NationStates Jolt Archive

A friend of mine who also homeschools is looking into cooking a recipe from a different area each night and learning a bit about the people who traditionally eat it.

I was able to provide her with what my family eats, but she wasn't too interested since most of the food is made from cabbage and potatoes. (it's yummy I swear)

Since this community is somewhat international, I was wondering if any of you have any traditional dishes from your culture/geographic area that you would like to share.

I ended up sharing potato rolls with her, we eat them often on holidays, they are a variation on the potato bread my grandmother made (she was from Ireland and said it was traditional... so I guess it is.)


Potato Rolls


2 medium potatoes

½ cup vegetable oil

1 ½ cups water

2 eggs

2 packages dry yeast

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon sugar

6 to 7 cups white rice flour

½ cup butter, melted

1/3 cup honey


Directions:

Peel and slice potatoes. Cover with water and simmer until tender. Drain, reserving 1-cup liquid, Cool liquid to 110 degrees. Mash drained potatoes, saving 1 cup.

In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in reserved potato liquid, let stand for 5 minutes. Add reserved mashed potatoes, butter, honey, oil, eggs, salt and 1 ½ cups flour, beat until smooth. Stir in remaining flour to form a soft dough, turn onto floured board. Knead until smooth, about 6 to 8 minutes. Place in warm place until doubled about 1 hour. Punch down and turn onto floured surface. Divide into desired shape and add to greased pans. Cover and let rise doubled in size. Bake at 400- degree oven 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Makes around two dozen rolls.

Since we're somewhat international, how large are your packets of dry yeast?
I mean, not that I wouldn't prefer the other units in grams and centigrade and such, but those I can look up.

Fried Egg:
Butter
1-3 eggs per person

1. Set the stove/skillet to its highest setting.

2. Melt butter in frying pan (or on skillet, as you will.) Reduce heat to 3/4 once melted.

3. Crack the eggs into/onto the cooking surface.

4. Cook until white and fluffy or brown and crispy.

Great breakfast tradition :p

Original Chicken Curry (serves about 4)

1 chicken breast
2 large potatoes
2 carrots
1 1/2 onions
cyminum
curry powder
ground red pepper
ground black pepper
some rice

1. Cut the chicken breast into tiny cubes
2. Cut the onions, carrots and potatoes into similar cubes and set them aside
3. Put oil in a frying pan, turn the heat all the way up and cook the chicken until the meat turns white
4. Add a sprinkle of salt and black pepper
5. Add vegetables and cook for about 3 more minutes
6. Take a large cooking pot and add about 2 and a half cups of water
7. Add cooked chicken and vegetables, add more salt if necessary
8. Add a teaspoon of cyminum and three curry powder cubes (now this part is based on how concentrated/spicy the curry is, just keep adding them and tasting it)
9. Add a sprinkle of ground red peppers, remember to keep stirring everything
10. Cook until the potatoes are no longer raw and the curry base has a nice thick consistency
11. Serve with rice! :)

EDIT: I tend to think of this recipe as more British/Indian than anything else. :D

This is one of my mom's recipes. It's a traditional dish from India.

Get 2 teaspoons of olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
peel and mince four medium onions
add onions to cumin
add one can of tomato paste
add salt, turmeric, ground ginger, green chilli
cook ten minutes
add chick peas
cook 1/2 hour on low heat
add Chennai masala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala) and green coriander

Here's another one of my favourites

Chicken pepper pasta

1 chicken breast
3 portobello mushrooms
2 slices of pepperjack cheese
ground red pepper
lemon pepper salt
generic storebought pasta sauce
noodles of any type
Italian seasoning optional


1. Cut the chicken breast into tiny cubes and cut the mushroom into .5 cm slices
2. Put oil in a frying pan, turn the heat all the way up and cook the chicken until the meat turns white
3. Add a sprinkle of salt and lemon pepper, and a bit of Italian seasoning powder (optional)
4. Add the mushrooms and cook them in the frying pan for a bit longer
5. Add about 1 to 1.5 cups of generic pasta sauce
6. Stir slowly while everything cooks for about 4 minutes, you'll know that everything's ready when the sauce starts to bubble
7. get a plate, put cooked noodles on the bottom, add slices of shreds of pepperjack cheese in the middle and the chicken pasta sauce on top.
8. Enjoy! =)

This is probably my favourite recipe. Culture? I dunno, American? I made it up.

