Our most popular recipes of April 2023 have long been reader favourites – some dating to 2010, the year we launched Grantourismo – such as the authentic Mexican guacamole recipe we shared from San Miguel de Allende and a tomato bredie recipe for a South African stew from Cape Town. Others are my Russian-Ukrainian family recipes and Cambodian recipes we make here in Siem Reap.
I have always looked forward to the end of one month and start of the next month when I sit down and review our stats to see what you searched for on Grantourismo and the recipes where you spent most of your time – which, of course, we hope were also recipes you cooked, or at least bookmarked to cook.
The recipes are usually a real mix of old recipes and new recipes, however, this time our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023 were all older recipes. Not that we don’t love you cooking our old favourites. Don’t get me wrong, we do! And we’re pleased to see you all finding them and cooking them. Please let us know what you think in the comments at the end of the recipes.
Before I share our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023, the recipes our readers searched for and spent most of their time on, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon, buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or by buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever.
Now let me share our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
Most Popular Recipes of April 2023 – The Recipes Our Readers Cooked Last Month
These are the 10 most popular recipes of April 2023 on Grantourismo – the recipes our readers searched for, spent time on, and (hopefully!) cooked last month.
Authentic Beef Stroganoff Recipe
My authentic beef Stroganoff recipe topped our list of the 10 most popular recipes of April 2023, which is not surprising, as it’s long been one of the most popular recipes on Grantourismo.
Best known as a retro classic of the 1970s, beef Stroganoff is an old aristocratic Russian dish that is rich in history. Democratised and popularised in the cafeterias of the Soviet Union, beef Stroganoff travelled the world with Russian émigrés, exiles and World War II refugees, including my Russian grandfather and Ukrainian grandmother.
One of my best Stroganoff recipes – I also have recipes for chicken Stroganoff, mushroom Stroganoff, meatball Stroganoff and pork Stroganoff – beef Stroganoff is fantastic with traditional Stroganoff sides such as crispy shoestring fries, mashed potatoes or a crisp garden salad, plus homemade dill pickles and sour cream.
Dishes are rarely eaten alone when a Russian-Ukrainian family gathers. For our Sunday meals and holiday feasts, such as Orthodox Easter, baboushka would prepare a whole spread of dishes, such as borscht, piroshki, Russian pelmeni and Ukrainian vareniki, stuffed cabbage rolls, a beetroot potato salad, and chicken kotleti.
Authentic Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Saint Petersburg Palace Kitchen
Traditional Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe
Our traditional Cambodian fish amok recipe was next on our list of the 10 most popular recipes of April 2023, which makes me especially excited, seeing most of my days are spent researching Cambodian cuisine and writing a Cambodian cookbook.
Our fish amok recipe makes an authentic steamed fish curry to a classic recipe from an older generation of cooks who believe that if it’s not properly steamed, then it’s not amok trei. ‘Amok’ means to steam in banana leaves and ‘trei’ means fish in Cambodia’s Khmer language.
While the dish is eaten by all Cambodians on all kinds of occasions – the firm consistency and banana leaf wrapping made it convenient for farmers to take it out to the rice paddies for a midday deal, while the sumptuous texture and rich taste made it a wedding party favourite – it’s thought that this refined dish is a Royal Khmer specialty dating as far back as the Khmer Empire.
Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe for an Authentic Steamed Fish Curry in the Old Style
Nom Banh Chok Recipe for Khmer Noodles
Cambodian food has such a special place in our hearts, having spent almost a decade here, researching and writing our epic Cambodian cookbook and culinary history, so I was thrilled to see not one but two Cambodian dishes land on this list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
Nom banh chok, also written as nom banhchok, which is both the name of the fresh rice noodles and the dish itself, is an ancient Khmer specialty that has influenced so many other dishes around Southeast Asia, from Thailand’s khanom jeen to a Southern Vietnamese Khmer dish from the Mekong Delta called bún kèn.
