Regional Cuisine Recipes

Traditional Indian side dish, tasty and easy to make.

Ukrainian cold fruit soup pureed with apples, pears, cherries, plums, and peaches in cinnamon-lemon broth with sweet wine and cranberry juice. A chilled summer soup bursting with orchard flavors.

A classic Russian vinaigrette salad with roasted beets, boiled potatoes, carrots, green peas, dill pickles, and a tangy mustard-vinegar dressing. Served chilled as a hearty side dish.

An Italian Christmas is not complete without this high-domed cylinder of fruit-studded sweet bread.

In Bangladesh, cabbage is usually available in the market during the winter season, as are tomatoes, peas and carrots. So this dish appears quite frequently at Bengali dinner tables during the winter. In the markets where such vegetables are available year round, banda is a popular standard.

Loaded Creole omelette with potatoes, ham, okra, red bell pepper, and cayenne, cooked in a skillet and puffed under the broiler. Brunch with a bayou kick.

Greek island chicken with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, white wine, cinnamon, and lemon simmered into a fragrant Mediterranean sauce. One-skillet dinner over rice.

Vegetarian moussaka with rice, eggplant, and potatoes layered with a tomato-garlic rice mixture and a soy milk white sauce with nutmeg and allspice. A dairy-free take on the Greek classic.

Mung dal with black mustard seeds, turmeric, and ginger, finished with a hot ghee tadka of sputtering mustard seeds and green chile. A traditional Indian lentil dish with bright, bold tempering.

Forshmak is a traditional Eastern European baked casserole: salted herring soaked and blended with ground beef and lamb, potato, onion and sour cream, lightened with whipped egg whites under a crisp Parmesan crust.

Beef liver seared and simmered in stewed tomatoes with green pepper, basil, sherry, and garlic, spooned over hot rice. Old-school Cajun comfort for liver lovers.

Pseftokeftedes are Santorini tomato fritters mixing chopped Roma tomatoes, scallions, garlic, mint, and oregano into a pancake-style batter, fried crisp in olive oil. Vegetarian Greek meze.

Viennese chocolate torte for Passover uses ground walnuts, cake meal, and potato starch in place of flour. A flourless-style torte split and filled with apricot-orange preserves and finished with a chocolate-orange glaze.

Eastern European poppy seed crescents made from rich yeast dough filled with a sweet cinnamon-lemon poppy seed paste, brushed with egg wash and topped with chopped nuts.

Green pepper, tomato, spinach and peanut butter make a unique quick and easy side dish.

Basic Sauce is used over and over again to slow-simmer a number of foods. It imparts its own flavor to what is cooked, and grows more savory with the cooking of different foods.