Simplest steak supper

I made this for supper last night after getting home from the theatre.  Needed something good, quick and that wouldn't be too filling.

And I had a steak in the fridge that needed using so wasn't going to waste it!

This was perfect, quick and full of flavour.

I drizzled the steak in a bit of light soy sauce and rubbed it with a squashed garlic clove.

Added a few sprays of oil to the steak and a good pinch of black pepper.and then left it for a few minutes while I prepared the other ingredients.

This was as simple as slicing spring onions and red chilli, tearing off a handful of coriander leaves and getting a lime.

Then I put the griddle pan on to get really good and hot.

Cook the steak to your liking .... and squeeze over the lime juice as it cooks - I LOVE the sound of that sizzle!

And when cooked, rest for a few minutes then slice (discard garlic pieces) and add the coriander, red chilli and spring onions.

This one's super quick and super good,

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Jamie's hot + sour rhubarb and crispy pork with noodles

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe, recommended to me some years ago by one of my sisters and one that I only got round to making a week ago.

Well! Do I wish I'd tried it sooner?! (The answer's YES).

I've made it three times this week, twice just for me, and once for me and my (other) sister last night.  And she loved it as much I as I do!

I've adapted it a bit, mainly due to me not having cresses or Chinese Five Spice (where on earth did I leave it? I remember taking it somewhere ... ).

Oh, and not having six people to feed! And of course, I used rice noodles in place of egg noodles.

The original recipe is HERE if you'd like it.

And here's what I used to make this utterly delicious dish for two.

For the marinade

4 smallish sticks of rhubarb, ends cut off, and chopped into a few large pieces

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped

1-2 (depending on your taste) bird eye chillies, roughly chopped

A chunk of ginger, roughly thumb-sized, roughly chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds *

1 star anise *

2 whole cloves *

1/2 teaspoon black pepper *

(all marked with a * you could replace with a scant teaspoon of Chinese 5-Spice but I haven't tried it!).

a wineglass of water

And the rest of the ingredients

4 pork belly strips, cut into chunks

2 spring onions

coriander leaves

1 red chilli

cooking oil

2 layers rice noodles, prepared according to packet instructions

2 halves of a lime, to serve

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OK, first the marinade. Put all the marinade ingredients into a blender - and blend until all blended and smooth.

Put the pork cubes into a roasting tray or dish and pour over the sauce and cover with foil, or - as I'm doing - put it all into my trusted, beloved remoska. Jamie's recipe said to cook for 90 minutes, but mine was done after 60 minutes, so do check.

(UPDATE! I MADE THIS AGAIN THE OTHER NIGHT AND IT WAS JUST TOO HARD TO CUT THE SLICES INTO CUBES, SO I JUST COOKED THE SLICES AS THEY WERE AND CUT THEM WHEN COOKED - MUCH EASIER!)

The original recipe says 180°C/350°F/gas 4 so it might take longer.

There are no temperature options with a remoska - as with an AGA - and I love cooking using both. I've had my remoska for over a decade and highly, highly recommend it.

Yes it's a bit of an initial outlay but you'll rarely ever need to use your oven again - this is so much easier and more efficient.

Anyway, however you're leaving that gorgeous sauce and beautiful pork to cook, leave it to cook and prepare the rest!

Slice a couple of spring onions, chop a small handful of coriander leaves and slice a red chilli (as much as you like - if I'd had a bigger mild chilli it would have been a whole one, but I only had bird eye chillies so used about 1/3) - ready to add all of them right at the end.

Towards the end of the pork cooking time, cook the rice noodles according to pack instructions so they're ready to go - drain and put a lid on to keep them hot.

Remove the pork pieces from the sauce.  Heat a wok or frying pan, add a little oil and cook for a few minutes 'until crisp'.  I have to say mine didn't actually go 'crisp' but very good it was anyway - I just cooked them a few minutes and drained on kitchen paper.

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I left my rhubarb sauce cooking while I fried the pork to thicken it a little more - but look at the sauce and decide if you want to stop the cooking when the pork comes out or give it a little longer if it looks a bit thinner than you were expecting.

Put the noodles into bowls, ladle over the utterly delicious sauce and top with the incredible pork belly pieces. 

Add a good sprinkling of spring onions, coriander and chilli - and serve with a wedge of lime to squeeze over.

I'm just glad rhubarb season goes on until about June - as I just want to make this again! Yes, despite having had it three times in one week!

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Steak, mango and avocado salad

This recipe first appeared in The Guardian newspaper in February 2010 and it's from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

One of my sisters saw it and tore it out - we made it and it was delicious.

Several years later when I was with her, I remembered it, and took a photo of the page - and a few times I've made it, zooming in on the photo to enlarge it enough to see the detail of the recipe.

Seven years later, thought it was about time I just shared it, so I'll have it right here whenever I need it.

Oh! And - of course - so that you can have it too.

This is simple and elegant and delicious and full of flavour. Easy enough for a normal supper, and lovely enough for a dinner party, or lunch - we had it today for Sunday lunch and it was perfect.

I've changed the recipe just a little, so this is my version I'm giving you.

The mango, avocado, steak and spicy dressing isn't a combination I'd have thought of - but it works supremely well.

