BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes

Subject: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 03:59 PM

I love to cook and I love to eat. Over the past number of years I have become more and more interested in ethnic cooking. I love the foods of other cultures and countries and I am fortunate that in my small local area there era people from Brazil, Russia, and all parts of Asia. I have learned a lot from them but there is still so much about the food culture of other places that I don't know. Anyone have some favourite recipes or ethnic foods that they really would like to share.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 04:37 PM

My G/F shouts at me when I use the expression "ethnic" as if to exclude WASPs

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 04:40 PM

I am an organic gardener and in this Texas area can best grow a lot of Mediterranean crops. I've found a lot of great recipe's in Tess Mallos' The Complete Middle East Cookbook. I use it so often and my family has such favorites that I ordered copies for everyone as holiday gifts last year. The newest edition is very expensive and in paperback, but if you can find older used copies it was reprinted many times as a hard-back. That's what I prefer in the kitchen because it doesn't fall apart and the book stays open to the page more easily.

Eggplant and okra are what took me in this direction, but there are all sorts of great recipes with fresh veggies and interesting fish, shellfish, meats, and poultry. I make my own hummus occasionally (though I don't grow the chick peas) but since I harvest a lot of eggplant, the dip of choice most often here is baba ghannouj. I sometimes make my own pita bread to serve with it, but there is a great middle eastern bakery near my office so I pick it up fresh.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 06:43 PM

German, Irish, Mexican, Japanese, Thai, Greek, Quebecois, French, Arctic, American Indian, Indian, and almost anything that strikes my fancy (except kimchi).

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 06:46 PM

Shall we agree that these are recipes that were at one time outside of our respective families' dining experiences and therefore maintain an exotic quality? Regardless of where our families originated. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 07:04 PM

"(except kimchi)"

Really? Man, that stuff is addictive I eat it every day and it's really, really good for you. What's not to like?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,,gargoyle
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 07:25 PM

What a nice thread.
THANX for asking.

An authentic 4-kilogram piece of non-USDA inspected hunk of horse flesh crossed our family table.

Brined for four days in a cooked medly of:

16 oz apple vinager
16 oz apple juice
1 oz Kosher salt
2 oz Pickling spice (WHOLE - all-spice, mustard seed, cloves, bay leaf etc, etc)

Cooked for 10 hours with a temp under 200F.

Serve with whole, peeled, boiled red pototaoes, red cooked cabbage, home baked rye bread.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle
desert?   who has room for desert?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 08:30 PM

I spent too much time in Korea in the winter. You ever eaten homemade, WINTER, kimchi? It makes "ghost peppers" seem like water. Even homemade summer kimchi is...well, I don't like kimchi. It is, after all, merely fermented vegetables (like sauerkraut).

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 25 Feb 15 - 09:02 PM

Ratatoullie from the Moosewood Cook Book. I follow the recipe pretty close and serve over brown rice. The leftovers make good omelette innards as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 02:51 AM

The word "ethnic" is somewhat confusing.

I made toad in the hole yesterday using Lincolnshire sausages from the local farm shop and the eggs in the Yorkshire pudding batter were from next door's hens.

Two counties and a neighbour. Can't get more ethnic than that.

Tonight I am making a beef chilli stir fry from a recipe used the other week on the BBC Food and Drink programme. I suppose as the BBC must have a diversity policy, you can throw the word "ethnic" in when describing it?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 03:33 AM

Macaroni cheese

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 03:56 AM

I still make my Mum's 'Irish Stew' though it no longer has lamb in it - so I expect N.I. grannies would reject it out of hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 08:58 PM

Does Italian count as ethnic? If so, my favourite is whore's pasta, aka spaghetti alla puttanesca. Can't quite work out, though, how the Napoli working girls got good trade with all that anchovy, chilli and garlic on their breaths. And let's not go there - stick to grub!

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Feb 15 - 09:07 PM

Oops. Just checked - there are no anchovies in the Neapolitans' version. Fools!

