Ruam mit gratiem - pork + seafood stir fry with garlic

II'm not sure about these Thai words - except gratiem meaning garlic.  But having looked them up, I think it means 'all together' something to do with 'friends' .. and garlic.

I like to think - as pork and seafood are such great friends - that it's along the lines of the pork and seafood being friends and inviting the garlic to join them!

This recipe was sent to me by a friend fluent in both spoken and written Thai who has translated it from a Thai cookbook for me.

I tried it for the first time a couple of years ago - and somehow have forgotten to make it again.

But that's now been remedied as I've made it twice this weekend. 

It's delicious.  And easy.  And quick.

And all the things I wanted it to be.

As always, cook your rice first as the dish itself comes together very quickly.

For a lovely, quick and simple dinner for two you'll need:

cooking oil

about 100-200g pork - tenderloin would be best as the Thai instructions were to cut into 'spoon-sized' pieces, but I only had a loin piece and so chopped into 'bite-sized' bits (and I've since made with a pork belly slice, chopped small)

5 or 6 prawns, defrosted if frozen, and de-veined (I had huge jumbo prawns so two each was perfect)

two big cloves of garlic, finely chopped  (a dessert spoon of minced garlic)

2 squid,, defrosted if frozen and cut into tubes and scored, or sliced into rings

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons ground chilli powder (I used flakes)

a splash of water

2 spring onions, finely chopped (optional)

white pepper, sliced cucumber and coriander leaves to garnish

Put some oil in a wok or frying pan and heat until hot and then add the pork and garlic and fry over a medium heat (not so hot the garlic burns), stirring all the time for two-three minutes.

Add the prawns and squid and turn the heat up a bit at the start until it's really hot, then reduce again to medium and cook for a further two-three minutes until the pork is cooked (cut into a piece to check).

Tip the meat and seafood onto a plate or into a bowl and then tip away any juices from the pan.

Then return the pan to the heat adding a little more oil if necessary to cover the bottom.

When the pan and oil are hot add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and chilli flakes plus a splash of water, and the spring onions - and stir fry for about a minute until mixed and sticky.

Return the pork, squid and prawns to the pan and cook for a minute more.

Serve with rice with a shake of white pepper plus sliced cucumber and coriander leaves to garnish.

I hope you try this - I think it's so much nicer than I can describe, and so simple too!

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Simplest Thai green chicken curry noodles

I had this today for a quick brunch ... needed something super-soothing (and spicy) after a very un-relaxing start to the weekend with eyebrow threading, followed by a bikini wax. Ouch!

Plus I had just over half a tin of coconut milk in the fridge from the night before when I'd made my new favourite Thai-inspired salmon and new potato tray bake.

(OK I KNOW you're not supposed to keep opened tins in the fridge, but it was just overnight, k?)

Anyway, on to brunch.

SO GOOD.

SO SIMPLE.

Not terribly authentic as I didn't have any Thai basil or pea aubergines, but hey ho, it's close enough and it tastes great!

Here's what you need for one big bowl of yummy green curry noodles:

1 layer of dried rice noodles, prepared according to packet instructions

cooking oil (I use a spray oil plus a splash of water)

a good Thai green curry paste - THIS is the one I use

1/2 - 1 chicken breast (depending on size and hunger), cut into bite-sized pieces

about 200ml (around half a tin) coconut milk

some vegetables - I had a few bits of broccoli, a few green beans, a couple of mange tout and some yellow pepper

1 teaspoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

Thai basil to serve would be best; coriander would be nice; I had a few slices of spring onion and a few slices of red chilli just to make it look nice really

First, get the noodles ready, according to the instructions on the packet, so they're ready to add, and prepare all the ingredients.

Put a saucepan, big frying pan or wok over a medium heat, add a slosh of cooking oil or around 20 sprays of your cooking oil and add a walnut sized amount (a couple of teaspoons) of green curry paste and the chicken to the pan.

Stir fry until the chicken is sealed and white, adding a splash of water if needed to prevent it sticking.

Then add the coconut milk, bring to the boil and boil on a low-ish boil for 5 minutes.

Throw in the vegetables and cook for another 2 minutes or so.

Add in the fish sauce and sugar, stir, then add the noodles and cook for another minute.

If you have Thai basil, add it now, remove from heat and stir to wilt in.

Otherwise, just tip it into a big bowl, add any garnishes you like and enjoy!

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Tom yum noodles

I couldn't decide.

I wanted tom yum goong, and I also wanted something with lovely slippery rice noodles.

And what I really didn't want to do was make a wrong decision - I hate making wrong food decisions! 

So I thought I'd make a tom yum noodles ... and it was exactly what I wanted.

A few things to note ...

1. the ingredients weren't hard to find so hopefully you won't find them so either. Galangal (although I used ginger here as that's what i had), lime leaves an lemongrass are all available at my local Sainsbury's although it is a really big one. M&S and Waitrose are a good bet otherwise, even smaller stores.

2. t's a bit of a faff picking the bits of ginger, lime leaf, lemongrass and chillies out of the pan, so I've just ordered some of those little muslin bags you use for spices or bouquet garni and when they arrive will be trying it using one to keep those ingredients separate and easy to remove.

3. you'll need some chilli paste in oil, nam prik pao - it's easy to make and keeps in the fridge for ages but you will need to make this in advance - here's the recipe.

So for a good big bowl of tom yum noodles, you'll need

rice noodles, soaked first or prepared as per pack instructions, ready to stir fry

1/2 cup water

a piece - around 1/3 - of a Knorr chicken stock cube

a piece of galangal or ginger, skin removed and cut into slices (make them quite large so they're easier to pick out later)

1 stalk lemongrass, tough outer removed, cut into two or three pieces and bashed with a rolling pin

a few kaffir lime leaves, leaves torn from the stalks and stalks discarded (this smells AMAZING by the way))

2 or 3 birds eye chillies (don't worry, you don't actually eat the chillies), stalks removed and given a bash with the rolling pin

one shallot or a small piece of white onion, sliced

a big heaped teaspoon of chilli paste in oil nam prik pao

a couple of mushrooms, or one large one, sliced

one tomato, cut into quarters or sliced - or a few cherry tomatoes, halved

some prawns - I had 7 or 8 raw ones

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1-2 limes depending on how juicy they are and your taste

small handful of coriander leaves, chopped (optional)

Add some water, probably half a cup or so (you can always add more) to a wok, deep frying pan or saucepan, turn on the heat and when it starts to simmer, crumble in approx 1/3 of a stock cube and stir.

