Global Cuisine

If you are looking for a quick evening meal packed with flavor, you've found it.

A blend of Chinese five-spice powder, soy sauce and brown sugar make a quick glaze for tilapia, leaving you with sugar-coated crusted piece of fish....it's delightful!

Five-spice powder is a blend of cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, star anise and Szechuan peppercorns and is available in all grocery stores in the spice aisle.

Already full of flavor, slip this piece of fish between a toasted-buttered bun for an incredible fish sandwich, you won't be disappointed.

I love Mediterranean food especially from the eastern region, spanning the countries from Greece through Turkey and all the way down to Lebanon and Egypt in the north of Africa. Just thinking about gyros, kebabs, and a platter of mezze from these countries makes my mouth water. It was in college that I first experienced this culinary culture, trying new things like pita bread, falafel, tabbouleh, and hummus. Then on a summer break from school I took a family trip to Hungary and was surprised by all the restaurants selling gyros and kebabs. One corner it was a restaurant owned by a Turkish and on the other corner a restaurant owned by a Greek, all selling similar foods but with different names. That's when I realized the close connection between all these countries: they were all ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

Probably the best thing that came from the Ottoman rule was the melting pot of cuisine. One of my favorite restaurants to go for eastern Mediterranean slash Middle Eastern food is Kashkaval in New York City. I really can't tell which country their food represents, but they have everything on the menu from Hungarain chicken paprikash to Turkish meatballs. Their enormous selection of mezze are a feature of the menu and so are their fondues. The one made from Kashkaval cheese, the source for the restaurant's names, is unbeatably good. A vegetarian coworker first introduced me to the restaurant and I've returned countless times ever since always with friends in tow. It's the type of good food that encourages sharing among everyone.

I call this the 1-2-3 dinner because just like that, snap, and it's ready.

On the way home yesterday, after spending the afternoon at a museum with my boys, my eight-year old begged me to make this for dinner. It's one of his favorite meals and he knows he doesn't have to wait long for me to whip this up.

"Mom, please make the 1-2-3 chicken tonight, it's soooo good. I really, really want it and it's so yummy.

So here it is, dinner in a flash, ready so fast there's even time to take pictures!

I know I saw this recipe in a magazine, however I can't remember which one. I've made it so many times, I have it memorized. I also don't remember if this dish had a name, so let's call it Tangy-Sweet Plum-Spiced Chicken, a shout out to the plum jam and Chinese five-spice powder used in this recipe.

When I was growing up, my mom often made two different cucumber salads. For each of the salads, she sliced fresh cucumbers into very thin rounds. In one salad, the cucumbers bathed in a clear vinegar-water solution seasoned with sugar and lots of black pepper. I always liked that salad. My favorite, though, was the salad made of thinly sliced cucumbers swimming in a delicious sour cream sauce with sugar and vinegar stirred in along with thin, delicate threads of fresh dill weed.

During the last couple of weeks I’ve been able to purchase English, or seedless, cucumbers at my local farmers market. These long, slender cukes are not really seedless, but the seeds are so small and insignificant compared to regular cucumbers, they seem seedless when they’re being eaten.

Last night I served the Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with grilled pork chops, potatoes and beans. This is a salad that is good with everything. My Hungarian mother always served Sour Cream Cucumber Salad with a traditional meal of Paprika Chicken and tiny homemade dumplings. Since my mom taught me how to make this salad, I often refer to it as Hungarian Cucumber Salad.