I took part in two cooking courses last summer: one in Vietnam and one in Laos. Despite preferring Vietnamese food generally, it’s two Laos dishes I’ve found myself making most at home. The first is stuffed lemongrass. It’s a cracker of a recipe and I’ll share it very soon. The second is Jeow Mak Keua – a very spicy aubergine dip/paste. It’s one of my favourite things right now. I like to eat it with brown rice and nothing else but it’s very nice as a side dish for grilled meat.
Jeow Mak Keua (As learnt at Tamarind cooking school)
1 medium aubergine
1 large red chilli
2 fat cloves of garlic
Fish sauce
1 spring onion, chopped
Small handful of coriander. chopped
- Prick the aubergine all over then thread it on to a skewer along with the garlic and chilli. Cook under a hot grill or on the BBQ until charred on the outside and soft on the inside.
- Peel the garlic and chilli and pound to a paste with a pinch of rock salt using a mortar and pestle. (Remove the seeds from the chilli if you don’t want it too hot)
- Peel the aubergine and cut into rough chunks. Add to the mortar and pound with the chilli/garlic paste until combined.
- Stir in coriander and spring onion then add fish sauce to taste.
sounds very nice with rice – I think I could do with some overseas cooking courses – sounds like fun and nice you are still cooking the recipes you learnt
This looks delicious and so tasty. I love eggplant and can’t wait to try this one!
This is so unique. I’m going to make this. What a wonderful blog you have here.
Some spread on toasted sourdough sounds nice , too .
I adore moutabul – and this might be a nice variation – thanks for posting!
Great pictures and recipes. I am writing a blog as part of an RGU University module, wondering if you would provide me with a quote I can include as I plan on linking to your blog! It is about healthy eating on a budget in scotland and the obesity epidemic. Do you think it is possible in Scotland to eat healthy on a budget?
Hello. I’m lucky enough not to have food shop on a very restricted food budget so I think it’d be a bit false of me to give a definitive yes or no. If the budget isn’t too low, I think it’s possible by planning carefully and reducing the amount of meat based meals. Also suspect it relies on folk having reasonable cooking skills too though and not everyone does.
Many thanks, that is a very good point re limited cooking skills. Thank you for your opinion!