6 of the Best Travel Destinations for Foodie Inspiration
If you’re a foodie, it’s inevitable that you’ll return home from your travels with dozens of new recipes to try, having spent a week or two sampling the local delights of whichever country you’ve visited.
We love experimenting with new flavours and taking inspiration from restaurants, so whether you’re travelling to New York or staying closer to home with a staycation in Cornwall, you’re sure to return itching to get in the kitchen to recreate your holiday favourites.
1. New York, New York
From Little Italy to Chinatown to the Jewish delis of the Lower East Side, New York is a city packed with sights, sounds, smells and sensational tastes. A thick hamburger topped with melted cheese and gherkin is a New York classic, and it’s something you can easily recreate at home, using lean meat for your patties to keep the meal lower in fat.
The ultimate New York treat is a doorstop rye bread sandwich stuffed with pastrami. Once you’ve tried the real thing, ham and cheese on white bread won’t cut it in your lunchbox in the future.
Recreate this New York classic at home by stocking up on pastrami, rocket and gherkins, and have a go at baking your own rye bread loaf. Rye flour is tougher than standard wheat flour, so your dough may be a little harder to work with. Use one of our non-stick loaf tins to make sure any tough bits of bread can easily be cleaned off in the dishwasher - your office lunches will never be the same again.
2. Italia
From Little Italy to actual Italy; land of pasta, gelato and, of course, pizza. Once you’ve tasted authentic Italian pizza, you’ll be dying to recreate your own, and our recipe for homemade vegetarian pizza is a good starting point.
However, you will need to make a few tweaks if you want a truly Italian-style pizza. Classic Italian pizza bases are incredibly thin, so you’ll need to roll out your dough as thin as you can before it goes into the oven. Don’t worry about it falling apart, as our baking trays are built to be sturdy and they’re guaranteed to be non-stick (for a lifetime, no less - find out more here), so your lovingly made base will be fully supported.
When it comes to toppings, the traditional Italian way is very minimal - just a thin layer of tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil and olive oil is all you need.
3. Greece
Next up on our foodie tour is Greece. While there are few fresher-tasting meals than a classic Greek salad of tomatoes, lettuce, olives, red onion and feta cheese enjoyed by the Mediterranean sea, there is so much more to Greek cuisine than this.
Souvlaki (kebab skewers), beef stifado (stew), taramasalata (a refreshing dip) and baklava are all delicious traditional Greek dishes, but recreating a moussaka, one of the nation’s signature dishes, would be the ultimate dish to recreate.
With layers of lamb mince, bechamel sauce and aubergine, topped with a final layer of bechamel sauce and melted cheese, this is a wonderfully enjoyable dish to put together. Use a griddle pan to grill your sliced aubergine for added authenticity.
4. Foodie France
Food is taken very seriously in France, where you’ll be spoilt for choice when it comes to dining, thanks to an endless selection of Continental-style breakfasts, elegant bistros and decadent patisseries. Bring the flavours of the Parisian bistro to your home kitchen with our recipe for a classic beef bourguignon.
The ultimate French dish that every serious foodie wants to master has to be a soufflé, with a savoury one an especially beautiful treat.
There are a few tricks chefs swear by for making a perfect soufflé, such as always adding either a pinch of salt (for savoury) or sugar (for sweet) to aid with the rising stage. Many cooks also insist on using a metal spoon to fold the egg whites into your mixture - you won’t need to worry about them scratching Circulon cookware, as all of our kitchenware is protected against abrasions.
5. Cornwall
If you’re staying a little bit closer to home, the UK still has plenty of foodie delights of its own to get your teeth into. Cornwall is a particular foodie hotspot with its cream teas (jam first, then cream in this county), Cornish pasties and saffron buns.
If you decide to have a go at saffron buns yourself, don’t worry about stubborn yellow stains on your bakeware, as you can put all Circulon products in the dishwasher.
The number one staycation delicacy has to be fish and chips, which are said to taste better by the sea, but we think they taste just as good when they’re coated in a homemade beer batter (recipe here) when you’re back home.
6. Spain
Last on our whistlestop foodie tour is Spain, where paella is a much-loved national dish. Our recipe for a mixed vegetable paella will provide you with all the basics you need to master this dish, but for a truly authentic take on a paella, you should use include chicken or rabbit, along with green beans, seasoning the dish with saffron and rosemary.
Wherever in the world you’re taking culinary inspiration from, make sure you’re using cookware you can rely on. Shop the full Circulon collection here.
