Has travelling inspired you to become more adventurous with your cooking?
If so, post a(or lots) sample receipe of what you have learned to cook.
Mel, I would love to see some of your recipes!!
We might as well have a thread about how travelling inspired us to be adventurous with our cooking. 😊
Reply to this Here is one that I got interested in when I first visited Thailand. I am a vegetarian so all my contributions will be vegetarian. Of course they can be altered to non vegetarian.
Coconut curry Thai style.
I make it in a variety of ways.
For one I cut some tofu into slices or cubes and put it into an overproof dish.
Mix the following with a can of coconut milk. onions and garlic and vegetable stock and lime juice and sugar. Pour this on top of the tofu. If it is cold in the kitchen the coconut milk will be difficult to pour so you can heat it with the onions etc in a pot before pouring over the tofu. Then bake in the oven until it looks cooked.
Choose one of the following to add Thai flavour to your curry.
Thai flavour options.
1. Fresh basil leaves. Wait until almost the end of cooking(the last 5 minutes) and sprinkle these on top of the curry.
2. Dried lime leaves. Mix these with the coconut milk etc before pouring on the tofu. Leave these in all through the cooking time.
3. Fresh lemon grass. Put a couple of stalks of this in the curry at the beginning of the cooking. Leave these in all through the cooking time.
Cooking options
If you prefer you can fry onions and garlic until golden before mixing with the coconut milk.
Also, if you prefer you can sprinkle the chopped basil leaves on the finished currry instead of adding them during the cooking.
This is the basic receipe. There are condiments and other ingredients that can be added.
I will add more receipes to this thread soon. 😊
Reply to this Wow that sounds awesome - I love curry! I was thinking when i posted that last one that we should start a new thread... i'm just bad at moving them around! i am also vegetarian and admittedly don't cook a bunch (it's just me and i usually end up being lazy and just sauteing veggies or making a veggie burger) but I will try to think up some.
One food item that really got me, though it wasn't cooked per se, were the salads in Argentina. I think of them as having a meat based diet there but they had the most wonderful salads. My favorite was the one with beats, goat cheese, corn and of course lettuce. I believe it had some other things in it as well but those were the most notable. They also had a popular one with chick peas (garbonzo beans - not sure what everyone calls them), peppers, corn, onions, balsamic vinegar. So good! i was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to eat vegetarian there and their salads were huge so you could easily make a meal out of them!
Reply to this .....just sauteing veggies ....
You could make the following to put with your veggies to give them a Chinese taste. Just put a spoonful on top or beside them. Not more than that because it is quite strong tasting. It also can be stored in the fridge for at least a week, maybe two so you dont have to use it all at one meal.
Peanut of Cashew sauce
Put all the following together and blend them with whatever kitchen appliance you have for blending.
Salted peanuts or salted cashews or peanut butter
soya sauce
honey or sugar
vinegar
dried or fresh ginger
fresh garlic or dried garlic powder
sesame oil
cayenne pepper
If the sauce is too think blend in some orange or lemon juice
Reply to this Oooh wonderful! I love the taste of good Chinese food! I actually do "marinate" them with some of the above ingredients, but I haven't used honey or cashews, that would be wonderful!!!
Reply to this My mom cooks bulgogi for me when I visit. It is one of my favorite foods.
1 small chuck roast. You can use any type of meat you like. It even makes chicken taste good.
Have the butcher cut it in thin slices like the mongola beef at P.F. Chang.
Put it in a big bowl.
Pour in soy sauce. I use about 1/4 of the size of the bowl.
Add sesame seed oil.
Add about 4 cups of sugar. You can add more or use less. It depends on you.
Slice about 4 scallions in small pieces. I also use the green part of the scallion. You can add more or use less. It depends on you.
Add about 1/2 of the bowl with water.
Add fresh chop garlic. Add as much as you want.
Mix everything together in bowl.
Set the oven on broil. Broil each side about 5 to 10 minutes. My wife has a special pan to cook bulgogi on the gril.
Reply to this My Halloween apple pie which I am making tomorrow.
In a pie oven dish put the following.
Pastry
Mix flour a pinch of salt and butter until it is bread crumb texture. Around 200 grams of flour and 100 grams of butter.
Put this on the bottom of the pie dish. No need to make it stick together before you put it in the dish. Just sprinkle it over the bottom of the dish.
Homemade marzipan
Cook the following in a pot before adding to the pie dish. Ground almonds, sugar or honey, water, nutmeg, cinnimon, rum or brandy or whiskey(just a few splashes). Make it to quite a thick consistency. Put it in the pie dish, on top of the pastry.
Apples
Slice apples. Pealing first is optional. Layer the apples on top of the marzipan. Than sprinkle sugar on top of them.
