 1900s, and is generally thought to be a patriotic rebranding of French culinary ideas and cooking techniques following a long history of British adoration for pasty-encoated protein. To prepare a beef Wellington, a whole fillet is seared, then coated in a cooked mushroom paste (duxelle), followed by ham/pancetta. This is then enclosed in a sheet of pastry, and baked until the exterior is golden brown and flaky, and the inside is medium rare, tender and juicy. I suspect that the beef Wellington gained so much traction so quickly because it’s a fool-proof way to enure your expensive cut of beef doesn’t dry out during cooking (as well as adding decadent additional flavours and textures in the process). I also baked roast potatoes, parsnips and Brussel sprouts in duck fat (which is definitely the only way one should roast vegetables…) and steamed carrots and peas. I’ve never made a Yorkshire pudding before, but have always found them intriguing. It turns out the traditional way to make them is with the drippings (i.e. liquid molten fat) from your roast, which is placed in the bottom of muffin tins to start smoking in the oven until it’s as hot as possible. A sloppy batter of eggs, milk, flour and salt is then poured into each of the wells and then put into a very hot oven until risen with little indentations in the middle. The result is a surprisingly light and fluffy texture that’s like a cross between a bread roll, a quiche and a savoury custard. Most importantly, the indentations in the middle are a perfect vehicle for gravy. Gravy, in my opinion, is the best and most important part of a roast dinner. I hold this conviction so dearly that I have been close to tears when the gravy aspect of a roast dinner has been substandard, or, horror-of-horrors, missing altogether. Luckily my gravy turned out very nicely, as I strictly followed my protocol for achieving smooth and delicious gravy every time. The secret is to start with fat (pan drippings), then slowly add plain flour over a low heat until you form a smooth paste. Then you add a stock appropriate to your cut of meat very slowly, making sure it’s all smoothly incorporated before adding any more. I finished my gravy by adding some red wine and seasoning with plenty of pepper. In true time-honoured tradition, I served this roast for Sunday lunch with my Mum and Dad and ate leftovers for half the week!

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Full breakfast

The full breakfast is famous across the UK as well as Ireland. It’s typically called a full English breakfast in England (or full English for short), and a full Irish, Scottish or Welsh in the respective regions. It can also commonly be referred to as a “fry up”. It has since gained popularity across the world, being offered at cafes and hotel buffets internationally. It generally includes sausages, grilled or fried tomatoes, eggs (fried, poached or scrambled), toast, fried mushrooms, bacon, baked beans and blood sausage. Even in Australia, emotions run hot over the brand of tinned baked beans that is acceptable. I’m a Heinz girl myself, but I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion. Blood sausage is quite uncommon here, to the extent that the concept is often met with revulsion. It’s made with animal blood mixed with spices and a filler (like rice) to solidify it inside a sausage casing. If you can get over the thought of eating blood, the taste is actually a nice balance of rich, salty and sweet. The full breakfast gained popularity during the Victorian era, and began to be referred to as a “Full Monty” after World War II. There is an urban legend that this phrase arose when British Army Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery – nicknamed “Monty” – declared his daily affection for the dish when campaigning in North Africa, and that it has since come to mean “everything possible”. Wikipedia lists numerous other possibilities for the origin of the phrase, but I think I like this one most.

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Chicken, ham and vegetable pie with boiled potatoes and a ploughman’s lunch

The pie is a British institution, whether it be steak and kidney, game, fish or pork. I chose chicken and ham partly because I’d already planned for red meat, pork and fish this week, but mostly because I’ve been fantasising about tasting a chicken and ham pie for some years now. In fact, I can tell you the exact date that my desire for chicken and ham pie was kindled: 8 July 2000. I know this because that was the date that the fourth Harry Potter book was released, and of course, being a tragic Potterhead, I read the entire thing in one day after lining up all morning dressed as a witch. In my defence, I was 9, but that defence may get a tad shaky if I told you that the situation was similar for the final book in 2007… The particular excerpt of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire that references this meal is as follows:

By seven o’clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs Weasley’s excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise, and at first, Harry listened rather than talked, as he helped himself to chicken-and-ham pie, boiled potatoes and salad.

I made my pie filling with shredded chicken breast, smoked ham, carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, thyme and creme fraiche. I made the pastry by combining plain flour, butter, cheddar cheese, egg, creme fraiche, seeded mustard and water. I was very pleased with this pastry because it was easy to combine and shape, and came out unsodden by the filling and crispy on the outside. In full homage to the Harry Potter meal, I also included boiled potatoes, dressed in mustard, vinegar and parsley, and a garden salad of mixed lettuce leaves and radishes. Swept away in romantic imaginings of an outdoor meal in on a beautiful summer’s day, I also included another British staple: the ploughman’s lunch. This title describes a flexible meal of easily transported assorted foods that agricultural workers could take with them to eat out on the land without the need to heat anything up. This combination of bread, cheeses, pickles, fruit and cold cuts have been served by home cooks and inns alike for centuries, but has risen in modern popularity since the 1950s, when the Cheese Bureau promoted it as a vehicle for increased national cheese consumption. I would have been quietly devastated if this meal hadn’t met my long-held high expectations, but luckily it was everything my imagination had devised and more – I hope that Mrs. Weasley would be proud of me!

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Fish and chips with mushy peas and a Scotch egg

British fish and chips classically originate from the “chippy” – the local fish and chip shop. The chippy is traditionally located precisely “down the road” and sells cheap deep fried beer-battered fish and chips in newspaper or butchers’ paper, which becomes varying degrees of transparent depending on how much oil your meal exudes between the time you pick it up and when you get home. Chippies, like hairdressers, are notorious for being named with terrible puns. Even in Australia, my local chippy is called “A salt and battery”, but other British classics include  “new cod on the block”, “chip-in-dales”, “frying nemo”, “the codfather” and “contented sole”. The traditional accompaniments of fish and chips include salt, malt vinegar, mushy peas or a squeeze of lemon. I made my fish and chips using fillets of cod, and used a beer batter, which consists of beer, plain flour and baking powder. The fizziness of the beer adds a light fluffy texture to the batter and also contributes to the deep golden brown colour. I then deep fried the batter-coated fish and chips, and made the mushy peas by cooking peas in butter and mint, and then roughly mashing them. A Scotch egg is a soft-boiled egg wrapped in spiced sausage meat, then crumbed and deep fried. Although they are sold in British chippies, they’re not at all popular in Australia and therefore I’ve never tried one, but have long held a curious fascination for them. The origin of Scotch eggs is disputed; some think they were invented by a London department store, others argue that they were an interpretation of an Indian dish called “Narcissus meatballs”. I thought the Scotch egg had too much unbalanced protein for my liking – I think it would be better with some more acidic elements. There are variations with pickled eggs, so I think perhaps that would tickle my fancy more.

28. Switzerland

Switzerland lies in the middle of many giants of European cuisine, including France, Germany and Italy. Every Swiss person I’ve met speaks at least five languages fluently, and a week of researching their culinary traditions has convinced me that they treat their food with a similar sense of external acceptance and integration. Traditionally, Switzerland was dominated by farms, and so food was originally very rustic and relied on simple, home-grown ingredients. Due to the numerous dairy farms, Swiss food perhaps most famously includes superb chocolate and cheese. Wikipedia informs me that cheese-based dishes, such as fondue and raclette, were originally regional, but became popular after extensive promotion by the Swiss Cheese Union. I am inexplicably upset that the Swiss Cheese Union is not called the Swiss Cheese Board, but I guess they grate up against awful cheese-based puns on a daily basis and try to avoid them. Grate up against, get it? Too cheesy…?

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Fondue

Fondue and raclette are heavily cheese-based Swiss dishes. I felt like my stomach could only handle one of these this week, so I chose fondue, but raclette deserves an honourable mention. Raclette is actually a type of cheese fashioned into a big wheel. A specialised machine or open fire is used to melt an open side of the cheese wheel, and then the melted part is scraped off the top, onto some token vegetables like potato, gherkins and pickled onions or dried meat. Fondue, on the other hand, is more notorious in the English-speaking world, perhaps because the equipment and ingredients required are less complicated than for raclette. Fondue is a big pot of mixed melted cheese (such as gruyère, emmentaler and appenzeller) with white wine, garlic, corn starch and kirsch, which is a Swiss fruit brandy. At least in Australia, fondue enjoyed a cult following during the 70s, and every baby boomer I’ve spoken to reminisces on the exoticism it represented during that time. Although fondue was originally cheese-based, the name has now been extended to refer to dipping any solids in some variety of hot liquid, such as meat broth or chocolate. Fondue is commonly served on top of a small flame, as the cheese starts to solidify quickly and becomes difficult to dip into. It’s most traditional to serve fondue with pieces of sourdough bread, but, as you can imagine, many things can be dipped into cheese and be delicious, including raw and cooked vegetables. As you may have noticed from my picture, I took the opportunity to stuff myself with various vegetables – perhaps more than is usually served with a fondue, but nothing offsets artery-clogging quantities of molten cheese and wine like vegetables!

