Make a cheat’s version of the Burmese national dish of mohinga. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t …
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Marians aren't lovely, luscious orbs of juicy sweetness. Even when ripe, they're mouth-puckeringly sour and they're a vital component of one of the best Burmese salads ever.
Unfortunately, as far as I know you can't get marian fruit in this country. Even in Burma, marians or mayan-thi is only available seasonally, and I always seem to manage to miss them whenever I get over there.
However, there's always a substitute for an impossible ingredient and my mother discovered long ago that gooseberries make a respectable replacement.
I'm a rampant carnivore, but even I can see that it would be better for the planet's future to go meat-free where possible and everyone can do it at least one day a week.
Therefore I present to you my favourite vegetarian Burmese dish - Egg Curry aka kyet-u chet (literally "chicken egg cooked").
Pork and beans are a wicked combination and unsurprisingly have been embraced by many cultures - there's the canned all-American version, the spicy Cajun version, Spain's Olla Podrida or Fabada, the Chinese stir-fry, the French Cassoulet, and the Portuguese Feijoda ... heck, even baked beans had a hunk of pork in the original recipe.
To me, pork and beans means the Burmese dish I cooked which captured my hubby's heart when we were at uni.