MAMA shrimp tom yum instant noodles

These Thai MAMA brand instant noodles recently appeared in my local supermarket, and so when Tamarind and Thyme recommended then too, I thought I'd better give them a go. There was only one variety though, so shrimp tom yum it was.

As you can see the noodles came with a couple of different flavour sachets and a whole sachet of ground chilli. The noodles themselves also seemed to be flecked with chilli powder. So unsuprisingly the cooked noodles were pretty hot and spicy. In fact I cunningly anticipated this and didn't add all the chilli sachet initially. Even with just a light sprinkling of chilli the noodles left my lips tingling and by the end of my meal I had a distinctly rosy glow about my person. I think this was just the right amount of heat for me, but I will admit to being rather wussy about chilli so someone more robust than me could probably have coped with the whole packet. These noodles were full of flavour and did a pretty good job of capturing the hot and sour flavours of a tom yum soup. The addition of a few prawns and vegetables would turn this into quite a substantial meal, but even on their own these noodles made a quick and tasty supper.

I think I still prefer the more subtle but still intensely savoury flavours of Indomie's mi goreng instant noodles, but the MAMA shrimp tom yum instant noodles are a very different, but good, spicy alternative.


I rate them 7.5/10
Cost: Approximate £0.40 per packet.

Blackberrry pancake brunch (or pudding)

The male companion person is very keen on American-style pancakes, and I've found that these are ideal for a Sunday brunch. They are much thicker than our regular British pancakes and need to smothered in copious amounts of maple syrup and an optional hunk of butter. I initally used this BBC recipe but now I know what the consistency of the batter should be (quite thick), I can judge it by eye so precise amounts of each ingredient don't appear to be too crucial.

As we've currently got a glut of blackberries I thought I'd try and add a fruit element to these pancakes. Being too lazy to make a compote, I just added a couple of generous handfuls of blackberries to the batter and squished them a bit with the back of a fork. Once they were in the pan the fruit burst a bit more but without disintegrating completely. Cold vanilla ice cream was the perfect contrast to the hot fruit pancakes (and pah to anyone who doesn't think it's appropriate to have ice cream for brunch).

Festival fooding

There was a time (I am told) when music festival attendance required trolloping about in mud with only the equivalent of the late night kebab van to sustain you. How times have changed. These days deciding what you're going to eat can be as tricky as deciding which bands to see.
Cambridge Folk Festival is possibly one of the most middle-class festivals going- you can frequently see people in the main tent surrounded by half the contents of Millets, reading the Daily Telegraph and looking slightly put out by those people on the stage making a racket- so getting hold of a skinny latte to go with your paper is not a problem. But for a very small site Cambridge does cram in a lot of food stalls. In addition to your regular burgers and baked potatoes, there are Indian, Chinese, Mexican and Jamaican options. It's just a shame that this variety wasn't reflected in the music this year.

I remembered the Blue Moon Cafe from previous years, and their veggie burgers and paprika fries were as good as I remembered. The male companion person went for the 'jerk mon' from the Jamaican stall (leading to a comedy ordering scenario), and declared himself to be very happy with the chicken and rice combo. Though if you'd like to sample any of this you're going to have head to a festival this summer too.



And of course there was this essential festival food component too....

Sea bass tortillas a la Valentine Warner

I'm not really sure what to make of Valentine Warner. On the one hand I quite like the look of some of his food, but on the other his random drooling comments and vocal stylings remind me quite strongly of David Bellamy. Tricky....

However this Mexican tortilla and sea bass recipe that he cooked on his tv programme a few weeks ago did catch my eye. Despite most of Mexico being pretty hot I somehow associate Mexican food with winter and hearty veggie chillis with loads of cheese and rice, and not something I'd generally cook in the summer. But this more seasonal dish (recipe here) basically involves flaked sea bass, guacamole, and an onion relish, all wrapped in a corn tortilla. This was not a combination that I'd really think to put together, but it all worked amazing well, and was perfect for a summer evening. The dish could have been quite rich with the sea bass and avocado, but was not at all heavy, and the other elements provided a nice freshness to it all. I think using corn tortillas rather than the flour ones also kept things light, as flour tortillas can become quite gluey and a bit like eating a damp flannel.

As ever I did tweak things slightly and used my own guacamole recipe which includes chopped spring onion, red chilli, and no mayo (in fact not sure that should be included in Val's recipe at all as I don't recall it being in the tv show), but also added a few blobs of sour cream over the filling before rolling up the tortillas. The only slightly disappointing part was the red onion relish/pickle. The recipe called for the thinly sliced red onions to be blanched before marinating with orange and lime juice and oregano. Admittedly I had to substitute lemon juice but the whole thing lacked punch, with a few vague hints of onion and citrus that did not match the incredibly vivid colour in terms of flavour. Next time (and I will definitely make this again), I'll just use sliced raw onion and not bother with blanching.

