Without going into too much horrific detail, I’ve been sleep training our 7 month old on my own, my husband has been away a LOT and in short it’s been exhausting and emotional, but also lovely to wake up and not feel like i’m sleep wading through another day like a total zombie. Just a little bit of a zombie. Which is fine and much more manageable than dealing with a sleep deprived toddler – one that has grown out of afternoon naps and sadly isn’t really old enough to medicate with double espressos. Anyway, don’t get me wrong I fully realise how lucky I am  – I’ve been sent some completely rubbish things but also some pretty wonderful things to blog about over the years. One of the very best has to be this silver box of gorgeousness from Colchester Oyster Fishery.

The Colchester Oyster fishery are based in Mersea island just off the coast of Essex and supply directly to top chefs across the capital and beyond. You can imagine my delight at opening this after a very long week of copious crying, wailing, sleep deprivation and well meaning people telling me how knackered I look. I decided to make a South Indian style curry and to add a bit of chard for the vitamins. We’re all out of rice and in my bid to use up everything in the cupboard and not buy any more food, made use of some freekeh grains instead (the curry sauce is also excellent with prawns if you think lobster’s a bit extravagant)

The result? Some of the sweetest lobster meat I’ve ever eaten (although I must admit to not having eaten a huge amount in my life) which paired terrifically with the curry sauce, a sauce that managed to be both complex and fragrant without being overpowering. Basically, a bloody triumph and one of the best meals in I’ve ever produced. By heck it was good. The oysters were fat, minerally and needed absolutely nothing bar the merest whisper of lemon juice. If you’re considering blowing a bit of dosh on some shockingly fresh seafood delivered right up  to your front door in a fetching silver box with some frozen block things, then you can’t go far wrong with these guys. Thanks to Colchester oyster fishery I am one sleepy but extremely happy mama.

you need to make sure you cook everything out properly at every stage for this. So brown the onions for ages over a low heat and simmer the sauce properly before adding the seafood.

500g of lobster meat

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp. cumin seeds

about 20 curry leaves (buy a big bag and keep them in your freezer)

2 dried red chillies

5-6 cloves of garlic, crushed

a thumb of ginger, finely chopped

2 shallots, finely chopped

1 tsp. each of curry powder, chilli powder and turmeric powder

1 small cinnamon stick

200g tinned tomatoes

2 tsp. tamarind paste, dissolved in a little hot water

200ml vegetable or fish stock

400ml coconut milk

a bag of roughly chopped chard, leaves, stalks and all

-heat the oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and once they’ve started popping, add the curry leaves.

– add the dried chilli, garlic, ginger and shallots and cook low and slow until everything is translucent and smells wonderful.

-Add the curry, chilli and turmeric powders, stir and keep going for another 5 minutes or so until the spices have started to cook out.

– Then add your tomatoes, tamarind and half the stock and simmer for another 10 minutes.

-Add the coconut milk and remaining stock and simmer for about 15 minutes. Throw in the lobster and the chard and cook for another 5 minutes or until the stems have cooked through.

for the lemon-cumin grains

½ tbsp. butter or ghee

1 heaped tsp. cumin seeds

2 cloves of crushed garlic

a mugful each of  buckwheat and freekeh

enough vegetable stock to cover the grains

salt

the juice of half a lemon

-in a pan, melt the butter/ghee, and when it’s foaming add the cumin seeds and garlic.

-Pour in  the buckwheat and freekeh. Add vegetable stock and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

–Stir through lemon juice and salt. Serve

I hope you haven’t succumbed to one of the many many vile lurgies that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment. Speaking as someone who rarely gets so much as a sniffle, I’ve only just recovered from a virus so bad that I became convinced the accompanying anosmia would be a permanent fixture and I’d never smell or taste anything again. Waking up this morning and actually being able to smell my baby’s head again was the best birthday present ever.

