A gochujang chicken recipe inspired by a trip to Australia

livemint.com:

from all the lands on earth we come". In its most evolved stage, you could call it MasterChef Australia cuisine. That kind of food was not very cheap, and I did not come across very much of it during my two-week sojourn.

As I said, what was easy to find was authentic Asian food: Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Burmese, all of which I enjoyed. One of the finest Mexican meals I have eaten came one night in Sydney, washed down by a fruity Syrah. Beside my electric-blanket-warmed bed, Liane had—knowing my close relationship with food—very thoughtfully kept three Aussie cooking magazines.

I carried only one back, given the 20kg luggage limitation, but the preponderance of Asian food again struck me. When I leafed through the magazine, appropriately produced by a leading Masterchef sponsor, Coles, I read on the first page what Aussies called “acknowledgment of country", verbal restitution made to the indigenous people from whom the settlers stole the land. This acknowledgment was made verbally before the seminar I attended, on airplanes, is imprinted on plaques on Parliament, offices, and shops.

“Coles Group respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, traditional owners and custodians of the lands where our store support centre in Hawthorn East, Victoria, is based," it said. The magazine itself did not refer to Aboriginal food, filled as it was with mainly Asian cuisine. Eventually, I made my peace with it.

The Asian food I ate was fresh, creative, and delicious, which is why my recipe today is an adaptation of one that I found in the magazine I brought back. I didn’t find any meat-pie recipes, which was just as well. The pies I ate, I have to confess, were heavy and lumpy.