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Züri gschnätzlets and rösti

Züri Gschnätzlets means “Zurich-style slices meat” in Swiss German, traditionally made by combining slices of veal with shallots and mushrooms in a sauce of white wine, parsley, lemon zest and cream. It often makes me laugh that where the Mediterranean or Latin America name their foods incredibly cryptic and colourful names, like “old clothes” or “chicken under the umbrella”, German-inspired names are wonderfully explicit and descriptive. The dish’s home city of Zurich is a stone’s throw from Germany, which is reflected in the heavy German flavours combined in the dish. Rösti are grated potato fritters, originally a breakfast dish of farmers, but now acceptable at any time of the day anywhere in Switzerland. The simplest rösti are formed solely by grated raw potato with a little salt and pepper and frying them with a little fat (such as butter), although other ingredients such as apple, bacon and herbs can be added depending on personal taste and regional tradition. Rösti, now widely considered the national dish of Switzerland, are commonly served as a side dish, or can even be dressed up to form the basis of an entire meal. Rösti are another dish with Germanic origins, hailing from the part of Switzerland closer to Germany. Indeed, rösti are so synonymous with the German-speaking part of Switzerland that the conceptual border between the French and German-speaking parts of the country is sometimes called the “röstigraben” (rösti ditch). I must confess, I was a ever so slightly disappointed that a rösti ditch didn’t describe a hole brimming with rösti, but I suppose the mountain I made myself will suffice for now. I served this decadent swathe of meat and potatoes with some token fresh sugar snap peas, which almost fooled me into supposing that the dish was good for me.

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Berner platte

A Berner platte is a platter of varied boiled ingredients from the Swiss canton of Bern, in West-Central Switzerland. Common ingredients include pork belly, smoked beef, different varieties of sausage, pork tenderloin, juniper-flavoured sauerkraut, boiled potatoes and green beans. The dish is thought to have arisen from the 1798 Battle of Neuenegg, in which the Bernese were victorious against the French invaders. Apparently nobody was expecting the victory, because a victory feast had to be hurriedly cobbled together afterwards with whatever supplies the townspeople had on hand or in storage. This assortment of preserved meat and vegetables was consequently fondly remembered by the Bernese people, and eventually became a famous regional dish.

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Bündner gerstensuppe and capuns

Büdner refers to people living in the eastern Swiss canton of Grisons (called Graübunden in German), while “gerstensuppe” is comprised of words means “barley” (gersten) and “soup” (suppe). The simple soup has many variations throughout the many small valleys of Grisons, and I cooked my version by first sautéing leeks, onions, carrots, celery and smoked bacon in butter, then adding bay leaves, cubed potatoes, pearl barley and stock. Once all of the ingredients are cooked, parsley and cream is mixed through to create a decadently rich and comforting concoction. Capuns are also from Grisons, and are reminiscent of the cabbage rolls so popular of eastern Europe. Instead of a minced meat filling, however, the dumpling-like filling is formed by a dough made with flour, eggs and milk (similar to spätzle dough), to which herbs (such as mint and chives) and finely chopped bacon, dried meat and/or sausage, and sometimes pieces of bread are added for flavour. This dough is then rolled up in lightly blanched chard leaves, and the little parcels are simmered in a broth of stock, sometimes combined with milk. Once cooked through, the capuns are carefully removed and served covered in grated cheese and pieces of dried meat. I found them to be a surprisingly innovative and delicious dish – I would have never thought to fill vegetable leaves with spiced dough, but it was incredibly simple and the combination of flavours astonishingly comforting and delicious. The chard used for capuns is often referred to as “Swiss chard” in the English speaking world, however, it is not native to Switzerland, so it’s unclear where this association stemmed from. Some say it may be due to early descriptions of the vegetable by Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin, although I have a competing hypothesis that capuns are so explosively delicious that they left an indelible mark on the history their primary ingredient.

27. Former Yugoslavia

I asked three different people from three different countries in this area before naming this week whether or not I would cause offence by calling the grouping of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia “Former Yugoslavia”, or indeed grouping the countries together at all. The responses I got were varying shades of the sentiment that people in that region had been warring and marrying for millennia, and that I had their personal permission to group them together under this name and the optimistic sentiment of peaceful unity. Good enough for me, sorry if you disagree, I promise I mean well. I’m personally familiar with the struggles of this region because I grew up in Australia in the 1990s, during the huge influx of refugees fleeing from the Bosnian War. All of a sudden during my second grade of primary school, five new Bosnian pupils arrived to the 50 student cohort, representing a dramatic change to the school’s composition. These kids struggled initially to speak English, but learned with a heroic speed that is a superpower possessed only by the very young, and soon integrated seamlessly to the generally multicultural milieu of students. It was many years later that I finally grasped the concept of a refugee, as well as coming to understand the full horrors of the Bosnian War and the realities of these students’ experiences – of being suddenly ripped from all that was familiar, leaving behind friends and families and landing in a strange and confusing land, of knowing fear and war and uncertainty so young. When considering this region I therefore inevitably think back to the unnoticed courage of these pupils, who ultimately became my friends, adapting to the Australian way of being with such quiet grace that, in the ignorant innocence of youth, I never suspected that they could be anything other than happy-go-lucky privileged kids, as I was. The Balkans was the first area of Europe in which humans practised agriculture, having spread from the Middle East. This region is commonly known as the crossroad of cultures, where the Latin and Greek elements of the Roman Empire intersected, as well as Islam and Christianity. As such, the cuisine has an incredible fusion of ingredients and flavours from different parts of Europe and the Middle East, creating an identity of its very own. There are fertile plains to the north, the Adriatic Sea to the west, the soaring mountains running parallel to the coast and a huge diversity of influences from neighbouring cuisines, cultures and religions. The Christian Orthodox tradition of periodic vegan fasting throughout many of these countries, as well as the fertile soil and expense of meat, means that there is a larger variety of vegetable dishes than more northerly countries in Eastern Europe. This, combined with the prolific seafood and confluence of cultures, has produced a diverse, colourful and delicious cuisine that has cherry-picked the best elements of its culinary history to surprise and delight visiting travellers. 

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Cevapi and ajvar

Cevapi are hand-formed sausages without casing made with a mixture of minced meat (often beef and pork), and spiced with garlic, onion and paprika. This dish is thought to have originated in Serbia, but is now served in restaurants and as street food all over the Balkans. Cevapi is related to the Middle Eastern minced meat kebabs grilled on long flat metal skewers, with the name itself stemming from the Arabic “kabāb”, meaning “roasted meat”. The history of cevapi can be traced to the “hajduk” people of Central and SouthEastern Europe between the 1600-1800s, who were semi-nomadic rebel outlaws from the Ottoman Empire. These Robin Hood-like bandits would cook “hajducki cevapi” by grilling meat on skewers over open fires. This was further refined in Leskovac, Serbia, where the pljeskavica (grilled meat-patty) were shaped into sausage-like cylinders, forming the Leskovac cevapi, closely resembling the cevapi of modern times. I think I prefer cevapi over many other sausages and kebabs, for the sheer convenience of not having to fret over casings like other sausages, and not having to mess around with the terribly tricky skewer system. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that the small-sausage/ large-meatball size of a cevapi is purposefully designed to promote maximal consumption, as they are surely too small to keep close track of eating just one or two, then before you know it you’ve eaten 50 and are groaning in gluttonous agony. Suffice to say that in my experiences of lengthy barbecues hosted by my good friend from Montenegro, the “five to ten” serving size for cevapi on Wikipedia is a gross underestimation. The ethos behind the dish is delightfully practical and “rustic” – form rough sausage shapes with your hands, then grill/fry them and eat. Simple. Wonderful. Delicious. I served the cevapi on flatbread with onions and ajvar. Ajvar is a sauce that is also wide-spread across the Balkans, made primarily of blended roast capsicum. Also often included in the puree is roast eggplant, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and parsley. Depending on how hot the capsicum variety is, and whether you add extra chilli, ajvar can be made very mild and sweet all the way to extremely spicy. Purportedly in Serbia this dish is called a Serbian salad, which makes me less eager to visit Serbia for fear of experiencing a true salad drought. It is also commonly compared to caviar, frequently called “vegetable caviar” or the like. In fact, the name ajvar actually originates from the Turkish word for caviar, perhaps because of the resemblance to the salty taste and bright red colour. This is a very easy and delicious spread to made, but only if you are in possession of a food processor… 

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Crni rižot

Given that much of former Yugoslavia borders the Adriatic coast, there is a wealth of seafood-based meals on offer along the coastline, notably several delectable mixed seafood stews as well as simple dishes of steamed mussels. For my pick of seafood meals in the area I’ve chosen crni rižot, which literally means “black risotto” in Croatian. The black of this dish comes from the addition of cuttlefish ink, which is used all across the Mediterranean to flavour risottos, and which I happily found sold in a neat little jar, precluding the necessity of milking hundreds of cuttlefish… Crni rižot likely became popular in Croatia due to strong Venetian presence along the Dalmatian coast since the 14th century, bringing with them the concept of “risotto Nero di seppa”, a black risotto considered a a regional speciality in Venice. Apart from the cuttlefish ink, the recipe for this risotto is very basic, made by sautéing finely chopped onion and garlic in oil or butter, then adding the rice, then white wine, then gradually adding stock. I served it with some simply fried squid on top, although the inclusion of any seafood is common. Before tasting this dish I had never tasted anything flavoured with cuttlefish ink, so was curious about whether it had much of a taste at all, or whether it was primarily used for the dramatic colouration. To my delight, the cuttlefish ink imparted an incredible rich, savoury and fishy flavour to the risotto that made it seem somehow more dense than normal seafood preparations – and certainly gave the impression of a more complex recipe and more skilled cook than was actually the case. This may be due to the high levels of glutamic acid and iron in cuttlefish ink, which would increase the umami elements of the flavour profile and sings in a glorious symphony with the fats from the butter, simple carbohydrates of the rice, and the sugars and acidity of the white wine. A wide variety of animals from the class Cephalopoda (in the Phylum Mollusca), including squid and cuttlefish, use ink as an escape mechanism, which they release from sacs station between the gills to temporarily blind and confuse potential predators. Cephalopods literally means “head feet”, referring to the ring of tentacles that circles the head of these creatures. Modern humans predominantly use cephalopod ink in food, although it was once used as writing ink for pens and quills, giving rise to the word “sepia”, originally the Greek name for cuttlefish, which became used to refer to a brown colour resembling the dark brown of cuttlefish ink. There is also a growing body of research studies investigating the potential of cephalopod ink to help fight diseases from HIV and other retroviral infections to cancer. There’s no evidence yet to suggest that the oral consumption of squid ink could help these ailments in any way, but by all means feel free to use the slim possibility as an excuse to cook and eat troughfuls of this delicious substance, I certainly will! One side effect of eating this dish is certain, however: it will turn your mouth black and clumsy dining will ruin any light coloured clothing you are wearing – don’t say I didn’t warn you…

