Join me on a journey…
Is your suitcase or backpack collecting dust and screaming to be pulled out of the closet? Are you itching to purchase flights and book accommodation in a far off land? Dreaming of devouring a new cuisine and a fancy cocktail? Miss stumbling upon musicians playing music along the waterfront or in the town square? With the pandemic still raging and international travel still not advisable/possible, many of us are struggling with an uncomfortable level of wanderlust.
While the future of travel is still uncertain, one thing is certain; there are ways you can travel without ever stepping on an airplane (or a train or a bus…)! Every time I write about a spice I write about a place and finish the post with recipes for you to try. Rather than writing about another spice this month, I’ve decided to write more explicitly about how I’ve been bringing the world to my home each week with the hope that I inspire you to do the same. I don’t mean grabbing takeout from your local Thai, Japanese, Mexican, or other ethnic restaurant and eating it at home. I’m all for supporting the local restaurant industry, especially during the pandemic, but there’s something special about cooking a dish that you’ve only eaten at a restaurant either in your home city or abroad.
For the past couple of months, every Tuesday my partner and I embark on a culinary adventure that takes us far from San Francisco. Our weekly trip has given me something to regularly look forward to. A rarity during this pandemic. Although the thought of making a big dinner that could potentially involve many ingredients and new spices and flavors may seem daunting to you, I assure you that it is possible for you to embark on a similar journey! If you’re ready for an exciting adventure, all you have to do is follow these steps:
1. Choose A Location
A few days before our trip we decide on which cuisine to make. We’ve traveled a lot independently of each other and have visited many of the same countries. I think we’re both really missing travel so we often tell each other stories from our experiences in different places. Somehow, by the time the weekend comes, we’re able to easily decide on what country we should visit that week. Eating is a huge part of travel for me so if I talk about a place long enough, I’ll inevitably start craving the food from there. You can also create an entirely new experience by choosing to make a dish from somewhere you’ve never been! You can travel far or near, it’s up to you! A couple of weeks ago we decided to make jambalaya since we had been talking about New Orleans. Be sure to pick a country, not a continent. Knowing the country will make finding a recipe much easier.
2. Find A Recipe
You don’t need cookbooks from around the world to find a recipe. However, if you do have cookbooks that focus on dishes from a specific area, you might be able to find something there. No cookbook, no worries! The internet is a wonderful resource! If you already have a dish in mind, finding a recipe is easy. For Thailand, we decided that our favorite dish is Pad Thai so we searched for a recipe. I like to find a few different recipes and compare them to see which appears least complicated without sacrificing ingredients. If you don’t know of a dish but know you want to go to Thailand, then start Googling! “Thai recipes” or “best Thai recipes to make” are two examples to guide your search. Hopefully you’ll learn something about the culture and cuisine in the process. I like to search for recipes on Pinterest. I’ve created a Pinterest board, “Culinary Adventures”, for our weekly adventures and pin every recipe we end up using so we can refer back to it if we ever want to make the dish again or just reminisce about our culinary journey. Feel free to follow along @ygilon!
3. Shop for Ingredients
This is the first step of the adventure since it requires you to expand upon your usual shopping routine. This might be the most complicated or daunting step, but don’t let it stop you! Since you’ll be cooking international cuisine, you’re going to need some spices! Take stock of the spices you have and buy ones you don’t have. If you don’t already have oregano – popular in Greek and Italian dishes, cumin – popular in Middle Eastern and Indian dishes, cinnamon – popular in Moroccan dishes, or turmeric – popular in Indian dishes, read my accompanying blog posts and then buy them! You’ll quickly notice that the same group of spices are used in a particular cuisine. For example, the aloo gobi and chicken tikka masala we recently made had the same core group of spices: garam masala, turmeric, cumin, coriander, and chili powder. Once you take a look at the ingredients for a particular dish and determine what you already have at home, make a shopping list based on your recipe. Since we usually shop separately we use the notes function on the iPhone to create a checklist of ingredients that is shared between us. When he or I buys an ingredient we check it off the list.
