Steamed Thai-style sea bass and rice

I don't know why we haven't had this for a good couple of years. It's super-easy, quick and the rice is absolutely crammed with flavour - and since we last had it sea bass seems to have hit a price low. Two fillets for a fiver? You can't go wrong, and whilst three fillets doesn't quite stack up it's still pretty good value.

Obviously I didn't optioned four fillets for a tenner on the basis nobody wants random single fillets of fish cluttering up the freezer, along with my single osso bucco lurking in there. And the one fillet of salmon that's got 'fish pie' stamped all over it come the autumn.

Suffice to say, I needn't have bothered. Well, actually that's not true. Ana's v pleased it's returned but the view from under eight end of the table was that the bass "didn't have enough flavour". Sorry Fauntleroy.

sources

steamed Thai-style sea bass and rice - Jamie Oliver, Cook with Jamie, p229

Delia Smith's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

thai pork vermicelli salad

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

minced turkey with thai basil

Having spent yesterday afternoon in a beer-fuelled rage at the lack of a Welsh performance at Twickers, I fully expect today to be a nightmare of hangover, hunger and boredom as tasks are slowly petering out at work. Although as it turns out I’ve inadvertently discovered a surfeit of booze is the secret ingredient to surviving a fasting day.

Maybe it’s the sugar in it, or the fact it’s another beautiful spring day, but today flies by and not even a text from Ana revealing how she’s fallen off the calorie wagon can shake my will. It’s either that or I’m so massively hungover I’m too delirious to notice my stomach cramping.

Even better, I’m so adept at making this thai lettuce confection it literally takes 10 minutes, which means we’ve got Milo into bed and Harry Potter-ed up, Ana’s started marking and the mince is plopping into its leafy spoons long before University Challenge has even started:

However if this efficiency does has a downside, it’s the fact by eating earlier it means we’ve got a longer time than usual to be hungry in until bedtime. Damn you efficiency!

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

minced turkey with thai basil

I'm fairly sure this Thai chicken in lettuce leaves thing, (although we're using turkey) Mrs White once told me is really called something like ‘larb’. Whatever, it is rapidly becoming our go-to fasting Monday meal: It’s absolutely stuffed with rich flavours, taking the edge off the stomach discontent, it’s easy-peasy and it’s super quick.

It’s also fairly forgiving with ingredients, in fact I’m not sure I’ve ever cooked it with the full complement, but it seems to make little difference. Tonight is a case in point: I’ve finally got my hands on Kepack Manis, but I used up all the thai basil last week, and I also forgot to add the nuts. This doesn’t stop us ravenously trying to mop up the sticky-salty sauce left in the pan with the remaining lettuce leaves, which are clearly the king of absorbing liquids:

There is also an unexpected knock-on benefit to this dinner’s super-speedy qualities: It means I’ve got time to not only turn the pile of carrots lurking in the salad tray into lovely and warming carrot soup for lunch this week, I can even chop up and marinade tomorrow night’s Moroccan chicken – and all before 20.30! Having said that, knocking out three meals in one night on a fasting day is a unique form of torture that I won’t be trying again.

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

minced turkey with thai basil

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

delia's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

minced turkey with thai basil

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

bill granger's green papaya salad with char-grilled beef

sources
green papaya salad with char-grilled beef - Bill Granger, Sydney Food, p102

delia's lime chicken curry

sources
lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

minced turkey with thai basil

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

minced turkey with thai basil

sources
minced turkey with thai basil - Delicious, October 2009, p126

delia's lime chicken curry

sources

lime chicken curry - Delia, How to Cook Book Two, p107

mimi spencer's thai salad

Once again fasting day dawns with a vengeance. This end of the year gets harder not only because the last thing you want after a wet and woolly ride home is a (very small) salad, but I’m convinced the body simply needs more stodge in the winter. Are there any diet stews and casseroles out there? I suppose a bulky-yet-veggie-packed soup sort of counts, but only just, and the best soups require the addition of left-over parmesan rinds and large hunks of bread, so maybe they’re similarly to be avoided on diet death day?

