Salsa macha — “Sauce for the brave, los machos, real men…?” It doesn’t go down so well for an origin story, does it? Gratefully, there’s another one. Salsa macha, as ‘ground sauce’, from the word ‘machacar’ — to grind — usually in a molcajete. From unknown origin in the south of Mexico, specifically in the neighbouring…
I’ve always loved chicken fillet rolls. When I was in my early teens, I used to always go to the car wash with my dad on Sundays – he would buy the papers and a couple of sausage rolls, and I would always get a chicken fillet roll. It always had the same fillings: plain…
This was a big one at Mangal 2 during the COVID-19 pandemic: the mackerel pide pretty much kept the restaurant financially afloat for two whole months. Five years on, here’s the recipe for you. Serves 4 Mackerel Pide 4 Mackerel fillets (pinboned or V-cut and dried in the fridge for 24 hours)1 Turkish pide or large focaccia1…
The fact that there is so much vitriol online is a given these days. That the majority of it is directed at upma (from time to time), a quick-to-make savoury breakfast dish, is undeserved. Talk about it to any South Indian child (or adult) and the response is the same: slander and hate about its…
My parents divorced 20 years ago and to this day whenever I speak to my dad he asks me for my mother’s recipe for pastel Azteca (Aztec cake). My mother, on the other hand, barely remembers ever making it, or even eating one for that matter. What’s more, unfortunately she threw away her old recipe…
I can tell you about my life in rice: I eat too much of it. My phone is filled with photos and videos of fluffy biryanis, homely pulaos, gloopy risotto, sweet payasam, kanji, stir-fries, dosais, idlis, idiyappam, kozhukattai, aval, bhel puri, and just about every rice dish I hold dear. But more and more, it…
This is my British barbecue take on Afghanistan’s national dish. Merging British flavour profiles and ingredients with traditional Afghan recipes which are replete with complementary aromatics. My take replaces the steamed meat with low and slow Texan barbecue methods, twisting the culinary arts on their head and bashing them together to pay homage to the…
This is a Malay dish famous in Kota Kinabalu, a coastal city in East Malaysia. Asam Pedas translates to ‘sour and spicy’ and is best known as a fish curry, with modern variations using okra, aubergine, and pineapple. However, I have only really seen the oxtail version cooked in that region. The main difference with…