meemalee

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...

A lot of people think Japanese food is just raw fish. Whilst sashimi is one of my favourite things to eat, this notion couldn't be further from the truth. My husband's favourite food from Japan is tonkatsu . A pork cutlet which has been dredged in flour, egg and panko breadcrumbs before being deep-fried till it's crisp and golden yet still juicy and without a whisper of grease. Like tempura, Japan's more famous fried food, tonkatsu actually came from Portuguese traders in the 19th century, and was originally considered to be yoshoku - or Western food - but it has now been firmly adopted as washoku - Japanese cuisine. Tonkatsu is made with boneless pork loin steaks or chops (with a ribbon of fat if possible), though I sometimes go left-field and use pork loin slices cut for shabu-shabu which makes for a daintier dish. With a tussock of thinly-shredded cabbage, a dab of yellow mustard, a drizzle of fruity tonkatsu sauce, some pickles and some hot sesame rice, a meal...

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...

Hog roast perfection. Crackling divine, moistest meat, Ludicrously cheap. Look at that. Unlimited pork plus sides for £12. TWELVE POUNDS. Droool. This guy (Heath Ball aka @pubhobbit on Twitter) owns the pub. He looks justifiably happy. A plate of sunshine. The Red Lion and Sun 25 North Road Highgate Village N6 4BE 020 8340 1780 Parties of up to 100 people with a 80kg hog (Middle White or Gloucestershire Old Spot), or lamb roast or suckling pig roast for smaller parties (there were about 30 of us). Summer only and booking essential - enquire on 0208 340 1780 or info@theredlionandsun.com

Sometimes, at night, I get cravings for something savoury to nibble on. A packet of Salt 'n' Shake crisps will usually do the trick but sometimes, more drastic measures are needed. Times like these, I'll crack out a piece of pork belly from the fridge (yes, I do always have one in there) and I'll roast it using the method in my recipe here . I'll change the seasoning depending on my fancy and what's in my cupboard - caraway and thyme, maple syrup and paprika, pomegranate molasses and ras el hanout, miso and shiso sprinkles, honey and black pepper, or just soy, ginger and garlic. And then I'll chop the crisp yet wibbly pork belly into fat chunks, fling them into a bowl and chomp away on the piggy morsels as if they were popcorn or peanuts, but oh so much better. Making it takes a little while, but it's worth the wait. Pork heaven. Pork bliss. Talking of pork bliss, I'm one of the judges for Pork Off 2011 . "What's that?" I hear you cry. ...

This weekend I was totally going to make marshmallows using Bertie Branning , my shiny red Kitchenaid mixer, when I found out you needed a sugar thermometer. So I thought s*d that for a game of soldiers and decided to make a mahoosive pork pie instead. Partly because it's Christmas time and nothing marks the season better for me than fat wodges of meaty pie, and partly because I was inspired by my very short stint as a pop-up pie assistant (PUPA) for the fabulous Bray's Cottage . Not that I had all the correct equipment for making a pork pie either. Apparently you need a pie mould of some sort. All I had was a big cake tin, which is why I've ended up with a pork pie bigger than my head. But, hells, it looks good and it tastes even better. Super traditional hot water crust pastry combined with untraditional Asian spiced filling. Fusion - I'm all over it, me. Meemalee's Mahoosive Pork Pie For the jellied stock 4 pig's trotters 4 white onions 2 carrots 2 celery sta...

I went to Chocolate Unwrapped last week. Still debating whether or not to write about it. You see, although most of the wares were a delight, a few of the vendors were less so. This isn't just the case with chocolatiers - there seems to be a strange type of snobbery (or maybe complacency) prevalent in certain producers and restaurants where they think customer service is irrelevant if their goods are renowned for being the best (regardless of whether they actually are or not). This attitude is unwarranted and also rather short-sighted. I couldn't care less if they're selling me rainbows - if people are dismissive, or they act like I should be lucky to taste their food, they can take a running jump - they won't be getting repeat custom from me. And then, there are those who make up for everyone else. Bray's Cottage of North Norfolk is one of them. Now, Bray's Cottage are known in food circles as being one of the best pork pie purveyors in Britain. Their pies h...

A long, long time ago, a scamp that I barely knew by the name of the Food Urchin caught me at a vulnerable moment and used some kind of Derren Brown-style trickery to convince me not only to make his dinner for him, but also to package it up and bring it to him. It turned out he had previous form, as a whole cavalcade of foodies had somehow been suckered one by one into providing sustenance for this miscreant under the auspices of something called Where's My Pork Chop ? What's worse is that, rather than be grateful for our offerings, he felt at liberty to criticise our food and he even began to court the MasterChef finalists , as apparently none of us were high-profile or sexy enough. The swine. Eventually, we could take no more, and we rebelled and demanded some recompense. Astonishingly, he more than rose to the challenge with his #WMPCIMU . Crank up the sound, watch the video and then join me in applauding the Food Urchin , for he is indeed the Fire Pit King. Incidentall...

We came. We saw. We ate pig. Last Friday, 16 of London's finest female foodies descended on St John Restaurant , Smithfields, to take part in Ladies' PigFest 2010 . It's been a life-long dream of mine to ravage a whole wild boar Obelix style, so this was one step closer to fulfilling that dream - for our group of girls were about to dine on suckling pig. Kill the pig, cut his throat, bash him in ... Our pre-booked, pre-paid piggy feast was composed as follows: Ladies' PigFest 2010 Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad Whole Crab & Mayonnaise Whole Roast Suckling Pig, Potatoes & Greens Eccles Cake & Lancashire Cheese Spotted Dick & Custard Sounds bloody brilliant, doesn't it? We gathered beforehand at Smithfield Tavern for a drink, but spurned their enticing scotch eggs and sausage rolls in anticipation of the ensuing piggery. I'd made badges and A Scot in London brought crowns - what could possibly go wrong? It was my very first time at St Joh...