Posted by Jimbob on June 5th, 2008
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A Firm Favourite Amongst Friends; Malaysian Curry

Star Anise

Ok, so it may be time to quieten down on the Thai curry off-shoot reportoire as I am beginning to feel that I may be overdoing it slightly…. however, my Wife introduced me to this and I have to say, if you are after a receipe that is fresh, but with a little fire in it’s belly, then this may be the answer for you.

It takes the red curry base (well, most of it, there is a subtle difference!) and adds another dimension and provides a really great alternative from a neighbouring nation. Please see my previous article regarding red curry for the base recipe.

The base is similar to the red curry, however, rather than galangal, just add the same quantity of ginger as a substitute and, do not add any coriander root or seeds, black peppercorns or cumin seeds. Also, add a teaspoon of tumeric, which will give it great orange/yellow colour once it is all blitzed together. For the best tasting curry, I have found that doubling the amount of paste from my previous post gives more flavour and adds a little more heat. As with any curry, increase or reduce the number of chillies to suit your own taste/tollerance or guests taste/tollerance. It’s amazing how quickly you can build up your tollerance to chilli heat and I have fallen foul in the past of making paste that I thought was fairly tame, only to see steam pouring from friends’ ears and their faces turn a shocking state of red, whilst politely asking for a drink or two…!

For the rest of the ingredients, use the following:

  • Chicken thighs (skinned and boned, quantity to your choosing, I used about 1/2 kg) cut into bite-sized peices
  • A couple of good-sized onions
  • 3 or 4 kaffir lime leaves (you can either get these fresh from your local supplier or, dried from most supermarkets)
  • 1 Cinnamon stick
  • 2 or 3 star anise
  • 1 Can of coconut milk
  • 100 to 200ml of chicken stock
  • 1 Tablespoon of palm sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons of light soy sauce
  • 2 Tablespoons of fish sauce (don’t use any more as it can turn the sauce too salty)
  • Green beans

And the fun bit….

  • Make up the curry paste, in a similar vein to the red curry paste.
  • Heat some oil in a pan and add the curry paste until it becomes fragrant
  • Add the onion until it softens
  • Add the chicken and cook until browned
  • Add the coconut milk, chicken stock, palm sugar, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, soy sauce, cinnamon and star anise and simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on how much stock you have added). I have found that the longer you leave this, the better it tastes, however, don’t over-do it otherwise you will end up with dry, stringy chicken….
  • Season to your taste and add the green beans for a few minutes – they add a great crunch to the dish
  • Serve!

I hope you enjoy this as much as we do; it’s a firm favourite with our friends and family :-)

Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on May 21st, 2008
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Top Notch Sweet ‘n’ Sour

SweetnsourThere is nothing quite like ordering a take-away sweet and sour; the aroma that hits you when you open up that little tub of sauce, the ritual of pouring it over the chicken or pork balls and mixing it with fried rice….or so I thought until I learnt this little beauty whilst in Thailand. Personally, I haven’t eaten a take away S ‘n’ S since and swear by this recipe – I guarantee that the fragrant flavours that emanate from this when you serve it up will distill any take-away cravings you may have otherwise experienced.

Sweet ‘n’ sour is, by nature of it’s title, a combination of flavours that leaves your palet semi-confused with each mouthful, yet somehow they combine perfectly to perform a merry dance across the taste buds; just fantastic!

The problem with most traditional take away sweet ‘n’ sours is that the sauce seems somewhat radioactive in colour and ever-so slightly plastic in flavour. This recipe provides the ability to create a really fresh combination of flavours, whilst not compromising on aesthetics or aroma and, from start to finish, takes a mere 15 minutes or so to cook. I cooked this for my daughter and she ate every last mouthful, which in my eyes is a great testimony to the recipe – a big thank you to the cooking school in Thailand from which I was fortunate enough to learn this from.

Ok, the ingredients are as follows and as with every other recipe, feel free to ad-lib:

  • 1/2 Onion, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • Several tomatoes (nothing scientific here, as many or few as you wish), cut into bit-sized pieces
  • Several bite-sized pieces of pineapple (again, down to personal taste)
  • 1 Pepper (red, green, yellow or orange) cut into bite-sized pieces
  • Chicken – usually I use 2 or 3 thighs, de-boned and cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 Tablespoon of chopped garlic
  • 1 or 2 Spring onions sliced into approx. 1 inch pieces

Make the following sauce in a seperate bowl:

  • 1 Tablespoon of fish sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon of sugar (palm or brown)
  • 2 Tablespoons of tomato sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon of lime juice
  • 1 Tablespoon of soy sauce

If you wish, you can spice up the sauce and add an extra dimension to the dish a little by adding chopped, dried chilli – I tend to include 2 or 3.

