Take your kids on a trip around the world right from your dinner table. All they need is a sense of adventure and an empty stomach to go on this journey. From Greece, you can make chicken souvlaki salad. Venture into Germany by making their signature dish, weiner schnitzel, for your hungry kids. Indian chicken curry is fast and easy to make by using leftover or rotisserie chicken. From Thailand, serve up a street-food favorite by grilling up Thai beef satay. Ground chickpeas fried in oil make falafels that are a popular in Lebanon. For something spicy, create your own Mexican enchilada sauce from roasted, dried chiles. And don’t worry about tracking down the ingredients for these dishes – most grocery stores now stock items that were once hard to find. From bamboo skewers to fish sauce, these ingredients are usually available at your neighborhood grocers.
Chicken Souvlaki Salad
Capture the tastes of the Greece with this recipe for chicken souvlaki salad from Cooking Light. The chicken is doused with flavor from lemon juice and oregano, then mixed with cucumbers, red onion, Kalamata olives and yogurt. This easy dish is great served with warm pitas.
Weiner Schnitzel
Break out the frying oil! For this recipe for weiner schnitzel from the Bavarian Kitchen, you’ll need thin cut veal (chicken and pork work fine, too), whisked eggs and breadcrumbs. Dip the meat into flour, then eggs and finally breadcrumbs. Fry each piece of meat in oil until cooked through and crispy. Per German tradition, squeeze fresh lemon over the meat just before serving.
Chicken Curry
This chicken curry in a hurry recipe from Real Simple includes just a few ingredients. The dish comes together in a flash. Simply sauté diced onions then add curry powder, diced tomatoes, plain yogurt and heavy cream. The final, sneaky step? Stir in pieces of rotisserie chicken. Dinner is done!
Thai Beef Satay
Who doesn’t like eating food off a stick?! Follow the directions for this recipe for Thai beef satay from A Taste of Thai to make your own skewers. Thin slices of flank steak are marinated in coconut milk, fish sauce and lime until it’s time to grill. Thread the beef onto wood skewers before grilling.
Enchiladas Rojas
You’ll need to do some shopping to make these enchiladas rojas from Mexico in my Kitchen. Small, spicy guajillo chiles are paired with rich, mild ancho chiles to form the sauce that goes over corn enchiladas filled with chicken. If you’ve never made your own enchilada sauce – it’s worth the effort.
Falafel
You can find falafels available throughout the Middle East. This basic recipe for falafels from Spoonful shows you how to make them at home. The main ingredient – chickpeas – are blended together and then formed into patties. Fry the patties and serve hot with a yogurt dipping sauce. Beans never tasted so good!