The Mekong has, for many hundreds of years, been the super highway of South East Asia, a vibrant artery that defines a vast region. The world’s tenth largest river, which rises in Tibet and joins the sea in Vietnam, traverses 6 countries, mingling exquisite food and traditions.

Award-winning authors Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid followed the river south, from its sauce through the mountain gorges of southern China, to Burma and into Laos and Thailand, then on to Cambodia, and finally Vietnam and into the South China Sea.

During their travels they ate traditional foods in villages and small towns,  learned techniques and ingredients from cooks and market vendors, and came to realize that the local cuisines, like those of the Mediterranean, share a distinctive culinary approach – each cuisine balances, with the regional flavour, the quartet of hot, sour, salty, and sweet.

Their resultant book,  Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia, contains a wealth of anecdotal material, together with 175 authentic recipes, beautiful photographs of both the region and dishes, and explicit formulas for a host of dipping sauces that make the regional cuisine so unique.

Beginning with a discussion of the Mekong region, its peoples and their characteristic foods, the book then provides recipes organized by ingredients, dish types, and topics such as “Everyday Dependable,” “One-Dish Meals,” “Kids Like It,” and “Vegetarian Options.” This latter style of division helps define and “domesticate” a vast array of cooking, often enjoyed at times and places foreign to Westerners.

For anyone interested in southeast Asian cuisine, Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia is a must.  Other books by the same authors worth a look at,u include Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent, Seductions of Rice, and Flatbreads and Flavours.

Interested in buying this book? Visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R474 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R527)!

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference. Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Rice is the staple throughout south east Asia.  It is served with every meal and generally cooked once a day for consumption throughout the day.  Leftover ice is often re-fried.  This dish is popular along the entire length of the Mekong River, hence the name.  A similar version of the dish peers in our book of the week, Hot Sour Salty Sweet. The cooked rice is flavoured with lemongrass, shrimp and shallot paste, a speciality of central Vietnam. This rice is delicious, served on its own with a Vietnamese herb and salad platter, and some dipping sauce. For a bit more extravagance, grilled fish or chicken can be served with it.

4 cups cold cooked Asian rice (or cook 2 cups raw rice)

1T dried shrimp, soaked in a little hot water for 5 minutes

1 stalk lemongrass, trimmed and cut into ±2cm lengths

1 small onion

3 spring onions

1t sugar

Pinch of salt

2T oil

2T garlic, minced

3 spring onions, trimmed, and julienned into ±5cm lengths

2T roasted sesame seeds

1T fish sauce, or to taste

2 tomatoes, sliced (or 1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced)

¹/2 bunch coriander, finely chopped

Freshly ground pepper

1. Place the cooked rice in a large bowl, and with damp hands, break up any clumps, and set aside.
2. Place the shrimp, with its soaking water, the lemongrass, onions, spring onions, sugar and salt in a large mortar, or spice grinder, and grind to a paste.
3. Heat a large heavy wok or frying pan over high heat. Add the oil, toss in the garlic and stir-fry for 10 seconds, taking care not to burn. Add the paste and stir-fry for ±3 minutes, until it is golden.
4. Add the spring onions and stir-fry briefly.
5. Sprinkle the rice into the wok and stir-fry for ±2 minutes, tossing and pressing the rice against the sides of the wok until well mixed, with some of the rice crisping up to golden.
6. Add the sesame seeds and fish sauce, and stir-fry for ±30 seconds. Adjust the seasoning to taste.
7. Transfer to a serving platter, garnish with coriander and pepper, and arrange the tomato slices around the rice.
8. Serve with the herb and salad platter and dipping sauce, or with chicken.

Serves 4-6

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference. Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Absolutely fascinating the amount of food blogs out there.  Delish.com recently published their tastiest, most delectable, most must-read food blogs, with recipes, kitchen stories, and mouthwatering photos – all 5 pages of them.

In South Africa there are a number of annual awards acknowledging  food bloggers in our own country.

• Food and the fabulous was voted best food blog for 2011  in the annual SA Blog Awards, a great site lots of interesting snippets and recipes and some very good photo’s.

• This year Eat In DStv Food Network Produce Awards will recognize for the first time the role that local food bloggers play in growing the local food industry. They have the shortest of what they regard to be the 10 best food blogs in South Africa on their website, together with links to each site.

Wickedfood cooking school subscribes to a number of food websites to keep abreast of food trends from around the world. All those websites listed below have a newsletter that you can subscribe to, as well as mouth-watering recipes and food ideas. Our favorite sites include:

• BBC Food – With the selection of easy-to-prepare recipes, many of them from featured celebrity chefs.  Each week the newsletter carries a pertinent theme, this week it is Valentine’s recipes, including a great selection of cocktails.  See our recipe of the week.

