Sweet Potato and Pak Choi Laksa

Adapted from Nigel Slater’s Tender (Vol.1)

 

This is a really flavourful and delicious soupy noodle dish, it looks complicated, but it is actually really easy and quick to make.

I made this with udon noodles, I love their slippery-slurpy-ness, but you could use whatever noodles you want. This is one of those meals where you cant really work out what cutlery or chopsticks you should be using, and you will inevitably get splashes of soup down your front. But it will be worth it.

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the spice paste:

1 fresh red chilli (seeds in)

2 cloves garlic

About an inch long lump of ginger

2 stalks lemongrass

Handful coriander leaves and stalks

2 tbsp sesame oil

For the soup:

1 very large or two smaller sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into large-ish chunks

2 clusters of pak choi, chop the stalks

2 spring onions, sliced

1 red pepper , sliced (optional)

600ml chicken or vegetable stock (cube or powder is fine – I used fake chicken powder)

400ml coconut milk

2tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla) – vegetarian/vegan option – ½ tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp soy sauce (you may need a little more if you are not using fish sauce

Juice of 1 lime (throw the zest in too if you like it super lime-y)

2 portions noodles – egg, rice or udon, cooked if they need pre-cooking

Handful fresh coriander leaves

Method

Roughly chop all of the ingredients for the spice paste, and them blitz them to a paste using an immersion blender, food processor, or pestle and mortar.

Put a large saucepan on a medium heat and dry-fry the spice paste for a minute or two. Add the stock and coconut milk and bring to the boil. Add the sweet potato and simmer for 10-15 minutes, and then add the nam pla (if using), soy sauce, lime juice and pak choi stalks. Simmer for another 10 minutes, or until the sweet potato is cooked through, and then add the pak choi leaves and noodles. Stir together until the leaves are wilted and the noodles are warmed through, and serve in deep bowls with fresh coriander leaves scattered on the top.

Summer Rolls with Pineapple-Chilli Dipping Sauce

These Vietnamese/Thai-inspired summer rolls are much more than just a raw greaseless spring roll – fresh, healthy, crunchy, totally delicious and perfect for summer. There are a lot of different recipes for these, and this one is my own invention, based a little bit on a Nigella Recipe, and a little bit on a Nigel Slater recipe.

Rice noodles, coriander and mint form the basis of the summer roll, and on top of that I chose to just use simple green and white things, but you can use whatever you want really. Other commonly used fillings include little lettuce leaves, shredded carrot, radish, or cooked prawns (so I hear). As the summer rolls are transparent, all I would advise is to make sure that you choose fillings that are pretty.

I bought the rice paper wrappers in Wing Yip on my epic trip with the wonderful Debbie and had been looking forward to making summer rolls ever since. They were so much fun to make – fiddly, but very satisfying.

Quantities are going to be a little hard for me to describe – it totally depends on how many you want to make. I made 14 summer rolls with this amount of filling, with enough veggies and dipping sauce left over to make a bowlful of salsa.

Ingredients:

Rice paper wrappers – you get millions of them in a packet.

Thin rice noodles (vermicelli). We used about half a big packet. Soak them in hot water until soft, refresh under cold water and drain. They will stick together, but it doesn’t matter.

Cucumber – take out the seeds and slice into thin batons.

Beansprouts – pick off any icky stringy tail bits.

4 spring onions, sliced into strips.

Half a bunch fresh coriander leaves – wash and dry thoroughly, and pick leaves from the stems.

Fresh mint leaves – wash and dry thoroughly, and pick leaves from the stems. We used 3 mint leaves per roll, so I can categorically say that we used 42 little leaves!

For the dipping sauce:

1 small can pineapple pieces, drained – I’m sure it would be better to use fresh pineapple, but I didn’t have any at the time.

1 red chilli – remove the seeds if you want and dice finely.

The juice of 1 lime.

2 tbsp fish sauce. (For vegans and vegetarians, use extra rice vinegar and 1tbsp miso)

½ tbsp rice vinegar.

½ tbsp sesame oil.

Freshly ground black pepper.

Make the dipping sauce first so that it has time to settle and mellow.

