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Phil Lees
A blog about what the world eats, when and where it eats it, and why it matters to us all. Only much less ambitious than that sounds and with more excruciating puns.
Phil Lees grew up in rural Victoria, the first generation in his family to not have lived on the farm and thereby not slaughter their own meat.
In 2005 he moved to Cambodia and started the nation’s first food blog, Phnomenon.com, named after the best pun that he has ever made. It turns out that Cambodian food is delicious and unlike the warnings in most guidebooks, is not likely to kill you with any immediacy. Gridskipper called him a “national treasure”. Lonely Planet’s Greater Mekong guide called him “the unofficial pimp of Cambodian cuisine”. The New York Times laughed at a funny hotdog he saw.
Phil makes a mean sausage, a hoppy pale ale, a modest laksa. He owns three barbecues and is in the market for a fourth.
Most Popular
- Self Preservation (32)
- Industrial Bacon Flu (26)
- The taste of test tube meat (24)
- Chow Mein: The Australian Classic (19)
- Top 4 Roast Pork Belly Recipes (17)
- Intolerant Foodies (15)
- Makin' Bacon: A guide for city slickers (14)
- Spot the Aussie: The imported beer myth (13)
- 100 glorious years of MSG (13)
- Dealing with the zucchini mountain (12)
Featured Food & Recipes
- Andhra curry leaf chicken
- Fish head curry (gulai kepala ikan)
- Roast capsicum sauce (salsa de pimiento)
- Spiced pork skewers (pintxos morunos)
- Linzer torte
- Cauliflower and cavolo nero rice pie
- Indian chicken korma
- Lemon meringue tart with blueberry jelly
- Warm salad of rare roasted venison with celeriac, pear and red cabbage
- Best end of lamb with eggplant caviar and a fricassee of sweetbreads, chorizo and anchovy
Hot Tips
Baking bread
If you want to make Afghan or other naan-style breads and don’t have a traditional clay tannur or wood-fired oven, try using a wide pizza stone placed in the bottom of a cold oven, then turn the oven on to maximum heat. Electric pizza ovens, available from homeware stores, will do the job too.
Glossary
Burghul
Usually made from durum wheat, it is similar to couscous and used in salads and pilavs and in Lebanese cooking to make tabouleh and kibbeh.
