My ideas for what to cook this weekend include everything from the classic Thai omelette called kai jiew, a crispy, puffy golden-brown Thai omelette cooked in vegetable oil in a very hot wok, to an egg drop soup just like your favourite Chinese restaurant does, a velvety yellow soup so dense with creamy egg wisps it’s like a liquid omelette.
For dinner suggestions for what to cook this weekend, I recommend you try my baked cabbage roll casserole recipe for an unstuffed cabbage roll casserole or lazy cabbage rolls. It’s not a traditional dish, so it’s not one of my Russian-Ukrainian family’s recipes, but rather a dish that sprung from the deep wells of creativity in the kitchens of the Russian and Ukrainian diasporas.
If you prefer the real deal, I’ve got a classic cabbage rolls recipe for golubtsi (голубцы) which makes a more petite version of my baboushka’s bigger cabbage rolls – one cabbage roll was a meal in itself! I cook the savoury pork, beef, carrot, and rice filling before stuffing the cabbage rolls, so they bake faster than the larger golubtsy filled with a raw meat mixture, yet they’re equally delicious.
If you’re a first-time visitor to Grantourismo, What to Cook this Weekend is a very random weekly-ish recipe series with ideas for often easy, occasionally challenging, but always memorable weekend meals. We publish the series weekly, unless life gets in the way.
My weekend cooking suggestions for you might include dishes we’re cooking here at home here in Cambodia, which we think you might enjoy, recipes that we’re developing and testing out for our various cookbooks, or recipes we’d like to cook if we had the time, which we think you’d like to try.
All of our recipes come from our recipe archives, which are jam-packed with hundreds of recipes: from family recipes and nostalgic recipes from our childhoods to recipes for dishes from around the world that we learnt to cook on our travels and dishes that we cook at home here in Siem Reap.
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What to Cook This Weekend – Kai Jiew, Egg Drop Soup, Cabbage Rolls and Chicken Stroganoff
Saturday Breakfast – Classic Thai Omelette Recipe for Kai Jiew
This Thai omelette recipe for kai jiew is my top suggestion for what to cook this weekend. It will make you a crispy, puffy golden-brown Thai omelette cooked in vegetable oil in a very hot wok. While Thais eat this at any time of day – for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack in between – we love it for a late breakfast, which is what Saturday will be as it’s been an exhausting week.
Kai jiew is a spectacular Thai dish to make. When poured into the hot oil, the whisked eggs with fish sauce form bubbles that grow and the omelette puffs right up like a crazy magic trick, before settling down as it cooks into a thick, soft, fluffy golden-brown omelette.
A heads-up: it takes confidence in your kitchen skills to stay calm while flipping this puffy omelette over. To that point, please wear closed footwear and a kitchen apron. Another tip: a round bottomed wok is best for making this dish as you need to get under the omelette with a wide mesh skimmer.
The eggs are fortified by a good dash of fish sauce – we recommend the Thai fish sauce, Megachef for its reliability and availability as much as its quality – and the omelette is served on steamed jasmine rice with some Sriracha sauce to spice things up.
If you like this, you should also like this kai yat say recipe for Thai ‘stuffed’ eggs, an egg parcel of stir-fried pork mince and diced vegetables, this decadent Vietnamese-inspired crab omelette recipe, and this Thai fried egg salad recipe.
Classic Thai Omelette Recipe for Kai Jeow, a Crispy Puffy Golden-Brown Omelette
Saturday Lunch – Egg Drop Soup Recipe for Egg Flower Soup
This egg drop soup recipe makes an egg flower soup just like your favourite Chinese restaurant does – a velvety yellow soup so dense with creamy egg wisps that it’s almost like a liquid omelette. Slender slices of shitake mushrooms ensure it isn’t! A drizzle of sesame oil, pinch of white pepper and sprinkle of spring onions complete this comforting broth.
This classic egg drop soup recipe is another of my top ideas for what to cook this weekend, and should make you an ‘egg flower soup’, as the Chinese name literally translates to, which tastes just like the egg drop soup you might have grown up eating at your favourite neighbourhood Chinese restaurant.
It certainly tastes like the egg drop soup I grew up eating at our local Chinese restaurant in Lidcombe in the western suburbs of Sydney, which I’m imagining tastes very much like a typical Chinese-American egg drop soup.
Our egg drop soup recipe was made for Weekend Eggs, a series of recipes on quintessential breakfast and brunch egg dishes from around the world – which we launched with Grantourismo back in 2010 with our year-long global grand tour – however we also love egg drop soup for lunch.
Egg Drop Soup Recipe for Egg Flower Soup Like Your Favourite Chinese Restaurant Makes It
If you’re a fan of egg drop soups and a lover of spice and haven’t sampled this Basque garlic soup before, you may like to try this recipe instead. It makes a gently spiced bread and egg drop soup that’s deliciously rich and hearty.
The creamy texture comes courtesy of whisked eggs drizzled into the broth and the deep flavours are thanks to generous amounts of garlic, paprika and sherry vinegar. Ground chillies give the warming soup an extra kick of heat.
Basque Garlic Soup Recipe for a Gently Spiced Bread and Egg Drop Soup
Saturday Dinner – Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole Recipe
This baked cabbage roll casserole recipe makes an unstuffed cabbage roll casserole or lazy cabbage rolls and it’s another of my best ideas for what to cook this weekend. Note, however, that this is not a traditional dish, so it’s not one of my Russian-Ukrainian family’s recipes.
