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Seared Pork Patties on a Bed of Noodles, Herbs and Salad with Pickled Vegetables I've made another cookery video with the folks from VoucherCodes  (the first one was for ohn no khao swe - Burmese Coconut Chicken Noodles). This time around, the theme is Affordable Alfresco - perfect for the lovely summer we're having right now, so I decided to adapt one of the salad dishes from my book Noodle!. This dish originates from Hanoi - its full name is Bun Cha Ha Noi. Bun refers to the noodles* and Cha refers to the meat patties. Apparently Bun Cha is the second most popular dish in Vietnam after their national dish of pho. You can see why this might be the case as it delivers a lot of punch - sweet and smoky meat over piquant herbs and salad wrapped up with soft, cooling noodles. You'll also be interested to know that it's super-quick to make and the ingredients are all easy to find - you can use entirely British produce. What's more, out of all th...

It's supposed to be Summer, so why are the gutters along my rooftop overflowing with rain? I'm cold, I'm miserable, and I want something to cheer me up.  I wander into the kitchen, and I get a pack of mixed seafood from the freezer, some kimchi from the fridge, a lime, some chives, a chilli, and a packet of udon.  I combine the lot with some vegetable broth and, in minutes, a magical broth is formed. Suddenly it doesn't seem so bad that the sun won't come out to play. Seafood and Kimchi Noodles Serves 2 500ml vegetable stock (I like Marigold bouillon) 400g fresh udon noodles (~ 2 packets) 300g mixed seafood (frozen or fresh, cooked or raw - you can just use prawns if you prefer) 1 tbsp caster sugar 1 tbsp good fish sauce (Three Crabs or Hung Thanh Phu Quoc) 4 tbsp kimchi, chopped ( easy recipe here  or buy ready-made) Handful of chives, chopped One lime, halved 1 red finger chilli, chopped (optional) Combine the stock with the sugar in a...

Smoky Bacon and Watercress Noodle Soup There's a sudden chill in the Spring air, and I feel like I need warming up, but I don't want to indulge in something too stodgy.  This noodle soup is sweet, smoky and slightly sharp - which makes for a satisfying, but light and refreshing dish.  It takes no time at all to make and uses mainly store cupboard ingredients, so is perfect for a week-night meal.  This dish is a recent invention, but it's already become a favourite at home.  You can switch the leafy herbs according to what's available - try mizuna, peashoots, or a friend of mine made a lovely suggestion of using wild garlic which is in season right now. Smoky Bacon and Watercress Noodles  ( this also appeared in The Guardian's COOK supplement on 15 March 2014 ) Serves 2 Ingredients 6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon 500ml chicken or vegetable stock 2 tbsp caster sugar 300g fresh udon or rice noodles 2 tbsp light soy sauc...

Burmese Meatball Curry A-thar-lohn-hin aka meatball curry is eaten throughout Burma, but especially in Upper Burma. It is usually made with goat ( seit-thar ), but beef ( a-mair-thar ) is also popular. Lamb makes an excellent substitute, although is uncommonly used in Burma, partly because the Burmese word for "lamb" is thoh which also sounds like our word for "rotten". It's also good using 50:50 pork and beef mince, and the higher up you travel in Burma, the more likely pork will feature in the mix. Traditionally served with steamed rice, you could also eat it with naan bread, or even serve on noodles for a Burmese take on spaghetti and meatballs. Burmese Meatball Curry (A-thar-lohn hin) Serves 4-6 For the sauce 4 medium onions, diced  2 cloves garlic, chopped 1 tsp turmeric 4 tbsp groundnut or other neutral oil 400g can chopped tomatoes  3 red finger chillies  1 tbsp sweet paprika  2 tbsp fish sauce - good quality - I like Three ...

Mogok Pork Curry (photo by Luiz Hara ) My mother is from Mogok, a chilly gem-mining town in the hilly north of Burma, where everyone adores pork ( I mentioned before that they refer to wages as "pork funds").  This classic Mogok curry is more or less used to wean Burmese children - my nephews and nieces can eat bowls and bowls of the stuff, as it's sweet and mild, yet addictive.  Before my youngest nephew could talk properly, whenever he visited his grandparents, he'd ask for " pork and yice " (pork and rice), and I'm pleased to say that my one year old daughter is now an equally big fan. BURMESE PORK CURRY, MOGOK-STYLE ( Wet-thar Hnut ) Serves 4 to 6, freezes well 1 kg pork leg or shoulder, with some fat, diced into 2.5cm cubes 100ml malt vinegar 4 medium white onions, peeled 4 cloves of garlic, peeled 2cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled 4 tbsp groundnut oil 1 tbsp caster sugar 1 tbsp light soy sauce 1 tbsp dark so...

