290. Spice up your cooking by adding at least one ethnic dish to your table now and again. The key to doing this successfully lies in making sure your ethnic dish complements or contrasts the other flavor notes at the table.
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365 Cooking Tips & Tricks Every Cook Needs To Know
291. For wafer-thin pierogy dough, add eggs. (The fashion in North America is to make pierogy dough without them, but this is not traditional.) Roll out between flour-dusted parchment paper. Separate rounds with parchment paper strips or squares. Chill and re-roll a couple of passes before filling.
292. For a Mexican kick, marinade pork roast or tenderloins overnight in ½ cup of tequila mixed with 1 ½ cups orange juice. Add chili powder, garlic and honey, along with cracked black pepper. Barbecue or roast.
293. Cook beef with rice vinegar, green onions and ginger for a quick Chinese dish. Reduce sauce and serve over rice.
294. Turn left-over rice into perfect Chinese fried rice by sautéing finely-chopped scallions briefly, then adding your rice. Sauté for a few minutes more, and add a dash of tamari or soy sauce.
295. Tofu makes a wonderful main source of protein, as well as being versatile in appetizers and desserts. Tofu absorbs flavors beautifully – nothing can beat simple tofu cubes sautéed in tamari sauce and sprinkled with lightly toasted sesame seeds. Coconut milk, oyster sauce (hoisin) and ginger are ways to give tofu a real kick.
And if you want it to take on a Tai note, combine your tofu recipe with a tablespoon or two of natural peanut butter.
296. To turn meatballs and gravy into Swedish meatballs and gravy, add a small pinch of ginger powder to your meatballs, mix with fine breadcrumbs and other seasonings of your choice – but, most importantly, stir heavy cream into your gravy.
297. Eggs, milk, sugar, flour, salt and butter are all you need to make Swedish pancakes. These are like thin crêpes, so make like ordinary pancakes, but add enough milk to form a thin batter that just drizzles off the spoon. Pre-heat an oiled, heavy, medium frying pan and add ½ cup batter in the center when your oil is sizzling. (Test with a drop of batter first.) The trick to creating perfect, thin pancakes lies in picking up the pan as soon as you’ve added the batter, and moving the pan in a circular motion to swirl the batter.
298. When making crêpes or thin pancakes of any nationality, note that the fillings or garnishes are often what gives it a distinctive ethnic flavor – the basic crêpe recipe is often quite similar. For Swedish pancakes, fill or top with lingonberries or lingonberry preserve; for Eastern European pancakes, fill with plum or strawberries and use sour cream as a garnish; for Austrian or German pancakes, fill with almonds, raisin and apple.
For traditional English pancakes, roll up your crêpe (with or without a light spread of strawberry jam first) and sprinkle with plain sugar and lemon juice. In all cultures, fillings or garnishes are varied and seasonal, and can be savory or sweet; a light dessert, breakfast, or a main meal – so don’t be afraid to experiment.
299. When you make ethnic pancakes, pay attention to the cream you use as a garnish. For example, English or Scottish pancakes go well with strawberry jam and clotted cream (for clotted cream, buy heavy Devonshire cream in cans or bottles). Eastern European pancakes are often served with sour cream. And Scandinavian pancakes are usually served with fruit and ice cream or whipped cream.
300. Adding an ethnic soup to your dinner party menu can be a fun way to introduce your guests to new flavors.
Adding barley, leeks, peppercorns and a bay leaf to a simple chicken soup gives you Scottish Cock-a-Leekie soup. Adding a dash of soy sauce and finely-chopped spring onions to simple beef broth (and dropping in beads of beaten egg) creates quick Chinese egg-drop soup.
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365 Cooking Tips & Tricks Every Cook Needs To Know
Making borscht with red beets added gives you traditional Polish barszcz, whereas cabbage, potato and tomato borscht gives you the better-known Russian borscht. Serving meat, mushroom or cabbage pierogy with Polish barszcz gives you a key component of the traditional Christmas Eve feast. (You put them in the soup). And sour cream is always a traditional go-with for any type of borscht. (Serve it on the side for those who don’t like sour cream.)
301. If you want to add an authentic Italian note to your meal, serve a light pasta course before your main meat course and finish off with the salad – don’t serve your salad first.
302. Use peanut oil to give any Chinese dish a Thai flavor. Add lime juice, if the recipe allows it.
303. Traditional British shortbread is made with rice flour, and tends to be thick but light and firm.
304. Irish soda bread is a quickbread – and it is delicious with stews. Baking soda and buttermilk replace the yeast; and currants are often added, if it’s to be a sweet bread. You can make basic soda bread quickly by combining 1½ cups unbleached flour, ½ tsp. each of salt and baking soda and ½ pint buttermilk.
Turn out on a lightly-floured board and knead for a few minutes. Form into a rough, round loaf. Cut a cross shape on top of the bread. Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F. When you take your loaf out of the oven, it should sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Cool it on a wire rack. Eat the same day.
305. If you can get breadfruit in your local market, consider making a Jamaican fruit cake for the holiday season for a delicious difference. (There are plenty of recipes online.)
306. To make Jamaican Jerk Chicken, buy Jerk Rub seasoning. Cut a lime in half and rub your chicken pieces with it. Rub in coarse sea salt and your Jerk Rub seasoning. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, either bake it in a 375°F oven or grill it on medium-high on a preheated barbecue grill.
307. If your dinner guests aren’t into wines, buy authentic soft drinks to serve with your ethnic dishes from the Ethnic or Imported Foods section of your food store: Ting for Jamaican dishes; Barr’s Irn Bru for Scottish meals and Coconut milk or juice for any Asian or Caribbean meal.
308. If you are planning to serve an ethnic meal to new in-laws or guests from another country from their homeland, keep it low-key. Cook in the style they are used to, or with meats or methods they are used to, but don’t present it as their traditional dish:
There are myriads of variations in single dishes from village to village, region to region. To insist that you are serving traditional dishes is to invite comparison and criticism in many cultures, rather than praise. And remember that in general, the older the guest, the more rigid (and likely) the comparison. (Just be yourself – and serve the dishes you make best!)