Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw

A hybrid salad that combines spicy vinegar and mayo for the dressing, Cecilie’s favorite coleslaw is our go-to recipe whenever coleslaw is on the menu.

I am not a fan of gloopy mayo heavy coleslaw so I used to make one that was more like cabbage with vinaigrette dressing until it occurred to me that I could add some mayonnaise and have the best of both worlds.  

In my recipe files, I’ve been calling this New Year’s Day Coleslaw for years because it’s the one I always make when you gotta eat cabbage for money and black-eyed peas for luck. But a couple of years ago, when my younger daughter Cecilie asked me for it, I had to send her a Word file which made me I realized that I had never shared it here.

With this third installment of our Alphabet Challenge for 2024 being brought to you by the letter C, it seemed like the perfect time. And, in honor of her love of this salad, it seemed appropriate to rename it Cecilie’s favorite coleslaw. 

Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw

Don’t get too caught up on the size of your onion or cabbage. This is one of those salads, like most salads, where some more or a little less really doesn’t make a difference. 

Ingredients

1 small hot red chili pepper

1/2 small purple onion

3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

1 small cabbage or half a larger one

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

Freshly ground black pepper 

Method

Finely mince the chili pepper and slice the purple onion as thinly as you can. 

Put both in a large salad bowl with the vinegar. 

Stir well and leave to macerate for at least five minutes. This helps mellow the sharpness of the onion while also making sure that the chili pepper flavor and heat will be well distributed throughout the coleslaw. 

Slice the cabbage as thinly as you can, removing the hard stems and any tough ribs as you go.

Add the mayonnaise to the onion bowl and stir well. 

Now we are talking a nice, spicy not too mayo-heavy dressing! 

Add the sliced cabbage to the bowl and stir well/toss to coat it with the dressing. 

Add a few good grinds of black pepper and toss again. 

This coleslaw can be eaten immediately but it also keeps well and tastes even better if left for at least 30 minutes. If you are not eating it within 30 minutes, do cover the coleslaw and refrigerate it because of the mayonnaise. I actually like it better chilled but you do you.

Enjoy!

As I mentioned above, it’s time for our Alphabet Challenge and today’s recipes are brought to you by the letter C. Many thanks to our organizer, my dear friend and fellow blogger, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out the C recipes below: 

• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Chicken Pastina Soup 
• Palatable Pastime: Caldo Gallego Cubano 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Carnivore Meatzza 
• Food Lust People Love: Cecilie’s Favorite Coleslaw 
• Culinary Cam: Crab-Stuffed Ravioli 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Cheesy Burger Buns 
• Sizzling Tastebuds: Classic Chickpea Hummus 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Cherry Chocolate Chip Waffles with Cherry Syrup 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Cranberry Achar | Cranberry Pickle 
• Blogghetti: Cherry Cream Cheese Cookies 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Dove Dark Chocolate Chunk Cakey Muffins 
• Magical Ingredients: Chocolate Cashew Coconut Caramel Stuffed Paratha

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Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly

Tender morsels of pork simmered with ginger, garlic, chili peppers, brown sugar and soy sauce make this spicy braised ginger pork belly the most succulent meal!

This is a recipe I’ve been sitting on a long time because I never seem to have time for good looking “after” photos when it’s done. So please excuse the terrible lighting. I promise that this dish is much tastier than my photos make it look! I chose to share it now because with B for braised and B for belly, it is perfect for today's Alphabet Challenge post. (More on which after the recipe.)

I like to serve this dish with fluffy steamed rice, either long-grained basmati or brown, and stir-fried greens, like baby kalian. A good substitute, if you can’t find baby kalian, is broccolini aka tenderstem broccoli. 

Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly 

It takes a while to braise so that the pork belly is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Also, you don’t want to rush the process by using a high fire when reducing the sauce or it could burn. This dish is so worth the wait. Your patience will be amply rewarded.

Ingredients

800g or 1.75 lbs pork belly

2 red chili peppers

4 cloves garlic

2 inch or 5cm knob ginger

1/2 cup, firmly packed, or 100g dark brown sugar

1/4 cup or 60ml soy sauce

1/4 cup or 60ml Shaoxing wine or substitute dry sherry

1/4 cup or 60ml rice vinegar

To garnish: fresh cilantro leaves

Method

Trim any gristly bits off of the pork belly and discard. Cut the pork belly into small chunks. 

Peel and chop your garlic and ginger. Slice the chili peppers. 

Add the pork, ginger, garlic, peppers and brown sugar to a wide pan that has a tight-fitting lid. Add in the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine and rice vinegar. Stir well. 

