World Foodie Guide

Cloves © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

Before I even laid eyes on Jane Lawson’s Spice Market, I knew it was my type of book. And when I finally leafed through the 450 pages, my instincts were confirmed. Apart from offering 250 recipes, the book is a comprehensive guide on the history and culinary uses of over 40 spices from around the world. Like many people, I buy spices on an ad hoc basis, when I need something to make a particular dish. As a result, my collection of spices is somewhat eclectic, to say the least, and there are some that I have used just once. Spices also start to deteriorate if not stored properly (and even then, the volatile oils fade over time, taking with them the spices’ true flavours, colours and aromas). I hope that by using Spice Market on a regular basis, I’ll not only learn more about the background of each spice, but I’ll also be able to make the most of the spices sitting in my cupboard.

Saffron © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

I started by reading up on a few of the spices that I already own, as I thought that would be the best way to tackle this tome and start cooking with them.

Saffron – also known as azafran

My jar of saffron has been languishing in my spice drawer for a few years now, but I could never throw out such an expensive spice. The handpicked stamen from a flower of the crocus family, saffron is grown in Iran, Spain, India, Greece, Morocco and Italy. It is the most expensive spice in the world, but a tiny amount goes a very long way. The recommended recipes in the book include risotto milanese, arancini, seafood paella, poached pears in saffron syrup and saffron buns.

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Tags: cookery, cookery book, cooking, food, Jane Lawson, recipe, Spice Market, spices, traveleating

Buta no Shogayaki © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

Buta no shogayaki or Japanese pan-fried sliced pork with ginger sauce is a classic dish that I used to eat regularly when I was younger. While I would be busy making sixteen kilos of tonkatsu for the LSE Japan Society annual party every year, my Japanese friend would make the same amount of buta no shogayaki. So whenever I order it, I always think of her. It’s a very simple but satisfying dish and perfect for a one dish lunch or supper.

This recipe comes from one of my recent cookery book purchases, Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking, although I could just as well have asked my Japanese stepmother-in-law for her recipe. Harumi Kurihara is a Japanese food writer & TV presenter, well known for her ‘home cooking’ recipes and owns a cookware line as well as a chain of shops. It seems that some Japanese women, most of whom now work, find her ‘home-maker’ image a little old-fashioned, but I was glad to have found this recipe in her book, and it worked really well. You may be interested to read my recent review of her latest book Everyday Harumi, which incidentally is a far better book.

Ingredients: (serves 4, but I adjusted the quantities to serve 1)

• ½ tbsp freshly grated ginger

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp mirin

• 200g finely sliced pork

• sunflower or vegetable oil

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Tags: cookery, cooking, food, ginger pork, Japan, Japanese, recipe, traveleating

Isla Tortuga, Costa Rica © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

As World Foodie Guide focuses more on food & travel or ‘traveleating‘ posts, with the new project 25 Food & Travel Destinations: A 5 Year Plan, I thought I’d share some of the resources that I use when researching and planning trips. These are just a basic starting point and you may already be familiar with some of them. As I dig deeper into a city or country, I Google specific names of places and restaurants, and ask local friends, food bloggers & Twitterers for insider tips. I also use the travel sections of local newspapers, which often feature places not covered in international publications (see Japan Planning as an example).

• The New York Times extensive travel section is often the first port of call for me, with city and country guides, as well as informative articles like In São Paulo, Brazilian Cuisine Is Back On The Table and Continental Tastes in China’s Capital

• Concierge.com & Condé Nast Traveller -  both have basic guides to popular destinations, which are a good starting point. I particularly like the in-depth Condé Nast travel articles, which you can search for by country here on Concierge, such as That Mango Will Blow Your Damn Mind

• Australian Gourmet Traveller travel section, with articles including Talking Thai: David Thompson on Thai Street Food, Hong Kong on a Plate and Tuscan Treasure

Mercado dos Lavradores, Madeira © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

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Tags: dining out, food, food & travel, restaurant review, restaurants, travel, traveleating

Cauliflower Fritters © Helen Yuet Ling Pang

I’ve recently started to enjoy eating all kinds of fried things at home. They’re not the healthiest of foods, but once in a while, they’re so delicious and makes a change from all the ‘good’ food we eat, whether it’s soup, lentils or beans. After eating various fried goodies throughout the year, including Japanese tempura, Chinese pan-fried dumplings, Indian cumin & coriander potato cakes, Sri Lankan fish cutlets and Indonesian crabcakes, I found another tasty treat to make – fritelli di cavolfiore or cauliflower fritters.

