What to Cook This Weekend from Chicken Pies and Polish Pierogi to Pickled Soup and Ricotta Pancakes

What to Cook this Weekend is a newish weekly series that we launched last month with suggestions for often easy but always memorable weekend meals from our recipe archives. Meal ideas might include dishes we’re making at home that we think you’ll like, feasts to cook for holidays, along with the occasional recipe we’re testing that you might like to try.

Our new What to Cook this Weekend series came about because our other new recipe series What to Cook this Week, which we also launched last month, was so well-received by readers, we decided to try a weekend edition, hence What to Cook this Weekend. As both have proved popular, we’re going to continue them, so look out for What to Cook this Week on Sunday night.

Each week What to Cook this Weekend will comprise a round-up of meal suggestions for this weekend from the Grantourismo recipe archives – which are heaving with hundreds of recipes for dishes from around the world, beginning with decade-plus-old recipes from our first recipes series The Dish.

We launched The Dish on recipes for the quintessential dishes of places we travelled to when we launched Grantourismo and our 12 month global grand tour back on New Year’s Day 2010. Many of our most popular recipes on the site come from that series.

Readers who’ve been with us from the start might recall our Moroccan Moroccan lamb tajine with prunes and almonds which we learnt to cook in our Marrakech riad and shot in Essaouira; the classic Toulouse cassoulet that Terence prepared for our new French friends in Ceret; and the côte de bœuf recipe courtesy of French chef Pierre Gagnaire Pierre Gagnaire which we made in our Montmartre flat in Paris.

Suggestions for recipes you could make might include meals to cook for holidays, dishes that we’re cooking in our kitchen that we think you might also like, and meals based on seasonal ingredients. As with our What to Cook this Week series, we’d also like to use What to Cook this Weekend to occasionally share recipes we’re developing for our cookbooks that we’d love you to try out and share feedback.

Before I share our suggestions for what to cook this weekend, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo and what we do here by buying us a coffee (we’ll use our coffee money to buy cooking ingredients for recipe testing) or making a donation to our epic, original Cambodian cookbook and culinary history on Patreon. You can also shop our Grantourismo store for gifts for foodies, including fun reusable cloth face masks designed with Terence’s photography.

Another way to support the site is by using our links to book accommodation, rent a car or campervan or motorhome, buy travel insurance, book a tour on Klook or Get Your Guide, 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 might earn a small commission but you won’t pay extra.

Now let’s share some ideas as to what to cook this weekend from curried chicken pies and Polish pierogi to pickled soup and ricotta pancakes.

What to Cook This Weekend from Chicken Pies and Polish Pierogi to Pickled Soup and Ricotta Pancakes

Friday Dinner – Cambodian Pickled Lime Soup with Chicken Recipe

I’ve got cravings for Southeast Asian food tonight, but I’m going to mix things up a bit. I’m going to put on a pot of this Cambodian pickled lime soup with chicken for sngor ngam ngov, a slightly sweet, slightly sour, citrus-driven soup brimming with succulent chicken and aromatics such as lemongrass and coriander. It’s easy to make, as well as being nourishing and comforting. I recommend you put a pot on the stove, too. If you can’t find Asian pickled limes, these more readily-available Moroccan preserved lemons will work too. I’m also going to make these Vietnamese fresh rice noodles, which are actually a lot easier than they sound. I’m going to use them to roll some phở cuốn Hà Nội. If that’s more time than you want to spend in the kitchen on Friday night, we have more Vietnamese spring roll recipes here using store-bought spring roll wrappers.

Comforting Cambodian Pickled Lime Soup with Chicken Recipe for Sngor Ngam Ngov

 

That’s a nice light, healthy yet filling meal, but I know it will leave me craving something sweet, so I might hop over to Thailand and make David Thompson’s mango sticky rice. It’s another recipe that is a lot easier than it reads but you’ll have to soak to sticky rice in advance. If you’d like something less time-consuming, we have more easy Asian dessert recipes here. 

This Thai Mango Sticky Rice Recipe by Chef David Thompson Is Not As Intimidating As It Looks

 

Saturday Breakfast – Indonesian Padang Style Eggs Recipe

I suggest you try this week’s Weekend Eggs edition, a Padang style eggs recipe which will make you a delicious Indonesian egg curry called gulai telur Pedang: ‘Gulai’ is curry, ‘telur’ is ‘egg’ and Padang is the capital city of West Sumatra. Home to the Minangkabau people, the cuisine is called Minang food or Padang food, or masakan Padang to Indonesians, and it’s much-loved in Indonesia. This gently spiced, fragrant egg curry is made with boiled eggs – done to your liking, so see our guide to how to boil eggs perfectly – simmered in coconut milk and an aromatic spice paste pounded in a mortar and pestle from fresh galangal, turmeric, ginger, garlic, shallots and chillies. The eggs are sprinkled with crispy fried shallots and eaten with steamed rice for breakfast in Indonesia, however, I also add plenty of torn fresh coriander leaves. If you made and enjoyed this traditional Burmese egg curry recipe or our Thai son-in-law eggs then you are going to love the Padang style eggs.