My own Gazpacho:

1 large green bell pepper
1 small yellow onion
1 cucumber (~ 400g)
1 litre water
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 can (~400g) crushed tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon/15ml lemon juice or 2 tablespoons/30ml vinegar
1-2 tablespoons/15-30ml oil
salt, black pepper
Tabasco or tomato purée

Remove the seeds from the bell pepper, slice into small dices. Peel and dice the onion. Dice 3/4 of the cucumber. Boil half the water, dissolve the stock cubes in it. Add the rest of the water and let the stock cool.

Put the vegetable bits, the crushed tomatoes and the clove of garlic into a food processor. Pulse until they are finely refined. Put the resulting vegetable paste into the cold stock, add the lemon/vinegar and oil. Season with salt, pepper and Tabasco or tomato purée. Cut the remaining 1/4 of the cucumber into fine slices, for instance with a cheese slicer and add them to the soup.

Serve the Gazpacho very chilled, preferably with some ice cubes in it, along with some croûtons. Yum.

Minnesota Hot Dish!

Traditional Minnesotan recipes from How to talk Minnesotan by Howard Mohr, and only-slightly satirical guide to life in Minnesota. variations on this recipe to account for probably 50% of all hotdish recipes, though. International readers: Temperatures are Fahrenheit

Generic Hotdish
Mix together in a large bowl:
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 pound cooked pulverized meat
2 cans vegetables

Stir.
Salt to taste.
Pour into baking dish.
Sprinkle with canned french-fried onion rings or Cow Mein noodles.
Bake at 400 degrees until a brown crust forms.

WTF is wrong with potatoes and cabbage? That's like.. all we eat here.

Anywho.. www.coalregion.com

Oh, here's a final one that I will post for today, this one just plain rocks.

Marinated Salmon

2 pieces of salmon
1 onion (optional)
generic pasta sauce (once again)
1.5 cups of wine (I found out that white wine and red wine has distinctly different flavours, but they both serve the same purpose of taking the fishy smell out of the salmon) beer might serve as an acceptable alternative, but it might taste more malty
lemon pepper salt
secret ingredient: 1/3 cup of mango juice or generic fruit juice

1. Cut the salmon into .5 cm slices
2. Cut onions (optional) and mix with salmon
3. Pour 1.5 cups of wine into a small bowl and mix with about half a cup of generic pasta sauce and 1/3 cup of manga juice or generic fruit juice. MIX REALLY WELL
4. Put the salmon and onions in a frying pan, add oil, and cook until the reddish parts go away on the salmon, make sure you constantly flip and not stir the entire pan for now because you want the salmon slices to stay complete and not break into tiny shreds
5. Sprinkle salt
6. When all the salmon pieces have turned whiteish, add your wine/sauce base and gently stir everything to prevent the fish from sticking to the pan
7. Keep cooking everything until the sauce starts to bubble, you want to make sure that all the flavours get cooked into the fish and have as much of the liquid and alcohol to evaporate and take away the fishy scent
8. After about 5 min you should get this somewhat thick and rich pasta sauce with salmon slices in it.

Enjoy! :)

traditional english dishes... roast beef (plus "all the trimmings," including yorkshire puddins), bangers & mash, toad in the hole, [meat] stew, full english breakfast, fish & chips with mushy peas, beans on toast, steak and kidney pie, chicken tikka massala, cumberland pie, shepherd's pie, pork pies, err... that's about all i can think of. i'm sure there are recipes about for all of those - i don't cook much traditional english food, so i can't be of much help in the recipe department :p


but i do have a good recipe for shepher's pie:

Ingredients

for the topping
2 egg yolks
100g butter
120ml milk
500g (i guess) potatoes
----
for the sauce
250 grams frozen peas
1 litre (1 3/4 pints) lamb or beef stock
worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons tomato puree
minced lamb or beef
rosemary
thyme
1 bay leaf
50 grams of unsalted butter
4 carrots
1 medium onion



First we make the sauce. Dice up the onion and carrots into small cubes (or just put in a food processor)... technically, make a mirepoix
Heat oil and butter together in frying pan over a moderate heat, add onion and carrots, bay leaf and some thyme. Cook for 5 mins or until onion is getting done.
Add lamb or beef (technically it should be lamb to be a shepherd's pie, but beef is just as nice); cook until browned. Season with salt & pepper and add tomato puree (enough so it goes red all over, but no more than to coat everything)
Add worcestershire sauce, stir and simmer for a minute or less, then add stock.
Leave to reduce for about 20 minutes or until there's just a relatively thin layer of rich sauce at the bottom of the pan. Don't forget to stir.
Add peas in last 5 minutes
While sauce is reducing, you can make the topping. Boil up the potatoes, simmer for 20 mins until soft, drain and mash.
Warm the milk and butter (not totally necessary but good for extra niceness) until the butter has melted, mix into the mashed potato. Season with a little pepper if you like.
Gently fold in a egg white, whisked to soft peaks, for extra soft & fluffy potato yum
Preheat oven to 200C (375F), pour sauce into open, wide dish (ie so its flatter than it is tall), and spoon the mash on top. Smooth over and cook.


