Courtesy of the University of Florida (totes random, but come onnnn)

In my Gmail drafts folder, I’ve racked up a pretty hefty list of recipes that I stumble upon that I want to try. Here’s a few highlights from my current list. And FYI, because the last couple of posts were pretty non-ethnic, these recipes have an international focus.

Bamya, oven-baked okra and beef stew: This is from my new favorite DC food blog, Eau de Spice. Brenda blogs about Egyptian food among other things, and this recipe captured my heart — so much so that I had to try it out the day I read about it. I’ll say this — it turned out VERY well.

Florence Fabricant’s chicken baked with lentils: There’s nothing like a slow-roasted one pot meal. An adapted recipe by Florence Fabricant (who IS a woman!!!!) on the Wednesday Chef blog.

Baked Iranian Basmati rice with lamb and yogurt: I saw an AWESOME recipe for this in Martha Stewart magazine and was disappointed to find that it was not available on the Web site. I coudn’t bear the idea of actually buying the magazine, so sought out a similar recipe.

Crispy lamb with cumin, scallions and red chilies: At first glance, I thought this was a Middle Eastern dish, but then the more I read the more I realized that it was Asian. So cool. This would be great as a filling for lettuce wraps.

If you want to cook something authentic and ethnic, koshari is your best bet. It’s layers of pasta, rice, lentils and chickpeas smothered with a spicy, tangy tomato sauce and topped with caramelized onions. It’s vegan, it’s cheap to make, it’s super easy to make and it’s effing to die for. And — bonus points — it’s Egypt’s national dish!

So what better way to celebrate your Egyptian heritage than making this dish?

Here’s what you’ll need:

2 c rice, cooked
2 c lentils, cooked
2 c orzo or other short pasta, cooked
2 c chickpeas

Sauce:
1 can tomato sauce
10 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 c vinegar
1/3 c water
1/2 can tomato paste
1 tsp cumin
salt, pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
frying oil
one large onion

Layer the first four ingredients in a deep casserole dish. Set aside. In a pan, gently fry garlic, cumin and red pepper flakes until the garlic is light brown. Do not burn, or you might as well throw everything out.

Pour in the vinegar and simmer for two minutes in low heat. Add in tomato sauce, water and tomato paste, and let simmer for five minutes. Season to taste. Add a little more salt (since you didn’t season the lentils/rice in the casserole).

Ladle sauce over casserole. In another pot, cook the onions over low heat for about 15 minutes until it’s caramelized. Arrange over the top of the casserole.

Et voila — Koshari!

I personally like to eat mine with Greek yogurt, but you can do whatever you want. Many people will disagree with the starches that form the basis for this dish (there’s usually vermicelli noodles, but since I can barely find it in the local Giant, I figured that it was a lost cause), but whatever.

Sinigang really isn’t that special, but for some reason, I loved it. It’s just radish, spinach, tomatoes, eggplant and meat in a sour, fishy broth. Usually, you use pork or fish, but you can also use shrimp or beef.

This is not the kind of food you order at a restaurant. It’s something that you have to eat from home. And every Filipino family has their own recipe for it (I was mortified to discover that my friend Josie’s family uses CORN in her sinigang…WEIRDDDDD!).  So I am happy and proud to finally give you our family’s recipe for SINIGANG. Here we go!

Sinigang is traditionally eaten for breakfast, over sinanag — garlic fried rice. But I never eat it at way. It’s always served for dinner in the winter, over freshly steamed rice.

The flavor base of the soup is tamarind, calamansi and patis. You will never be able to find tamarind here in the States, so don’t bother. And unless your gramma FedExes you calamansi — native Philippine lime — to your DC rowhouse from her garden in SoCal, then you probably won’t find that, either. But you will be able to find Knorr’s Sinigang Tamarind Soup Base from your local Asian store.

But if you seriously can’t find it, email me and I’ll send you a pack. Jeez.