Add the ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves and chillies and simmer for two minutes, stirring and add a splash more water if needed. 

Then add the vegetables and a good teaspoon of chilli paste in oil and simmer again for a couple of minutes.

Add the prawns and cook for a minute or so, stirring, until they have JUST turned pink - don't worry you'll cook them a bit more later and it's easy to over-cook them.

Remove pan from heat and pick out the bits of ginger, lemongrass, lime leaves and chillies.

Return pan to heat and add the fish sauce, lime juice (stir and taste to see if you need more) then add the noodles.

Cook, stirring, for another minute of so until everything is cooked and hot.

Throw in the coriander leaves, if using, stir again, removed from heat and serve,

I absolutely love this - I love the flavours of tom yum and I love the softness of rice noodles - and hope you do too.

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Chicken stir fry with yellow bean sauce

I love this recipe - actually I love all recipes that are super-simple to make but feel somehow really special.

This is definitely good enough to have when entertaining friends - and also easy and quick enough for an everyday midweek supper.

I usually try to avoid using specialist ingredients in the recipes I share, but I don't have a substitute for yellow bean paste I'm afraid. It'll be available in Asian supermarkets or I'm sure will be online too.

Do try to get hold of some - it's got a lovely savouriness that just makes the dish delightful.

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OK, so for dinner for two, you'll need:

2 teaspoons dry sherry (optional but good)

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

a small chunk of fresh ginger, grated (about 1-2 teaspoons)

1/2 - 1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (to your taste!)

1-2 skinless chicken breasts, depending on their size and your greed/hunger, cut into small pieces so it cooks quickly - or firm tofu. I tried tofu recently when my vegetarian niece came to stay and it was really good.

Cooking oil spray

2 peppers, sliced into strips - either red or yellow (not green which is too bitter) or a combination would be prettiest - I only had red when I made it this time.

2 tablespoons yellow bean sauce (decant the rest of the tin into an airtight tub and keep in the fridge for a day or two)

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

 1/3 of a Knorr chicken stock cube 

2 teaspoons cornflour mixed into 2 tablespoons cold water, stirred until smooth

about a tablespoon of flaked almonds or sesame seeds - toasted quickly in a hot dry pan - to serve

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Put all the marinade ingredients - italicised in the list about - into a bowl with the chicken. Mix and leave to marinate for 15-30 minutes.

Then put a frying pan on to a medium heat, spraying with the spray oil (I use about 20 sprays) and add the chicken - cook for 3-4 minutes stirring all the time so it doesn't stick, and add a little splash of water if needed.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside, and add the peppers to the pan and stir fry for a couple of minutes over a medium-high heat, again stirring all the time so they don't stick and add the tiniest splash of water if needed.

Add the chicken back to the pan, reduce heat to medium, and add the yellow bean sauce (I've used two varieties now and both good, but it's great having found the big bottle of paste as I can keep it in the fridge for longer) - cook for a minute or so, stirring every now and then.

Next add the soy sauce, crumble in the piece of stock cube, and add the cornflour and water mixture - stir in, simmer for another minute or so until the sauce has thickened a little.

Serve with rice and sprinkle with the toasted almonds or sesame seeds.

cHICKEN STIR FRY WITH YELLOW BEAN SAUCE AND TOASTED SESAME SEEDS

TOFU STIR FRY WITH YELLOW BEAN PASTE AND TOASTED ALMONDS + SESAME SEEDS

I really love this and hope you do too! 

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Prefer to watch how to make it? Here's the video ...

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Sesame chicken

I was making a salad for my lunch and about to just put some chicken on the griddle and then decided to do something different with it. I had been thinking about toasting some sesame seeds to put in the salad but thought I'd cook the chicken in them instead.

This is really simple and made a nice change!

Start by making a very quick sugar syrup for the salad dressing.  

It's just 1 tablespoon of sugar (I used demerara sugar but white sugar is fine) brought slowly to the boil in a small pan with 3 tablespoons of water, then stirred to dissolve the sugar and remove from the heat. 

I sliced the salad vegetables that I had in the fridge, which was courgette, carrots, spring onions and cherry tomatoes. Use whatever you have and like!

To make the chicken, I used half a chicken breast and sliced it again into two thin strips (you need it thin so it cooks quickly, so do give it a bash with a rolling pin between cling-film or greaseproof paper if you need to).

Then I just tipped some sesame seeds (I think it was two tablespoons) onto the chicken and added a teaspoon of sweet chilli sauce and coated the meat.

I used my 1-calorie spray oil (20 sprays) into a pan and then fried the chicken until cooked. Cook the chicken quickly on each side to brown and crisp the sesame seeds and then cook for another 2-3 minutes each side until cooked (cut into it to check).

Because there's not really enough oil to fry it, I did have to add a splash of water too once the seeds had browned.

If you're not on a weight-loss diet, then use a tablespoon or two of cooking oil to fry the chicken and you won't need the water! 

Once cooked, leave to one side to finish the salad. 

Using a pestle and mortar crush into tiny bits (but not a mush) a birds eye chilli and a garlic clove.  Then tip in the cooled sugar syrup, 1 tablespoon fish sauce and the juice of a lime and combined with the salad before topping with the sesame chicken.

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Thai-inspired meatballs + rice noodles

Some dishes are prettier than others and this isn't a very pretty one.

But it tastes MUCH better than it looks and it's really simple (as always) too - so do give it a try.

I made it with beef mince as that's what I had in the fridge, but pork and chicken would both be good and change it up a bit.

Also, I used lovely fresh rice noodles as I'd been to the Thai supermarket and these are my favourites, but dried rice noodles are good, or you could have the meatballs with rice, or even with pasta. All going to be good! Prepare your noodles or rice first so it's all ready to go.

So, for meatballs for one, I used: 

approx 100g mince

half a carrot, shredded and diced

a little piece of ginger, diced

1 birds eye red chilli, also diced

(If I'd had parsley, I'd have added a small handful of that too, finely chopped)

one little lime leaf that was in the salad drawer - I just removed the stalk and chopped the leaf into very fine slices and diced. If you don't have lime leaves, then I'd grate some lime zest in

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and then scrunch it all up to combine and shape into little meatballs.

Then prepare the sauce ingredients.  

You'll need:

1/2 cup boiling water with about 1/3 of a knorr stock cube (I used chicken)

another little piece of ginger, diced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 birds eye red chilli, finely chopped (use just half if you don't want it too spicy of course)

2 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal to look nice

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

And then you just put a frying pan over a heat and either add a tablespoon of cooking oil or, if you're losing weight like me, 20 sprays of that 1-cal-per-spray cooking oil and put the meatballs in.