Yummy! Just good luck getting worcestershire sauce ;)

for New England, you can't go wrong with chowder.

New England Clam Chowder:
2 dozen cherrystone clams
1 quart water
1 head garlic, sliced in 1/2 horizontally
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 ounces pancetta, cut into cubes
1 celery stalk, diced
1 onion, diced
2 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
Freshly ground black pepper
1 handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Wash and scrub the clams to get rid of the dirt.combine the cherrystone clams with the water, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme leaves in a large pot. Cover, and steam over medium-high heat until the clams have all popped open, about 15 minutes. Check every 5 minutes to pull out the clams that have opened (some take longer than others), and give the pot a stir. Pull the opened clams out of their shells and chop them roughly. Cover them and set aside. Pour the broth into a big bowl through a strainer that you've lined with cheesecloth, just in case there is leftover sand; set the broth aside.

Rinse out the pot and melt the butter over medium heat. Add the pancetta, celery, and onion. Saute this together for 5 minutes, until the vegetables soften. Sprinkle the flour into the pot; stir and coat everything well. Gradually pour in the strained clam broth, whisking constantly to break up any lumps of flour. When all the broth is incorporated, fold in the potatoes, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly for about 15 minutes. The soup will start to thicken from the potato starch.

Reduce the heat to low and fold in the cream, milk, and chopped clams.Season the soup with many turns of freshly ground black pepper and stir everything together to heat through, but do not let it boil.



For Jewish, it's gotta be brisket and latkes.

Beef Brisket:
4 large garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
4 sprigs fresh rosemary, needles striped from the stem and chopped
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 (4 pound) beef brisket, first-cut
Coarsely ground black pepper
4 large carrots, cut in 3-inch chunks
3 celery stalks, cut in 3-inch chunks
4 large red onions, halved
2 cups dry red wine
1 (16-ounce) can whole tomatoes, hand-crushed
1 handful fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
On a cutting board, mash the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt together with the flat-side of a knife into a paste. Add the rosemary and continue to mash until incorporated. Put the garlic-rosemary paste in a small bowl and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil; stir to combine.
Season both sides of the brisket with a fair amount of kosher salt and ground black pepper. Place a large roasting pan or Dutch oven over medium-high flame and coat with the remaining olive oil. Put the brisket in the roasting pan and sear to form a nice brown crust on both sides. Lay the vegetables all around the brisket and pour the rosemary paste over the whole thing. Add the wine and tomatoes; toss in the parsley and bay leaves. Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 3 to 4 hours, basting every 30 minutes with the pan juices, until the beef is fork tender.
Remove the brisket to a cutting board and let it rest for 15 minutes. Scoop the vegetables out of the roasting pan and onto a platter, cover to keep warm. Pour out some of the excess fat, and put the roasting pan with the pan juices on the stove over medium-high heat. Boil and stir for 5 minutes until the sauce is reduced by 1/2. (If you want a thicker sauce, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 tablespoons of wine or water and blend into the gravy).

Slice the brisket across the grain (the muscle lines) at a slight diagonal.


Latkes

4 medium russet potatoes, peeled
2 medium onions
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
1/4 cup finely chopped chives
Vegetable oil, for frying

Using a box grater or food processor, coarsely grate the potatoes and onions. Put the grated potatoes and onions together in cheesecloth or a tea towel and twist it to squeeze out the excess liquid. Put the dry potatoes and onions in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Fold in the egg whites and chives to bind the mixture together.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and coat with 1/4-inch of oil. For each pancake, take about 2 tablespoons of the potato mixture and drop into the hot oil; gently flatten with a spatula so they fry up thin and crispy. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, until golden. Remove to paper towels to drain; season with salt while the potato pancakes are still hot. Continue frying, adding more oil as needed, until all of the mixture is used up. Serve immediately with apple sauce, if desired.

I'm Mancunian so our traditional fare is the Donner Kebab.

Instructions:

Drink 8 pints of Stella.
Go to you trusty neighbourhood kebab house.
Order a Donner Kebab with extra chilli sauce.
Eat.
Vomit on living room floor.
Sleep with face in vomit.

This is not just a food but a ritual with decades of history behind it.

OK, this is my mother-in-law's Tex-Mex chili.

1lb pinto beans
salt pork, bacon or ham hock
water
salt

Soak beans overnight, drain. Put beans in a large kettle with salt pork, bacon or ham hack. Cover with water. Add salt to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer until beans are tender (@ 4 hours).

