Fried rice, Thai style

I'm a big fan of fried rice. It's a reliably tasty, if unadventurous, dish to fall back on at pretty much any food outlet across South East Asia.

Crab fried rice is also on the lunch menu at Nahm and, in one or other form, it's often knocked up as an after-service chef's feed for us by whoever's on stirfry that evening.

Failing that i sometimes take a bowl of leftover rice home, and, with the addition of an egg and a few bits from largely empty fridge, I've got a tasty late night meal in minutes.

Working at Nahm means i cant help but to have learnt what makes good Thai style fried rice ('kao pat'), and how much nicer it is than much of the 'orrible Chinese takeaway / student style make-it-up-as-you-go-along stuff we often eat in this country.

Main things to remember are

a) use decent Thai or basmati rice, preferable a day or so old and definitely not wet or mushy.

and

b) don't use the dish as a dumping ground for all sorts of leftovers, random vegetables or other things found lurking at the back of your fridge - you don't need much more than an egg or two, little spring onion / choice herb or vegetable, plus perhaps a little cooked meat or something.
So....here's a recipe / rough guide (serves 2):



Ingredients:





















1 generous bowl of cooked rice (preferably cooked a little while ago / the day before, so it isn't still hot and steaming)
1-2 eggs
1-2 garlic cloves
A couple of shallots - optional
Some greens things e.g coriander leaves, few chopped spring onions, Asian celery or leaves of some sort of quick cook Asian greens
A some cooked protein e.g bit of grilled pork, cooked Chinese sausage, steak or a few cooked prawns.
Fish sauce / light soy
Plain oil - sunflower, groundnut etc
Pinch white sugar and white pepper


Accompany with:


Nam pla prik (a little bowl of fish sauce with finely sliced bird's eye chillies in, and perhaps a squeeze of lime).

Plus a lime wedge and few pieces of cucumber, if you have them.


Method:

Mince/mash the garlic with a little salt, slice thinly the shallot and spring onion, if using. Roughly chop any green leaves / pick any herbs you're using, and finally cut any meat, prawn or whatever (i used a small piece of cooked steak in pics).

Get all your ingredients and seasonings to hand and take a wok put on a medium high heat and add two tablespoons of oil. When hot throw in the garlic and shallots and cook until just golden and fragrant, now quickly crack in your egg(s) and allow to set for 15 secs then mix well.

Now add your rice and cook on a medium heat, adding a touch more oil if sticking or a little dry, for a good 2 or 3 mins, pressing down to break up any clumps. The heat shouldn't be too high as you need time to heat through the rice. Season with a little white sugar, light soy (or fish sauce) and white pepper. Taste and adjust if needed.

Next add anything that needs heating through e.g greens and / or cooked meat.

Give it another minute, and finally add any herbs and spring onion. Mix through and serve with wedge of lime.




Season at the table with the essential and addictive nam pla prik:

















p.s caught the Masterchef 2010 final on iplayer - congrats to all three finalists, looks like they all pulled the stops out and cooked some great stuff.

Easy frittata

Here's a quick recipe which i sometimes cook because i've nothing in the fridge but a box of eggs and some half used herbs (add an onion, a few frozen peas from freezer and you've all you need).

Frittata with caramelised onions, peas, mint & parsley:


Ingredients (serves 2)

• 5-6 large good quality eggs
• 2 medium onions (red or white, as you prefer) or 1 large
• A large handful of frozen peas, defrosted
  
• A small handful of fresh mint & parsley leaves (but you could use basil, tarragon, chervil etc)
• Olive oil, and butter too if possible
• Parmesan (optional)
  

Method:

• Take a small frying pan and put it on a low heat, while it's warming up slice your onion
• Add a splash of oil and nob of butter to the pan throw in onions, season & cook for 10-15 mins until soft and just starting to color
• Meanwhile crack your eggs in to a bowl, give a quick forking, season and then roughly chop and mix in your herbs and then add your peas.
  
