Recipes

Slow cooked Mud crab curry from Sri Lanka.

In the Jamaican tradition of having a good, this dish is party food. Best served right away with a refreshing beverage. Have some napkins ready because you are about to get sticky fingers.

Prawns sauteed in butter, garlic, chilli. Flambe with Sambuca, dressed with ground espresso beans. Served with fresh bread.

A tangy spicy chutney anyone will love.

Pasulj is a special filling soup my mum makes. It is a traditional Serbian dish. There are a number of variations to the basic theme, so feel free to add other vegetables not mentioned in the recipe.

Cucumber salad to accompany other cooked meat dishes or baked potatoes in summer.

This is a quick and delicious vegan recipe. I usually make this when I have very limited time – it is usually prepared and cooked in less than 30 minutes.

Cambodia’s staple dish is one of a kind. Its delicate and complex spiced flavour is so memorable.

This is one of the most popular desserts in Cambodia. The locals enjoy this refreshing dessert after their lunch or in the evening. This dessert is commonly found at street stalls around Phnom Penh. Cambodians also consume the green mung bean dessert as a way to beat the heat.

Delicious, spicy, ginger prawns!

This recipe is based on one from Tudor times and the buns are not as airy and fluffy as most commercially available buns. If you don’t like crystallised peel use diced dried apricot or sultanas. It is a mildly spiced mixture and if you like your buns spicy you could add an extra half teaspoon each of mixed spice and cinnamon.

This mixture makes 12. I usually double it, as the buns are delicious toasted if they become a little stale.

A thoroughly Aussie dish!

The heart and soul of Lao food is undoubtedly sticky rice. Sticky rice is eaten by taking a large ball in the non-preferred hand, breaking off smaller balls with the other hand and making an indent into the little ball with the thumb between the first two fingers. This texturally chewy sticky glutinous rice is then used to dip, scrape and pick at everything that is on offer. Lao people start by dipping their rice into a condiment or sauce before tucking into what is on offer, generally consisting of a soup and 3-4 other dishes. Larb is a dish often eaten with sticky rice, a dish that all Lao people know and can be tailored to suit an individual’s palate. Larb can be made with any protein, be it chicken, duck, beef or fish. This is a family recipe and has been handed down from many generations to my father and now me. I cook this regularly with my parents and the thought of not sharing this recipe would go against the values I was brought up with, so here it is.

Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking: 30 minutes
Serves 4

Putting a Georgian family feast together is a pretty serious business and everybody gets involved. Badrijani is actually one of dad’s responsibilities for such occasions and it was one of the first dishes I used to help him prepare for family feasts. I loved monitoring the eggplant slices in the pan and flipping them when they were ready (sneaking a couple when no one was looking). You could say this was one of the catalysts for my love of food. Incidentally, it was also my first audition dish for Masterchef, so I guess it holds a lot of significance for me on many accounts.

A delicious, light recipe!

One of my favourite Italian dishes.

This recipe is so simple it only has 2 steps. Its simplicity relies on quality ingredients though. If you’re having trouble getting crab you can replace it with prawns.

Delicious Hungarian Cabbage Rolls.

I made this pasta because the broad beans at the markets were so inviting that I just had to pick up a handful. Quick, easy and absolutely delicious, this will be a party favourite and a perfect addition to your pasta repertoire.

A fragrant Thai chicken and coconut soup.

A simple and tasty pasta dish.