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Here you will find a large range of recipes which do not fit into the 'ancient' theme of the remainder of the recipes on this site. In essence these recipes represent a sampling of the several thousand recipes that I've gathered, adapted and personally cooked over the years. Many of these recipes originate with University friends who helped engender my interest in world cuisine. Others come from exchanging recipes on the internet or going through recipe books to search for things that work (and things that don't) and are the results of my own experiments and modifications on these recipes. Yet others are things that I've tried and which turned out so well that I decided to write them up.
I have a passion for food and cookery that is (hopefully) bolstered by a formal scientific training that lets me know what's happening when food cooks. This is one reason why Roman cookery with it's balancing of salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami flavours is so fascinating (the same balancing is also present in Thai cuisine) and I want to bring this approach to the balancing of flavours to traditional Western and to fusion foods. Spice blends are fascinating as they show both how foods and flavourings have developed locally across the world and how the spice trade (especially the introduction of Black Pepper and Chillis) have affected the major cuisines of the world.
In many ways, accompaniments to main courses are the 'Cinderella' elements of meals and recipes. After all, roast potatoes are not nearly as sexy as a good crown roast of lamb. Yet, a meal is not truly a meal without its accompanying carbohydrate and vegetable elements. Indeed, it's often because these elements are not considered sexy and are not often published that many have problems cooking and creating these elements of a meal.
As well as the list of recipes presented below you can also fetch Modern and Traditional dessert recipes by meal type via these links:
| Starters | Fish Courses | Meat Courses |
| Vegetarian | Accompaniments to Main Courses | Desserts |
| Breads, Cakes and Pastries | Sauces and Jams | Snacks |
| Drinks | Spice Blends |
Alphabetical list of Starters recipes follow (limited to 100 recipes per page). There are 732 recipes in total:
Not found what you're looking for? Search the web:
Chillies are a South American fruit, unknown to the rest of the world before 1492. Learn about this amazing spice and find two rather unusual chilli-based recipes for a jam and a sorbet
Tanzaia is a diverse country comprised of the mainland, Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar. The cuisine of this country are influenced by Arabic, British, French and Indian cuisines producing a fusion of native and imported culinary influences that are vibrant and fascinating. Here you will see two typical Tanzanian recipes for a main course and a dessert...
Beef is a very flavoursome meat, as long as it is well matured, but it does have the cachet of being expensive and to be used only as a treat. Partly this is due to the history of beef as a high-status ingredient. Partly it's due to the cost of the better cuts. But you have a whole animal to consider and this article takes you through the history of beef eating and gives you a recipe for both the best and one of the poorer cuts of meat.
I know that the combination of chilli and chocolate sounds odd to modern ears. Yet this is an ancient mix used by the Aztecs and later adopted in Sicilian cuisine. What's presented here is a rich and piquant gravy that goes excellently well with game dishes.
Chilli recipes to blow your brains out... Here are three recipes from India and Africa, incorporating the world's hottest chillies. Each could claim itself to be... The world's hottest chilli dish...
Learn a little about the origins of British biscuits and American cookies and how these classic baked goods differ from one another. Also presented is a recipe for a classic American chocolate chip cookie and a traditional British tea-time biscuit.
Pizzas have become a staple of modern cooking and a staple of fast food. The known history of pizzas stretch back over 2000 years, from topped flatbreads depicted in Pompeii to the first 'true' Neapolitan pizzas of the 1890s to the sweet pizzas of the 1980s. Here the recipes for a classic savoury pizza crust and a modern sweet pizza crust are presented. Once you can create a pizza crust to perfection then the remainder of the pizza is easy!
Chocolate is a spice processed from the seeds of the cocao tree. It was first used and cultivated almost 3000 years ago and is a mainstay of modern snacks and sweet dishes. But chocolate is a much more versatile ingredient than this and can be used in a whloe range of sweet and savoury dishes. Here you will find recipes for a classic chocolate cake as well as a Mexican stew with chocolate.
Fish is the staple protein source for much of the human population. Fish is an important high-quality protein source that much of the Western diet is deficient in. In this article you will learn a little about fish as well as gaining two classic fish recipes.
A crockpot (also known as a slow cooker) can be an excellent means of cooking proper meals slowly for a long time. It allows you to make the most of poor cuts of meat and lets you cook your food over night or slowly throughout the day whilst you are at work. There are lots of recipes for crockpot meals on the internet, but you can adjuist pretty much any recipe for a stew or braising dish to the crockpot. This article shows you how to do this using a classic Turkish lamb and onion stew as an example.