Our collection of recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist includes recipes for Asian pesto with Thai basil instead of Italian and quintessentially Asian ingredients such as coriander and sesame; the classic Japanese rice seasoning furikake made with Southeast Asian spices and herbs; Terence’s spiced Scotch eggs with Thai pad kra pao flavours, and classic meat pies and sausage rolls inspired by Thai and Cambodian dishes; and my pork Stroganoff made with the Chinese velveting technique.
If you’re a fan of Asian flavours and have a tendency to shower fresh Southeast Asian herbs on salads and baguettes, sprinkle chilli flakes on your pasta, and douse soy sauce or fish sauce on everything, you should enjoy this collection of recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist, and hopefully they’ll inspire your own cooking experiments.
Since I returned to Australia to care of my elderly mum, I’ve been making more classic dishes than I’ve made in years, from traditional French braises and classic Italian pastas to old-fashioned Russian stews and retro European cutlets, such as Wiener schnitzel. But after serving mum, I’ll sprinkle some chilli flakes or squirt some Sriracha over my plate.
After over a dozen years living in Southeast Asia – first Thailand and Vietnam, then Cambodia; although we’d been eating and cooking Asian food for a couple of decades before we moved to the region – I just can’t help myself. The same can be said of the flavours of the Middle East, where we lived and worked for almost eight years and travelled and covered as a writer-photographer team for even longer. But I thought I’d share our Asian-inspired dishes first.
Now before you scroll down to our collection of recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; booking a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or by buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers.
And don’t forget, if you’re looking for more cooking inspiration, browse our recipe archives, which are heaving with many hundreds of recipes we’ve cooked, created and collected from around the world, from places we’ve lived, travelled and loved. Or browse our most popular Octoner recipes, which were the most searched-for recipes on the site, or recipes to cook in November. Now let’s tell you about our recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist.
Recipes for Classic Dishes with an Asian Twist from Pesto to Pies
This collection of recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist includes everything from a recipe for a Southeast Asian pesto that calls Thai basil instead of Italian basil, as well as coriander and sesame seeds, and a melt-in-the-mouth pork Stroganoff made with the Chinese velveting technique.
Southeast Asian Pesto Recipe for Asian Style Pesto for Pasta, Noodles and More
Kicking off this collection of recipes for classic dishes with an Asian twist is this Southeast Asian pesto recipe for an Asian take on Italian basil pesto, made with Thai basil, coriander and sesame seeds. I developed this Southeast Asian pesto back in early 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, when we were staying home focusing on baking sourdough (Terence) and cooking projects to stay sane. I still love this Asian pesto and make it often.
You can use this Southeast Asian pesto as a condiment or sauce. Stir it through noodles or pastas. Spread it onto crusty bread, croutons or crostini to make Spanish tapas, Basque pintxos or Italian bruschetta. Add a layer to your Vietnamese banh mi or Cambodian num pang. Drizzle it onto grilled vegetables, a good hunk of steak, barbecued meats and skewers as the Argentines do with chimichurri. It also makes a fantastic dressing for potato salad.
For the best texture, use a mortar and pestle to pound the ingredients. (I love this KROK mortar and pestle, handcrafted in Thailand.) Worth noting: ‘pesto’ comes from the Genoese verb ‘pestâ’ – in Italian, it’s pestare – which means ‘to pound’ or ‘to crush’, which is the traditional method of prep, which involved crushing the ingredients in a circular motion. Tight on time? By all means use a food processor or blender.
Italian basil pesto lover? Try our recipes for gnocchi with pesto alla Genovese, my basil pesto pasta with potatoes and beans (the dish I fell for on our first trip to Genoa, made with fusilli instead of trofie), pesto spaghetti with meatballs, peas and broccoli, a pesto potato salad, a pan-fried asparagus with pesto hummus, pesto scrambled eggs, my cherry tomato salad with burrata, asparagus, pesto and dukkah, and broccoli pasta with a creamy broccoli pesto sauce.
Southeast Asian Pesto Recipe for Asian Style Pesto for Pasta, Noodles and More
Classic Japanese Furikake Recipe With Southeast Asian Flavours
Our homemade furikake recipe with Southeast Asian flavours makes the classic Japanese rice seasoning with a tropical Southeast Asian twist. Traditional furikake ingredients such as white and black sesame seeds and toasted nori are combined with dried Southeast Asian spices and herb powders. It’s utterly addictive.
I appreciate that my homemade furikake recipe with Southeast Asian flavours might seem strange to Japanese food lovers. And if you don’t know what furikake is, don’t worry, I’d been eating Japanese food for the best part of thirty years before I ‘discovered’ it and it was a revelation. In fact, Terence introduced it to me and I became completely obsessed by the stuff, sprinkling it on everything. Terence had to hide it as it’s not cheap in Siem Reap.
I could eat furikake by the spoonful right out of the stupidly expensive little plastic container, but instead I was frugally sprinkling a little across a bowl of steamed rice or boiled noodles. I became utterly addicted to the umami flavours and crispy textures, and I would close my eyes and dream of being back in Tokyo.