Bake.
Reply to this This sounds delicious! I've been so bad at ignoring my travelblog/forums lately. I need to get back to it!
Reply to this Mel - on the Oceania Travel forum you wanted a recipe for hokey-pokey ice cream. It's just vanilla ice cream with little chunks of hokey pokey in it. Do you have hokey pokey there?
Reply to this I am not sure we have hokey pokey here. :D But I will look out for it. There are a lot of things appearing in the supermarkets now that were not possible to find easily here in Germany before. I now only have to cross the street to find my childhood nostalgia salt and vinegar flavoured chips. Maybe Hokey Pokey will be the next to appear on the shelves. Hope I recognise it when it does. :D
Reply to this After Morocco, I like cous cous. One of my favourite and easy recipes is cous cous with whatever vegetables I can find. Generally garlic, onion as a base, a choice of mushrooms, courgettes, aubergine, peppers - whatever there is in the fridge, chop those up, cook inside a wok with tiny drop of oil. If you have canned beans or chickpeas, those work nicely as well.
Do the cous cous in boiling water, add lemon juice, freshly ground pepper and herbs to taste. I like coriander but any herb would be fine. Eat! Job done in a few moments.
I enjoyed quinoa in Peru, but have not got round to cooking it at home.
Reply to this It is at less than -10 degrees C every night where I live now, so I am making icecream in the garden.
Here is how to make the simplest icecream.
Whizz cream and honey or sugar until the cream is stiff in a freeze proof container. Gently(to make sure the air does not go out of the whipped cream) stirr in some milk infused with vanilla or a small amount of fruit juice, or whatever you want. Put in the garden or freezer for the night.
Reply to this To make your coffee a little more exotic, put some cinnamon and/or nutmeg in the filter with the coffee.
Anyone got any other ideas about what to flavour coffee with?
Reply to this Mussaman Curry Paste
Due to several requests (you know who you are) here it is - the next post will show what to do with it:
Ingredients
100 g fresh red chillies
115 g sliced shallots
4 garlic cloves
3 lemon grass stalks.
1 cm sliced galangal
4 sprigs coriander stems
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp salt
Dry roast ingredients
6 green cardamoms
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2stp cumin seeds
½ tsp fennel
5 peppercorns
Method
1. Lightly fry the chillies, shallots, garlic, lemon grass and galangal.
2. Blend the ingredients and add the coriander stems until it is a paste.
3. Dry roast the Dry Roast ingredients.
4. Remove the seeds from the cardamoms and discard the pods. Grind all ingredients and add cloves, cinnamon, sugar and salt. Add to the paste.
This paste will last you for quite a few meals.
Reply to this Beef/Chicken Mussaman with Coconut Rice
A great combination as the coconut rice heightens the flavours in the Mussaman.
Mussaman Curry
500 g beef/chicken
400 g coconut cream
2 cups water with beef/chicken stock
2½ tbsp of Mussaman Paste
1 Red Onion quartered
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp white sugar
1 fresh red chilli
Method
1. Heat coconut cream and paste until aromatic.
2. Add water, beef/chicken, potatoes and fish sauce – boil for 15 minutes.
3. Add sugar, onion, chilli and cook until done – allow to simmer for about 15-30 minutes, depends on if beef or chicken. Add water if gets too thick.
Recipes also add ½ cup of roasted peanuts at step 2 – but I don’t like peanuts, so don’t put them in.
Coconut Rice
350 g Jasmine rice
400 g coconut cream
400 g coconut milk or 400g water (or a combination)
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tsp salt
Method
1. Bring all ingredients to boil (except rice). Coconut cream has a low boiling point so watch carefully
2. Add rice and cook until done - note you may need to add more water/milk at some point.
Serve together and maybe garnish with a few coriander leaves.
Reply to this Please help me.. i am looking for a Travelling cook...
Hello everybody my name is Ashu n I m from Mumbai
India, I am doing an assignment on multi cuisine food preparation... We would love to see that how people cook the food at home and what are their habitual food... and how do u do cook the food... we are not into restaurant we are not in catering concept but we have well equipped kitchen.. at Colaba
We just want to know more about food cultural across the world if you are visiting India than especially in Mumbai... Than please share you food experience with us...
We will offer you our hospitality while you will be with us, we will offer you place to stay and basic expense
Please if you are travelling India and planning to come Mumbai or if you are already in Mumbai than please let me know
. At <snip>
If u have any suggestions... that also please mail me
[Edited: 11:20 - Mell ]
[Edited: 2012 Apr 25 11:44 - The Travel Camel:11053 - Changed text from bold to normal]
Reply to this Hello Ankit 😊
Are you looking for professional cooks only or other people too?
Mel
Reply to this 
