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vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Niamh
@vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
570 followers 220 following 740 posts
Food writer. Cooking dishes from around the world, alphabetically. Playing dungeons and dragons and desserts. Learning languages. Pronouns: she/her. 🏳️‍⚧️🩷💛💙 / https://linktr.ee/vive_la_niamh
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vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Ikan Kuah Asam, sour fish soup from Indonesia. The sourness of the broth works really well with a meaty, oily fish like mackerel. It was quite spicy, too and I really enjoyed that. A super flavorful dish! I served it with a little rice. Recipe: food.detik.com/makanan-laut...
Photo of a bowl of Ikan Kuah Asam, a sour fish soup from Indonesia. The bowl is filled with a clear broth and pieces of mackerel, mushroom and spring onion are visible in it, as well as sliced chili. A small bowl of rice is next to it.
November 25, 2025 at 7:11 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
I just published my latest article on Medium about one of my favorite kinds of dishes: Chicken soup! 🍜

medium.com/@vive_la_nia...
How Chicken Soup Took Over the World
From Kotosoupa to Phở gà
medium.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:53 AM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Kotosoupa Avgolemono - Greek lemon chicken soup. Beautiful, zesty and creamy. One of my favorite soups, bright from the lemon, with an incredibly silky texture from egg yolks. Delicious and nourishing. Eating this makes me happy! Recipe from: akispetretzikis.com/en/recipe/15...
Photo of a bowl of kotosoupa avgolemono, Greek lemon chicken soup. The soup is a pale yellow and looks creamy, although this is actually from the egg yolks used to thicken it. Pieces of carrot onion and leek are just about visible in the broth and it's garnished with thyme leaves.
November 22, 2025 at 7:21 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Hújiāo bǐng. Taiwan's night markets have produced some incredible street food and these pepper buns are no exception. Filled with a peppery minced pork mixture in a bun that's both flaky and soft, these are really delicious bites. Recipe from: vanfoodies.com/2020/05/27/r...
Photo of three Hújiāo bǐng - Taiwanese pepper buns. These look like small bread buns, nicely browned on top and garnished with black sesame seeds. Photo of a cross-section of a Taiwanese pepper bun. It's a bit thick on the base but holds a substantial amount of juicy pork filling.
November 21, 2025 at 6:39 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Gà kho sả ớt, Vietnamese lemongrass and chili chicken, served with rice, cucumber and pickled carrot and daikon. Delicious - spicy, citrusy, sweet and salty. I could eat this all day! Think it's the first time I've found daikon, too. Recipe from www.cet.edu.vn/cach-lam-ga-...
Photo of a plate of gà kho sả ớt, a Vietnamese dish of chicken with lemongrass and chili. The chicken is garnished with chopped cilantro and is accompanied by sliced cucumber, pickled julienned carrot and daikon and a small dome of jasmine rice.
November 19, 2025 at 7:41 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
My latest article is out today, talking about la cucina povera. Let me know what you think and if you enjoy it, please share it! #food

medium.com/@vive_la_nia...
Cooking the Tuscan Way to Survive the Cost of Living Crisis: La Cucina Povera and the Cossie Livs
You’re probably not a Tuscan paisano, but just like those rural Italians throughout history, most of us sometimes have to make do with what…
medium.com
November 18, 2025 at 11:15 AM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Fagiolata, a hearty mixed bean soup from Italy. I love a bowl of beans and this is full of classic Italian flavour. Easy to make and a great way to use up any beans you have hanging around in your kitchen. Recipe from: blog.giallozafferano.it/notadolce/fa...
Photo of a bowl of Fagiolata, an Italian bean soup. I used a mix of kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans and chickpeas. Small pieces of soffritto are also visible (onion, celery and carrot). The stock is a rich reddish brown as it's a mixture of the beans' cooking water and vegetable stock.
November 17, 2025 at 7:28 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Doenjang-jjigae, a Korean stew with meat, tofu and vegetables, flavoured with fermented soybean paste. Deeply savoury, earthy and a little bit funky. Imagine a much more robust miso soup. I served it with some rice. Delicious! Recipe from: www.koreanbapsang.com/doenjang-jji...
Photo of a bowl of doenjang-jjigae, a Korean stew. The bowl is a ttukbaegi, a traditional Korean earthenware cooking and serving vessel. The stew is a rich, warm brown colour and you can see various ingredients in it, Including cubes of tofu, slices of pork, zucchini, slices of potato and pieces of scallion. Next to it is a smaller bowl of short-grain rice.