Keep turning until they're browned all over and if using the spray oil, you'll probably need to add a splash of water too. It takes a few minutes.

When browned, add the chopped ginger, garlic and chilli and fry for a few seconds, then tip in the stock.

Bring to a simmer and cook for around 5 minutes, then add the soy sauce, fish sauce and toasted sesame oil.

Cook for another minute or so, tasting to check you're happy with the balance of flavours, and that's it. 

Ready to serve!

Some parsley or coriander, chopped and scattered over, might have looked nice, but I didn't have any ...

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Yam plaa - crispy fish salad

My nephew bought me a Thai cookbook for Christmas, one I haven't seen before.  It's called ... hold on ... The Little Thai Cookbook - and there's some great recipes in it.  I love reading cookbooks so am thoroughly enjoying working my way through this one.

When I find any recipe in any cookbook I like the sound of, or that I've eaten before, I then think through if there's any changes I'd make or what else I could make with it. 

So, with just a very few Tiniest Thai changes, this absolutely delicious crispy fish salad has shot to the top of my current home-alone favourites - when I'm cooking just for me, this is EXACTLY what I usually want to eat. 

It's spicy + sour and crunchy + salty, full of flavour and texture 

And the basic salad and dressing is so simple to adapt to other toppings if you're not in a crispy fish kinda mood.  

I've made it with a chicken, prawn and red pepper topping, stir fried in a little soy sauce and also with prawn and squid. 

I absolutely love hot and sour salads and hope you give this a try

So, crispy fish salad for one ... you'll need .. 

a piece of white fish (I had cod)

1 tspn salt

1 garlic clove

1 red bird eye chilli (or more if you have milder chillies, or want it spicier!)

1/2-1 tablespoon fish sauce

juice of one lime

1 tspn sugar

1/4 red onion, cut into chunks

2 spring onions, sliced

3 or 4 cherry tomatos, halved, or 1 tomato, chopped

1 carrot, julienned or diced

small handful each of fresh mint and coriander leaves, chopped

a tablespoon peanuts, chopped (or use other nuts, I toasted almond flakes today, but peanuts are best!)

cooking oil 

Heat the oven to gas mark 4, 180C.

Rub the salt all over the fish and get all the other ingredients together.

Put the fish on a rack over a baking tray and pop in the oven for 20 mins.

While it cooks, start the dressing by roughly chopping the garlic and chilli then crushing into a paste with the mortar and pestle. Don't pulverise it but do be aware that you're going to be eating whatever sized bits of chilli and garlic you end up with, so adjust to your taste! 

Add the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Chop and prepare all the salad ingredients and put into a big bowl. 

Tip over half the salad dressing, stir or scrunch (with clean hands!) to combine - and set aside.

Take the fish out of the oven and flake with a fork, or with your hands, until it has the consistency of large breadcrumbs.

Pour quite a lot of oil into a wok and heat until a tiny piece of fish dropped in sizzles on hitting the oil.

Then add the fish 'breadcrumbs'.  Leave to cook in the very hot oil for 30 seconds and then stir, and leave again.

Mine took longer to cook than I'd thought it would and actually I'll leave it longer next time as it's so good when it's really crispy!

Keep cooking and stirring (very carefully) then remove the fish with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper or strain into a bowl (and then dispose of the oil when it's cold).

Put the salad onto a plate, add the crispy fish (or other topping) and mix.

Pour the remainder of the dressing on top and mix again - before eating ... 

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Spicy steak salad / yum neua

The most delicious and simple lunch for one.  

I'm a big believer in making meals special and I hate the thought that you might eat purely for sustenance 'just' because it's only you you're cooking for.

So today, home alone, I made myself this salad and I highly recommend you sometime soon do the same!

Or make double and have it with someone else of course - I'm not saying keep it to yourself, just that it's as easy as heating a tin of soup to make yourself something that tastes incredible.

Steak salad with a hot and sour dressing for one then it is.  

Coming right up.

You'll need:

1 steak - whatever you like.  My preference is for rump, but sirloin would work too.

light soy sauce

fish sauce

1 lime

sugar

1/4 - 1/5 tsp dried chilli flakes

2 spring onions

one little gem lettuce, or other lettuce leaves

coriander leaves

mint leaves

a red chilli, to garnish 

Get the steak out of the fridge half an hour before cooking and put on a plate or in a bowl with a slosh of soy sauce.  It cooks better from room temperature. 

I made the dressing first, before cooking the steak, and it's so easy! 

In a bowl put 1 tablespoon fish sauce, the juice of a lime (should be about 2 tablespoons so you may need a little more or less), 1 teaspoon of sugar and the dried chilli flakes (note - weirdly half tsp was fine when I made this for one, but one tsp way too much when I made it for two, so go cautious).

Stir to dissolve the sugar and then add your sliced spring onions.

Shred some lettuce and put it on a plate, and chop some coriander and mint. Prepare a few slices of red chilli ready to serve.

Cook the steak to your liking.

I usually griddle it for a few minutes each side, but today cooked it under the grill, much more slowly than if cooking a steak to eat whole in a pan or griddle.  I cooked mine 7 minutes each side.

Let the steak rest for 4 or 5 minutes, then slice crossways into thin slices.

Add the steak to the bowl of dressing and stir or scrunch (get your hands in there!) to combine.

Put the steak mixture on top of the lettuce and pour over all the dressing.

Top with the coriander and mint leaves, and a few slices of red chilli (if liked). 

SO delicious.  

Please please try this one and let me know what you think! 

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Delicious, different & easy NYE cocktail party ideas

I have SO many recipes and ideas for things that are easy and delicious to make for a party that I thought it would be useful to do a quick round-up now just ahead of New Year's Eve.

These are not only easy and delicious but will be something a little bit different to normal canape fare - and I also believe that by this stage in festive proceedings, most people are more than ready for some fresh flavours and spice after a few days of rich - but bland - food.

Here's two of my favourite cocktail recipes: 

Lemon prosecco punch and lemon vodka sours (yes I like lemon and citrus flavours!).

And my very favourite snack to have ready and warm when guests arrive is spicy cashew nuts.

Really easy to prepare ahead - chop and slice everything and then just fry before serving warm - is this larb gai.  It's a spicy warm salad and if you serve small portions in little gem lettuce leaf 'cups' it's a fresh and different canape.

