Pollo Pibil (steamed chicken parcels)

In Mexico, apparently, these parcels (banana leaves rather than foil) are cooked in a hole in the ground filled with fire-heated stones covered with wet leaves – we have no idea how close our version comes to that sort of treatment, but the marinade produced a delicious mouthful in my view.

Marinade:

3 cloves Garlic

60 ml Orange juice

½ tsp Turmeric

2 tsp Black Pepper

1 tsp Allspice

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Oregano

4 Chicken breasts, each cut into 4 equal pieces

Put juice and garlic in a blender and whizz, add spices and herbs and whizz to mix.  Pour over chicken and marinate for 1 hour.  Wrap pieces separately in foil, folding to seal well.  Steam in a single layer for approximately 15 minutes.

Tod man (Thai fish cakes)

These are strangely meaty little morsels – the flavour is best if you can source the proper ingredients, as substitutes don’t really cut it.  Having said that, I have no idea what fish they would use in Thailand, but almost certainly not coley which is what I strongly recommend – it is not particularly pretty, and you need to trim it carefully to remove the tough fibres near the tail, but its flavour is wonderful and it’s very economical!

Marinade:

1 Shallot

1” fresh Ginger

½ stalk Lemon Grass (remove tough outer leaves)

Small bunch fresh Coriander, preferably with some roots attached

2 cloves Garlic

2 Kaffir Lime leaves

1 Tbsp Nam Pla (fish sauce)

1lb white Fish (try Coley)

2 Long Beans, finely chopped

Freshly ground Black Pepper

Groundnut oil for frying

Trim and roughly chop fish.  Process marinade and pour over fish, leave 30 minutes.  Now process fish and all of marinade in batches to a coarse mixture, before stirring in long beans and black pepper.

Heat a frying pan to medium heat, add a little groundnut oil.  Take small pinches of the mixture and roll into a ball (small walnut size), put into pan with plenty of space around and flatten to a disc ½cm thick.  Fry 1½ minutes each side, then transfer to kitchen paper to drain.  They can be served hot or cold.

Asopao (vegetable and rice “stew”)

This recipe comes from Puerto Rica in the Caribbean, and the name means something like “soupy”, which suggests a rather sloppy consistency – we did our best but in large quantities only managed something rather stodgy!  Hope you have better luck.

2 medium Onions, chopped

1 large Green Pepper, chopped

2 cloves Garlic, finely chopped

2 Tbsp Olive oil

250g Rough chopped Passata

Salt & pepper

500g Rice (long grain – I always use Thai jasmine rice, because it is very well-tempered)

250ml Vegetable stock (approx – add carefully and judge what you need, bearing in mind that you are going for “soupy”)

80g frozen Peas, defrosted

12 Green Olives

Sweat onions and peppers in oil until soft, add garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes.  Now add the passata and cook until it starts to thicken, season with salt and pepper.  Stir in rice, then add the stock and cook until the rice is tender, about 15-20 minutes.  Finally stir in the peas and olives and allow to warm through before serving.  (serves 8ish)

Arepas (corn and cheese patties)

These corn cakes come from Colombia and Venezuela – the book where we found a recipe says that the cheese, chilli and sugar are not necessary, but frankly without them they are pretty dull!  The cheeses called for were Mexican queso fresco and Monterey Jack – we experimented and substituted cottage cheese and medium cheddar respectively.  They also suggested substituting semolina for the cornmeal, but we tried that and it made them rather solid and did not improve the flavour, either.

8 oz frozen Sweetcorn

7 oz fine Cornmeal (polenta, for example)

11 oz Cottage Cheese

5 oz grated medium Cheddar

1 tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Salt (or to taste)

3 Tbsp icing Sugar

2 fresh Red Chillies, seeded and finely chopped

6 Tbsp Milk + 1 Tbsp hot water

Corn oil

Process sweetcorn until fine-ish and transfer to a bowl.  Mix in cornmeal, cheeses, baking powder, salt, sugar and chillies.  Mix milk and hot water and then add gradually to get a stiff dough – avoid making it too sticky or it will be difficult to handle.

We used a cast-iron girdle to cook our arepas, but a heavy frying pan will do.  pre-heat it to medium and brush sparingly with corn oil.  Take golf-ball-sized lumps of dough and shape into flat discs about 1½ inches across and ½ inch thick.  Pop into pan well spaced, and cook about 3 minutes until golden.  When you flip them over use the spatula to squash them so they become thinner and wider, cook for a further 2 minutes.

Caribbean Cocktail

This is really a sort of punch, rather than a cocktail, that is to say fruity and not over-alcoholic.

3 parts Pineapple juice

2 parts dark Rum

2 parts Lime juice

6 parts Lemonade

A few drops Angostura bitters, to taste

A little Castor Sugar, if desired

Ground Nutmeg to serve (optional)

Put a generous pile of ice in a jug and pour ingredients over – serve in tall glasses sprinkled with a little ground nutmeg.

