Recommend a recipe!

[apple_pathways]

Bah, I keep meaning to make this post and forgetting to do it!

So, for my Food & Culture class I have an assignment to prepare a recipe for a food that is new to me from a culture that is not part of my ethnic background. Here are some of the guidelines:

This project will provide you with an opportunity to prepare and try one new food that you have not previously integrated into your own diet and that is not a part of your cultural background.

Select a culture that is being studied in this course other than one that is a part of your own cultural background.

Using your textbooks and other resources provided to you through this course, e.g. "Notes" links; or a cookbook that contains recipes from the culture that you selected, locate a recipe that you find to be appealing and that you are willing to prepare and consume.

The only problem with this assignment is that I'm a bit of a foodie and have sampled and incorporated into my diet A LOT of foods from different cultures! I've regularly consumed organ meats, exotic vegetables, and just about everything that swims in the sea (tentacles, anyone?). I have ghee, tahini, tamari, oyster sauce, and sumac powder in my cupboards right now.

So, I'm asking for some suggestions for recipes that I could use to fulfill this assignment. To help out, my ethnic background is German and Polish, so those are out. I'm fairly familiar with a lot of different cultural foods, but just throw some suggestions at me! I don't mind if the dish is fairly confidant, as I love to cook.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

ETA:

From AO3: This work potentially has adult content. If you proceed you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.

Um, AO3 darling...I WROTE that adult content!

Comments

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I like this assignment. I'm not very good at coming up with things people haven't tried before, though, as I'm on one of the lowest rungs among my foodie friends. (-; My go-to for 'unusual' 'most people haven't tried it' food (outside of tentacles and things) tends to be Moroccan food. It's not really out-there in the ingredients sense, but I had no idea that you could pair chicken with cinnamon and other baking-type spices and have it turn out so good. (In fact, I've been toying with this idea myself now, and recently made an acorn squash-stuffed hen with cinnamon and nutmeg and veggies which was rather awesome, and later boiled down into a fantastic stock as well.) So, my suggestion is something like this, which is the kind of chicken pie that was my first experience with Moroccan food. It's slightly sweet, which is odd for dinner, and it's pretty much the choice of spices that make it unusual, but it's very good, and the sort of thing less adventurous people might relate to well enough to actually try. (Rather than homemade octopus sushi, for example, which is something I have scared my co-workers with on several occasions. (-;)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

I like this assignment, too, which is why I'm taking it so seriously! I could lie, and pretend I've never made and Indian or Thai curry before, or that I've never sampled menudo, but I really do want to try something new!

I've had a little bit of Moroccan food before, but I don't have an extensive experience. I will say that I am NOT a fan of cinnamon in my meat dishes! I bought a garam masala blend once that ended up having cinnamon in it, and I just couldn't use it. (Hey, I've discovered a food taboo I never knew I had! Also, that'll teach me to waste my money on spice blends instead of just getting the spices individually.)

The recipe you linked to looks really good, apart from the cinnamon! (I'd having a difficult time mentally pairing it with the cilantro, though...) I'm definitely going to add this to my list of things to try, possibly leaving out that spice. (Which is funny, because I am a cinnamon lover otherwise!)

So you make your own sushi? I had a roommate once that used to make us sashimi; she had spent a couple years working in a Japanese market. I've never trusted myself with it, though!