Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint

Chopsticks and a mint sprig on a pink and white plate of beef and noodles

Now, ‘adjacent’ might be a clunky suffix for this recipe when ‘inspired’ is right there for the taking. As someone who isn’t Vietnamese, I intend to acknowledge the combination of flavours, familiar in nước chấm among other Vietnamese recipes—while making clear that I’m not breezily swooping in with entitlement to improve upon anything. But then, I think recipe titles should tell a brief story in and of themselves—in the case of Vietnamese-adjacent noodles with beef, chilli and mint, it’s flagging necessary attribution, that the noodles are as prominent as the beef, with a warning siren for chilli, mollified by the promise of mint’s tempering coolness. It also tells you, I guess, that I am amused by words, and like to play with them as much as I do with ingredients. Whether ‘adjacent’ catches on as a modifier or even makes sense to anyone else, we’re nonetheless never eating anything devoid of context, are we?

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Mascarpone butter beans, sausage and gremolata

A blue and red patterned plate of sausages and beans on a white painted background

Although this is the kind of rhetoric one usually saves for significantly-numbered wedding anniversary speeches, sometimes you lock eyes with a cookbook from across the crowded marketplace of ideas and think “aha! yes!” and immediately foresee many happy years of culinarily monogomous bliss together. In this case it was not one but three Claire Thomson cookbooks, all borrowed from the library but destined to become for-life fixtures. And though this recipe begins with manhandling sausage to coax their insides out; the results is shockingly fast and lovely, and so perfectly formed that I didn’t need to tinker with it materially at all—and which I now humbly present to you: Mascarpone butter beans with sausage and gremolata.

And I do mean humbly. I don’t even know what food blogging means as we sink into a war-fuelled fuel crisis on top of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, neither of which the government care about. It’s a weird dichotomy, where I obstinately don’t want a group of psychopathic men’s multi-pronged greed-trips to be a reason to stop blogging. I also don’t want to be laminating croissant dough while Rome burns. I honestly don’t know; and while I’m mad about this, it pales in comparison to other things I’m mad about and we’ll work out what’s the most important thing to be mad about as and when it happens. Either way, it probably won’t be this food blog.

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Pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill

a fork resting on a pink and white plate of pappardelle with roasted carrots

Having emerged this week from major dental surgery into recuperation mode, I am finally afforded some time to write this blog post. I am also, unfortunately, still firmly quagmired in the soft-food-only stage for another couple days so the act of crunching or chewing anything is but a poignant memory. Which perhaps will add a yearning piquancy to my description of this pappardelle with roasted carrots, hazelnuts and dill. I was joking with a best friend that I shouldn’t be this excited to have ‘me time’ via major surgery, but such is modern life! This anticipation also distracted from fear of the real and present risk of permanent nerve damage, which, I am relieved to inform you, didn’t come to pass. One day I shall enjoy this pasta again. Luckily for you—although I assume everyone cool is probably also suffering dentally in some regard, there’s a lot of crossover—it’s so quick to make, that you could enjoy it within about half an hour if you hop to it.

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Spiced Pearl Barley Pilaf

A red casserole dish of barley pilaf with a serving spoon and sprigs of thyme in front of it

If you’re not convinced that eating barley is a great way to spend the summer, think again—unless it’s winter where you are, in which case, I guess you can just continue thinking steadily. My mother got me a second-hand Lynn Bedford Hall cookbook for Christmas—Ms Bedford Hall, the author of one of my already most-beloved, most-1980s cookbooks, and this new-to-me volume was every bit as full of camp panache and gelatine despite being published in the futuristic year of 1993. Rocket is a “trend-setting herb”, tuna mousse is “ubiquitous” but “impressive”, while chilled broccoli and apple soup has “a quiet dignity”. It’s all charming stuff. It’s also surprisingly practical, and by and large alluring to both cook and eater—even the light-refracting wobbly solidity of gelatine starts to call one’s name after some persistent repetition and my desire to “add a splash of drama to a ladies’ luncheon”. From this volume, I’ve lightly adapted her spiced pearl barley pilaf recipe and in turn, urge you to adapt it further as you see fit. This pilaf is a stunningly bolstering dinner or packed lunch, and so delicious (and cheap, or as Ms Bedford Hall would say, “economical”) that it overcomes all unphotogenic shortcomings.

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Chicken, red grape, pecan and brie salad

A top-down shot of a leaf-shaped bowl of salad with a fork on a dark wooden board

Now that my debut novel Hoods Landing is past-tense launched in Wellington and Auckland, normal transmission must resume, and yet! Every time I blink an hour has passed and it’s next Thursday and a certain flat the-party’s-over malaise threatens.

