thefidgetyfoodie

7 delicious things to eat in Brazil

Posted on August 27, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Feijoada – Brazil’s national dish with all the trimmings

I’m not sure if it’s the samba or the caipirinhas but Brazil has always held an allure for me and I found the food scene intoxicating. This is hardly a definitive list, more a top 7 scenario – stay tuned for part 2.

Yes it’s deep fried sushi and yes it works

Deep fried sushi

Did you know that Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan? So the ubiquity of sushi joints was not a surprise. What was a surprise was the, how should I put it… originality of sushi the Brazilians have perfected. Would you like mango in your California roll? What about a strawberry and cream cheese hand roll? Deep fried sushi? All are in scope for the Brazilians. I’d been warned about a signature of Brazilian sushi, the Hot Philadelphia, so naturally had to try it. They start with salmon and rice in nori seaweed. What’s the big deal, right? Well then add cream cheese and deep fry the whole thing. In all fairness it actually tasted delicious, but any sushi connoisseur would surely be shaking their head.

Bolinhos de bacalhau

“Whatever you do DO NOT leave Rio without trying these” said my Brazilian friend Rodrigo. I am never one to ignore a local’s recommendation, particularly when it’s a variation on fish cakes. In his eyes these torpedo shaped patties made from bacalhau (dried and salted cod), potatoes, eggs, parsley and onion are the defining dish of Rio. I must concur he was right as I saw them on almost every table every time I went out to a boteco to drink. When in Rio I did as the Cariocas do so ordered them a number of times and they never disappointed.

Feijoada from the Academia da Cachaca in Leblon, Rio

Feijoada

As Brazil’s national dish this is an obvious addition to the list but given its fame I was surprised at how elusive it was. Sure every buffet had a version (but by definition anything on a buffet table can only reach certain heights) and that was the first time I tried it, but I wanted to try it in its full glory with all the trimmings – and for that you have to track down certain restaurants and eat at certain times, namely Saturday or Sunday lunch.

Succulent cuts of meat along with off cuts in this feijoada

Feijoada is dish of slow cooked black beans stewed with a variety of meaty off cuts, ranging from salted pig’s ears to beef tongue. The traditional accompaniments are rice, farofa (toasted cassava flour), collared greens, bacon and orange to help cut through the richness of the stew. It’s an epic meal and pretty much all you’ll need to eat that day.

Feijoada with rice, farofa, collared greens, bacon and orange

The iconic dish was created by the West African slaves brought to Brazil by the colonial Portuguese but is now considered a dish that feeds the soul of the whole Brazilian population. Just make sure you fast before you eat it. Read More

Memoirs of Russia

Posted on June 11, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Would you like a menu with that?

With the World Cup starting in three days (thanks to work I’ve been counting down for a year) I thought it highly apt to dig back into my Russia files. I’ve raved about the Georgian food in Russia and a brilliant cooking class in Moscow, but what else did I take away from visiting the world’s largest (and often most provocative) country? Well mainly food of course…

A snapshot of Russian history told through vodka.

Vodka
And vodka obviously. Vodka is drunk like water in Russia. So it’s no surprise when you learn that the name stems from the Russian word for water, ‘voda’. It’s everywhere, and I was warned not to buy the dodgy cheap stuff, i.e. 1/2 litre for anything less than 200 Rubles (or about AUD$4.50!). That stuff can actually kill you. The ‘good stuff’ is still a quarter of the price you pay in Australia so what the Russians regard as expensive was still a bargain for me.

And even more vodka…

Naturally I had to check out the Vodka Museum which was a shrine to the stuff and told of its history and the role it has played in society and history. Take the tour and you get a complimentary shot of vodka (for research purposes only of course).

Choose your poison and your fridge.

And it wasn’t uncommon to find a vodka fridge next to a soft drink fridge. Even the Russians need to stay hydrated.

Picking pickles leaves me pickled pink

Pickles
I do love myself a pickle. I took great joy in fishing out pickles from salty brine while in Estonia and was happy to see a similar attitude to pickles in Russia, i.e. bring them out for every meal and feel free to snack on them in between. The pickles always hit the right balance of tartness and sweetness with me, and I even enjoyed the rogue dill fronds that would inevitable be wrapped around each one.

