Updated June 2021
I’m a big fan of slow cooked one-pan meals and roast dinners but enjoy cooking anything except fish! I love “seafood” like crab and lobster which are easy to cook in water. Crayfish, langoustine (Scampi,) scallops and clams, I really love but cooking them seems to make the house smell for days 🙁 I discovered that cooking scallops in milk is awesome and doesn’t make the house smell for days 🙂 I love Octopus and Squid but haven’t yet tried cooking it.
Types of Cuisine That I like or have tried 🙂
I mostly like English type cuisine, not too spicy and not really bland, a nice roast dinner goes down well as does steak n (English) chips, with trimmings but I’m also partial to a “Full English” fry up, bacon, sausage, eggs, black pudding etc. A nice stew or hotpot is always welcome. With regards to steak, it would be 36 day dry cured Angus steak that has been salted (dry brine) overnight or longer but a beef rib or T bone would be a good choice. I also love pork, a nice thick pork chop (on the bone) is awesome as is pork fillet or pork loin steaks. Slow cooked pork shoulder is to die for 🙂
Chinese / Cantonese. I’ve never really done any cooking but love eating it. We treat ourselves to the occasional take-away and I always go for “Chop Suey Special” but I’ve dabbled at stir-fry! I cook “Chinese style” sweet n sour chicken and pork but it never turns out like the “takeaway version” 🙁
Italian. Love it but still think spaghetti is a joke 🙂 Tagliatelle, Penne, spirals etc are easy enough to cook and lasagne is so simple but tasty. Pizza (cheese on toast) is something that you buy to stick in the oven for snacks and I don’t see what all the fuss is about! The Italians are quite pedantic about what sauce you should use for the different Pasta shapes and I recently discovered that “Spag Bol” isn’t an authentic Italian dish, they insist that a bolognese sauce a.k.a ragu should have tagliatelle with it and not spaghetti so it should be “Tag Bol“! I’ve also discovered that the Italians cook the pasta and drain it, then add it to the sauce in the pan to allow it to absorb all the flavours and doing this with penne is wonderful, you get all the meat and sauce in the tubes. It really does make a difference. The Italians add pasta to the sauce and never add the sauce to the pasta and they are so right.
Thia. again I haven’t really done any of this cooking but like a lot of the Thia foods. I’ve tried to do green curries and “pad Thia” but not very successfully 🙁
Mexican. It is just too spicy for me and the “wraps” are a bit of an enigma! I do cook “Chilli con Carni” though but it’s “Hairy Grandad” style 🙂 My grandkids love the “Chilli Bol Stew” that I do. It’s a combination of “Chilli con Carne” and “Bolognese”. Sometimes I play with the “authentic” “Chilli” and add coffee and chocolate – see Coffee and Chocolate Chilli.
Moroccan. I do enjoy cooking a nice lamb tagine and when I get it right, the sweetness and the spicyness sort of merge so that you get the sweet hit to start and then the spicy heat afterwards.
Indian. Can’t say that I’m a fan and don’t cook Indian foods. I find the combination of the spices overpower the taste of the food and the smell of curries makes me heave. Ive often been told by my Asian friends that Tandoori is more traditional but the “Tandoor” is a very hot “oven type” of thing which seems to burn stuff and then the smell of all the spices, cumin, coriander, turmeric etc is like, “no thanks”! Strangely, those same spices work quite well with the Moroccan lamb tagine! I’ve recently had the opportunity to try an authentic “Lamb Dhansak” and a “Rogan Josh”. I was amazed, the taste is awsome, not “hot” but tangy and flavoursome, like a medley of flavours in your mouth. I’ve had a go a cooking these and had a reasonable success. So it would seem I tend to like the “Punjab” cuisines which are very much different to the “typical” Indian cuisines.
Jamaican. Until recently I’ve never even tasted anything from this cuisine but now I’ve tasted it and even experimented with cooking it, I’m hooked! It looks and smells lovely and will hopefully explore more, especially the Goat curry.
Japanese. Apart from the “Raw fish”, I’m very interested in exploring this cuisine . I’ve been impressed with the offerings from Cosmo, who have allowed me to explore a variety of cuisines.
Still much to explore but I’m now game to try anything – except insects 🙂