Depending on what you’re making, you may end up having to buy ingredients you’ve never heard of before. Think of this step as a necessity and an investment. If you continue with this journey, you’ll inevitably end up using the items again. For example, if you’ve never made an Asian dish before then most likely you’re going to have to buy quite a few sauces – soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce to name a few. If you live in a diverse area where Asian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern markets exist, start there for items such as tamarind paste, an ingredient in Pad Thai, or kaffir lime leaves, an ingredient in a Cambodian dish called Amok. If you don’t have access to such markets, then check your local market and if you plan ahead enough you might be able to shop online for them.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you look, you may not find an ingredient. Kaffir lime leaves threw me for a loop and led me to a handful of Asian markets only to end up without them. I live in an area with a large population of people from all over Asia so I was lucky and only had to walk a few blocks to the different markets. Once I exhausted those, I called a few grocery stores and asked if they had the leaves. No luck. Since it was the only ingredient I couldn’t find, I decided not to abandon the dish. Leaving one ingredient out won’t completely ruin the dish, unless of course it’s a main ingredient like the meat. Plus, I had an amok spice mix that I had brought back from Cambodia when I went there a few years ago so I figured the dish was as authentic as it could be. A friend later mentioned to me that Thai dishes often have kaffir lime leaves in them and I could have tried going to a Thai restaurant and asking for some. Brilliant idea!
4. Prepare the Meal
Check your recipe to make sure you don’t have to do any significant prepping like marinading or letting yeast rise. If your recipe does call for it, plan that into your schedule for the day. We recently made chicken tikka masala which required the chicken to marinate so I made sure to set aside time to do it earlier in the day. Pull out all of the ingredients, put on some music (maybe an international playlist to put you in the mood), wash your hands and get to work!
If you can enlist a second pair of hands to help you, that’ll save you time. This is especially helpful if you’re traveling during a week night. Plus, in my opinion, it’s always more fun to cook with someone! Having another set of hands also means you’ll have someone to converse with. We end up talking a lot which I really enjoy, but we’ve realized it makes us prep the food a little slower.
If you’re making more than one dish think about what order you should prep and cook them. Last week we made chicken tikka masala, aloo gobi, and naan. We made the naan dough and let it rise while we started prepping the other dishes. We used a pressure cooker to cook the aloo gobi and the stovetop to make the chicken tikka masala. As they were nearing completion, we rolled the naan out and cooked them so they’d be ready and warm with everything else.
5. Eat
This is the fun part! Pull out your cloth napkins and nice silverware, pour a glass of wine or make a cocktail, and serve up your feast. Shout out to my mom who made the gorgeous plates featured in my photos. Here in San Francisco, restaurants are only open for takeout due to the pandemic so these weekly dinners not only help to satiate our wanderlust but they are also the closest we’ll get to the feeling of eating a fancy meal.
If all goes well, your meal should transport you to another place. It may or may not taste like something you’ve had before. It doesn’t matter. Try not to compare it to anything else and just enjoy it for what it is – a trip in the midst of a pandemic without leaving your home!
Tips
- Some recipes will list measurements you’re not familiar with, like grams instead of ounces. Find the appropriate conversion online so that you don’t end up with double the amount of something.
- Beware that if your recipe lists the total time it takes to make the dish, it will take at least double that time. It always takes longer than the recipe says!
- Don’t be afraid to make modifications. If you’re allergic to something or just really don’t like a particular ingredient, search for a different recipe or leave out the item or substitute it for something else.
- If you like cocktails, try finding a cocktail recipe to accompany your meal. We had never made our own cocktails before so we are slowly building up our liquor supply and don’t always make a new cocktail. My favorite so far was the mango margarita we made to accompany our Baja fish tacos.
So where will you go next and what will you eat? Pad Thai in Thailand? Chicken tikka masala in India? Tacos in Mexico? Start planning your next trip and keep me posted by commenting below!