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Punjena paprika and tavče gravče

Punjena paprika, meaning stuffed capsicums in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia, is a dish known over broad expanses of Europe under different names, such as polneti piperki in Macedonia and polnjena paprika in Slovenia. I’m not sure why it’s so popular – perhaps the perfect one-per-person size of capsicums, as well as their bright colours, hollow interiors and structural stability has repeatedly drawn cooks to stuff them over the centuries. I used three different colours of capsicums, because I love the bright happy contrast they provide. I found out recently that the three capsicum colours are actually just different stages of ripeness of the same type of capsicum – green being least ripe, yellow medium and red most. This makes perfect sense when you think about it – green capsicums being least sweet and red most, and also why the yellow ones are often the most expensive, as they would be the hardest to catch at the right colour. Stuffed capsicums were always my Dad’s favourite of Mum’s tried and true recipes, so we ate them quite a lot growing up, particularly in winter when they would be especially warming. I filled my capsicums with a mixture of pork and beef mince, rice, raw egg to bind and spices such as paprika, onion, garlic and dried herbs. I stuffed the mixture into the hollowed-out capsicums and then placed their little lids back on top before packing them into a saucepan with tomato puree to cook slowly. Tavče gravče, meaning “beans in a pan” is one of my favourite dish names so far. I have absolutely no idea how it’s pronounced, or whether the two words actually rhyme, but it sounds like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. It’s primarily a Macedonian dish (although also popular in some surrounding countries, for instance in Serbia and Bosnia under the guise of “Prebanac”), with a base of white beans, flavoured with onion, garlic, capsicum, paprika, chilli and coriander. The mixture is baked in the oven, and offers a great new variation on the classic “baked beans” that I am familiar with. In particular, these beans have a unique taste among the universe of baked beans because they don’t have a tomato base, and the addition of chilli gives a particularly satisfying kick. I’m a big fan of chilli for breakfast to really get you raring for the day ahead, so I think this would be a great exotic addition to a family brunch!

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Purica s mlincima

Purica s mlincima means roast turkey and mlinci: a traditional pairing, especially in northwestern Croatia, with other fowl-and-mlinci versions popular in Serbia and Slovenia, especially at Christmas time. The turkey (I chose legs) is roasted fairly plainly, with salt and oil or butter, and the meat was thought to be introduced to Croatia by members of the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit, a Hungarian monastic order. Mlinci are made by making a pasta-like dough with flour, water, eggs, oil and salt, trolling it into a thin sheet, then baking this sheet in the oven until starting to colour and become crispy. This sheet is then broken up into rough pieces, which are covered with boiling salted water for a few minutes to soften. The mlinci are then strained, resulting in a novel (for me) texture of “pasta” that is satisfyingly chewy and soft all at once. Importantly, the mlinci is finally combined with the drippings of the turkey, which, in my humble opinion, is nothing short of genius, as the remaining porosity of the mlinci absorbs the wonderful cooking juices of the turkey and creates the comforting flavours of gravy in a solid form. It only occurred to me afterwards that mlinci is part of an international group of ingenious carbohydrate vehicles to soak up roast juices, with the esteemed bedfellows of Yorkshire pudding, mashed potato and bread rolls. This is one of those simple meals that make me question the effort and complexity of other recipes: why complicate things when you can have the perfection of roasted meat and starch!?

26. Cuba and The Lucayan Archipelago

Cuba and The Lucayan Archipelago consist of islands in the north of the Caribbean. The cuisines are influenced by Native American, Spanish, African, USA, and other Caribbean foods. The tropical climate has played a large role in traditional recipes, with ingredients such as bananas being integrated in many savoury dishes. Similarly, being island nations, seafood is a staple of the cuisines, with notable ingredients such as conch. Cuba is perhaps most famous for the communist dictatorship led by Fidel Castro and the subsequent poor relations and trade embargoes with the USA. Its unique circumstances over the past decades have also resulted in it being the only country in the world to meet the WWF’s criteria for sustainable development. I had the opportunity to visit this incredible country recently, and it truly is an unparalleled time-capsule into the past, and I came away with fond memories of the friendly locals, stunning architecture and scenery, and a billion pictures of vintage cars. The highly communist ethos of Cuba has resulted in most restaurants offering two pricing schemes for meals. The first, for locals, can be hundreds of times less than that charged for tourists. Given that isolated communism relies somewhat on a closed-system economy, this seems fair enough, and the food is still reasonably priced compared to Australia, and very delicious. A memorable food-related experience for me was breakfast at the hotel buffet. There was more variety than I had ever seen before, with tables groaning under the weight of bain maries boasting local delicacies of bean dishes, flavoured rice, vegetable stews, salads, assorted seafood, meat stews and tropical fruit. Also offered was the stock standard continental breakfast options you would find at any large international hotel. Of course, I instantly bypassed these and piled my plate with as many exotic Cuban dishes as I could carry, but every day I was increasingly shocked and appalled to notice the other hotel patrons avoiding them. How can you walk past all of that wonderful food and choose a plate of cornflakes or white toast with butter? Where do these people get their dietary fibre from? Why even go travelling if you aren’t going to try the amazing food!? My despair over the dietary habits of fellow tourists aside, my stay in Cuba consolidated my long-suspected adoration of food from this region. The tropical fruits adding delightful hints of zest and sweetness to the spicy meat, fresh seafood and healthful mounds of beans and rice all constitute my ideal daily fare.

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Ropa vieja

Ropa vieja is almost indisputably the national dish of Cuba, originating in the Iberian peninsula of Spain via the Canary Islands, with the name literally meaning “old clothes”. Appetising, no? The reference comes from stewing beef until it falls apart into long strings. I was actually surprised when I cooked it by how much it does look like fabric – as if tightly knitted strands of wool have come undone into very kinked ribbons. Legend has it that the mythical creator of ropa vieja was so poor and hungry that he set some old clothes to boil in a pot, then prayed with all his might that it might become a meal that he could feed his family with. And so, miraculously, the concoction turned into a hearty and delicious meat stew. Ropa vieja is made by stewing beef flank steak, tomatoes, onions, capsicum, garlic, cumin, coriander, paprika, green olives and white vinegar together for many hours (ideally in a slow-cooker). I served my ropa vieja with white rice cooked the Latin way, by frying it in oil with some garlic and onion to separate the grains then adding stock to make it very flavoursome. I also served patacones, which are squashed fried plantain bananas. This dish was consolidated as a firm favourite of mine while visiting cuba, and I was never disappointed by its preparation from the most humble of street vendors to established fine restaurants. It is truly the great equaliser – very appropriate for Cuba!

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Conch salad and cracked conch

Conch is a common name for a wide variety of large shell species, but the Queen among conch is literally the “queen conch”, which is edible and native to the Bahamas, a part of the Lucayan Archipelago. The shape of the conch is perhaps most synonymous in the English speaking world with “The Lord of the Flies”, where its abilities as a loud musical instrument are featured, the shell ultimately serving as a symbol of the beauty and ultimate fragility of democracy. The inside of the conch is also often beautifully coloured, with the pink shiny interior of the queen conch traditionally being made into jewellery or other decorative trinkets. Conch meat is eaten all over the Caribbean, and can be found inside burgers, chowders, soups, stews, salads or snacks. A friend of mine grey up in the Caribbean and relayed fond memories of her childhood fishing from boats for the day. They would usually eat freshly caught conch as a light lunch on the boat, cured with lime juice, flavoured with coriander and scooped up with savoury crackers. Sounds like heaven! I replicated this ceviche-like traditional idea of “conch salad”, combining conch meat (I could only find canned, I’m desperate to come to The Bahamas for the real deal!), a combination of freshly squeezed citrus (orange, lime and lemon), some hot peppers, coriander, cucumber, assorts capsicums, red onion and tomato. I served it rather ostentatiously inside a very old conch shell that was bequeathed to me, alongside fried plantains, avocado and cracked conch. Cracked conch is often said to be the national dish of the Bahamas, and is simply made by battering conch meat and deep frying it until golden and crispy. Of course, as with all deep fried treats, it was delicious, but perhaps an unnecessarily overpowering and indulgent treatment of the delicate and precocious conch meat, so int he end I much preferred the salad.