• When your onions are ready tip them into the egg mix bowl too and mix through one last time
• Put your frying pan back on a medium-low heat, add another small splash of oil and blob of butter (if you have) and tip in the egg mix, don't stir just make sure the heat is fairly low and leave it be to cook for about 5 or so mins.
  
• Preheat the grill and place a rack a 25cm or so below the heat
• Pan is ready to go under the grill when egg mix in the pan is set round the sides with pool of liquid eggyness left in middle.
• Add grating of parmesan if you have / like and place under grill until top just browns and sets, it should still be bit wobbly under the surface.
• Now turn out by placing plate over the pan and turning upside down.
  
• Cut into slices and serve (it should be set but nicely gooey towards the center).
  
• Goes well with bread and salad dressed with dijon, oil and vinegar.

Chorizo salad (& a new camera!)

Finally, i've bought a half decent camera...a digital SLR with macro lens.

I barely know one end of the camera from the other yet but am going to enjoy learning and putting the results up here etc.

So here's the very 1st pics from it - hot off the press (it's basically what i just ate for lunch). Plenty of room for improvement but, compared to my old camera, the diff is huge.

Chorizo salad with chickpeas, tomatoes & roast pattypan squash:

Rough recipe: i cut a couple of pattypans each in to about about 8 pieces and roasted with some garlic, thyme, quartered onions, seasoning and olive oil - for about 20 mins in hot oven. Meanwhile i cooked some slices of good quality soft chorizo in a pan, deseeded and sliced few plum tomatoes, chopped a little red chilli and couple of spring onions....to this i then added a tin of drained chickpeas and plenty of roughly chopped parsley and mint, oh and the zest of one orange. Little red wine vinegar/lemon juice, seasoning and good olive oil and toss through.

Couple more pics...

Super quick noodle soup

There are millions of types of noodle soup out there, some of them have to be made with v.specific cooking method & ingredients if you want to achieve the right / authentic / tastiest result.

But, equally, noodle soup can be great fast food and a way of using up what you've got left in your fridge. I made one the other day with some random bits n bobs i had knocking around in the fridge, so thought i'd stick the pic & general recipe up here:

Ingredients (serves 2):

• about 500ml-1L stock - ideally a plain chicken or beef stock**
• flavorings: couple of shallots or spring onion, clove garlic & a slice of ginger
• pinch of white sugar
• splash of fish sauce or light soy
• 1 lime
  
• chilli - bird's eye or long, or even dried - as many as u like (i use one bird's in the stock then more sliced in my bowl)
• few vegetables.....e.g shitake, oyster, enoki mushrooms, spinach / pak choy / choy sum / chinese cabbage, broccoli, beansprouts, julienned carrot, radish etc etc
• a little cooked meat and / or shredded omellete / good quality tofu / toasted peanuts or cashews
• noodles - 2 small nests of either rice or egg noodles
• garnish: herbs: esp coriander, mint, basil, thai basil, dill (less used but works well)...or something more unusual e.g pea shoots, vietnamese mint, pak chee farang, perilla, rice paddy herb, sliced chilli, sliced spring onion, matchsticks of fresh ginger.
  

**real chicken stock makes all the diff here, if you dont have you could just simmer a chicken leg gently in slightly salted water until cooked, remove leg, skim liquid and use it for stock (shredd the meat from the chicken and add later). At a push you could use a chicken stock cube /concentrate, it wont be nearly as nice, but still nice.


(Rough) Method:

• Bring your stock to simmer - add the flavourings (optional additions here include: star anise or 2, cinamon stick, coriander root or 2, smashed lemongrass stork, torn lime leaf or 2...etc)...simmer while you get on with preparing the other components...
  