The worst bit was my review lunch at the Limewood, which I’d been eagerly anticipating, but which I ended up having to enjoy by proxy via my husband’s taste buds. Anyone who knows Joe will know what this was like: “How is the onion soup?” “It’s very…oniony”

Anyway, it’s been a bloody nightmare being sick with two teeny dependent beings sapping what little remaining energy I have, either mentally or physically. Also we have less than two months before we emigrate to the states, and of course we’ve packed nothing. cancelled nothing and completely failed to let our house out ( I have given a ton of stuff to Oxfam though, which is always cathartic). As we’re not allowed to include any foodstuffs in our shipment of worldly goods, we need to eat as much as we can. This is what my cupboards and shelves currently look like:

In a frankly rather futile bid to use up some of the above and also to wipe out the virus in one fell, culinary swoop, I decided to make gochujang meatballs and apparently they were utterly delicious, if not perhaps as sinus clearing as I’d hoped.

If you don’t have citron-honey Korean tea then lemon marmalade  would be just as good.

for the meatball mix:

500g minced veal, beef, lamb or venison ( I had a brick of veal in the freezer that needed using up)

3-4  tbsp. gochujang paste

1 bulb of garlic, minced

2-3 finely chopped spring onions

2 tbsp. caster sugar

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. Korean citron honey tea/ lemon marmalade

lettuce leaves to serve

– combine all the ingredients apart from the tea/marmalade and the lettuce leaves in a bowl.

-shape into about 20 meatballs. Brush with the tea/marmalade to glaze.

-fry, serve in lettuce leaves with a cold , sesame flecked noodle salad

“don’t worry mummy I’m going to drive you straight to the doctors”

My friend Rosie is a bit of a genius. She recently made the most fantastic rainbow shaped carrot cake for her daughter’s 3rd birthday. A cake which managed to both taste delicious and look the business; something that rarely happens with fancy birthday cakes in my experience.

Anyway,we seem to spend at least one afternoon a week together as our kids are both at the same nursery and playdates with my son’s BFF have become the highlight of our week. I love going round because their house is like something out of an Aram catalogue (in a good way) but still manages to be completely toddler friendly, with all the toys laid out on easily accessible low shelving just like it is at nursery. Rosie is pretty laid back and lets them run riot with glitter, paint and egg boxes. Also she makes the best macaroni cheese. The other week she made these killer savoury scones and I literally couldn’t stop eating them.

You need a 12 hole tart or muffin tin.

275g wholemeal/spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp  salt

½ tsp cayenne pepper

125g butter

1 carrot grated or 1 courgette grated

125g grated cheese

1 egg beaten

6 tbsp milk

Chutney or pickle to serve

Pre heat the oven to GM 6/400^oF/ 200^oC

Grease tin

Put flour, baking powder, salt, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.  Rub in margarine or butter and then add the grated carrot or courgette and half of the grated cheese.  Stir in egg and milk and spoon the mixture in to the tins.  Sprinkle the tops with remaining cheese.

Cook for 20 – 25 minutes until golden, leave in the tin for 5 minutes, remove with palette knife and cool.

You can also put ½ of the mix in the tin then a spoon of chutney followed by remainder of the mix as a variation. They’re also very nice with chopped herbs in the mix. Sage and parsley work well.

You may have noticed that I haven’t bothered writing restaurant reviews for what must be years now… This is mainly because I don’t really get out that much these days (well not past 6pm anyway), and if I do I need to factor in all manner of tedious shit involving buggy space and crayons and even then I usually end up having to leave before the main course and morosely take what I can home. Gone are the days when I used to vicariously dine out at least twice a week, these days an exciting meal out tends to more often than not involve the express lift up to floor 1 at Westfield Stratford interspersed with panic-stricken shouting after my two year old as he runs away for the 15th time and many, many fun-filled visits to the parents room.

So when I do make a rare foray “out” for food I like to have a pretty cast iron guarantee it’s going to be worth it, and time and again I find myself back at this place. Despite only being down the road in Shoreditch, I wasn’t particularly excited about the initial PR invitation to try Inito, everything about it’s facade shouted “naff burritos” at me. The menu did little to allay my impending sense of doom and the “build your own roti” looked like a very bad sign indeed.

So imagine my amazement at being served a dish of butter chicken fully complex, smoky and rich minus the usual paddling pool of grease. Or generous sticks of lollipop chicken, joyfully crunchy and perfectly spiced. A potato dhosa was a lacy, delicate affair, text book perfect flavours, but a little on the small side. The lamb biryani was nothing short of proper Indian wedding-grade excellent, each individual little dish comes with it’s own dough seal, which is cracked open table side to reveal glistening moist perfect grains of rice, swollen with curried lamby juices, tender, collapsing gems of meat within. But the dish that showed a real expert at the helm was that most common of street dishes the good old aloo chaat.

