food geek

laos food odyssey

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>Ten days in Laos: a chance to experience a new cuisine, try some new dishes and savour some street food.

I knew little if anything about Laos or its food traditions before we arrived in Vientiane. Immediately the French influence was apparent: fresh baguettes sold in the street, and handful of nice-looking patisseries and decent wine readily available at a decent price. The Scandinavian bakery was doing good business in its own shop and supplying many eateries around town, including our own hotel, with fresh breakfast croissants and more.

But what is a typical Lao dish? The very first thing we tried was laap (also spelt larp), a commonly-served warm salad dish using whatever minced meat you prefer – chicken, pork or beef. Apparently it is also served raw like ceviche but we didn’t see that offered anywhere. The meat is seasoned, cooked then tossed with raw vegetables, usually including mint, morning glory (a river weed cooked as we would use spinach, asparagus or broccoli), bean shoots and spring onion, and served on a bed of lettuce or cabbage leaves. Eaten with sticky or steamed rice it goes down a treat.


My Western-style breakfast in our Vientiane hotel included the tastiest, freshest eggs I have had for a while, plus some locally-gathered wild mushrooms which were meatier and tastier than any mass-produced white mushrooms we eat at home. Divine. Eggs loomed large most mornings, and we were fortunate enough to have our breakfast/brunch along the riverside for almost every day of our stay in Laos, no matter what the town.

A trip to a local waterfall saw us snacking on Lao pork buns, which were suspiciously like Chinese pork buns except the pork filling was augmented by pieces of hard-boiled egg. Much better!


On our road trip to Luang Prabang, our bus ticket included lunch at a basic roadhouse halfway through a ten-hour journey. The food was ready for us as we disembarked: a beef dish and a pork dish, simply seasoned and cooked, and a couple of vegetable dishes, all served with either steamed rice or on top of freshly-cooked noodle soup. Three days into our journey it was just like home cooking and we devoured it. I’m a sucker for something simple with rice.


Luang Prabang is a World Heritage site, and there is no shortage of boutique hotels, cute wine bars and pleasant restaurants. We dined one evening at Tum Tum Cheng, famous for its head chef’s homage to dishes prepared for the Royal household, and its cooking school. The deep fried spring rolls were to die for (this became a popular starter for us in Laos and they never disappointed), but the main courses were a little disappointing. My Luang Prabang stew was tasty enough but bland, and Orlando’s spicy pork was not so spicy. We resorted to our emergency stash of chilli sauce sachets kept in my handbag for just such an event.

At 150,000 Lao kip (approx. $19) including my 200ml carafe of wine, Tum Tum Cheng was probably one of the most expensive meals of the holiday but in terms of taste and price it was totally eclipsed by the exceptional dinner we had the next night at a little family-run roadside eatery with three tables. Orlando’s “fried pork with chilli and less” (sic) and my “fried mini local noodles with pork” were accompanied by a handful of the tiniest, hottest chillies we’ve ever encountered and cost 40,000 kip (less than $5) for two. Delicious, honest home-cooking again – can’t beat it. We loved it so much we went back next day for lunch.

Luang Prabang’s night market was pretty good value for money in terms of eating out. One small laneway was transformed in the evening into a typical Asian food market, with noodle soup, Luang Prabang spicy sausage, barbecued fish, chicken and pork, fresh fruit and more all available for pennies. Totally tourist-oriented unlike most of the other night markets we ate at, the food was nonetheless hearty and nicely presented on a banana leaf.

There were two types of local sausage in Luang Prabang. One looked a little like a black pudding although the inside was much more finely chopped. We tried this one twice, one at a family stall down a back street one afternoon, and once more as a packed lunch on our two-day boat trip up the Mekong (matched with a few triangles of The Laughing Cow longlife cheese: marvellous).
The first sausage was much more herby than spicy, but the second was like a good Italian sausage with just the right amount of chilli kick mixed in. The second type of local sausage was longer and thinner, stuffed with excellent lean pork and again well seasoned. We loved both.

night market delicacies
our boat picnic of Laughing Cow and sausage
(OK I added lime and chilli crisps too!)
Northwards by boat into the country and smaller villages, we broke our two-day trip up the Mekong in the small village of Pak Beng which is well-placed to cater for travellers thanks to the Lonely Planet. The main (only) street is lined with guesthouses, eateries and a couple of bars. We chose the one with the sign that made us laugh the most: “Lovely Jubbly” restaurant which proudly announced that “My wife is a very good cook”. And she was. We both chose the pork laap which was fresh, perfectly seasoned and most welcome after a long and tiring day lying back on our boat watching the Mekong and its villages float by.