There are a handful of types of nom banh chok but our authentic nom banh chok recipe for Cambodia’s beloved ‘Khmer Noodles’ makes nom banh chok samlor proher, a popular breakfast dish of the rice noodles doused in a yellow-green coconut-based fish curry, garnished with fragrant herbs, seasonal vegetables, edible flowers, and wild herbs.
Authentic Nom Banh Chok Recipe for Cambodia’s Beloved Khmer Noodles
Salmon Potato Salad Recipe with Soft-Boiled Eggs
My Russian salmon potato salad recipe with soft-boiled eggs, capers, gherkins and dill makes my take on one of our Russian family recipes so it was very cool to see it on the list of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
It makes a filling salad that you can eat year-round. In the cool season, you can serve it with warm potatoes and seared salmon straight from the pan, while it can be refrigerated for warm weather meals, such as summer barbecues and spring picnics.
I really love a salad you can eat all year. You can work quickly and combine the potatoes, pan-seared salmon and soft-boiled eggs while they’re still warm if you’re eating this in cool or cold weather.
Or if you’re making this salmon potato salad recipe for picnics, barbecues or summer meals, then follow the instructions below and refrigerate it. This salad is fantastic chilled or warm, which is something I love in a salad.
Russian Salmon Potato Salad Recipe with Soft-Boiled Eggs, Gherkins, Capers and Dill
Authentic Mexican Guacamole Recipe
This authentic Mexican guacamole recipe was next on the list of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023, which was so cool to see, as it’s another recipe that we added during our time in Mexico for Terence’s series called The Dish.
For that series, he cooked the quintessential dishes of the places we settled into for two weeks at a time on the 2010 yearlong global grand tour that launched Grantourismo, aimed at promoting slow, local and experiential travel.
Our recipe makes a genuine Mexican guacamole of the kind your Mexican abuela (grandma) might make – the kind that’s made table-side at good restaurants in Mexico. It’s all about the creamy luscious texture, bright green colour and full flavour of perfectly ripe avocados
I’ve been making this authentic Mexican guacamole recipe for almost 30 years, since we tasted our first genuine guacamole in Mexico City on our inaugural trip to Mexico in the mid-Nineties. We became so smitten with that sublime guacamole that was so much simpler yet far superior to the one I’d been making, that we adapted a guacamole ritual and I’ve been making it ever since.
Whether you use a Mexican mortar and pestle called a molcajete or not is much-debated. In Mexico City, chef Martha Ortiz said it was essential, while our cooking instructor in San Miguel de Allende was adamant it wasn’t. As most of our readers outside Mexico probably won’t have a molcajete, the recipe calls for a fork. You could also use a Southeast Asian granite mortar and pestle.
Authentic Mexican Guacamole Recipe Just Like Your Mexican Abuela Would Make
Buckwheat Kasha Recipe with Bacon, Caramelised Onions, Mushrooms and Eggs
This comforting Russian buckwheat kasha recipe with caramelised onions, bacon lardons, pan-fried mushrooms, and soft-boiled eggs makes my hearty take on my baboushka’s traditional Russian breakfast and it was another of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
Despite the rustic appearance, it’s perhaps the least traditional of all my Russian family recipes but it’s one of my favourite recipes. Although I have to confess that of all the traditional Russian breakfasts my baboushka used to make – French toast, blini, potato cakes, and buckwheat pancakes – kasha was my least favourite breakfast as a child.
As a little kid, it was the strange smell that put me off more than the nutty taste of the ancient grain, and it wasn’t until I was a young adult going to Sydney University and visiting my grandparents for overnight stays that I finally got kasha and I’ve loved it ever since.
The key ingredient of this savoury porridge (kasha) is buckwheat groats (grechka). While based on my Russian grandmother’s recipe, I’ve spiced things up. My baboushka put chopped-up hard-boiled eggs on top, whereas I use soft-boiled eggs and also serve it with a dollop of sour cream, diced gherkins, and plenty of fresh fragrant dill.
