Last year strawbale did a great WFD on really weird foreign recipes (ancient Roman recipes from Apicius), where quantities weren’t even mentioned and the identity of many ingredients is unclear. My foreign recipes aren’t that weird, they’re even written in English — just not by or for Americans.
I’m one of the ever-declining number of Americans who subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper, which constantly increases in cost while decreasing in value. One of the subscriber benefits they offer is a collection of downloadable cookbooks, possibly intended to make up for the defunct printed food section. But they have searched the world over to do this as cheaply as possible, so they’re giving us Australian cookbooks.
This isn’t stated very clearly; in most volumes the masthead is whitewashed with a U.S. publisher's address. I couldn’t miss that quantities of everything were in both ounces and grams. I wonder if there were complaints, because a recent one had an editor’s note to remind US/UK readers that an Australian tablespoon was four teaspoons not three. That’s when I started noticing that recipes called for things like “beef mince” and “rashers of bacon”, and also more Southeast Asian and Pacific Island influences and ingredients than I’m used to.
All the recipes I’ve looked at so far seemed pretty good. OTOH, I’m not going to be trying out their “Mexican” cookbook.
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Chicken Satay
from “BAN Party Plates” — about 20 pieces
½ cup water
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon sambal oelek (chili paste), or Tabasco sauce to taste, optional
1 onion, finely chopped
1 lb boneless chicken breast, cut in 3/4-inch cubes
fresh cilantro leaves
20 wooden skewers
Combine water, peanut butter, honey, soy sauce, lemon juice, ginger, and onion in a bowl. Add chili paste or hot sauce if desired and mix well. Add chicken cubes, stir to coat with the marinade, cover, marinate at least 2 hours.
Soak the wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes, drain. Remove chicken from marinade, put 2 cubes on each skewer. Set aside.
Pour the marinade into a saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes or until somewhat thickened.
Cook the chicken about 10 minutes on bbq grill or under a broiler. Garnish with cilantro, serve dipping sauce on the side.
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I’m doing dinner in the parking lot tonight (Stanford v Utah, 7:30PT), and I’m planning “Wisconsin Soul Food” as pictured at the top. What’s for dinner at your place? Please consider writing about it for a future WFD! Message ninkasi23 to sign up.
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