Around the World’s Kitchens In A Day
Sniff, sniff. Smell that? Yummy meals from different cultures are being stirred up throughout Bangkok. Find out what different families eat when they sit down to chow down.
The families and their recipes
| Unit of measurement | Abbreviation |
| teaspoon(s) | tsp(s) |
| tablespoon(s) | Tbsp(s) |
| grams | g |
Chyi Lee
Jump to recipe: Soft-boiled Eggs
My husband is from Laos and I am from Malaysia. We have a four year old daughter. After spending seven years in Bangkok, we now live in Kuala Lumpur. My husband and I come from different cultures and we have both lived in a few other countries. Hence, we appreciate various cuisines. My husband also loves cooking. When he has time, he prefers cooking for the family rather than eating out. As a result, we are lucky to enjoy his healthy, homemade food.
Both of us are working parents, so we work as a team when it comes to handling household chores, dropping off and picking up our child from nursery, and cooking. My husband is very selective about food ingredients so takes care of the grocery shopping. Staples in our pantry include milk, coffee, tea, cereal, fruits, and yogurt. On weekdays, we take turns to prepare the food, depending on who gets home first, and we just eat out if neither of us has time to cook. On weekends, we either cook together or dine out to explore new places.
We normally sit down together as a family with every dish served at the center of the table. We help ourselves to the food. This way of eating is also the norm in our home countries.
A typical day’s meals for us looks like this:
- Breakfast: toast, soft-boiled eggs, coffee, milk, fruit
- Lunch: usually Southeast Asian cuisine such as rice with a few dishes or noodles. We usually eat separately at our workplaces and our child eats at nursery.
- Dinner: rice with two or three Asian dishes such as Chinese herbal soup, kimchi, Thai style stir fries, Japanese salads.
- Snacks: fruit
We usually go for soft-boiled eggs for breakfast because they are simple, tasty, and nutritious. They can be eaten as is or served with toast.
Recipe: Soft-boiled Eggs
Total time: 8 minutes
Serves: 1
Ingredients:
- 2 fresh eggs, we like to use free-range
- Soy sauce
- White pepper
Method:
- First, boil a small pot of water. Once boiling, turn the heat off, put the eggs in, and cover with a lid.
- Next, set the timer for six minutes.
- After six minutes, take the eggs out, peel, and serve in a small bowl. Add some soy sauce and white pepper to taste.
Khali Halat
I am from Manila, Philippines and moved to Bangkok almost three years ago after working in Singapore for seven years. There are three of us in our family, including my 19-month-old daughter, Maria.
Meal time with my family is one of the most important parts of my day, as it brings us closer and helps promote good eating habits for my daughter. Growing up in the Philippines, I learned to see meal time as an opportunity for the whole family to come together and share their thoughts and feelings. This is something my husband and I would like to pass on to Maria.
My husband and I share the grocery shopping and food preparation. He is a professional chef and very hands-on in the kitchen. I’m a stay-at-home mom, and when he isn’t around, I do the meal preparation. But when his schedule allows, he prepares meals and freezes them in case I don’t get a chance to cook.
We get our dry supplies from Tops and Villa Market, and try to support local farms like Klongphai Farm for items like free-range organic eggs, chicken, and liver mousse. Most of our vegetables and fruits are from Happy Grocers. Pantry staples for us include rice, eggs, oats, nuts, fruit, and vegetables (especially corn).
Normally, we all sit down together as a family and eat the same food served at the table. In the Philippines, all our meals—breakfast, lunch and dinner—are served with rice, but I try to give my daughter a variety of food so that her palate will be as well-rounded as her father’s and she does not become a picky eater.
A mealtime tradition for us is afternoon tea or what we call ‘merienda’ in the Philippines. Being married to a German, we also have ‘kaffee und kuchen’ or coffee and cake.
On a typical day, we would have:
- Breakfast: oats, apple cinnamon pancakes and/or seasonal fruit
- Lunch: beef kaldereta and steamed rice
- Dinner: schnitzel with seasonal vegetables
- Snacks: yogurt melts, energy protein balls, carrot cinnamon apple muffins, yogurt fruit popsicles. I make my own snacks as it is quite difficult to find healthy options readily available in the market.
A popular dish at our place is ratatouille. Everyone loves it because it's a humble dish, yet very tasty and healthy as well. We usually make a large portion and freeze half of it for another day.