Put the pineapple in a bowl with the lime juice and use a hand/immersion blender to blend about half of it. You want to end up with some liquid, some lumps of fruit, and some goop that is halfway between the two. Then add the rest of the ingredients, stir well and set aside until ready to use. Don’t be scared of the quantities of fish sauce – it is a little stinky straight out of the bottle, but it really is perfect for this, and other Southeast Asian-style salad-y things. If like me you keep kosher, most brands of fish sauce are made exclusively from anchovies - just check the label.

Make sure that all of your vegetables, herbs and noodles are completely dry – the rice wrapper will disintegrate if it is soggy on the inside.

To make these summer rolls you will need to work quite quickly, so it is best to have a really well organised workspace. Arrange your workspace with your prepared veggies, a bowl wider than the wrappers full of hot (not boiling) water, a plate for rolling, and a plate to put the rolls on.

Soak the wrappers in the hot water for about 3 seconds, place on your rolling plate and start building. I started mine with 3 mint leaves in a line (facing outwards to be prettier), a clump of noodles and then a few shards of the other green and white things. Wrap carefully into a little parcel and carry on! The wrappers get very sticky and fiddly to use, but I promise, you will get the hang of it very fast.

A hotpot of sausage and apples

Difficulty 3/5 time 1 hr Taste 5/5 feeds about 4

This goes back to the old themes of comfort food.  The only advice I can really give is to make sure you have a big pot, it is very difficult to get the sausages browned properly and the flour amalgamated without one.  This was where I slipped up a little bit.  It was still really really tasty, but it would have been even better if I had a bigger pot.  This recipe is taken from Tender vol. 2 – a cook’s guide to the fruit garden, which is one of my absolutely favourite books to read.  This is actually the first recipe that I have made from it.

·     250g dried flageolet or haricot beans (I used about 1 ¼ cans of cannellini beans)

·     Chicken thighs (skin off, bone in) I added these in for bulk and variation, and I’m sure that the bones further enriched the sauce. I’m sure that it would be delicious without them, I just didn’t have enough sausages for all the people I needed to feed!

·     3 onions

·     2 tbsp olive oil

·     3 large garlic cloves

·     2 small pinches fennel seeds

·     2 bay leaves

·     8 sausages (Nigel Slater specified nicely seasoned pork sausages, I used lamb ones.  It is up to you what kind you use, but obviously makes sure that it is not a conflicting flavour.  I think that the lamb added a lovely depth of flavour, working exceptionally well with the beans and apple (I wouldn’t recommend using chicken sausages, but that’s just because I don’t like them).Veggie sausages would also work well.

·     2 large dessert apples.  As I had increased the quantities slightly, I used 2 ½ red apples, and 1 bramley.  This was a nice combination as the dessert apples keep their shape and are lovely and sweet, while the cooker disintegrated completely, adding thickness to the sauce and a tart background note).

·     2 tbsp plain flour

·     1 glass Madeira or medium dry sherry (I used pear cider, as it was what I had.  Looking back, it totally did not need the extra sweetness).

·     1 litre stock (I used a mixture of onion and chicken soup mix, about 2 parts onion, 1 part chicken).

·     2 tbsp grain mustard (I only used 1, as I forgot to put in the second, it was still delicious and may have been a little too mustardy with the second).

(I will leave out the section about cooking the beans).  Peel the onions, cut in half, and then cut each half into 6 or so thick segments.  Warm the oil in a large casserole over a low/ medium heat.  Put onions in pan and leave to colour slightly but make sure they don’t stick or burn.

Whilst the onions are cooking, peel and slice the garlic, then add to the onions with the fennel and bay.  Push the mixture to one side of the pan (or if the pan is small, remove them).  Cut the sausages into short lengths, add them to the pan and brown on all sides.  If using chicken, brown the chicken as well.

Meanwhile, peel core and quarter the apples.  You can cut them smaller, but obviously the bigger the pieces, the more likely they are to stay together.  When the sausages are reasonably crispy (this was my main problem – see above), add into the pan the onions, apples and flour.  Cook for 5 mins or so, and then gradually pour in the Madeira/ sherry and stock, stirring continuously.  Add half the mustard, season and leave to simmer for 25 mins. 

Add the beans, check the seasoning and simmer gently for another 20-25 mins.  It is ready when the meat is cooked and most of the liquid has evaporated.  Add the rest of the mustard and cook for a minute or 2 longer.

Simultaneously, I made a vegan version using cauldron brand marinated tofu, which also worked very well, but tasted a little sweeter as it did not have the richness of the meat off-setting the apples.