The following recipe comes from cookery book My Cousin Rosa – Rosa Mitchell’s Sicilian Kitchen, in which the Australian-based Italian cookery writer and chef presents simple, rustic Sicilian recipes from her family life and childhood, utilising fresh ingredients. I own several Italian cookery books, including the classic The Silver Spoon, but I enjoyed Rosa’s style and easy-to-follow instructions and managed to mark many of the pages with little Post-it notes. My personal favourites have to be polpette (meatballs), ragù di coniglio (rabbit ragù), spaghetti al nero di seppia (spaghetti with squid in black ink sauce), pasta e piselli (pasta with peas), finocchio gratinato (baked fennel) and peparelli (honey & almond biscotti).

Vegetarians will also find more than the average number of meat and seafood-free recipes to follow, including schiaciatta (broccoli pie), zuppa di ceci, porri e patate (chickpea, leek & potato soup), orecchiette con broccoli e acciughe (orecchiette with broccoli and anchovies), pasta con le zucchine fritte (pasta with fresh tomato sauce and parmesan zucchini) and pesto siciliano (Sicilian pesto).

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Tags: cookery, cookery book, cooking, food, Italian, recipe, Rosa Mitchell, Sicilian, traveleating, vegetarian

The second guest post on World Foodie Guide comes from Istanbul Eats, the definitive guide to eating in Istanbul, Turkey (another of my must-visit places listed in 25 Food & Travel Destinations). ‘Serious food for serious eaters’? Perfect! Over to Ansel and Yigal…

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Beyond the kebab – and what you will find listed in most guidebooks to Istanbul – lies a wide range of unique Turkish regional cuisines and restaurants with hints of Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern cooking. Here’s an opinionated list of top ten restaurants and food shops in the city, from A(bracadabra) to Z(ubeyir), from Istanbul Eats, the Serious Eater’s Guide to the City.

Abracadabra — This funky informal restaurant, housed in an imposing Ottoman-era mansion located smack dab on the Bosporus, serves some of Istanbul’s most creative riffs on traditional Turkish cuisine, courtesy of its spunky owner-chef Dilara Erbay. A pioneer of Turkish fusion cuisine, Erbay’s dishes are visually stunning, delicious and ever changing.

When it’s time to order, we usually put ourselves at the tender mercy of Dilara, letting her guide us through the menu, which includes her latest inspired creations, prepared with what’s fresh in the markets. Like a jazzman interpreting on an old standard, Dilara hints at classic Turkish cuisine sometimes in little more than name, for example tweaking the classic börek into a bouquet of matchstick skinny, 6-inch batons served upright in a shot glass of sweet and spicy sauce, both beautiful and fun to eat.

Address: 50/1 Arnavutkoy Cad. Arnavutkoy, Istanbul
Phone: (212) 358-6087
www.abracadabra-ist.com

Altan Sekerleme — At the airport, Turkish Delight, or lokum, may be sold in neat vacuum-sealed boxes. But in the front window at Altan Åžekerleme, a sweets shop in a rarely explored warren of market streets and Ottoman-era caravanserais near Istanbul’s Golden Horn, it is stacked into psychedelic pyramids, laid out into long white rows that are impossibly pink or deep amber on the inside, and even built into little, Technicolor log cabins.

The shop itself – with its aged marble-topped counters and worn wooden cabinets – bears a nostalgic patina strangely absent in this ancient city. Unlike so many places that make sad attempts at recreating the “Old Istanbul,” Altan is an effortless standard-bearer of late Ottoman authenticity. That’s probably because the same family has been running this operation in the same shop for four generations.

The perfumed gül lokum, or rosewater Turkish Delight, is almost a sensual experience, right up there with a first kiss. The sakizli, or mastic gum flavored lokum is interesting as a novelty, but not our favorite. However, the fistikli lokum, filled with hazelnuts, is a showstopper. The sublime, almost gummy confection surrounding the crunchy nut core would convince even the most committed chocoholic to buy a box of the stuff.

Address: Kiblecesme Cad. No: 96, Kantarcilar (Kucuk Pazari)/Eminonu, Istanbul
Telephone: 212-522-5909

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Tags: dining out, food, food & travel, Istanbul, Istanbul Eats, restaurant review, restaurants, travel, traveleating, Turkey, Turkish