So for two people, this is how you do it!

The marinade: 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely minced; 1 tablespoon oyster sauce; 1 tablespoon dry sherry (optional - I didn't have any); 1 teaspoon soy sauce; 1/2 teaspoon sugar; some grated fresh ginger; a little black pepper.

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1-2 steaks depending on their size and your hunger.  Rump or sirloin will work best.

Rub in the marinade and leave to marinate for 30-60 minutes.

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Make the dressing: 1 tablespoon fish sauce; 1.5 teaspoons toasted sesame oil; juice of 1/2-1 limes; 1.5 teaspoons light soy sauce; 1/2 teaspoon sugar; 1/2-1 birds eye red chilli, finally chopped; 1 very small or half a clove of garlic, finely minced.

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When the steak's almost done marinating, prepare the rest of the salad: peel and slice half a mango (or as much as you like); same with a ripe avocado (I used half a large avocado). Put rocket on plates with the mango and avocado arranged on top.

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Heat a griddle pan until very hot, add the steak and sear for 2-4 minutes each side - depending on thickness of the steak - you want it lovely and browned on the outside and pink in the middle.

Leave the steak to rest on a board or plate for 3-4 minutes before slicing thinly.

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Add the steak to the plates of salad, drizzle over the dressing, scatter over some coriander leaves and serve immediately.

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SUCH a great dish. Hope you love it 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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Lamb (leftovers) stir fry

I love a good roast dinner.  Lamb is probably my favourite - and my step-mum makes possibly the best roast lamb ever ... it's testimony only to the size of the lamb that there were leftovers at all!

We had the roast lamb last Sunday with mint sauce - of course - and roast potatoes and vegetables and an incredibly good gravy.

And on the Monday evening I made a simple stir fry with the leftovers (even simpler for me as my dad had done the work slicing all the meat into small-ish strips). 

I really like using fresh mint leaves in this - it's a sort of nod to the mint sauce of the day before.

We had enough lamb to serve four as a stir fry with rice.

Here's what you need:

1 garlic clove, minced

1 red chilli, finely chopped

1 stalk of lemongrass, outer tough parts removed and finely chopped

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and minced

Some chopped vegetables-  we had peppers and mushrooms

2-3 spring onions, sliced

cooked lamb, cut into strips or diced

fish sauce

light soy sauce

zest and juice of a lime

a handful of coriander leaves, chopped

a handful of mint leaves, chopped

rice, to serve

Heat a pan, add a little oil and when hot, tip in the garlic, chilli, lemongrass and ginger and stir over quite a high heat, moving the ingredients around in the pan constantly to prevent burning.

After about 30 seconds, when it starts to smell good, add the chopped vegetables and a little splash of water, enough to loosen it and make it easy to turn in the pan.

After a minute or so, add the cooked lamb, a couple of sloshes of soy sauce, one of fish sauce and the lime zest and juice, and continue cooking until the lamb is hot right through. 

Do taste and taste and taste as you add the sauces and lime - add half in first, stir and taste, before adding the remainder of each so you can check you're happy with how it tastes. If you think it's a bit too sour, just add a pinch of sugar.

When it's all ready, throw in the fresh herbs, immediately remove from heat and stir in to wilt.

And that's it! 

Serve with rice .... this is such an easy delicious dinner - I do hope you try it!

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Moroccan salad (with griddled chicken)

I was in Marrakech recently (again - one of my very favourite places and yes I really am going to write a quick post about it soon).

It was the most beautiful weekend away with my co-conspirator-traveller-niece. We shopped in the souks, sunbathed on the roof terrace of our riad, and ate a LOT of tomato + cucumber Moroccan salad.

We had it in the riad, we had it for lunch at the Henna Art Cafe and we had it every time we ate in the main square too. 

We had it with bread, with grilled smoky aubergines, with a chilli dip, and with skewers of grilled meats (well, I did; Mia's vegetarian). 

It's so simple too, I don't know why I haven't made it before now ... but now I have, it's going to be a regular thing at Tiniest Thai HQ! 

What makes it special, what makes if Moroccan is the addition of ground cumin - I'd brought some back with me too (along with Ras Al Hanout, that spice blend for stews and for tagines - will be using it next and making a tagine).

You can have the salad with whatever you like, but I did some simple griddled chicken for a light lunch for me and a friend yesterday. (I made the salad, she brought the Prosecco). 

So, first the salad (serves two).

Dice some tomatoes (take the tough cores out if need be). I used a mixture of two large tomatoes and then quartered a few cherry tomatoes too. Peel and de-seed some cucumber and dice that too. 

Chop half an onion very finely, and add it all to a big bowl with a handful of chopped parsley and a pinch of salt - and stir to mix well.

Then make the dressing. I used one and half lemons squeezed into a bowl (just squeeze them over your open hand so you catch the pips easily), 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1 tsp ground cumin and a shake of white pepper.

You could use a little olive oil too, but I prefer the taste of the lemon to really shine through.

Stir to combine and dissolve the sugar, then tip over the salad and mix.

And for the simplest griddled chicken, I just opened out a chicken breast (actually it was one and a half chicken breasts) so they are thin and quite flat and will cook quickly.

