More Amazing Salads

I have always been looking for a good salad recipe to use up left over chicken. This Thai Chicken, Coconut and Coriander Salad with Crispy Shallots is the best one I have found yet. If you don’t have any left over chicken, poach the chicken in the dressing as in the recipe., Coconut and Coriander Salad with Crispy Shallots

Thai Chicken, Coconut and Coriander Salad
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
Fresh or frozen lime leaves
2 Thai birds eye chillis, lightly bashed
Small bunch coriander
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar, or brown sugar
2 chicken breasts, trimmed
40g toasted coconut chips (try Ocado)
½ a cucumber
3 carrots, peeled
1 red pepper, cut into very thin rings
1 lime
3 shallots, peeled
Sunflower oil
Sea salt

Place the coconut milk, fish sauce, the stalks of the coriander (saving the leaves for the salad), the chillis, the sugar, a teaspoon of salt and the lime leaves in a saucepan. Add the chicken breast and bring to the boil. Gently simmer to poach the chicken for 12–15 minutes or until cooked through. Remove chicken from the pan and rest. Turn up the heat on coconut milk and reduce until a few tablespoons remain. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Strain and add the juice of the lime. Taste and adjust seasoning. It should be fragrant, spicy, sour and sweet.

Meanwhile, shave the cucumber and carrots, leaving just the cores, with a peeler. Put in a large bowl with the coconut chips, the red pepper and coriander leaves. When cool enough to handle, shred the chicken.

Slice the shallots as thinly as possible. You can use a mandolin or food processor. Place in a small saucepan and just cover with oil. Over a high heat, stir the shallots frequently until they are golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen paper. Spread out thinly and allow to cook. Lightly season with salt and fluff up so that the shallots go crispy.

Celery Salad with Dates, Almonds, and Parmesan

When you get to my age and you have been cooking as long as I have, it is really hard to find recipes that are fresh, exciting or different but this simple celery salad is really exciting. I’m not even that keen on fruit or nuts in savoury dishes but the celery, lemon and the chilli really balance out the sweetness. It made a very tasty lunch!

Celery Salad with Dates, Almonds, and Parmesan
Serves 2
½ cup/large handful raw almonds with skins8 celery stalks, thinly sliced on a diagonal, use leaves too
6 dates, pitted, coarsely chopped
Zest of one lemon plus 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Chunk of Parmesan, shaved
4 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Very small pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Toss almonds, celery, celery leaves, lemon zest and dates in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil together well. Add a small pinch of chilli flakes and mix through the salad. Serve with shavings of parmesan.Add the chicken to the bowl with the vegetables and then dress with the dressing (you may not need all of it.) Pile onto plates and top with the crispy shallots.

Warm Salad of Avocado, Baby Spinach and Bacon, Poached Egg

Salad Tiede was all the rage about 10 years ago. Literally translated as “warm salad” it is one of those culinary terms which just sound so much more exciting in French than it does in English. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to taste exciting. Super quick and simple it relies on really great ingredients to transform it into something really special, so use the best bacon, avocados and eggs that you can find.

Warm Salad of Avocado, Baby Spinach and Bacon, Poached Egg
Serves 2
8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, cut into lardons
2 organic, free-range eggs
Large handful or two of baby spinach leaves
2 ripe avocadoes, cut into large chunks
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Splash white wine vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Put a small pan of water onto boil. Fry the bacon in a little olive oil until really golden and crispy in a heavy bottomed frying pan. Remove the pan from the heat from the heat. Put the spinach leaves into a large bowl with the avocado chunks. Add the red wine vinegar to the pan with the bacon and allow to bubble away. Add a dash of white wine vinegar to the pan of boiling water, turn down the heat and carefully crack in the eggs. Poach until the whites have totally cooked but the yolks are still runny. Remove with a slotted spoon onto some kitchen paper to drain. Stir the mustard into the pan with the bacon. I should have cooled a bit by now. You want the mustard to amalgamate with the bacon fat and the vinegar, not cook. Season and pour the bacon and dressing over the spinach and avocado. Toss well and tip into bowls. Top with the eggs and a good grind of black pepper. Serve straight away.

