My ideas for what to cook this weekend include recipes for jammy soft-boiled eggs on sourdough with dill cream cheese and pickles, an authentic Andalusian style gazpacho from southern Spain, traditional pork carnitas for mouthwatering Mexican slow-cooked pulled pork, and soto ayam recipe for the beloved Indonesian chicken noodle soup.
My suggestions for What to Cook this Weekend are very much based on what I’m cooking this weekend, but don’t forget: if you don’t find anything that takes your fancy below, there’s lots more inspiration in the Grantourismo recipe archives.
You should find some cooking inspiration from our recent collections of 31 Recipes to Cook in March – 31 Noodle Recipes to Make for Noodle Month, one for every day of March and our round-up of the Most Popular Recipes of February, which are the recipes our readers searched for and included everything from sticky pork ribs and chicken cutlets to Asian egg omelettes.
But before I share my ideas for what to cook this weekend, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is partly funded by its readers. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon, which you can do for as little as the price of a coffee.
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Now let me share my ideas for what to cook this weekend.
What to Cook this Weekend – Jammy Soft-Boiled Eggs, Gazpacho, Soto Ayam, Pork Spare Ribs
Here are our What to Cook this Weekend suggestions for meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner for Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday Breakfast – Jammy Soft-Boiled Eggs on Sourdough with Dill Cream Cheese and Homemade Pickles
My top suggestion for you for what to cook this weekend is this recipe for jammy soft-boiled eggs on sourdough with dill cream cheese and pickles. This is a recipe for those of you who, like me, love the combination of ingredients in my slow fried eggs on creamy dill spread on toasted sourdough with crunchy gherkins, crisp radishes, cracked pepper and sea salt.
But, if you thought, like me, that as delicious as that dish was, and while you might make it for a fancy breakfast or brunch, it would be nice to have an even simpler version that could be prepped quickly and easily as a snack to share… well, here it is!
Both recipes are family recipes and will go in the Russian-Ukrainian cookbook that I’m writing as they were inspired by my late grandfather Ivan’s daily breakfast. Every morning, Papa would rise at the crack of dawn and head out to the garden to feed his chickens and pick whatever vegetables were ripe and ready to eat. He’d then make a beeline for the kitchen where he’d prepare his own breakfast.
He’d tuck into a boiled egg or two, a few cloves of garlic, crunchy cucumbers and radishes just picked from his garden,homemade dill pickles, and dark rye bread, washed down with black tea with lemon… and a shot of vodka!
With those much-loved Eastern European ingredients of fresh dill, cream cheese and pickled gherkins, this is a perfect breakfast for this time of year, with Orthodox Easter approaching. If it’s not for you, browse our Weekend Eggs recipe series archive, which is heaving with hundreds of egg recipes.
Jammy Soft-Boiled Eggs on Sourdough with Dill Cream Cheese and Homemade Pickles
Saturday Lunch – Gazpacho Recipe for an Authentic Andalusian Style Gazpacho from Southern Spain
It’s really getting hot here now, so I’m making a cold soup for lunch on Saturday, and specifically this gazpacho recipe for an authentic Andalusian style gazpacho from southern Spain of the kind that you’ll find in cities such as Seville. This recipe results in a vibrant orange gazpacho that tastes like a garden salad in the form of a cold summer soup. And this chilled soup tastes even better the next day.
Terence likes to tell the story how years ago in Australia, before our first trip overseas – which was actually to Mexico; Spain would come later – I beat our Spanish language teacher in a blind gazpacho-making competition on the last night of our Spanish language course.
I honestly didn’t think I’d win although I knew my gazpacho was delicious. Those were the days before the internet – before we could Google recipes and have them at our finger-tips in seconds – so my recipe was based on the gazpacho that we used to order at our favourite tapas bars in Sydney’s ‘Little Spain’ quarter which we used to frequent every week or two.
What I didn’t realise at the time – in fact, I wouldn’t realise this for another five years, after travelling to Spain – was that the recipe that I made in the gazpacho cook-off was in the Southern Spain style from Andalucia, whereas my Spanish teacher, who was from Galicia, made a more northern-style gazpacho that was a more tomato-driven red-coloured soup. I like them both, but I prefer this style. Let us know what you think.
Best Gazpacho Recipe for an Authentic Andalusian Style Gazpacho from Southern Spain
Saturday Dinner – Pork Carnitas Recipe for Mexican Slow Cooked Pulled Pork Tacos de Carnitas
This traditional pork carnitas recipe is another of my top picks for what to cook this weekend. It makes the mouthwatering Mexican slow-cooked pulled pork that’s fantastic on tacos, tostadas, tortas, burritos, and more.