A really nice veggie version are these mango, chilli and lime cups.  Just make sure to only prepare an hour before serving so they don't go mushy! 

These pork and prawn balls are a guaranteed winner! Serve just two on a cocktail stick and with a dipping sauce - honestly, everyone loves them! 

No Name are delicious vegetable fritters - make ahead of time and then just fry before serving with a sweet chilli sauce. 

And I love chicken or pork stir fried with garlic and served (again) on little lettuce leaves.  Really tasty and different! 

Oops! Can't believe I nearly forgot these pork and prawn sesame toasts! Classic - and easy to prepare ahead and then fry just before serving with a little soy sauce for dipping.

Another winner! 

And to end ... how about these little balls of deliciousness, pimped up however takes your fancy?!

But the main thing is to host a party with love and spirit - so I'm sure your guests (and you) will have a great time no matter if you just put out bowls of crisps!

If you do try any of my recipes, I'd love to hear if you and your guests liked them so please comment below or come over and chat at my FB page.

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Thai-style pork ribs

I made these this week (for the first time) for a Tiniest Thai supperclub and they were really very good and, as importantly for me, very easy too.

And I was absolutely delighted when one guest instagrammed them with this description:

“Tender, juicy and full of sweet, sticky, salty, zesty, spicy fresh flavours”

— Lucy B

The ribs need time, more than effort - and will need marinading from the night before.  I'd wanted to make ribs for some time but couldn't quite get a recipe that I liked - I googled and googled and read so many but they just didn't even read as if they had the flavours I was looking for.  

Eventually I came across a recipe on BBC Good Food and have based mine on that. 

You'll need ...

(and I can't tell you how many this feeds as I made it in the week as a starter course as part of a bigger menu for four and am making it today as a light lunch for three with rice.  So it entirely depends on what else you're having and how hungry you are).

around 500g / half a rack of pork ribs (mine were frozen, so I cut them into individual ribs at home when they had defrosted, but you could ask your butcher to do this.  I'd also wanted them halved into shorter pieces but even with this big cleaver I only managed to cut down around half of them so that's another job to ask the butcher to help with if you want them short too)

For the marinade:

3 birds eye chillies, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

small bunch of coriander (keep a small handful of leaves to garnish) - if liked.  If you don't like coriander, just leave it out, or try a handful of parsley instead

a small piece of ginger, chopped

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

4 tablespoons soft brown sugar

For the sauce:

100g or around half a mug of white sugar

around 125ml or a small wine glass of water

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 red birds eye chilli, finely chopped

1 scant tablespoon fish sauce

the juice of 1/2-1 limes

Put all the ingredients for the marinade into a food processor and whizz up until it makes a rough paste.  Tip into a bowl and add the ribs, rubbing to coat them all the marinade. Put in the fridge overnight. 

Then make the sauce.  Put the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring very slowly to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. 

Remove from heat and stir in the garlic, chilli, fish sauce and squeeze in half a lime.  Then taste! Limes vary a lot in juiciness so you'll just have to taste and decide if it needs more.  To be honest, I nearly always think things need more lime, so I just squeezed in a whole one!

Cool then keep in the fridge overnight too.

When you come to cook the ribs the next day, pre-heat the oven to warm so Gas 3 / 160C and tip the ribs and the marinade onto a baking tray.  

Cover loosely with foil and put in the oven for an hour.

Turn up the temperature to Gas 6 / 200C, remove the foil, turn the ribs and cook for another 20-30 mins, until the meat just easily pulls away from the bone and they are brown and sticky.  If they need browning and stickying up, switch the grill on instead of the oven and keep them under there for a few minutes - watching all the time as they will easily catch and burn.

Put out onto a plate, drizzle over a little of the sauce and then serve with rice and with more of the sauce if liked (it soaks into the rice beautifully, but if you're not having rice you probably don't need it).  

Some stir fried green vegetables would have been nice, or a spicy salad ... but today it's just ribs 'n' rice.

Oh and my top tip.  Put the baking tray in to soak immediately.  I completely forgot the other night and left it in the oven for two days - and it was then a much harder job to get clean!

Let me know what you think of the ribs.

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Chicken stir fry with chilli paste and Thai basil

So, first the chilli paste in oil, or nam prik pao.  If you like cooking Thai food, you may have a jar of this in the cupboard or fridge already.  

If you don't - and you fancy making it - I've a very simple version that's super-quick to make right here.

You can use the nam prik pao in a tom yum soup, or in this lovely squid stir fry.  It's also just a really versatile condiment and I just might have been known to scoop a little on cheese on toast or have with shepherd's pie too ... 

If you've got some nam prik pao, and you've made the rice to serve with this in advance, then you're basically ready to go - as this stir fry is quick to make.

For two, you'll need: 

cooking oil 

2 cloves of garlic, flattened and chopped

1 chicken breast, minced (in the food processor, or chopped as I prefer to do it)

1 heaped tablespoon chilli paste in oil (nam prik pao)

1 teaspoon fish sauce

some chopped veg (I had red and yellow peppers, a mushroom and a few spring onions)

a tablespoon or so of water

a big handful of Thai sweet basil leaves, or 1.5 teaspoons of jarred Thai basil

dried chilli flakes (to serve)

Put your pan on a medium heat and when hot add a good slosh or two of oil and when that's hot add the garlic.

As for many Thai recipes, stir fry the garlic for perhaps up to 30 seconds over a medium heat, making sure it doesn't burn, until it 'smells good'. (Yep, that's the instruction on most recipes!).

Then add the chicken, nam prik pao and fish sauce and stir fry for a few minutes until the meat is nearly cooked. 

Add the chopped vegetables and a splash of water and stir, then add the jarred basil (if using jarred) and cook for another 4-5 minutes until done. 

If using fresh basil add right at the end just before turning off the heat and stir in until wilted.

Serve with the rice and with a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes (if liked).

I really love this simple stir fry - I think it has unexpected depth from the nam prik pao.

What do you think?

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Stir fried chicken & broccoli w/ oyster sauce & sesame seeds

Oh, this is very nice!  And very simple. And good.

One of my sisters emailed me a recipe for 'broccoli in oyster sauce' yesterday and it looked great, so I tried it tonight - adding a few other things along the way - and very good it was too. 

I've a feeling it's going to become a new favourite.

It's also a great vegetarian dish, well, pescatarian, as it has oyster sauce.  Just leave the chicken out if you're pescatarian!

Many a time a reader of my recipes has laughed at my vague or slapdash-seeming approach to measurements.