I thought I'd also add a few prawns to go in the tortillas, in case one sea bass fillet each was not enough. These were baked in the oven with some garlic, chilli and olive oil until cooked through, combined really well with the rest of the components inside the tortillas, and could even have replaced the sea bass completely in a fish emergency. The source of these prawns and the quality of some of them is however another matter which I may blog about later, but has definitely pushed me back into the arms of the supermarket as far as internationally travelled seafood goes.

So in conclusion, do Valentine Warner's tip top recipes compensate for his somewhat daffy presentation style? I say yes! All hail the David Bellamy of food!

Tomato elegance

I would love to claim that these tomatoes were grown by me, but that would be....well, a lie basically. These rosada tomatoes are being grown by the male companion, so all credit to him, as my plants have gone a bit withery and yellow looking although they are still fruiting. Hopefully not long until they ripen and can be scoffed too.

Teri-Aki, Cambridge, UK

So it may not have the dreaming spires of Oxford, but Cambridge is generally a pretty nice to place to live. There's lots of green spaces, the river, plenty of pubs, a daily market, and history all around. However on first glance it does seem to have a distinct lack of independent, good quality places to eat. For quite a small city, Cambridge is dominated by a large number of chain restaurants; name a chain and there's likely to be one if not more in Cambridge. I have no moral objection to these outlets, which provide food which is affordable and edible if not original, exciting, (or sometimes even freshly prepared). Some, like Pizza Express, are the acceptable face of this phenomenon, but others which don't need to be named are less so. And they do also make even a place as unique as Cambridge feel like AnyTown, UK. But the good news is that dotted among the chains are lots of more interesting options.

One of my favourites is Teri-Aki. This is a Chinese-owned Japanese restaurant that brought communal-style bench dining to Cambridge long before Wagamama appeared on the scene. I've been here on numerous occasions, and though the service has often varied, the food is invariably lovely. I arrived here recently to meet friends for dinner, but unfortunately was greeted by a sign saying that Teri-Aki was closed for maintenance work. Luckily they had just moved next door into sister restaurant Aki-Teri (but may well have returned to their original site by now). Both have similar styling, with glass doors that open out to a large courtyard area, funky fittings and a bar behind which you can see some of the sushi chefs at work.

They've always had menus that doubled as place settings, but they've now also introduced notepads to write down your order in a dim sum-stylee. I'm not sure this was strictly necessary as it also involved a lot of checking of handwriting and numbers by the waitress, but I'm happy to accept innovation.

So onto the food. I'm fan of most things deep-fried, and was already thinking of tempura before I arrived. The mixed seafood tempura was made up of a huge king prawn, squid and scallops. This was all succulent and covered in a light batter than could have been a bit crisper, but was not at all oily. I also had some yakisoba noodles with vegetables and prawns.


Again, these were not in the least all oily, the prawns were lovely and soft and the dish had that fried noodle flavour which is so distinct but difficult to describe. My only criticism is that apart from bean sprouts and the odd bit of carrot, there wasn't much going on here in the vegetable department, and bit of greenery wouldn't have gone amiss. The friends had miso soup, hotate kushiyaki (grilled scallop skewers), yasai kushiyaki (grilled vegetable skewers), and a five-piece sushi set. All of this seemed to go down well, though I was a bit suprised to see a bit of rare-ish beef appear in the sushi selection. There wasn't anything on the menu to indicate this and although my friend eats meat, I don't and wouldn't have been too impressed if this was something I had ordered.



All the dishes were generous in size but not so huge that we couldn't comfortably fit them all in, and the bill for three with non-alcoholic drinks came to around £44 (not including service). I've never been to Japan so my knowledge of this cuisine is relatively limited, and I'm not sure how it would compare with equivalents in London. But all in all for a relaxed dining option Teri-Aki still remains a firm favourite with me, and one of these days I will go in and manage not to order tempura.

Teri-Aki Restaurant and Bar
6-8 Quayside
Cambridge CB5 8AB

Sainsbury's Taste the Difference basil and pine nut margharite pasta

There's definitely been a bit of a boom in the demand for fresh ravioli-type pasta. I'm sure I don't even remember seeing them in the chiller cabinets about five years ago, whereas now they are a regular quick dinner fallback option.
I bought this basil and pine nut margharite pasta from Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range a couple of weeks ago now. I'm not exactly sure what a 'margharite' is supposed to be but to me these just looked like ravioli cut into the shape of big flowers. However, appearances aside this wasn't a bad ready-made pasta. The ravioli did actually taste of spinach, and I could detect a little bit of basil in the filling too. I don't think I would have known there were supposed to be any pine nuts in there too if it hadn't been on the label though, and I'm sure there was more ricotta cheese in the filling than anything else. However with the combination of other flavours, this was nice to enough to eat quite simply dressed with some olive oil and black pepper. Not the most exciting thing in the world but acceptable.

Cost: Sainsbury's Taste the Difference basil and pine nut margharite pasta, around £2.75
I rate it 6.5/10