RECIPE:

1 1/2 stewing pork or beef with as much fat on it as possible
1 1/2 pack of Knorr’s sinigang mix
1 bok choy, cut into 2 1/2 in pieces, green part only (or 3 handfuls of spinach)
1 onion, quartered
1 tomato, quartered
2 Japanese eggplants, cut into 1/2 in thick circles
1/2 of a whole daikon radish, cut into 1/2 in thick half-circles
1 siling panigang (umm, sorry I don’t know what this is in English, but to help you out I’ve provided a photo…that’s not very helpful either. Whatever you do, don’t use a Thai chili, it’s too hot for this dish. Use a green pepper that is not so spicy.)
Fish sauce (to taste)

Sawsawan (garnish):
1 tbs fish sauce with lemon or calamansi squeezed into it

Fill a pot with water. Dump the meat, soup base, onions and tomato in. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for an hour and a half until the meat gets really soft. Then, dump in the hard vegetables — the radish and eggplant — and let that cook for about 5 minutes. Then, add in the bok choy and cook for another two minutes. Add fish sauce to taste.

Serve over white rice, using the sawsawan as an accompaniment.

RECIPE:

1 box orzo pasta
1 container feta cheese (THIS REALLY MAKES IT)
1/2 container cherry tomatoes, halved (or sun dried…so much better!)
1 tbs fresh basil, chopped
2 tbs parsley, chopped
cooked sliced zucchini
1 red bell pepper, blistered black on the stove top, plunged into ice water, peeled (the black stuff) and chopped
olives (maybe)
shredded chicken (maybe)

dressing:
2 cloves garlic, minced
balsamic vinegar and olive oil
minced basil
salt
pepper
lemon juice
lemon zest

It’s pretty self explanatory. Mix everything together and serve at room temperature.

Kofta: 1 lb. ground beef, 1/2 onion, 1 tbs minced parsley, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, 4 cloves garlic, minced. Direx: shape into poo-shaped shapes and fry until golden brown.

Chickpeas: 1 can chickpeas, 8 grape tomatoes, 1/2 c tomato sauce, 4 cloves garlic, 1/2 minced onion, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, salt, pepper, olive oil, 1 c water, 1 tbs. cider vinegar Direx: Fry garlic and onions till golden brown in a good bit of olive oil. Add vinegar and simmer for 2 minutes. Add tomato sauce until bubbling. Add remaining ingredients and cook until the chickpeas are tender. You may need more water. Maybe. Or not at all.

Serve this with couscous, sauteed spinach with garlic, and some Greek yogurt (perhaps you can make a very quick tzaziki sauce) and garnish with loads of fresh parsley.

If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will. Probably nothing. Even my friend Jordan, who hates weird food, ate it and liked it.

The portions are indeed small, but jam-packed with flavor. What I ordered then isn’t on the online menu now, so I’ll have to re-describe.

It was something like a fatty cut of grilled duck (mmm) on top of polenta with a red wine sauce. The duck was succulent and perfectly seared, truly a delight, and the polenta, creamy and decadent.

The whole grilled prawns tasted of summer bonfire, and don’t be afraid to rip off its head and suck out the brains (that’s where the flavor is).

I was sad to not have gotten the steamed mussels or the butternut squash soup, but there’s always next time.

Bar Pilar 1833 14th St.
Oh PS I LOVE the website, it’s so cute.

It’s hard to believe that Prague is the home to three Michelin star-winning restaurants, when my experiences with non-Czech food was appalling. I ordered a vegetarian pizza, which shockingly came with frozen peas, corn and carrots. An order of buffalo wings was doused in Thai chili sauce (well, good for the Czech for embracing Mae Ploy).

And horror of horrors: an overcooked pasta puttanesca from a decent-looking Italian restaurant (I won’t disclose which one), was sweet, had WAY too many olives in it and arrived with sliced cheese melted on top of it.

But what the Czech do know how to do is street food and desserts. Sausages were ubiquitous. The apple strudel, waffles with chocolate, crepes, poached pears and apples with ice cream, gelato and fried dough rolled in sugar and cinnamon (sorry, I don’t remember the name, but it was something unpronounceable with three consonants) were divine.

I came to Prague with a list of restaurants that I really wanted to eat at, including one of the Michelin award-winning restaurants, some that Martha Stewart had recommended in her March issue, and a vegetarian restaurant called Radost FX that I swore my best friend I would eat at, and ate at absolutely none of them. Instead, I ate at all the touristy shit places, and touristy shit was certainly what I got.