Now add just enough water to almost cover the pork. This amount depends on the size of your pan.

Bring the liquid to a boil then reduce the heat to simmer. 

Cover with the tight-fitting lid and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally and adding a little water, if necessary. Remove the lid and raise the heat a little, cook till you have reduced the liquid to deliciously thick stickiness. 

At the very end, a spatula or spoon should leave a gap that the sauce doesn’t immediately run in to close again. 

Garnish with some fresh cilantro leaves when ready to serve. 

Enjoy!

As mentioned above, I'm sharing this recipe today as part of the 2024 Alphabet Challenge. Every other Wednesday we will share a recipe starting with the next consecutive letter of the alphabet. Many thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm for including me. This is our second post so, of course, we are highlighting the letter B. If you missed A, you can find those links here in my Anchovy Deviled Egg post. 

• Palatable Pastime: Blueberry Biscuits 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Bisque of Lobster 
• Blogghetti: 20 Minute Bean and Beef Tostadas 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Bagel Chips from Leftover Bagels 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Beetroot Mezhukkupuratti 
• Food Lust People Love: Braised Brown Sugar Pork Belly 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Spicy Barbecue Seasoned Rice Chex Mix 
• Culinary Cam: Börek with a California Twist 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Beetroot Tomato Soup 
• Magical Ingredients: Beet Fennel Paratha 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Brooklyn Blackout Cake
• Sizzling Tastebuds: Barley Karamani Adai

Pin this Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly!

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Anchovy Deviled Eggs

Filled with salty minced anchovies, lemon zest, mayo and Dijon mustard, these tasty anchovy deviled eggs will disappear quickly from your party table.

Every Christmas Eve our menu is all appetizers, a throwback to the days when we had plenty of presents to wrap and so no one had time for a sit down dinner. 

We pop open a bottle of Champagne and fill our small plates with artichoke dip, smoked or cured salmon with avocado, caviar with its necessary accompaniments of chopped egg and onion, bacon wrapped smoked oysters and, of course, deviled eggs. The cheeseboard also boasts a variety of cheeses and duck liver pâté.  

On Christmas morning, we usually make something special for breakfast but my favorite part is the leftover deviled eggs. They make a perfect Christmas morning meal! 

Anchovy Deviled Eggs

This recipe is adapted from one I read in The Guardian newspaper and saved almost three years ago. I can’t say that they’ll replace my classic deviled eggs which I adore but the anchovies and lemon zest add a lot of flavor. In short, we liked them a lot!

Ingredients for 14 deviled eggs

7 eggs, hard-boiled

7 anchovy fillets, packed in olive oil

1 tablespoon olive oil from anchovy jar

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika, plus an extra sprinkle for garnish

7 tablespoons mayonnaise

Green onions, finely chopped, for garnish

Cornichons or small pickled onions, optional to serve

Method

Using a sharp knife, mince the anchovies very finely. 

Put the anchovies in a bowl with the oil then add the lemon zest, mustard, paprika and mayonnaise and mix until smooth. 

Peel your hard-boiled eggs and cut them in half lengthways. Scoop out the yolks and add them to the anchovy mixture.

Mash them into the rest of the filling with the tines of a fork. Mix well. 

Spoon the filling into each egg white or use a piping bag with a large tip to fill them. If your filling is quite chunky, it might keep getting stuck if the tip hole isn’t large enough. 

Decorate with a light sprinkle of paprika and a few bits of green onion.

Serve chilled or at room temperature with a few cornichons and/or pickled onions, if desired.

Pour your favorite tipple to accompany this excellent appetizer and enjoy! 

Happy New Year!

Last year was extra busy (and frankly a bit fraught) so my blog was fairly neglected. This is a creative outlet that gives me a lot of pleasure, from recipe development, baking and cooking, and then finally writing about the process. I hope to find more time for this hobby I enjoy in 2024. To that end, I am joining my fellow bloggers every other week, to create recipes and work our way through the alphabet, starting with, of course, A. 

Many thanks to the group creator and lead, Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out all the A links below. 

• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Almond Chicken 
• Palatable Pastime: Angel Food Cake 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Apple Buns 
• Culinary Cam: A Reclaimed Æbleskiver Pan + Æbleskiver Bread Pudding 
• Blogghetti: Air Fryer Glazed Chocolate Apple Hand Pies 
• Food Lust People Love: Anchovy Deviled Eggs 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Amaranth Paratha 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Dried Apple & Bourbon Oven-Baked Sauerkraut 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Spiced Apple Oatmeal 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Afghani Soya Chaap

Pin these Anchovy Deviled Eggs! 

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