Growing up, one of my favorite vegetables or green foods was the humble green beans. The green beans recipes that I ate as a kid were mostly in the form of a thoran (a coconut based vegetable dish in Kerala with Indian spices and flavors). The beans were sauteed in fresh curry leaves, mustard and cumin seeds along with freshly grated coconut in addition to many Indian spices and flavors. Over here in the US, I have cooked green beans differently. Firstly, always use fresh green beans/french beans. There is a world of difference in fresh and frozen. This recipe goes great with the beans alone but pair it up with some ground meat (in this case pork), it just adds that amazing extra bit of flavor and fat which elevates the dish to another level and Yes, a soft boiled egg on top never hurt anyone!

{Recipe}
Ground Pork…

Simple Sponge cake with vanilla flavour that can be served on your table anytime. It’s perfect for snack, breakfast, or tea time. Hope you like it.. 🙂

Total Time: 1 hour

Serving: 10-12 slices

INGREDIENTS

8 Egg whites

200 g Margarine,
melted

250 g Flour

200 g Sugar

¼ tsp Baking powder (or 4g)

½ tsp Vanilla Extract

DIRECTION

• Melt the margarine. You can use a pot like me, or simply put it in the microwave.

• Pre-heat oven on 160 degrees. Grease all corner baking pan 30x10x7 (if you don’t have, don’t worry, you can use any pan that have similar volume.)

• Mix white egg and sugar on high-speed for about 10 minutes until it’s foamy and the slimy white egg is gone.

• Decrease the speed to medium and little by
  little add in flour.

• Once it’s well mixed, turn off the mixer. Pour
  in the melted margarine and stir…

Sam’s friend Ben came to stay with us two weeks ago and as a thanks, he secretly rang up the butcher near our flat in Peckham and bought us some meat to cook. What a wonderful present! When he was here, he and I went for a walk and I talked to him about food shopping and the things he liked to buy at butchers and fishmongers where he lives in Edinburgh, and also, about the disappearance of fishmongers and butchers from areas of Edinburgh that are becoming rapidly developed and different. I hadn’t really thought about Ben going to the butcher or fishmonger before and it put him in a different light in my mind, hearing him talk about what he chooses and how he likes to cook. Sausages were something that Ben mentioned he always likes to buy, and actually I don’t often buy, so I thought of him when making this and…

I barely ever cook squid – I can probably count the occasions on one hand. This is not to do with preference, I always order squid if it’s on a restaurant menu. It’s mainly that squid usually requires a special trip to a fishmonger, and I am rarely near a fishmonger at the right moment. I often walk past the fish shops in Newcastle after teaching at the university, but don’t feel I can inflict a fishy parcel on a heated train carriage for 5 hours as I make my way home… and the contents would spoil, too. 

I passed by a fishmonger with a sign saying ‘FRESH SQUID’ in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex when we’d driven there for a rainy Saturday to cheer ourselves up. The man in the shop put 3 handfuls of pre-prepared squid in a bag and I had in mind to use the two bulbs of…