Alternative Monday Roasts

It’s already feeling autumnal in Manchester.  But looking for the positive in these grey skies, at least we can enjoy a good roast dinner without sweating the calories in the kitchen before we’ve consumed them.   And one of the best things about a Sunday roast is re-inventing it the next day with the addition of something new to resurrect the leftover meat into a feast of flavour.  Last weeks veg box delivery landed me a nice head of purple cauliflower and I had been eyeing up the chance to make a cauliflower cheese with a twist from this unusual brassica.  

Baked purple cauliflower with blue cheese sauce

First make a little roux.  Melt some butter (50g) into a saucepan and add equal quantity of plain flour stirring vigorously over a low heat to combine e and cook the flour slightly.  Then whisk in about 300 ml of milk so it combines into a nice sauce.  Grate in some nutmeg and season with salt and white pepper,  keep mixing over a low heat to cook the flower.

purple pots

At the same time break up the cauliflower head into florets and steam for about 10 minutes.  Keep a decent bit of bite to the veg as it will cook a little further in the oven with the sauce.  Flavour the sauce with about 50 – 100g of blue cheese (depending on its strength) and finally add  a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of horseradish to lift the flavour of the sauce, and a spoon of double cream if your feeling glutinous.  Taste and re-season.

leftover florets are cooks treat with dipping sauce

Arrange the florets into big ramekins so they fill it with the purple head sticking out the top.  Slowly pour over the sauce and allow it to sink in and around the veg.  Cover the top with some good grated cheddar mixed with the white of some spring onion.

cheesy sulphurous goodness

This obviously works with any cauliflower, or indeed any sulphurous vegetable, but the purple tint gave a nice contrast to dark green of some pak choi leaves fried in butted and the deep brown of yesterdays thin ,red wine gravy.

The smoker is born!

"Destroying a lovely Bread Bin in the name of smoke"

Smoked food tastes good. Bloody good. Today, you can buy a wealth of smoked food goods and get them delivered to our door but the idea of smoking your own food is something that has appealed to me for a number of years now and . A camping trip to Anglesey was the perfect opportunity to give it a try.

I built a one compartment smoker from a bread bin, stealing the basic design from one in Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall’s Fish book. It’s easy to make and there is some information on how to do it here with some nice recipes as well.

A couple of handfuls of wood chippings/sawdust mix will prob last about an hour.

It was a sunny day and as its my first time I decided to keep it fairly simple and go for a classic smoked mackerel.  I did a couple of plain mackerel and 3 rubbed down with a little pimento and a sprig of marjoram.  This was delicious and unusual.  The oak and apple tree smoke infected the fish.  Ultimately the one I flavoured was too much to eat on its own.  The fish simply didn’t need this extra blast of flavour as the sweetness from the smoke was enough to give the fresh oily mackerel a lovely depth of flavour.  Hot smoking gives lovely chunky flakes and served with a simple green salad it made the perfect beach side accompaniment.

So I kept a spare pimento and marjoram fillet and took it home for some modification into a recipe.  And I am very glad I did.  It required a strong fresh flavour to stand up against it and a lump of soothing creme fresh to tame it.

Lightly rub the fillets in pimento, place a sprig of marjoram and a few small pieces of garlic inside. Close and use a cocktail stick to lock.

Paprika and marjoram infused smoked mackerel filling

Smoke the mackerel for 10 minutes in a hot smoker.  Very finely chop a red onion and a few sprigs of parsley, mix with a big dollop of creme fresh and a good squeeze of lemon.  Serve with hot fresh bread or a crispy skinned jacket potato.  Winning!

Note:  to ensure winning when cooking on the beach a collapsible lightweight table is INVALUABLE.  well worth the effort of dragging it down the beach in the battle to keep your food sand free!

Note 2:  Make sure you use an enamel bread bin, as my brother pointed out, aluminium or cheap paint smoke can be harmful when ingested.

smoked product number one...

The Umami experiments – part 1 – Bellypork with umami sauce

Crispy skin and juicy meat

So, on the back of the quick taste test experiment I was feeling quite inspired to take fish sauce (the winner) and try it out with a recipe. Surfing the cookbooks gave me a bit of inspiration and I eventually decided on taking a piece of pork (not a typical umami tasting meat) and infusing it with some umami flavour. Since Fish sauce is pretty much totally made from anchovies I decided to go straight for the original and see how that would work taking in some other umami ingredients like mushrooms, worcester sauce and dark ale.

The recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 Piece of Belly pork 1 – 1.5 Kg
• 1 onion
• 1 big clove of garlic
• 1 small tin (50g) anchovies in oil
• Chestnut mushrooms about 300 g
• Some dried (or fresh!) Morrell mushrooms (f you can get them, use any earthy mushroom you like)
• 150mls of Dark Ale
• Cupboard: Worcester sauce, bay leaves, rock salt, sprigs of thyme, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, a clove

First make the rub. Use 1 teaspoons of rock salt, a few black peppercorns, coriander seeds, mustard seeds a clove and a dried bay leaf, grind them all up in a pestle and mortar. Score the fat of the meat and rub in the salt mix with a little oil. Leave it to rest on the side. Put the oven on to heat at a high temp, gas mark 8.

Dried Morrell mushrooms have a real umami kick

Wipe the mushrooms and trim appropriately. If you have any dried morels, put them in a small jar with some hot water to soften.

In a pan, sweat of the onion for few min’s in the oil from the anchovies, and then add the garlic. Chop up the anchovies and throw these in for a minute then take it all out into the roasting tin and crank up the heap.

Chop the chestnut mushrooms into half’s and put them in the pan. Leave them to get some heat and drop in small blobs of butter on top. When it’s really hot (almost smoking) flip them about tin the pan until they are all covered in some of the melted butter. This should just coat them in it, if you put in a big blob it tends to get sucked up by the closest ones and then you need to add more. There is enough fat in the meat for this dish already. Add a dash of Worcester sauce.

chestnuts definitely have the edge for this sauce, get that pan smoking hot before you mix

Throw back in the onion mix to the pan and pour in the ale. Put in a bay leaf, chop up the Morrell’s and put these in then pour the whole mix into the baking tray. Drop a few sprigs of time on top and then place the bellypork on top. Try and make it cover all the mushroom mix but if not, use a few strips of foil to cover around the edges. The idea is the meat will be nice and moist but the fatty skin will be exposed to the high heat temperatures of the oven. Give the meat 30 min’s at this temp then knock it down to gas mark 3 and cook for another 30 – 45 min’s.

The belly on top of the sauce, strips of foil used around the edges

Serve with buttery mash and vegetables. As an optional extra serve it with some capers and ribbons of basil in oil. This sweet sour topping will help to contrast and balance and cut through the richness of the meat.

The finished dish, serve with a nice amber ale

chestnuts deffinitly have the edge for this sauce, get that pan smoking hot before you mix

The sauce complete

Dried Morrell mushrooms have a real umami kick

capers, basil and oil

out the oven

Anchovies are great, make sure you use the water that hydrated the dried mushrooms too, bags of flavour in it.

Crispy skin and juicy meat

The finished dish, serve with a nice amber ale

The belly on top of the sauce, strips of foil used around the edges

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An Introduction to Umami

Being invited to Nathans for dinner was a luxury to me. He is one of the best hosts around as many an Artist who have stayed in his B&B will testify.

Dinner conversation flows easily as does the wine at Kelvin grove and after a host of discussions we meandered our way onto the human participation of eating, in particular the different tastes that we can sense, embrace and (if were lucky) articulate.

According to research there are 5 different taste sensors that are ‘accepted’ in the western world.

We could name 4 of them of the cuff; Salt, Sweet, Sour and Bitter. After a bit of debate about the difference between sour and bitter we eventually reached for the information crutch that is Wikipedia to find the last one.

Umami apparently taken from a Japanese word meaning “tastes good”. It’s quite a difficult taste to define but Wikipedia doesn’t do such a bad job and gives an a meaning as basically meaty, the ones that I could use to explain it were foods like soy sauce, Marmite yeasty dark foods that are the basis of savoury flavours.

The Umami burger!

I wouldn’t necessary agree completely. It’s a taste that exists to some degree in nearly every type of cooked savoury food. The sort of taste that has a dark edge and makes those saliva glands start to work.

Back in London we did a little experiment into it. I racked up several of the most Umami ingredients to hand up, knocked up 4 different mini Umami burgers and had a small group of friends taste them in succession.  We tried Soy sauce, Fish sauce, Worcester sauce and a plain one for good measure.

Soy, fish and quality Morrisons own brand Worcester (sorry lea & perrin!)

The results were fairly clear.  Everyone agreed that they all had an Umami presence in them (and it helped everyone to identify what Umami was)  but both the Soy sauce and the Worcester sauce were fairly recognisable as to which ingredient was used.  The Fish sauce was declared unanimously as the clear winner.  It didn’t taste fishy but the savoury flavour was enhanced, much more so than the savoury taste of the plain burger.

cookin em up

Theres a cracking Umami burger recipe here if you want to try it yourself!  I’m pushing the boat out next time so for some serious Umami recipes, watch this space!

