BootsnAll Travel Community

I love to cook when I travel, however I am not very good. To help myself out I wanted to learn some recipies by heart that I could use while I am on the road.

However I ran into a problem: Not all ingredients are avaliable everywhere...

Because of this problem, my recipies will have to use as many "common" ingredients as I can.

So I pose the question to you, what cooking ingredients have you found avaliable around the world, whether you are in Dublin or Dehli, Hong Kong or Harare?

Here is my currently list:

Milk
Rice
Some type of Jam
Flour
Eggs

_____________________________
ServeYourWorld.com -Guide to Volunteering Abroad

You might want to reconsider a few things on your list. Milk and eggs might be available, but I would be careful with them. One of the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had was from an egg. UGH.

I don't know about flour thought. There are so many different kinds and each is good for so many different things, I'd look into what the locals cook in each area.

The way I look at cooking, as long as you have an onion and some garlic to start with, anything can taste good.

I haven't been everywhere, but everwhere I've been:
Tomatoes (preferably fresh, but canned will do)
Tuna (ditto above)
Onions and Garlic
Pasta
This will make a presentable meal. If preferred, the tuna can be omitted and any other fish/meat can be used, or the eggs in LN's list. Or subsitute rice for the pasta.

SALT!

The only thing you need to make anything taste good is salt. Everybody has salt, I don't even think you can proceed with any success with an onion and garlic unless you have salt.

This is a really good topic. Just what sorta means one can make on the road that's cheap, easy and filling.

Add this to the proposed food/drink/cooking section of BootsnAll :-)

I hate to see you go,
but I love to watch you leave.

Potatoes. At least, *almost* everywhere you can find potatoes. And they are a meal in themselves, so...

--Mimi

Traveling bookless is like Sartre's hell.

Potatoes... cruical...

Once we get a decent sized list (20+ items) we can start experimenting with recipies.. maybe boostnall can have a recipie competition!

Potatoes
Canned Tuna
Onions
Garlic
Tomatoes
Salt
Rice
Bread (some kind)
Flour

Keep them coming!

_____________________________
ServeYourWorld.com -Guide to Volunteering Abroad

What about some fresh fruit?

Take an apple, cut out the core and spoon in some butter, brown sugar (or cinnamon) and bake it in tinfoil. Works in an oven, on a stove or in a fire. A treat that makes you feel like you've splurged

BTW...I like the idea for a recipe contest

Oh...and I'll add oats to the list. I can do a fair bit with a bag of oats.

Try thinking about food groups instead of specific ingredients:

- Take a meat, add a few vegetables, some sort of local spice, and drop it over a starch (potatoes, pasta, rice, whatever).
- Or take some local vegetable, cook it lightly and then melt some cheese over it.

This'll give you some general ideas about cooking, but keep you flexible enough to walk into most any market and walk out with an inexpensive meal.

To choose a good spice, just smell the ingredients you're using and then smell the spice your thinking of adding; trust the first reaction your nose gives you about whether it's a good combination.

The alternative is to hike so long and hard that anything tastes good. I've cooked a few campstove meals that I don't dare repeat because I don't want to spoil the illusion for myself by eating them under normal circumstances.

hooray! recipes contest! food and drink session in BnA! wise words!

LN, a basic and delicious thing you can do anywhere is spanish tortillas (aka potato omelet): onions, eggs and potatoes. add some tomatoes and green pepper or whatever veggie available in the place you're in and you have a very hearty omelet.

Libby, I like the apple thing, but I can't figure out how to prepare it using a stove/fire. I don't have an owen over here.

By the way, even ingredients which are available world-wide, like flour, can confuse you sometimes. For example in Oz I was used to regular flour and self-raising. Then in the US, corn meal and other names made me unsure what they were for. And here in Germany you need to buy mehl. And if you want baking powder, you don't find it in the stores - you go to a chemist (called an apotheke) who spoons some into a little white bag for you.