My grocery shopping delivery that morning had included lemon thyme in replacement for lime leaves which they hadn't had in stock (yep, strange replacement, can only assume someone just saw the words 'lime' and 'lemon' and thought, 'that'll do'!), so I thought I'd use it with the chicken.

The chicken was sprinkled with cumin, some lemon/thyme salt I found in the cupboard (or just use salt) and the leaves and some sprigs of lemon thyme. You could use another herb, or just leave this out if you don't have any. 

And I added 2 teaspoons of oil and rubbed it all together to coat the chicken pieces.

I heated the griddle until very hot (you could just use a frying pan or grill the chicken if you don't have a griddle) and added the pieces of chicken, which started sizzling (LOVE that sound!).

They took around three minutes each side ... but do slice into them to check they're properly cooked through.

Serve with the chicken on top of the salad and with another little pinch of ground cumin over the top of it all.

Simple, light and fresh tasting. So good! 

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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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Sunshine food / simplest souvlaki + Greek salad

A Bank Holiday in the UK often (like today) = a bit grey and cloudy.

So, nothing for it but to cook up THE most sunshine-y lunch I can think of right now - and that's an easy, delicious chicken souvlaki, with Greek salad.

And rose. Pink wine just says SUMMER!

For two, I used one big chicken breast, cut into small cubes and put in a bowl to marinate for 30 minutes or so with:

the juice of 2 lemons

and the zest of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon dried oregano 

then I used a teaspoon of this lovely salt with lemon and thyme, but you could use 1/2 teaspoon each salt and thyme

While the chicken marinates, make an easy Greek salad. 

I used:

1/2 red onion, sliced as thinly as possible

2 tomatoes (on the vine - you want the sweetest tomato-est tomatoes you can find), cored and cut into chunks

a piece of cucumber (I took off most of the skin as it was quite tough), cut into chunks

a few very thin slices of green pepper 

some black olives 

1 teaspoon each of red wine vinegar and olive oil (no need to mix first)

a good squeeze of lemon juice

some salt and black pepper

.. and then I tossed it all together using my (clean) hands to make sure it was all combined

As I'm making this lunch while on my Tiniest Thai weight-loss diet I didn't put a big slab of feta on the top (I'm a bit addicted to feta) and just crumbled a little to make it go further - and sprinkled it with a little more dried oregano. 

Again, if I weren't on a diet, we might have had some nice hot toasted pitta bread too but ... I can't be trusted not to eat the rest of it once it's got in the house! 

Once the chicken's marinated, thread it onto wooden or metal skewers and cook.  I cooked mine on the hot griddle, adding the rest of marinade over the chicken, but you could also cook it under the grill or fry in a pan.

I cooked mine for probably 4 minutes each side, turning now and then, and checking it was cooked thoroughly before serving. 

Serve with the salad, pitta bread if you're having it and some lemon on the side to squeeze over.

And if you, like me, like a glass of rose when you're pretending it's summer, have one (or two) of those too!

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1 roast chicken / 5 recipes / 7 meals

Food waste. Shocking stats - the latest numbers I remember are that here in the UK alone we throw away 5,000 chickens and over 1m sausages every single day.  Plus around 4m apples and potatoes - again every single day.

Whatever we can do individually to combat this, no matter how seemingly small, has got to be worth doing. 

Not buying too much in the first place is easiest, buying more food fresh as it's needed. Planning ahead for the week.  

And, of course, using up leftovers.  

Leftover rice can become a kao pad.  Risotto turns into Arancini (stuffed rice balls), and stale bread into that lovely Italian salad, Panzanella.  So many good things to make through being aware of not wasting food. 

I decided to see how many meals I could make from one roast chicken, and it was more than I'd expected! There was probably a little less meat at each meal than I would usually serve, but that's no bad thing and something I'd like to consciously continue to do.

Last weekend's roast chicken started off being cooked in my remoska.  I love my remoska - I asked for it as a birthday present over ten years' ago and it makes the best roast chicken and the best jacket potatoes.  I think it's because it's a small space so it really steams beautifully as it cooks.  Whatever the reason, chicken is incredibly moist and the skin perfectly crispy.  I also use it for one-pot dishes like a savoury rice or stews - in fact I feel a whole remoska post of its own coming on one day soon!   

But back to the roast chicken ...  

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I mixed up some lemon/thyme salt that was in the cupboard with butter and rubbed that under the skin of the chicken (careful not to tear the skin) and put a couple of squashed garlic cloves (no need to remove the skins) in the cavity along with a quartered lemon, after squeezing the juice over the bird.  

I also massaged it with a little olive oil.  And then cooked for an hour and a half or so.

Sorry about the horribly unappetising photo!

I totally forgot to take any when it was cooked, or looking delicious with a colourful fresh salad - but I did want to show how snugly it fits in the remoska which is why it cooks it so beautifully.

We had slices of hot chicken with a big couscous salad - couscous cooked and cooled with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, chopped fresh mint and parsley leaves, a little olive oil, black pepper and lots of lemon juice.

Roast chicken + couscous salad: for two

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I just put the whole board of leftovers in the fridge that night and the next day made myself a noodle soup for lunch, using a packet of instant noodles.