And when I say 'reader', you know I mean 'friend', but I'm being polite (but you know who you are).

It's just really difficult with this sort of cooking - different soy or fish sauces have different strengths and one lime will have more juice than another.

Plus I think the best bit about cooking is using your own palate and what tastes good to you. 

This recipe is possibly - to date - the MOST vague and slapdash when it comes to quantities. 

You're really going to have to guess and guage and taste!

To be honest, it doesn't include any ingredients you have to be careful with and is pretty much guaranteed to taste pretty awesome no matter what you do.  

So do give it a go! 

You'll need: 

cooked rice, to serve, if wanted

broccoli, the long stemmed sort is nice, but any sort will do - quantity is however much you feel like eating of it

cooking oil - I like my coconut oil at the moment but any oil that cooks at a high temperature is good for stir frying so vegetable, grapeseed, rapeseed etc (NOT olive oil which cooks at a lower temperature and will burn)

1-2 garlic cloves, depending on size (and your taste!)

1 chilli, or quantity to your taste

a couple of spring onions

a piece of fresh ginger 

one small-ish chicken breast, or however much you'll want to eat

dark soy sauce

oyster sauce 

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Cook the broccoli first so it's ready to stir fry by steaming or boiling for a few minutes.

If you're cooking rice to serve with this then just pop a steamer over the top for the last 4-5 minutes - or you could just put the broccoli into the rice to boil with it for a few minutes of course (no need to over-complicate).

Remove from heat and keep warm until needed.

Then toast some sesame seeds (I'd say around a tablespoonful) in a dry pan for a few minutes, shaking all the time and again, when toasted, set aside until needed.

Chop the garlic, chilli, spring onion - cut it on the diagonal for this dish so it looks nice - and ginger.  Cut the chicken into very small pieces so that it will cook quickly. 

Heat a wok or frying pan over a medium-high heat, add some oil and only when it's hot tip in the chopped garlic, chilli, spring onion, ginger and chicken - it should sizzle when it goes in.

Keep stirring and turning until the chicken is sealed and if you need to turn it down a little to prevent the garlic burning, then do! If it looks like it's going to stick, add a tiny splash of water.

After a few minutes, when the chicken's cooked, add the broccoli.

I think the long-stemmed broccoli very elegant but once I'd added it to the pan tonight, I decided to chop it up a bit to make it easier to eat! Up to you what you do. 

Cook for a minute, stirring, then add the soy and oyster sauces.  I used a scant tablespoon of each. 

Stir and continue cooking for another minute. 

Then put the rice onto a plate, spoon the stir fry around and sprinkle everything with the toasted sesame seeds. 

Very good indeed! Let me know what you thought.

Next time I might try half a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil right at the end too, just before it's removed from the heat ... 

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Yam ruam mit - hot sour salad with pork, prawns and squid

It's interesting, that zeitgeist-y sort of thing when you realise that everyone seems to be talking about the same thing.  

And right now, whether they're food editors, stylists, charity fundraisers, branding people or online entrepreneurs, it seems everyone is all about 'authenticity'.  Authentic voices, authentic people, authentic experiences, authentic you. 

I mean, I haven't tested this by asking all professions (note to self: must track down some lawyers, doctors and maybe politicians to get their views) but it's a collective seeping into the subconscious and I just love how these moments happen.  

It must be like when you name your baby a really original name and then realise four years later when they go to school that there's tons of 'em.  

Or for me, all the time, when I have a 'brand new' idea and blog it and realise EVERYONE's on the same tip. 

This also happened to me way back, back, back when ... at uni when I wrote my long essay for my degree. I can't remember it now properly but it was something to do with identifying English Romantic poets as part of a big philosophical movement 'taking in' German philosophers Kant and Hegel and the French existentialist movement.

For a week or so, I thought I was/were (yes, I actually wrote the dissertation for my language element on the use of the subjunctive) totally original and maybe even a genius.  Thank goodness this was before the internet was invented and it was so much easier to feel like a genius.

Anyway, I'm not sure I've ever gone so completely off topic in writing a recipe.  Oops. 

So ... segue-ing 'seamlessly' into my salad recipe, this salad is ALL about authenticity.  

And if you don't like very spicy hot and sour salads ('yam' actually means a 'hot and sour salad), don't make this.

The recipe is from a Thai cookery book, written in Thai, that a friend of mine who lived in Thailand for years and years and years, got in touch to tell me he'd found and ask if I'd like him to translate any recipes for me.  

Er, YES PLEASE! 

I made it for the first time this week for two friends who came to celebrate The Tiniest Thai's first birthday, and absolutely loved it.  

These are some of my favourite flavours and tastes, and it's really simple to make too.

Great served with rice to mop up the spicy, salty, sour dressing so do make the rice first so it's all ready to go.

Quantities are up to you really, so use more or less as you think will work best, but the recipe (enough for two with rice) is this:

50g prawns (shelled and de-veined)

100g squid (I don't know why I cut mine into rings as it would have been much nicer looking I think in tubes)

1/4 cup of Asian mushrooms (I couldn't find any in the supermarket so just used sliced button mushrooms)

50g diced pork (I used a piece of tenderloin and put it in the food processor to dice really finely)

1/4 cup shredded carrot (I just used a whole carrot rather than measuring it)

1/4 white onion sliced finely 

1 sliced tomato

1 stick sliced celery

1 sliced spring onion

4 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice 

3 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon caster sugar (or just normal white sugar if you don't have any)

4-7 birds eye chillies, squashed and crushed, so they can be removed easily rather than eaten if you prefer

Get all the ingredients together and then prepare and slice the seafood, meat and salad. 

By the way, I LOVE my julienne peeler that makes salads so easy!

Put all the vegetables into a bowl. 

Put a pan of water on to boil and, when boiling, add the prawns, squid and mushrooms and boil for a minute or so until cooked. Drain and set aside.  Pan fry the diced pork in a little oil for a few minutes and then let cool slightly before mixing with the prawns, squid and mushrooms. 

Make the dressing by mixing the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and chillies and stirring to dissolve the sugar.  

Mix the meat, fish and mushrooms with the vegetables, tip in the dressing and toss together to combine. You could also add cooked, cooled glass noodles now if you'd rather use noodles than having it with rice. 

This is going to be a summer favourite for me - do let me know if you try it and what you think! 

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Cucumber dipping sauce

A really lovely sweet-spicy dipping sauce, perfect for serving with Thai fishcakes or these fried prawn balls, or anything else you like!