When I was shopping for chicken in a market in China, I asked the lady at the counter. She reached down and came up with a live chicken from a big box at her feet. She slit its throat with a razor blade, cut off some parts and threw the body into a washing machine lined with spikey things - that took the feathers off.
When I got my bag, still warm and with blood/fluids flowing out, I didn't want it at all.

I hate to see you go,
but I love to watch you leave.

LN - do we care about prices? For example, I can get oats in Japan, but oats are not budget cooking I suspect it is the same elsewhere in Asia. The small (i.e. 2 cups of oats) box is US$5. I get my family to ship oats to me - it's cheaper! Rice isn't cheap in Japan either. Surprising, but true. Neither is fish.


Libby - love that apple thing! It makes my tummy happy


Borderland - Yep, I agree. Ingredients are definitely not the same in different countries. I gave up on brown sugar - it is not very sweet here and is more like granulated molasses than brown sugar as I know it in North America. I just substitute white sugar... which is also totally different. It also isn't granulated but a moist powdery thing here, although the granulated kind is starting to appear more regularly in supermarkets.

Group - what about carrots? Are they available everywhere?
And dried beans. Problem is, there are a bazillion kinds of beans. For example, Japanese azuki beans are used for bean paste desserts - don't know how they'd go down in a stew or whatever.
Vinegar (rice, wine, balsamic etc depending on country)
Oil
Canned soup?
Can you cook with instant coffee?? haha

Liz

My blog: http://datigz.blogspot.com

I love baked apples. They are one of my favorite things to make when camping.

Lets,
If you are cooking an apple in a fire you need to wrap the apple so it's flat on the bottom but has a "handle" on top. Use enough tinfoil that you can safely grab the handle to rotate the apple (helps with even cooking) without getting burned. As with most cooking done over an open fire, flame isn't what you need...hot embers are best.

As far as cooking one on a stove, I've only ever done it using a gas burner. Wrap the apple in tinfoil so that it's flat on both sides and place it in the center of the flame. Use some kinda grip thing to turn it over now and again.

Neither of them are perfect but they work

Liz,
Beans! I love beans but there are so many kinds as you said. The worst are the ones that need to soak for a time before cooking.

You know what restaurants use to make things taste good? The 4 western 'crown jewels of cooking'. Salt, pepper, butter, sugar.

Add to them chili, garlic and ginger and you are moving!

I reckon you shouldn't really worry about the 'main ingredients as they will always change. If you can use a staple ( rice, potato) , use local veg and make a sauce or flavour the meat, fish chicken with some of the above you will please people.

Nick O'Neill
http://www.BaliBlog.com
BootsnAll's guide to Bali

Libby - thanks! I will try it on the stove. But I actually baked some yesterday at a friends house for her sister's birthday. And I also stuffed some raisings in the empty core.
Yummy.

Liz - Azuki beans work very well in a stu. Do it the regular bean stu way. Do you get bacon and bay leaves in Japan? add a stir fry of bacon and onion to the bean stu, which you cooked with a couple of bay leaves...

Is there anything cheap in Japan?

Noodles?

Mushrooms?

pickled veggies?

Anything?

Have Kilt will Travel

Canned tuna might be a problem in several countries of SE Asia, unless you have a friend in very high places or(inclusive) lots of money.

PS Methinks Nick has the captured the essence of whats desired.

Lets, boiled apple, with sugar sprinkled on top also tastes as good (well it depends on where you are and for how long you have remained hungry.)

BTW, apples would not be found everywhere, in tropical countries, it is more likely to be bananas, coconuts, jackfruit and the like.

Hey Dusty, will try to boil the apples. You know what may be good? Boil the apples with some red wine along the water... then after the appl it's cooked you take it out, add sugar and cook the broth untill it gets to a reduced and thickened wine apple sauce...

You may be right about apples x topical countries. They are available here in malaysia but they are quite expensive compared to other fruits.