My favourite cranky Russian stall holder and her pickles.

There were entire pickle counters at the food markets where I managed to extract a couple of samples from a perpetually cross looking matron. Then of course there were plenty of tubs filled with homemade pickles lining the streets in smaller towns. I loved how it was entirely acceptable to buy a couple of pickles and eat them as you went about your day. Read More

7 things you must eat in Hawaii

Posted on April 16, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Poke on the beach is about as Hawaiian as you can get.

‘‘Let’s go to Hawaii!’’ exclaimed my excited bestie Katia.

‘‘Umm… really?’’ was my hesitant response. I travel to eat and apart from poke what’s exciting to eat in Hawaii I thought.

‘Just look at all these cool food tours….’ she continued. Well that got my attention. Food tours are one of my all-time favourite activities when travelling (and a key to being a good foodie). I was in.

Tako or octopus poke

And Hawaii did not disappoint. Sure you can easily eat nothing but fast food the whole time (in fact you can do that anywhere). But with a little research and observation, there’s a treasure trove of foods that represent the indigenous Hawaiian traditions interlaced with all the other cultures that have impacted the remote islands since Western settlement including Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese.

Here are 7 things you MUST track down. Read More

17 reasons why I am just like Nigella

Posted on February 4, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Nigella in conversation with Maeve O’Meara at the Opera House

Exactly two years ago I fangirled shamelessly through this post on why I love my foodie hero, Nigella.

Nigella was back in town recently which means I am back in adoration mode. But this time our likenesses really struck me. Time and time again during her two talks (naturally I went to both), I found myself thinking, she’s just like me. Or rather I’m just like her. So here are the 17 reasons why, direct from Nigella herself.

“It’s a long time not to eat. Missing a meal would make me panic.”

This was Nigella’s response to the question ‘Have you tried the 5:2 diet?” and I completely agree with her. I am flummoxed at how people survive for a day on a boiled egg and cup of black coffee and could never, would never do it.

A section of my bulging bookcase of cookbooks

“People would faint at disapproval if they knew how many cookery books I owned.”

I would love to know what number that is. For me it’s 113 and steadily rising. And yes a good chunk of those are Nigella’s books.

“Food shopping is very pleasurable.”

I LOVE food shopping and can spend hours in a supermarket, especially if it’s an international supermarket. Granted I am not shopping for a family of six however the size of my trolley often suggests I am. I remember how much I loved the Thursday night shop with mum when I was little and I take great pleasure in examining produce and products, comparing value and picking up random new finds to have some fun.

“I love salt.”

I love it so much I often commit the culinary sin of salting my food before tasting it. I hope dearly that I’m never put on a low sodium diet, it would be the end of me.

Me eating spanakopita at around 18 months. The only thing that’s really changed is my taste in socks.

“Food memories conjure up feelings of safety, the smells take you back and give comfort.”

My earliest memories all involve food. Hell, ALL my memories involve food. And nothing gives me greater comfort than my yiayia’s cooking, or the smell of a barbeque. ”Food says a lot about identity… we develop bonds through food’ Nigella noted to sociologist Hugh Mackay. One meal with a Greek family is all that’s required to prove this point.

“How do people live without leftovers?”

I live for leftovers. I cook for the aforementioned imaginary family of six and then portion out leftovers for lunch and future dinners. There’s nothing better than arriving home late and tired knowing there is a home cooked meal waiting to be reheated.

“Over half the recipes in this (new) book are vegetarian.”

Nigella noted that despite embracing every food type voraciously, she subconsciously leans towards vegetarian food much of the time and I am quite similar. I love meat but I rarely buy it, for a mix of health, environmental and fiscal reasons. I tend to save juicy steak and pork ribs for restaurant dining and dig into vegetables, seafood, pulses and whole grains at home. Which interestingly enough is a standard Mediterranean diet – perhaps I am more like my Greek islander ancestors than I realise. Read More

My celebrity cooking class in Brazil

Posted on January 20, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

the fidgety foodie_celebrity cooking class in Paraty Brazil

Yara teaches me how to make the iconic Brazilian fish stew, moqueca

One of my favourite experiences in Brazil last year was a cooking class with the Brazilian version of Nigella, Yara Castro Roberts. I was wandering the cobbled streets of Paraty and happened to see the sign for Yara’s school, The Academy of Cooking & Other Pleasures (what a name!) and lucky for me they had a space for that night.

