I’m going back to Sri Lanka next year and this time I intend to bring back one of the special pans which enable cooking “hoppers”.

http://lankafoods.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/hoppers-appa.html

I’ve never seen these anywhere else
– and just thinking about Sri Lankan breakfasts is making me wish I were there now!

Cooking the things one remembers from ones travels is great fun.
I always bring back sackfulls of herbs and spices from wherever I go.

snap with the spices
Hoppers- new one on me. i'll bet they are good though

Always make Kleftico and Stifado after coming back from one of the Greek Islands - then I suddenly forget about them, only to remember just before we go the following year . I often have pitta bread/dips/olives/tsatsiki for lunch or as late night snacks, at the weekend. I love paella, but unfortunately hubby doesn't like it, so only make it rarely.

In 2008 I was spending a couple of days in Bangkok after touring Laos and had booked a class at a Thai Cooking School, I eventually ended up having to spend a few extra days in the city due to protestors shutting down the airport so was able to fit in another class.
When I returned home armed with all my new culinary knowlege I drove all my friends and family crazy cooking endless Thai meals, I did have difficulty finding some of the ingredients though.

Like Fiona and Bill I try and bring back spices and recipes from the various countries I visit and many of the dishes have now become part of my everyday life.

Kleftiko- used to make that as well I must look out the recipe again
Paella- I do have a go at a few different versions as well

Funnily enough-its a chipper supper we have on our first night back

I also bring back spices & mixes from abroad. I love Thai food, but confess I havn't made hardly any of the dishes. I think Pad Thai is my favourite

Like Helen I tend to make lots of foreign meals when we return from holiday and then again a couple of times before we go back. My favourites are the Greek dishes of Stifado, kleftico and moussaka. Also Greek salad with olives and feta.

I also tend to bring spices home. One story about spices that makes me laugh. We were in Morocco a few years ago and on our last evening we decided to purchase some spices from one of the hotel shops. Helen and I left our hubbys at the hotel bar and we went to make our purchases. Not as easy as we thought-

To start with as we entered the shop the shopkeeper was knelt in prayer so we stepped back outside until he'd finished. When we went in he told us to take a seat while he proceeded to go through all the spices he had, explaining to us what they were all for. There were also herbal remedies. During all this he managed to extract info from us about our little ailments and told us what he'd recommend. Anyway, at the end he wouldn't give us individual prices. He just handed us a sheet of paper each and asked us to write down what we were interested in and he'd work out a price.

whilst we were doing this he was serving us herbal tea By now Helen and I just wanted to make our escape as we'd been there an hour and our drinks at the bar were getting warm. He eventually weighed out the ingredients and bagged them and told us the price it was something like £25 each for a few spices and herbs. we didn't have enough money on us so we said we'd have to leave some of the stuff but he said not to worry if we had some clothes we wanted to leave he would give them to his sister So the next morning before heading for the airport we took him a couple of kaftans. The spices eventually cost us about £40 plus 2 kaftans.
we still have a laugh about it though.

Lovely greek food. We eat greek for two weeks, get a bit fed up with it by the end of the hol but give it a week back home and we are craving greek salad, roasted beetroot and grilled aubergine, lovely!

---and if we'd put all the spices together, they wouldn't have filled a money bag Never mind, we had some lovely pics and a nice cup of tea

If you've ever followed some of my posts from the Costa del Sol, You'll have read that I always bring my spices back from Andalusia and about half a dozen jars of Spanish black pepper, you can tell the difference between ground Spanish pepper and the stuff you buy in the UK.

We go down to Fuengirola and upstairs in the indoor market opposite the train station, there's a stall run by a Morrocan that sells every kind of spice, concotions and herbal stuff.

I'm not the cook, Mr Sanji uses them in Indian dishes.( Indian dishes made from spices bought in Spain) novel ? lol

The suitcase smells lovely

Sanji

there's a stall run by a Morrocan that sells every kind of spice, concotions and herbal stuff.

Hope it's not the same chap that caught us Sanji

i am another who always buys my spices in spain at lloret market.
i go through loads of black pepper, and also buy different coloured peppers and paprika.
i like the smoked paprika on pork steaks.
now the strawberry season is here, instead of covering them in sugar and cream, put some cracked black pepper on them about 30-60 minutes before serving. you will never use sugar on them again.

now the strawberry season is here, instead of covering them in sugar and cream, put some cracked black pepper on them about 30-60 minutes before serving. you will never use sugar on them again.

Mmmm,I must try that next week with some Spanish black pepper and Spanish strawberries in Spain.

Years ago I used to cook a Valencian Paella ( no fish), but these days Dave does his own slant or concoction on similar lines, and TBH, I get bored so easily with Paellla.
Saffron is soooooooo expensive, it used to be cheaper to buy it in Spain, but not any more, and when they substitute turmeric for the saffron in dishes, it doesn't taste the same.

Sanji

Hi UKBill, I'm not sure from the pic in the link you give just how big a 'hopper' is but Lakeland Plastics sell a non-stick little wok which might do the trick for you if you can't wait until next year to buy a proper pan. It's useless as a wok - much to small even for a single portion of stir-fry because it's too small to really swish the food around but it would make great little bowl-shaped pancakes with an upturned edge. Though I'm not sure how you'd toss them to cook the other side? How do the proper hopper pans work?

I don;t seem to be able to copy the link into here but if you Google Lakeland Plastics and then search for 'little wok' on their website you'll find it because they still stock it. Mine was around £10 - which might make you decide it will be worth the wait as the real thing is probably nowehere near that price in Sri Lanka!

SM

Here you go....

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/10985/The-Little-Wok

Thanks SMa and Sanji. I'm not sure if it would work but it sounds likely.
However I've been doing a bit more online research and I came up with two more websites. The first site gives instructions but warns they aren't easy to make and require a real hopper pan.
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/733/Hoppers/search/true

The second site actually gives a picture of the special pans.
http://www.lesauce.com/2011/11/the-perfect-piece-hopper-pans.html

And it says they can be ordered online. But the website link then seems to be broken.

We have found the sauce for the( at first) odd tasting and very hot wings you get in the USA, we also searched online for the blue cheese dip recipe to dip them in o Heaven!!!!

If only we could deep fry them but that's a step to far in our kitchen

I cook a lot of Turkish food but I also like to try Greek and even though I haven't been there on holiday I love Middle Eastern food

word of warning if you're buying spices from markets abroad etc. We always used to fetch back spices/herbs from the countries we visit - however one year we brought back spices from a market in Turkey. When home I decanted them into jars. When I went to use the chilli flakes I noticed - just in time - that it appeared to be 'moving'. Obviously where the sacks of spices had been left open on the stalls flies or some such had settled and laid eggs ..which were now hatching!