But then I got the idea of creating a furikake recipe with Southeast Asian flavours and couldn’t stop thinking of its many applications. I imagined showering it over salads and soups and barbecued skewers. But instead, like the original Japanese furikake I found myself doing little else with it but sprinkling it across a bowl of steamed rice.
If you don’t have a local Asian market nearby and/or pantry filled with Asian essentials, look for these ingredients at your nearest Asian supermarket or specialist Asian grocery store or order them online. Black and white sesame seeds can usually be found at any supermarket. The dried lemongrass might be trickier to find.
Homemade Furikake Recipe With Southeast Asian Flavours to Spice Up Your Rice
Traditional Scotch Eggs Recipe with a Thai Inspired Pad Kra Pao Twist
Terence shared his Thai-style Scotch eggs recipe for the classic British snack with a Thai-influenced twist inspired by the Thai stir-fry favourite pad kra pao at the start of the pandemic. Developing this recipe was one of many cooking projects that kept us focused in those early weeks as Covid spread like wildfire around the world.
A popular British picnic snack and road trip snack, Scotch eggs are traditionally made with a boiled egg wrapped in seasoned sausage meat, which is crumbed and deep-fried. Terence’s Thai-style Scotch eggs recipe makes a traditional Scotch egg given a Thai-style makeover by infusing the ground pork with the flavours of pad kra pao or pad gaprao and it’s another of our classic dishes with an Asian twist.
If you’re a fan of traditional Thai pad kra pao you’ll love this dish, but also try our original Thai pad krapow omelette rice bowl recipe for our idea of a Thai style donburi or Japanese rice bowl, and our pad kra pao udon noodles recipe, which we shared in our long-running series Weekend Eggs, on egg dishes from around the world.
Traditional Scotch Eggs Recipe with a Thai Inspired Pad Kra Pao Twist
Meat Pie and Sausage Roll Recipes Inspired by Southeast Asian Dishes
Terence’s meat pie and sausage roll recipes are inspired by Southeast Asian dishes, especially Cambodian specialties and Thai favourites. These recipes make incredibly delicious Asian twists on Australia‘s iconic meat pies and sausage rolls, infused with the flavours of our adopted home of Cambodia, and Vietnam and Thailand where we also lived.
Like the recipes for the dishes above, Terence’s Asian-flavoured sausage rolls and meat pies were an outcome of staying at home in Siem Reap during the pandemic and getting homesick for Australia and Australian food, everything from cafe fare (avocado on toast) and pub grub (the chicken parma) to takeaway favourites (from beer battered fish and chips to burgers and hand-cut fries) to inventive contemporary Australian cuisine. We were missing it all.
Recipes include a curry beef sausage rolls recipe and curry beef pie recipe based on Cambodian Saraman curry, the richest, most complex of Cambodian curries; a chicken curry pie recipe using the classic Cambodian chicken curry with potatoes, long beans and Asian eggplants; and a spicy pork mince pie recipe made with Cambodian prahok k’tis, made with prahok (fermented fish paste), and yellow kroeung (a kroeung is a Cambodian herb and spice paste).
Best Aussie Meat Pie and Sausage Roll Recipes Inspired by Southeast Asian Dishes
French Onion Soup Recipe for a Deeply Flavoured Soup with an Asian Twist
This fragrant French onion soup recipe makes a classic French onion soup with a subtle Southeast Asian twist. Inspired by French chef Raymond Blanc’s vegetarian French onion soup recipe, which uses toasted flour to add a nuttiness to the broth, I’ve added a little fish sauce for umami and star anise for aroma and flavour to create a deeply-flavoured onion soup.
I have to confess to being a lifelong French onion soup lover but not a maker. Terence has long been the cook of the French onion soups in our home. He said the wonderful hearty French onion broth that he’s made for decades was based on Julia Child’s classic French onion soup recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Although the French onion soup of my childhood made by mum was very similar to Terence’s, we didn’t have any Julia Child cookbooks on our shelves. I’m guessing it was probably based on the French onion soup recipe in Larousse Gastronomique. I’m making this assumption, as dad and I bought her the book for mum’s birthday in the 1970s.
My parents also had a French restaurant on the beach on the Central Coast for a while and French onion soup was on the menu, so I’ve been slurping the classic onion broth with cheesy croutons since I was a kid, but this recipe now makes my favourite. If you’re a fan of those French onion soups and you’re a lover of Asian flavours, you should enjoy my version.
French Onion Soup Recipe for a Deeply Flavoured Soup with an Asian Twist
Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic with a Twist
If it weren’t for the addition of fish sauce to add umami, my beef Stroganoff recipe would be otherwise authentic, based as it is on a combination of the earliest published Russian beef Stroganoff recipes and my Russian-Ukrainian family recipes. My grandmother and mother both made beef Stroganoff. Since I’ve been back in Australia taking care of my 78 year old mum I’ve made a Stroganoff for her regularly and it goes on Easter and Christmas menus.