Put the kettle on so you'll have boiling water when you need it.  

Then just stir fried a squashed and chopped garlic clove and a chopped chilli in a little oil for a few seconds until it smells good.

Add the noodles, their seasoning packet and a small pinch of sugar, some sliced spring onions plus boiling water (I just put in as much as I think I want depending on if I want it soupy or not, rather than measuring it out).  

Simmer for a few minutes until the noodles are done and just at the end throw in some spinach leaves or pak choi and coriander (if liked). 

Chicken noodle soup: for one

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That evening, I needed something just for me, so cooked some rice and made my favourite fakeaway, a chicken jalfrezi.  

I changed the recipe a little as I was using cooked chicken so added it later on in the timings.

Chicken curry: for one

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Next, time to make a very simple stock.

I'm a bit lazy when it comes to stock making and don't spend ages getting every scrap of meat off.  I tend to just stick the whole carcass and all the meat and bits straight into a big pan.

Add one roughly chopped onion, carrot and celery stick, a few black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves and then cover with water.

Bring to the boil, skim off any scummy bits that have risen to the surface, and then simmer very gently for an hour or two. 

I then turned off the heat and left the stock overnight on the hob with a lid on it as it was late and I wanted to get to bed! 

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The next day, the stock had become very gelatinous so I warmed the whole thing for a few minutes on the hob until it was liquid again, then strained.  Before throwing away the bits in the strainer though, I picked out all the meat I could and threw it back in the liquid.

To make my Thai-influenced soup, I started with sweating half a chopped onion and a clove of garlic in a big pan - oh and one chopped chilli too!

When these were soft, I poured in the stock liquid, added half a chicken Knorr stock cube and some more boiling water - to increase the volume to what's needed.  If you don't need more, you might not need to add the extra stock cube too.

Once this comes to a simmer, I added cooked rice, some spring onion, a little dash of fish sauce and one of soy and some black pepper.  Taste and taste and see what you think!

I'd meant to add a squeeze of lime juice ... but forgot .. 

Served in bowls with coriander leaves (just omit if you don't like coriander; I know a lot of people don't) and some sliced red chilli.

Kao tom gai / chicken rice soup: for two

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There was only a little left in the pan, after we'd gone back for seconds (that's why it's worth adding the extra water and a bit of stock cube) ... and normally, I might well have thrown it away.

But it looked enough for a bowlful and it is so cold at the moment - I thought it would make a good and nourishing breakfast.  

So in the morning, I just turned the gas on under the kettle for tea, and the gas under the soup pan to heat the chicken rice soup.

Do make sure it boils and heats through thoroughly.

I cracked an egg into a bowl and ladled the boiling soup on top, which on stirring, lightly cooked the egg.  I added coriander leaves and some sliced chilli and that was that.

Very simple and very good. Especially on a very cold morning! 

Rice soup for breakfast: for one

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So, my one roast chicken made made five recipes (roast, noodles, curry, stock, soup) and seven meals.

(Oh, and Tiny Dog loves chicken and had a little piece chopped in with his biscuits for five meals too!)

Would love to know your favourite leftover recipes too so do reply in the comments! 

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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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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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Jassy's bacon & egg pie

I recently got to talk with food writer Jassy Davis about blogging, food and life .... and she was kind enough to share a recipe with me.  

A comfort-food-sounding-winner of a Bacon and Egg Pie. 

But, it also made me a little bit nervous about making it because to me, baking and pastry, y'know, they're TECHNICAL cooking.  And I don't really 'do' technical cooking. My cooking is generally based on throwing things together, cooking stuff quickly, and all about taste, taste and taste it again and adjust (and learn to trust your own pallette). 

However, I also really loved the sound of her pie, and I really wanted to make it.  

And I want other people who might have the pastry fear to have a go to.  You'll see on the header photo on this post Jassy's pie on the left and mine on the right.  Honestly, I'm pretty proud of how it looks (and it tasted much better than it looks) and I'm now inspired to have a go at more pastry.  Well, maybe this pie again a few times more before I move on to anything else. 

I was also really pleased when she suggested this recipe because it reminds me so much of one of my grandmothers.  My gran Irene (known as Rene), was a cook - she'd gone into service at the 'Big House' as a teenager and learnt and worked her way up to being a cook.  When she died, my dad (her son) found some of the notebooks with her handwritten recipes that she'd noted down as she learnt more dishes. I really want to find those notebooks - I think they're somewhere in the attic at my dad's and it's a job now back on my list to find them!

When I was little and we went to visit and stay with my grandparents in Sussex, I was always excited about the food, and about watching and helping my grandmother cook.

She had a little kitchen with the open door straight to the back steps down to the garden and sometimes I'd just sit on the steps in the summer sunshine with the smell of the pots of geraniums all down the steps (geraniums are still a favourite scent of mine today), with a cup of tea (in a cup and saucer) and Gran pottering and cooking behind me.

She made the best full English breakfasts, with delicious little fat herby sausages from the butcher.  She made beautiful salads and roast dinners and new potatoes with butter and sprigs of fresh mint from the garden.  And she made a perfect bacon and egg quiche.  I loved Gran's quiche so much that during a very short period of being vegetarian as a teenager I was very tempted by it.  

