Joyce - My Street Food Kitchen: Fast and easy flavours from around the world

JENNIFER JOYCE is a successful food writer, author and stylist based in London. American-born but resident in the UK for more than 20 years, Jennifer initially honed her skills in catering and cooking in a Notting Hill caf before moving into freelance magazine work. She works for leading UK magazines such as BBC Good Food, Olive and Waitrose Kitchen as well as the Guardian newspaper, drawing on her unique dual talent for writing mouthwatering recipes and then creating and styling them for photography. Leiths School of Food and Wine in London hosts her popular cookery classes, and she has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows in the USA and UK, including NBCs Today Show, BBC news and radio and Good Food Live.

My Street Food Kitchen is Jennifers tenth book. Her previous Murdoch Books publications are Meals in Heels chosen by Londons Daily Mail newspaper as one of their top 10 books for 2010and Skinny Meals in Heels , published in 2011.

introduction

Taking an overseas holiday is one of lifes greatest pleasures. Whats not to like about being transported to an exotic destination, with no schedule to stick to, experiencing life at your own pace? Travel feeds the soul, but more importantly it satisfies curious and voracious appetites.

How better to immerse oneself in the culture of a place than to eat on the street among the locals? Eating the genuine versions of dishes I thought I knew; discovering an unknown ingredient: it never fails to delight me. Along with each new taste, the surrounding noises and smells stay forever in my mind: the corn tortillas in Mexico, freshly pressed and eaten hot from the griddle; caramel-glazed pork grilled over the tiniest of charcoal braziers in Hanoi; a tantalising slurp of Japanese yuzu juice; or the crunch of a tamarind-spiked bhel puri on a Mumbai beach. Wondrous food discoveries continually shape my cooking and the good news is that this delicious education never ends.

Street food is immediate, vibrant and not necessarily subtle. It thrills us with its crunch, spice, sweetness, saltiness or sour tang. I wanted to pull together these punchy flavours and recipes for the home cook. My Street Food Kitchen is the result of decades of travel to twenty-four countries across all parts of the globe. This isnt just dishes from roadside stalls and markets but food from the heart and soul of each region, plus fresh salads, sides and sweets. Returning home to real life is the hard part after a great adventure, but the best way to recapture your memories is to fill your house with the aromas and tastes of your travels.

Street food can sometimes be hard to decipher, with too many ingredients and laborious preparation, so Ive created healthier and more delicious renditions without compromising authenticity. More than two years of work has gone into developing, testing and retesting these recipes so they are foolproof. And if you can squeeze another piece of equipment (or three) into your kitchen there is much to gain from the use of crockpots, pressure cookers and electric mixers that will make your cooking faster and easier.

This kind of food was meant for sharing so, if you want to treat your friends to a crazy good feast, Get ahead tips are included with each recipe. The portions are generous and most recipes serve four to six people, so no one will go hungry. ENJOY!

Jennifer

Buffalo chicken wings are a national treasure in America and happy hour wouldnt be the same without them. Their deeply messy and addictive charms are hard to resist, but they dont have to be deep-fried and drowned in spicy butter: theyre every bit as good roasted with a home-made hot sauce. The type of pepper sauce you use makes a big difference; I prefer one with a fruity taste thats not too blow-your-head-off spicy.

Baked sticky Buffalo chicken wings with celery sticks & blue cheese dip

PREPARATION: 20 MINUTES, PLUS OVERNIGHT MARINATING COOKING: 1 HOUR SERVES: 46 AS A SNACK

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

3 teaspoons paprika

3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon celery salt

80 ml (2 fl oz/1/3 cup) Franks Redhot sauce or other spicy cayenne pepper sauce

90 g (3 oz/ cup) honey

1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) chicken wings, halved at the joint

Celery sticks with blue cheese dip

150 ml (5 fl oz) sour cream or crme frache

60 ml (2 fl oz/ cup) mayonnaise

75 g (2 oz) blue cheese (Danish or roquefort), crumbled

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

Worcestershire sauce

4 celery stalks, cut into batons

Combine all of the ingredients except the chicken wings in a large bowl and stir well. Season with freshly ground black pepper. Add the chicken wings, toss to coat, then cover and refrigerate for 24 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 210C (415F) or 190C (375F) fan forced.

Drain and reserve the marinade. Spread the chicken wings on a very large baking tray and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, pour off the excess oil, then add the reserved marinade and toss to coat well. Increase the oven temperature to 230C (450F) or 210C (415F) fan forced and cook for another 30 minutes, tossing a couple of times during cooking to coat in the glaze. The wings should be sticky and glazed with most of the marinade evaporated. Serve on a large platter with finger bowls of warm water for washing sticky fingers.

Celery sticks with blue cheese dip

Combine the sour cream, mayonnaise, blue cheese, vinegar and a splash of Worcestershire sauce in a bowl. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then pour into a serving bowl. Arrange the celery sticks in cups for dipping.

GET AHEAD You can marinate the wings overnight and cook the first 30 minutes on the morning of serving. Roast for the final 30 minutes just before serving. The blue cheese and celery can be prepared the day before and refrigerated. Cover the celery with cold water to keep it crisp.

No, this isnt a remedy for cleaning out your refrigerator, but a supersized chopped antipasto salad that was first created in Chicago. Chunks of juicy iceberg lettuce, diced veggies, cubes of salty cheese, salami and pickled peppers are tossed in a red wine and oregano vinaigrette thats galactically good.

Garbage salad