Tacos de carnitas are made with melt-in-your-mouth slow-cooked pulled pork, a green salsa made from tomatillos, a little fresh coriander, and lime quarters on the side, and these minimalist tacos really exemplify that less is more approach.
Carnitas means ‘little meats’ and the pork is slow-braised until it’s so juicy and tender it easily falls apart. The heat is then increased to get crispy bits of pork for delicious contrasts of texture and flavour. Make a big batch.
This traditional pork carnitas recipe makes the mouthwatering Mexican tacos that we fell in love with in Mexico City many years ago.
We serve these much-loved tacos carnitas family-style with everything at the centre of the table so everyone can assemble their own carnitas, with dishes of homemade guacamole and green tomatillo salsa (not red salsa), just as they do in Mexico. We try to use corn tortillas when we can get them but use what you’re able to source. They’ll still taste amazing.
Pork Carnitas Recipe for Mexican Slow Cooked Pulled Pork Tacos de Carnitas
Sunday Breakfast – Easy Breakfast Tostadas Recipe with Fried Eggs
My Sunday breakfast idea for this week’s edition of What to Cook this Weekend is this easy breakfast tostadas recipe with fried eggs. I know I’ve shared this before but I just love this and it’s what we’ll be making again this weekend.
The recipes makes a crispy Mexican tostada topped with spiced refried beans, enriched with a soft fried egg with a runny yolk, garnished with homemade pickles, salsa, chillies or jalapeños, Mexican cotija, and sprigs of fresh coriander or cilantro to our American readers.
Fried eggs make everything better and there are few better recipes that testify to this than these tostadas. If you need convincing, see the post I recently shared on nine types of dishes that are better with a fried egg on top, from rice porridges or congees and steamed rice and stir-fries to fried rice and fried noodles, and chilaquiles, nachos, tacos and tostadas, to banh mi and potatoes.
A fried egg, especially a fried egg with a runny yolk, adds richness, creaminess and texture to any dish. It also transforms a lunch or dinner dish into breakfast or brunch, whether its tostadas, tacos or nachos, and it can even make a dish such as a salad seem comforting. This breakfast salad is a fantastic example of that.
If you’re not a lover of fried eggs, do browse these compilations of best boiled eggs recipes and best scrambled eggs recipes, all of which were created for our Weekend Eggs series of quintessential breakfast eggs from around the world.
Easy Breakfast Tostadas Recipe with Fried Eggs, Refried Beans and Pickles
Sunday Lunch – Soto Ayam Recipe for Yogyakarta’s Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul
For Sunday lunch for what to cook this weekend I recommend making this soto ayam recipe for the beloved Indonesian chicken noodle soup, which is what I’ll be making. Our recipe is based on the aromatic breakfast noodle soup we became smitten with on our last day in Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java.
‘Soto’ means soup and ‘ayam’ is chicken. Soto ayam is an Indonesian chicken soup with noodles that is the go-to street food breakfast for many locals. But just as our favourite chicken soup recipe might differ markedly from your chicken soup recipe, there seems to be a soto ayam recipe for every village, town, city, and region on Indonesia’s 18,307 islands.
But if there’s one thing that Indonesians seem to agree on, that’s that soto ayam is the country’s chicken noodle soup for the soul. Like all good chicken soups, soto ayam is comfort food, eaten as a healthy filling breakfast to kickstart the day, and recommended for the restorative properties of its ingredients (turmeric in particular) when you’re feeling a little off or unwell.
Soto Ayam Recipe for Yogyakarta’s Indonesian Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul
Sunday Dinner – Pork Spare Ribs with Star Anise Recipe
This pork spare ribs with star anise recipe makes a wonderfully aromatic Cambodian style of pork ribs that you can tuck into on their own, washed down with cold beers of course, or you can serve as one of a number of dishes as part of a Cambodian feast, and it’s my last suggestion for what to cook this weekend.
We first published this recipe for pork spare ribs with star anise as part of our series on the best Cambodian barbecue recipes. We also shared recipes for smoky grilled pork ribs, marinated beef skewers and grilled eggplant with stir-fried minced pork and fermented soya beans as part of that series.
This is still one of our most favourite pork ribs recipes. While the marinade may appear basic compared to some that we’ve seen with long lists of ingredients, you’ll find that it creates subtle flavours and aromas, along with a sweetness and a glossy sheen to the pork.
What really makes this dish special is the fragrance, thanks to that star anise, and seasoning from the soy sauce, and it seriously does not need much more than that. We’ll eat these ribs with some steamed jasmine rice and Asian leafy greens and we’ll be very happy after that meal.
Pork Spare Ribs with Star Anise Recipe for Aromatic Cambodian Style Ribs
Please do let us know in the comments section below if you make any of our recipes for what to cook this weekend as we always love to hear how our dishes turn out for you.