This was our last official meal in Laos too, although we didn’t know it at the time. Next morning we breakfasted on freshly-made minced chicken, egg and salad baguettes made at our guesthouse before embarking for our second day of river travel, and by nightfall we were over the border in Thailand and dining on home-made noodles courtesy of Dan, the campest guest-house host in town.

leftovers pizza

~ maireaddoyle ~ 3 Comments

No, I don’t mean I had pizza last night and ate the last two slices this morning. As if, in my home, there would be any pizza left for breakfast.

Tonight, despite being Thursday, is the start of my weekend and I wanted Friday Food. (No Andy you do not have the copyright on this…). For the uninitiated, our Melbourne take on Friday food is that is has to be special, it has to be something you don’t normally eat on a school night, it has to be comfort food, it has to be something you like to end the week with but doesn’t take a Cordon Bleu chef to pull off.

I rode home from the city on the scooter in a strange high-temperature, high-humidity fog (really, is this still March?) and focused on pizza and red wine, my ultimate comfort food.

When I got home the Stanton and Killeen shiraz durif was hitting the spot and it was all I could do to call Pizza Hut – my favourite non-pizza pizza hit. (Let’s face it: Pizza Hut is not pizza but it is tasty). As it was March, the month of Slow Food, I focused hard and changed my mind. I would have home-made pizza with toppings made of all the leftovers in the fridge.

Two mini pita breads. Two teaspoons of tomato base from a tub (OK, it was not all slow food sourced from the land, but give me a break). A stray rasher of streaky bacon from a Paddy’s Butchers Sunday breakfast that just got too big. Some baby bocconcini from a weekend pasta dish, with about a week until sell-by date. Five cherry tomatoes and half an onion and a green chilli from the vegie drawer in the fridge. The heads off half a bunch of rapidly-failing broccolini. Spicy Italian herbs. All set.

Divine Thursday night dinner, nine points (Weight Watchers) instead of minimum 15 if I’d ordered in. OK, I would have ordered something meat-lovers and it would have been a train wreck – maybe 20 points which is more than I’m supposed to eat in a full day. But my dinner was a lot tastier and exactly to my taste.

And the fridge is a little emptier tonight because of me.

I thank you.

mammy dinner

~ maireaddoyle ~ 3 Comments

>A routine trip to the hospital and a dose of anaesthetic yesterday meant I needed chaperoning overnight. Lee and Mena came to visit, the former to stay over and play nursemaid, and the latter to cook dinner for us.

I was feeling perfectly fine and totally compos mentis, except Lee said I wasn’t really: apparently my intelligence level seemed to have decreased somewhat. Now and again I made a declaration which elicited a puzzled response from her, because apparently I was making no sense whatsoever and even getting simple sums wrong. Horrifying.

Meanwhile Mena arrived and set to work cooking the exact menu that was served in our family home for decades on a Tuesday (and still is). Eggs, beans and chips. Perfect comfort food. I added sausages to the menu, having been to Paddy’s the Irish butcher last week and so having a plethora of pork products to hand.

Nothing fancy: real Heinz beans, two eggs dry-fried sunny side up, and potatoes chipped by hand and oven-cooked with a little spray oil. Irish-recipe pork sausages fried in the pan (they are really low fat and dry-frying them gives a much better browning effect than grilling). The only thing was that I only had regular malt vinegar. A nice onion vinegar would have gone down well with the chips. A good dollop of tomato sauce for dipping (sorry, Andy, it was shop-bought) and it was just the perfect Mammy Food.

I probably shouldn’t have, but instead of washing it down with a nice strong cup of tea, I indulged in a cheeky glass of two of a nice Langhorne Creek shiraz cabernet. Not strictly Irish kosher, but on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day I reckon that was forgivable.

Labour Weekend Foodie Style – Sunday

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

Labour Day Sunday was time for brunch in Babble On Babylon, the venue for the boys’ cycling lunch most Sundays. Marty runs the only West Indian cafe in town, and his Jamaican breakfasts, stamp’n’gosalad and curried goat are excellent.

We crammed into the back room while the kids played in alley. Nina’s rice and peas and chicken looked excellent – well-seasoned and well-cooked chicken which Orlando manfully helped her polish off.
My Jamaican breakfast was just perfect: chilli eggs on toasted sourdough, plaintain, ackee and saltfish, with a side of roasted tomatoes. I never have the johnny cakes because I find them too heavy.

Eric’s big bowl of curried goat (no bones, plenty of spice) went down a treat too.

charmaine’s dhal

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>On a chilly autumn evening after a power walk I was ready for comfort food. Still trying to lose one more kilo before our trip to Laos, the healthy option was also necessary.