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Musket
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 03:30 AM

There's no place for hairy dead fish in any recipe Steve.

Still, as Liverpool progress in Europe you can always try out the local cuisine as you travel to wa.....   

Oh..



My house still stinks of the beef chilli stir fry. Ditto my car. Ditto the whole ruddy county I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: sciencegeek
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 07:00 AM

LOL... this reminds me a friend's take on ethnic jokes... two ethnics went into a bar...

home cooking from around the world... 50 years ago Italian food was exotic in many parts of western NY and now it is so common that you can't find a town without at least one pizzeria or a restaurant that at least serves some form of pasta.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 07:13 AM

I've persuaded a good few people that anchovies are amazing. Personally I can just open the tin and eat 'em, but when you cook them they just melt away. I have fun serving up my whore's pasta to people who profess to hate anchovies without telling them that some are in the dish. Especially vegans.


(Er, that was a joke...)

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 07:17 AM

Still, as Liverpool progress in Europe you can always try out the local cuisine as you travel to wa.....

Yes, that was a little tragic. Lovren, bloody waste of money. Still, there's always Sunday. Liverpool 4 Man City 1. I'm allowing City a goal because Aguero's brilliant. Can we at least agree to hate City?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Musket
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 09:01 AM

Sadly, as Sunday is my birthday, I assume Mrs Musket has something planned which precludes watching it.

After City knocking us out of both cups this bloody season...... Agreement can be assured.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 09:09 AM

I like a number of the Indian ready meals from Gits, Kohinoor, etc. Quick and easy. Palak paneer is probably my favourite.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: CupOfTea
Date: 27 Feb 15 - 01:32 PM

Chicken paprikas, gleaned from a mid-70s version of Joy of Cooking, adjusted for ease of potlucking by using bite sized boned chicken pieces & upping the stock intensity. A stroke of necessity-is had me using some Santa Domingo smoked paprika once & I tend to use it now if I have it around.

Joanne in Siberia-on-the-Heights

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 28 Feb 15 - 12:22 PM

Anchovies are amazing, I often eat them right out of jar and then find I don't have enough left for the pasta !

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Feb 15 - 12:31 PM

Isn't all food ethnic?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 28 Feb 15 - 12:57 PM

One of my favourite salads is a recent discovery.
Can't recall what it's called but it's Peruvian in origin.

Base of cooked, rinsed and drained quinoa with chunky diced avocado.
Finely diced spring onions, cucumber and tomato.
Dressed with finely chopped coriander leaf, lime juice and chilli flakes.
Just stir everything through gently (so the avocado doesn't mush)

Really good. You can serve it stuffed into the avocado halves if you feel like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 28 Feb 15 - 01:02 PM

That sounds very, very good..I'll have a go at that for sure. Thanks

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 01 Mar 15 - 06:45 AM

I always have a jar of German sauerkraut (oddly enough made by Krakus - A Polish company) or a bag of frozen kapusta handy for the times when I need a meal in a hurry. Warmed in a pan with anything stirred into it, but usually kielbasi or chorizo, and any herbs and spices you fancy, served with any rustic bread. Meal in 5 minutes :-) Also, the only thing I remember my Dad preparing, apart from any sort of fat on bread, raw sliced turnip with salt and oil. Best marinaded overnight in the fridge. Great with any salads.

No point in me preparing any Indian food. We live 200 yards from a brilliant takeaway that is between us and our local pub. Best recipe I have for that, very dangerous - Call in with your order. Go to the pub for an hour or two. Pick up food on the way back :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 01 Mar 15 - 10:18 PM

Chicken riganato (Greek)

Put a small amt of veg oil in a deep skillet. Heat. Cook chicken pieces (I use thighs) and red potatoes cut in half in it. Brown the    meat, cover, then take lid off so they're not soggy. Total time maybe 45 minutes. Drain fat. Just before serving, season with oregano. Sprinkle on some olive oil for flavor. Squeeze on lemon juice.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 12:00 AM

