meemalee

Claire, David, John FACT – I watched about 4 episodes of MasterChef the Professionals this year (including the one with " 39 Year Old Lee " and the one where cocky Kevin threw a wobbly). FACT – That means I’m probably not qualified to review it. FACT – That’s not going to stop me. Our three finalists are Claire Lara, a tutor at Liverpool Community College; John Calton, chef at the Duke of Wellington pub, in Newton, Northumberland and Dave Coulson, chef at the Eden Castle Inn in Hartlepool. They’re all Northern. One of them will win. Backstory time! Some kind of MOR dross (Keane?) plays as we find ourselves in Liverpool to discover that Clare grew up on a beach with a postman who fed her on oven chips. Suddenly Air plays, filling me with intense deja vu , but it all makes sense, as next she did a YTS which sent her to Paris for five years (long freaking youth training scheme), and fell for a French chef called Marc who thought her an oddball, but married her anyway. She now t...

The national dish of Burma is called mohinga , a kind of fish chowder with lemongrass and banana stem that's served over rice vermicelli noodles. But arguably the most famous Burmese dish is one called ohn-no khao swè - Coconut Chicken Noodles. The reason for this is that ohn-no khao swè is generally considered the predecessor of the famous Northern Thai noodle dish Khao Soi - a dish so beloved that it has spawned its own fan sites and even essays . Apparently "khao soi" doesn't actually mean anything in Thai, so it's very likely that the name is just a derivation of khao swè, the Burmese word for "noodles", which literally means "fold pull" ie the method for making noodles. To add support to this theory, outside of Burma, ohn-no khao swè is also known as khao sway, khauk swe, khaot swe and my absolute favourite, cow suey. That's what happens when you try to transliterate a non-Roman language like Burmese. " Ohn-No Khao Swè ...

I don't like baking. Don't get me wrong - I'm happy to reap the benefits, but for me, life's too short to weigh flour. I know lots of people who think this makes me deficient in some way, but frankly I'd rather have my cakes made for me *cough* . I don't do desserts either. I might spend hours lovingly preparing a meal, but if my guests want a pud they get (a) fruit, (b) some Ben and Jerry's, or (c) Ocado's finest. Unfortunately the other day, I was forced to make a pudding for John Torode and Gregg Wallace (the original Puddingface) . Like I said in the MasterChef cook-off post , I'd found a basic shortbread recipe and then monkeyed with it till I came up with a hypothetical something I could happily call my own. The first time I actually had a go making my shortcake, it tasted fine, but aesthetically left a little to be desired. In fact, my husband was nice enough to say that it reminded him of the first Ripley Clone in Alien Resurrection . No, I...

Asking me if I love MasterChef is a bit like asking if a bear sh*ts in the woods. I decided to write a blog because I'm working on a Burmese cookbook, and I wanted to know if people would like what I said, but the thing that actually got me started, the first thing I ever wrote about , was MasterChef. I've had some folk comment that me putting virtual pen to paper about MasterChef is a waste of my "time and talent", that it's low-brow and inane, but goddammit, I'm a big girl and if I think it merits attention , then who the hell are they to disagree? The fact is, I adore MasterChef with every fibre of my being. It's emotional, it's visceral, it's ludicrous, it's compelling. By the time you get to the final, you're right there with them, rooting for the competitors, wanting to adopt each and every one of them, to give them all a big hug and to tell them that everything's going to be all right (okay, this may just be me). But would I e...