November 15, 2025 at 7:26 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Experimenting with writing some longer-format things about food. medium.com/@vive_la_nia...
Spag Bol: An Authentic English Dish
I cook a lot of food from all over the world. Often the dishes that make me the most emotional aren’t the ones I’m discovering for the…
medium.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:31 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Cauliflower cheese, cauliflower in cheese sauce from England. Revisiting the food I grew up with, although this is a better sauce than my mum ever made. Serious comfort food. Hard to make look pretty, but that's really not the point! Recipe: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
Photo of a bowl of cauliflower cheese. It's kind of hard to make out any components of the dish because the whole thing is covered in a creamy-looking cheese sauce. In the typography of this cheese ocean, you can just about make out a few cauliflower islands, obscured by golden breadcrumbs.
November 11, 2025 at 8:06 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Bob Chorba, Bulgarian bean soup, served with (shop-bought) bread. Simple, straightforward, wholesome and tasty. I like the addition of dried peppers. Really nice! Recipe from: www.chasingthedonkey.com/bulgarian-be...
Photo of a bowl of bob chorba, a bean and vegetable soup from Bulgaria. The broth is coloured a reddish orange from paprika. The soup is garnished with a sprinkling of chopped parsley. Next to the bowl are a couple of slices of bread.
November 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
I'm a mezze bitch who lives for shawarma.
November 8, 2025 at 2:25 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Tagliatelle con Ragu alla Bolognese. Pasta with meat sauce from Italy. After making Spag Bol the other day, I wanted to make the original. Slow cooked meat sauce, homemade pasta - a deeply beautiful dish. Recipe from: www.lacucinaitaliana.it/ricetta/prim...
Photo of a bowl of tagliatelle con Ragu alla Bolognese. Ribbons of pasta mixed with a rich, thick meat sauce.
November 7, 2025 at 7:43 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Spag Bol, the classic English dish based on Italian meat sauce dishes. Tastes like tea sat in front of the TV when I was 12. Beautifully nostalgic, but I'm pretty sure also very tasty. Meaty, herby umami goodness. Recipe from: Me. (github.com/vive-la-niam...)
Photo of a bowl of spag bol. A meat sauce, brown tending towards orange in colour, layered on top of a pile of spaghetti. Garnished with grated cheddar cheese.
November 5, 2025 at 6:54 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Ash Reshteh, a Persian soup with beans, noodles and lots of herbs. Delicious - the fried mint garnish is pretty spectacular. I tried making my own kashk, but it was grainy so I sub'd salted sour cream. Recipe: www.theiranianvegan.com/recipes/ash-... (though mine isn't vegan).
Photo of a bowl of Ash Reshteh, a Persian soup. The soup looks a little creamy and had noodles and lots of herbs visible, as well as beans. It's garnished with fried onions, fried minced garlic, fried dried mint and kashk (or a substitute at least - I used salted sour cream).
November 2, 2025 at 7:51 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Ribollita, Tuscan vegetable, bean and bread soup. Rustic, filling and delicious. I love a bean soup and I love a vegetable soup and I'm pretty enthusiastic about bread, so everything about this is very pleasing to me! Recipe from: www.seriouseats.com/ribollita-tu...
Photo of a bowl of Ribollita, a Tuscan soup. The broth is fairly pale and creamy looking and small pieces of lots of different vegetables are visible in it: carrot, red onion, turnip, celery, leek, cavolo nero. Pieces of almost disintegrated bread can also be seen in the mix.
October 31, 2025 at 7:55 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Pyongyang Onban, North Korean rice in broth with chicken, leek, mushroom and mung bean pancake. Rice with a selection of tasty things will always be good, but I particularly enjoyed the pancakes which are new to me. Recipe from archive.org/details/kore...
Photo of a bowl of Pyongyang Onban. This is short grain rice in a chicken broth, topped with sliced chicken thigh, stir-fried shiitake mushrooms and fried leeks. The centre of the bowl is taken up with a mung bean pancake, which is a kind of grainy green. The pancake is topped with shredded egg and shreds of red chilli.
October 28, 2025 at 9:32 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Macco di Fave, an Italian fava bean soup. A humble, (but tasty) bean soup from Sicily. Fresh and filling, although this probably confirms that shelling beans is one of my least favourite kitchen tasks. My advice: Delegate! Recipe from: www.mangiabedda.com/macco-di-fav...
Photo of a bowl of macco di fave, a Sicilian fava bean soup. The beans have been partially mashed, so the soup is a thick pale green colour. There are a few whole beans visible, as well as pieces of carrot and spinach and broken spaghetti.