Under the Weather

As I said, I have been really ill. I had a serious bronchial, chesty cough and felt really under the weather. I really do believe that you crave what is good for you. Along with my desperate craving for chocolate, I had a yearning for Thai Spicy Sweet Potato Soup.

I know that it is fairly obvious to long for something hot and warming when are ill and we all know that chillies are great for colds. They are known to act as a decongestant, expectorant and pain reliever all at once. But I think it was the Galangal or Ginger, in my homemade red curry paste, along with the mix of fresh and vibrant other herbs and spices, that I was really craving. I could not believe it when I looked up its health benefits, and along with many other great things, Galangal and Ginger are proven to reduce respiratory problems. They are a natural expectorant, are effective in removing mucus from the throat and lungs and combating various respiratory problems such as colds, coughs, flu, bronchitis, asthma, and shortness of breath.



As for sweet potatoes – super high in vitamins C and A as well as B6, magnesium and potassium they also are packed with anti-oxidants and act as a powerful anti-inflammatory.
So once again, I have effectively self-medicated myself,  with nothing more than a delicious bowl of soup.



Spicy Thai Red Curry Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup This red curry paste is really delicious and you will probably have quite a bit left over. If you love fresh coriander like I do, it may not be so much red, as green. The paste will keep in the fridge for about a week, or freeze it in an ice cube tray and use it as you need.
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
2 medium onions, peeled and roughly chopped
750g (2 medium sized) sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped

Red Curry paste
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
4 red birds eye chillies, roughly chopped
2 sticks lemon grass, roughly chopped
6 fresh Kaffir lime leaves, roughly chopped
Large chunk of galangal (or ginger), peeled and roughly chopped
4 garlic clove, peeled
1 tsp. salt
Small bunch fresh coriander, roughly chopped
2 tbsp. Naam Pla (fish sauce)
1 small can 400ml coconut cream
1 tbsp. coconut oil
1 lime

Heat the coconut oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion and cook gently for 5-10 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the sweet potatoes and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile put all the ingredients for the red curry paste in a beaker and blend with a hand blender until smooth. Add a little coconut water from the tin of coconut milk to help achieve a smooth paste consistency. Add a large tablespoon of the curry paste to your saucepan and fry for a few minutes. Just cover the sweet potatoes with water and add a large teaspoon of salt. Simmer for about 30 minutes until the sweet potato is completely soft. Remove from the heat and whiz up the soup with the hand-blender. Check seasoning and add more curry paste if required and cook for a minute more.  Add the coconut milk and re-heat. Do not re-boil as it will kill the taste of the coconut milk. Add a squeeze of lime if you like.

A Christmas Curry

I seem to have overindulged on Christmas Cooking Specials this year.  Thankfully, I have always managed to miss them before, too busy dealing with the kids and Christmas and cooking, I suppose.  Yesterday, however I watched what seemed like several hours of Jamie cooking his Christmas eve, day and boxing meals.  And then tonight I somehow managed to watch another three, almost in a row.  Starting with Nigella, moving on the Nigel Slater and finishing with Kirsty.  I think I have seen enough Christmas cooking to put me off the meal for the rest of the year and there is still two days to go the actual event.  


I do find all these programs strangely addictive but Jamie just seems a bit too spoilt now, in his vast mansion in Essex, surrounded by stunning countryside and his beautiful walled garden and a kitchen twice the size of mine, in lean-to in one of his many out-houses.  I know it is not the season to feel jealous, but I do!  In fact, as the program drew to an end and he was cooking up something in one of his many  greenhouses, scattered around his estate, for the first time ever I simply couldn't take any more, turned it off and went to bed.  


As for Nigella, I have missed most of her previous programs so I can't be sure but I got a feeling that she has been re-housed.  I'm sure her previous set could have passed for a stunning town house in Belgravia but she seems to have down-marketed, to a still very large terraced house in possibly Kilburn.  I don't know who lives there, but I am sure she certainly doesn't.   I wondered whether this was a recognition from BBC 2, that endlessly watching programs about super-rich "chefs" is just getting a bit sickening.  