And on to the cooking:

  1. Heat up your wok with a little oil and fry the garlic until it turns yellow
  2. Add the chicken and stir-fry until cooked
  3. Add the onion and pepper and stir-fry for about 30 seconds or so
  4. Add the sauce and stir in
  5. Add the pineapple and tomato and stir in
  6. Add the spring onion and stir in
  7. Turn off the heat and sprinkle in some freshly ground black pepper

Serve imediately with either steamed basmati rice or medium noodles and enjoy!

Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on May 14th, 2008
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BBQ Season – Quick ‘n’ Easy Bruschetta

bruschettaBruschettaThe nights are becoming lighter, the temperature is rising, the sun is beginning to show it’s face more and more, that can mean only one thing…..summer is on the way and it’s time to roll out the BBQ!

Every year, our trusted BBQ becomes my kitchen for the spring and summer. From straight forward, simple fish; mackerel, scallops, sea bass, river cobbler, tuna, bream or good old-fashioned meat; pork chops, steak, sausages, ribs, home-made burgers or chicken, whatever the ingredient, nothing in the culinary world gives me greater pleasure than chilling in the garden with a beer or glass of wine in my hand, cooking over the heat and aroma of charcoal. Whether cooking for just my wife and I, family or friends, I truly think this is one of the most sociable and enjoyable rituals of the summer months. What always makes me laugh is that every time we spark up the barbie, it’s always the males of the party that congregate around the embers….I suppose it’s a simple equation really; meat+flames+beer/wine+laughs=happy blokes!

Anyway, I’m rambling now so I’ll move on to the main course; this simple and straightforward recipe is a great compliment to any BBQ feast and is really straightforward to prepare and cook. Our greenhouse is now laden with fresh, home-grown fruit and vegetables and it’s time to take this fantastic array of produce and put it to good use. In and around the greenhouse, we’ve managed to grow (goodness knows how though, I can only put this down to beginners luck!) courgettes, spring onions, strawberries, pak choi, lettuce, rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil and amongst others, tomatoes….and an abundance of them!

So, simple, quick ‘n’ easy bruschetta; I take a couple of hand-fulls of cherry tomatoes (you can use any type, but these happened to be ripe and crying out to be eaten) and chop them in half. Place these in to a baking tray with some chopped garlic, pine nuts, drizzle with olive oil and tip in a good splash of balsamic vinegar. Place these in the oven at approximatelyBruschetta 180 degrees and cook for about 10 minutes. Once cooked, garnish with some ripped basil leaves and spoon over the top of  some sliced, toasted/grilled fresh french stick (baguette)…..oh yes!

Enjoy!

Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on April 18th, 2008
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Monkfish with Sun-Dried Tomato and Parma Ham

MonkfishHow can such an ugly fish taste so wonderful?!

Having purchased a rather large piece of monkfish for the Tom Yam soup in my previous post, we were left with  a fair portion sat awaiting some imagination and thought to compliment this wonderful ingredient. It’s funny to think that some 15-20 years ago, monkfish was only ever deemed good enough to use for scampi….oh how times of changed! Because this is now an expensive fish (the vast majority of the fish is waste and only the tail ends up being sold), it deserves some care and attention when cooking – this is not something that I cook with very often, so generally on special occasions and on this occasion, my wife passed an exam and I was extremely proud of her. She has invested a tremendous amount of time and effort in the lead up to this exam, whilst trying to juggle a full-time job and being  wonderful mother to our daughter, so hats off!

This lead me to think of what I could do with the monkfish; I remembered that way back when we first met, I attempted to win my wife over with a bit of cooking and whipped up some chicken breast, stuffed with garlic and mozzarella, wrapped in parma ham, served with roast potatoes and caramelized sugar snap peas. I remember that she was suitably impressed and decided to play on that dish slightly – if it worked before, the odds certainly appeared to be stacked in my favour ;-) .

