Four Dishes That You Can Make At Home

Eating out at a restaurant is a great way to spend time with your loved ones. However, there is something to be said about cooking your own food.

For many, the process of preparing meats, cutting vegetables and stirring pots can be extremely relaxing. Not to mention, it can feel very rewarding to eat a dish that you worked so hard to create. Additionally, cooking your own food gives you more control over the ingredients of the dish and how healthy (or deliciously unhealthy) it is.

To motivate you to put that apron on, we’re going to talk about four relatively simple dishes from different parts of the world that you can make at home.

Pizza

Pizza is one of the best dishes that you can make at home. Though the end result may not be as refined as a pizza that you’d see at a high-end Italian restaurant, there’s still something special about a homemade pizza.

It’s easy to make and can easily be personalised with your favourite toppings and sauces. In fact, the dish is so simple that you can even get the kids to help out with rolling out the dough and putting on the toppings.

If you’re looking for a basic recipe to start out with, one of the most popular pizzas is the margherita. A simple margherita can be made with tomatoes, mozzarella balls, basil, olive oil and some salt.

To make your own pizza base, you’ll need flour, warm water and yeast as well. It’s important to balance these ingredients correctly to make the perfect pizza dough.

Fortunately, most pizzas can be made with your regular, run-of-the-mill oven. However, if you have the funds for it, getting an authentic wood-fired pizza oven is definitely the way to go.

Buffalo-Style Chicken Wings

Buffalo wings are a popular American dish that feature unbreaded chicken drumettes and flaps. These parts are typically covered with hot sauce made from paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and baking powder. These wings are also paired with celery sticks along with ranch or blue cheese dressing.

There are many different ways to make buffalo chicken wings. One of the most common ways is to prepare the wings and the hot sauce separately until the end.

Start by cutting the drumettes from the wings, drying them and then tossing the pieces in dry seasoning. At this point, your oven should already be preheated with a foiled-lined pan and a wire rack.

To make the hot sauce, just mix the ingredients mentioned above along with sugar and melted butter.

Next, bake the chicken for 50 minutes, making sure to flip the pieces half way through. After that, you toss your cooked wings with the sauce in a mixing bowl and then serve it with your chosen dip.

Pad Thai

Traditional Thai cuisine is known for its mixture of flavours and aromatic quality. One of the most popular dishes in Thai cuisine is pad thai. Pad thai is stir-fried noodles typically made with chicken, shrimp, shallots, tofu, eggs, peanuts, lime, sugar, and bean sprouts. In terms of the sauce, it usually consists of fish sauce, garlic, sugar, and tamarind juice.

Though there are a lot of ingredients to keep track of, cooking pad thai is actually relatively simple.

First thing to focus on is the sauce. To start off, caramelise the sugar in a heated pot. Next, add water, fish sauce and tamarind juice and bring the mixture to a simmer. Afterwards, let the bowl sit and allow the sugar to dissolve.

Next, cook the shrimp or chicken in a pan (or a wok) and then remove it. Sauté the shallots, garlic, tofu, shrimp and other additional ingredients that you want to add.

Finally, add the noodles and then sauce in the pan. Toss the mixture so that the noodles can fully absorb the sauce. Once the noodles have some colourisation, add the eggs and break it up. One last time, flip and toss the noodles along with the meat and it should be ready to serve.

Scotch Egg

A scotch egg is a dish from Britain that involves a boiled egg, sausage meat, and breadcrumbs. It’s a great snack that can be enjoyed for various occasions.

First, take a pan or a pot and bring salted water into a boil. Add the eggs into the water and let it simmer for around seven and a half minutes. Afterwards, let the eggs cool down and then peel the shell.

Next, take the sausage meat along with pepper, ham and other herbs that you might want and put them into a bowl. Mix all these ingredients together and then make them into separate balls. There should be one for each egg.

Squash the balls and then use cling wrap to help you coat the boiled eggs with the sausage meat.

To add breading, roll the encased eggs in flour, soak them in beaten eggs and then coat it with breadcrumbs.

Finally, heat up some oil in a frying pan and cook the eggs until the crumbs turn gold.

Hopefully, this has given you some motivation to try cooking different dishes from various parts of the world. If you don’t experiment with home cooking, there are going to be a lot of flavours that you’re going to miss out on. So, take a little risk, put on your apron and try your hand at one of these dishes.