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Mojo lechon asado with moros y cristianos

Lechon asado (barbequed pig) and pernil (roasted pork shoulder) are examples of typical roast pork dishes that are incredibly popular in Cuba. I roasted and served mine with a “mojo” sauce made from a mix of garlic, herbs (oregano, mint etc), cumin and orange juice, and which originated from immigrants of the Canary Islands. Slices of leftover roast pork form a major ingredient in a dish that may be conspicuous by its absence from my list if you are from an English-speaking part of the world: the Cuban sandwich. A Cuban sandwich (or “Cubano”) describes a white role containing generous portions of slices roast pork, alongside cheese, ham, pickles and mustard, grilled in a sandwich press. I opted not to include it because it is clearly documented to have originated in Cuban immigrant communities in Florida, and not Cuba itself, although perhaps drawing inspiration from the “medianoche” sandwich served in Havana’s night clubs after midnight. This notion was consolidated when I only saw one Cuban sandwich for sale in my entire stay in Cuba, and that was clearly catered to the high expectations of visiting tourists. Roast pork itself is more commonly served with salads, rice, beans, and rice and beans. Yes, that “and” should not be an “and/or”; I frequently ordered meals in Cuba that came with a side of plain rice, plain beans and mixed rice and beans, the latter considered an entirely new dish by virtue of its combination. As a hardcore rice and beans fanatic, I had no complaints!  The mixed rice and beans dish is often called Moros y Cristianos, meaning “Moors and Christians”, but of course there aren’t any people cut up inside, likely taking its name from a now politically incorrect comparison of skin colour in reference to the Islamic invasion of Spain in the early 8th century. However, as distasteful as the name may be, its subject is very delicious. I cooked them together with bacon, cumin, garlic, green capsicum, onion, oregano and red wine vinegar.

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Peas ’n’ grits and ‘penn on

This is a typical dish of Turks and Caicos Islands, which are part of the Bahamas island chain, and which are currently a British overseas territory. Where other parts of the Caribbean are famous for “rice ’n’ peas” (peas actually describing beans, not garden peas), in this Island nation, grits (cornmeal porridge) are combined with any variety of bean on hand as well as onion, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, hot peppers, and whatever else might be on hand to create a delicious and filling staple. Alongside the peas ’n’ grits is the wonderfully mysterious accompaniment of “‘penn on”, a contraction of the English phrase “depending on”. This meal is therefore flexibility incarnate, but usually involves some kind of seafood, depending on the seasonal availability of marine life, the luck of the fishermen, the market price of their catches, the mood of the cook when deciding how to prepare it etc. For my ‘penn on, I originally had planned on a different seafood dish, but chanced upon some relatively cheap lobster, and as lobster is a common delicacy throughout the Caribbean, decided to embody the opportunistic and flexible spirit of the meal and serve the crustacean instead. I think the cryptically named ‘penn on will feature prominently in my planned menus in the future, and I encourage you to also use it to assuage the impatience of pushy future dinner guests when they ask “what will you cook?” “‘’penn on, it has origins in the Caribbean, you’ll see!”.

25. Southern Africa

The cuisine of Southern Africa (including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland) has a highly multicultural history, with influences from the original indigenous people, as well as numerous waves of immigration from The Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Britain, as well as Indo-Asia. Beef is particularly prized in this part of the world and meat usually forms the centre of most meals. Dried food such as biltong (jerky, often made with antelope meat), droëwors (dried sausage) and rusks is also common to Southern Africa, which was born out of necessity for pioneers and travellers.

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Seswaa, pap and morongo

Seswaa is a traditional dish of Botswana, and is one of those convenient national dishes that makes use of the cheap and tough cuts of meat, the meat in question usually being a combination of beef and goat still on the bone. The recipe is very simple: the meat is boiled in a pot with salt until tender, then pounded to help finalise the tenderisation process. Purportedly seswaa is often prepared by men because of the physical exertion necessary to pound and shred the meat. As a proud feminist, I tenderised my own meat, and found that it was not nearly as tiring as kneading dough or even stirring a pot continually. Maybe this legend lives on in part perpetuated by the women to allow themselves a break from domestic duties? Your secret is (sort of) safe with me, ladies! Seswaa is cooked traditionally in three-legged, cast iron lidded pots over open fires, called “potjie”, although I used a slow cooker, which produced a fabulous texture, but likely lost some of the smoky flavour. Potjie are also a common cooking vessel in South Africa, where a popular food is “potjiekos” (small pot food), describing a wide variety of stews cooked in a potjie. Although the ingredients of the potpie are flexible, usually comprising meat and vegetables with some subtle spices and alcohol to flavour the broth, there are strict rules about the cooking process: namely that the pot must not be stirred. The rule prevents the ingredients from breaking down and melding into a homogeneously-tasting mass, and ensures that each different ingredient maintains its own unique flavour. This method necessitates a low and slow heat, and has created a custom of taking the excuse of the long cooking time to socialise around a fire with your dinner guests, making the ritual of the dish a strong glue of the community. Indeed seswaa is always at the top of the catering list for any big community event, from weddings to funerals. I served my seswaa with the traditional pap (a porridge of cornmeal popular under different pseudonyms all over Africa), morongo (stewed spinach and vegetables) and fried plantains, which are actually more typical of more northern parts of Africa, but I had some to spare and they are a particular favourite of mine. 

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Butha-buthe

Butha-buthe is a soup from Lesotho, one of only three countries in the world that is entirely surrounded by another single country, in this case South Africa. It is named for a region in northern Lesotho, which, perhaps due to its high elevation and comparably cooler weather than other parts of Africa, particularly delights in warming soups. Indeed, the name “Butha-buthe” means “place of lying down”, enhancing the comforting, relaxed vibe of this district and meal. I was drawn to this dish because, at first glance it seems like a fairly standard healthy soup, with a base of legumes (yellow split peas), flavoured with onion, turmeric, coriander and parsley, and bulked up with a little rice flour and heaping handfuls of spinach. However, further down the recipe list lurks a surprise: fresh tangerines! Recipes sometimes call for their juice, zest, whole inclusion, or a combination of these, but it is always a necessary ingredient in the soup. At first I was a little shocked by this, as I had never come across tangerines in a soup before. However, upon reflection, I’ve added lemon to soups and stews from many parts of the world, and lime to almost every soup from South-East Asia, both of which reliably add a wonderfully fresh zing to the dish in question. Of course, then, there’s no reason why other citrus fruits, tangerines included, wouldn’t work well in savoury soups! I faithfully added my tangerines, and finished off the dish with a dollop of plain yoghurt. My instincts were correct: the tangerines were a wonderful inclusion and elevated the other simple ingredients with their sweet tangy flavours, creating a surprisingly light and refreshing meal from what could have been a hot and stodgy mush. It is this kind of revelation that I crave and started this project to find more of – further evidence that, hidden all over the world, there are pockets of human ingenuity in flavour combinations and food preparation that truly need to be tasted to be appreciated.

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Borewors, pap and chakalaka

Borewors is a long spiral sausage from South Africa, usually made with beef and another meat such as pork or lamb, and spiced with ingredients like coriander seed, nutmeg, black pepper, cloves and allspice. The word for barbecued in South Africa is “braaied”, which is a common and important concept in South African cuisine, as many social occasions are centred on the outdoor grill. Indeed there is even a Braai day annually on the 24th September, which celebrates multiculturalism, acceptance and unity among all cultures and religions, by sharing a meal around a barbecue. Wikipedia reliably informs me that there is a Guinness World Record for the longest borewors, which measured 1,557.15 metres, which makes mine seem rather paltry in comparison. Pap is a white corn meal mash/porridge that is a staple food in much of Southern Africa. It is sometimes eaten as a breakfast food, but also commonly served with borewors. Chakalaka typically accompanies pap; it’s a spicy vegetable and bean relish with a base of tomatoes. These mixtures of legumes, spices and vegetables are among my favourite dishes, not least because it allows the thrifty cook to get rid of all of the ageing vegetables in the fridge, and also because it’s a delicious way to consume a lot of said vegetables in a single sitting. The spiciness of the chakalaka goes splendidly with the blander pap and altogether comprises a fantastic new take on the concept of “bangers and mash”. 

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Bobotie

Bobotie is a South African dish of mince spiced with onion, curry powder, apple, carrot, raisins, ginger and garlic, topped with a mixture of egg, milk and turmeric and then baked and topped with bay leaves. I have to admit, I wasn’t quite sure about this dish when I first heard of it, but it turned out to be delicious. Who knew savoury custard was the perfect accompaniment to curry-flavoured meat? Apparently bobotie is quite an ancient recipe indeed, a variant purportedly appearing in an ancient Roman cook book “Apicius” in the 4th century AD. The name “bobotie” is considerably younger, first being referenced in a Dutch cook book in the 1600s, although the etymology of the name remains mysterious. It may originate from the Malayan word “boemboe”, which refers to curry spices, or alternatively the Indonesian word “bobotok” which is an entirely different meal.

24. Cambodia and Laos

I’ve long held a desire to visit this part of the world, partly because it’s not far from Australia, partly because of its natural and historic beauty, but mostly because I love the food. The use of liberal quantities of herbs in everything makes the cuisine incredibly fragrant and tasty, no matter what the basis. Both countries draw influences from neighbouring Thailand, as well as China, India, Portugal, Spain and France. There is a clear basis of fresh herbs and vegetables, accompanying fermented sauces/foods (fish paste, rice etc), seafood and meats, coconut-based soups and curries, noodles, and, of course, mounds and mounds of rice. Meal times in both countries consist of a variety of dishes served together and intended to be eaten communally. Lao cuisine has had a massive influence on the typical Thai food that we know and love, as there are more ethnic Lao in Thailand than in Laos itself. Cambodian meals are highly influenced by rice and freshwater fish, with the Mekong at the heart of the country, containing a biodiversity of aquatic life surpassed only by the Amazon river in biodiversity. This watery centre is hugely expanded during monsoon season, when a substantial portion of the country floods, creating a sea of gleaming emerald rice paddies. Cambodian food is also often very watery, adorned with reeds and vegetables, supposedly to mirror the surrounding landscapes of wet rice-paddies. 

