European
Watercress can be an expensive herb we know, but feel free to substitute with rocket. This is perfect with some pasta and grilled cherry tomatoes, on toast, as part of a mezzo spread, or straight out the jar!
I love the flavour of watercress, and the sharp pepperiness adds a beautiful fun twist to a classic pesto. This is also made with no cheese and very little (or no) oil, so low-calorie as well, yay 🙂
South American
Simple, healthy and delicious, we make versions of this fairly often for dinner parties!
Chimichurri is a classic Argentinian sauce which we fell in love with while were travelling through the Andes in South America – tangy, herby and with surprising depth of flavour given the relatively simple ingredients, this sauce is more than the sum of its parts.
The freshness of the beans is important here – as with any simple dish where one ingredient is the star of the show, make sure that ingredient is as fresh as possible! In other words, don’t use frozen beans 🙂
Fusion
We found ourselves in an apartment in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, with cooking facilities and a wild craving for a good vegan meal.
Lunch in a vegetarian cafe was good, but didn’t quite cut the mustard – too oily, not enough veggies, etc. Luckily, we happened to have a kitchen available, and of course, Bolivia’s fruit and veg markets are on another level.
This being travel food, the recipe is quite simple. Free to elaborate according to what you have lying around.
Fusion
Quite a mouthful, the title of this dish, but despite that, it’s a marvelously simple thing to whip up, and a spectacular vegetarian feast of colour and flavour.
We recently got our hands on an air fryer, which is what we used to make the recipe, but a regular oven does the job just as well, if not better. Microwaving the veggies for a few minutes before popping them in the oven cuts out a good half an hour of roasting time.
I strongly recommend occasionally making a big batch of Harissa paste and keeping it in the fridge – it’s such a flavour explosion and goes well with almost anything, recipe here.
Fusion
This started as a recipe in probably our favourite recipe book ever, “Plenty More” by Yotam Ottolenghi. If you haven’t gotten your grubby paws on it yet, do so as soon as possible – it’s amazing.
This has become such a staple in our kitchen, I was horrified to discover that we hadn’t loaded up our version yet – so here it is 🙂
African
It was a revelation for me when I realised that you can make fantastic, warm smokey salads on the braai. This earned a few odd looks from conservative Afrikaans family members, but they were converted very soon – this is undeniably delicious.
The inspiration for this came from our travels through Turkey, and a wonderful recipe book called Anatolia by Tyfun Arras, on Turkish cuisine.
This is an aubergine based cooked vegetable salad, Patlican meaning aubergine in Turkish, but the name Braai Slaai just rolls so nicely off the tongue, we can’t help calling it that 🙂
Off the eaten track
Mirissa! What an incredible place – an unparalleled stretch of beach with hundreds of places to eat, Mirissa really got us excited when we arrived 🙂 Time to go hunting! Read more about Off the Eaten Track here.
The problem with finding food gems in Mirissa was quite simply, the sheer volume of restaurants available. If you are into grilled fresh seafood cooked over an open fire, Mirissa has literally about a hundred restaurants that will do you a stunner of a meal, and being able to sit on the beach with your feet literally in the water is just the cherry on top.
With that said, by the time we’d arrived, we were needing something different, having eaten grilled fish 2 nights in a row. This presented a problem – there wasn’t much variation on the menus here. We had an oily carby dinner one night at Big Belly Roti Hut, which was tasty and filling, but nothing special.
For lunch we managed to scout down a fantastic lunch and curry place called Dhana’s curry pot – they serve vegetarian rice and curry buffet for Rs400 – as much vegetables as you want for that price? Amazing!
They had a surprisingly good selection of curries, including 2 types of rice, dal, tomato curry, jack fruit curry, green mango curry, okra, pumpkin, and banana flower curry – all were good, green mango was a tad sour.
The other food gem we discovered was a little café called plantation café in Welligama, on the A2… they had the usual stuff, but also a surprisingly wide selection of other food, and really big, delicious salads – Marna was in heaven 🙂 I had a traditional sri lankan chicken curry in coconut milk, and it was excellent. The chicken was succulent and perfectly cooked, and the portions were generous.
If you are planning a trip to Mirissa, do go check out one of the above spots!
African
A stunner of a bake, kinda halfway between a quiche and a savoury cake… Feel free to leave out the ham for a vegetarian version. This is quick, easy, makes loads and can easily be the main item at a dinner party.
Fusion
This is more or less nabbed from Yotam Ottolenghi’s fantastic book, Jerusalem – grab a copy if you don’t have one yet, it’s a stunner.
The sweet, ripe figs and baked sweet potato work together so well, I’m surprised this isn’t a kitchen staple in every household. Apart from being very pretty, this dish is easy to whip and and extremely delicious.
Fusion
Simple delicious food; roasted veggies with some fun toppings.
Pretty much nabbed from one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbooks, NOPI, with a few personal touches.