Burmese Chile Prawns with Cucumber and Avocado Salad

Are you fast in the kitchen? I'm super slow. No matter how much I wish I could be an ingredient ninja, I just can't seem to get things located and prepped very quickly. I took a knife skills class a few months ago, which helped a little, but I think the issue stems more from disorganization than a lack of dexterity.

I'm working on making more 30-minute paleo dinners to share here on A Calculated Whisk. To make sure I'm representing things accurately, I time myself as I cook, which really highlights my lack of culinary efficiency. For this recipe, I started timing, assembled most of the ingredients for the marinade, and then realized I couldn't find a sharp knife to cut the lime in half. I paused the timer while I located a chef's knife and washed it, because I thought you, my wonderful readers, were likely to already have a clean knife on hand. Several other misplaced items and dirty dishes slowed me down and I didn't stop the timer every time, but I still managed to make this meal in JUST over 30 minutes (if you're making rice, you may need an extra 3-5 minutes to get that measured and set up).

So, even if you're less than speedy in the kitchen, like me, you can have this dinner on your plate in just about half an hour.

Today's recipe comes from Sue at Couscous and Consciousness. I was assigned her blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal, and had so much fun browsing through her delicious recipes. (I was also excited to read that Sue is a yoga teacher. I love yoga and have been trying to do at least a few sun salutations every morning. I wish I could take a class with Sue, but she lives in New Zealand, so it would be quite a commute.)

Sue's food is colorful, creative, and usually on the lighter side, so there were a lot of tempting options to choose from. She also has many internationally inspired dishes, which makes browsing her site really fun. For this month's reveal, top contenders included bengali aloo with lemon turmeric aioli, roasted apricot gelato, and plum and cardamon cake. Even though I'm not much of a salad person at all, I also found myself wanting to try this salmon with green tea soba noodle, broad bean, and radish salad and this watermelon and feta salad with preserved lemon dressing.

Vietnamese Caramelized Pork Meatball "Vermicelli" Bowls

My favorite thing to order at our local Vietnamese restaurant is bún chả, a bowl of vermicelli topped with pickled vegetables, peanuts, and grilled sliced pork or pork meatballs, served with a generous bowl of nước chấm (sweet fish sauce) on the side. This paleo version hits all the right notes without refined sugar, legumes, or actual vermicelli--the noodles are spaghetti squash instead! I'm not always a fan of swapping spaghetti squash for regular noodles, but it really works in this dish. There are so many flavors and textures intermingling that the squash flies almost completely under the radar.

The star of this bowl is the caramelized pork meatballs, which are by far the best meatballs I've ever made. Last time I attempted Vietnamese pork it was delicious, but nowhere near as good as what I've had in restaurants. I wasn't sure how to get that unique flavor--the one that's at once almost too sweet and almost too savory, but actually just perfect. Then, while doing a little online research, I came across this recipe from Saveur, which involved a very surprising step.

I never would have tried the technique advised in the recipe if it hadn't come from such a trusted source, because it sounds totally ridiculous. Luckily enough for me and you, though, I did try it, and it was just the ticket. Buckle your seat belts, folks, because we are going to MAKE CARAMEL and put it in the meatballs.

Yup.

THAT is what I mean by "caramelized".