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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2010 17:54:57 GMT
Are there any foods that you used to eat a lot (for whatever reason -- maybe you liked them, maybe your parents crammed them down your throat, maybe it was the only thing you could afford in your 'poor' years), and then you drifted away from them, but now they have returned to your kitchen?
The main thing I can think of is canned sardines. They were regularly part of the menu when I was little, and then I went through years of rarely eating them. And now I find myself wanting them more and more often.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2010 18:29:58 GMT
Funnily enough, I never liked curries. Had too many as a kid and some of them were crap to be honest. Different story now, can't get a good one around here, as there are hardly any Indians in this area, infact I am the only one in my little town. I'm not very good at cooking them, so I just do without.
That's one of the things I miss about being in England, that I could just pop into my mom's place and she'd always have a nice curry dinner ready no matter what time of day.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2010 18:47:56 GMT
You are contradicting yourself, aren't you? You like a properly made curry, or at least a curry made by your mother, no?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2010 19:10:49 GMT
I mean I'm fussy about the curries I eat. I've had some really bad ones in the past. Both at home and at Indian restaurants. And as for those frozen ones, forget it!
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 12, 2010 9:05:58 GMT
Well, I wasn't a huge potato fan but I find myself buying them once in a while and making mashed potatoes.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2010 0:57:26 GMT
Probably quite exotic in Cambodia!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2010 2:22:21 GMT
Living in the land of all things with rice it seems,which I love,I always go back to potatoes. Canned sardines are a favorite of mine as well. I guess macaroni and cheese will always come into play as my husband loves too. (who doesn't?)Actually,anything with pasta and or cheese.
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 13, 2010 5:32:46 GMT
They use potatoes as a vegetable here, not as a staple so I can get them at the markets. Taste is quite good.
Also agree with pasta and cheese, seems to be like hand and glove.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 18, 2010 15:15:22 GMT
HW, I don't really understand your potatoes as vegetable vs. potatoes as staple remark. Are you referring to methods of preparation, or that they're always eaten as small new potatoes? Sorry, I'm maybe being dense.
Gosh, I'm such an omnivore that I can't think of any food I've ever stopped eating if I could get it. I do remember enjoying the good small sardines packed in olive oil as a snack when I was younger, and finally, after years of living here, decided that the much bigger ones packed in tomato sauce could serve as part of a meal.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2010 15:48:35 GMT
I'm thinking that potatoes in Cambodia are used as one of the myriad of ingredients in a stir fry or whatever, and not served as a separately cooked dish, which is how most of us Westerners are used to having them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 19, 2010 17:59:56 GMT
That is interesting. Also, it shows how we might deprive ourselves of something out of a misguided notion. I would have never thought of putting potatoes in an Asian-style stir fry, for instance. But if they're used in Cambodia, that now means it's okay and something I can look forward to trying.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 19, 2010 20:25:39 GMT
Well, there are many originally American vegetables now used in stir-fries - and of course many Old World staples such as onions and garlic have become essential to foods in the Americas.
Think of Chinese "baby corn"!
There are quite a few French influences in Vietnamese cuisine - don't know if that is true to the same extent in Cambodia, which was always more "remote" when a colony.
On another board (chowhound), there was a discussion about Chinese emigrant cooking in different parts of the world, and obviously the Chinese-Peruvians do a lot of stir-fries and similar dishes with potatoes!
Potatoes have certainly become an integral part of Indian foods. Imagine that was through the Brits, not directly through contact with Incans.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2010 20:42:21 GMT
I was amazed at the Pakistani mixing of rice and potatoes in many dishes when I first encountered it, since in our cultures, as you know, it is rice OR potatoes but never both.
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 20, 2010 10:41:16 GMT
Not been on this thread in a while, sorry.
The Cambodians use potatoes in soups, cut like wedges, but I haven't actually seen them in stir fries. They also make quite good French fries but with vegetable oil.
One way I love them is in curries! Especially if they are curries with lots of sauce. I always put them in.
I have seen julienned potatoes in stir fries in China too, come to think of it I seem to remember seeing that done here as well, let me investigate. Also BBQ'd.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 20, 2010 12:56:03 GMT
hw, I'm sure that if there were no potatoes in Cambodia, the German Embassy staff would grow them.
Potatoes in Southeastasianish curries is a great idea! Not that my pseudo-pan-Southeast-Asian curries are any more authentic than my pseudo-pan-South-Asian ones, but I'll try that. With coconut milk?
We know that you are in a very different time zone from either the Europeans or Americans (mostly North Americans, it seems - not a lot of South Americans yet). I was hoping you would weigh in on the potato issue.
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Post by bjd on Jan 20, 2010 17:35:03 GMT
Cheap restaurants in Ecuador and Colombia give you both rice and potatoes on the same plate. Usually with a small piece of chicken in Ecuador.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2010 18:13:24 GMT
The first time I saw potato curries was in Pakistan, which is southwest Asia. I think potatoes are excellent in a curry.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 20, 2010 19:58:47 GMT
Like so many other new world ingredients, potatoes seem perfect for the Indian sub-continent's various cooking styles.