The land down under…

I landed in Australia just for 2 weeks and the only place I was visiting was Brisbane. I made a short trip up to the Sunshine Coast to relax and have a few days of sun.  Unfortunately the sun was eclipsed by rain clouds every day at 11.30am. When I got back to Brisbane, almost immediately a natural disaster occurred and Queensland was put into a state of emergency. The floods were horrific and Toowoomba (were I planned to visit relatives I had not seen for 20 years.) was hit terribly. A couple of days later and the Brisbane river burst its banks on our doorstep.

Dark Sky's across the city

Transportation stopped across the city and for 24 hours gas and electricity went down forcing us to retreat to higher and safer ground. This limited what we could do somewhat and after a day of watching the same pictures of devastation on the telly I was a bit depressed. When I went to see the river and how high it had risen that day I realised what the solution was. A large crowd of trendy Aussies had gathered on the banks of the Brisbane river in the chic neighbourhood of Tenerife. Most were in small groups gathered around a cool box tucking into either a six-pack of beer or a cold bottle of sauvignon blanc. The expensive restaurant had a few sandbags at the door and on the chalkboard instead of todays special was chalked ‘come and watch the floods rise with a cold beer’. So I did what any respectable Brit would have done in the circumstances and joined in!

In fact most of the bars and restaurants seemed to be open and doing a cracking trade. All the office workers had been sent home as the water level increased throughout the financial district. In fact it was only the restaurant staff that seemed to be getting a bad deal there. I got to try 2 very different styles of food in 2 great local restaurants.

The first was a Tibetan Kitchen. I have never had this type of food before and found it very much to my liking. It is similar to that of Northern India but with a more aromatic touch as if the flavours of north Africa have been combined. The starters were Sekuwa, A chicken that had been marinated in garlic, spices and yogurt quite similar to a tandoori dish.

Tipan Tapan

Tipan Tapan was a curried meat dish with some spiced potatos and crunchy puffed up grains of rice that gave it a nice bite. Big potsticker dumplings filled with lush minced spicy meat dipped in a sweet chutney was greedily devoured. The mains were just as good. Aloo Ping, Masu ra tea momo was recomended by our lovely Tibetan waitress.

Aloo Ping with big fat tasty 'dumplings'

This was meant to be typical of Tibet. Tender and spicy lamb was served with a noodle salad and two big ‘Tea Momo’ dumplings. It reminded me of etheopian food as the dumplings were big fat pancake rolls to tear of and pick up the meat with. Equally tasty was the Khgasi ko Masu. A Tibetan version of a vindaloo but not as burningly hot as those plated up in Whitechapel’s curry houses. The ‘Sherpa Chicken’ was a creamy contrast to the hotter companions. We ordered 3 and shared but 2 would of been plenty and in the end we had a takeaway that we lost on the way home after a few whisky sours. I loved the Tibetan food and the friendly atmosphere of the restaurant. I have nothing to compare the authenticity of the food too but its certainly put Tibet on my culinary map.

On our last night we took our host James out to an Italian that is on his doorstep, Beccofino.  He had told me he hadn’t eaten there but said it was always full on the weekends. When I dropped in to reserve a table I was told they didn’t take bookings but I should get a table after half eight, I might have to wait for it though. I’m always happy to wait for food, especially when I can do it at the bar drinking some fine dry Proseco. I had no ambitions for this restaurant other than that but ended up spending over 3 hours in there and was so consumed with the process of dining that I didn’t even realise the restaurant had completely emptied of not only customers, but also all the tables and chairs had been removed and stacked apart from ours.

Beccofino

The service was that good!  Completely unobtrusive and comforting. The front of house manager worked the restaurant with incredible skill knowing exactly what was happening at every table all night. If I ever get to waste my savings on opening a restaurant I would seek out this man to train the waiters. The food was so sublime I cannot even begin to explain it all in detail but there was one appetiser which has stayed with me and I will be testing my skills to recreate it when I have my kitchen back. It was simple and deadly. Three quenelles of prawn dumplings, a light consistency made from whipped egg whites and prawn meat, poached in a fish broth. These were placed on a nutty brown sage butter which worked beautifully with their airy consistency and prawn flavour. I summoned the manager, told him how amazing they were and asked for a second plate. I haven’t reordered a dish like that for a long time. The manager liked this appreciation and after the mains sent out some incredible desert wine with our dolce. It must have been midnight when we rolled outside and stumbled home with that druggy doped up feeling of contentment you can only get after a huge feast in an incredible restaurant

Aloo Ping with big fat tasty ‘dumplings’

The Modern Art Gallery the day before the south bank went underwater

Tibetan Bread, a bit like a pizza!