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
(My addition - Garlic, chopped, as many cloves as seem good to you)
1 can diced tomatoes
Chili powder (Eagle Brand or your favorite) to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oil in skillet and add onion and garlic, do not brown, but cook until soft. Add crumbled ground beef and brown. Add tomatoes, and seasonings. Simmer until meat is cooked through. Add to beans. Simmer for about half an hour to 45 minutes to meld all the flavors.

Serve with dishes of chopped raw onion, grated cheese and diced jalapenos for garnish. Good with corn bread, tortillas or garlic bread.

My grandmother's potato salad

Using red potatoes, allow one potato per person plus one or two additional potatoes.
Bacon
Onion
Bacon fat
Red wine vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Caraway seeds

Cut the potatoes in bite size pieces (note - do not peel, just wash thoroughly), place in a large pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook the potatoes until tender. While the potatoes are cooking, fry the bacon until it's crisp, drain and put to one side, reserve the fat. Dice the onion. When the potatoes are done, drain them (don't let them get cold, this salad is served warm) and put them in a large bowl, crumble the bacon over the potatoes, add the onions, toss with bacon fat, red wine vinegar and caraway seeds, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.

I'm Mancunian so our traditional fare is the Donner Kebab.

Instructions:

Drink 8 pints of Stella.
Go to you trusty neighbourhood kebab house.
Order a Donner Kebab with extra chilli sauce.
Eat.
Vomit on living room floor.
Sleep with face in vomit.

This is not just a food but a ritual with decades of history behind it.

...all I can think of is the Donner Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party) sitting around, making kebabs...

For a traditional English curry in the home you will need:

1 Phone (connected and bill paid)
1 Curry House takeaway menu
1 Voice (You can find these attached to most mouths)
1 Eye
1 Ear
2 Hands
1 Brain
1 Wallet (full)

Instructions

Place menu inside Hand
Use Eye to look at Menu
Use Brain to understand cryptic glyphs thereon
Use last Hand to dial number on Menu
Carefully place the phone so that the ends are near the Voice and Ear respectively (don't worry if you get this wrong a few times, try getting a parent or guardian to help)
Carefully, using the Brain to guide the Voice, recite your preferred numbers and address
Wait for 20-40 minutes, the dish is ready when the doorbell rings.

California Artichoke Spread

Ingredients:
15 oz can of artichoke hearts, drained and finely chopped
6.5 oz can marinated artichoke hearts, drained and finely chopped
4 oz diced green chilies
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
dash pepper
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, reserving 1/4 cup for topping
dash tabasco sauce
crackers or tortilla chips

To prepare:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).

Combine all ingredients except 1/4 cup cheese for topping and blend well. Spread into an overproof serving dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Serve on top of crackers or with tortilla chips.

We also make a hot and spicy German potato salad from my great grandparents (I don't know if ours is "traditional", but it's what my great grandparents made in Germany) but I can't find the recipe. I'll have to ask my mom for it.

Pork lumpia is a good Filipino dish all of my Filipino friends made.

As someone living in York, I would say that our main source of food is chilli sauce and chips from Oki's kebab stand bought when completely off your face on either overpriced lager, or extremely overpriced Jack & Coke.

Pour brown sauce on top, then far, far too much salt. Eat despite better judgement, get sick and then fall asleep. A dish best served with pre-sleep Ibuprofen, on the off chance you're not too smashed to actually remember to do so.

For a traditional English curry in the home you will need:

1 Phone (connected and bill paid)
1 Curry House takeaway menu
1 Voice (You can find these attached to most mouths)
1 Eye
1 Ear
2 Hands
1 Brain
1 Wallet (full)

Instructions

Place menu inside Hand
Use Eye to look at Menu
Use Brain to understand cryptic glyphs thereon
Use last Hand to dial number on Menu
Carefully place the phone so that the ends are near the Voice and Ear respectively (don't worry if you get this wrong a few times, try getting a parent or guardian to help)
Carefully, using the Brain to guide the Voice, recite your preferred numbers and address
Wait for 20-40 minutes, the dish is ready when the doorbell rings.
I think our best curry dish is probably the Lamb Tikka Balti, with special pilau, and a few bottles of Kingfisher.

I think our best curry dish is probably the Lamb Tikka Balti, with special pilau, and a few bottles of Kingfisher.

I never understood the enthusiasm for Baltis:

We cooked a curry. In a bowl.
You're going to eat it out of the bowl.
We're going to call it 'bowl curry'

It's marketing genius!



Prawn Pathia ftw!

My nan makes these.