Recipe: Ratatouille
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
- 5 Tbsps olive oil, divided
- 1 small eggplant, sliced into 1/8 inch thick circles
- 2 small zucchini, sliced into 1/8 inch thick circles
- ½ small onion, chopped
- ⅓ cup carrots, shredded
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- A few sprigs of thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and diced
- 3 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/8 inch thick circles
- 400 g crushed tomatoes
- ½ teaspoon dried parsley
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- Salt and black pepper, to taste
Method:
- First, heat 2 Tbsps of olive oil in a large Dutch oven or similar heavy-bottomed pot over a medium-high heat. Add the sliced eggplant to the pot and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Cook for about 2 minutes until the eggplant begins to brown, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
- Repeat step 1 with the sliced zucchini.
- Next, lower the heat to medium and add the remaining olive oil. Add the onion and shredded carrots, season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 6 to 8 minutes until the vegetables begin to brown and soften. Stir occasionally to prevent the ingredients from sticking. Add the minced garlic, dried parsley, bay leaf, and thyme. Cook for about 30 seconds before adding the tomatoes and diced bell pepper. Add the eggplant and zucchini back to the pot and stir everything gently to combine.
- Bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Allow the ratatouille to simmer for at least 20 minutes. The longer you cook this dish, the more the vegetables will break down. Simmer for up to 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.
- Finally, remove the sprigs of thyme and bay leaf. Stir in 1 tsp of the dried basil just before serving and season with salt and pepper to your taste.
- Serve with the remaining tsp of dried basil and a drizzle of olive oil, and enjoy!
Sneha Hebli
Jump to recipe: Dal Bati Churma
We are a family of five from India, consisting of three adults and two kids under five.
Food is an integral part of our culture, defining who we are and playing a major role in all our celebrations. Mealtimes are the best family bonding time for us. Cooking for everyone is the way we show our love towards our family members.
Typically, in our culture, the lady of the house is in charge of providing the family with meals. In my home, it's me. My mother also helps and sometimes takes the lead due to my busy schedule. The meal planning, groceries, preparation, and menu selection is all done by me. I take special care to see that every meal incorporates at least one dish that is everyone’s favorite.
We buy most of our traditional groceries at the Indian shops on Sukhumvit Road. I regularly visit Villa Market to get any remaining items. We pick up fresh vegetables and fruit from Makro and Tops.
Staples in our pantry include rice, wheat flour, lentils, asafetida, turmeric, Indian spices (such as coriander powder, garam masala, turmeric), and of course, the traditionally homemade ground spice mixes (such as sambar masala and rasam masala), which are our own recipes.
We all sit down to eat together because dinner is always a family event and the menu is never just one dish. It always involves at least three or four options, where everyone can help themselves, like a buffet-style meal. We follow our home country’s exact style of eating and prefer having simple yet wholesome meals with all the nutritional factors kept in place which make up a balanced diet. Some traditions we follow are that we normally pray before the evening meal, the menu is typically Indian, and during special occasions and festivals, we have very elaborate cooking and serving traditions which are specific to that particular event.
A usual day of meals includes:
- Breakfast: carbs like parathas, or gluten-free items prepared from rice and a protein-rich dish
- Lunch: rice and/or roti, vegetarian dishes like mutter paneer, palak paneer, chole masala, and rajma
- Dinner: similar to lunch
- Snacks: traditional homemade snacks such as pakoras, samosas, and bhel puri
A family favorite recipe we love is Dal Bati Churma because it is the most traditional and authentic recipe. This is a baked wheat cookie dish served with tempered lentils and coarsely ground wheat cooked with clarified butter, sugar and mixed nuts.
Recipe: Dal Bati Churma—a traditional Rajasthani meal
Total time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Serves: 2
Bati ingredients:
- 2 cups wheat flour
- 8 Tbsps clarified butter (ghee)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- salt, to taste
- water to bind the dough
Bati method:
- First, preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/gas 7.
- Then, mix all the ingredients into a soft dough. Shape the dough into small balls of the same size. Allow the dough balls to rest for about 15 minutes.
- Next, place them in the oven for 20 mins or until they are golden brown and have a crunchy crust outside.
- Finally, allow to cool for 10 minutes and serve. Bati tastes best when served immediately.
Daal ingredients:
- 1.5 cups lentils (mix of pigeon peas, split yellow gram, skinned black gram, split green gram, and red lentils)
- 3 Tbsps clarified butter
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- 2 Tbsps chopped ginger
- A pinch of asafetida
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- Salt, to taste
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 2 tsps coriander seed powder
- 1 tsp allspice
- fresh coriander
Daal method:
- First, boil the lentils until well done. This can be done on the stove or in a pressure cooker.
