Well, I have to say I’m not sure they even grow marrows in Thailand …

Hold on: *goes off to google*

And yes, they do - I just had a quick search, saw a couple of headings and now I’m just hoping for another marrow from our communal kitchen garden so I can try a marrow curry.

And another yes, you can take this as meaning my stuffed marrow was delicious!

The marrow was almost creamy, it was so soft, and it all worked beautifully well together served with some plain rice.

I actually now can’t wait to try this in a curry, it’ll be so good.

But back to the stuffed marrow …

I washed it, cut the ends off and scooped out the seeds from the middle and then put, standing on end, into my remoska that I use for cooking so many things.

But just put them in a baking dish and cover it all with foil to cook it in the oven.

I haven’t made a stuffed marrow for YEARS … and remember having them as a child from the garden and my mum making a kind of bolognaise mince to fill them with.

It was delicious and I don’t think you can really go wrong with any lovely savoury filling, but I thought I’d try something based on the flavours of one of my favourite stir fries with pork mince, chilli and garlic.

Well, except I only had beef mince, so that’s what I used.

I hope you’re getting the idea that this is very much a throw it all together kind of recipe rather than anything very specific!

Here’s what you’ll need:

about 1 tbspn cooking oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2-4 red bird eye chillies, depending on your taste, finely chopped

chopped vegetables, whatever you like, I had carrot and green beans

1/3 knorr chicken stock cube

approx 200 - 250g pork or beef mince

1 tbspn light soy sauce

1 tbspn fish sauce

a pinch of sugar

2 spring onions sliced

a small handful coriander leaves chopped to garnish, if liked

Add a little oil to a non-stick frying pan and when hot, tip in the chilli and garlic and stir fry for a few seconds until it starts smelling good - and add a little splash of water if needed to stop it from sticking.

Then added the chopped vegetables (but not the spring onions) and stir-fried again for a couple of minutes adding another little splash of water if needed.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t add the mince before the vegetables, but hey, it still worked, although I think it would be more usual to do the chilli and garlic, then add the mince and then when browned add the vegetables.

Anyway, I didn’t, so I stir fried the vegetables and then added the mince and stirred, cooking until it was browned, adding the piece of stock cube and another splash of water as needed.

Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, spring onions and squeeze in half a lime then cook, stirring, for another minute or two.

Spoon the mince mixture into the marrow halves, cover with foil if baking in the oven and then cook in a medium oven until done - I’d test after about 20 minutes by just putting a knife into the marrow and see if it’s soft …. it’s gorgeous when it’s really soft so keep cooking until it is.

I think I ended up cooking mine for nearer 40 minutes, but everyone’s oven’s different so best to test earlier rather than later.

If I’d had a larger marrow it would have been enough on it’s own, but this was quite small so I served it with rice.