So often this can be a stale, terribly balanced affair, too heavy a hand with the chilli or the tamarind shouting everything else down. Here each element was fully respected so every mouthful of crisp sev, meltingly soft potato, tart tamarind and sharp lime amounted to nothing short of pure magic. Oh and the pani puri’s pretty good too. Cardamom and rosewater kulfi is homemade on the premises and the buttery rotis have been tandoor fresh on each of my visits (the last one was the fourth – let’s just say it’s been a dangerous discovery).

Duff notes were funnily enough those roti wraps, which were a bit on the dry, claggy side and weirdly under-spiced, so best to avoid those. Also, despite having a great sauce going for it,  the bits of paneer in the paneer makhani were very much on the titchy side.

Head chef Saurav Nath is ex Gymkhana, and it really does show in the cooking (but thankfully not the prices, which are an absolute steal). There are always other Asian families eating there and even my shockingly talented friend Asma Khan was impressed, and what she doesn’t know about Indian food frankly isn’t worth knowing.

31 Bell Lane

Whitechapel

London, E1 7LA

020 7247 7145

I have to be honest, nibbles and canapes weren’t really much of a feature on my list of Christmas things-to-do this year. This is because I don’t really have time to faff about with fiddly ingredients what with two tiny boys sapping pretty much all of my attention these days.

So when I was asked to recreate a festive “one bite wonder” for Lurpak as selected by their Facebook fans this scallop recipe caught my eye. Namely because as well as being utterly delicious, once you’ve mixed up the celeriac remoulade in advance, there’s very little cooking involved other than a bit of  scallop searing. Just the thing for the time impoverished.

I’ve become a big fan of shortcut ingredients, and Lurpak liquid is an excellent one. Instead of having to add oil to your butter when frying, a quick glug of this stuff gives you that golden buttery taste without any burnt butter anxiety. As I was serving pescetarians I crowned my scallops with a cauliflower crisp. Sliced in advance this meant I only had to sear the scallops when it came to serving, but you could just as easily replace this with a slice of crisp pancetta – just fry it off before cooking the scallops and add your Lurpak liquid to the hot pancetta fat before browning the scallops.

For the celeriac remoulade

250g mayonnaise (I’m a Kewpie fan, but use what you’ve got)

3-4 tbsp. creme fraiche

1 small celeriac, peeled and shredded into fat matchsticks

2 tbsp. curry powder

2-3 tbsp. wholegrain mustard

4 tbsp. finely chopped parsley

2-3 tbsp. lemon juice

sea salt

for the scallops

12 frozen scallops, defrosted overnight in the fridge

1-2 tbsp. lurpak cooking liquid

thinly sliced cauliflower florets or thinly sliced pancetta, fried until crisp.

• make the celeriac by combining all the remoulade ingredients in a bowl. Chill until needed (this can be done the evening before while you’re waiting for your scallops to defrost overnight).
• When you’re ready to serve, heat a heavy based frying pan until it’s searingly hot. (If your’re using pancetta, fry slices until crisp and drain on kitchen paper). Add Lurpak Liquid to the pan.If using cauliflower, carefully fry the slices until golden on each side and set aside to drain on kitchen paper.
• Season the scallops on both sides then add to the pan. Cook for 2 mins on one side and one minute on the other.
• top each scallop with a blob of celeriac remoulade and a cauliflower crisp/pancetta crisps. serve immediately

Like many people I spent several years upon graduating in a variety of tedious jobs for various companies where I was frequently told that if I worked hard enough I could end up just like my horrifically stressed out bosses, and where in fact all I would ever really do was download recipes, make shopping lists and daydream about dinner.

It got ridiculous. I would find myself taking on jobs solely based on their proximity to good lunch options or the quality of the staff canteen (the best were at Google especially their San Francisco offices, C4 had one of the worst, although there was an excellent chippy nearby). I would feel a deep sense of pity when I’d see the unnecessarily wealthy CEOs I’d work for grabbing a cheapo sandwich in between board meetings. Meetings where they would scream and shout and bang their fists on the table before demanding that everyone with a mobile should throw it in the bin to ensure they were never deprived of any precious attention.