I took some sun-dried tomato paste (or just use sun-dried tomatoes), which is pretty rich in flavour but compliments the fish extraordinarily well and, blitzed this up in a blender for a few seconds. I then laid out several pieces of parma ham (enough to wrap a portion of monkfish completely) and smeared them with the blitzed paste.

Wrap the monkfish in the paste-covered parma ham and cook in the oven at about 180 degrees for about 15 or so minutes.

Serve with vegetables – I opted for potato wedges drizzled with olive oil and parsley, baked in the oven for 30 minutes.

Because it was a bit of a celebration, we ate this with a bottle of Rose Sancerre (my wife’s favourite), which complimented the dish fantastically!

Quick, easy and great in flavour, enjoy!

Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on April 16th, 2008
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Thai Tom Yam Soup with Monkfish

tomyamThis is one of the most refreshing soups I have had the pleasure of tasting – it is absolutely fantastic and bursting with flavour and incredibly easy to make. What is really great about this is that it takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 5-or-so to cook, so is ideal for a quick meal during a busy week and is full of fresh ingredients, so very good for you to boot.

I chose to make this soup using meaty fish, which won’t flake during cooking and opted for Monkfish; you can use any other derivative, chicken or even tofu if you fancy it, although I haven’t tried this yet.

Ok, so here’s the ingredients and as with any recipe, these are just suggestions so feel free to use your gastronomic-artistic license to experiment!

  • Monkfish (amount of which depends on how much you wish to eat, or spend!)
  • 1 Onion, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 Large tomato, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • Approx. 30g of mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces*
  • 1 Tablespoon of galangal, thinly sliced
  • 1 Tablespoon of lemon grass, thinly sliced
  • 2 Kaffir lime leaves, rolled and cut into small slices
  • 2 Spring onions, sliced into approx. 1 inch pieces
  • Fish or chicken stock (you can get good quality, pre-made in the shops, approx. 400-500ml)

*For authenticity, I purchased some Thai mushrooms which look like ears(!) from the local Thai supermarket. Ok, so they don’t look the most appertising, but they do taste good

Place the following in to a bowl and stir to make a sauce:

  • 2 Tablespoons of lime juice
  • 2 Tablespoons of fish sauce
  • Between 1 and 15 dried chillies cut into small pieces (depending on how hot you like it, I use about 4 or 5 and it’s hot!)
  • 1/2 Tablespoon of sugar (palm or brown)

Ok, th fun bit:

  1. Place the stock into a pan with the lemongrass and galangal and boil for a couple of minutes – this will start and infuse the stock with those fresh flavours
  2. Add the monkfish and this will start to cook pretty quickly
  3. Once the monkfish has changed colour, add the onion and mushrooms and cook until bubbles start to appear in the middle of the pan – do not stir at this stage as you will lengthen the time prior to boiling and leave the vegetables over-cooked
  4. Now add the sauce you prepared earlier
  5. Now add the tomato
  6. Turn off the heat, add the kaffir lime leaves, spring onion and serve immediately
  7. Enjoy!
Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on April 6th, 2008
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How many people does it take to move a greenhouse…?

When friends of ours called to say they have moved in to their new home, they mentioned a greenhouse in the garden which they did not wish to keep. “How much do you want for it?”, I asked, “absolutely nothing” came the reply, “just pick it up and free up the space”…..

Armed with a few tools and my rather small car, some may say that perhaps I had underestimated the task slightly…..at 8 foot by 6 foot, it would need to be completely dismantled, without any instructions! I realised that this would not be achieved in a single day and so drew a plan of the greenhouse and then marked each pane of glass and part of the structure with masking tape and a number or letter. “Genius”, I thought, as this would make life an awful lot easier when putting it back together at home. Once I’d finished this exercise, I returned home feeling quite proud of myself, promising to return the following week to complete the move.

What I did not bank on was the weather changing for the worse over the week and the vast majority of the ink on the ‘labels’ I’d painstakingly stuck on, being washed off…. In addition to this, I’d lost the plan I had drawn the previous week!