Especially because my grandparents were of a generation that didn't really 'get' vegetarianism and I now think they just thought I'd given up red meat.  Once when we were staying I was offered quiche for lunch and on turning it down on the grounds of being veggie, my grandmother said in kind of horror:

“Oh, but I didn’t think you meant BACON!”

— Irene Walder

And to be completely honest, when I saw that quiche and also smelt the bacon frying in the morning, I changed my 'vegetarianism' to allow eating bacon too.

So do give Jassy's pie a try, even if you're scared of pastry, or even if you're a vegetarian!

Actually, I can see that this pie would be fab made with perhaps leeks instead of the bacon.  If you give a veggie version a try, please get in touch and let me know what you tried and how it worked out.

But back to our glorious bacon and egg pie and Jassy's recipe which says it serves eight (but I'll always leave this vague as it's just so dependent on hunger, greediness, etc!) ... 

You'll need:

FOR THE PASTRY
240g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
60g chilled salted butter, cubed, plus extra for greasing
60g chilled lard, cubed

FOR THE FILLING
480g good quality unsmoked streaky bacon (make sure it’s good quality – you don’t want your pie ruined by cheap bacon bleeding salty water all over it)
150g crème fraîche
142ml pot soured cream (the pot I bought was 150ml so I used nearly all of it)
3 medium eggs
1 tbsp milk

First fill a glass with water and add an ice cube.  Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the butter and lard.  Rub together with your fingertips to make it look like breadcrumbs.  This took me back literally DECADES to possibly the last time I made pastry ... 

Add a little iced water and bring the dough together with your hands (add more water if needed).  Wrap the dough in clingfilm and pop in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas 7 / 220 C and place a baking tray in to heat.  

Butter a loose-bottomed 20 cm cake tin (I had to borrow one of these and I think it would be really useful to have one of those ones where the main tin has a hinge mechanism - I'm sure this sort of tin has a proper name but I don't know it! Anyway, one's going on my Christmas list).

Chop the bacon into small pieces around 1 cm wide.  I used one of my favourite big knives and chopped through the whole pile at once! 

Beat together the creme fraiche, sour cream and eggs and season with lots of freshly ground black pepper (no salt! It's pretty salty already with all that bacon). 

Here's where it go a little tricky for me.  You slice off 1/3 of the pastry and set that aside.

Dust the work surface with flour and roll out the 2/3 left to make a circle that's approx 25cm across. Now this I just couldn't do.  

Mine stuck and didn't roll too thin and the more I played with it the more I realised that that was not going to help.  So I just did my best and lined the cake tin as best I could and patched it up with other pieces of pastry. 

You then scatter the bacon all over the pastry case then pour over the egg mixture.

What should happen next is that you roll out the remaining pastry (that 1/3 you set aside) to make a 20cm round and lay that on top of the pie.  Fold down any pastry running up the sides and pinch them together.

Jassy does say, 'don't worry if a little of the filling oozes out of the top, it's a messy looking pie', which was at least a little reassuring because I was getting worried by my patchwork quilt effect pastry efforts! 

Brush the top of the pie with the milk - and if yours is anything like mine it'll now have wrong-looking pools of milk in the crevices of the pastry patchwork quilt.  But I carried on!

I even made pastry letters to write 'PIE' across the top.

Bake for 50 mins - 1 hour until golden (and even slightly brown).  It smells SO good as it's cooking!

Cool in the tin for 15 mins then run a knife around the edges to loosen, sliding the tin sides of the pie.  Ummm, this didn't exactly go according to plan for me, but I managed to get the pie out! 

Leave to cool completely and chill until you want to eat it as it tastes best served cold.

Well, obviously THAT didn't go to plan either!

I was ravenous and wanted to try it straight away. I had a slice hot with some extra black pepper and my home-made brown sauce (recipe to follow soon) - and I had another slice the next day cold for lunch.

And yes, Jassy's right.  It tastes best served cold - but whether you have willpower enough to wait until then is another matter.

Definitely going to be making this again and would love to hear from you if you make it too! 

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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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Stir fried chicken or beef with cashews

So, my beautiful Big Niece has come to stay for a night - just overnight to break the journey to Cornwall. I wanted to get a picture of us together cooking dinner but there's just us here so it had to be a selfie.

And despite trying approx 6,742 times to get a shot we were actually both in, we only managed ones with one of us cut out or that were just too terrible to post. Here's the best of a very bad bunch of us looking blurry and 'super-excited' to be cooking this lovely stir fry (or maybe not!).

Anyway, photography distraction over. We're making a chicken stir fry with cashews that I always think of as quite a special dish - a rich sauce, crunchy nuts, soft chicken and a bit of heat from the fried whole dried chillies.

I wanted the bigger dried red chillies ideally but only had the small ones and to be honest I used too many - next time I make this I'll use fewer (the right quantity is listed in the ingredients but the pic shows too many).  I think the big ones might be a little milder and I would have chopped them into smaller pieces after frying. The chilli issue is up to you though - use as few or as many as you like of course.

The quantity we made serves 2-4 people depending on, well, everything - hunger, greed, what else you're eating with it, etc so just adjust quantities as you wish and do taste and taste before and during adding the seasonings.