Yara used to have her own Emmy-nominated Brazilian cooking show, and hails from the gastronomic heart of Brazil, Minas Gerais. Along with her American/French husband Richard they operate cooking classes out of their very chic terrace home. But cooking class is really not the right description as we did very little cooking – instead they took us on a historical and cultural journey through the history of Brazil told through food – with plenty of edible reference material along the way. And when I finally left at 1am I had the distinct feeling I’d been dining with friends all evening.

Richard muddles fresh limes for a round of caipirinhas

The night started as many do in Brazil – with caipirinhas. Richard whipped them up on a smart drinks trolley as he started offering background info on Brazilian food. Today’s cuisine is built on three very distinct legs – Indigenous, Portuguese and African. Over time the indigenous ingredients which sustained the native Brazilians have been appropriated by the Portuguese who came to conquer and influenced by the Africans they brought with them to work as slaves.

I didn’t drink all of these caipirinhas, but it was tempting

The key indigenous staple that virtually props up every Brazilian dish is the starchy root manioc – also known as cassava, yucca or tapioca. It’s native to Brazil and has always been essential to the diet. It’s incredibly versatile and can be boiled, baked, steamed, grilled, fried and mashed plus ground into flour and used as a thickening agent. Other popular indigenous ingredients hailing from the Amazon are the superfruit açaí and berry guaraná, used to make energy drinks.

Our entree of farofa-stuffed tomatoes with haloumi

The second leg of Brazilian food comes from the Portuguese, who came to the country looking for gold and never left. They were the first to plant corn which was used to make polenta and introduced a bean concoction which has become the country’s signature dish, feijoada. Not to mention eggy breads and salt cod or bacalao.

Dende is derived from palm trees and used extensively in Brazilian dishes

Yara also talked us through ingredients that came to Brazil via the African slaves, like coconut milk, dende (an extract from the palm tree), palm hearts and okra. These ingredients infiltrate much of the African food that’s still very distinctive in Brazil, especially around Salvador where dishes like acarajé, a fritter made with beans and fried in palm oil, are very popular. Read More

What’s inside a foodie’s pantry – part 2

Posted on October 8, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

My pantry stripped bare

A year or two ago I was mulling over what write about (in this very blog) and did what I always do when I am stalling… opened my pantry.

And therein lay the answer!

I’d been looking for a snack but I realised that the obscure edible delights from around the world that make up the contents of this foodie’s pantry could be a story in themselves.

And as it happens it’s become one of the most popular stories on my blog so clearly I’m not the only culinary voyeur out there.

Last time my pantry held such treasures as Greek mahlepi, pumpkin seed oil and raw liquorice powder.

Fast forward to now and trips to Sweden, Russia, LA, France, Argentina and Brazil have influenced the current selection of pantry items. So let’s take another look inside and see what we can find.

Ambrosia, roesti, chimichurri, cloudberry jam, gold salt

Ambrosia is a Brazilian dessert I discovered in Iguazu Falls this year which I couldn’t get enough of. It’s essentially milk cooked with brown cane sugar and cinnamon sticks so akin to a sweet textured custard. I’ve been eating it from the jar with a spoon and it’s so rich I am forced to stop after a few mouthfuls.

I really love roesti (who doesn’t love fried potatoes?) and it’s always been significant to me as it’s one of the first things I cooked from mum’s cookbooks when I was a little girl. The packaged version is not as good as freshly made but I always buy loads when I’m in Switzerland because I feel it’s more authentic. Although the joke’s on me because looking closely at the packet I see this ‘Swiss Potato Roesti’ was made in Lichtenstein – false advertising!

