Food Safari

Food Safari takes the reader on an adventure into 34 diverse and fascinating cuisines by exploring the basic ingredients of each cuisine and making the exotic familiar.

Offering simple foolproof recipes that anyone can cook at home it is a delicious journey into new worlds, making delicious discoveries. Food Safari takes you on a culinary globetrot with Maeve O'Meara, who has spent most of her life seeking out great food, recipes and the clever people who make simple ingredients sing. Her camaraderie with everyone from three-hat chefs to passionate home-cooks results in a book that feeds any foodlover's desire for insider knowledge.

Food Safari demystifies exotic cuisines, helps you shop for the key ingredients and cooking implements and includes simple recipes from cultures as far flung as Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America and South America.

The following is a recipe from the SBS series, Food Safari:

Pecan pie

Pecan Pie is considered a specialty of the South. Using America’s native nut, Pecan Pie is a delicious, textured dessert – high in energy and flavour.

Ingredients

Crust

10 pecan nuts (toasted)
1½ cups plain flour
10g chilled butter, cubed
Pinch of salt
¼ cup cold water
Filling

3 eggs
½ cup caster sugar
3 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup dark corn syrup
2 cups pecans (toasted)
1 cup corn flour
Preparation

Crust

Grind the pecan nuts in a blender. Add the other crust ingredients and blend until mixed through. Add water and blend until the mixture sticks together in one large lump.

Take the pastry out of the blender and with your hands mould it into a neat ball. Wrap it in plastic cling wrap and put it in the fridge to cool for half an hour.

When the pastry is chilled, dust lightly with flour, roll the pastry out and shape it into a medium size pie tin evenly along the base and sides. Prick the pastry to stop it rising and bake it in the oven for 15 mins at 200°C.

Filling

Break 3 eggs into a bowl and add the sugar, melted butter and corn syrup. Then add the pecans and the corn flour. Whisk together.

Pour the pecan mixture into the baked pie crust. Then return the pie to the oven at 180°C for about an hour.

Remove from the oven, cool, and serve with a scoop of ice cream.