Funnily enough, I really didn’t aspire to be like any of them. Not even the so called creative types.It was all about lunchtime for me. I found eating well meant I was able to concentrate properly on downloading those recipes. Going to work for me was all about counting down the hours to lunch, and then counting down the hours to home time and dinner time.

I recently spent some time working in Flexioffices Shoreditch space, which is a terrific place to work and has some excellent lunch options nearby.

Flexioffices asked me to take the liveyourlunchbreak challenge and this is what I ate over the course of a week:

butternut squash dhal
A great one to make for dinner the night before and take in the leftovers the next day. Excellent reheated in the office microwave with a buttered roll.

1 butternut squash, chopped

1 tsp. mustard seeds

1 cinnamon stick

½  tsp. turmeric

2 cardamom pods

handful of curry leaves

1 fresh green chilli, finely chopped

1 heaped tsp. cumin seeds

3-4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp. curry powder

1 tsp. salt

2-3 tsp. olive oil

3 x medium tomatoes, halved

1 onion, finely chopped

1 inch ginger, finely chopped

150g red lentils

stock

tamarind pulp to taste

Place the butternut squash and tomato halves in a roasting tin and drizzle with some olive oil, curry powder and salt. Roast at 200C for 30 mins.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, toast the mustard seeds, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods. Add a splash of oil and when hot, add the curry leaves. Throw in the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. Add the red lentils, stir everything well and scrape in the contents of the roasting tin. Add the stock and tamarind and simmer for about 30 minutes. Blitz until smooth.

harissa, olive & lemon cous cous with smoked sardines

put a tsp. each of harissa paste and vegetable bouillon in a bowl, pour over some cous cous and add enough boiling water to cover. Stir in finely chopped parsley, olives, preserved lemon,  tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and peppers. Eat with your favourite fancy tinned fish on the side and some hummous.

curried egg sandwich

Boil a couple of eggs, mash with a pinch of curry powder, parsley, mayonnaise, salt and a finely chopped green chilli and sandwich into wholemeal bread with lettuce.

farro pesto roast veg

Cook farro as directed on packet. Cut some tomatoes, peppers, courgettes, aubergines into chunks and toss in olive oil, crushed garlic and your favourite herbs. Roast for 30-40 mins at 180C and then cool. Gently mix the vegetables with the farro and stir in a couple of tbsp. of pesto.

chicken curry chapati wraps

This is one of my all time favourite mid week chicken recipes and any leftovers make a glorious lunch wrapped in a chapatti.

In a bowl mix 2 tbsp. tomato chutney, 1 tbsp. wholegrain mustard, 1 tsp. cumin seeds, 1 tsp.curry powder, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. chilli powder, 75 ml sour cream, 75 ml natural yoghurt and set aside. Fry a cinnamon stick, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp. mustard seeds, 1 chopped onion, an inch of julienned ginger, 2 finely chopped green chillies and about 500g of chicken thighs cut into chunks over a medium heat until the chicken is nicely browned all over. Transfer this to an ovenproof dish, pour over the spiced yoghurt/sour cream mixture and bake for 30 minutes at 180C.

Enjoy with plenty of basmati rice and salad and then wrap any leftovers in chapattis with the remaining salad for lunch the next day.

500g minced venison

1 tsp. fennel seeds

2-3 onions, finely chopped

1 cinnamon stick

2 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped

6 cloves garlic, crushed

3 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp. each of chilli powder, curry powder, cumin and coriander seeds

1/2 tsp. turmeric powder

1 (400g) tin of plum tomatoes

1 (400g) tin of coconut milk

2 tsp. salt

1-2 fresh green chillies, finely sliced

couple of handfuls of chopped coriander, chopped

frozen peas

in a bowl, mix the venison, 1/4 of the  chopped onion, 1 tsp. of the salt, the fennel seeds, half of the garlic and half of the fresh green chillies. Shape into little balls.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan add the cinnamon stick and brown the meatballs all over. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the remaining onion, ginger, garlic and green chilli to the frying pan. Stir in all the spices and salt and when the onions are nice and brown, tip in the coconut milk and tomatoes. Stir well and return the meatballs to the pan.