October 26, 2025 at 7:34 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Loco Moco, a Hawaiian dish of rice topped with a hamburger patty, mushroom gravy and a fried sunny-side-up egg. This is a really tasty bowl of food and the gravy really brings this together. Delicious and comforting! Recipe from: www.justonecookbook.com/loco-moco/
Photo of a bowl of Loco Moco. Sushi rice topped with a hamburger patty, a sunny-side-up fried egg and a rich, thick mushroom gravy. Garnished with a little parsley.
October 24, 2025 at 7:21 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Kaalilaatikko, Finnish cabbage casserole with meat and rice, served with cranberry sauce instead of lingonberries (hard to find). Not the prettiest dish of food I've ever made, but this really hit the spot on a chilly evening. Recipe: mydearkitcheninhelsinki.com/2017/05/05/k...
Photo of a bowl of kaalilaatikko, a cabbage casserole from Finland. This is a very pale, beige bowl of food, mostly chopped cabbage, onion and rice. There's a bit of browning on some of it from catching a little bit in the oven. A little cranberry sauce is on one side of the bowl as a substitute for lingonberries, which would be more traditional.
October 22, 2025 at 7:17 PM
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Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Japchae, a Korean dish of stir fried sweet potato noodles (dangmyeon) with vegetables and beef. This is delicious and the bouncy texture of the noodles (and their transparent look) is really enjoyable. Recipe from: www.koreanbapsang.com/japchae-kore...
Photo of a bowl of Japchae, which are stir fried noodles with vegetables and thinly sliced beef. The noodles (dangmyeon) are a translucent beige (the colour comes from the soy sauce). There's a variety of veg visible, mixed with the noodles - matchstick-cut carrots, onion, scallions, spinach, sliced shiitake mushrooms and wood ear mushrooms. Also some thinly sliced steak. The dish is garnished with some sesame seeds.
October 19, 2025 at 6:59 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
It's nearly Halloween, so pumpkins are available in the shops and I recently got my first (ultra-cheap) pasta machine, so I made pumpkin and goat cheese ravioli with a brown butter sauce. Ravioli always feel like far too much work until you eat them - bit easier with the machine, though! 🍽️🍜🎃
Photo of a bowl of ravioli. Although you can't see it from the photo, they're filled with a mix that's mainly pumpkin and goat cheese. They're dressed with a spoonful of brown butter sauce and topped with a little pepper and grated parmesan.
October 18, 2025 at 6:34 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Hortosoupa with Kritsinia - Greek veg soup with sesame bread sticks. Straightforward and perfect for a chilly autumn day. The kritsinia are lovely, crisp with just a hint of softness in the middle. Recipes: miakouppa.com/hortosoupa-g... and akispetretzikis.com/en/recipe/73...
Photo of a bowl of Hortosoupa, Greek vegetable soup. The broth is red from pasta and bite sized pieces of vegetables are floating in it - onion, leek, carrot, potato and peas are all visible. It's garnished with chopped parsley. Next to the bowl, one leaned on top of the other, are two kritsinia, which are Greek bread sticks covered in sesame seeds. I've used a ratio of 75% white sesame seeds to 25% black sesame seeds to give a speckled effect.
October 17, 2025 at 7:03 PM
vive-la-niamh.bsky.social
Tonight's dinner 🍽️🍜: Gözleme, stuffed flatbread from Türkiye, often sold as a street food. These ones are filled with spinach, herbs and feta. They're incredibly tasty and the dough is surprisingly easy to work with. Definitely recommended! Recipe from: silkroadrecipes.com/gozleme-turk...
Photo of two gözleme on a cutting board. They are squarish turnovers with a nicely browned surface that looks thin enough to just see a hint of the spinach and feta filling within.
October 15, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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Tonight's dinner 🍜🍽️: Dahi Aloo with Matar Pulso - potatoes in a spiced yogurt sauce with basmati rice and peas. Delicious double carbs from North India. Satisfying, filling and super flavorful. Recipes: www.vegrecipesofindia.com/dahi-aloo-re... and www.vegrecipesofindia.com/matar-pulao-...
Photo of a bowl of Dahi Aloo (potatoes in a spiced yogurt sauce) with a smaller bowl of Matar Pulao (spiced basmati rice with peas). The yogurt sauce is a nice yellow with small pieces of potato just visible in it. It's garnished with chopped cilantro. The Matar Pulao looks like fluffy basmati rice with peas.
October 13, 2025 at 6:17 PM