But the inclusion of fish sauce in a classic Slavic dish isn’t so crazy in fact. From Pelageya Aleksandrova-Ignatieva’s 1899 recipe onwards, the ingredients list included an umami-boosting ‘brown sauce’, from Kabul sauce, also called Soy Kabul sauce and Mogul sauce, to Yuzhni or Yuzhny sauce.
Worcestershire sauce became a standard addition to beef Stroganoff and the ingredients of Worcestershire sauce are vinegar, salt, sugar or molasses, garlic, shallots, onions, soy sauce, and anchovies. And what’s fish sauce made from? Small fish such as anchovies, which are fermented.
After experimenting with varying degrees of fish sauce, which we use daily in Cambodia, I can’t eat beef Strog without it. Use a quality fish sauce, which adds loads of umami, not a fishy taste, as some think. A cheap fish sauce adds saltiness. We love Thailand’s Megachef for its smoothness and consistent sodium levels.
I like to serve my Stroganoff with dill pickles to cut through the richness and classic Stroganoff accompaniments such as shoestring fries, mashed potatoes or buckwheat kasha and a Russian garden salad. If I’m making a proper Russian-Ukrainian feast for Mum and myself then I’ll kick off the meal with some piroshki and follow up with casserole pots brimming with Russian pelmeni and/or Ukrainian vareniki.
If you are a beef Strog lover, browse this compilation of my best Stroganoff recipes, some of our best mushroom recipes, which include recipes for chicken Stroganoff, meatball Stroganoff, mushroom Stroganoff, and spaghetti Stroganoff.
Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Palace Kitchen
Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique
My pork Stroganoff recipe has more than an Asian ‘twist’. It makes an umami-rich, melt-in-the-mouth pork Stroganoff with a silky, tender-soft texture that comes courtesy of the Chinese velveting technique, a method that calls for marinating and pre-cooking the pork before stir-frying it.
Braised with mushrooms in a richly-spiced sour cream-based sauce, my pork Stroganoff takes inspiration from Shanghai’s East-West Haipai cuisine. If you’re a lover of Chinese cuisines and Chinese dishes made with the velveting technique – such as the popular stir-fried pork with mushrooms that partly inspired this dish – you’ll love this pork Stroganoff, especially with crispy shoestring fries, a classic Stroganoff side.
Classic Chinese marinade ingredients used in velveting typically include a combination of Shaoxing cooking wine, oyster sauce (we like Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce), light soy sauce and/or dark soy sauce, an oil (we prefer sesame oil), white pepper, perhaps some sugar, and corn starch as the tenderiser, and marinating the meat can be done in as little as 30 minutes.
If applying a Chinese cooking technique to a traditional Russian dish sounds like a strange thing to do, keep in mind that when beef Stroganoff left the Russian Empire with Russian émigrés following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, it landed in Harbin, China, then Shanghai, then Hong Kong, before it travelled to countries such as Australia and the USA.
The food that those Russian émigrés served in the many restaurants and cafés they opened, initially to feed other expatriates missing the flavours of home, was gradually adapted to suit local tastes. No more so than in Shanghai, where an East-West fusion cuisine called Haipai developed. My pork Stroganoff recipe is inspired by that cuisine, time and place.
Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique
Roast Chicken Recipe with Aromatic Cambodian Butter and Herby Stuffing
Another of our classic dishes with an Asian twist, my roast chicken recipe makes a fragrant, flavoursome and moist roast chicken thanks to a Cambodian flavoured butter and a herby stuffing made with yellow kroeung, an aromatic Khmer herb and spice paste pounded from fresh lemongrass, kaffir lime zest, galangal, turmeric, garlic, and shallots. Baby carrots, corn, potatoes, and shallots are cooked with the chicken for a comforting Cambodian-inspired roast.
This roast chicken recipe is one created with the help of the master chicken roaster in our house, Terence, back in those early days of the pandemic, like so many of our East-Meets-West recipes. We were staying at home in Siem Reap, quarantine cooking to keep us safe, and undertaking cooking projects to keep us sane – and this roast chicken recipe like so many was the result of a longing for home and nostalgia, and missing meals around the family table.
Because Terence had long ago mastered the art of roasting the perfect chicken – indeed, Terence believes a roast chicken is one of the dishes that every cook should master to become a better cook, I’d never bothered to make a roast chicken. But during the pandemic I was having a go at anything and everything – as you do when you’re so conscious of your own mortality! – and giving everything a bit of a twist, because why not?!
Khmer yellow kroeung is used in the same way as a Thai curry paste is, but Cambodians also use kroeung as the basis for hearty broths such as this sour soup with morning glory and beef, as an ingredient in these wonderful fragrant fish cakes, as a marinade for smoky grilled skewers, in Cambodia’s famous fish amok, a rich steamed fish curry, and in this lemongrass chicken stir-fry. So it made sense to me to use the kroeung for a herby butter and stuffing for roast chicken, and it was absolutely wonderful. Vegetable sides recipes right here.
Best Roast Chicken Recipe with Aromatic Cambodian Butter and Herby Stuffing
Please do let us know in the comments below if you make any of our classic dishes with an Asian twist as we love to hear how our recipes turn out for you.