A 30 dollar steak at the Story Bridge Hotel

Tibetan Vindaloo! Khasi Ko Masu

Good times with our host

Dark Sky’s across the city

Tipan Tapan

Beccofino

Potsticker dumplings

Saigon I love you, but you’re bringing me down

So, the capital is eventually hit. The journey itself being an incredible adventure.  The night train to Hue was immense, waking up to the splendour of a historical coast line that unravelled as a splendid stretch of beaches, rocky outcrops against a background of vicious jungle. On route to Saigon via Mui Ne at 6am we had an hour to kill between transportation at Na Trang.

The Best Pho in Vietnam

The city was waking up and a short walk led me to sampling the best noodle soup breakfast so far on this journey. A mouth-wateringly hot and sour riddle of the standard staple Asian breakfast. This variation had not only the slabs of juicy and fatty pork but a quenelle (I doubt they would address it as such but it was smooth and perfectly formed) of light mackerel mouse which meted into the stock as I devoured it. The chilli and lime was on hand in buckets to balance the flavour to your individual tastes together with crunchy salad leaves and fresh herbs. It awoke my body from its sleep deprivation and our bus sauntered southward to our inevitable destiny.

 

Mui Ne Fishing Village

We also grabbed a couple of beach days in Mui Ne which provided us with classic seafood.  Salt and Chilli prawn,  garlic and chilli barracuda, Barbecued prawns.  Ace…

 

Everyone loves a plate of prawns

Barracuda with chilli and garlic

I was lucky enough to meet a chef at the Paris – Mui Ne guest house who was the business partner and food inventor.  They looked after us very well and I was fascinated with the sophisticated French – Vietnamese cooking he was making.   The simplest of  breakfast of bread and jam became incredibly exciting.  Making the fruit purees fresh was an innovation of the abundant tropical ingredients availible.   Mixing shredded coconut and dragon fruit.  Papaya and ginger, green tomato with sweet wild berries.   It really has stayed with me and made me think about what is possible from the most simplistic foods.

Mui Ne is famous in Vietnam for its fish sauce. These are the pots they use to ferment the anchovies in. Needless to say this place smelt pretty intense...

Saigon however, was a minefield of choices and it wore me down further than I needed after the 18 hr soul-crushing journey I had taken to get there. A stupendous city, on first arrival I was full of promise and hope. But it is the biggest Vietnam has to offer and is the most staggering in its size and shape. The noise for one is incredibly intense. Every street corner is a building site; the traffic makes Hanoi look like Tesco’s car park on a Sunday and the neon advertisements on every corner seem to confuse your basic navigation at every turn.

We were, we thought, reasonably prepared and as soon as we had dumped our bags at the hotel, a recommendation of a great Indian took us through the streets on a mammoth taxi ride. I felt daftly obtrusive to the lives and well being of the millions of Moto’s as our saloon cruised through the streets heading through what felt like every district of the city. The curry was however spectacular in its simplicity and its flavour. I know I have broken every rule in my conscience here but after 18 hrs of coaches designed for people a lot smaller than you I confess I needed a hit of Indian spice and cold lager. The recommendation scrawled on the receipt in my pocket meant more to both me and the taxi driver (who could barely understand my token Vietnamese of hello and thank you) than my half hearted requests for “the real Saigon experience” ever would. I wasn’t disappointed. Just three dishes on the menu and a choice of meats. My style for sure. The food isn’t worth the colour pixel load time but I would recommend the mutton curry to any weary traveller. Sorry Saigon…

Bombay

So I awake with a fairly merciless hangover, and the unforgiving realisation that I have 15 hrs to discover the culinary capital. Its 10.a.m already… Shit.
Lowri however is in charge today. This I take to be a blessing, she has an excellent judgement and is much better at making quick decisions than I. I have an abhorred knack of crawling though streets and scrutinising menu’s only to finally decide on returning to one of the first I have seen 4 hours previously, every partners nightmare I am sure. But the hangover and hunger controlled us both, and after 500 meters we found ourselves in a pho stall eagerly awaiting whatever came our way.
We both pointed randomly at the same thing on the menu and I regretted it instantly… The dish of the place was shrimp with pig offal (hearts, kidneys and lungs) and shrimp and as soon as my order had gone for braised pig I realised everyone else in the mega pho stall was having the former.

