Recipes from Elsewhere
Culinary ideas picked up from various places around the world, most very easily made with readily available ingredients and a bit of effort -- which will be rewarded when you sit and enjoy your labours.
Try these, and send in your recipes (and the story behind them). You'll get full credit. Let's share the chow-down Elsewhere experiences.
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Keith's Christmas Tequila Cookies
21 Dec 2024 | 1 min read | 1
Keith offers this marvellous recipe which I can unequivocally recommend. His injunction that you should use only the best tequila is very important however -- as you will see if you read on. If, for some strange reason, this doesn't work out you might want to have someone make the whisky-infused Wicked Chicken just in case. INGREDIENTS 1 cup dark brown sugar 1 cup (two... > Read more
Wicked Chicken: soul funk for the barbecue
25 Nov 2024 | 1 min read
Many years ago Rhino Records -- a reissue label out of LA -- put out a booklet-cum-CD package of old soul and funk with an eating theme, specifically food for barbecues. Tracks on the CDs included Hot Barbecue by Brother Jack McDuff, Grits (James Brown), Chicken Strut (the Meters), Jambalaya on the Bayou (Fats Domino) and so on. You get the picture: tasty music and, in the recipes supplied... > Read more
Barbecued Duck Breasts
6 Jan 2023 | 1 min read
These days I, like most people, can toss together a very serviceable and reasonably impressive red curry with duck in just a matter of minutes. It helps when you have a shop selling cooked duck within a few minutes walk. But this recipe is something rather more challenging and I have to admit I stole it from a calendar that we were sent about two years ago. Goes great with raman noodles... > Read more
Moroccan Roast Beef inna barbecue style
16 Oct 2022 | 1 min read | 1
If you don't have a barbecue with a lid you might want to do this one in the oven, but there is nothing quite like the steamy aroma of the Moroccan flavours when you open the lid to check on this one. That'll have guests working up an appetite. This is a somewhat cobbled together recipe from a number of sources, but it works and should serve four to six, especially if you have a side... > Read more
Vij's prawns in coconut masala
27 Sep 2022 | 1 min read
Here's another one from Vij's deservedly famous Indian restaurant in Vancouver. He says this can be served as an appetizer or as part of a meal with naan or rice. You can substitute canola oil for ghee, but you'll lose some of the flavour. The recipe follows a French style of cooking, where the prawns are cooked with the sauce, Vij says, and makes servings for six. INGREDIENTS... > Read more
Ben Batterbury's Venison Tartare With Blackcurrants, Gin And Chocolate
17 Jul 2022 | 2 min read
In May 2011, 32-year old Bristol-born Ben Batterbury, the head chef at Queenstown's prestigious hotel The Rees, presented a menu of New Zealand flavours at the famous Beard House in New York, the home for food writers and chefs in America. His dishes were much acclaimed and the whole event received great press (see here for an example), yet Batterbury -- when I met him at The Rees in the... > Read more
Scotch Eggs
13 Jun 2022 | 1 min read
Billy Connolly once said, “Scottish food isn't a cuisine, it's a dare”. Funny, but also kind of true if you are averse to black pudding (blood sausage) and the traditional presentation of a haggis in a sheep's stomach. But unless you are vegan or vegetarian a Scotch egg is . . . well, it can actually be a meal you hold in your hand. Let us keep this simple and you can... > Read more
David's Spanish lamb and red pepper stew
23 May 2022 | 1 min read
David says this is a deliciously simple recipe that can withstand a few variances in the amount of ingredients used, the only caution being that you use very good quality paprika. The Spanish brand La Chinata seems to be readily available in New Zealand, and the bittersweet smoked version suits the dish best. This will serve four. INGREDIENTS I kg, or a little more, of lean... > Read more
Stir-fry noodles with chicken and macadamia nuts
13 Apr 2022 | <1 min read
To be honest I can't remember quite where this one came from but the hand written and much stained recipe reminds me how often we have used it. Dead simple. Sort of meal-in-a-minute stuff. INGREDIENTS noodles (hokkien seem to work best) 250g chicken breasts skinned and sliced into strips a few onions a red capsicum roasted macadamia nuts sesame oil a lime... > Read more
Pecan crusted chicken breasts
30 Mar 2022 | 1 min read
In early 2005 Megan and I went on a drive around the Pacific Northwest of the States: San Francisco to Sacramento then up through Oregon to Seattle, and back down the coast. Before we left I mentioned on www.publicaddress.net we'd be going to see friends in Victoria on Vancouver Island. I got an e-mail from Shayne Stuchbery who with his wife Andrea and in-laws was opening a lodge way up in... > Read more