Of course that is the trouble with these lifestyle cookery programs.  We buy into the whole perfect dream and believe that if we make Nigella's Chilli Jam, our lives will somehow be transformed into her perfect one; that we too will be cabbing round the West End, looking beautiful and drinking Expresso in Italian coffee shops, after a late boozy night out at yet another glamorous party, before effortlessly entertaining for some influential and impotant friends at home, instead of the reality which is being stuck at home, watching T.V.


As for Nigel Slater, I can't believe, in this day and age that the BBC can't be a little more honest about his lifestyle.  Why are there these awful shots of, clearly, someone else's family inserted into the program every fiveteen minutes.  Can't you have Christmas if you are gay.  Are you not allowed to celebrate if you don't have a wife and kids.


Anyway, as I said, I now feel so inundated by this Christmas cooking overkill that I decided to make something a bit different.  A Christmas curry.  This is not as mad as it may seem.  With it's blend of delicious spices; ginger, cardamom, clove, cinnamon, chilli and bay, it really is as seasonal as mulled wine.  It is infact a classic Massaman Thai curry and very delicious.  

Massaman Curry
This recipe comes for Rick Steins Far Eastern Odyssey which I have adapted for the slow-cooker but can just as easily be made in a casserole.

1.5kg blade or chuck steak (cut into 5cm chunks)

2 tins coconut milk

2 cinnamon sticks

300g waxy new potatoes (such as Charlotte)

8 shallots

1 quantity Thai massaman curry paste

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp Tamarind

1 tbsp palm sugar

75g roasted peanuts

Handful of Thai sweet basil leaves (optional)

Cut the potatoes into even size chunks. Peel the shallots.  Leave them whole, if they are not too large. Fry the beef  in a frying pan in small batches in vegetable oil, until brown on all sides. Drain of excess oil and tip into the slow cooker.  Add the shallots and potatoes to the slow-cooker. Pour off any excess oil from the frying pan add the curry paste and briefly fry.  Add the coconut milk and bring to the boil. As soon as it is boiling, remove and pour over the meat in the slow-cooker. Add the Tamarind, palm sugar, fish sauce and cinnamon sticks.  Cover and cook for 10 hours on slow or 6 hours on high. If you do not have a slow-cooker, cook slowly on the stove top.  Make sure you have a heavy bottomed saucepan and that you check often to make sure that it does not catch.  When meltingly tender, stir in the peanuts, scatter over the basil if using and serve.

Massaman curry paste
15 dried red chillies
1 tbsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tbsp cumin seeds, ground
1 stick cinnamon, ground
1 tbsp cardamom seeds
3 cloves, ground
5 peppercorns, ground
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
2 tbsp Tamarind
1 heaped tsp shrimp paste
1 - 2 sticks lemongrass, chopped
1 large knob of ginger, chopped
1 tbsp fish sauce

Soak the chillies in water for 10 minutes and then de- seed.  Dry-fry the dry spices in a wok to release the flavours and then grind to a powder in a coffee grinder. Add all the other ingredients and grind or blitz to a fine paste with a hand blender.
Store in the refrigerator for up to 2-3 months.

Sweet Heat is being hosted by Lemon Clouds and Lemon Drops this month with a Christmas Theme.  I thought this spicy Christmas curry was worth an entry.

A hint of Halloween

Please, don't anybody else mention Halloween.  My kids have not shut-up about it since we got back from holiday - in July.  As the next major event on their social diary's and being one that offers all pluses and no minus's, Halloween scores highly.  The combination of dressing up, staying up late and eating vast amounts of sweets is pretty much even more exciting than Christmas.  And the shops this year seem to be even more heaving with Halloween tat and gore than ever.

My son Daniel's birthday is on 28th October, so it is only natural I suppose that he should choose a Halloween themed party.  He has also demanded not one but six carved pumpkins.  Obviously, Pumpkins and Squashes are at their best right now, having spent the whole summer soaking up as much sunshine as they possibly can, now they seem to reflect the sun with their deep orange hue. Their flavour is quite bland so they lend themselves beautifully to aromatic Thai flavours.  

