Mia's Makings

It is time to go travelling around the world again, from the safety of my kitchen. It is a cheap, yet interesting way of tasting the world. Without jetting off on a plane to distant parts of the planet, meals from their tables make their way to our home. Well, not really, but meals created by their chefs or kitchen dwellers inspire me to cook something similar. Today's inspiration comes all the way from Lebanon, a country I'm unlikely ever to visit, but if I did I would probably like what I was served. The flavours in this dish suited my taste buds perfectly. Because of that, I changed very few things from the original recipe. Sure, I could have followed it religiously, but that wouldn't be me. What made me veer off this time?  There was meant to be squares of toasted pita bread in the dish, actually in it, not on the side. I love pita bread, but have a thing about it getting soggy. Although it was toasted, unless it was eaten really fast, the sog-risk was gre

As you know by now, I'm travelling around the world via my kitchen, trying recipes from 52 different countries in a year. I believe this one is number 37, which leaves another 15 national meals to cook before the year is over. It can be done. It will be done. It is my New Year's Resolution. According to the Pinterest recipe I found, Cambodian Lok Lak should be cooked with beef and served on a bed of lettuce and tomatoes and a side of rice, with a small bowl of sauce next to the plate. I decided to change this by adding lots of vegetables to the actual dish and serve with rice the first day and with noodles the next, because I cooked enough for two days. It kept well in the fridge over night. Although the recipe said beef and I used venison, I reckon you could use pork or chicken, perhaps even fish or seafood. Why not try? Feel free to let me know who it went. The original recipe called for an awful lot of fish sauce in the marinade and even more in the sauce. If you h

There are different kinds of meals and I don't mean edible and inedible. I'm talking about simple every day dinners and those you would be proud to serve guests. When having others than just the closest family around the table, I often want to make something a little special in regards to appearance, flavour and texture. As I love trying new recipes, I sometimes happen to cook dinner guest worthy meals on a school night and I make a mental note what friends would be likely to appreciate it. Most of the time, I cook pretty basic food and that's what I did today. It was tasty and satisfying, but not fancy in any way. That is was a healthy meal was a bonus. Last time I made a cauliflower bake, I boiled the florets and gently folded them into the meat mixture. While doing so, I had to be very careful not to mash the cauliflower and it dawned on me that I should have roasted it instead. Today I roasted the cauliflower and when mixing it with the meat, there was no n

This is probably one of the easiest noodle dishes I have made, as it mainly involved pouring bottled sauces over stuff in the frying pan. It was quite sweet from the oyster and hoisin sauce and if you like a sweet and mild Asian dish, this may be for you. You can use whatever vegetables you fancy, but keep them thinly sliced for fast cooking. I happened to have some shredded carrot, courgette, leek and radishes, mixed with bean sprouts from yesterday's raw Pad Thai and decided to chuck it in, alongside some sweetheart cabbage, green beans, onion, pepper, more courgette and more bean sprouts. I used garlic, chilli and sesame seeds for flavour. Because I cook a lot of Asian meals, I have invested in a range of sauces and that was handy today. The dish featured sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, hoisin sauce and oyster sauce. As usual, I didn't measure anything. A squirt of this, a drizzle of that and ta-da! All I can say, use the sesame oil sparingly, as it is jam packed