Ana is suspiciously quiet on this subject tonight. In fact she seems alarmingly happy to watch Rick Stein’s Indian thingamabob followed by Tom Kerridge’s super-fat pub food without any visible signs of drooling or light-headedness, whilst I can barely muster the energy to sadly grate 4 carrots into a bowl and count out 20 prawns.

As it turns out, she’s already caved in, blaming half-term of course, and made herself a sandwich earlier, as well as having ‘something else later’ because she was bored. Adding insult to injury, she then takes the slightly bigger portion of dinner…

Luckily enough this is another one of those 300-odd kcal meals that’s bewilderingly satisfying. Partially I suspect because the punchy thai-style sauce is lip-smackingly good, but also because of the counter-intuitive fact grated carrots seem to take up more stomach space than non-grated carrots. I don’t know why, it’s just the way it is.

sources
thai salad - mimi spencer & dr michael mosley, The Fast Diet, p143

bill granger's green papaya salad with char-grilled beef

Those of you who regular pitch up here to read the latest update, only to discover I'm as tardy as ever and curse the very ground I walk on, will know I bow to no man in my appreciation of the mighty Bill Granger.

However it's nice to know there was a time before he was a globe-striding camp cooking behemoth. When he was just a chap who owned a couple of really quite good restaurants in Sydney, and was convinced to write a cookery book.

What I like most about Sydney Food (apart from the fact I've nicked it off Kendra) is its gauche charm: Everything in it is quick, simple and available, reflecting the rhythms of the restaurants, and I suspect, Bill's wide-eyed joy at somebody paying him to write about something he loves. In it he displays a magpie's eyes for flavours and cuisine, where everything is grist to his cooking mill, giving you easy-to-recreate tastes of the Pacific.

Tonight's experimental salad is a case in point, even if green papaya is harder to come by in the supermarkets of Blighty. It's an unashamed take on Thailand's classic Tom Som Salad, full of zesty lime-spiked, fish sauce-sour flavours drenching cooling cucumber, fiery chilli and, because South West London only does Perfectly Ripe Papaya, delicately honeyed fruit. Not only that, it's super-cheap and quick.

The only downside in fact, was I couldn't attempt this bonkers method of shredding the papaya. If you're not sure about trying it with ripe-ish fruit, apparently you can simply replace it with white cabbage, which seems even more bonkers, but definitely worth investigating.

Wine Time
There's only direction I'm headed with Thai food, and that's with crisp, cooling wines with a nice dollop of residual sweetness to tame the heat. Think Gewurtz, Riesling, Prosecco and even Moscato - but try to aim for off-dry, so the sugar doesn't overwhelm everything.

sources
green papaya salad with char-grilled beef - Bill Granger, Sydney Food, p102

thai pork vermicelli salad

PORK MOTHER!

What better feast for a chap whose just run 20K around Richmond Park in the searing heat, than a cooling a brewski and a delicious double-helping (seeing as there's nobody to share the wok with), of spicy pork and noodles?

Admittedly it doesn't fall under the usual 'experimental' banner that comes out to play when Ana and Milo do one, but I think the addition of a packet of Singapore noodles which were reduced in Mr Waitrose's food emporia give it the necessary quotient of 'newitude':

Sadly though, whilst I bow to no man in my love of Singapore noodles, these are more carcinogenic and chemical than rich and spicy. Fortunately I had plenty of left-over marinade to kill their plastic-y flavours.

It's also a lesson learned, and whilst the pork was lovely and juicy, and the veg crispy, there's clearly a reason why fluorescent yellow noodles are half the price of the normal sort.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115

prawn, lime and mango salad

After a weekend under canvas, living off as much barbecued food and local ale as possible, it's time to get back on the health bus - for me as much as him.

Given we've still got a fridge full of mango and avocado, it seems silly not to chow down on another helping of last week's prawn, lime and mango salad:

sources
prawn, lime and mango salad - Black Book

jill dupleix's sesame chicken salad with celery and cucumber

The *other* best thing about roast chicken are the left-overs, and if you can resist picking the warm flesh off the carcass and chowing down on the still-crispy skin, box it all up - including any remaining gravy/juice - bung it in the fridge, and you'll find you've got everything you need to knock-up super Jilly D's fantastic asian-inspired sesame chicken salad.

