Our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021 included a mix of light summery dishes that appealed to northern hemisphere readers and hearty dishes that warmed up those of you in the wintery south, from Thai salads full of flavour and texture to a comforting Russian stew and a Vietnamese caramelised fish recipe.
It’s not quite the end of the month, but we’re busy packing here for our third move during a pandemic (we’re experts now unfortunately) so we thought we’d share our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021 a couple of days early, just in case you’re looking for some weekend cooking inspiration.
Once again, our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021 included recipes published over a decade ago for our series The Dish, on the quintessential dishes of places we settled into on our yearlong global grand tour that launched Grantourismo. Namely: tomato bredie, the classic Cape Town stew and French chef Pierre Gagnaire’s cote de boeuf recipe which he shared when we caught up with him in Paris.
Rather than risk these monthly round-ups becoming repetitive, we’re excluding those recipes, so this list of 10 most popular recipes of July 2021 is really a list of 12 most popular recipes, but who’s counting? Before we tell you all about the recipes our readers searched for and hopefully cooked this month, we have a favour to ask.
Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by using our links to book accommodation, rent a car or campervan or motorhome, buy travel insurance, or book a tour on Klook or Get Your Guide. You can also shop our Grantourismo store for gifts for foodies, including fun reusable cloth face masks designed with my photography. You could also buy us a coffee, although we won’t buy coffee, we’ll put that donation toward cooking ingredients for recipe testing.
Another option is to contribute to our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon or purchase something on Amazon, such as these James Beard award-winning cookbooks, cookbooks by Australian chefs, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, cookbooks for culinary travellers, travel books to inspire wanderlust, gifts for Asian food lovers, picnic lovers and travellers who love photography. Now let me share our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021.
Most Popular Recipes of July 2021 – Here’s What Our Readers Have Been Cooking
Here’s what our readers have been searching for and hopefully cooking this month – our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021.
MOST POPULAR RECIPES OF JULY 2021 ON GRANTOURISMO
Traditional Russian Beef Stew Recipe for Solyanka, a Medieval Dish for Modern Times
Lara’s traditional Russian beef stew recipe for solyanka topped the list of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. Based on Lara’s baboushka’s recipe it makes a hearty stew – or heavy soup if you prefer – and it’s one of our favourite beef stew recipes. Lara grew up eating this in the 1970s but this old Russian dish was first mentioned in written form in the 15th century, although it’s thought to be even older. The dish began life as countryside ‘peasant food’ so it was probably a lot thinner than Lara’s grandmother’s rendition. Like the other dishes in our compilation of best stew recipes, it’s a real winter warmer for those of you in the southern hemisphere experiencing a particularly chilly winter. If you enjoy this, do browse Lara’s Russian family recipes.
Easy Vietnamese Clay Pot Caramelised Fish Recipe with Fresh Turmeric, Fragrant Dill and Peanuts
Our Vietnamese caramelised fish recipe with fresh turmeric, fragrant dill and peanuts was another of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. It’s called ‘Vietnamese clay pot fish with fresh dill’ at Red Bridge Cooking School in Hoi An in Central Vietnam, where we learnt to make it when we were living there in 2013. If you’re familiar with Vietnamese food and been to Vietnam, you’ll recognise it as a cousin of two Vietnamese specialties, chả cá lã vọng, which you might have tried in Hanoi, and cá kho tộ, which you may have sampled in Saigon. We make the dish with salmon and it’s incredibly delicious and comes together quickly, even though you need to pound a marinade and paste in a mortar and pestle.
Savoury French Toast Recipe With Pan-Fried Cherry Tomatoes, Feta Cheese and Fresh Herbs
If you cooked and enjoyed Lara’s Russian French toast recipe for grenki which her baboushka used to make her for school holiday breakfasts as a kid, then you’ll love her savoury French toast recipe, which was another one of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. If you haven’t had savoury French toast before – which our British friends call eggy bread – don’t be surprised if you become addicted to this stuff. Lara’s savoury French toast recipe makes a classic French toast – which is essentially fried bread soaked in a beaten egg and milk mixture – that’s flavoured with garlic, onion, sea salt, pepper, and a little chilli, and is pile high with pan-fried cherry tomatoes, feta cheese and fragrant dill. It’s a fabulous weekend breakfast, brunch or lunch dish.
Chorizo Eggs Recipe for Fried Eggs with Chorizo and Chilli Oil and Spring Onions
We only published my chorizo eggs recipe for fried eggs with chorizo chilli oil and spring onions on sourdough toast last week for our Weekend Eggs series, yet it quickly became one of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. The recipe makes a filling weekend breakfast or brunch dish that should take you back to Mexico or Spain, depending on where you first sampled chorizo. I’ve been making chorizo and eggs dishes in one form or another since Lara and I first travelled to Mexico back in the Nineties and fell in love with an old-school vintage diner called Café El Popular in Mexico City and their huevos revueltos con chorizo or scrambled eggs with chorizo. And if you haven’t dropped by in a while, we rejuvenated our Weekend Eggs series on quintessential breakfast eggs dishes from around the world, which we first launched with Grantourismo over a decade ago, and there are plenty of new egg recipes there.