Easy too; all you need to make a bowl is:

one red chilli (a normal milder one not a bird eye chilli)

white granulated sugar

white or rice vinegar

salt

cucumber

coriander leaves (optional)

crushed peanuts to garnish (optional - I didn't have any today but they are good)

So ... chop the chilli finely.

Then put 3/4 cup of sugar into a saucepan ...

... along with 1/2 cup white or rice vinegar ... and the chopped chillies plus a tiny pinch of salt.

Bring very slowly to the boil - it'll take a good five minutes - and then boil on a medium boil for three - four minutes.

Take off the heat and cool.  You can now keep this in the fridge for a week or so until using if you're not eating it right away.

If you ARE using now then, while the sauce cools, peel a chunk of cucumber, remove the seeds with a teaspoon and dice the flesh.

And also prepare a small handful of coriander leaves to garnish.  If you have peanuts then do crush a few as they're great to add as well.

When you're ready to serve, pour the sauce into a bowl and top with the cucumber, peanuts (if using) and coriander leaves (if using).

It's so good a guest at a recent Tiniest Thai supperclub was eating it straight from a spoon!

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Pad keemao gai - drunken noodles with chicken

I love pad keemao (drunken noodles) - and no surprise there as it has my same favourite pad krapow flavours but in a rice noodle dish and with some more veg.

So the same rules apply! If you can get krapow - Thai holy basil - then that's the best. If you can't but you can get fresh or jarred horapha - Thai sweet basil - then definitely do that! And if you can't get either then honestly I would still make itanyway.

Another thing ... whilst pad keemao should be made with rice noodles, you could use whatever noodles you like. I often make it using leftover cooked pasta with shapes like penne - and it tastes amazing still.

So - this is really versatile and up to you how you pimp it basically!  Oh, and you can also use any meat or seafood of your choosing of course or have just with vegetables.

Ok, so to make a couple of portions you'll need ...

about 1.5 chicken breasts, chopped small so it cooks quickly

a few garlic cloves and bird eye chillies, skins and stalks removed and bashed in a plastic bag with a rolling pin. The chilli pieces should still be large enough to remove easily if you don't want to eat them.  I used three garlic cloves and six chillies

I had a few slices of white onion, chopped, but this isn't traditional and I'm only adding it as I had a piece of onion that needed using up. Entirely up to you to include or not.  If not I would definitely include spring onion in your vegetables

half a chicken knorr stock cube

selection of veg, chopped - I've got spring onion, a piece of carrot, red pepper, fine beans and mange tout

rice noodles, ready to stir fry, or other noodles or pasta cooked ready to add

fresh or jarred Thai basil

white sugar, soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce

handful of spinach leaves (optional but nice)

Heat a frying pan or wok, add cooking oil and when hot add the chicken, chillies and garlic and onion (if using).

Stir fry over a medium-hot heat until the chicken is completely sealed, then crumble in half a stock cube and a splash or water and stir fry until it's all mixed in.

Add the veg and stir ... then add a teaspoon of jarred Thai basil (or half a good handful of Thai sweet basil leaves).

Stir again and then add a good pinch of sugar, a few dashes of soy sauce, a glug of oyster sauce and a small splash of fish sauce.

Cook for a minute and then add your noodles - and yes, I've got too many noodles or too small a pan really!

Stir fry for a couple of minutes and then add half a teaspoon more Thai basil from a jar (or another handful of fresh Thai basil leaves) and a big handful of spinach leaves (if using).

Stir until the leaves begin to wilt and then turn off the heat and continue stirring until the leaves are completely wilted in.

Hope you like this recipe: it's an everyday favourite here! Let me know what you think ...

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Thai salted eggs - kai kaem

Exciting! I made these last year - something that I'd never made before and not sure I'd ever eaten before - and it took 30 days' patience until they were ready to try.

Salted eggs. Originally brined as a preserving method, they have a salty white and a rich yolk and are boiled before being used in recipes or cooked to have with rice or congee.  You can just cook them with the rice for the last few minutes in the saucepan or in a rice cooker - sounds like the simplest meal ever to me and I can't wait to try it.

I have to say there wasn't anything immediately appealing to me about 'salted eggs' until I applied a little logic - which is that I love eggs and I always always put salt on them.  But the main reason I'm making these is because there are so many delicious sounding recipes that call for them.

My friend Kevin, who is fluent in Thai (both spoken and written) recently volunteered (and I bet he'll soon wish he hadn't) to translate some recipes for me from a Thai cookbook.  He sent me the translated  list of contents to choose something from.

I was going to start with the Fish Stomach recipe (still intend to give this a go at some point) but decided on 'squid fried with salted egg on rice', not realising that the salted egg was an ingredient in itself.  However instead of setting off for the Thai supermarket to get some I thought I'd investigate making salted eggs at home.

Once made, I'll be cooking the fried squid dish as well as trying cooking my salted eggs in the rice cooker, and I want to make a spicy sour salad with them too.

You'll need:

1-2 cups of water depending on the size of your jar

1/4 cup of salt

a piece of star anise

3-6 duck eggs preferably as the yolks are bigger and richer or chicken eggs like me (too impatient to wait to get to a bigger shop for duck eggs I bought chicken eggs from the corner shop this evening)

a jar in which the eggs should fit quite snugly

Put the water, salt and star anise in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

When boiling stir until the salt has fully dissolved and then immediately remove from the heat and cool completely.

Rinse the eggs and pat dry with a tea towel ...

... and check for cracks (don't use cracked ones) before putting them carefully into the jar.

Pour the cold brine over the eggs. They all need to be submerged in the liquid so if any float above the surface a good trick is to put some water in a sandwich or freezer bag and lay this on top to push the eggs under the brine. I actually didn't have quite enough water so just topped up the last inch with tap water (hope this works ok).

Put a lid on the jar and store at room temperature.

Leave for 30 days, then remove and keep in the fridge until using. 

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Brunch invention - ruam mit gratiem/kao pad

There was rice left over from cooking dinner last night and I'd been planning a kao pad gai - fried rice with chicken - for brunch this morning.  I don't know why I'm saying it like this was an accident - I had deliberately made more rice last night than was needed just so that I could have kao pad today!

But I was also thinking about the ruam mit gratiem I'd made and thinking I'd like to make it again as I'm not that familiar with it yet and it was so easy and so good.

The conversation I had with myself went like this:

'Oh good! Favourite fried rice today!'

'But I kind of fancy making that stir fry again - I could try it with chicken this time.'