My recipe for Thai green curry with Butternut Squash is the perfect dish to serve up for the adults after a hard evening "trick or treating."  The kids usually feel too sick to eat anything, having stuffed themselves on sweets!  Butternut Squash works best in this recipe as it has a firmer texture than pumpkin.  Home-made green curry paste is really easy to make and so much better that anything you will ever buy ready-made in the shops. It is well worth the effort.

There are some great Thai shops in London.  I often pop in to stock up on coconut milk, Tamarind, thick wide Thai rice noodles, Nam Pla (fish sauce), palm sugar, dried shitake mushrooms, sweet chilli sauce and shrimp paste. All of these ingredients keep really well so it is well worth the trip. Even the lime leaves and Galangal freeze well.  I love to loose myself in these shops.  They usually have a lovely array of fresh produce - baskets of limes, bunches of coriander, lemon grass, shallots, ginger, Pak Choi, Bok Choi and beautiful pea aubergines. Also look out for sweet, Thai or Holy basil which tastes really fresh, like a cross between normal basil and mint. It really gives an authentic Thai taste to your food especially in a green curry.  It is like a short holiday to Thailand.  Anything to get away from Halloween.

Thai green curry with Butternut Squash

You can add all sorts of vegetables to this curry such as bean sprouts, sugar snap peas, broccoli, mange tout and mushrooms.

Serves 4

1 large butternut squash
2 shallots (pealed)
3 cloves garlic (pealed)
1 large piece of fresh ginger (pealed)                                                                    
2 sticks lemon grass sliced thinly
5 lime leaves
2 fresh green chillis (seeds removed)
1 large bunch coarsely chopped coriander leaves and stems
1 small bunch of Thai Basil
Vegetable oil
1/2 pint vegetable or chicken stock
1 can (14 ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
Nam Pla (fish sauce)

Trim off the stem and blossom end of the squash.   Halve lengthwise and scoop out and discard the seeds and fibres. Remove the peel and cut into large chunks about 1 inch pieces.  Toss lightly in vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Roast in a medium oven until golden brown and soft, about half an hour.  Do not over-cook.  You want the chunks to retain their shape.

Now make the green curry paste. In a liquidiser or with a hand blender, puree the shallots, garlic, ginger, chillis, lemon grass the lime leaves and most of the coriander.  Whiz until really smooth.  Add a little water if necessary.  You should have a bright green paste.

Lightly fry the paste in a wok or large pan for a minute or two in a little oil to release flavours.  Add the stock and bring to a gentle boil.  Add the chunks of cooked squash and any other lightly cooked vegetables and then coconut milk.  At this stage try not to boil again as this will kill the flavour of the coconut.  Remove from heat and season with first Nam Pla (which is very salty), further salt if necessary, freshly squeezed lime juice and the remaining coriander.  Adjust seasoning.  It should be a fragrant combination of sweet, sour and spicy.  Serve with Thai rice or noodles.

Tom Kha Gai and Pad Thai

It is cold and gloomy outside and I really need warming up inside and my spirits lifting. To me, no food in the world does that for me quite like Thai food. The combination of sweet, sour, fragrant and spicy is like nothing else. I have in mind a Tom Kha Gai (Thai coconut soup with lemon grass) for lunch and a Pad Thai for dinner. I have at least three Thai shops in my near vicinity and there really are loads scattered all London, so there is no excuse. I popped down to Amaranth in Garratt Lane in EarIsfield, which is a tiny shop but very well stocked. I bought coconut milk, Tamarind paste, thick wide Thai rice noodles, Nam Pla (fish sauce), palm sugar, dried shitake mushrooms, sweet chilli sauce and shrimp paste. All of these ingredients keep
really well so it is well worth the trip. Even the lime leaves and galangal freeze well. 

They also have a lovely array of fresh produce - baskets of limes, bunches of coriander, lovely little baby spring onions which I hadn't seen before, bamboo shoots, lemon grass, shallots, ginger, Pak Choi, Bok Choi and beautiful pea aubergines which are delicious in a green Thai curry. Also look out for sweet basil which tastes really fresh, like a cross between normal basil and mint. It really gives an authentic Thai taste to your food. This Pad Thai recipe really works , is really easy and is so much better than you will find in most Thai restaurants.