Nonetheless I’m clambering onwards like a self-absorbed and energetic goat with a food blog, and bring you a salad of such glad tidings that it could only be inspired by a hedonistically carefree Silver Palate cookbook, whose authors address the reader as if we all have holiday homes in Portugal and the Hamptons, and let’s face it, the government still hasn’t worked out a way to privatise and flog off one’s personal vicarious thrills so you might as well get them while you can. And although it has a lot of words in the title, this chicken, red grape, pecan and brie salad is more or less practical, and can make quite a lot out of a little lux-ness.

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triple tomato beans

Triple tomato beans and a gold spoon on a black and white striped plate, sitting on a blue and white cloth
Mariah Carey has taught us many things: gratuitious vocabulary words, chopping the top off your jeans with scissors so they’re more low-waisted, and of course, the art of the creatively honourable remix. For the true of heart, riffing on an existing idea doesn’t mean simply swapping out a teaspoon of this or that—it’s about giving a recipe another reason to live. In this case, I suspected that my triple tomato risotto could also be lavishly excellent when pulsified with beans instead of rice. I was correct—and it took quarter of the time to make.

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Sha’aktoura (rice and lentil pilaf)

a gold plate of sha'aktoura with mint leaves on a floral patterened fabric

One of the more lamentable ways I begin sentences these days is “I saw this in a screenshot of a tweet on Instagram”. Now, to be fair, I could try receiving information in more highbrow, or at least more trustworthy formats and sources but those formats and sources are mostly decaying and I haven’t quite shaken the time-corrupting doomscroll muscle memory just yet, so here we nevertheless find ourselves. To that end; I saw a screenshot on Instagram of a tweet by cowboypraxis that said “i tried to make two plans in one day. as if i were god. as if i were literal god.” and I understood completely; My weekend comprised two such that-way-lies-folly plan-filled days, and yet! This Sha’aktoura from Sami Tamimi’s new cookbook Boustany is so breathtakingly calm and accommodating to cook that it can both be a plan and fit around your plans and make you feel really rather godlike in the process. Or, at the least, like someone who doesn’t begin sentences by referencing screenshots on Instagram.

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Silek ma’ Basal [Braised silverbeet with crispy onions and sumac]

Silverbeet and fried onions on a green plate with a serving spoon, surrounded by different coloured plates

To paraphrase myself: If your perception of an ingredient is polluted by the disdainful memory of it being served prosaically and—most likely—boiled into limp oblivion, then do yourself a favour and look to those who are doing it better. Sami Tamimi’s new book Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables From My Palestine demonstrates this point, having made me view silverbeet, or chard as it’s known in other hemispheres, with new and acquiescent appreciation through this recipe for Silek ma’ Basal. To that end: These are beyond catastrophic times for Palestine, as well you know. I don’t have enough of a platform to render talking or not talking about food particularly impactful either way. The food of Palestine is beautiful and so is this book; uplifting it is a privilege and I can only hope that any person who denies Palestinians their own food, tastes nothing but the ash and dirt of their own souls in their mouths forevermore. Onwards.

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Noodles with smoky gochujang bokkeum

A pan full of noodles and vegetables

Some years ago I posted a recipe for a vegan variation on gochujang bokkeum, a Korean fried chilli sauce, and though I’m no longer vegan, the sauce in this iteration has lost none of its monumental appeal. Here I’ve simply stirred it through wide, chewy noodles with some flash-wilted greens and a hazy splash of liquid smoke; it makes for a dinner of such wild splendidness that even though it’s something of a retread; it does both bear repeating and stand alone on its own merit. Indeed, I’ve made a slight variation of this three times this weekend alone because it has thrice been the exact correct answer to ‘what should we have for dinner’, prosaic though that is.

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Ricotta, peas and greens on toast with black garlic

Portrait view of greens, peas and ricotta on toast with a knife and fork next to it

Sometimes, of a drab, sink-coloured Tuesday or glooming Sunday evening with Monday sitting on its chest like a sleep paralysis demon, I want something stupid for dinner that reclaims a sense of whimsy from what’s left of the day. Food that in its odd vividness jolts you awake and reminds you that you’re alive and—somewhat—living in the moment. The sort of dish, like this ricotta, peas and greens on toast with black garlic that is potentially non-scalable because the more people you have to explain it to, the less likely you are to gain a consensus. But for yourself, as a droll supper, sidestepping the prosaic meat and three veg? Spectacular. The next night after this I had pasta, then noodles the night after that, but the day after that? I had this again and it felt as giddy as the first time.

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