• Saveur - Regarded by Wickedfood cooking school as the best food magazine and web site in the world.  Apart from a wide selection of scrumptious recipes, the web site also has interesting articles on cooking techniques and food travel.
• JamieOliver.com – Jamie’s official web site, again with a superb selection of easy to prepare recipes and food tips.  See is delicious romantic  dinner for two menu ideas for a special valentines feast.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes with a minimum of 8 participants and a maximum of 12 as this gives everyone hands-on experience and keeps the cooking class small enough for maximum learning. These cooking classes are conducted by our senior instructors who have extensive experience in the food industry and share a variety of additional cooking tips throughout the cooking class.

Over the past few years, every British celeb chef has done a Great British recipe book. Is this one any different?

Jamie’s Great Britain explores much of the makeup of what contemporary British food is today.  Through the millennia Britain has survived invasion, exploration, colonisation and immigration, all contributing to what is great about modern British food in the home today. Curry has replaced roast beef as the national dish and these trends are reflected in the book.

Jamie grew up in one of the first true British “gastropubs”, which his Mum and Dad still run today. For him, the heart and soul of real British cooking is food that puts a smile on your face. And that’s what this book is all about.

The book includes over 100 of Jamie’s favourite British recipes: some are indisputable classics, some are his versions of the classics, some may become classics with time – from scones, and Bubble and Squeak, to Yemeni lamb recipes from Wales, scallops with black pudding, roast veg vindaloo, and rabbit bolognese.

Don’t expect  just familiar comfort food like old-fashioned bangers and mash and a ultimate shepherds pie recipe, you may well be disappointed. In this book Jamie provides a new twist on the British national cuisine.

Interested in buying this book? Visit - Red Pepper Books – The South African online bookshop, is able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for, and they deliver to your door. Pay only R304 for this book (Recommended Retail Price = R380)!  Red Pepper Books is offering Wickedfood Cooking School subscribers an EXTRA 10% off this book. Simply type in the promotional code WICKEDFOOD on the shipping page of the checkout process and your purchase will be reduced by a further 10%, a total saving of R65.

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

This is a splendid cake, taken from our book of the week, The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden.

“I have eaten almond cakes in other parts of Spain, but this one is special. Pilgrims and tourists who visit the great Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, where the relics of the apostle Saint James are believed to be buried, see the cake in the windows of every pastry shop and restaurant. It is usually marked with the shape of the cross of the Order of Santiago. I have watched the cake being made in many sizes, big and small, thin and thick, over a pastry tart base at a bakery called Capri in Pontevedra. This deliciously moist and fragrant homey version is without a base. There is sometimes a little cinnamon added, but I find that masks the delicate flavor of orange and almonds and prefer it without it.”

“When I suggested to a man associated with the tourist office in Galicia that the tarta was a Jewish Passover cake, I was dragged to a television studio to tell it to all. The hosts thought the idea made sense. The Galician city of Coruna is on the Jewish tourist route, because of its synagogue and old Jewish quarter. Jews from Andalusia, who fled from the Berber Almohads’ attempts to convert them in the 12th and 13th centuries, came to Galicia, where they planted grapevines and made wine.”

The cake is normally made in a wide cake or tart pan and so it comes out low, but it is equally good as a thicker cake. It is very similar to one we make at Wickedfood Cooking school in our Spanish cooking class in a 22cm spring form baking tin.

Picture: Jason Lowe

700g blanched whole almonds
6 large eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lemon
4 drops almond extract
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1. Finely grind the almonds in a food processor.
2. With an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with the sugar to a smooth, pale cream. Beat in the zests and almond extract. Add the ground almonds, and mix very well.
3. With clean beaters, beat the egg whites in a large bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold them into the egg and almond mixture (the mixture is thick, so you will need to turn it over quite a bit into the egg whites).
4. Grease an 28cm springform pan, preferably nonstick, with butter, and dust it with flour. Pour in the cake batter, and bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 40 minutes or until it feels firm to the touch. Let cool before turning out.
5. Just before serving, dust the top of the cake with confectioners’ sugar. Or, if you like, cut a St. James cross out of paper. Place it in the middle of the cake, and dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar, then remove the paper.

Variations
• Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon to the egg yolk and almond mixture.
• Majorca has a similar almond cake called gato d’ametla, which is flavored with the grated zest of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and sometimes a few drops of vanilla extract.
• In Navarre, the cake is covered with apricot jam.

Serves 10

Other Wickedfood Cooking School Spanish recipes:

• Albondigas – Meatballs Tomato Sauce
• Slow roast shoulder of lamb
• Orange and almond cake

Wickedfood Cooking School runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studio. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – teambuilding cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference. Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and team building cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.