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Amok trey

For my first dish, I well and truly embraced the watery imagery inherent to Cambodian cooking, featuring its national dish, a fish curry called amok trey that originated from the indigenous Khmer people. “Amok” describes a wide family of dishes that are a national staple of Cambodia, although also popular in Laos and Thailand, where curries are steamed inside banana leaves, imparting delicious flavours in a relatively healthy manner. Amok trey (with “trey” specifying “fish”) is traditionally made with catfish, although more recently made with any firm white fish available, for which I used barramundi. The recipe first calls for the creation of an aromatic paste (a type of “kroeung”), made with ground kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal and garlic, as well as two more ingredients that I wasn’t able to source but will just have to wait to visit to try myself: fingerroot and noni tree leaves. This paste is then combined with coconut milk, fish sauce, chilli, shrimp paste and simmered until homogenous and smooth. Beaten eggs are then added to the mixture to help it thicken, and it is spooned over portions of raw fish in banana leaves, which are wrapped into packets and steamed until the fish is cooked through. The end result is a creamy, custardy mixture, with the banana leaves imparting a distinctive flavour to the subtle and sweet fish and coconut. Amok trey is commonly served at the Water Festival, which is typically held in November and celebrates the reversal of the flow of the Tonle Sap River and the end of the rainy season. Boat races and concerts are conducted as part of the three day festival, and many people stop work to celebrate together. I could vividly imagine the smells of amok trey infusing the frivolities of the festival as I cooked it!

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Chicken laap, green papaya salad and sticky rice

Laap is a classic Laotian dish, sometimes said to be the national dish, consisting of spiced mince meat, herbs and sometimes vegetables. Many types of meat can be used, including chicken, beef, fish, pork or duck, either served raw, partially cooked or fully cooked. The mince is typically flavoured with fish sauce, lime juice, roasted ground toasted rice (khao khoua), fresh herbs (especially mint), chilli and padaek, which is a fermented fish paste. Green papaya salad purportedly originated in Laos, where it is called “tam som” which means pounding sour ingredients. The original salads were more flexible in their ingredients, using numerous fruits and vegetables like unripe mangoes or cucumbers. However, the papaya variety has become the most exported and famous, and is now eaten in many surrounding countries such as Thailand and Vietnam. I’m glad that the ingredients are flexible, because I ran into a the problem that my “green” papaya (which I assure you was completely green on the outside and hard as a rock), turned out to be redder than I expected on the inside. Although riper than I wanted, it wasn’t sweet yet, and retained a little of the unripe flavour and texture, so not all was lost. The green papaya is typically peeled and then a large knife is used to quickly hack into the fruit lengthways. These pieces are then peeled away and the process is repeated, created long thin strands of papaya. I suppose you could achieve a similar effect with a cheese grater, but this way is much more fun and dangerous, I guarantee it. The papaya is mixed with lime juice, chilli, fish sauce, padaek, green beans, bean sprouts, cherry tomatoes and sugar, and everything is pounded together forcefully in a mortar and pestle. It’s truly a dish that’s more than the sum of its parts – the perfect balance between salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami is glorious. I served the laap and tam som with sticky rice (khao niao), which is perhaps the most universally touted of all meals as the national dish of Laos. The variety of rice grains is labelled in supermarkets as “glutinous rice”, although coeliacs and gluten-intolerants needn’t panic, as the adjective refers to the sticky property rather than actually containing gluten. The stickiness comes from the very low amylose and high amylopectin content, and this type of rice forms more than 85% of rice produced in Laos, where it has been a dietary staple for over 1000 years. in fact, Lao inhabitants often refer to themselves as “the descendants of sticky rice”, and the meal is said to be the sticky glue that holds Laotian people together, even across time and space. Once harvested, glutenous rice is either milled, which produces opaque white grains, or unmilled, which produces a purplish colour from the intact bran. The rice is cooked by first soaking raw grains in water for several hours, then steaming it in a bamboo basket, after which it is slightly kneaded to create sticky balls of deliciousness.

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Bai sach chrouk

Bai (rice/food) sach chrouk (grilled pork) is a Cambodian breakfast dish sold by roadside vendors early in the morning to sustain the people commuting to work. I’m a big fan of substantial breakfast foods, and strongly believe that, if there were vendors selling fresh aromatic food on my way to work, I would have a much easier time getting out of bed in the morning… If you can honestly tell me you would rather eat cardboard cornflakes in cold milk than this explosion of colour and flavour for breakfast, then I think there is something broken inside of you. The dish consists of thinly sliced pork fillet marinated in a mix of garlic, soy sauce, sugar, lime, fish sauce and coconut milk, then slow-grilled until the outside is golden and caramelised. The grilled pork is served over white rice and also commonly with pickled vegetables. I made the pickled vegetables by slicing thin strips of carrot, cucumber, daikon and ginger, then sealing them in a jar full of rice vinegar, sugar, chilli, and hot water. The sour and sweet flavour of the crunchy vegetables was an ideal accompaniment to the rest of the dish. Apparently all of the vendors who sell this dish offer to serve it with a massive hit of chilli and also sell extremely strong iced coffee from the same stall. I have a strong suspicion that this is the best kept international secret that might be the ultimate cure for those who struggle to wake up in the morning – just make sure you use responsibly!

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Khao poon

Khao poon is a noodle soup from Laos, that is popular all over the country, but particularly associated with the Hmong ethnic group from the mountainous regions of Laos and Thailand, where colder temperatures call for warming broths. The dish has a base of curry paste made from pounded chillies, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal and ground coriander and cumin. Once this delicious concoction is a homogenous paste (and excess aliquots are sequestered into the freezer for later use..) a few spoonfuls is fried in  little oil (along with extra garlic/ginger/shallots if desired) until exploding with fragrance. Next, cooked and shredded meat is added, which commonly includes pork, fish or, as I used, chicken.  Given that it’s a common recipe for home cooks, the other additions are flexible, and I chose to also add bamboo shoots and hard-boiled quail eggs for a bit of diverse texture. Once the red curry paste has coated everything, coconut milk and chicken stock is added to create a rich and creamy soup. Cooked fermented thin rice noodles (sen khao poon) are then added. These noodles are incredibly popular in Laos, and are made via an ancient process of first soaking rice grains and allowing them to ferment slightly, then grinding them into a west paste, which is steamed in banana leaves, kneaded, strained, then pushed through a colander to create thin noodle shapes. Once served, the bowls of khao poon can be garnished with fresh shredded carrots, bean sprouts, cabbage and herbs – all of which add a wonderful contrast of textures, colours and flavours to the meal. Indeed, this soup exemplifies the best aspects that Laotian cooking has to offer: fresh herbs and vegetables, as well as the inclusion of powerhouses of flavourings that add a lot of satisfaction without many extra calories. As most meals are boiled or steamed without much oil, the main calorific content comes from coconut milk, which provides healthy fats to keep you full up for hours after eating. Perhaps this final trait has contributed to the popularity of khao poon at weddings, where guests need comforting nourishment to power through the long hours of festivities.

23. Russia

Russia is the largest country in the world by area, and therefore has a lot of regional variations in cuisine. There are influences from Asia to the east, as well as the Middle East and northern and central Europe to the west. Traditional Russian food has also been heavily influenced by the climate, which is notoriously cold and harsh. As such, cold-climate meats and seafood feature prominently, as well as mushrooms, berries, root vegetables, and crops such as rye, wheat and barley. These crops are commonly turned into a variety of porridges, as well as, perhaps more famously, a wide variety of incredibly strong alcohols. I expected Russian food to be very heavy, but it was surprisingly light, aromatic and delicious, so I didn’t actually require shots of hard spirits at the end of every meal to digest it. Perhaps I would have, if I had to walk home in the snow however?…

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Blinis and shuba

Blinis have become a popular hors d’oeuvre internationally, consisting of little pancakes made with buckwheat, milk, egg and yeast. They can then be topped with anything that your imagination can fathom. I stuck with traditional Russian toppings, such as various combinations of sour cream, smoked salmon, radish, dill, caviars, and chives. Shuba is a cold Russian salad that is also sometimes called “herring under a fur coat” salad, a name that I don’t find particularly appetising, but which I think refers to the pickled herring coated in an assortment of fuzzy-looking grated vegetables. It’s usually made by layering all of the ingredients vertically, but I elected to make horizontal layers so that the beautiful colours could be seen. I included pickled herring, grated onion, hardboiled egg, grated cooked carrot, grated beetroot and grated boiled potato. I garnished it with plenty of pepper and dill, and served it with a dressing of sour cream and mayonnaise. I loved this meal because of the mix of typical Russian flavours that all complement each other, especially dill, which I am particularly partial to.