Rather it’s a dish that has sprung from the deep wells of creativity in the kitchens of the Russian and Ukrainian diasporas. Close cousins of this dish are also called unstuffed cabbage rolls or lazy cabbage rolls because you don’t actually stuff the cabbage rolls or roll the savoury minced meat and rice mixture up in the cabbage leaves.
If you enjoyed my recipe for traditional cabbage rolls stuffed with savoury rice and mince, baked in a rich tomato sauce called golubtsy (голубцы), which are cooked in Russia, Ukraine and neighbouring countries, then you’re going to love this baked cabbage roll casserole recipe.
Blanched cabbage leaves are layered lasagna-like with a rich tomato sauce, farmer’s cheese, and a cabbage roll fried rice made from the savoury ground pork, onion, garlic and carrot filling usually stuffed in the cabbage leaves to make traditional cabbage rolls.
You could serve it simply, with a light Russian garden salad on the side, or make it the centrepiece of a feast, which you could kick off with bowls of steaming borscht if you’re in the northern hemisphere where autumn/fall has started or a chilled beetroot soup if spring has sprung for you.
Regardless of the weather, I’d also make a batch of the savoury minced meat hand pies called pirozhki to have with the soup and perhaps some kotleti, chicken meat patties.
Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole Recipe for an Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole or Lazy Cabbage Rolls
Sunday Morning – American Country Skillet Breakfast Recipe
For breakfast on Sunday, I’m making this eggs potatoes and chorizo skillet recipe for our favourite take on the classic American country skillet breakfast made in a cast iron skillet.
Also called a cowboy skillet breakfast or farmer’s skillet breakfast, there’s an infinite array of variations on the traditional American breakfast skillet – additions include anything from bell peppers to kidney beans – but the essential ingredients of the classic skillet breakfast are eggs, potatoes, onions, cheese, and bacon or ham.
We prefer to make this hearty American breakfast with spicy chorizo sausage instead of bacon and ham, and specifically the soft Mexican chorizo, which has to be cooked before eating, rather than the firm Spanish-style chorizo.
We love chorizo – who doesn’t? – and we especially love the combination of chorizo, eggs and potatoes, hence this Spanish potato omelette recipe with chorizo, this Basque-style ‘messy eggs’ recipe for fried eggs with chorizo and potatoes, and our breakfast taco recipe with fried eggs, chorizo and crunchy potatoes.
If you can’t find Monterey Jack cheese, a young cheddar cheese will do. For the hot sauce, our favourites of the supermarket brands are Tapatio Salsa Picante and Cholula Original Hot Sauce.
Eggs Potatoes and Chorizo Breakfast Skillet Recipe for a Twist on a Classic American Breakfast
Sunday Lunch – Cambodian Green Papaya Salad Recipe
After a big hearty breakfast, I like the idea of a salad for lunch, and this Sunday I’m planning on making this Cambodian green papaya salad recipe. It makes a light yet filling salad that’s full of flavour and texture and it’s another of my top picks for what to cook this weekend.
This recipe makes Cambodia’s bok lahong or nhoam lahong, a fresh, fragrant, crunchy salad that’s a little funky, spicy, sour, salty, and a tad sweet. Typically eaten as a late afternoon snack, this bespoke salad is usually made to order, and has cousins in Laos (tum som), Thailand (som tum), and Vietnam (gỏi đu đủ).
The Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian recipes for the green papaya salad are what Southeast Asians call ‘same same but different’. While they share many ingredients (papaya, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, fish sauce, lime juice, etc) there are flavours, ingredients and measurements of ingredients that set each salad apart.
You’ll need a wooden mortar and pestle to make a pounded salad such as this, as you want to soften or bruise the ingredients. But you could use a stone or granite mortar and pestle if you had to, just don’t pound too hard or you’ll end up with mush.
If you need more than a salad for your Sunday lunch, browse our Cambodian barbecue recipes (these juicy grilled pork ribs are a perfect match) or consider this spicy Burmese fried chicken.
Cambodian Green Papaya Salad Recipe – How to Make Cambodia’s Bok Lahong
Sunday Dinner – Chicken Stroganoff Recipe
I’m incredibly homesick right now and missing my family terribly – we still haven’t been able to get back to Australia since the pandemic started – so I’m seeking comfort food right and particularly the nostalgic dishes of my childhood, hence another Stroganoff recipe. Are you getting sick of them yet?
My Russian chicken Stroganoff recipe makes another of my best Stroganoff recipes. Inspired by the old Shanghai-style of Stroganoff, it’s incredibly rich, redolent of spices, and slightly tangy due to the addition of Worcestershire sauce, which, while included in the early recipes, was bumped up in the Russian restaurants in early 20th century Shanghai and Harbin.
In each of those cities, Russian exiles established vibrant Russian communities with Russian bakeries, Russian delis, Russian tea rooms and, of course, Russian restaurants. While most of those establishments have long gone and those that remain open are no longer owned by Russians, Stroganoff still appears on menus everywhere from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
You’ll find a beef Stroganoff in Hong Kong that’s redder in colour than the traditional Russian Stroganoff. It’s heavy on ketchup, which was invented in China, and includes Worcestershire sauce, which, with its fermented fish, tamarind, chilli pepper, soy, and cloves is distinctly Asian and particularly Southeast Asian.
But I liked the sound of the Stroganoff that was served in Old Shanghai, which was said to have included soy sauce along with the Worcestershire sauce. I’ve bumped up the spice and along with the Worcestershire, tomato sauce and soy sauce, I’ve added fish sauce again.
The perfect side to a Stroganoff? This crunchy Russian garden salad and either mashed potatoes or shoestring fries.
Chicken Stroganoff Recipe for a Rich, Spicy, Tangy Old Shanghai Style Stroganoff
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.