Chimichurri in action at a parilla in Buenos Aires

I bought the chimichurri in Buenos Aires in April, specifically on this Parrilla food tour. Chimichurri is an icon of Argentina and no Sunday asado is complete without this delicious mix of herbs, peppers and garlic. This particular version was made by the guide’s abuela Caty and according to the label is ‘the best in the country’. No family bias there I’m sure.

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Cloudberry jam or hjortron-sylt

Cloudberries. Again! After devoting not one but two posts to this insanely amazing berry I’ll keep this brief. This particular cloudberry jam was from a street market in Skelleftea, up in Swedish Lapland, the same place I devoured fried camembert with cloudberry jam. Which means I had better buy me some camembert, stat.

Gold salt and pepper to add bling to any meal

Gold salt. Now this is a bit ridiculous and I bought it purely for ostentation. What better to finish off a dish than gold Himalayan salt? I came across this and its cousins – silver pepper, rose gold salt – in St Jean de Luz earlier this year. I was so blinded by the bling I almost walked away with one of each but then talked myself out of it as it would have added a few kilos to my luggage at the starting point of my trip. I can’t wait to add a touch of gold rush to every plate. Read More

Mole, mole, mole

Posted on July 19, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

Mole concentrate from Chiles Secos in LA

The iconic Mexican sauce not the facial adornment of course.

Growing up, mole was the sauce with chocolate (yes, chocolate!!!) that I tried at a few suburban Mexican restaurants and never understood. Was it a dessert or a savoury dish I wondered?? I envisaged a chef breaking up pieces of Cadbury Dairy Milk and adding them to a pot and the whole idea sounded bizarre (although delicious – what dish isn’t improved with chocolate?).

It took a little more culinary maturity before I understood that dark chocolate, with minimal milk solids and fats, was the key ingredient that added a richness and depth to the sauce.

Mexican mole at Mi Lupita in Mexico City

Mole of course means ‘sauce’, so guacamole for instance, literally means avocado sauce. Mole poblano from Puebla is the most famous of all the moles and arguably Mexico’s national dish. Dark chocolate, multiple chili peppers and up to 20 different spices make up this iconic dish. It takes time for the flavours to develop and layer up so it’s usually reserved for special occasions.

Sauce in most cuisines is the accompaniment, playing second fiddle to a piece of meat or other hero ingredient. But not mole. Mole IS the dish. It’s the star of any plate and the chicken or other protein served alongside is merely there to accompany the sauce to the mouth. A plate of sauce with a little pile of chicken on the side is not an uncommon sight.

My obsession with mole really began when I went to Mexico. My (only) preparation for a week in Mexico City was a thorough analysis of the best places to find mole, specifically mole poblano.

The best mole in Mexico City is to be found at Mi Lupita

That’s how I came across Mi Lupita, a little ‘fonda’ or casual restaurant in Centro Histórico that’s been making mole since 1957. It was tiny, with barely six tables and no one that remotely resembled a tourist. Perfect. There I had one of the most memorable dishes of my life: a plate of the house special of mole poblano with chicken on enchiladas.

Mole poblano with chicken on enchiladas at Mi Lupita

Even though I hadn’t tasted every mole in Mexico City, I was sure that this was indeed the best. What could taste better than this? The mole was rich, intense, spicy, smoky, chocolaty. The chicken was lean and the whole dish was topped with onion and grated queso fresco. Further proof shortly arrived at the table next to me. A local food guide was there with four travellers, explaining why Mi Lupita’s mole was the best in the world and I nodded on in agreement.

The mole spice mix selection at Mi Lupita

I overheard the guide mention mole spice mix could be bought to take away and I wanted in. I leant over to ask him how to request it and the first thing he wanted to know was how on earth I’d found this secret little place? It was almost as though I’d ruined his surprise. I may not be a local I told him, but I know how to use google to my advantage!

I left Mi Lupita with half a kilo of mole in a plastic bag with a knot at the top and somehow managed to get it back to Sydney (thankfully they weren’t filming Border Security that day). I had many a delicious meal from that mole base and wished many times I’d brought double, even triple, back home with me. Read More

5 mouth-watering reasons to visit Chile

Posted on June 18, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

One of the many ceviche dishes I enjoyed in Chile

When I told people I was carving out three days of my South American holiday to spend in Chile, specifically Santiago and Valparaiso, they were confused. Aussies need to pass through Santiago to fly home but no one actually steps out of the airport. One friend even coined Santiago as ‘an irrelevancy’.