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Beef Stroganoff

Of all Russian dishes, beef Stroganoff is perhaps the one that has most garnered international attention and adoration. Everyone I spoke to about this dish, from East Asian to South American, knew about the dish, and often grew up with variations cooked by their parents. No surprises there, it’s an unarguably successful and easy way to prepare cheap cuts of beef into a taste-sensation. As for many internationally beloved dishes, stroganoff has met with extreme variations in the course of its world travels, but the original Russian recipe is surprisingly recent, with its first recipe recorded in the 19th century. This original recipe combined cubes of floured beef with mustard, broth and sour cream. This then evolved to include mushrooms, onions and often a nip of alcohol to accentuate the flavours. I followed a version of this later recipe, serving it with parsley, steamed broccoli and shoe-string fried potatoes, which are common possible accompaniments along with mashed potato, rice and hand-made pastas. The dish’s name is thought to be in honour of the Stroganov family, who were among the richest dynasties of merchants and businessmen since the 1500s, eventually marrying into Russian nobility to expand their power to the ruling class of the entire country. While researching this family, I became absorbed in their long histories of drama, including their various (and often warring) factions, as well as their rises and falls to and from power and riches over the centuries. One family member who caught my attention in particular was Anika Feodorovitch, who maintained her family’s power during the reign of Ivan the terrible by seizing and subsequently ceding much of Siberia to him, thereby keeping him happy with her family without losing too many of their existing assets. I love a smart and conniving historical matriarch! There are too many interweaved stories about this family to summarise easily here, but I encourage you to learn about them yourself – it’s more dramatic (and entertaining) than a soap opera!

 

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Shchi and pelmeni

Shchi is a hot vegetable soup, with a basis of freshly chopped cabbage, although a variant (sour shchi) can also use sauerkraut. Cabbage nowadays is somewhat synonymous with Russia, although it is not native to the country, having been introduced from the Byzantine empire in the first few centuries AD. Cabbage soups such as this arose soon after, sometimes including meat depending on availability, and have since been favoured by penny-pinching and conscious cooks alike to cheaply nourish and warm their diners. Historically as well as in modern times, shchi is garnished with smetana, which is a dairy product similar to sour cream. Pelmeni (literally meaning “ear bread”) are dumplings with dough made from flour and water, and a filling made of minced meat of any kind. The origins of pelmeni remain unclear, but are generally thought to be influenced by Chinese wontons via Mongolia. Just as in Eastern Asia, the dumplings are often found served besides or within hot soups, and I only realised once I was eating it just how reminiscent it was to a wonton-filled Chinese short soup! I suppose it makes sense given how much border is shared between the countries. Pelmeni are distinct from their famous Polish cousins, pierogi, in the thickness of the dough, which is much thinner in pelmeni, resembling Italian ravioli. My pelmeni had the traditional mix of both pork and beef, spiced with pepper, onions and garlic. Pelmeni are so delicious, I don’t think it would be possible for me to be sick of them. If you’ve never tried them, please do, they have all the delightful surprise of ravioli with a hearty mix of spices that gives them a more comforting and substantial quality.  

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Okroshka

Okroshka is a cold summer soup consisting of raw and cooked vegetables, eggs and meat, often in a liquid of specialised low-percentage alcohol called kvass (made from fermented rye bread) or in more recent times kefir (a yoghurt-like fermented milk drink). The name okroshka probably originated from a word that means “to crumble into small pieces”, referring to the finely chopped ingredients, most of which are raw.  It is thought to have originated in Medieval times from barge workers along the river Volga, whose often-dismal dental equipment made chewing their supplied lunch of dried fish a dreaded chore. They therefore took to soaking the fish in the drink-of-choice for the times, kvass, and this then evolved to also include vegetables, so perhaps address to various vitamin deficiencies at the root of so many missing teeth. As I intended to take this soup for a weekday work lunch, I elected to use kefir instead of the slightly alcoholic kvass, and included green onions, ham, boiled potatoes, hardboiled eggs, cucumbers, radishes, lemon juice, dill and some edible flowers in the spirit of the home garden. As most of these ingredients are raw, the soup took mere minutes to assemble, and only the eggs required a few minutes with the stove on, all of which ticked my box for ideal summer recipes. The chopped ingredients are traditionally immersed in your liquid of choice in a ratio similar to cereal-to-milk, ensuring a chunky texture and retaining the crunch of the vegetables. Indeed, I was surprised to find that I had actually made a heavily-dressed “Russian Salad”, which is popular all over the world and contains many of the same ingredients, minus the kefir. I adored the convenience and fresh flavours of the okroshka, and am very surprised that cold soups haven’t become more popular during the sweltering Brisbane summer!

22. Taiwan

Taiwan is an island off the coast of China, which has had a long history of alternating rulership. It was first populated by indigenous people, after which it was part of China, Japan and then eventually primarily self-governing. As you might imagine, this has led to many influences on Taiwanese cuisine. Being a highly-populated island has also resulted in a reliance upon seafood of all varieties. A famous aspect of Taiwanese cuisine is “ xiǎochī”, which is a tapas-like tradition of serving a variety of substantial snacks. There are national celebrations of xiǎochī, and they are served in homes and restaurants alike, although they are most famously enjoyed at night markets. I love the idea of bustling night markets full of incredible exotic food, especially in a very hot place where I wouldn’t last long in an uncovered outdoor setting during the day… I must make plans to visit Taiwan!

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Gua bao

Gua bao is a typical Taiwanese snack, which consists of a piece of meat and other fillings inside a steamed flat white bun in a clam shape (a folded circle). The most traditional filling is pork belly, although other fillings such as fried chicken, seafood, eggs and beef are also used, drawing the frequent comparison of gua bao as Taiwanese sandwiches or burgers. Gua bao is sometimes called by the nickname “hó͘-kā-ti”, meaning “tiger bites pig”, which comes from the bun creating a tiger mouth shape, with a piece of pork inside. I made my gua bao with pork belly, which I braised with shallots, soy sauce, rice wine, garlic, white pepper, ginger, sugar and five spice. I also included home-pickled carrots, pickled mustard greens, fresh coriander and ground peanuts and a sauce made from the reduced liquid that the pork was cooked in. To make the buns, I mixed plain flour, milk, yeast, salt, sugar and water and let the dough rise. I then shaped them into ovals and folded them, waited a little longer for them to fluff up again, then steamed them. I was very impressed with the buns; they were delicious and fluffy and very easy to make. In fact, I enjoyed the whole gua bao very much – there’s something about the combination of complementary textures and flavours that’s incredibly satisfying. No wonder gua bao are so popular!

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Oyster omelette and fried chicken

The oyster omelette is an extremely popular dish in Taiwan, commonly ranked as a top favourite of tourists, especially as a treat in the famous night markets. It is thought to have originated from the Teochew diaspora out of the eastern Guangdong province of China, where it remains a popular dish. Small oysters are cooked with whisked eggs and sweet potato starch to make a thick consistency, which is then garnished with spring onions and topped with a spicy sauce. Fried chicken is always a crowd pleaser, whether it be battered or crumbed, from the USA, Asia or Eastern European Schnitzel. Taiwanese fried chicken is another night-market favourite in Taiwan, and has more recently become renowned internationally. It’s made from pieces of chicken (I used breast), marinated for at least a few hours in a mix of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, white pepper, spring onion, rice vinegar, chilli powder, sugar and five spice. The chicken is coated in plain flour, then egg, and a mix of sweet potato flour and rice flour and finally deep fried or shallow fried in piping hot oil. The result is an incredibly crunchy crust surrounding a tender piece of chicken. I haven’t tried to make fried chicken often before, but this had the crispiest crust I’ve ever made or eaten. I think the secret may lie in the final coating of sweet potato flour and rice flour, which for reasons unknown to me might impart a particularly crunchy quality. My final step of preparation was the seasoning powder, which is made by combining salt, white pepper, sugar, five-spice and chilli powder. Aside from the superior texture, I also thought the cumulative flavour profile of this fried chicken was better than other fried chicken I’ve had – aromatic, sweet and salty, and subtly spicy in ways that only Asian cooking can achieve. KFC addicts of the world, heed my words – this fried chicken is superior in all ways to the Colonel’s herbs and spices, and, what’s more, its recipe isn’t a secret!

 

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Niu rou mian

Niu rou mian is an aromatic beef noodle soup that is considered a national dish to the extent that there is an annual festival where chefs and restaurants compete for the title of best dish. Although similar types of beef noodle soups also exist in China, the addition of soy sauce makes a version reputedly invented by Chinese veterans who fled to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war. I included slow-cooked beef brisket in a stock made with a lot of flavours, including scallions, ginger, garlic, star anise, cinnamon, pepper, fennel, cumin, onion, chilli, bay leaf, Sichuan pepper, five spice powder, ground coriander, sugar, rice wine, rice vinegar and soy sauce. The bad news is that this mix is a little overwhelming if you’re just starting out with Asian flavours, but the good news is that these ingredients are repeated a lot in Asian cooking, so I already had pretty much everything and it wasn’t difficult. I strained the stock after all of the flavours had been imparted, and then added the beef, fresh thin-egg noodles, bok choy, pickled mustard greens, scallions and chilli.

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Lu rou fan

Lu rou fan literally means braised pork over rice, and has its origins in Chinese traditions of finely chopped pork and rice dishes dating back to the Zhou Dynasty around 1000 BC. In China, the meal is considered to bea type of “gaifan”, meaning fast food or street food. The concept is thought to have been brought into Taiwan by immigrants from Southern Fuijan where it evolved, captured the adoration of the people and has since emerged as a novel recipe and an important national dish. Nevertheless, when researching a recipe for this dish, I discovered that, as with most things in the modern world, previous generations had already covered the basics while we frantically try to reinvent the wheel. This is particularly evident for a recipe found in The Book of Rites, a description of the Zhou Dynasty from the first century BC, which instructs: “Cook meat in a saucepan, and stir after adding seasoning until the sauce is mostly browned, then pour the meat sauce over cooked rice”. I always feel immensely humbled when I come across such an old recipe, perhaps because my contribution to cooking across space and time is suddenly revealed to be a mere blip along an immense span of human knowledge and creativity. Nevertheless, I proceeded to play my infinitesimal role in the cosmic dance, adding a few specific Taiwanese details to this ancient template, such as sautéing finely diced pork (southern Taiwan favours leaner cuts while northern Taiwan specialises in pork belly) and seasoning it with star anise, five spice powder, shallots, garlic, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and rice wine. I also included shiitake mushrooms and hard boiled eggs, which absorbed the flavours of the sauce wonderfully. Then, just as the ancients portended, I poured the meat sauce over cooked rice, and served it with some blanched greens.