Last of the Pho

After about an hour of stumbling through a pork shoulder with nothing but chopsticks and a spoon we wandered off into the unforgiving Moto exhaust fumes to find a taxi to the war remnants museum.

This brought on more depression as I inspected hundreds of photographs of the after effects of Agent Orange. The hangover tipped into a new being of depression and silence. We walked to the presidential palace expecting grandeur to find it shut 3 minutes ago. We sauntered through blistering streets to seek out an air-conditioned cafe were we got a small intermission with a glass of ice, sugar and lemon juice (refreshing and delicious) before braving the market in search of Bahn Xai (The, pancake of Vietnam, apparently infinitely better than that of Hoi An). Unsurprisingly at this time of the day and mind, they have stopped selling the dish at 12 and instead we were jumped upon by many hawkers offering more pho to our queasy stomachs. It was 6pm and 7 hrs till our flight. I grabbed a couple of fresh spring rolls and a beer at a stall in order to steady my spinning head as much as my stomach. They were good, clean and packed with the aniseed flavour of Thai basil sweetened by mint.

Fresh Vietnamese spring rolls

I picked what the lonely planet said was one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in Saigon with my tail between my legs only to find I can get better in Shoreditch. It had a couple of hits,  the okra was brilliant and not a vegetable I’d of associated with this part of Asia.

 

Okra with Chilli

Curried Seabass, a bit disappointing, literally a bit of curry powder on the fish before it went under the grill were it spent too long.

A couple of taxi’s, a few hours and some beers to quell the pain. Hangover gone and anticipation drained I sat down outside the colossal airport to load up on coffee so as not to pass out and miss my early morning flight to Manila.

Saigon is a shape-shifter. A chameleon of culture and I can’t help still being attracted to its intensity and glamour. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can walk in and take what you want though. Its scale and concentration is enough to knock you back and it’ll take a lot longer than 24 hours to dig out the best street food and restaurants. I’ll be back one day to give it the respect it deserves. But as I slowly nod off and the caffeine weakens its grip, I’m glad to be heading away from the mainland to a remote island in the Philippines to rest my overworked senses at a much slower pace.

Everyone loves a plate of prawns

Fresh Vietnamese spring rolls

Last of the Pho

Bombay

Mui Ne Fishing Village

Mui Ne is famous in Vietnam for its fish sauce. These are the pots they use to ferment the anchovies in. Needless to say this place smelt pretty intense…

Barracuda with chilli and garlic

Okra with Chilli

Curried seabass, a bit dissapointing, literally a bit of curry powder on the fish before it went under the grill were it spent too long.

Vietnam: Hanoi and Halong Bay

 

Hoi An rush hour. 11 million scooters in one city!

On finally reaching Hanoi I was near exuberant on the immanent access to good freshly cooked street-food.   Its something that you can’t really get in Laos but in this vast city of traffic it’s all over.  The sudden abundance of food stall’s selling every type of Pho (noodle) soups was slightly mind blowing.  Time to get back to basics.

Rule 1: If its busy, eat there…

Walking passed the tiny but crowded outdoor eatery in Cha Chi we realised that this was a local student hangout worth a wait.  After 20 minutes standing round being a bit too polite though we got a table in the bar across the road, they had no problem with the food coming across; the businesses seem to work hand in hand on busy days.  Plates being sent one way, beers the other.  They only sold 1 dish.  Fried Tofu, fried fishcake with a pile of noodles that are snipped onto your plate in bite-size clumps by the owners scissors.

 

Fried Tofu and Fishcakes with Noodles and cucumber

Pho is the cities most popular dish.  Many stalls just consist on a big vat of furiously boiling light stock.  The owner thinly slices some beef with a cleaver, this is then lowered very briefly (about a minute max) before being poured onto a bowl of cold cooked noodles and raw bean-sprouts.  These are garnished with anything the stall might fancy.  Usually some spring onion, lettuce leaves and maybe some fried shallots, nuts, or crispy garlic.  In the north they don’t seem to embrace the chilli’s and limes of the south.  They can’t grow them in the colder climates of the north and so are not ingredients of their regional dishes.

Unfortunately my time in Hanoi was quite limited, after taking extra time in Laos lazy villages, I only had a couple of days in the city.  Having promised myself to see the stunning views of Halong bay I was also craving some seafood and keen to get to the cost to find it at its freshest. 