'If you make a stir fry though you're going to have to make more rice and there's already cold rice sitting there.'

'But I don't know which to choose - I want both!'

'Well then have both! Mix them together into one!'

So that's what I did.  I love cooking just for myself - I can experiment away and also make things as spicy as I like.  And that's generally pretty spicy.

Note that you do need cold cooked rice for this as freshly cooked hot rice is just too wet to stir fry.

Here's how to make my hybrid brunch dish.

Chop a piece of chicken breast into small pieces and also chop a nice big clove of garlic.

Get a pan hot, add some cooking oil and when hot tip in the chicken and garlic.

Cook over a medium heat - hot enough to seal the meat quickly but not so hot the garlic burns - for four or five minutes until the chicken is cooked.

Remove the chicken and garlic to a bowl, tip out any excess oil and return the pan to a medium low heat.

Quickly add:

2 x teaspoons oyster sauce

1 x teaspoon fish sauce

1 x teaspoon thin / light soy sauce

1 x teaspoon sugar

1 - 2 x teaspoons dried chilli flakes (I'd suggest just one - I put in two and it was a bit too much)

Stir for a few seconds until mixed and thick and bubbling.

Then return the chicken and garlic to the pan and mix with the sauce.

Add the cold leftover rice and cook for a few minutes on a medium heat, stirring all the time, until the rice is hot right through.

Push the mixture to one side, add a little oil into the space and when hot crack in an egg.

Leave to cook for around 15 seconds until scrambling and combining with the rice and chicken mixture.

Stir fry until everything is mixed and the egg cooked.

Remove from heat and prepare any garnishes you like - I'm using a shake of white pepper, some coriander leaves and a few slices of red chilli.

Turn out the rice and chicken mixture onto a plate, or pack into a plastic bowl first to make it look nice, and add a few slices of cucumber too if you have it.

A very good brunch and I'm glad I made it, but I do still prefer a 'proper' kao pad I think.

What do you think? Let me know if you try this - or any other variation of it.

And I'm off now to make more coffee :)

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Pad Thai (no further description needed!)

I love Pad Thai - who doesn't?! Ultimate comfort food.  But I've had a mental block about making it. Actually, that's not quite right as I've been experimenting and experimenting and trying out different recipes but none I felt confident enough in sharing, until I came across a recipe for Pad Thai on Chez Pim's site.  I then started making it slightly more regularly (I still have weird Pad Thai nerves!) and adapting slightly until I now have a recipe I know by heart and that I feel I can happily pass on.

If you'd like the original, you can find it here.

And here's how I make it.  The absolute key thing is to make the sauce first.  Most recipes tell you to add the tamarind, fish sauce etc into your wok whilst cooking and I just find that impossible. As, I think, do most people.

To make this dish easily, you do need to get everything together first.  And, again as usual, just cook 1-2 portions at a time - it'll just become a gluey noodley mess if you try and do too much in one pan.

Here's what you'll need to make a portion for two ...

 For the sauce:

1/2 cup tamarind paste/pulp/puree - this is often available in supermarkets now although I did get mine from the Thai supermarket and it looks like this

1/2 cup fish sauce

very slightly less than 1/2 cup light brown sugar (or white if you don't have any)

1 tsp chilli powder

Other ingredients:

vegetable cooking oil

about a handful of fried or other hard tofu, sliced into bite-size pieces.  The tofu my local Thai supermarket recommended looked like this (but I'm sure any firm textured tofu would work).  The tofu's optional though so don't worry if you can't get it

one clove of garlic, minced

wide rice noodles, cooked or soaked according to instructions, ready to stir fry - enough for two people

one egg

dried shrimp - optional.  If you can get them they keep well in the freezer to use as needed.  If you're using them, you need about a tablespoon and use a pestle and mortar to fluff them up slightly (this will make sense when you do it!)

raw prawns, maybe 6-8 per person, deveined and defrosted if frozen

a small handful of peanuts, chopped or ground

as many beansprouts as you like! I use just a handful but I'm not a huge beansprout fan so you may like more

a handful of chopped garlic chives, or just normal chives if that's what you have

To serve:

wedges of lime

some more chopped peanuts

sugar

chilli flakes

OK ... start with making the sauce.  Put the tamarind, fish sauce and sugar in a pan and bring to the boil very, very, very slowly and when it starts to simmer add the chilli powder.  Taste and see if you need to adjust the flavours - it'll taste a little odd yes, but what you're after is salty first, then the sour tamarind, then a little sweetness and ending with just a touch of spicy.

When you're happy with it - and if you can't tell then just follow this the first time and adjust next time if need be when you're more confident as YES it's hard always to tell - turn the heat off and just leave the pan to one side.  This does make more than you'll need for a couple of portions but it'll keep in the fridge for a week or two.

Now you need your noodles and you want them nice and unstuck.  I tend to play with mine for a bit, gently puling them apart.  You really don't want a noodle glue and you definitely don't want to be accidentally chopping them in half.  If you can start coaxing them into lovely shiny individual noodles now it's all going to be better in the pan!

So - heat your pan and when hot add quite a bit (3-4 tablespoons) oil and then add the tofu, a tablespoon of the Pad Thai sauce and the garlic and cook for a minute or so over a medium high heat stirring all the time.

Then add the noodles and a nice ladleful of the Pad Thai sauce. Stir all the time, keeping everything moving and break up the noodles so they're not in a lump. I'd turn the heat down just a touch now. Add a little water if it becomes dry or a tiny bit more sauce - if the noodle is really sticking add a touch more oil. Cook for a few minutes until the noodle is warm and lovely and perfect (taste it).

Push the noodles to one side and crack the egg straight into the pan.  Count to about 10-15 until it's setting then toss everything together to combine.

Add the dried shrimps, raw prawns, peanuts and beansprouts and fry, stirring all the time.  Add a little more sauce if need be.  Keep it moving!

When the prawns are cooked - it'll only take a few minutes - take the pan off the heat and stir in the chives.

I love to serve this with the additional flavouring you add to taste just on the plate itself - so add some lime wedges and a small pile each of chopped peanuts, sugar and chilli flakes for people to add as they like.

Confession: I not only had a mental block about MAKING pad Thai, and then about WRITING the recipe but I've also had one about POSTING it and this has been sitting here waiting for me to press publish for ages!

Well, here goes.  And I hope you like it. Please let me know.

PS. due to the mental block, there's also very few pics on this post (I'll add some more of the steps soon).