If you're serving with rice make that first and keep warm until ready.

Enough for us two as well as a portion leftover we used ...

1/2 a white onion

2 spring onions

2 cloves of garlic

2 chicken breasts

1 fresh red chilli to garnish, if using

vegetable oil, for frying

about half a cup of plain cashew nuts (not roasted or salted)

4-5 whole dried chillies (or to your taste)

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

a good glug of oyster sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

a shake of white pepper

boiled or steamed rice, to serve

Prepare the ingredients: chop the onion into smallish chunks rather than dicing finely; slice the spring onions using as much of the green stalks as you can; mince the garlic; cut the chicken into slices; and slice the fresh red chilli if using.

Put quite a bit of oil, about 4 tablespoons, into a frying pan or wok and when hot add the cashew nuts.  Fry, stirring, over a medium heat until golden brown - this will take a few minutes. When brown remove from the oil, drain on kitchen paper and set aside.

Return the pan to the heat and add the dried chillies to the hot oil and cook for around 30-60 seconds until they turn dark and crispy. Again, remove from the pan, drain on kitchen paper and set aside. If using big whole chillies, cut them into smaller pieces or crumble them with your fingers when cool.

Drain off some of the oil if necessary so around 2 tablespoons remain, let cool very slightly and then return to the heat and add the garlic, stirring straight away so it doesn't burn.

After perhaps half a minute - but sooner if the garlic is turning colour - add the chicken and keep stirring, first to seal quickly and then to cook through. This will probably take 4-5 minutes.

Add the onions, cashews and chillies and stir fry for a couple of minutes until the onions are translucent but still with a bite to them.

Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce and spring onions and cook, stirring, for another minute or two.

Add the sesame oil and a shake of white pepper, stir in and remove from the heat.

Serve topped with slices of fresh red chilli if liked and with plain rice.

This is very good with beef too as the sauce is lovely and rich - but it needs cooking slightly differently as the beef doesn't take long to cook. Slice the steak into thin slices and dredge with approx half a tablespoon of plain/all purpose flour.

Then after cooking the cashew and the dried chillies fry the beef in the same hot oil and again drain on kitchen paper.

Cook the garlic, then the onions (I used red as didn't have white) and I added some red pepper too.  Then add the beef along with the cooked dried chillies, cashews, seasoning sauces and spring onion.

I think I actually prefer the beef to the chicken version but both are very good.

This is a really nice easy special dinner.  Let me know what you think ....

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Pad krapow gai - spicy stir fried chicken with Thai basil

This is my favourite food of all time, my I-could-eat-this-every-day, my oh-I-did-eat-it-everyday-for-about-a-year food - and I still eat it around once a week. It's a perfect breakfast, especially in bright hot sunshine with an iced coffee, it's great with a kai dow (fried egg) on top of the rice. It's good with prawns, pork or squid but I like it best with chicken. There isn't an occasion it doesn't suit, and it cures headaches, hangovers and heartbreak too. Honestly!

It might not be my last-supper dish but I'm not sure ... contenders on that list wouldn't pass the could-I-eat-it-every-day criteria for favourite food.  What's your favourite food? What's your last supper food? My last supper could be a seafood platter or perhaps rack of lamb, dauphinoise potatoes and a green salad with mustardy dressing. Or a pad krapow.  Anyway ...

There's just one admission to make .... and that's that I'm not actually cooking a pad krapow at all.

There are two types of basil used in Thailand, both different to our Mediterranean basil. Thai sweet basil, horapha, is a bit aniseed-y and is used in Thai curries and - I learnt today from the ladies at Tawana supermarket  - can be used in a pad keemao (drunken noodles) where I  thought you could only use krapow.

Ah, krapow. Krapow is the other Thai basil, holy basil, and it gives this dish it's name - literally 'stir fried with holy basil'. It's really peppery and unique. It's also really hard to grow in our climate and it's even hard for the Thai supermarkets to get hold of.

I really wanted my favourite food today so I went to one of my favourite places, Tawana supermarket on Chepstow Road, W2. It's a total treasure trove of delights plus I get to practice my Thai as well. And it soothes the soul.  Here's just a selection of the treats in store ...

And here's the goodies I brought home ... including packets of holy basil seasoning I'll use for another, lazy, day.

But the sad news is they had no krapow. Again. So I bought horapha and therefore what I'm actually cooking is pad horapha gai. It is still so good.  If you can get krapow then do! If you can't but you can get horapha, great! And it you can get neither, just make it without. Without is how I have it most weeks (pad krapow sans krapow) and still I love it.

It's a really spicy dish but you bash the chillies into pieces big enough to flavour the dish but not to eat unless you want to.  When I was taught to make this it was with the chicken alone - I've added the chopped pepper and mushrooms so do add veg or not as you wish.

Here's how I'm making my favourite dish ever tonight. Cook your rice first and then assemble the ingredients - as always, it cooks quickly.

