Ema Datshi Bhutanese Chili Cheese Stew

Ema Datshi Bhutanese Chili Cheese Stew

If, like us, you’re the kind of spice fan who likes to sprinkle tabasco over your habanera peppers, then you’ve found your dream dish in Bhutan’s ema datshi. Basically a curry made from chili peppers and farmer’s cheese, ema datshi can be tweaked for more sensitive palates by switching out the chilis for milder pepper … Read more

Kutab Azerbaijani Azeri Herb Filled Wheat Pancake

Kutab Azerbaijani Azeri Herb Filled Wheat Pancake

More robust than a crepe, more delicate than bread, the Azerbaijani kutab is a kind of flatbread-pancake stuffed with a variety of possible fillings from pumpkin or cheese to spinach, offal, herbs, and even camel meat. A more cavalier commentator might pass it off as a regular sandwich, but we think that would be massively underselling the art of mixing and … Read more

Halusky Slovakian Potato Dumplings

Halusky Slovakian potato dumplings

Potatoes are the heart of Eastern European culinary tradition, featured prominently in many dishes, and halusky – the national dish of Slovakia – epitomizes the fondness for this tasty tuber. In what is now becoming a familiar tale here on Arousing Appetites, what’s now an ingredient central to a country’s cuisine was a foreign introduction … Read more

Kaukau: Papua New Guinean Sweet Potato

This is Kaukau, a Papua New Guinean Sweet Potato dish, with orange juice, coconut milk, shallots, garlic, ginger, coconut oil and cinnamon

It’s funny to see how some “newcomers” can take a nation’s food scene by storm. Nowhere is this as true as in Papua New Guinea and the kaukau, or the sweet potato. It’s rare enough to find recipes from Papua New Guinea as is, but it’s even rarer to find one that doesn’t involve some kaukau … Read more

Lamingtons: Australian Sponge Cakes

Australian Lamingtons - Chocolate and coconut covered sponge cake

It’s funny how food can have a certain lasting power little else can match. Surely, lamingtons are a fabulous sponge cake dessert, but that it has monopolized the Lamington name – and a decorated political career to boot – serves as a testament to the power of food. It kind of makes you feel for … Read more

Draniki: Belarusian Sausage Stuffed Potato Pancakes

Draniki: Belarusian Sausage Stuffed Potato Pancakes

Alas, not all culinary tales can be a happy one, as is the case in the trajectory of Belarusian cuisine. For a cuisine seemingly so magnificent until as recently as last century, it can only leave you wondering what could have (and should have) been. Thankfully for dishes like draniki, we have windows into the cuisine’s … Read more