Travel the world in your kitchen right now

With planes and people grounded for the duration, travel can't go further than the next room. But you can still go places! Your kitchen can transport you. Eat like you were where you dream to be. Here are some tickets to foreign adventure. I'll offer more in the next post.





Burmese/Thai khao soi
This coconut chicken noodle soup with a chili kick is a traveler's favorite in Northern Thailand and all across Burma. It's so beloved, it's on the menu of just about every Burmese restaurant everywhere.

not my photo

     
Serves 6 people as a main course. 

6 boneless breasts of chicken, cut into large bite sized pieces
2 tbsp corn, Canola or sunflower oil
1½ tbsp. red curry paste
3 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp. Garam Masala
½ tbsp turmeric
1 star anise or ½ tsp powder
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
1 tsp ground cardamom or 3 crushed pods
2 cups chicken stock
½ tsp brown or raw sugar
¼ c fish sauce
About 6-7 (loosely packed) cups of boiled flat Chinese Bah-mi egg noodle or fettucini noodles (about 11/4 lbs)
1 tsp lime juice
Thinly sliced shallots (garnish), fried.
To garnish: 6 slivers of fresh lime, chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Optional: 1 cup pickled Chinese cabbage

Soak noodles to remove excess starch and drain. Cook noodles as per directions on package and set aside. Fry the garlic in a little extra oil until transparent.

In a heavy casserole or soup pot, heat oil and add the red curry paste, curry powder and turmeric. Cook stirring vigorously until the curry paste is fragrant—1-2 minutes. Be careful not to burn the paste. 

Add 1 cup of coconut milk. Over med/high heat, let it come to a boil and bubble for a few minutes, stirring well, until the red oil separates from the coconut milk. Add another cup of coconut milk and wait until the oil separates. Add garlic, chicken pieces, star anise, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom with chicken stock and the rest of the coconut milk. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, add fish sauce and simmer.

Cover the pot and simmer until the chicken is done, 4- 5 minutes. Check seasonings; you might need to add more fish sauce. The flavor should be a bit salty and spicy with a sweet aftertaste. It should be a bit saltier than what you would like the final dish to taste. Stir in lime juice and remove from heat.

Divide noodles between deep soup bowls. Pour the coconut chicken over the noodles. Garnish with fried shallots, cilantro leaves and a lime wedge. Optionally pickled cabbage.


Portuguese Caldo Verde

I recently published this in a magazine and almost immediately a reader wrote in to say it had quickly become her favorite dish.  There are many ways to make it so feel free to improvise. Before blenders, the soup was served chunky but you can puree as much or as little as you want.

Serves 6

2 large chorizo or linguiça sausages
¼ c olive oil
2 yellow onions, peeled and diced 1 bay leaf
2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Freshly ground black pepper
1 lb boiling potatoes (I used yellow), peeled
1 tsp salt
4 c vegetable broth (some people use chicken)
2 c water
¾ lb kale, washed, stems removed
1 tsp sherry vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
To Serve: Olive oil, best quality
Buttered cornbread or rustic loaf croutons

Fill a medium saucepan 2 /3 with water. Over high heat bring it to a boil.

With a small fork, prick holes in the sausages and put them in the boiling water for 5 minutes to leach out the fat. Remove with tongs and discard the water.  When the sausages are cool enough to handle, strip the casing off one and crumble it up.  Slice the other into thin disks. Set aside.

In a large heavy gauge casserole or a soup pot, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and on medium/low heat sauté 5 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaf, crumbled sausage and freshly ground black pepper, stirring to blend. Continue sautéing until the onions are soft and translucent, 3-5 minutes. 

Add the diced potatoes to the pan with the salt. Stirring, cook over low heat to slightly soften the potatoes, 2 -3 minutes, not letting them stick to the bottom of the pan. Pour in the broth and water.  Bring to a boil, immediately reduce heat to simmer and cook until the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. Scrape scum off the top.

