It’s almost time to wish you all a wonderful Christmas break. There are presents to wrap and people to see – we’ll all be getting busy. Without doubt, I’m ending the year on a food writing high and this particular feature in BBC Good Food Magazine couldn’t have come at a more special time. If you are able to get your hands on a copy of the January edition of BBC Good Food Magazine – out now – you’ll see an exciting feature called Global Kitchen, with some vibrant ideas for New Year cooking. The BBC Good Food team love to spot new trends and they’ve picked out six cuisines they think we’ll be eating more of and hopefully cooking more of in 2014. Favourites include Pakistani food, aromatic Lebanese, the food of Vietnam, homely Polish food, the Inca-inspired Peruvian kitchen and fresh Korean flavours. What a line up!
To celebrate these ‘up-and-coming’ cuisines, BBC Good Food selected six recipes – including my very own Polish apple cake (Szarlotka) – for us all to try our hands at. I’m incredibly excited to be featured alongside some of my favourite food writers of the moment, including Bethany Kehdy (author of The Jewelled Kitchen highlighted here), cookery teacher and writer Sumayya Jamil. entrepreneurs Van Tran and Anh Vu, Martin Moore (author of Ceviche:Peruvian Kitchen) and Judy Joo, who is about to begin a new series of Korean Food Made Simple.
Spot my Polish apple cake recipe…
Credit: Photograph by Will Heap for BBC Good Food Magazine
So, what do you all think about the cuisines that have been highlighted by the feature? Whilst I am of course biased and hope that Polish and Eastern-European food may make its mark on global cuisine (Poland recently achieved it’s first Michelin star via Chef Amaro in Warsaw.) I am also intrigued by Korean food and I would also love to explore more Lebanese food in my own kitchen as well as trying out some Vietnamese dishes.
I also spotted a recipe in the previous edition of BBC Good Food Magazine for Piernik – a Polish gingerbread cake, by Edd Kimber, which is stuck to my kitchen cabinet with a ‘must-make’ post-it note attached.
I’m more hopeful than ever that I can tempt you all with more Eastern-European baking here on my blog and elsewhere next year.
In the meantime, I’m signing off now for a festive break. Please do leave me a comment in the box below if there are any particular recipes you’d like me to share in 2014, or cuisines you think I should be exploring in my kitchen!
With thanks to Sarah, Helen, Will and the BBC Good Food Team for inviting me to be a part of this feature and for styling and photographing my cake so beautifully.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!