Golomki (http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/255/Polish_Stuffed_Cabbage_Golomki47596.shtml)

Mmmmmm.

Well, my family cooks lutefisk in the microwave ... we're not quite normal. My mom also makes rommegrot, which is basically Scandinavian milk pudding, but we do the low-fat version with heavy whipping cream and only one pound of butter. Again, not quite normal. So you don't really want our recipes.

i live in the usa, but we eat all types of food here. One of my favorites is just plain spaghetti :) Its really easy to make and its delicious! It originally comes from Italy.
one of the great things about spaghetti is that everyone makes it differently, so there are no certain ratios you have to have.
Ingredients:
water
dry noodles
tomato sauce
tomato paste
spices(garlic, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and minced onion are all good)
Optional ingredients:
butter (approx. one stick)
chopped tomatoes or chopped onions

Instructions:
Sauce:
pour tomato sauce and tomato paste in to a pot and heat on medium. Add spices, chopped tomatoes and chopped onions. Stir and cover pot, then lower heat slightly. If you add butter(makes it taste really good but makes it really bad for you :)), add it at the very end before you serve and add enough so that the color lightens.

Noodles:
fill high sided pot with water and heat until boiling. Put noodles in the boiling water and make sure that they all are fully immersed. Stir regularly until noodles are soft. Pour noodles and water in to a strainer, then they are ready to serve.

Hope this helps!

Feijoada – In USA units and ingredients – Dried beef could be hard to find

2 cups (1 pound) black beans
3/4 pound trimmed pork shoulder
6 ounces slab bacon
1/2 pound smoked pork sausages
1/2 pound hot meat sausage such as linguica
1 or 2 pounds ham hock or shank, cut into 1-inch rounds
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 to 4 ounces dried beef ‘carne seca’.

For the Seasonings:
3 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed and fried in 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
6 green onions, including tops, chopped
1 onion, chopped
Fresh bay leaves
1-1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
Preparation:
Soak the black beans overnight in water to cover by several inches. Drain.

Place the drained black beans in a saucepan and add water to cover by 3 inches. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the beans are tender, 2 to 2-1/2 hours. Add additional water as needed to keep the beans covered.

While the black beans are cooking, prepare the meats. Preheat an oven to 375 degrees. Dice the pork shoulder and the bacon into 1/2-inch cubes. Place the pork, whole sausages, and bacon in a large baking pan. Roast until well done. The sausages will be ready after 35 to 40 minutes and the other meats after 45 to 60 minutes.

Cook the ham hock at the same time as the meats are roasting. In a saucepan, combine the ham hock rounds and onion with water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook until tender, about 1 hour. Remove the ham hock rounds from the water and remove the meat from the bones, if desired; set aside. Or leave the rounds intact for serving alongside the black beans. Strain the cooking liquid into a bowl. Add the strained onions from the liquid to the beans. Add the cooking liquid to the beans if needed to keep them immersed.

Once the black beans are almost cooked, check to make sure there is plenty of cooking liquid in the pot. It should be rather soupy at this point. Stir in the beef ‘carne seca’. Cut the sausages into rounds and add them and all the other cooked meats to the pot. Then add all of the seasonings to the pot, including salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another 30 minutes, or until the beans are very tender.

Taste and adjust the seasonings. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro or parsley just before serving.

Also, someone needs to give you a recipe for frybread. I don't know how to make it, but I know how to eat it and it's delicious.

How about a Hangi?

Dig a hole about a metre square by 1.2m deep in the back yard, fill with stacked wood with igneous rocks scattered about in the stacks, light and let burn down. You will end up with a hole 1M deep with the base filled with hot ashes and glowing red rocks.

now, do you want to go "Traditional" traditional, or "modern" traditional? if tradtitional, haul out dripping loads of leaves and ferns from where they have been soaking in the creek, half fill the hole with this mass of dripping greenery, now pile woven leaf baskets of food on the greenery and cover with more wet leaves, top with a solid layer of earth and leave to steam until the food is cooked.

if modern, use jute or hempen sacks instead of leaves, tinfoil instead of woven leaf baskets. top with more sacks and cover with earth, uncover when food is cooked.


My 21st, my sisters 21st, several weddings and a wake all use Hangis in my family. At that, we are Pakeha, not Maori :P

An easy traditional food to prepare is the traditional food of Yom Kippur.

...Nothing. :D

Pork lumpia is a good Filipino dish all of my Filipino friends made.
Oh yes! Napakasarap ng lumpia. Mmmmmmmmm. :D

An easy traditional food to prepare is the traditional food of Yom Kippur.

...Nothing. :D

Works 5 other days of the year (unless you are a first born son, then it is 6)