Pylsur: Icelandic Hot Dog

This is pylsur, the infamous Icelandic hot dog topped with homemade mustard, remoulade, raw onions and cornichon

Even in food, you can come to expect quite a few curveballs. Although there are few quite like the overall Icelandic cuisine. For one that boasts such uncommon traditional specialties like hákarl (rotten shark), svið (roasted sheep skull) or lundi (smoked puffin), it’s almost sort of odd the pylsur would be the most go-to Icelandic dish of … Read more

Pochero: Filipino Beef Stew

This is Pochero! A Filipino Pork Stew with baby corn, bok choy, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, green beans and chorizo

Sometimes it simply doesn’t do a dish justice to try drawing parallels for it. Sure, pochero is kind of sort of “like Spanish cocido,” except that it’s simply not. While conceptually the same thing, the Filipino version of pochero has evolved into something far more exquisite than that. Pochero, Spanish Influences, and Unique Filipino Tastes In … 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

Anticuchos: Peruvian Beef Kabobs

Peruvian Anticuchos Kabobs with Aji Amarillo Sauce

Thanks to some of our previous deep culinary explorations here on Arousing Appetites, we’ve encountered some prevailing trends in the world’s history. Introducing the Spanish conquistadors into the picture, for example, generally spelled bad news for the land’s indigenous populations. We’ve seen it certainly be the case both in Jamaica and in Haiti. Sometimes, amid all the historical … Read more

Laap Muu: Lao Shredded Pork Salad

Laap Muu minced pork with charred eggplant, shallot and garlic

On this pursuit to “cook around the world,” we’ve come into our fair share of fairly confounding ingredients. With a mysterious ingredient called padek, the recipe for a true Laotian laap muu proved to be no exception. Padek? What could padek possibly be?? We eventually found the answer (as you’ll see here), but along the way we … Read more

Griot: Haitian Broiled Pork Loin

Griot: Haitian Broiled Pork Loin

Griot Haitian food was an exploration that we were really, really looking forward to. We’d had some background into Haitian foods (and how distinctly different it is from other Caribbean cuisines), so we already had a pretty strong inkling that this griot would end up a pretty magical recipe. Even then, we still completely underestimated … Read more