UPDATE: I've now got a couple of beautiful pics, thanks to a photographer who came to a Tiniest Thai recently - thank you Viktoria! 

www.viktoriakuti.com

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Sort of som tam - Thai green papaya salad

I am a self-confessed som tam FIEND.  I LOVE the stuff.  I love it all the time really, but I suppose I especially hanker after it when I've been eating too much rich food.  It's just got all my favourite spicy, sour, sharp, refreshing, gorgeous flavours going in in every single mouthful.

So today - after yesterday's all-afternoon lunch marathon involving oysters, mussels in cream and bacon, chips, bread, cheese ... you get the picture - I even woke up thinking 'yup, today's a definite som tam day'.

After a couple of cups of coffee and some fruit, the 'buts' started entering my head.  BUT I need green papaya to make som tam. BUT I need sour mango if I can't get green papaya. BUT I really can't be bothered to get on the bus and go to the Thai supermarket especially because BUT I don't want to leave the house today (except to walk the dog).

And then I remembered something important:

NO ONE IS GOING TO DIE IF YOU CHANGE IT UP A BIT.

NO ONE IS GOING TO REPORT YOU TO THE SOM TAM POLICE FOR NOT USING GREEN PAPAYA.

SO WHY DON'T YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE IN THE FRIDGE?

And, in the fridge - hurrah- were birds eye chillies, a courgette, carrots, half a green pepper and best of all, some fine green beans (which you really do need).  I basically have everything to make som tam except the green papaya.

Have it with any mix of finely sliced veg that you think will work.  Experiment.  Have it on its own, have it with sticky rice, have it with steamed rice, have it with grilled fish or chicken, but do please just have it.

Ok, so to make a nice big plateful from what I had, I used:

1 tablespoon (measure it, don't just use an enormous serving spoon) light brown sugar, or white if you don't have any.  I could only find golden caster sugar in the cupboard today so used that and it worked out fine - plus 3 tablespoons water

1-2 birds eye chillies - I like it very spicy so used two, and it was, so do just use one if you're not so keen on chillies

1 big or 2 smaller garlic cloves

approx 1 tablespoon dried shrimp (optional but really makes a difference! If you can get hold of a packet, they keep forever in the freezer and are so tiny they defrost in a couple of minutes.  And you can put them in your Pad Thai too)

around 2 tablespoons peanuts

In place of the green papaya, 1 carrot, 1 courgette and 1/2 a green pepper (you could also try red pepper or cucumber here too, but have a mix)

a handful of green beans

6-8 tiny tomatoes, or just slice or quarter some regular size ones

1.5 tablespoons fish sauce

0.5 - 1 limes (to taste)

Put the sugar and water in a small pan, bring to a simmer on the lowest possible heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar, then immediately remove from heat and cool.

Then prepare the other ingredients: peel the garlic; chop the peanuts; very finely slice or julienne the vegetables that are replacing the green papaya; and cut the green beans into approx 1 inch lengths.

Do peel the veg too and remove the seeds of cucumbers, and leave out the core of courgettes.

Put the sliced vegetables in cold water or add a few ice cubes to keep them fresh.

Crush the chillies and garlic in a pestle and mortar -  you want them in small pieces but not a complete mush.

Add the dried shrimp and give them a bash too, then add the peanuts and just crush them a little more and completely mix in.

Next drain the sliced vegetables if they've been sitting in water and squeeze out as much water as possible (use a clean tea cloth or kitchen paper), or remove the ice cubes, and add the vegetables to the mortar.

 Mine's too small so I'm going to have to (1) put it on my list to get a bigger one and (2) move the whole salad to a bigger mixing bowl and go very easy on the bashing!

You just want everything to combine nicely now and mix together so go gently on the bashing and maybe use a spoon too to keep everything turning and make sure you've combined it all together.

Add the green beans, tomatoes, fish sauce, lime juice and the sugar syrup that has cooled in the pan and give it a bash again, crushing the tomatoes and breaking up the beans a little.  Use the spoon again to keep everything turning in the bowl or mortar.

Taste and stir and add more lime if necessary. I normally do, I like it very spicy and quite sour.

Then turn out onto a plate or just into a serving bowl and top with some extra chopped peanuts.  Serve on its own or with chicken, or fish and/or rice.

Any leftovers will keep in the fridge for a day, but it will also get spicier the longer it sits in the dressing - just to be warned!

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Noodle salad

Noodle salad.  Well, that's a bland-sounding title for a very lovely dish!  I made it because I had bought a bag of bean sprouts to make a pad Thai but then didn't have the energy on a hot evening to give it the love and attention that pad Thai needs.

So I needed to make something else with bean sprouts and decided on a noodle salad.  It's a deliberately vague name as it's much more about the component parts than a specific recipe - whatever you have in the fridge there'll be a version of noodle salad you can make.

The noodle bit 

In my head I had glass noodles, but in the cupboard there were vermicelli rice noodles. Whatever noodles you have will be fine, so just cook them first according to the packet directions.  For these thin rice noodles I put them into a pan of boiling water, turned off the heat and let them sit for five minutes.  Then drained them, rinsed with cold water and left them.  As long as they have at least five minutes resting they're good to use.

The dressing bit

This makes enough for a two-person portion.  One tablespoon of fish sauce:

The juice of one and a half limes (or to taste, it needs to be more sour than salty).

And a teaspoon of sugar, then stir to dissolve.

The salad bit

Start putting salad things into a bowl. Anything really - cucumber, mushrooms, peppers, lettuce all good but I had some baby spinach, roughly torn, and a chopped tomato …

Some bean sprouts and carrots …

And chopped fresh herbs - I had mint and coriander.

The onion bit

Spring onions, shallots or red onion are all good …

The crunchy bit

I've used some crushed peanuts, but toasted and chopped cashews would be good or perhaps some toasted sesame seeds. Roasted rice powder would be good to add too, but I didn't have any.

The meat or seafood bit 

Put a pan on to heat, add oil and when hot add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and one or two chopped birds eye chillies.

When fragrant, add any meat or seafood you like and stir fry until cooked.  I've got defrosted prawns and squid (I've always got packets of frozen seafood in the freezer!).

Once cooked allow to cool a little before … or you could just use cooked cold meat.

The assembly bit

Add the noodles to the bowl.

Then the meat or seafood … I needed to transfer it to a bigger bowl at this point!

Pour over the dressing and stir and toss (use your [clean] hands - it's easiest) until it's all mixed in.

The eating bit

Tip it onto a serving dish or plate, and … EAT!

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