21. Venezuela

I’ve never been to Venezuela, but it sounds like one of the most varied and incredible places in the world. Its geography ranges from the northern tip of the Andes Mountains to the Amazon rainforest to the Caribbean coast. The culinary scene draws on numerous influences, from Native American to Europe to West African. This region of South America holds some of my favourite cuisines – the mixture of influences and inclusion of local tropical ingredients with imported Mediterranean and African flavours produces pure bliss. Venezuela is also renowned for producing the most Miss Universe winners in the world, so perhaps the cuisine can also make you more beautiful? Food for thought anyway…

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Pabellón criollo

Pabellón criollo is often touted as Venezuela’s national dish. The name roughly translates into “Creole pavilion”, which I suspect you are as befuddled by as I am. I’ve had a cursory search for the etymology, but it may be one of those connections lost to time. The core of the dish consists of rice, stewed black beans with onions and capsicum and shredded beef. There are myriad additions to this basic triad that have acquired delightful slang names. For instance, should you desire the addition of fried plantain bananas, you would ask for your pabellón criollo “con barandas” (with guard rail), as the bananas keep the food from falling off the plate. However, if you were more in the mood for a fried egg on top of your meal, you would ask for it “a caballo” (on horseback), and then imagine eggs riding horses for your entire meal. I decided to make my pabellón criollo with barandas (fried plantain banana) and avocado. I had previously seen the end result of people making roses from avocados, so bravely decided to give it a try, with the secret reassurance that guacamole was always an option to hide even the most disastrous of failures. However, to my surprise, it was very easy to make after a short youtube tutorial, and the one in the picture is my first attempt! I was lucky in that I think I had perfect avocados for the job – just ripe and still quite firm. I think if you attempted this on a mushy avocado it may not be as simple, but if you have the right ones, then by all means give it a go. It is one of the most impressive and least time-consuming things I’ve made.

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Arepas

I’ve seen arepas popping up more and more in street stalls and markets around Brisbane, and I must say I’m pleased. “Arepa” actually refers to the bread, which are flat round buns made from unleavened corn meal, often fried, but also sometimes baked or steamed. Arepas can be served whole with a spread on top, or split into two to make “sandwiches”. I have been through indescribable trials and tribulations sourcing corn meal in Brisbane. The first issue I had was distinguishing what international recipes meant by saying “corn meal” or “corn flour”. For me, corn flour is the white powder that is thinner than icing sugar that can be used to thicken sauces, also sometimes called corn starch. However, I can tell you from tragic personal experience that this sort of corn flour does not make good dough, and that if you try, you will discover a substance that I could only describe as “non-Newtonian”. Very coarsely-ground corn, on the other hand, I know as polenta, which is a bit tricky to find in a “non-instant” format, but still possible, and also unfortunately does not make a bread-like dough… But if you want corn flour ground to a similar consistency to plain wheat flour? Forget it. I went to grocery stores selling teff flour, buckwheat flour, rice flour, but never corn flour! Isn’t corn one of the most consumed crops on the planet? Is this some sort of conspiracy? Eventually I found some at a Latin-American deli very far from my house, but I remain incensed by the inconvenience. It turns out arepa flour is especially complicated because it is made without removing the outer shells of the kernels, making it coarser than “masa”, which is yet another type of corn flour used to make soft tortillas. I took the arepas to a gathering of family and friends, and put out fillings that would allow combinations pictured: like avocado, chorizo, tomato and coriander salsa, fried onion, corn and capsicum, pulled pork, black beans, queso fresco, radishes and shredded beef. I love arepas because there’s such a variety of wonderful ingredients to fill them with, and they’re great to share with fussy eaters because there will always be something for everyone.

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Hallacas

Hallacas are a common celebratory dish of Venezuela, almost exclusively served during the Christmas period. I love meals that are made around holiday seasons, as they always taste of home cooking, family and the special kind of love that can only be expressed by spending hours preparing food. This dedication is even more marked for Christmases in the southern hemisphere, because cooking intricate meals also means sweating over a hot stove in unimaginable humidity. Trust me, I know this well… I suspect that the cooks of the house in Venezuela encouraged the tradition of only making the labour-intensive hallacas for Christmas, because it has become a bonding activity that all of the family does together, making hundreds of hallacas to freeze and eat well into the new year. Hallacas consist of a dough made from the same corn meal as the arepas, coloured yellow with anatto, flavoured with stock and lard . A shell of dough is then stuffed with a precooked mixture of shredded pork, beef, bacon, onion and capsicum, spiced with garlic, cumin, oregano and red wine. Decorative flourishes of green stuffed olives, raisins and parsley are also added to the stuffing, then the dough is sealed all around and wrapped up in banana leaves and steamed. The banana leaves actually impart a strong flavour to the dough, so while they can be a bit difficult to source, they do make a difference to the taste. I managed to find some frozen banana leaves in an Asian grocery store and they worked very well. The hallacas were delicious, and beautifully represent a fusion of all of the different Venezuelan influences, with ingredients from Europe (olives and raisins), indigenous Venezuela (corn and anatto) and Africa (banana leaves).

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Pisca Andina

Pisca Andina is a hot hearty soup that is commonly eaten for breakfast in the Andes of Venezuela. The “Andina” part of the name means “of the Andes”, but the “pisca” element is harder to determine. I’ve found Spanish translations of pisca meaning “flashes”, “harvest”, “sprinkle” and “prostitute”, and I’m still unclear about which bestows its connotation to the dish. Personally, I hope harvest, although feel free to imagine your own origin story based on your preferred translation…  Traditionally pisca Andina is a mixture of chicken broth, chopped potatoes, poached egg, coriander, garlic, onion, milk, white semi-firm cheese, lemon juice, with other optional vegetables like carrots or corn. It may seem a little strange to have a hot soup with a milk basis, but we add cream to soups all the time, so don’t knock it ’til you try it! I also added some shredded chicken to mine, which is not always strictly part of the recipe, but I’m sure the Venezuelans wouldn’t turn it down. It tasted delicious – so warm and comforting, and somewhat similar to Asian-style chicken and corn soups that I’ve tried. I could just imagine waking up to a big bowl of this in the snow of the Andes mountains, and consequently mustering the courage to venture out into the wilderness.

20. Sri Lanka and The Maldives

I grouped Sri Lanka and The Maldives together because both are, to varying degrees, lost in the great expanse of the Indian Ocean, and their cuisines have influenced each other, as well as having been influenced by similar external forces, over the centuries. Sri Lanka has taken cues from the cuisines of neighbouring Southern India, as well as various migrants/invaders over the years, notably Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Britain, The Netherlands and Portugal. The standout flavours/ingredients that pervade Sri Lankan cooking include fresh fish, often in curries, steaming white rice, flatbreads, dals, fresh coconut and coconut milk, lime, chillies (often flavouring various “sambols”; describing all sorts of spicy pastes/dips/accompaniments) dried Maldive fish and curry leaves. This latter component formed one of my favourite culinary revelations of adulthood, in which my parents planted a curry leaf tree in their beautiful garden, and on one of my many tours to assess the horticultural progress, I realised I didn’t know what curry leaves were like, and pinched one between my fingers to smell it. Instantly, I was transported back to my childhood, where lovely Sri Lankan friends would bring us leftover curries from big events, always insisting “no no, it’s not spicy at all”. If you’ve ever been friends with a Sri Lankan family, you will already know that they were obviously lying, but the food was so good that I persisted eating it through tears of pain as it burned my 8 year old mouth. Most of the dishes had a very distinct taste that I had never identified until that moment – curry leaves! I was so pleased to finally understand that long-remembered flavour, and even happier to include the fresh leaves in many dishes since that moment, as well as this week, and so relive my childhood discovery of these exotic tastes.  The Maldives are a small group of islands in the Indian ocean, south-west of Sri Lanka. It’s become a highly touristic area, and a quick google of The Maldives will instantly assault you with gorgeous white beaches and turquoise waters. Being the world’s lowest country, The Maldives is one of the most threatened places by climate change, so if you’ve ever had a yearning to visit, there’s no time like the present. As for many island nations, the major economy stems from fishing, and the traditional dishes are therefore predominantly based around seafood. There are other influences from India and Sri Lanka to the north, but the ready availability of fish, coconut and starchy tubers has perhaps most strongly shaped the cuisine.