Vegetable oil

Half to one chicken breast

Approx 6-10 small chillies (depending on size and how spicy you like it)

Approx four garlic cloves (or eight if you have small Thai garlic cloves)

Sliced red pepper and mushroom, or other sliced veg, if using

1/2 knorr chicken stock cube

Thick soy bean sauce or rich soy sauce

Oyster sauce

A good pinch of sugar

A handful of holy basil or sweet basil leaves, if using

Tear the basil leaves from the stalks, if using, and discard the stalks, and chop the vegetables into small pieces, if using.  Mince the chicken breast by chopping very very finely, as small as you can. I know some restaurants serve this dish with the meat in bite-sized pieces but I much prefer it minced as I was shown.

Peel the garlic - the quickest way is to squash the garlic with the flat side of a knife - and remove the stalks from the chillies and then place in a plastic sandwich / freezer bag.

Bash with a rolling pin until the chillies and garlic are all in small-ish pieces. If the bag splits don't worry just fold it and keep bashing!

Now put a frying pan or wok over a medium heat and when hot add a good glug of cooking oil. When hot add the chicken, and stir. When starting to seal tip in the garlic and chillies and cook until the chicken is completely sealed.

Add the vegetables if using and stir fry for another couple of minutes.

Add a splash of water, crumble in half a stock cube, a good dash of bean/soy sauce and a couple of dashes of oyster sauce plus a good pinch of sugar and stir it all in.  Here's a pic because I forgot to include the oyster sauce at the start.

Cook for another couple of minutes then throw in the basil and remove from the heat immediately.

Stir in the basil until it wilts and serve with the rice. Best dinner ever. Do you agree?

PS. Yes, I did make a huge portion. I love it!

PPS.  If you like pad krapow, you'll also like pad keemao  … give it a try :)

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Chinese-style char siu BBQ pork

One of the many things I love about Thailand and actually about South-East Asia as a whole is the sheer number of celebrations and festivals throughout the year. Festivals from different religions and different cultures can all be celebrated - the more the merrier! It's now a habit that whenever I hear of a fete or festival day I mark it in my diary. This week not only sees the start of  the Year of the Horse on 31 January but also the French Fete de la Chandeleur on 2 February, or crepe day, to mark Candlemas.

Since I don't write about French food - although I do love it and do cook it and will be having crepes next Sunday - I'll concentrate on something good to eat to celebrate Chinese New Year and having made this BBQ pork every Chinese New Year for about five or six years, it is now my traditional new year dinner.

I'm not sure why I never make it any other time of year as it is really easy and is not only good served just as it is hot from the oven with some steamed rice but also so good used in other dishes including stir fried noodles or fried rice or in sandwiches such as a Vietnamese banh mi. (Chinese) new year resolution: cook more BBQ pork.

This does need several hours or overnight to marinate so don't start making it thinking it will be quick.

Serves four, or fewer but with leftovers ...

8 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 heaped teaspoon Chinese five-spice

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

4 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1lb pork tenderloin

First combine all the ingredients except the pork in a bowl and whisk or stir until the sugar is dissolved

Trim the pork of any big bits of fat and silverskin, place in a dish and pour over the marinade. Turn the pork so it's all covered.

Cover the dish and put in the fridge for a few hours or preferably overnight, turning the meat a couple of times during that time.

Preheat the oven to Gas 8 / 230C / 450F.

Line a roasting tray with foil and place the pork staight onto the foil or on a rack in the tray if you have one. Keep the marinade for basting.

Roast for 15-20 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to Gas 4 / 180C / 350F.

Turn the pork and cover with half the remaining marinade and cook for another ten minutes then turn and cover with the rest of the marinade.

Roast for another 10-15 minutes until cooked through but still a tiny bit pink.

Take out the pork and put it on a board to rest, covered, for a further ten minutes.

Serve straight away, in slices with rice and green vegetables, or cool and keep in the fridge to use in other recipes.

Happy new year!

Xin Nian Kuai Le， 新年快乐

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Larb moo - spicy pork salad

This spicy salad is perfect for a light lunch or supper, or served with rice to make a more substantial meal.  It's really easy to make - being more about assembly than cooking.  I like very spicy food, so do use less chilli if you're less of a fan.

Serves 2-4 depending on greediness and what else you eat with it ...

1/8 cup risotto rice (to make roasted rice)

300g tenderloin pork, minced

2-3 limes

1/2 knorr stock cube, or a teaspoon of stock granules

1 spring onion, chopped

1/2 red onion (or shallots), chopped

handful each of mint leaves and parsley, chopped

1 tbspn crushed dry chillies

2 tbspn fish sauce

red chilli, sliced for garnish

little gem lettuce leaves, to serve

Let's make the roasted rice first.  The salad will still be yummy without it, but it adds a really authentic texture to the dish.  I think this is usually made with sticky rice but, as I don't have any, I use ristotto rice (my reasoning being that risotto rice is also quite starchy) and it works fine. I'm pretty sure normal rice would work too - worth a try before buying anything specially anyway!

1. Heat a pan, and pour in the rice.  Keep turning and stirring it on a low heat until it turns light brown (in about ten minutes).

2. When it's cool (burning grains are so not fun), crush until fine - a pestle and mortar is good, a hammer or rolling pin would do. I use a coffee bean/spice grinder which makes it really easy!

Get the other ingredients together ....

... and chop and slice the onions, herbs and chilli.