Re: LaGatta's pseudo-pan this or that ( ;D) ........... if one follows the basic techniques & "philosophies" for stir-fries or for curries, and doesn't stray too far from ingredients that would be used in their home countries, wouldn't the results be just as authentic as those of any housewife in those countries creating a meal from what was on hand?
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Post by lagatta on Jan 20, 2010 23:59:12 GMT
Well, I don't have the same knowledge.
Practical experience in international educational settings does mean I've learnt a lot about say what Filipina and Senegalese women made for tasty but homey (homely in the British sense) meals, so I do have some decent second-hand knowledge there, though alas I've never been to those countries.
As per imec's observations on another board, I can say that seminars heavy with African participants were 1) the best-organised, best food and cleanest and 2) the exact opposite. Please don't think I'm a man-hating feminist - I really like men and have often worked in very male, even sort-of macho environments! But I think you can guess the respective genders...
The women made beautiful food on our very slender budget.
The men didn't know how to cook rice (and they were from rice-as-a-staple cultures).
(Perhaps learning how to cook rice was their most important lesson, as in "making your own bloody tea" in that other thread.
But other cultures have a hell of a lot to tell us (most of us on this board are from Europe or North America, or closely related areas)...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 21, 2010 6:28:44 GMT
It's my fervent hope that in the coming year Any Port grows and incorporates people from many more countries and cultures. I do appreciate the fact that if I ask a question about a different culture someone like you, LaGatta, will know why I'm asking it. That's because you come from a culture similar enough to mind to understand what might be confusing to me. And because you've been exposed to more different cultures, you're likely to know the answer to my hypothetical question. Still, wouldn't it be nice if there were more variety here?!
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 21, 2010 9:19:08 GMT
Anybody ever had feijoada?
Excellent stuff, but when I first heard it was rice& beans I thought WTF? It is strange, don't you think?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2010 9:25:56 GMT
I had to look up the name and found that it has an alternate name in France -- "cassoulet portugais".
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 21, 2010 9:34:38 GMT
Yep. That would fit. I had it made by my best friend's mother who was from Brazil.
It's good. You'd love the pork belly and sausages, Jack.
And surprisingly, the beans go well with the rice.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 21, 2010 9:41:59 GMT
And surprisingly, the beans go well with the rice. God MEANT for beans & rice to go together -- everyone knows that!
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Post by hwinpp on Jan 21, 2010 10:32:46 GMT
Really? Where's that?
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Post by fumobici on Jan 21, 2010 19:04:02 GMT
Beans and rice? Classic Southern US or Cuban dish. Try it!
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Post by lagatta on Jan 21, 2010 19:35:43 GMT
From the US South down to most countries in South America, with many national and regional variations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_and_beansRiz collé is what a lot of Haitians are craving right now: "Manjé Kréyol" (Haitian Creole) is the equivalent of criollo cooking (criollo meaning "creole") in other countries. This encompasses most of what is regularly cooked in Haiti, involving the extensive use of herbs, and somewhat unlike Cuban cooking, the liberal use of peppers. A typical dish would probably be a plate of du riz colée a pois (diri kolé ak pwa), which is brown rice with red kidney or pinto beans glazed with a marinade as a sauce and topped off with red snapper, tomatoes and onions. The dish can be accompanied by bouillon (bouyon), known as sancocho in some neighboring countries. Bouillon is a hearty stew consisting of various spices, potatoes, tomatoes, and meats such as goat or beef". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Cuisine There are Old World variants with their own legumes - lentils and rice is a staple in much of the Middle East (certainly in the Levantine countries) for example. As for an old standard, I hadn't made spaghetti with little tinned clams for a long time, and really enjoyed it the last time I made it. I bought quite a bit of spaghetti di farro (farro is a type of spelt, but the berries are easier to cook than most spelt) on sale at an Italian grocery near here - that is very nutritious and much lower glucaemic than ordinary pasta. It is tasty as well - not all "health-foodie" things are.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 22, 2010 0:22:55 GMT
As for an old standard, I hadn't made spaghetti with little tinned clams for a long time, and really enjoyed it the last time I made it. Eureka! Yes -- that was one of my old standards, too. I haven't made it in so long, I'd forgotten all about it. HW, not only do beans & rice go well together, the combination creates a whole protein. You don't need to make something as elaborate as a feijoada to enjoy them, either. Cook up the beans of your choice either with a ham bone or with minced bacon and onions & garlic. You can also leave out the meat. I like to make mine soupy and I really enjoy the broth. Serve it over plain white rice with cut limes, minced chiles, and chopped coriander on the side. I'm getting hungry writing this, as I love that combination so much~
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2010 7:26:53 GMT
I am passing Asian cuisine in review in my head, and the only use I can find of kidney beans is in dessert cakes or those strange lumpy drinks.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2010 22:47:15 GMT
This month I will make the potato and leek soup of my childhood, with a big dollop of sour cream in the middle. This will have multiple beneficial effects on me --
-- it is good for me -- it reminds me of the year spent with my grandparents in France -- I love leeks and potatoes -- crème fraîche can always be justified in such a healthy dish -- the little bits of carrot are good, too -- it warms the cockles of my heart during a difficult month
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