meemalee

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...

The first time I had laksa was almost a decade ago in South Kensington, in the uninspiring environs of Oriental Canteen (which was dilapidated even then), due to a tip-off from AA Gill of all people. Though a slightly lurid shade of orange, the laksa was fiery, delicious, and bursting with seafood, and I tipped the bright red bowl to get every last drop. I then went home and tried to recreate the dish, and have been honing it ever since, and you can now see my laksa recipe on the Channel 4 Food site for tonight's Gordon's Great Escape to Malaysia . I'd demurred from trying laksa for ages, as I'd foolishly thought it was just a spin on my beloved ohn-no khao swè and, ostensibly at least, the two had similarities. I then found out that, whilst the Burmese dish was fairly strict in terms of ingredients and style (suggest garnishing it with coriander, and meet fisticuffs in some parts of Burma), laksa seemed to have almost as many variations as there are stars in the s...