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Lamprais

Lamprais is a Sri Lankan dish with clear influences from the country’s Dutch occupation during the 17th and 18th centuries, with the name arising from the Dutch word for “food/rice packet”: “lomprijst”. This was a relief to me, as I had no idea where to even begin sourcing meat from the animal “lamprey”, as I first assumed was etymological origin of the meal! During the Dutch rule of Sri Lanka, an ethnic group arose which is still known as “Dutch Burghers”, (with “burgher” meaning “citizen” in Dutch), who are a population of mixed Dutch, Portuguese (who ruled before the Dutch) and Sri Lankan heritage. There is also a separate population of people who identify as “Portuguese Burghers”, purportedly lacking Dutch family history, who have their own cultural traditions, cuisines and even hybrid languages! I am particularly familiar with the customs of the Sri Lankan Dutch and Portuguese Burghers, because after the Sinhala Only Act of 1956, which replaced English as the national language, many lost of these citizens lost employment and social status, and therefore migrated to new lands, with Australia being the predominant destination. I therefore grew up with first, second and third generations of these migrants, some of whom contributed to the fond childhood memories I relayed in my introduction. Lamprais, as the original Dutch name suggests, is a packet of rice and assorted accoutrement wrapped up in a banana leaf (the original gangster of biodegradable takeaway containers). The components of a lamprais are listed by many internet cooks (who I am quite frankly a little frightened of) as “non-negotiable”. I therefore stuck to the most authentic lamprais I could manage, and beg forgiveness for any heretical deviations I might have committed (including the addition of the deep fried boiled egg… sorry!). First, the curry, which traditionally combined three different meats (lamb beef and pork), flavoured with sweet spices like cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, as well as chilli powder and curry leaves, thickened with coconut milk. Next (moving clockwise) comes the blachan, a spicy paste made of pounded chillies and dry shrimps. Then the frikkadels, which have the clearest dutch influence, being breaded meatballs flavoured with a few native spices. Next is seeni sambol, a delicious concoction of caramelised red onion with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, chilli powder, curry leaves and tamarind. This is followed by deep-fried ash plantain bananas, then brinjal moju: a mix of fried eggplant, red onion, mustard seeds, green chillies and spices, and finally, my potentially heretical deep fried boiled egg. In the middle is the star attraction: short grained rice cooked in a style that is suspiciously reminiscent of an Italian risotto, using a large quantity of ghee (clarified butter) to first sauté the onions and spices (chilli powder, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, turmeric etc), then frying the raw rice grains in this oil for a couple of minutes to coat, then adding stock progressively to form a delicious creamy and non-sticky consistency. I have to say, the concept of a South-Asian flavoured risotto is frankly genius, and I don’t know why this dish isn’t more internationally popular, as it ticks all the boxes of variety in flavours and textures, as well as warm comforting stodgy deliciousness. Once all of these individual components are cooked separately, they are combined inside the banana leaf and baked for a few minutes in a hot oven, to allow some of the flavours to meld, and for the distinctive taste and smell of banana leaf to infuse the meal. This is a typical “Sunday Lunch” dish for Dutch Burgher families, with the useful property that each component can be cooked separately ahead of time by a different member of a large extended family, then quickly assembled and reheated in their banana leaves just prior to lunch. I hope that my lamprais was sufficiently authentic and that I wouldn’t be the hopeless family member kindly tasked with the culinarily simple job of cleaning the banana leaves!

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Mas huni and roshi

Mas means “fish” and huni means “coconut”, and therefore the more discerning of you will have already surmised the major ingredients of this dish. It is a typical Maldivian breakfast, the simplest variant made with smoked tuna, chilli, onions, shredded fresh coconut, and lime juice. My Dad has a handy little smoker, so he kindly smoked the tuna for me. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had freshly smoked fish, but it’s by far the most delicious preparation in my opinion. Everyone who has come into contact with his smoked salmon fillets has become instantly addicted. Oily fish tends to smoke best, perhaps because the smokey flavours get absorbed into the oil, and the fish doesn’t dry out. Tuna, being quite oily, therefore smoked deliciously, and had a very meaty flavour and texture. The sweetness of the coconut and onion, acidity of the limes and heat of the chilli with the savoury umami of the smoked tuna created the magical sort of flavour balance that made me want to start cooking the food of the world in the first place. Anyone can use 100 different ingredients to create a masterpiece, but there’s something special about balancing well-chosen simple ingredients to make a meal that is so much greater than the sum of its parts. Suffice to say, I would be happy to eat this for breakfast every day. In addition to the plain mas huni, I made two other variations, one with added leafy green vegetable (I used kale) called copyfathu mas huni and one with mashed pumpkin called baraboa mas huni. I particularly liked the sweetness added by the pumpkin, so I think this was my favourite of the three. Mas huni is typically served with freshly made roshi, an unleavened flatbread similar to chapatis/rotis of the Indian subcontinent that I cooked by first forming a dough of plain flour, hot water, salt and oil, then kneading it until smooth. Next, I rolled out thin sheets of the dough and fried it in a low dry pan. This is one of the simplest types of bread to make, as it doesn’t require any waiting time to rise, or even an oven. Also, there’s nothing like biting into a soft piece straight off the stove!

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Egg hopper

Gather around, dear readers, as I tell the sorry tale that preceded the creation of this egg hopper, with plagues, pestilence and fires presenting biblical blockades to my journey. Never before have I had so many unfortunate events impede a particular dish, beginning with my (wrongly) optimistic search for a “hopper pan”. A hopper pan is a frying pan shaped like a rounded bowl that imparts the characteristic bowl shape to the fried pancake (hopper), made of a fermented batter of yeast, rice flour, water and coconut milk. Hoppers are part of a larger, ultima family of fermented rice flour pancakes known as “appam” in Sri Lanka, Southern India, and many surrounding countries, the preparation of which is so ancient that it is mentioned in “Perumpanatruppadai”, an ancient Tamil book of poetry dating back to 100 BC. Although other types of appam do not call for the bowl shape, Sri Lankan hoppers absolutely require it, so in my quest for the elusive hopper pan, I first visited a few regular kitchen supply shops without luck, then drove all over town to various specialist Asian and Indian grocery stores, ultimately unsuccessful. I then turned to ordering online, and quickly found out that this option would be very expensive, and, what’s more, the three sellers I contacted didn’t even have any hopper pans in stock! Disheartened but not yet defeated, I set out to make the batter, intending to let it ferment overnight and cook it in a regular saucepan the next morning, but alas! My rice flour was infested with a plague of pantry moths! Quickly feeling that this endeavour was cursed, I tried to order a hopper from a restaurant, so that I could at least try this mythical food, even if I would clearly not be able to cook it. The first Sri Lankan restaurant I called did not pick up the phone, and a later visit would reveal that a recent fire had forced its closure. The website of the second restaurant informed me that it was closed due to a sudden family illness. Finally, I was able to get a hold of the only remaining Sri Lankan restaurant in Brisbane, situated more than a 40 minute drive from my house, and, at last, joy of joys! They answered the phone and agreed to make me a hopper! I drove over on a miserably rainy evening, only to find an even more miserable chef who proffered his hopper pan at me, bemoaning that the batter was sticking and he didn’t know why, so there would be no hoppers tonight… This dish was now reaching  “white whale” proportions in my mind, so with a new resolve fanned by indignation at the injustices that the universe had thrown at me, I went to buy new rice flour, followed one of the many different batter recipes, and went to bed with a single worry eating away at me: “if a professional Sri Lankan chef in possession of an authentic hopper pan couldn’t make a hopper, how the hell am I going to do it?”. I awoke before dawn to the disheartening finding that my dough had not doubled in size as the recipe predicted, but it smelled yeasty and looked mildly aerated, so nevertheless I persisted in adding the coconut milk to create a thin batter. I then made countless attempts to fry it in almost every vessel I owned, adding water, sugar or more batter in an attempt to achieve a consistency that would crisp up thinly and not break or stick to the pan. Finally, I landed on a winning combination, and was able to create an intact hopper with crispy (but not burnt) raised sides in a small saucepan. Not wanting to tempt fate any further, I fried an egg separately and placed it inside, rather than cooking the egg directly into the batter as the hopper cooks, as is traditional. And lo, behold my completed hopper in all its glory! Granted, it is not the most beautiful I have seen, but given the dire circumstances that befell its creation, I felt indescribably proud and pleased with the result. It even tasted delicious! I served my hopper with sides that were comparatively a breeze to prepare: seeni sambol (spiced caramelised onions), parippu (red lentil dal) and pol sambol (a paste of grated coconut, chilli and lime). Although I enjoyed the meal, I think I’m still too traumatised to declare all of my efforts worthy of the eventual reward, maybe ask me in a few months whether I’m ready to try to make hoppers again (and send me a proper hopper pan please!?).

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Garudhiya

Garudhiya is generally regarded as the national dish of The Maldives, consisting of a clear fish broth. It is one of countless Maldivian dishes that commonly feature tuna, which is indisputably the foundation of the country’s cuisine. In fairness to the Maldivians, if there were bountiful supplies of skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna or frigate tuna swimming a few hundred metres from my house, it would surely form the foundation of my diet as well. The most basic version of garudhiya involves boiling tuna fillets in salted water, skimming off the scum that forms at the surface, and then serving with steamed rice or roshi (flatbread). However, upon this a cook can add many other ingredients depending on preference and availability, including boiled taro or breadfruit, grated coconut, lime, chillies, onions or curry leaves. I can see why this dish is still eaten daily by Maldivians: it’s incredibly quick and easy to prepare, delicious, filling and healthy. However, if you had more time and patience on your hands, you could continue the boiling process of the fish broth until achieving a thick brown paste, called rihaakuru. This is a prized ingredient in Maldivian cuisine, and was also introduced to Sri Lanka, where it now features in many dishes. It can be eaten along with other aforementioned staples (rice, roshi, taro, breadfruit) as well as cooked with spiced and/or coconut to create new flavour combinations. I’ve even read reports of rihaakuru being spread on toast, with some comparing it to Australian Vegemite! As excited as I was to try this Vegemite facsimile, apparently its histamine concentration exceeds the levels thought to be safe for human consumption, so, lacking the genetic and/or acquired immunities to these high histamine levels possessed by native Maldivians, I felt it safest to just make the garudhiya.