While that’s cooking, cut the kale into horizontal shreds. You can do this by rolling up a bunch of leaves as though making a cigar, then cutting across into thin shreds. Once the potatoes are soft, using a slotted spoon, remove 1 cup of them (sausage and onions might come with them, no problem) and set aside. Add half the kale to the pot. Cook 2-3 minutes to soften it. Remove the pot from the stove. Remove the bay leaf from the pot and discard.

If you have an immersion/stick blender, put it in the pot and partially purée the contents to thicken the soup.  There’s no exact measure for this. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can put 2/3 of the pot contents in a food processor and lightly blitz it.  If you don’t have that either, take out 2/3 of the contents and mash them with a potato masher, then return to the pot.  

Put the pot back on the burner on low heat. Add the reserved potatoes, rest of the kale and the sliced sausage. Stir in the vinegar. Simmer 5 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and pepper.

To serve: ladle into large bowls, put a few drops of best quality olive oil around the top and then a few crunchy cornbread or other croutons.  You can also make buttered crostini to top the soup with.   

Guatemalan chicken stew

This is known as "pepian" for the pumpkin seeds in it and is an alternative to a Mexican chicken tinga. This is a quick version using a rotisserie chicken already cooked.

5 red, ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into quarters

3 tomatillos, husked then cut in half
1/2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 small dried guajillo chile pepper, soaked in hot water for 20 to 30 minutes, then seeded and coarsely chopped
1 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp pepitas (pumpkin or squash seeds)
One 3 -inch cinnamon stick
3 to 4 cups chicken broth (salt free works best) 
White and dark meat from 1 purchased rotisserie chicken, shredded (about 5 cups
Salt (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, tomatillos, onion and the soaked, chopped chili pepper in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot with a lid; place over medium heat and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring once or twice, until most of the vegetables have softened. Remove from the heat and let cool 10 minutes.

Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the sesame seeds, pepitas and cinnamon stick; toast for about 6 minutes, shaking the skillet a few times to keep the contents from burning. Remove from the heat and let cool 10 minutes.
Working in batches, combine the vegetable mixture with its liquid and the toasted mixture in a blender. Add up to 1 cup total of the broth, if needed, in order to process into a fairly smooth puree.

Strain the pureed mixture through a fine-mesh strainer back into the pot that was used to cook the vegetables, pressing to extract as much liquid as possible; you should have about 4 cups. Discard the solids.
Place the pot over medium heat. Add the remaining 2 to 3 cups broth and the shredded chicken. Cook uncovered 30 minutes, stirring a few times. Taste and season with salt, if desired. Remove from heat; after a few minutes, the sauce should thicken slightly.
Serve hot in tortillas or over rice.

Middle Eastern Shakshuka

This fabulously tasty and vivid egg dish is served in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and almost all the countries that abut them. So naturally there are many ways to prepare it. This is one.
Serves 4

3 tbsp fruity olive oil
3 lg garlic cloves, minced
1 lg red onion, diced
1 med green bell pepper, seeded and chunked
1 sm yellow bell pepper, seeded and chunked
1-2 hot chili peppers like Serrano or real jalapeno, seeded and minced
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp caraway seeds, smashed or ground
1-2 tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp dried mint leaves
¼ tsp turmeric
¼ tsp ground cayenne or arbol chili powder
pinch ground cinnamon
1 tsp wine/balsamic vinegar
½ tsp honey
1 tsp tomato paste
2-3 cups chopped tomatoes in their juice
salt
black pepper to taste
8 eggs 
1 bunch fresh cilantro, stemmed, washed and chopped for garnish
optional add ons: feta cheese, pitted black kalamata olives, chopped spinach

In a large heavy-gauge sauté pan that has a lid, heat olive oil. Sauté onions, bell and chili peppers and garlic over medium heat til soft, about 5 minutes. Add the spices—cumin through cinnamon—and heat until fragrant, maybe 60-90 seconds. Stir in vinegar, tomato paste, honey and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the sauce thickens, maybe 10-12 minutes depending on how juicy the tomatoes were. Taste for flavor and add seasonings to your taste.