Well that made me even more determined to go. After all it’s an entirely different country (from Brazil and Argentina where I’d previously been) which meant new ingredients, cooking styles and traditional dishes. There would have to be something new and delicious for me to eat I reasoned. Plus the country produces pisco and I live on pisco sours.

When I landed in Santiago after a few weeks in luminous Brazil, it was raining and cold. People were burrowed under coats, the sky was grim and the fierce rain forced me to take cabs when I otherwise would always walk. It wasn’t a great start. But once I bought a scarf and started to explore, I soon found my foodie groove.

I easily ate a week’s worth of food in three days and these were my highlights.

Another ceviche… this one from a tiny seafood joint in Valparaiso

Ceviche

If I had to live on one dish for the rest of my life, this would be it. I’ve always loved the zing and wholesomeness of a good ceviche, and appreciate how uncomplicated it is. As a country that’s all coastline, Chile excels in fresh and delicious seafood, including many species of fish you can’t get elsewhere.

I ate ceviche in a little seafood joint in Valparaiso, at a pokey little stall in the fish markets and in a seafood restaurant and every time it was on point. Never too fancy, never overloaded with ingredients, just fresh slivers of fish and maybe prawn, heavy with the weight of the citrus it had soaked up to ‘cook’ the fish, and peppered with chili, garlic, red pepper, red onion and a sprinkling of coriander. Sensational every time.

A classic pisco sour from Chpe Libre

Pisco sour

I have single handedly increased pisco distribution amongst Sydney bars. I’ve learnt that if you badger a bartender enough they will eventually start stocking your favourite spirit and making your favourite cocktail. Of course I didn’t have that problem in Chile as it’s the national tipple.

Christopher makes me (another) pisco sour

My favourite pisco bar was Chpe Libre (Chpe coming from a merging of ‘Chile’ and ‘Peru’) which called itself the Républica Independiente del Pisco, i.e. the imaginary diplomatic heart of the pisco regions of Chile and Peru. It therefore served pisco sours made from Chilean and Peruvian pisco, and while people make a fuss about the difference, I struggled to really identify specific flavours. Maybe because of the competing citrus, sugar and egg wash going on in the glass or maybe because I drank too many to really remember!

A classic pino empanada

Empanadas

After spending time in Argentina I thought I’d had my fill of empanadas but it turns out I have a second stomach for them. I also like the Chilean take on this ubiquitous South American hand held food. Their meat version, ‘pino’, isn’t just made with ground beef but is spiked with onions, raisins, black olives and a surprise (to me) of hard-boiled egg, which really elevated the flavour.

A mix of empanadas with fillings including beef and octopus

I also tried a version with octopus which I had my doubts about but was delicious. A former President of Chile once referred to creating ‘a revolution with the flavour of red wine and the scent of an empanada’, which sounds exactly like a movement I could get behind. Read More

6 crazy (but delicious) things to eat in Sweden

Posted on March 26, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

The table is set in a typical Northern Swedish household

Salmon. Check
Meatballs. Check
Cinammon buns. Check.

If you’ve come this far then you’ve certaintly sampled the obvious highlights of Swedish food.

But this cuisine gets so much better, and more creative, the more you delve.

On my last trip to Sweden I veered north and stumbled across some particularly unique delicacies which were most entertaining.

Freshly opened surströmming – strategically opened outside on the grass.

Surströmming – fermented herring

My adopted Swedish mother Ing-mari made me feel like her third child the moment I stepped through her door and had a suite of Northern Swedish delicacies lined up for me to try, starting with the extremely polarising surströmming. Now some say this fermented Baltic Sea herring is the smelliest food in the world but I know that isn’t true because that honour goes to Icelandic fermented shark which I can guarantee you will have you retching from 50m away.