Padang Style Eggs Recipe for Gulai Telur Pedang, a Spicy Coconut Egg Curry from Sumatra

Saturday Lunch – Chicken Curry Pie Recipe

I’m going to try my hand at Terence’s chicken curry pie recipe made with Cambodian chicken curry for lunch on Saturday and break in the new toaster oven we’ve just bought thanks to a donation from Kate in London, a reader and former participant on one of our culinary tours who became a friend. As regular readers know, Terence is a sourdough enthusiast who baked loaves of sourdough every few days for the past few years, until we moved to this apartment in August, which, while lovely, didn’t have an oven. The pies will do us just fine for Saturday lunch.

Homemade Chicken Curry Pie Recipe Made with Cambodian Chicken Curry

 

If you don’t fancy chicken pie, we have recipes for a curry beef pie made with Cambodian Saraman curry and a spicy pork minced pie filled with prahok k’tis, a rich pork mince, prahok, coconut cream, and pea eggplant dip. If you’re partial to a sausage roll, we also have recipes for Saraman curry sausage rolls and sausage rolls with eggplant and pork inspired by Cambodia’s char-grilled eggplant and minced pork. You can browse our full collection recipes for meat pies and sausage rolls here.

Saturday Dinner – Polish Pierogi Recipe

I’m up for a Saturday night cooking project while Terence watches the grand prix. I’m always cooking Russian food, so I’m going to make Polish tonight, because not only is winter here, but Christmas is approaching, which reminds me of the wonderful Christmas we spent in a cosy apartment in chilly Kraków at the end of the yearlong 2010 global grand tour that launched Grantourismo. So I’m going to make a batch of Polish pierogi, cousin to Russian pelmeni and vareniki, which I’ll serve with dishes of sour cream and homemade dill pickles and a classic garden salad. I’m also experimenting with a Polish potato soup, but I don’t have a recipe for you yet, so you could try my baboushka’s borscht or browse my Russian family recipes.

How to Make Pierogi from Poland — We Learn the Secrets to Dumpling Success in Krakow

 

Sunday Breakfast – Egg Foo Young Recipe

Our readers loved Terence’s egg foo young recipes for both the original Cantonese style egg foo young – or egg foo yung and egg fu yung for the English transliteration and fu yong dan or fuyong dan for the Cantonese name – which he makes with pork mince, but which you could do with char sui pork recipe, and the Chinese American egg foo young recipe with gravy, doused in gravy and sprinkled with scallions, sesame seeds and bean sprouts. They have been so popular that they both appeared on our 10 most popular recipes of November 2021, two of four Weekend Eggs recipes that made the list.

Egg Foo Young with Gravy Recipe for the Chinese American Crispy Omelette That’s a Takeout Favourite

Sunday Lunch – Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe

I love this stuffed tomatoes recipe for Cambodian tomates farcies, plump sweet red tomatoes stuffed with savoury minced pork, garlic, onions, and mushrooms that are pan-roasted and/or oven-baked until the flavours meld together. The dish is a culinary remnant of the French colonial period when Cambodia was a French protectorate and part of French Indochina, along with Vietnam and Laos. It’s often intended as a side dish, but I can easily eat a couple of these with a little steamed rice for lunch. If you’re in the southern hemisphere where the weather is warming up, a simple green herb salad also works as a terrific side to this side. If you’re a lover of tomatoes, do peruse our best tomato recipes.

Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe for Cambodian Tomates Farcies, a Culinary Remnant of French Indochina

Sunday Dinner – Russian Cabbage Soup

Winter has well and truly arrived here in Cambodia. We’ve been eating dinner on the balcony to savour the cool air and fresh breezes that we only get for a couple of months a year. I went out earlier today and my tuk tuk driver was dressed for the snow fields not tropical Siem Reap, wearing a puffy winter jacket and woollen beanie. After all our years here, it still surprises me that Cambodians have these winter woollies packed away somewhere, which they bring out for the short cool season. They seem to enjoy rugging up, too. While I haven’t yet felt the need to slip on a cardigan, I am in the mood for winter food, so after Sunday lunch I’ll put on a pot of this hearty, comforting Russian cabbage soup called shchi I’ll freeze the leftovers to enjoy over coming weeks.

Easy Russian Cabbage Soup Recipe for Shchi, The Most Russian of Soups – And Vegan!

That should do us, but if you need another course, we have plenty of ideas in my archive of Russian family recipes. Perhaps traditional cabbage rolls? Or maybe jump to dessert? Do browse our pancake recipes. I love these Russian ricotta cheese pancakes, which work for breakfast, brunch and dessert.

Russian Ricotta Cheese Pancakes Recipe for Syrniki or Farmer’s Cheese Pancakes

Please do let us know if you’ve made any of our What to Cook this Weekend recipes in the comments below as we’d love to get your feedback and hear how our recipes turned out for you.