Eat Like You're Abroad, At Home

Summer holiday already over for this year? Or perhaps you’re not venturing abroad, and saving yourself some pennies by enjoying some family days out in good old Blighty instead?

Just because you’re on UK soil for the foreseeable future, you don’t need to be missing out on all of that amazing holiday food and simply dine on British standards, like cottage pie and fish and chips.

Let’s face it, we could take or leave the sun, sea and sand of a holiday abroad, but we couldn’t leave the food. Paella, moussaka, gyros, proper Italian pizza, sangria … there are simply too many delights to list in full.

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But we’ve compiled a few of our favourites, in this country-by-country guide to eating like you’re abroad, even when it’s raining outside for the 16th day in a row and the beach feels a million miles away.

Close your eyes, taste one of these dishes, and it’ll be like being transported on holiday, without all the bother of airport check-in.

Which is more of an enduring symbol of Greece: the Acropolis, or moussaka? We’re gonna go with the latter. Layers of aubergine, spiced lamb and bechamel sauce baked in the oven and topped with cheese are the taste of summer for many. If you’ve never tried it before, think of it a bit like a lasagne, but one that’s on holiday and trying some new things out.

You might think thick bechamel sauce with cinnamon-spiced lamb sounds a little heavy and wintery for the summer, but served with a salad and a cold glass of wine it’s absolutely lovely. Follow Not Quite Nigella’s easy moussaka recipe to get started making your own.

Another Greek favourite we highly recommend introducing to your dinner table is tzatziki. Think of it like Greece’s version of coleslaw or cottage cheese, so use it in the same way to go with a salad or to dunk pitta bread in.

Instead of clumps of soft cheese or shredded cabbage (neither of which sounds especially appetising when you think about it), tzatziki features cucumber and mint for a beautifully fresh flavour. Check out this recipe for it from I Am a Food Blog.

The fact that Espana is the home of tapas means there are too many dishes to choose from to bring a taste of Spain to your home, but we think there is on quintessential dish that tapas is not tapas without: patatas bravas.

It’s basically sliced spuds in a spicy tomato sauce, and Amuse Your Bouche has a brilliant recipe for you to follow. It’d go great with a few chorizo-based dishes.

The obvious Spanish main course to add to your repertoire is, of course, paella. You can make a veggie version, a seafood version, a game version, or follow Easy Peasy Foodie’s lead and knock up this chicken and chorizo version.

Naturally, a nice big jugful of sangria is the only option for washing down all of that grub, and it’s super simple to make your own. All you need is red wine, lemonade, a touch of brandy, some fresh fruit and a little sugar if you want an extra-sweet taste. Lucy Loves has a quick recipe to follow to get you started.

Middle Eastern cuisine is fruity, spicy, aromatic and flavoursome. A summer holiday in Morocco would be filled with visits to atmospheric souks clouded in a haze of spices, and you can bring a little of this to your dinner table at home by trying your hand at some basic Moroccan dishes.

For example, this jewelled couscous with pomegranate and almonds from Cook Sister incorporates many traditional Middle Eastern ingredients, and it would be the perfect side to serve with a traditional Moroccan-style tagine.

This vegetable and chickpea tagine from The Purple Pumpkin Blog contains cinnamon, cumin, coriander, mint and garlic, which combine to give this dish a stunningly fragrant flavour.

Pasta, pizza, lasagne, bolognese, gelato: Italy is basically the home of holiday food. You’re probably already alright at opening a bag of dried pasta and boiling it in a pan, but have you ever tried to make your own pasta?

While a pasta machine is definitely useful if you’re going to try this out, apart from that you only really need, egg, flour and a little oil to make a beautiful batch of fresh homemade pasta. Love and Cook explains how to go about this properly, which involves blending all of the ingredients together to make a dough. Our Tefal high-speed blenders would be an excellent accompaniment to this step of the process.

Keep that blender out and whip up your own gelato to finish off your homemade Italian feast, using this recipe for a dreamy chocolate and Nutella version from An Italian in My Kitchen. Make sure you use the thickest cream you can find, so it’s the creamiest gelato imaginable.

Thousands of pilgrims flock to Cyprus every summer to pay homage to the home of the greatest cheese of them all: the mighty halloumi. They don’t really (that we know of), but we surely must all agree that halloumi is sensational stuff.

Halloumi is excellent grilled, fried, melted on to burgers, in a salad, and threaded onto skewers, like in these barbecued halloumi and mushroom ones from Jagruti’s Cooking Odyssey, which feature a mouth-watering coconut oil-lime-chilli marinade.

Lastly, we couldn’t finish a blog all about the best holiday food without including souvlaki, the Greek/Cypriot answer to the kebab. Chunks of juicy lamb, chicken, pork or beef threaded on skewers with fresh peppers and onions and chargrilled to perfection. We like this simple chicken souvlaki recipe from The Healthy Foodie.

Add some of that halloumi on to them too, serve them with your tzatziki and wash them all down with that sangria for the true taste of summer holidays.