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Posts Tagged ‘Cookbooks’

Where to Find Ethnic Food Recipes

November 26th, 2008
food recipes
Abdrew Krause asked:


Most home cooks at some time or another find themselves getting interested in ethnic cuisine. The impetus might come from their heritage … maybe grandma was a German immigrant or grandpa came from Vietnam. Or it could just be simple cook’s curiosity. All of us get tired of cooking the same old recipes over and over, and decide to move beyond, frequently into ethnic food recipes.

However, and this is especially important if you don’t already know anything about the particular cuisine you’re after, it can be hard to figure out if the recipes you’re cooking are authentic, or are even worth trying. You might pick an Asian recipe that sends you out hunting exotic ingredients for three days only to find that either the recipe was written poorly or the flavor is something you just can’t stomach.

Unless you want to sink a lot of money into cookbooks, your best source of recipe information is going to be the Internet. However, searching for Internet recipes can be fraught with peril. How do you know this recipe will work? Do you have any clue what it tastes like? Do you maybe have a picture of what the finished dish should look like?

This is where sites that allow user reviews of recipes are invaluable. We foodies are a verbose bunch, forever ready to share good recipes and tips and warn others away from the bad ones. On sites such as Allrecipes or Cooks.com, you’ll find ethnic food recipes with hundreds of reviews from users. Often, these reviews will include possible ingredient substitutions, problems inherent in the preparation and possible solutions and all sorts of other great information. It’s very similar to having a kitchen full of cooks ready to teach and advise you at all times.

While you might not want to trust just one or two reviews, you can feel fairly safe when you see certain ethnic food recipes have been cooked successfully by dozens of people. Pick the recipe, read the comments and forge ahead!



Cooking Tips , ,

Italian Food: a Good and Healthy Choice

May 16th, 2007
italian food
Steve Buchanan asked:


Nowadays Italian food is getting popular day by day all over the world. People of every country have started liking this food. If you are one of them who like pasta very much then you must love this cooking because this is one of the main ingredients of most recipes. As with all ethnic foods, this eating uses its own group of spices. These are a number of most popular spices which are used in this cooking; these spices are garlic, oregano, basil and thyme. If you will use fresh spices in your cooking then it will really add a special touch to any dish, but if you are unable to find fresh and then you can use the dried spice. You can buy these spices in small quantities and you need not keep them stored in a cool, dark place, not over your stove on a rack.

The heart of this cooking or eating is the use of ingredients. These ingredients are available in all the seasons. These ingredients are used to change ordinary items into works of art in the form of pastas, side dishes, breads, sauces, main dishes, deserts and soups. The possibilities are rally endless and very exciting. If you are really Italian food lover then you must buy cookbooks so that you can easily increase the taste of your food. These are a number of recipe books that have pictures of the completed dish so that you will able to know what it should look like. These books can help you a lot if you have never seen the dish anywhere. It is really best to follow a recipe when you first start to learn a new recipe but don’t be panic to start experimenting once you have the basics down.

Following are some ingredients that you need to have in your grocery list.

1) Tomato Sauce:

Tomato Sauce is one of the important ingredients. You need not have to buy the expensive tomato sauce. The national brand or house brand at your nearby local grocery store will be fine in your Italian dish. Try not to buy from the “pre-seasoned” blends, as you will be adding your own spices and herbs.

2) Pasta:

It is highly recommended that you should not buy a huge quantity of any specific pasta. It is preferable to keep a little amount of the most regular types such as wide egg noodle, large and small shells, elbow macaroni, linguine and spaghetti. It will be good if you have storage so that you can keep the long noodles in a long container. Moreover, you can find many Tupperware makers that are specially design to keep the pasta in to maintain freshness.

3) Parmesan Cheese:

Freshly ground Parmesan cheese is always a welcome addition to the top of any Italian dish even though it may not always be needed in the ingredients of the recipe you are cooking. The famous cheese brand, Kraft, has a new product with a block of cheese in its container along with its grater.

4) Olive oil:

Olive oil is also one of the integral parts of ingredients. One of the mistakes that many Italian food amateurs make is using pricey olive oil for things like pan-frying. Using the standard olive oil, which is yellow in color, is just fine for this.



Recipes , ,