Pad Thai

8 oz. Thai rice noodles either thick or medium width
4 oz raw chicken breast or thigh meat, sliced
6 oz large raw prawns. Please use ONLY Atlantic prawns. It is probably best to avoid any prawns from South-East Asia. If they are frozen, de-frost first and dry well with kitchen paper.

Marinade for chicken
1 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in 3 tbsp. soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
1-2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 large handful of fresh coriander, chopped
4 oz crushed or roughly chopped peanuts (not salted)
vegetable oil for stir-frying, and wedges of lime

Pad Thai Sauce
2 tbsp. tamarind paste dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
4 tbsp. fish sauce, + more to taste
1-3 tsp. flaked dried chilli
3 tbsp. palm sugar

Bring a large pot of pot to a boil and remove from heat. Dunk in your rice noodles. Allow noodles to soak while you prepare the other ingredients. You will be frying the noodles later, so you don't want to over-soften them now. Noodles are ready to be drained when they are soft enough to be eaten, but are still firm and a little crunchy. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

Place chicken slices in a small bowl. Pour over the marinade. Stir well and set aside. Make the Pad Thai Sauce by combining the sauce ingredients together in a cup. Stir well to dissolve the tamarind paste and brown sugar. Set aside. This may seem like a lot of sugar, but you need it to balance out the sourness of the tamarind - this balance is what makes Pad Thai taste so amazing.

Warm up a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1-2 tbsp. oil and fry the prawns until golden brown on both sides. Remove and set aside. Add garlic and chilli. Stir-fry until fragrant (30 seconds). Add chicken together with the marinade. Stir-fry until chicken is just cooked. Add a little water if necessary to make sure chicken is cooked. When wok becomes dry, add the noodles, and pour the Pad Thai sauce over. Using tongs, stir-fry the noodles. Use a gentle "lift and turn" method (like tossing a salad) to prevent noodles from breaking. Stir-fry in this way 1-2 minutes. Add the bean sprouts and put the prawns back in. Continue tossing 1 more minute, or until noodles are cooked. Noodles are done to perfection when they are no longer hard or crunchy, but chewy and sticky. 

Taste-test for seasoning, adding more fish sauce until desired flavour is reached (I usually add at least 1 more tbsp. fish sauce). Toss well to incorporate.
Lift noodles onto a serving plate. Top with generous amounts of fresh chopped coriander, spring onion, and chopped nuts. Serve with fresh lime wedges.

(Tom Kha Gai) Thai Soup with Coconut and LemongrassPlease use ONLY Atlantic prawns. It is probably best to avoid any prawns from South-East Asia. If they are frozen, de-frost first and dry well with kitchen paper. 

6 oz raw prawns pealed, de-veined, tails on if possible. 
2 sticks lemongrass
4 kaffir limes leaves (fresh or frozen)
1 large handful fresh coriander leaves finely chopped
1 small handful fresh Thai basil leaves
2 oz dried shiitake mushrooms
3 spring onions, finely sliced
1 thumb-size piece galangal
1-2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped
1 can good-quality coconut milk
1 - 2 limes squeezed
2 tbsp fish sauce ( Nam Pla)

With a hand blender make a paste of the lemongrass, lime leaves, galangal, chillis, the Thai basil and most of the coriander. If necessary add a little water to make a smooth paste.

Heat a wok or frying pan until very hot. Add a little oil and fry the prawns until golden brown. Add the lemongrass and coriander paste and fry for a few minutes. Add the chicken broth and the mushrooms and spring onions and cook for a few minutes. Finally add the coconut milk, the fish sauce and fresh lime juice to taste. Remove from the heat. Try not to cook after you have added the lime and coconut milk as it alters the fresh taste. Look for a balance between spicy, sour, salty, and sweet flavours. Start with salty, adding more fish sauce if not salty or flavourful enough. If too sour, add a little palm sugar, If not spicy enough, add more chilli. Ladle soup into serving bowls. Sprinkle with a little fresh coriander.

If adding noodles, I find it's best to cook them separately and rinse well before adding to the soup, otherwise the soup becomes starchy.