What to Cook this Week is a newish weekly recipe series we publish every Monday with weeknight meal ideas from the Grantourismo recipe archives. Suggestions include easy midweek dishes, ideas for upcoming holidays, and recipes that we’re developing and testing that we’d love you to try.
If you’re visiting our site for the first time or you haven’t dropped by in a while, What to Cook this Week is a regular recipe series, where every Monday I dig into our recipe archive – which is bursting with hundreds of recipes from around the world, many dating back to 2010 when we launched Grantourismo – for easy midweek dinner recipe ideas for you.
In What to Cook this Week, I share meal suggestions for those nights when you’re feeling like you don’t want to spend a whole of time in the kitchen, as well as ideas for meals requiring a bit more effort, when you’re happy to while away the evening in the kitchen with loved-ones, a bottle of wine, and good music in the background.
We’ll also share recipes that we’re planning to cook here in our Cambodian kitchen in the week ahead. And if you’re interested, we’d also love to offer the occasional recipe that we’re developing for our cookbooks and invite you to test it out and let us know how the dish turned out for you.
Now, before you scroll down to our ideas for what to cook this week, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting our work by buying us a coffee. We’ll put that coffee money toward cooking ingredients for recipe testing.
Another way to support the site is by making a small donation 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. We may earn a small commission but you won’t pay any extra.
And lastly, you could use 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. Again, we may earn a small commission but you won’t pay extra. Lastly, you could also shop our Grantourismo store at Society 6 for plenty of great gifts designed with Terence’s photography. Now let’s give you some ideas as to what to cook this week.
What to Cook this Week from Cambodian Pork Ribs and Thai Pad Kra Pao to Smoked Salmon Pasta
Monday Night – Cambodian Grilled Pork Ribs
I’m trying to persuade Terence to make his Cambodian grilled pork ribs recipe tonight, which he published soon after the pandemic started as part of a Cambodian barbecue recipe series. It makes a favourite dish that locals love to tuck into by the plateful.
It’s super easy, made with a simple marinade, and is a cinch to do on the barbecue, gas grill or a clay brazier if you really want to go local. These pork ribs are a hugely popular dish served at boisterous barbecue where they’re washed down with icy Cambodia beers.
Locals will order an array of barbecued dishes including a plate or two of different kinds of ribs – and there are as many kinds of ribs as there are barbecued skewers – whereas at local neighbourhood eateries they’ll be eaten with a handful of dishes that might include a pot of soup, stir-fried greens such a morning glory, and big plates of rice for each person.
If you enjoy these, check out the other recipes in our Cambodian barbecue series, such as these Cambodian marinated beef skewers and char-grilled eggplant with minced pork.
Tuesday Night – Mushroom Stroganoff Recipe
It was Russian Orthodox Christmas on 7 January – although its celebrated late on Christmas Eve on 6 January – so you would think I’d had enough of Russian food for a while, but I never tire of the cuisine of my ancestors, my Russian family’s recipes, and my own takes on those traditional dishes.
While my Russian beef Stroganoff recipe keeps popping up at the top of our stats – thank you, spasiba, we appreciate it – I also love my recipe for chicken Stroganoff and my mushroom Stroganoff recipe and I’m on a bit of a mission to persuade you that those renditions are just as delicious as the more famous, original beef Stroganoff.
This mushroom Stroganoff recipe is essentially a vegetarian version of the beef Strog, which I based on my memory of my Russian grandmother’s Stroganoff and the earliest documented Russian Stroganoff recipe in Elena Molokhovets’ cookbook A Gift to Young Housewives, dating to 1861.
As is our tradition, I’ll serve it with this classic garden salad and our Russian dill pickles on the side and that will do us just fine.
Wednesday Night – Lao Khao Soi Recipe
One of the places I’ve really been missing recently in Southeast Asia is the UNESCO World Heritage listed riverside Luang Prabang in neighbouring Laos, which despite being a small city really feels like a village in its historic heart.
While Luang Prabang is best known for its glittering mosaic-clad pagodas, charming French colonial architecture and its early morning alms procession by its monks in tangerine coloured robes, we fell in love with the food as much as the city’s history, culture and people.
All of that is to explain why I’ve pencilled in this Lao khao soi recipe for Wednesday night’s dinner. A deliciously filling Laotian soup with wide rice noodles and a rich, hearty sauce of pork mince, tomatoes and fermented soy beans, Lao Khao Soi is distinguished by the dollops of Southeast Asian style ragu Bolognese which are plopped on top.
Terence spent years perfecting this recipe after we first sampled Lao khao soi on our first trip to Laos after our tour guide Bounmee pointed out a neighbourhood noodle joint in a dilapidated shed that he claimed made the best Lao khao soi in town.
I’m curious if it’s even still there after the last couple of challenging years. I look forward to being able to investigate myself one of these days. We can only dream.
Thursday Night – Thai Pad Kra Pao Recipe
By the time Thursday comes around, I just feel like something quick and easy and comforting, and this popular street food dish from Thailand, pad kra pao, makes just that: savoury stir fried ground pork and fragrant holy basil with fried egg, served with prik nam pla and steamed jasmine rice.
If you don’t know pad kra pao, it’s arguably the most popular Thai street food dish amongst Thais, especially in Bangkok – and, no, that’s not pad Thai, which is the most popular street food dish for tourists to the Thai capital.
Pad kra pao is eaten at any time of day – for breakfast, a mid-morning ‘snack’, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and supper – and it’s eaten by absolutely everyone, from taxi drivers and office workers to Michelin starred chefs. We’re happy to tuck into a plate of pad kra pao for breakfast as we are for dinner.
It’s also a very versatile dish. Thai holy basil is essential – that’s the ‘kra pao’ in the title, also written as ‘kra pow’ and ‘gaphrao’, while ‘pad’ or ‘phat’ is ‘stir-fried’ – however, you could easily use ground beef or chicken mince, and you can crank up the heat if you like things hot or serve a more gently spiced stir-fry if you prefer.
Friday Night – Smoked Salmon Pasta Recipe
I don’t know about you, but we still have a few bibs and bobs in the fridge left over from the festive season… some charcuterie and salami, some half-consumed cheese, and the remnants of my olive tapenade I polished off this evening, spreading it onto not-yet-stale two-week old homemade crostini.
… and a packet of smoked salmon leftover from Christmas and New Year’s Eve, when we made these devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, this creamy smoked salmon dip from scratch, and these blini with smoked salmon, dill, gherkin and sour cream.
We’ll use the smoked salmon on Friday night to make this sublime smoked salmon pasta recipe, which, ironically, I created to use up leftover smoked salmon from Christmas. I know, I couldn’t help myself, I bought more smoked salmon for New Year’s Eve.
My smoked salmon pasta recipe makes spaghetti with smoked salmon, dill pickles, capers and fresh dill. The addition of sour cream and lemon juice make this a pasta that’s quintessentially Russian.
It’s versatile, however – you could add more sour cream for a creamier texture or a dollop of caviar for a special occasion, or simply because you have some of that left over, too, as we do. We’ve got another recipe going up this week which will help you use that up. And use whatever pasta you like. It comes together quickly, in less than half an hour.
Please do let us know if you’ve made any of our What to Cook this Week recipes in the comments below as we’d love to get your feedback and hear how our recipes turned out for you. We’re also eager to hear what you think of the series and if you have any suggestions.
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