Halong Bay

Halong Bay did not disappoint in its majestic beauty but Cat Ba island was we stayed unfortunately wasn’t the seafood hit I needed.  I had some pretty awful and dreary food there to be honest and it gave me another rule:  If there is more than 8 pages of food on the menu, walk away.  Asking for a traditional local dish I got a salty and fat soaked plate of bacon with 3 small greasy shrimps. 

pork and shrimp grease, not the good but definitely the bad and the ugly

There was only one half decent restaurant on the parts of the island that I was able to discover.  Green Mango is run by a Hanoi trained chef and servers an unusual mix of international influences across his plates.  Some of it was plain western backpackers food but the green tea smoked duck spring rolls with a sweet and tangy plum sauce (served in a shot glass) was perfectly palatable.

Fresh Beef spring roll's definitely looked the part

unfortunately as I delved deeper into the menu things did not stand up.  Fried beef and green mustard sauce also was nice enough, but everything was too bland. 

Beef and green mustard... or just unseasoned beef...

It lacked not just a kick of chilli, mustard or garlic; but quite didn’t seam to have any seasoning at all.  Is this the standard bland food rich westerners want abroad?  Something that looks pretty and vaguely ‘Asian’ but tastes blander than water biscuits?!  It was pretentious enough to not even have salt and pepper on the tables, forget  the homemade fermenting fish sauce that I had been hoping for!  In hindsight, go to Halong bay, but stay on the boat and be there for the scenery, don’t expect a gastronomic journey of a lifetime.

Hoi An lake, the only place we escaped the traffic

Beef and green mustard… or just unseasoned beef…

Fresh Beef spring roll’s definitley looked the part

Halong Bay from Cat Ba

Halong Bay

Hoi An lake, the only place we escaped the traffic

Hoi An rush hour. 11 million scooters in one city!

pork and shrimp grease, not the good but definitley the bad and the ugly

Fried Tofu and Fishcakes with Noodles and cucumber

Khmer style

 
Cambodia. An incredible country. The Khmer people are the most endearing I have so far met. Having suffered immense tragedy and suffering throughout the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge they have come out as an immensely friendly and ingratiating people whom you cannot help but love as they chat to you about Cambodia and the rest of the world. We arrived in Seam Reap after a fairly gruelling 10 Hr journey with a pretty dodgy and long winded border crossing. The guesthouse was family run and after a complimentary beer and a shower we hit town in search of dinner. The main street was packed with open air barbecue restaurants. No hiding behind the Lonely Planet tonight. Stick to the simple rule, find the busiest one and cue. The 10 minute wait in this place was well worth the rewards of rare steak, pork ribs, and juicy shrimps with a mixture of sauces; Shallot and soy, chilli and lime, a spicy shredded mango salsa and peanut satay to name a few. To follow a Khmer style nutty shrimp dish with rice.

Khmer food is nowhere near as spicy as Thai food but after a week of Thai the new flavours and variants of spice and herb have been a welcome change. There is a lot more use of cinnamon and aromatics, the curries with meatier with stocks and generally the food more fragrant. A taster menu gave us an ideal sample. Here it was fish Amok, green curry, fried pork, ‘fresh’ spring roll’s (like summer rolls from your Vietnamese, steamed not fried), mango salad and a stir-fried morning glory… We got our best street food yet in the local market. These are big fried dumplings stuffed with garlicky morning glory. The locals beamed at us as we shared their table to feast on this exquisite fast food.

The last night we hit a mate’s recommendation and eventually found FCC. Potter, I should have known it would be a beautiful and classy joint. Well out of our budget but a couple of cocktails persuaded are Angkor tired feet to splash out. The rich beef Lok Lak using a fillet in a cinnamon and pepper sauce did the job. Here are the ingredients I blagged from the waitress at the Angkor Palm restaurant. From the places I visited it was there proudest dish. The method is to cook the spices briefly, add the liquids to make a sauce then wrap in a banana leaf to bake in an oven or under some hot ashes.

Fish Amok

1 Garlic Clove chopped
2 inches of fresh root galangal (or ½ teaspoon of dried)
2 tbsp of chopped Lemon grass
1 teaspoon of Kché
3 gno leaves
2 tbsp Fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 x 400g tin of coconut milk 450g/1 lb
White fish fillets (Catfish, Sole etc)
4 – 8 Banana leaves depending on size.

Not totally sure what all of these ingredients are but sure you can Google them and then find them in a good Asian food stores in the UK.