It's obviously one of our favourites, but you should really give it a go. It's stuffed with crunchy carrots and cucumbers, along with juicy chicken pieces, zingy lime and a sweet-sour sauce made up from peanut butter and some other cupboard staples. It just lifts your mood, and is perfect for a warm evening. Go on,  give it a go - 'tis easy!

Wine Time
Generally with asian food, swirling as it is with acidity, spicy heat and umami flavours, you should look for a crisp, white with a little bit of sweetness in it. Classic matches include off-dry Rieslings, Gewurtztraminers, Moscato, and Prosecco. Luckily we till had some Viognier in the fridge from yesterday, which also fits the bill a treat.

sources
sesame chicken salad with cucumber and celery - Jill Dupleix, the Owl Book

jill dupleix's sesame chicken salad with celery and cucumber & thai-spiced mussels with skinny fries

Whisper it, could summer finally be here? After yesterday's warm-but-windy opener, it's lovely today; a perfect day for a birthday picnic at Kew Gardens for our neighbour and professional Welshman, Al 'Is that coat my jacket?' Carter.

The problem is we've got nothing to take, unless we sacrifice our planned roast for one of Ana's favourite salads and picnic standby Sesame Chicken. There are swings to go with these roundabouts though. If we take the salad it means we've definitely got mussels for dinner which is definitely NOT in her top ten.

In the end the birthday boy gets Jilly D's zesty salad on the basis it's fab, quick to make and far easier to transport to Kew Gardens than half a kilo of shellfish.

As it turns out the mussels are a genius Sunday evening meal, not least because we're all fairly full of mini-Scotch eggs and other picnic fayre, so 500g of shellfish splits nicely three ways, accompanied by Bill Granger skinny fries.

Now we've finally got some baking parchment the chips work a treat - crisp, salty and perfect for soaking up the sauce - and though I say it myself, revisiting the Thai-spiced mussels from mine and Brian's birthday trip to L'Atelier des Chefs is my tastiest version yet! I urge you to try one of their courses as I still use all of the techniques I learned there.

However, having eaten mussels four or five times and previously enjoyed the whole debearding process, my mini right-hand man in all things mollusc lets me down and point-blank refuses to eat anything other than chips or baguette.

Wine Time
The trick here is to recognise that the mussels aren't the key flavour here, the sauce is, so all the usual suspects would work a treat. Take your pick from Kiwi Sauvs, Gewurtz and Gruner Veltliner for a classic and classy match. If you're feeling daring, take a leaf from Belgo's book and try a Belgian Witbeer, where the citrus notes make perfect sense with the fragrant Thai sauce.

sources
Skinny fries - Bill Granger, Simply Bill
Thai-Spiced Mussels - L'Atelier des Chefs

thai pork vermicelli salad

Today is a full of unexpected culinary successes.
1. I manage to get up in time to make scrambled eggs for breakfast for me and Milo before he goes to school and I head out to Regency Cheltenham for the day;
2. We not only have a fab tasting at The Daffodil where the whites showed v well, particularly the Bourgogne Chardonnay, but we get shouted lunch which was divine. I had the beef fillet and oxtail pudding, which I cannot recommend highly enough, and an amazing platter of local cheeses. Everybody, go to the Daff immediately!
3. Tonight's tasting was cancelled, which meant Ana could go to book club and even better, given I had prepped the marinade and veg last night, we could both have dinner early.

Well early-ish, obviously I had to snuggle up with Milo and then eat it whilst watching Marple about an hour later.

I have to say this is another one of my favourite meals: it's fresh, zingy and surprisingly filling - especially if you max out on the veg. We had purple-sprouting broccoli tonight as it's so in season, mini sweetcorn, bean sprouts, carrot, herbs, although I missed the mange tout. I'll have to freeze them.

It's also very, very quick.

Wine Time
Wine-wise we're very much in the same zone as last night, albeit with less lime, so there's not as much acidity to balance. Even so, all of last night's suggestions - Vouvray or a New World Chenin, Riesling or Gewurtz - would go down a treat, but if you're looking for something different, why not go for a Viognier? Steer clear of the classic Rhone home as they are pricey, but if you get something from the Languedoc, you wont go wrong.

sources
thai pork vermicelli salad - Delicious, June 2012, p115