Seafood gumbo, Cajun-style
16 Mar 2022 | 1 min read
Anyone who has had the good fortune to be in Cajun country in Louisiana knows that the food is often spectacularly good. I've only spent too short a time there -- I have a chapter in Postcards From Elsewhere about the small town of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana -- but I did ask around for recipes. On a napkin I had scribbled notes for a gumbo which, over time and experimentation, turned into... > Read more
Elsewhere's Wish You Were Here cocktail for summer
12 Mar 2022 | <1 min read
There are few things more pleasant than gently frying your brain in the summer sun (with Factor 5 and a hat of course), so in the interests of public health Elsewhere offers this recipe for a snappy cocktail which might have you talkin' trash, but no matter. No one will remember anyway. This we like because it is simple. You will need some good quality tequila, limes and Kahlua. And... > Read more
Prawns in Red Curry Sauce
2 Mar 2022 | 1 min read
Cannot tell a lie, I borrowed this one from a CD-cum-recipe set in the generic series called The Ideal . . . Dinner Party, and you fill in the gap there with Thai, Chinese, Indian, Italian, Mexican or French. The accompanying CD is gentle dinner party ambient music which refers too those regions. The chef whose name is attached to the series is Bettina Samain and with the Thai one she... > Read more
generic thai music
Lucio's trenette al pesto (trenette with pesto sauce)
23 Feb 2022 | 2 min read
What constitutes a great restaurant? Not just superb food . . . but the atmosphere, surely? Lucio's Italian in Sydney (see their website here) has won me every time on both counts (and interesting wine from Lucio's region of Liguria) and I've written about it before as a travel story (here). It's also like an art gallery-cum-restaurant, or vice-versa. So when the wonderfully... > Read more
Excellent hot-pot beef with plum and cinnamon
13 Aug 2021 | <1 min read | 1
This is just one of those comfort food, soul-warmers for winter which, if cooked in a crockpot or in a big pot on a stove will also fill the house with rich flavours and smells. And best of all, it is simple. INGREDIENTS half a kg of diced beef one and a half cups of vegetable stock a glass of cheap red wine half a dozen peeled and pitted plums (or half a can of plum... > Read more
Mahi's West Coast Venison Hot Pot
26 Jul 2021 | 1 min read
This recipe was provided by Jayson Hussey, aka Mahi which means "work" because he was always working. He was the chef at the luxurious Franz Joseph Glacier Country Retreat near the Franz Joseph Glacier in New Zealand's South Island when I first met him, and that was about 15 years ago. He'd worked a number of places picking up ideas as he went and has doubtless taken many more... > Read more
Ayam Pongteh (Chicken and Potato Stew, Malaysian style)
17 Jul 2021 | 1 min read | 2
In late 2007 I spent a couple of weeks travelling around Malaysia -- and notably went to Melaka, the food capital of the country where Baba Nyonya food is a local speciality. Baba Nyonya is the cuisine of the communities that emerged in the 15th century when migrant Chinese men married local Malay women. A feature of the food is the spicy quality using local herbs, calamansi (a local... > Read more
Jaron's Roast Duck Tacos
7 Mar 2021 | 1 min read
In late March the Auckland Craft Beer and Food Festival takes over the Spark Arena in downtown Auckland. With music, food trucks, craft beer and more, the ACBFF on Saturday March 27 (1-5pm) is not to be missed. To whet your appetites we have invited Jaron Archer of Brotisserie (who will of course be there at Spark) to let us publish one of their excellent taco recipes, and this is what... > Read more
Louisiana Shrimp Etoufee
10 Feb 2021 | 1 min read
In my travel book Postcards from Elsewhere I write about being in cajun country in Louisiana where the bayou seems mysterious and the food is exceptional. That chapter about Breaux Bridge and the people we met is reproduced here for your amusement. As I say, one of the great things about that part of the world is the food, so here is a recipe which is alarmingly simple and utterly... > Read more
Rockin' Sidney: Don't Mess With My Toot Toot
Ikea's recipe for its famous meatballs
1 Aug 2020 | 1 min read
Anyone who has been to an Ikea is inevitably seduced into trying their famous Swedish meatballs. We do our own meatballs at home (with just beef, a splash of tough Texas bbq sauce and maybe some Worcestershire sauce) but here we share the official Ikea recipe which they have made available. Easier to put together than the flat-pack bookcase. Ikea's Swedish meatballs with cream... > Read more