- Then, make a mixture of clarified butter, cumin seeds, chopped ginger, asafetida and turmeric powder. Add the lentils and blend well.
- Next, add salt, red chili powder, coriander seed powder and allspice powder and simmer for about 15 minutes over a low heat.
- Finally, adjust the seasoning to your liking. You can also make the consistency thinner by adding water if desired. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve hot.
Churma ingredients:
Churma method:
- Ingredients to make bati as above
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ½ cup finely ground nuts such as almonds, pistachios, and cashews
- Additional clarified butter for deep frying
- First, heat enough clarified butter for deep frying in a frying pan.
- Then, mix all the bati ingredients into a soft dough.
- Next, form cookies from the dough (these should be thin to achieve a crispy texture after frying.)
- After that, fry them in clarified butter. When crisp, remove from the pan and allow to cool.
- Grind the cookies into a coarse powder and mix with powdered sugar and finely ground nuts.
- Finally, serve at room temperature and top with clarified butter (optional and amount up to you).
Gloria Pino
Jump to recipe: Bisteces a la Mexicana
I’m originally from Mexico, but I’ve lived a good part of my life in Barcelona, where I met my husband. We have two kids, aged five and seven, and a cat.
Coming from countries with two of the most famous cuisines in the world, food is extremely important to us. It’s not only about nourishing our bodies; it’s about learning where we come from and who we are. Every time I cook a dish with my kids, there will be stories about how ‘Abuela’ (Grandma) would make it.
With planning, shopping and preparation, we have very clear roles. I do the meal planning, my husband loves to do the grocery shopping, and my nanny does the food preparation, guided by me.
We typically shop at a number of stores and locations according to what we need to buy. These include Villa Market, Big C, Paleo Robbie, BT Ferments, Amantee, Holey Artisan Bakery, Happy Grocers and Khlong Toey market.
Our staples include pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, pesto, bread, pâté, frijoles (black Mexican refried beans), tostadas (corn shells), fuet (similar to salami), tuna, olive oil and fresh tomatoes.
We only sit down to eat together on the weekends because during weekdays we have very different schedules. During these meals, everyone gets one plate served in the kitchen. Everything is normally served together at once. This differs slightly from my home country, where we would normally have an entrée and a main dish, served in the kitchen and brought to the table for each person. In my husband’s house they serve the entrée in the kitchen and the main at the table. Here, I normally don’t do entrées—just one plate with everything included, except if it’s a soup. I guess I choose to be more practical having the kids around.
Sunday is a family day in both our cultures. It’s where you get to see all the family together, so this is the day of the week that mealtimes are more special. We also eat special foods during festivities like Dia de los Muertos, La Diada (Catalan National Day) and Christmas.
A typical day of meals for my family looks like this:
- Breakfast: Pa tomaquet with fuet
- Lunch: breaded fish with vegetables
- Dinner: Bisteces a la Mexicana with white rice
- Snacks: fruits, seaweed
A popular dish at our place is ‘Bisteces a la Mexicana’. Everyone loves it because it’s easy to make, and it can be served with anything and still taste good—rice, corn shells, or something else. It also reminds me of my childhood, which is something I want to pass on to my kids.
Recipe: Bisteces a la Mexicana
Total time: 25 minutes
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
- 6 thin cut slices of beef steak
- 1 ½ Tbsps of beef stock
- 2 Tbsps of sunflower oil
- 3 medium-ripe tomatoes
- 1 garlic clove
- ½ cup of water
- ½ onion, sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt
Method:
- First, toss the steak slices in 1 Tbsp of beef stock.
- Next, fry the steak in a pan with 1 Tbsp of oil. Once done, set it aside.
- Then, boil the tomatoes until you can peel and deseed them.
- Once the tomatoes are peeled and deseeded, you are ready to make the sauce. Add the tomatoes, garlic, water, and the rest of the beef stock into a blender and blend for about a minute until the mixture is smooth.
- After that, heat the remaining oil and fry the onion for 2 minutes. Add the blended sauce and cook for 3 more minutes. Add the steak and bay leaf and cover for 10 minutes. Simmer to reduce the sauce to your liking.
- Finally, season to taste.