Get the sauce very hot and bubbly over medium heat and have the pan lid handy. Carefully create 8 small pockets in the sauce and crack an egg into each one. Try to nudge a little sauce into the egg whites. Cover and continue cooking to poach the eggs to your liking.

Uncover the pan. Add the optionals you desire. Let them heat up 1 minute. Remove pan from heat. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve right out of the pan.
Afghani Qorma

This delicious, colorful and very healthy chicken dish is in my collection of what to do with yogurt recipes. It's what's called a qorma lawand, a fragrant Afghan curry thickened by nuts and made creamy by yogurt naturally sweetened by carrots, which are native to Afghanistan, and raisins. So all the good food groups at once.

serves 4-6

1/2 cup almonds
4 garlic cloves
2" fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced
1/2 c water or chicken broth if you prefer
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs (breast meat won't be as tasty or tender)
1/4 ghee or unsalted butter
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 yellow onions thinly slice

1 Serrano pepper, seeded and minced (2 if you like hot food)
2 med carrots, peeled and sliced in thin disks
1/3 cup dark raisins
1 heaping cup plain thick yogurt
salt and black pepper to your taste
1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro leaves

In a food processor, purée the nuts, garlic, ginger and water. Put this into a large bowl.
Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces, stir into the marinade.
Marinate at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.

Melt the ghee in a large heavy gauge lidded casserole over medium heat. Add the spices and sauté about 30 seconds until they are fragrant but not brown. Stir in the onions and chili pepper. Sauté until the onions are soft and starting to brown, maybe 7 minutes.  Stir the chicken into the pot with all its marinade. Simmer 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste. Stir in the carrots and raisins and yogurt, blending everything. Add 1/2 c water or chicken broth to make gravy. Bring to a boil,then reduce heat to low simmer, cover the pot and simmer 40 minutes, adding water or broth if the dish seems to be drying out. Most important: keep heat low to avoid curdling the yogurt.

Serve with the chopped cilantro on top as garnish. Serve with rice, roasted potatoes or naan and perhaps a simple spinach salad.

Bengali/Nepali carrot pudding

I included what is everybody's favorite dessert in Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking after it got thumbs up from all the mothers of a fifth grade in Marin County, CA. In the book I tell the remarkable story of how I found out about this dish and learned to make it. I also point out that leftovers make a perfect breakfast. What I am most proud of is that many Nepalis have told me my version beats every other one they know. 

serves 6

2 cups finely grated carrots, about four large carrots (you can also chop them finely in a food processor if you stop long before the puree point)

4 cups (1 quart) whole milk
1/2 cup confectioner’s (powdered) sugar (use regular granulated sugar if you don’t have this. I use it because the cornstarch mixed with the sugar makes thickening go faster)
2½ tablespoon unsalted butter
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ cup white raisins
1/4 cup cashews, split and lightly toasted* -Optional
2 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut, lightly toasted*-Optional
*Put them in separate piles on the small baking sheet of a toaster oven or on a small baking sheet in a regular oven and bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes until they are lightly golden.

In a large sauté pan over medium heat melt the butter. Add the carrots and cook until they’re buttery and very mushy.

Meanwhile in a large heavy bottom saucepan or medium sized casserole, put the milk on high heat and bring it to a boil. Immediately lower the heat just enough so the milk continues to boil but does not bubble over. The aim is to boil it down without burning it or losing it over the top of the pot.

When its ready, pour and scrape the contents of the carrot mush into the milk, add the cardamom and raisins. Stir to blend. Continue to boil this over the highest heat at which it will not boil over, and stir occasionally to determine if the mix is thickening, also to keep anything from sticking to the bottom. Do this until you start to feel it thicken against the spoon, which could be up to 30 minutes.
Stir in the sugar and continue cooking another 10 minutes or as long as it takes for the mixture to stick to the spoon or seem wiggly. This means you can see the bottom of the pan because the pudding wiggles aside as the spoon passes through it.

Pour into a serving bowl and cool. It will thicken a little more. To serve, optionally top with the toasted coconut and cashews.