Comforting Russian Buckwheat Kasha Recipe with Bacon, Caramelised Onions, Mushrooms and Eggs
Half Boiled Eggs Recipe for Classic Kopitiam Eggs
This half-boiled eggs recipe makes the classic kopitiam eggs tailor-made for having with kaya toast in a Malaysian or Singaporean coffee shop and it was another of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
The just-set, still runny yolks and milky whites are perfect for dipping toast ‘soldiers’ into. The secret is getting perfectly soft eggs every time. Terence’s technique is flawless for achieving the perfect soft boiled eggs every time.
This half-boiled eggs recipe for classic Singaporean and Malaysian kopitiam (coffee shop) eggs, like many of our recent Weekend Eggs recipes, came from a place of missing our former life of travel and the opportunities it gave us to experience local rituals, particularly of the culinary kind.
We’ve especially been missing the experience of lingering over a long, slow, weekend breakfast or brunch at a local cafe or coffee shop and whatever that entails wherever we are in the world, and this half-boiled eggs recipe is a result of us craving the quintessential kopitiam breakfast in Singapore and Malaysia.
Half Boiled Eggs Recipe for Classic Kopitiam Eggs to Go With Your Kaya Toast
Tomato Bredie Recipe for a Classic Cape Town Stew
This tomato bredie recipe, which makes a classic Cape Town stew was next on the list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2023. A ‘bredie’, which is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘stew’, is a slow-cooked mutton and tomato stew, and it’s as Cape Town as Table Mountain.
The variety of bredies and amount of spices used have an infinite variety of permeations. This is Terence’s version, cooked during our two weeks in Cape Town way back in 2010, on that trip that launched Grantourismo.
After sampling the dish in Cape Town restaurants during our stay, and making it in our kitchen several times, Terence found the sweet spot with this recipe, a good mix of lamb pieces cooked for at least a couple of hours, a good rest overnight before reheating, and then add the potatoes.
Garnish with fragrant coriander and serve this tomato bredie recipe with some aromatic rice, and roti if possible, and a good South African Shiraz or some ice cold beer.
Tomato Bredie Recipe for a Classic Cape Town Stew from South Africa
Classic Anzac Biscuits Recipe
This classic Anzac biscuits recipe is as close to the early 1933 Australian Country Women’s Association Anzac biscuit recipes that I could get it and it makes the best Anzac biscuit ever – even better than the Anzac biscuits of my memory growing up in Australia.
ANZAC Day on 25 April is a day that’s special to Australians and New Zealanders. When you’ve lived abroad for as long as we have, you use these national holidays to reflect upon home, your loved ones there, and compatriots. It’s a reminder that we do belong somewhere, despite having lived away for so long – and not being able to get home since the start of the pandemic.
In the lead up to the Anzac Day long weekend in Australia and New Zealand, it seems every Australasian newspaper, magazine and food site has published and republished some form of the classic Anzac biscuits recipe, often with a twist on the traditional, or an Anzac inspired dessert, so it was great to see that this traditional Anzac biscuits recipe was one of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023.
Classic Anzac Biscuits Recipe Based on the 1933 Country Women’s Association Recipes
Russian Easter Cake Recipe
This Russian Easter cake recipe makes kulich, a Russian Easter bread laced with dried fruit and topped with lemon icing that drips down the loaf. Baked in tin cans, the cylindrical-shaped bread is similar to Italian panettone or French brioche.
In Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic countries, this Easter cake is typically baked on Easter Friday or Easter Saturday, is blessed by the Orthodox priest at church at Saturday’s midnight service, and is traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday and the period between Easter and Pentecost.
It only takes a couple of hours to make, most of which is resting, rising and baking time. It was surprising to see that this was one our 10 most popular recipes of April 2023, but if you like Italian panettone or French brioche then you’ll love this – especially with lashings of salted butter and a strong cup of tea.
Russian Easter Cake Recipe for Kulich and Happy Easter or Schastlivoy Paskhi
Please let us know in the comments below if you make any of the recipes in this round-up of our most popular recipes of April 2023 as we’d love to hear how they turn out for you.