After much effort, probably too many expletives and a few cuts here and there, we’d amazingly managed to take it apart and shift it back to ours – incredibly, we achieved this without smashing a single pane of glass. Reassembling the structure was not as difficult as it could have been (although I recall that was not perhaps the thoughts going through my head at the time) and we now have our own little sun trap in which to grow our own fruit and vegetables, which did not cost us a penny (and after a bit of research, I worked out that it is about £800’s worth!). I have tried to insulate the floor of the greenhouse by laying down polystyrene (the type you get in packaging of ‘white goods’) and then hardboard on top of that, which should ensure that warm air is retained for longer periods.

Fingers crossed we’ll have our own living larder in the not-too-distant future!

Categories: Life
Posted by Jimbob on March 30th, 2008
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Expanding the Thai Red Curry Repertoire

Having spent some time practising and trying to perfect the Thai red curry over the past few weeks, I’ve decided to branch out and extend this base recipe to continue winning the great feedback received from friends and family. This might sound like I’m vying for praise(!), but there is nothing better than seeing people enjoying the food you’re prepared and cooked for them!

So, taking the base recipe for red curry paste, you can now amend this to produce variants, my favourite of which has to be phanang:

Thai Yellow Curry
Take 2 tablespoons of red curry paste, add 2 teaspoons of curry powder and follow the cooking instructions for the Thai red curry in my previous post.

Tumeric Curry
Take 2 tablespoons of red curry paste, add 2 teaspoons of tumeric and follow the cooking instructions for the Thai Red Curry on my previous post.

Phanang Curry
Take 2 tablespoons of red curry paste, add 5 tablespoons of roasted, crushed peanuts and follow the cooking instructions for the Thai red curry on my previous post (although use just ½ cup of coconut milk). When I cooked this in Thailand, the chef told me that you don’t normally use vegetables with this, however, if you want to then just increase the volume of coconut milk to ¾ of a cup.

So, a few additions to the household menu for the weeks to come, enjoy!

Categories: Recipes
Posted by Jimbob on March 17th, 2008
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Wok Care

wokHaving purchased a new wok this weekend and been all excited about putting it to good use this evening, my wife reminded me that what we had been told in Thailand about taking a little time to prep the wok prior to use. Apparently, this ensures you do not have to use as much oil in future cooking, so it’s healthy too!

The process explained to us was to clean and dry the wok after purchasing, then rub the outside and inside with vegetable oil. Place the wok in an oven and heat it up to about 350 degrees and leave it for approximately 2 hours. The turn off the oven and leave until it cools down.

Now get cooking…!

Categories: Tips
Posted by Jimbob on March 11th, 2008
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Local Produce

MarketHaving decided as a family to minimise our food spend at major supermarket chains (and completely stopped using 1 in particular), we now invest a little more time in visiting local businesses to source our produce.

One of the most satisfying things to do is to purchase locally produced food and this way you get the freshest ingredients for your kitchen and also get to support local businesses.

In addition to this, these same businesses will employ local staff so you are also assisting the local economy, so everybody wins!

We also visit a bi-monthly farmer’s market held in the local town, which not only has a fantastic array of locally sourced/grown produce, but is also introducing our daughter to the provenance of what she eats. The prices are generally very good for vegetables and you will pay a little more for meat, however the quality and taste is fantastic. They are all local suppliers and with several of them in one place, you generally get to benefit from healthy competition and get to sample a lot of food!

Categories: Tips
Posted by Jimbob on March 8th, 2008
3 Comments

Where can I get authentic ingredients…?

chilliUpon returning from Thailand, abundant with enthusiasm for my new-found repertoire, I was faced with the prospect of sourcing the types of ingredients I’d sampled whilst away. Palm sugar, Holy Basil, Coriander root, Eggplant, Kaffir Lime, Galangal, even simple things like dried red chillies. Having visited the local, big-named supermarket, I soon realised that although you can pick up ingredients such as dried galangal, it’s just not going to have the same flavour impact as fresh produce and is not particularly on the cheap side.

After a little research, I stumbled across a local Thai shop which imports fresh produce, stocks an abundance of dried herbs, spices and chillies, complete with an array of sauces and BIG bags of rice – all this and it is considerably more affordable than the big-chain, supermarket alternatives. There is, of course, the big question of the environmental impact of shipping in these items, however, I strive to live a lifestyle which minimises my carbon footprint wherever possible, so this occasional indulgence does not plague me with guilt.

If you really want to recreate the authentic flavours, then I would highly recommend taking a little time to research where your local alternative shops are; you will not be disappointed and you will be supporting local businesses!

Categories: Tips
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