• Cook your noodles separately according to packet ins...drain and divide between two bowls
• Cook your veggies in the stock: e.g add things like spinach, small mushrooms towards the end, anything that needs longer cooking either add earlier or slice thinner
• Throw in your meat to reheat (if using)
• Season the soup with splash (tablespoon or two) of fish sauce or soy, pinch of sugar.
• Divide the hot soup & veggies between the bowls (it will reheat the noodles which are waiting there)
• Now add omelette or nuts if using
• Sprinkle over some herbs chopped chilli (+ ginger & spring onion if using)...nice thing here is to leave more on the table for peeps to help themselves to
• Finish with a fat slice of lime*, and leave the sugar & fish/soy sauce on the table for people to tweak their own bowls with.

*little tip: with this kind of thing, and notably with Thai curries, soups etc, lime juice should be added right at the last minute...ideally once the liquid isnt boiling anymore; if you boil lime juice it turns bitter and can ruin the taste of your curry/soup/sauce. So giving each person a 1/2 lime is ideal, alternatively squeeze the juice in to the bowl before ladling over your hot wot-not.

Andy

Fast food rant (and a crab pasta recipe!)

Ok, i've got tonnes of themes i'd like to blog about e.g Thai & Vietnamese herbs, dishes inspired by the restaurants i've worked at & my favorite sambos - to name just a few...

But! The thing i'm probably most passionate about is fast food...

Yep fast food! It's almost a swear word in this country. Why does so much of it (in the UK) have to be 'orrible!? You go to different countries all over the world (SEAsia, India, Italy, Lebanon etc!) step out on the street and there's a wealth of choice of quick, super tasty and often healthy food available to be knocked up for you in seconds.

I say we need a bit more of that over here? Why do we have no street stalls? Why is it that in 95% of cases fast food = fried chicken!?

Needs to change.

The other reason good fast food is the way forward iiiiis... that, obviously, it's quick and very often that means it's easy too. So if you dont have much time or dont like cooking all that much BUT you want to eat decent food then FF is the way forward.

I'm going to try and go about proving my point on this blog by doing a series of quick & tasty recipes which in my mind are Fast Food.

Plus! With my new full time chef's life imminent i'm going to be cooking much more of it myself i.e when i come home from a long shift hungry i'm invariably going to be looking to cook something quick, tasty and fairly healthy.

Ok, enough rambling, here's a recipe to start off with: crab pasta. It's tasty, healthy and quick. I spent 1 night a week for 6 months working at Refettorio - one of Giorgio's Italian places, and learned how Italians cook pasta. It's basically just the same for any other seafood pasta dishes so have a mess around.

It's 6 ingredients, 7 with the oil and is ready in the time it takes to cook pasta + 2mins.

Crab & tomato pasta.



Ingredients - serves 2 (any more is tricky, but doable, esp if you have a real large frying pan).

• enough pasta for 2 - linguine is perfect, but spaghetti or really any shape will taste good too)
• white crab meat - 3 or 4 tablespoons
  
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 mild red chilli
  
• a small bunch of parsley or basil
• a glass of white wine
  
• some olive oil
• 3 or 4 nice tomatoes

Method (to get it done super quick)

• Boil a full kettle and pour the hot water in a large pan, get it boiling and salt it generously
• Put the pasta in.
• Chop the garlic & chilli (small if you like but doesnt have to be perfect)
• Cut tomatoes in to quarters length ways then cut out the seeds and roughly dice.
• Chop a handful of parsley, if using basil just pick a bunch of leaves
• Stir your pasta so it dont stick together
• Put large frying pan on medium-high heat, add a couple of tablespoons olive oil
• Chuck in the chilli and garlic, fry for 30 seconds (dont let it color much)
  
• Chuck in the crab meat, season with salt and pepper, stir a couple of times then throw in the wine and let bubble for 30 secs
• Throw in your tomatoes, give them a stir and finally in with the herbs.
• If your pasta is ready, drain it and chuck it straight in the frying pan with a little of the pasta water too. If your pasta is not ready then just take the crab pan off the heat, when you are good to go put it back on a high heat.
• Stir all this through and then tuck in while it's hot.
  

N.B for more of a store cupboard number decent quality tinned white crab meat can be used here - it obviously wont be nearly as tasty, but still a nice enough quick meal.

Andy