Ing-mari shows me how it’s done

The Baltic herring used in surströmming is fermented for six months then stuffed in a tin to give the salty fish a sharp sour flavour. The smell is so pungent that there’s an unwritten law that a can must only be opened outdoors and far away from neighbours. When I arrived in Hemmanet outside of Sundsvall the said can was already ‘resting’ on the grass in preparation for our meal.

The combination of flavours and textures on this rye bread make the surströmming sing!

Ing-Mari served the surströmming on crisp rye bread with butter, slices of boiled potatoes, sliced red onion, caviar and sour cream. I found it delicious! And not just because it caved under the weight of the accoutrements – I tried some solo and really relished the tangy taste washed down with aquavit.

The curious creature that is the smörgåstårta

Smörgåstårta – sandwich cake

When I see something edible for the first time my eyes go wide, I get really excited and MUST TRY IT IMMEDIATELY. No one knows this better than my dear Swedish friend Joakim who has patiently indulged my foodie obsessions over many Swedish road trips.

It was on the latest that I spotted a strange construction in a supermarket. It was embellished like a cake but appeared to be made of savoury ingredients.

‘Oh yes’ said Joakim casually. ‘That’s a sandwich cake. They were very big in the 80s, my mum used to buy them’. Read More

From a Russian cooking class with love

Posted on January 19, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

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Carefully hand making each and every pelmeni – a Russian staple

I did lots of cool things when I went to Russia last year – like staring in awe from the front row of the Bolshoi ballet and being battered (in a good way) with birch leaves during a traditional banya.

But my favourite experience was the Taste of Russia cooking class I took in Moscow. Not just because I got to cook (which I love) and eat (which I love even more), but because I spent the day with real Muscovites who let me drill them about their lives, their diets, their family and their future.

The day didn’t start well. Ever tried to take the Moscow subway? It’s ridiculously intense. I’m no stranger to large rail systems – I can navigate the tube with my eyes closed and have never had any issues in cities like New York and Paris (except when my sister and I went through two at a time and were almost arrested by French police but that’s another story).

Moscow is a different beast. The subway is HUGE and there isn’t a single direction in English, nor did anyone I ask for help speak English. I can read a decent amount of Cyrillic thanks to its likeness to the Greek alphabet but on my first full day in Russia, pre-coffee, I struggled. I’m not usually one to give up but I did and left the metro thinking a cab had to be an easier option.

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Flipping syrniki – Russian cottage cheese pancakes

Wrong. The traffic in Moscow is a disaster. It’s all one way so the layout forces cars to go in unnecessary directions. Plus I couldn’t see a cab rank or a single cab for that matter and I had no wifi to book an uber. So it was a deep breath and back down to the metro for me, where I finally worked out where to go and made it to the cooking class meeting point with just a minute to spare. Phew!

I arrived to find I was the only person there. Was everyone else late too?

No, it transpired that I was the only person in the class. That was music to my ears. A private market tour and cooking class to myself, what a score!

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My foodie dream team of Nadia, Milena and Zhukova

Firstly I was escorted to the Dorogomilovo market, one of Moscow’s largest, with ‘the chief’ Zhukova, her daughter Milena and daughter-in-law Nadia. A family affair!

The market was so fabulous it deserves a post of its own but essentially we picked up all the ingredients for lunch and I got to try tastings of whatever I pointed to. Which was a lot. Quite often I’d point to something and request identification; if Milena, whose English was excellent, didn’t know the word in English she’d whip out her iphone and google translate it for me.

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Zhukova ‘the chief’ runs the kitchen

From the market we drove 20 minutes away to the kitchen, a modest size room filled with a big table and cooking accoutrements. Our menu for the day included Siberian pelmeni (dumplings with a beef filling), borsch and syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes) with apricot ‘jam’. Zhukova put me straight to work – chopping onions, working dough and stewing apricots while I quizzed her on the provenance of the dishes and life in Russia.

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Zhukova shows me how the dough for pelmeni is rolled out

I learnt that pelmeni are the backbone of Russian home cooking and women are scrutinised on their pelmeni style and output. There’s the proper way to make them and the shortcut route but I got the impression that serious Russian cooks knew exactly which path they should follow. Read More