Hey Greg - love the brined horsemeat recipe. That's basically your version of corned beef and cabbage. It'll work well on St. Patrick's Day.
Here's my Irish Chili recipe:

2 lbs meat or venison, 1 cup chopped onion, 3 tbs chili powder, 2 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp each of garlic powder, grnd ginger, cayenne, 1/4 tsp grnd cloves , 20 oz V-8 Juice-(spicy), 1 bottle Guinness, 2 tbs oil..   Sear meat and drain off fat; put V-8 and Guinness in a pot and bring to a boil; add spices and meat and simmer for an hour, stirring periodically. Near the end of the hour, add 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed, and 1 cup chopped onion. Simmer till onion softens. Serve over spaghetti with grated cheese.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: EBarnacle
Date: 02 Mar 15 - 11:58 AM

When I was a child, my grandmother used to make a very rich lentil soup. I have never quite been able to duplicate it but I keep trying.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 05:44 AM

Gut one freshly roadkilled hedgehog.

The animal should then be seasoned and prepared for cooking; pressed in a towel until dry, then either encased in clay or wrapped in grasses.

The meat should then be roasted and served with cameline sauce.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 06:54 AM

But there are no camels round here.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 07:12 AM

Re lentil soup, ham bones are the secret.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 07:30 AM

Bacon and cabbage and spuds with the butter running off them: take a good piece of ham (bacon in Ireland doesn't mean those strips you fry or grill for breakfast - they're rashers here; bacon is a cheap cut of ham, but ham is regularly used in this dish in place of bacon)…
Anyway. Take a good piece of ham, enough for however many you're cooking for, and boil it in sweet water with a bay leaf until the fat is falling away from the flesh. Then take it out, slather it in honey, stud the fat with cloves if you like them, and top with a few slices of pineapple, and stick it in the oven to roast for 30 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, put in your potatoes in the cooking water - washed but not peeled, a floury type of potato like Records or any of the breeds favoured in Ireland, which are sweet and delicious. Boil until they're almost done.
Now add a whole cabbage, chopped up, to the cooking water, bring the heat back up and cook for about 7 to 10 minutes, until sweet and definitely cooked, but still with a little bit of bite. The potatoes should now be cooked too.
Serve up the ham, surrounded with cabbage and potatoes, and with a good dish of butter to add to the potatoes as they're eaten.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 08:14 AM

That sounds right up my alley!

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 08:37 AM

Ribs and Cabbage was a variation round our neck of the woods. Can't remember what it was served with but my guess would be boiled potatoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 08:40 AM

Talking of potatoes, a good friend of mine from Glasgow pointed out that everywhere seems to have a meat and carb. variation. From Italian pasta bolognese to Mexican chilli and rice and all in between. Mince and tatties was the one he grew up with.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 09:09 AM

went downstate ... meaning much closer to New York City... and located some canned scungilli (conch or welk meat - honking big marine snails to the rest of the world).

those of us who live near the ocean have a love affair with shellfish and Italians take it to the next level... lol

in addition to clams, mussels, scallops, or your crustacian of choice, those from the Mediterraean regions love various members of the mollusk family... calamari, cuttlefish, octopus and conch. Abalone if you can afford it, though the conch was not too far behind. uhmmm... wonder if I can get away with using conch in Chinese abalone soup??? worth a try.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 11:24 AM

not sure where she got it, but my mom used to make a dish that used boiled potatoes & cabbage chopped and added to fried salt pork and fried together like a hash with plenty of black pepper and bacon fat. Seemed like a farm dish - plenty filling & nurishing for field hands during the work season.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 02:39 PM

Why does the phrase "ethnic food" ineluctably conjure up the thought of boiled missionary? As Spooner is supposed to have said of a widow, "Poor woman, her husband was eaten by missionaries, you know."

