Niamh

Those are some of the prettiest latkes I've ever seen.

Photo of two gözleme on a cutting board. They are squarish turnovers with a nicely browned surface that looks thin enough to just see a hint of the spinach and feta filling within.

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Gözleme, stuffed flatbread from Türkiye, often sold as a street food. These ones are filled with spinach, herbs and feta. They're incredibly tasty and the dough is surprisingly easy to work with. Definitely recommended! Recipe from: silkroadrecipes.com/gozleme-turk...

Ugh. Autocorrect. That should be "pulao" not "pulso".

Photo of a bowl of Dahi Aloo (potatoes in a spiced yogurt sauce) with a smaller bowl of Matar Pulao (spiced basmati rice with peas). The yogurt sauce is a nice yellow with small pieces of potato just visible in it. It's garnished with chopped cilantro. The Matar Pulao looks like fluffy basmati rice with peas.

Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Dahi Aloo with Matar Pulso - potatoes in a spiced yogurt sauce with basmati rice and peas. Delicious double carbs from North India. Satisfying, filling and super flavorful. Recipes: www.vegrecipesofindia.com/dahi-aloo-re... and www.vegrecipesofindia.com/matar-pulao-...

That's fascinating - I've made Chinese congee before but I'll have to investigate the Indian version.

I don't think the 'brining' really did much - it's too fast to really have much impact, but I marinaded overnight and that definitely contributed a lot to the flavour.

Photo of a bowl of Cape Verdean Can a, a chicken soup with rice, potatoes, carrots, onion and tomato. The soup is a deep orange colour and has pieces of shredded chicken visible. It's garnished with a generous amount of chopped parsley.

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Canja, chicken soup from Cape Verde. I love the variation in chicken soups across the world. This one's delicious, flavorful and substantial from the rice and potatoes. Not the quickest dish, but worth taking the time to make. Recipe from: www.crumbsnatched.com/canja-de-gal...

Actually abkhazura, which are a type of meatball from Georgia (the country, not the US state). They were really good! I do a whole international food thing here when I'm not just making meatloaf.

I don't want to misrepresent myself, but I also don't really feel the sneering smugness that some English people seem to enjoy in believing that calling it a pavement instead of a sidewalk is the primary marker of moral superiority. But also, maybe sounding more British would be kind of adorable?

I think I started doing that because I'm aware that the audience here is mostly American and even people with English as a second language are likely to have more exposure to American English than British English and I want to communicate with the widest possible group. But it does feel a bit weird.

Something I've noticed I do on here is type in a transatlantic accent. Like, I use British spelling for words like colour or favour, but I tend to say "ground beef" instead of "minced beef", "cilantro" instead of "coriander" and "eggplant" instead of "aubergine" and probably others.

Oh wow, that looks super delicious.

Photo of a gochujang meatloaf with a couple of slices cut. The meatloaf is speckled with very finely minced veg, including onion, carrot, tomato, red chilli and scallions and has a deep red and very shiny gochujang glaze.

I had leftover ground beef and pork from making meatballs the other day, so I made a meatloaf. Inspired by www.thekitchn.com/gochujang-me... it has whatever veg I had handy and could be bothered to mince plus a gochujang glaze. It's meaty, spicy and savoury in really delightful ways. 🍜🍽️

Photo of a bowl of Bharli Vangi next to some rolle chapattis. The Bharli Vangi has three small long, thin eggplants which have been cut open and stuffed with a paste of coconut, peanuts and sesame seeds. They're in a thick yellow gravy and garnished with consider l cilantro.

Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Bharli Vangi, stuffed baby eggplants in a coconut and peanut gravy from the Maharashtra region of India. Served here with (store bought) chapattis. A rich, filling and tasty vegan dish. Recipe from: www.vegrecipesofindia.com/bharli-vangi...

I've learned to enjoy liver and raw tomatoes over the last couple of years. I'd never have believed I'd be happy to have those on my plate, but I thought bananas would be a step too far. Apparently not. Next, I wonder if I'd enjoy a riper banana. Where's the line between nice and disgusting for me?

It was pleasantly starchy and mildly sweet, with a bit more intense sweetness towards the middle. The texture was soft but not slimy. Whatever banana flavour that I've found disgusting in the past simply wasn't there. In fact, there really wasn't much flavor. I think I'd even say that I enjoyed it.

Since trying and enjoying cooked green bananas, I've been wondering if I might now be OK with uncooked bananas. So I tried my first raw banana in decades. It was on the green side of just ripe. To my surprise, I found it basically inoffensive. I started with a tiny nibble but ate the whole thing.

Photo of a plate of Abkhazura on elarji. Three golf-ball-sized meatballs served on top of cheesy cornmeal. A little pomegranate gravy has been spooned over the meatballs and they're garnished with pomegranate seeds, chopped scallion and cilantro. It looks really pretty!