This Japanese Rolled Omelette Recipe Makes Tamagoyaki for Your Tamago Sando
Another recipe that I published for our Weekend Eggs series, this Japanese rolled omelette recipe for tamagoyaki was another of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. The recipe will make you a soft, fluffy, rolled omelette that we love to eat between thick slices of Japanese bread to make a tamago sando or Japanese egg sandwich. Japanese rolled omelettes are eaten everywhere in Japan, from izakayas to high-end sushi restaurants, but home-cooked tamagoyaki has a special place in the hearts of Japanese. Like many of you currently staying at home, we have been continuing to cook our way through the pandemic, using food to channel some of our favourite countries and cuisines and it was a delight to reminisce about our time in Tokyo, Japan, while recipe-testing this dish.
Cambodian Vegetarian Num Pang Recipe for a Baguette Filled with Fragrant Herb Frittata
Our Cambodian vegetarian num pang recipe was another of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021. This recipe will make you a ‘num pang’, a Cambodian baguette sandwich, which in this case is slathered in mayo and filled with a quick pickle of grated daikon and carrot, crunchy salad ingredients, fragrant herbs such as coriander, mint and basil, slices of a delicious herb frittata, and a generous squirt of homemade chilli sauce. You don’t really need a recipe for a sandwich but until num pang is as well-known as banh mi, we’re going to keep sharing Cambodian num pang recipes. You might also like to try our meatball num pang made with these juicy pork balls and our num pang pâté with rustic country-style pâté and cold cuts.
Thai Fried Egg Salad Recipe for Yam Khai Dao, a Deliciously Addictive Crispy Fried Egg Salad
Another one of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021, this Thai fried egg salad recipe for yam khai dao will make you a deliciously addictive salad of crispy fried eggs with sweet tomatoes, purple shallots, crunchy peanuts, fragrant coriander, Chinese celery, and chillies. It has a salad dressing that’s all at once sweet, sour, tangy, and funky. When you think of egg salads, what probably comes to mind are creamy boiled egg salads with mayonnaise that have the texture of baby food, however, this Thai fried egg salad recipe for yam khai dao makes a salad that’s full of flavour and texture and a kick of chilli-heat that couldn’t be more different to your average egg salad. This is another recipe from our Weekend Eggs series.
This Easy Creamy Avocado Smoothie Recipe is a Sip of Southeast Asia At Home
Lara’s easy creamy avocado smoothie recipe was another of our 10 most popular recipe posts of July 2021 and it’s probably the simplest of the lot. The recipe calls for just four ingredients and takes no more than five minutes to make what is an incredibly creamy avocado shake that is both healthy and filling. If you’ve had avocado smoothies in Southeast Asia or South America, you can make this avo shake and travel with your taste-buds for a sip of the tropics at home. Lara had this on repeat here in our Siem Reap kitchen after buying a few kilos of fantastic avocados from farmers in Ratanikiri province in eastern Cambodia – and she still has a few avocado recipes which she’ll share with you next week.
Cambodian Chicken Rice Porridge Recipe for Borbor Sach Moan, Cambodia’s Congee
This Cambodian chicken rice porridge recipe for borbor sach moan, Cambodian congee, was was another of our 10 most popular recipe posts of July 2021. Called borbor sach moan in Khmer, it’s thought that this chicken rice porridge is a dish of Chinese origin and part of the Cambodian-Chinese culinary heritage rather than a Khmer dish, but no matter its provenance it’s become a comfort food favourite of all Cambodians. Cambodians tuck into big bowls of borbor for breakfast, brunch, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner (particularly if someone isn’t feeling well), and a late-night supper (i.e. hangover cure). If you like this, you might also enjoy our recipe for an easy Cambodian rice soup with pork meatballs made using leftover rice. We love them both.
Classic Thai Som Tam Recipe for a Thai Green Papaya Salad Plus Tips for Jazzing Up Your Som Tam
This classic Thai som tam recipe for the popular Thai green papaya salad that you’ll eat on the streets of Thailand was adapted from David Thompson’s Thai Street Food and it was another of our 10 most popular recipe posts of July 2021. The provenance of this spicy Thai salad is northeastern Thailand’s Isaan region, but now you’ll find this street food favourite all over the country and, of course, right across northern Southeast Asia. ‘Isaan’ and ‘Isan’ mean ‘northeast’ in Thai and Khmer, and the region was once part of the Khmer Empire for a while, and is therefore littered with Angkorian temples. We also provide some tips in the post for jazzing up a basic som tam.
If you’ve made any of our 10 most popular recipes of July 2021 please leave a comment below as we’d love to know how they turned out for you.
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