Rachel Banyard
Jump to recipe: Jamie’s Greens Mac ‘n’ Cheese
My husband and I are both from the UK and we have three daughters aged five, four, and five months.
Mealtimes create the rhythm of our day and allow us time to get together and connect. Living in a foreign country gives us lots of opportunities to explore new flavors and discover new dishes, teaching us more about Thai and other Asian cultures.
I try to involve my five- and four-year old daughters in all stages of the process, from planning to preparation (and eating!). We love flicking through recipe books to decide which meals to make for the week. My eldest enjoys writing them up on the board and helping me compile a shopping list. My middle daughter is a budding chef and loves to help prepare the meals.
The majority of our shopping is done in the supermarkets, but we’ve been getting really good quality meat and fresh fruit and vegetables from Sloanes and Happy Grocers. I also love getting fresh pineapple, melon and mango from the fruit sellers on the street, and we love Thai food, so we order that often.
Pantry staples in our home include rice and pasta in all colors, shapes and sizes, tins of lentils and beans to bulk up sauces and cut back on meat, and good quality spices to add flavor to everything. Having young children in the house means we get through a LOT of snacks, so we have a whole shelf of things to take with us when we’re out and about. At the moment they love cheese strings, dried mango and dried tamarind.
Work schedules make sitting down together for meals during the week tricky, but at weekends we make sure we eat all our meals together as a family, and we make our plans around what or where we’re going to eat.
Right from the beginning of weaning my daughters we have always given them the same food as us, and we just add extra seasoning to our plates after serving. I think it has helped them to be good eaters and willing to try most things because they have been exposed to lots of different foods from a very young age. Sometimes we put everything out on the table and let them help themselves, and sometimes we serve them up a plate, but we always encourage them to try a little of everything that has been cooked.
I think we eat in fairly similar ways to how we would back in the UK, but the foods we eat are obviously more influenced by the ingredients we can get here in Thailand. When we lived in China, the meals were more communal. Dishes would be served in the middle of the table for everyone to try and share. I loved this way of sharing a meal and connecting with each other over food. We ate some of our best meals and made some of our best friends there.
As far as special meals go, we don’t make one every week, but we do love a traditional British Sunday roast dinner. We make pancakes on Pancake Day, cook roast lamb at Easter, and eat Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, including Christmas pudding and mince pies.
A typical day of meals for our family looks like:
- Breakfast: Cereal or toast and jam, coffee and juice
- Lunch: Often leftovers from dinner the night before, or a quick sandwich, salad or wrap
- Dinner: A ‘one pot’ dish like pasta puttanesca or a garlic chicken tray bake
- Snacks: a variety of fruits, cheese strings, yoghurt, peanut butter on apple slices, banana muffins
A popular dish at our place is Jamie Oliver’s Greens Mac ‘n’ Cheese. Everyone loves it because it’s comforting, tasty, filling, and it’s packed full of secret green vegetables! The girls love the idea of green things making them strong like Popeye, so I tell them this is a supercharged mac ‘n’ cheese. It’s also got a lot of cheese in it, which makes everyone happy!
Jamie’s Greens Mac ‘n’ Cheese
(adapted from: jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/greens-mac-n-cheese/)
Total time: 1 hour
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
Method:
- 2 cups wheat flour
- 100 g spinach, fresh or frozen
- 4 cups milk
- 30 g Parmesan cheese
- 400 g broccoli
- 3 Tbsps butter
- 2 Tbsps plain flour
- 1 large leek
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 15 g fresh thyme leaves
- 150 g Cheddar cheese
- 450 g dried macaroni pasta
- Breadcrumbs to top, optional
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.
- Peel the garlic and finely slice along with the leek and broccoli (save a few small pieces of broccoli to add in later.)
- Cook the sliced vegetables in a large casserole dish with butter and the thyme leaves. Cook on a medium heat for around 15 minutes until softened.
- Add in the flour, then slowly add the milk, stirring continuously. Let it simmer and thicken for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Cook the macaroni pasta in a large pan of boiling salted water for 5 minutes, then drain.
- Add the Parmesan and most of the Cheddar cheese into the sauce, mixing well. Add the spinach and then use a blender to mix until smooth.
- Add salt and black pepper to taste, then add in the pasta and broccoli florets, loosening with a splash of milk, if needed.
- Tip everything into a large baking dish, sprinkle over the rest of the Cheddar cheese and some breadcrumbs to make a crispy topping (you could also use flaked almonds). Bake for 30 minutes, until golden and bubbling, et voilà!
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