Week 41 – Asia to Columbia on a plate

Looking back on my week’s photos, I can see between the thousands of pictures of Ioan that most of our food has been Asian inspired this week, with a little pop across to Colombia for lunch with the girls.

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First up was a prawn stirfry for meat-free Monday – although I normally like to avoid both meat and fish for meat-free Monday, I was feeling lazy and uninspired so just chucked a pile of prawns into my wok:

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Then was a delicious roast dinner of slow-roasted duck which I seasoned with Chinese five spice:

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You may have seen that I used the leftovers for my GBBO challenge and made these Chinese crispy duck inspired yorkshire puddings:

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This Vietnamese-style pork dish was inspired by this recipe, but used what I had in my cupboards, and was one of those meals that you eat and adore, and can’t wait to have again. I’ll be making it – and measuring the ingredients – again, so hope to share the recipe soon:

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We also managed a couple of nice breakfasts including a naughty fry-up after Ioan’s 8 week jabs (totally traumatic for us all):

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And eggs benedict, which Alfie the cat wanted even more than me:

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Onto South America, I met up with the girls for lunch in Wood Green at Green Rooms hotel. This newly opened hotel will be offering a kitchen residence to a new chef every six months, and they have started with the Colombian Street KItchen. We ordered a selection of tapas which ranged from the completely delicious (cassava chips, sweetcorn frittas and beef empinadas) to the dishes that still need work (slow roasted pork belly which was more fat than meat).

Cassava chips with guacamole (my favourites, although a few were a bit hard and undercooked):

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Plantain fries (very tasty, but wow that dip was spicy):

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Beef empinadas (lovely and tasty, generously filled with shredded beef):

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Sweetcorn frittas (not greasy, with a hint of sweetness from the corn):

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Chicken wings (perfectly seasoned with crispy skin and juicy  meat):

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Pork belly (tough and fatty):

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Chicken stew with cornbread (definitely not suitable for tapas, but delicious):

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Prawn ceviche (we wondered if these prawns had been pre-cooked rather than ‘cooked’ in the citrus juice, and the sauce was extremely spicy, but we liked the coconut flavour):

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Friends visited today to meet Ioan, so I cooked slow roasted lamb shoulder with a delicious chilli mint vinegar that I’ll be sharing the recipe for soon – Ioan behaved like a little angel so we had a really lovely day:

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This week I am planning the following:

  • Monday – prawn stirfry (I know, uninspired and lazy again)
  • Tuesday – chicken katsu curry with rice
  • Wednesday – gammon steaks with Angelsey eggs
  • Thursday – shepherd’s pie jackets (bumped again)
  • Friday – cod with tomatoes and potatoes
  • Saturday – chicken and chorizo stew
  • Sunday – hainanese chicken rice

One Reply to “Week 41 – Asia to Columbia on a plate”

  1. Jane Billing says: Reply

    Lovely to see your Columbian food. A couple of weeks ago David took me to a Mauritian restaurant in Southampton. It is owned by the Mauritian girl who won Masterchef a couple of years ago. (Shelima). We loved it, it is very small and the food is based on Mauritian street food. We didn’t take photos we just got stuck in…

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