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Abkhazura with elarji. Meatballs with pomegranate gravy served on cheesy cornmeal from Georgia. One of the prettier plates I've made, I think and the taste matches. I was very happy with this! Recipes from web.archive.org/web/20201129...

The rice cakes, fish cakes and tteokbokki sauce have now been combined into tteokbokki. My first time eating this and now I understand what the fuss is about! Sweet, spicy, savoury and chewy, just super delicious.

Photo of various products on a table including fried fish cakes, tteokbokki sauce, kimchi, tinned dace with black beans, sweet potato noodles and a black ttukbaegi-style earthenware pot.

Photo of various products on a table including dried jujubes, garae-tteok rice cakes, fish sausage, kelp and dried seaweed, gochujang and doenjang, buldak hot sauce, buckwheat noodles, soy sauce, and anchovy and sardine bouillon tablets.

I went to a Korean supermarket today and ended up with quite a haul of ingredients. Really looking forward to cooking some fun things in the future with all of this stuff!

Photo of a bowl of thareed and a plate with a regag flatbread. The stew is a deep yellow color from turmeric and pieces of cauliflower, chicken, carrot and aubergine are visible in the broth. The flatbread has been folded into a quarter circle and looks pleasantly browned on its surface.

Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Emirati-style Thareed, a chicken and vegetable stew, served with regag flatbread. I wasn't sure what to expect from the regag, but it's both easy to make and really delicious. Recipes: dannibindubai.com/emirati-chic... and theodehlicious.com/regag-bread-...

Photo of a bowl of Shurpa - meat and vegetables in a clear broth. You can see pieces of lamb leg, carrot, tomato and green bell pepper as well as very finely cut strands of onion. The broth is almost clear, with just a little colour from the lamb and vegetables. The soup is garnished with some chopped cilantro.

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Shurpa, a central Asian soup with meat (I used lamb) and vegetables. I love the clarity of the broth. This is a really enjoyable soup that feels light and clean, yet filling and very wholesome. Recipe from: arbuz.com/recipes/shur... (including the optional chickpeas).

Photo of a bowl of rajma Chawal - red kidney beans in a highly spiced gravy served with basmati rice. The two components take up the left and right halves of the bowl. The kidney beans look saucy and are topped with some spiced ghee and strands of julienned ginger.

Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Rajma Chawal, a North Indian dish of red kidney beans in spiced gravy with basmati rice. Absolutely delicious, full of spice and flavour. You could make this vegan, but I really like the richness that ghee brings to the dish. Recipe: www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/rajma-recipe...

No worries, I wasn't offended or anything!

This isn't that kind of pâté - but I'm interested - what is it that we all know about it now? Because my local supermarket sells quite a few varieties, so clearly a lot of people are out of the loop on this.

It's definitely a smallish portion! I'm losing weight at the moment, so everything I'm eating is calorie-counted and portion-controlled. This is about 600 calories, so a relatively light dinner. It would absolutely not be difficult to eat a bigger portion, though.

Photo of a plate of Pâté Chinois. A rectangular slice of casserole - only the mashed potato topping is visible, with a somewhat messy squiggle of tomato ketchup. Next to it on the plate is a serving of green beans which have been simply seasoned with a bit of salt and lemon juice.

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Pâté Chinois, a casserole of beef, corn and mashed potato from Canada - a Quebecois version of Hachis Parmentier or cottage pie. Served with green beans. Simple and hearty - I really like the sweetness the corn brings. Recipe from: cinqfourchettes.com/pate-chinois...

Photo of a bowl with a serving of Orek Tempe and rice. The tempeh is cut into rectangles and fried before being mixed into a sauce with kecap manis, chilli, garlic and shallot.

Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Orek Tempe - stir fried tempeh in sauce from Indonesia, served with rice. Delicious - the sauce is everything I want: spicy, salty, sour and sweet. I think this might be my first time eating tempeh - a great intro! Recipe from: myhomediaryinturkey.blogspot.com/2015/11/orek...

Photo of a plate of momo, a kind of filled steamed dumpling. These are intended to be pleated into a pleasing spirally round shape, but I mostly failed at that. They're approximately the right shape. A small bowl of achar, a spicy tomato sauce is also on the plate for dipping.

Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Momos, steamed dumplings from Nepal (these are filled with chicken) served with achar, a spicy tomato sauce. I found these tricky to fold with my homemade wrappers, but they taste great and the achar goes really well with them. Recipe from: nepalrestaurant.co.uk/how-to-make-...

I didn't actually post (or even photograph) the first nineteen dishes I cooked. Maybe I'll go back and repeat some of them. Revisiting things like Bigos, Gözleme, Hongshao Rou, Jambalaya and Larb could be interesting and they were really good!