Pakoras (mixed vegetable fritters)

These vegetable fritters are to be found on the city streets of India – I chose red and orange peppers, aubergine, and slightly surprisingly broccoli, but you can use any vegetables you like, such as cauliflower, potato skins, courgettes or green peppers.  Try to cut the pieces to be similar sizes so they will cook evenly, and not too small.

Batter:

(more than enough for a large aubergine, 3 peppers and two heads of broccoli cut into florets)

225g Chick Pea (gram) flour

1 tsp Cayenne

1 tsp Salt

Pinch of Turmeric

½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Put ingredients into a large bowl and stir with a whisk (this is easier than sifting!).  Slowly add 300ml of cold water, whisking as you go.  This will produce a thick batter, like double cream, but I prefer to add a little more water (up to 120ml) to get single cream.

Two thirds fill a deep saucepan with oil – I like groundnut, but you could use sunflower or oil-lake, but not olive because the flavour is too strong and wrong in my view.  Heat over medium, until a bread cube turns golden when dropped in.  Try to bring the batter alongside the pan, dip individual pieces of veg in the batter and then slip into the oil – do enough to fill the pan without overcrowding.  You will have to judge for yourself when they are cooked (it is easier if you do one type of veg at a time) but it only takes a few minutes – I like the broccoli to get quite crispy, but it’s all a matter of taste.

Serve hot – you could sprinkle the pakoras with salt and black pepper, extra chilli, sesame seeds or kalonji (black onion seeds) if you like.

Twice-fried Plantains

This is another Caribbean recipe, possibly not quite worth the effort in my view, but included for completeness’ sake!

2 or 3 large Plantains, still greenish

Groundnut oil for frying (though this is one where you can get away with olive oil

Salt for serving

Skin plantains with a stainless steel knife and cut into 1½cm thick slices.  In a frying pan heat a thinnish layer of oil to medium heat; put in enough slices to cover the bottom in a single layer and fry for 3-4 minutes until golden, turn and cook the other side for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a plate covered with kitchen paper to drain.  Do all the slices in this way, adding more oil if necessary.

When they are all first-cooked, turn the heat up slightly.  Now put some slices on a board and squish down so they become ½cm thick, then put back in the pan – this time cook until they pick up some brown, and possibly become slightly crispy before transferring to kitchen paper again.  Sprinkle with a little salt to serve, and you could add a little cayenne or paprika.

Chicken Satay

Skewers of marinated, grilled chicken are common throughout the Far East, and I’m sure lots of countries would claim them as their own, but I’m not going to get involved in that debate.  They are traditionally served with a peanut sauce, but not marinated or cooked in it – I decided that given the conditions in which we were labouring I would make a peanut sambal (a recipe I have been using for many years and can’t remember where I found it), thin it slightly and spoon over before sending them out – it would probably work better if you served them with the normal thick version for people to pinch.

4 Chicken breasts

Groundnut oil for brushing

Slice chicken breast into long strips and cover with the spice paste – leave for at least one hour then thread onto bamboo skewers lengthwise.  Heat the grill to hot, brush satay with oil and grill until golden, turning once.

Peanut Sambal:

2½ Tbsp Shoyu, or best quality soy sauce + 3 Tbsp Water

Juice and zest of a Lime

3 crushed cloves of Garlic

2-3 green Chillies, to taste (or ½-1 tsp Cayenne)

1 Tbsp dark brown Sugar

2 heaped Tbsp Crunchy Peanut Butter

Put in blender in this order and whizz!

Souvlaki (flat breads filled with roasted lamb and hummus)

This recipe is based on a Lebanese dish rather than the more familiar Greek one – you could add tabbouleh and salad when serving, or do our vegetarian option of salad and hummus, the really essential part being the flatbread wrapping which allows you to eat it on the street.

This is not a detailed recipe: we used legs of lamb spiked with garlic and with olive oil and lemon poured over, roasted until it was just cooked pink.  The hummus was made with tinned chick peas, olive oil, a little crushed garlic and some lemon juice whizzed up in the food processor.  Quantities for all this is a matter of personal preference – play about and enjoy yourself.

Jerk Pork (barbecued pork steaks)

Jamaican jerk seasoning is pretty well known these days, and the idea of adding it to our menu came from a casual friend who said “oh yes, that will be easy, there must be lots of recipes about.”  Well, there are a fair number, but most of them say “add jerk seasoning” which I found less than helpful.  I don’t much like that sort of commercial spice blend because they tend to be rather bland (whilst also tending towards the over-hot in the chilli sense), so in the end we used the only one I could find that gave all the basic ingredients, and feedback on the night suggested that it’s pretty good!

Oh, a brief note on ketchup: in my opinion you should avoid really cheap ketchup because it often has extra spices added, particularly cinnamon for some reason, which can unbalance the other flavours.

¼ cup Tomato Ketchup

¼ cup Lime juice

2 Tbsp dark Soy sauce

1 Tbsp brown Sugar

1 tsp coarsely ground Black Pepper

1 tsp ground Allspice

½ tsp Chilli powder

3 cloves Garlic, crushed

½ tsp Salt