The decision: Charmaine’s dhal, the perfect spicy healthy food. Charmaine, a colleague at Red Cross and a food writer, is an Indian food expert and lover. She has written a few books on Indian cookery, several of which were published in India, and has just come back from another four-month stint collecting more recipes and stories.

Her dhal recipe is perfect every time.

Ingredients

400g dry lentils of any colour (I do a mix of 3/4 brown, 1/4 red)
1 medium onion finely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic
1 green chilli finely chopped
1 tbs olive oil
2-3 medium tomatoes finely chopped
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp black mustard seeds

Method
Rinse lentils a few times then cook in boiling water for at least 45 minutes.
Meanwhile add the olive oil and black mustard seeds to a frying pan and wait until the seeds start to explode. Then add the chopped chilli and fry vigorously for a minute or two.
Add the onion, garlic and other spices and fry until the onion is soft and brown. Add the chopped tomato and stir in. Cook until the tomatoes are soft and breaking down.

When lentils are cooked tip them into the frying pan – don’t bother draining all the water off them. Stir in and cook further until desired consistency is reached (I prefer my dhal a little bit runny) or add a little more water as required.

Serve on steamed white rice with a little chopped coriander or kasuri mehti as a garnish.

Serves 6

slow food saturday

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

Dinner with friends: the perfect excuse to spend a quiet Saturday doing what I do best. Focusing on food.

I was up and at Victoria Market by ten. A bit seedy after a glass or two too many the night before, I kept the sunglasses on despite the heavy cloud. For once, a sea mist was blanketing the city in blessed coolness, the humidity was high and it smelt like Ireland.

Vic Market was buzzing, as it always is. I strolled down the lines of produce in the fruit and veg shed first, comparing prices, tasting locally-picked fruit, getting sidelined by things not on my shopping list. The sellers shouted out their prices, competing with each other. Bananas $1.50 a kilo. I remember after Cyclone Larry when they went up to $15 a kilo. Seems like forever ago.

Laden already with plums, grape tomatoes, fresh basil, cucumber, sweet yellow chillis and mushrooms of different sizes, I headed for the meat department. Again the rows of perfectly-presented meats made me second-guess my menu plan. Perhaps it’s not too late to choose steak? Perhaps I should make hamburgers with that lovely mince? (it was the debut of our new barbecue after all.)

No. I steeled myself and kept walking down to the seafood. I browsed the counters, looking for the best prices, the exact tiger prawns I wanted, nice butterfish (which is not sold everywhere). Scallops winked at me; sushi-grade tuna begged to be bought and I capitulated. Something for me and Orlando, not this evening’s guests. Back to my usual butterfish man, I bought too much, knowing I would want leftovers. Two kilos of fresh shelled tiger prawns with the tails still on – perfect finger food – and I was done. Almost.

Over in the deli building, I quailed at the increasing weight of my various bags and rued my decision not to bring my wheelie trolley. Who goes to the market without a trolley?? Hungover me, that’s who. Plump Ligurian olives won over skinny kalamata. Bocconcini won over a more substantial piece of mozzarella. A sourdough baguette won over the other fifty or so breads on offer: this is always the hardest decision.

Last stop the chicken place for nice locally-produced free range chicken breasts, to round off the feast. Lucky I remembered.

Laden like a pack-horse, I sank to a seat in the food court with a strong flat white, two sugars. That’s better. A trip to Dan Murphy’s for wine and rum, and Safeway for a handful of remaining ingredients, and back home to take over the kitchen.

Half the prawns I marinated in a mix of red chilli, garlic and Punjabi Kitchen King Masala. It’s my favourite for shellfish and a real crowd-pleaser. The chicken was cut into more manageable pieces and coated simply in Italian herbs, garlic, a touch of chilli and green pesto. The butterfish got the Walkerswood jerk seasoning treatment.

Meanwhile more chicken was quickly browned off with some vegetables and slow-cooked in the oven with some of John’s seasoning. John Maughn is our friend who is a food wizard and his home-grown and produced seasoning is the best Caribbean flavour you can find. Seriously addictive.

A sit-down, a cup of tea and a Creme Egg later, I tackled the Greek salad and prepared the ingredients for an Italian pasta salad: grape tomatoes, bocconcini, fresh shredded basil, more pesto. Vegie skewers were constructed from yellow chillis, mushrooms and more grape tomatoes. The table was set and the mossie coils in place ready to be lit: all done.

The evening was a success. Two bottles of divine Brown Brothers 2002 Patricia Shiraz, and two more of Stanton & Killeen’s Rutherglen Shiraz Durif (2007), washed down the feast. The barbecue acquitted itself well, as did the chef. I thank you. Eileen’s cheese platter, Robyn’s handmade chocolates and Orlando’s orange muscat and flora rounded off the evening in style.

Even the washing-up went swimmingly.