Tiny thief The first time I tried haggis was 15 years ago when one of my brothers married a Scottish lass up in Edinburgh. If I recall correctly, it was used to stuff a chicken galantine, and I was hugely relieved that it wasn't as offensive as I'd been led to believe. Several years later, I found myself at their house for a Burns Night supper where my sister-in-law began proceedings by reciting a Robert Burns poem, which to this day, my husband refers to as " when Gayle sang to a haggis ". Great Chieftain of the Pudding Race Haggis was relatively difficult to come by down South however - at least, you wouldn't see it in your local butchers or supermarket. I remember when I first saw a MacSween's a few years ago and was delighted that the "real deal" had made it to England. Now of course, you can get a whole selection - I picked up this lot from my Morrisons, including a vegetarian haggis for my mother-in-law which is presumably m...

Miso Salmon, Green Tea Soba Noodles, Stir-fried Shimeji Mushrooms I don't believe in diets, but sometimes I feel like I'm stretched too tightly, uncomfortable in my own skin like the bug man in Men in Black. Times like those, I still want to eat my fill, but I don't want to have to have a lie-down afterwards. This Japanese-influenced dish does the trick - the dressed noodles are bright and zingy, whilst the salmon is sweet, comforting and savoury. Even better, after a bit of advance prep, it only takes 15 minutes to cook. Miso Salmon with Soba Noodles  Serves 2 All ingredients are available in larger supermarkets, health food stores or online from the Japan Centre. 2 salmon fillets, about 150-200g each, skin still on  150g dried soba noodles (I used matcha ie green tea soba)  Groundnut or other neutral oil for frying 1 spring onion, green and white parts, finely sliced  1 tsp black sesame seeds  For the salmon marinade: 1 rou...

It's the MiMi Cookery Show! Ha, not really. So you know Vouchercodes - those guys that email you handy discount codes for shops like Clark's and Dorothy Perkins? Turns out that they also have an online magazine called Most Wanted  which is oddly hidden away in the top right of their website. Most Wanted is full of rather good articles and handy money-saving tips - eg how to stream music for free  or how to achieve Jennifer Lawrence's smokey eye makeup . "Now add the chicken to the stockpot"   It also has a Food and Drink section, which is currently running a series called "Afford Autumn Food".  It even has its own hashtag on Twitter - #AffordAutumnFood . Vouchercodes asked me to take part in the series, so I went along to the beautiful cookery school  Food at 52 to spend a couple of hours filming this How-To video. "It should be starting to smell fragrant" Anyway, here is the result - watch the video below to...

Ramen egg in situ People complain that it's hard to get around in Japan because you're literally lost in translation. This isn't true for a number of reasons which I won't go into now, but especially when it comes to food. Most restaurants, even the high-end ones, have amazing plastic models in their windows called " sampuru " which show you pretty much exactly what you're going to get; when you get inside, the menus often contain pictures; and a lot of more casual places make you order in advance from a machine which has photos of all the dishes (it's a bit like buying a car park ticket, but what you get in return is a hell of a lot more fun). Choosing noodle options in Osaka I loved using these machines because you could easily build up the craziest order possible without any confusion - press this button for extra noodles, that button for tempura on the side - but my favourite button was the one which got you a ramen egg. A r...

Ramen Burgers Hot on the heels of the food trend known as the  cronut comes the Ramen Burger . Made popular by Keizo Shimamoto, writer of the blog Go Ramen! and now ramen chef in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this culinary mash-up is a sister to MOS Burger's famous rice burger , this time using ramen noodles as the unlikely burger receptacle - ie the ramen is the burger bun. And like MOS Burger, its roots come from Japan - unsurprising as Shimamoto, a second-generation American Japanese-American, ditched his career in finance to study the art of ramen in Tokyo itself. Looks good, huh? The  Japanese forerunner  to the ramen burger is more traditional - all the usual elements are there, including cha shu pork, naruto fishcake, menma bamboo shoots, spring onions - portable ramen - whereas the American Ramen Burger is a proud fusion, much like Shimamoto himself. The most famous of the old-school ramen burgers comes from  Furusato-tei  in Kitakata Cit...