I use tenderloin of pork as it's what I was originally taught to make the dish with, and for the same reason, I like to mince it by chopping it.  You could just throw it in the food processor - I tried this today for the first time and it worked perfectly.  Or, of course, you could just buy mince in the first place.

3. Heat a pan (I just used the same one as the rice had been in) and when hot tip in the minced pork and squeeze over the juice of one lime.

4. Keep stirring until the pork is thoroughly cooked which will take 5-10 minutes - but don't overcook it.  Add the stock cube or granules in the last couple of minutes.

5. Tip the pork into a bowl and stir in the spring onion, red onion, mint and parsley, and mix together.

6. Add the roasted rice powder, dried chillies, lime juice from the remaining 1-2 limes (to taste) and fish sauce and mix again.

Served in little gem lettuce 'cups' and garnished with red chilli - this is easy to eat and really fresh tasting.

I would love to know if you liked this recipe, or if you tried it with different meat, or amended it at all ... do let me know.

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'Mince and noodles'

This is a very good dish to have up your sleeve – easy, tasty, and a great addition to the list of Things To Make With Mince.  I  first had this at my sister’s house in Norfolk, and copied down the recipe – which I have since lost, but it’s so easy I just make it the way I remember it.  If I can find where it came from I will both credit the cookbook of course and check to see if the way I make it is in fact the same as the original recipe. Oh, and perhaps give it a name too!  But for now, ‘that lovely mince and noodle thing’ it is.

The mince and noodles are quite rich and dense, so this dish does need some freshness by serving it with a quick salad. I normally just slice or speed-peel anything salad-y that’s around so today used carrot, mangetout and spring onions, although I did wish I’d had some cucumber too.  Some slices of red chilli and a good squeeze of lemon juice completes it.  Served with prawn crackers and home made sweet chilli sauce (see earlier recipe), this makes a very satisfying dinner.

To serve two

250g beef mince

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon garam masala (or curry powder)

1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 tablespoon cooking oil

2 sticks celery

2 cloves garlic

approx 300-400 ml stock (I used a whole Knorr cube)

noodles (pre-cooked or cooked as per instructions)

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1-2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes

chopped coriander

Salad, prawn crackers and sweet chilli sauce to serve

Put the mince, soy sauce, garam masala, salt, pepper and flour into a bowl and mix together.  My flour looks a little pink in this picture as I keep a tub of plain flour seasoned with salt, pepper and smoked paprika to use in recipes or to coat lovely things like haloumi before frying.  Just scrunch it all together and then leave for a few minutes.

Dice the celery sticks and chop the garlic, ready to use, and in a small dish mix together the vinegar and chilli flakes.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the mince, stirring whilst cooking until browned.

Add the celery, garlic and stock and simmer for 15-20 minutes

Add the noodles for the last few minutes of cooking time to heat right through. I used the pre-cooked ‘straight to wok’ type but some wide rice noodles would work really well and be a little lighter.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vinegar/chillies mixture.

Turn out onto a platter or serving dish and scatter with chopped coriander, and serve with the salad, prawn crackers and sweet chilli sauce.

Have you tried this? Let me know what you think or any suggestions in the comments box.

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Yam moo grop - crispy pork belly salad

Moo grop is the delicious pork belly that can then be used in so many dishes (if you can manage not to just eat it hot and freshly cooked, that is) … and I’m going to have to work on cooking that properly as today I used strips of pork belly and really over-cooked them.

They still tasted good though in this spicy salad that we had with rice. I know that for a fact as we dived in and started eating and completely forgot to take any pics!

So you’ll have to trust me on this one, that these pork belly strips, when over-cooked were still good … (no I’m not posting a pic of them when cooked!). I rubbed salt into the scored rind, and massaged in a little soy sauce, Chinese five-spice and a tiny drop of olive oil.

And that those bits of rice and carrots looked totally different and much prettier at the start of dinner than they do at the end.

Anyway, if you can cook some pork belly with lovely soft meat, and crispy skin, and then cut it into cubes (and not just eat them there and then) … do try putting them into this salad.

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I've made it again! 

This time I cooked the pork belly much better ... 

into the remoska - but you could put them in the oven covered with foil

oh my goodness, delicious

Yes, I did remove most of the fat ...

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If you’re serving with rice,  then cook the rice first so it’s all ready to go when you’ve assembled the salad.

For two people, I used:

approx 400g crispy pork (2 slices pork belly each)

1 pretty huge carrot, or of course use two normal sized

Half a white onion

2 tomatoes

2 sticks of celery

3 spring onions

And for the dressing:

4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1.5 teaspoons sugar (I only had granulated but caster would be better if you have it)

2-3 birds eye chillies depending on how spicy you want it!

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Shred the carrot, finely slice the onion, and slice the tomatoes, celery and spring onion …

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Here's the salad the second time I made this ... and the dressing ...

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In a bowl mix the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar until the sugar dissolves and then add the chillies.

Add most (or as much as you like) of the dressing to the salad and with clean hands toss it all together to properly combine.

Serve in a big pile on a plate with perhaps some coriander if you have any and if liked to garnish, and with rice, and with the remaining dressing in a bowl in case people want more.

Next time I make this, I’ll make sure to get a picture.

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I did! And here it is ...

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