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 03 Mar 15 - 06:23 PM

my irish american father's mush recipe. get a bunch of oats and boil until lumpy and grey. leave for work early early. feed to children after cold and lumpy and grey several hours later. serve with powdered milk.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 03:48 PM

Sicilian spinach (counts as exotic in my milieu):
Wash spinach in a colander. (No water is required beyond what clings to the spinach.) In a large, heavy saucepan melt some butter in olive oil. Add a clove of garlic sliced thin. Put the spinach in, and cook over high heat for about a minute, stirring occasionally with a fork. That does it.

Red cabbage (not quite so exotic -- I'm about a quarter German):
In a saucepan, melt some suet. Add a slice of onion chopped fine. Shred a quantity of cabbage, and put it in. Sprinkle with flour, salt, pepper, & a capful of vinegar. Stir. Cover & cook over moderate heat until the lid gets too hot to touch. Set aside.

Kasha (not at all exotic in my milieu, but counts as ethnic because you buy it in the "International" aisle of the supermarket):
Put 2.5 cups of water on to boil. Put 1 cup of kasha (buckwheat) in a 2-cup measure. Add 2 tsp salt, and break an egg over it. Mix thoroly, with a chopping motion. Put a pool of olive oil in a heavy saucepan, over high heat. Put the kasha mixture in, and stir *constantly* until the grains separate again and emit a toasty odor. Remove from the heat and, *at arm's length*, pour in the boiling water. Stir. Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until all the water is absorbed (takes about 15 min). Makes about 6 portions, but keeps well in the fridge. Serve at dinner as you would rice.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Mar 15 - 06:23 PM

Here's an 18th-century Irish clam soup recipe, keep meaning to try it but haven't yet (clams are dear here):

Clam Soup, (Prepared By A Dublin Lady.)
Put forty or fifty clams, in the shells, with as little water as possible. When the liquor has run out from the opened shells, take the clams out and chop them fine, with an onion, a bunch of minced celery, and some mace and pepper. Put all in the soup, and thicken it with two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour, and if you choose, add a little milk. Simmer twenty minutes; stir in the beaten yolks of five eggs; put bits of toasted bread into the tureen and serve.
(From The New Cyclopaedia of Domestic Economy, and Practical Housekeeper by Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Publisher Henry Bill, 1872)

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Mr Happy
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 11:24 AM

Give I boiled parsnips & a great dish o' taties & a lump of fatty bacon & a pint of good ale!!

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 03:30 PM

Just had some vegetable chili poured over polenta served with olives, grated rigianno and a glass of very nice Australian merlot. Not sure what the ethnicity is but I would call it a true blooded English mongrel dish :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Mar 15 - 06:45 PM

Ah, if we're getting into trueblood mongrels, may I offer you the Irish Greek Italian tomato and parsley salad:

Chopped sweet little tomatoes, and if you're feeling fancy chopped sundried tomatoes
Razor-thin slices of shallotts - around one shallott to six tomatoes
About eight pimento-stuffed olives
About the same amount of feta in volume as tomatoes, cubed roughly
A small handful of toasted pine nuts
A handful of chopped parsley
Mix 'em all up
Juice of half a lemon squeezed over
Slosh of olive oil sloshed over

Serve with good bread, and maybe some hummous.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:08 AM

Sounds lovely, Thompson. Just up my street. Where does the Irish come in to it?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Musket
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 03:34 AM

If you have curry sauce over your bag of chips, does it constitute ethnic or fusion cuisine?

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 07:46 AM

Depends if the curry has raisins in or not. Our local chippy does 2 different curry sauces - 1 English and 1 Irish. Go figure as our colonial friends say.

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Musket
Date: 06 Mar 15 - 01:16 PM

I'd have thought the spuds rather than the raisins give it the Irish ethnicity....

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: Thompson
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 05:13 AM

Dave: The Irish comes into it with the parsley :) and with the mouths that eat it.

Subject: RE: BS: Favourite Ethnic recipes
From: GUEST,Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Mar 15 - 06:01 AM

Ahhh - Got it ;-)