Creole jambalaya for the credit crunch

Thinking of you, US of A, with your Freddie Mac, and your Fanny Mae. I’m no Du Fu. But seriously, since food-inflation has neared 10% in the UK, our household has only been eating meat every second night. We also eat a lot of cured pork, which is cheap because it goes farther in smaller [...]

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Tamil Rice and Yogurt Salad

Thayir sadam, or (yogurt) curd rice, is a delicious chilled rice dish common throughout southern India, and it is a great strategy for preserving leftover rice for the next meal. Thayir sadam can be made quite thick and chunky, as I have here, or mashed to the pudding stage, or thinned with milk through to [...]

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Nicaraguan Red Beans and Rice

Gallo Pinto is the speckled rooster, the omnipresent beans-and-rice dish for Nicaraguans, a comfort of every day, sometimes at more meals than one. Nextdoor, the Costa Ricans have a speckled rooster of a different colour, made with black beans, but the red rooster belongs to Nicaragua. Unlike a pilaf, the rice in this dish is [...]

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Uzbek Plov

Plov, the Uzbek pilaf and unofficial national dish of Uzbekistan, comes in many versions, but it is usually rich with meat, sweet with a great deal of onion and shredded carrot, and spiced heavily with cumin. But many additions are possible, and everyone’s grandfather makes the best. Although not the traditional rice, basmati works well [...]

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