meemalee

Gong Bao or Kung Pao Chicken As a child, my musical tastes were dictated by my parents. Having arrived in the UK just before I was born, their choices largely consisted of the "safe" Western music that had been allowed into Burma - for example, ABBA, Andy Williams and a certain Cliff Richard - as well as old-time Burmese songs dating from before World War II as far as I could tell. Later on however, as we kept in touch with the family back home, our playlists began to be dominated by a man called Zaw Win Htut .  I say 'a man' - he was (and still is) vaunted as a rock legend - a Burmese Bruce Springsteen at the height of his powers. I adored every single one of his songs - the ballads and the anthems - and I would lustily yell along to the many tapes we brought back from our visits to the old country. One fine day here though, I remember very clearly we were in the car on the way to see some cousins. We had the radio on for once, and suddenly the voice o...

Tea Eggs I've not been able to eat soft-boiled eggs recently, so I've been trying to find ways to pimp hard-boiled ones to make them more interesting. One of my favourite methods is to turn them into Tea Eggs  (aka Marble Eggs and Tea Leaf Eggs) - a classic snack throughout Asia which probably originated in China, where eggs are hard-boiled, cracked gently, and then simmered in a mix of tea, soy and spices to achieve a beautiful crazy paving effect all over - and a flavourful kick. Tea eggs are easy to make and it's incredibly satisfying to see the cobweb patterns appear. Cinnamon, Star Anise, Tea Leaves Marbled Tea Eggs 6 eggs 2 tbsp black tea leaves or two black tea bags - I like Lapsang Souchong for smoky flavour, though Pu-Ehr is more usual 2 tbsp dark soy sauce  1 tbsp light soy sauce 2 tbsp sugar  4 star anise  2 cinnamon sticks 1 tsp five spice powder 1 tsp of cracked black peppercorns Hard boil the eggs in a saucepan of wate...

A friend of mine who runs my favourite pub* recently told someone that I had some brilliant stir-fry recipes right here on my blog. I was forced to admit that there weren't any (save Burmese Pork and Beans ), partly because I figured most of you lovely readers would know how to make them, but mainly because most of my recipes burble around in my brain and only occasionally make it on-line. This is one of the recipes that I've been meaning to share for ever, but then I get distracted by a moth or a giant panda . Pig cheeks. Vaguely fashionable, still cheap as chips, available at canny butchers, Waitrose and Morrisons. It is a truth universally acknowledged that pig cheeks, like ox cheeks, need to be slow-cooked to be tender and delicious. And though I have been known to braise or stew them, god knows I wasn't blessed with a lot of patience, and so I experimented with cooking them in various ways (even one of those stir-fry jobs) before discovering that they're staggeri...

My favourite restaurant in the whole wide world was a curious beast. It wasn't beautiful - the tables uneven, the wallpaper flaking. The service was shambolic - dishes were sometimes forgotten or mixed up, one time a guy appeared with a soapy washing-up bowl and chucked everything in, including our tip. We were almost always the only customers in the place, the other occupants being friends or family intent on playing poker. But the food was glorious, proper Vietnamese grub including the usual suspects like pho and bun bo hue and goi cuon but also slightly more unusual dishes like bánh bèo and bun oc and fried "fat ends" (crunchy intestines - like posh pork scratchings). The juices, in most joints a Tetrapakked afterthought, were all blended to order from fresh fruit (the apple juice being particularly good), and the whole thing was almost embarrassingly cheap. Best of all was that, though the service wasn't professional, it was marvellously charming. Whenever we walk...

I stink of meat. Two hours in a Chinese hotpot restaurant - like sitting in a porky sauna. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’d first heard about Little Lamb from Alex Carnegie who’d actually been on a quest for shabu shabu but settled for a close cousin . Then bellaphon paid a visit to the place and I knew I had to check it out myself. A couple of days later, I’m drifting around town waiting for my husband to meet me after work when I find that I’m at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue which is where Little Lamb lives. I ring the hubby and say “Oi, we’re going for Chinese Hotpot, meet me in front of Curzon Soho asap”. I locate Little Lamb, ask for a table for two in twenty minutes and then wander into Golden Gate Grocers and randomly buy some ngò gai aka sawtooth herb and the tiniest pink Thai shallots in excitement. The lady at the till waves the sawtooth at me and says something in Chinese. I apologise and say me no comprende and she says slowly “You. can’t. cook”. I’m bemus...

UPDATED 22/01/2012: Haven't been to Peninsula for a few years, and I certainly won't again ... The Peninsula is a Chinese restaurant marooned at the bottom of a Holiday Inn in Bugsby's Way - a nowhere place near-ish the O2 , but more importantly next to See Woo Cash & Carry , a veritable oasis for all chefs of Asian persuasion. I've probably had finer dimsum in Queensway and Chinatown, but I've always had a soft spot for the Peninsula and their interpretation of yum cha . Ordinarily you can't book at the weekend, but my middle brother persuaded them to hold a table for us to celebrate three wedding anniversaries - our parents' 40th, my brother and his wife's 10th and me and hubby's 5th. Mind you, we had to turn up at 11am. Sunday morning, 10.45am, we've parked our cars and we're waiting for the doors to open. We're not alone as one-by-one dimsum lovers start to assemble. Impatiently, some of them rattle the doorhandle, on the off-c...