Simmer for around 25 minutes on a low heat, adding stock or water if things start to dry out. Throw in your peas and coriander and keep going until the peas have just defrosted.

As someone who prefers to eat, I’m truly rubbish when it comes to the whole “grow your own” thing (I’m speaking here as someone who’s successfully massacred every plant I’ve ever tended including several cacti). So when we moved into our place and I was faced with an actual garden of my very own, apart from being grateful for the play space for our toddler, I wasn’t really that excited.

However, when those nice people at PlantMeNow sent me a load of bulbs, flowers and herbs; it was perfect timing for our tabula rasa of an outdoor space, so we dug up a few beds and got planting.

Even though I’m battling with various cats, snails and a compost happy 2 yr old, if a plant murderer like myself can nurture a few leaves, I’m pretty sure anyone can. I’ve planted daffodil bulbs which should flower in early spring , some glorious pansies and wallflowers plus oregano, lemon thyme and sage.

This is what our garden looks now. Let’s hope it makes it to springtime….

I am rather proud, even if the bastard snails are insisting on their little midnight feasts. It’s great not to have to rely on those rubbish packets of crappy supermarket herbs and even the huge bunches in the Turkish shop are nowhere near freshly picked sage or oregano when it comes to flavour.

Our Sunday roast chicken was duly stuffed with great fragrant bunches of the stuff and I also put the sage to excellent use in these savoury shortbread biscuits.

makes approx. 16 biscuits

4-6 tbsp.finely shredded sage leaves

2-3 tsp. harissa or other chilli paste

80g Parmesan grated

40g rice flour

130g plain flour

115g butter

1 tsp. salt

2-3 heaped tsp. nigella seeds

Preheat oven to 150C

beat butter until soft add chilli, salt, sugar, Parmesan and nigella seeds

Add flours and mix to a smooth dough

Roll out to 1cm thick and cut into biscuits

chill for 15 mins

bake for 30 mins until pale gold.

As you can see, I’ve had my hands pretty full recently… This curry from the wonderful Prashad cookbook has become an absolute life saver – I find myself purchasing okra on a weekly basis just to make it, and it literally takes little more effort than slicing up those verdant fingers, frying and stirring in spices plus tinned tomatoes (I must confess to not following the recipe to the letter. I don’t bother with the 24 hr drying out bit and and instead of frying the okra and removing, I just leave it in and add everything else. It’s still the best okra dish I’ve ever tasted).

I enjoy mine with wholegrain basmati and natural yoghurt on the side  while my baby father likes his with melted Red Leicester in a curried cheese toastie. Either way, it’s an excellent way to enjoy a bit of bhindi.

fenugreek, tomato and okra curry – taken from Prashad by Kaushy Patel

800g okra

175ml sunflower oil

1 tsp. fenugreek seeds

1 tsp. brown mustard seeds

1/4 tsp. asafoetida

1 x 400g tin of peeled plum tomatoes, finely chopped or blended

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/4 tsp. tumeric

2-4 tsp. ground coriander

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

2 handfuls fresh coriander, finely chopped

masala

3-4 fresh, green chillies, seeds left in

3-4 cloves garlic

pinch of salt

Wash and carefully dry the okra. Trim the tops, cut into 1cm chunks, spread out on a baking tray and leave uncovered to oxidise and dry for about 24 hours.

When you are ready to cook, crush the chillies and garlic together with a pinch of salt using a pestle and mortar or a blender, to make a fine masala paste.

Heat 150 ml of the oil in a large lidded frying pan for about 1 minute over a high heat, then add the okra chunks and fry for about 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. They will sizzle and spit, as this process part-cooks them and removes any remaining moisture, which in turn helps them to absorb the spices and other flavours. Remove the okra from the pan a spoonful at a time, squeezing against the side of the pan to drain off any excess oil and put back on the baking tray.

Add the remaining 25ml of oil to the pan containing the okra-infused oil. Heat it over a medium heat for 30 seconds, then add the fenugreek and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start to pop, stir in the asafoetida and tomatoes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the masala paste, salt, turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin and half the fresh coriander. Cook uncovered for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, while the herbs and spices infuse the sauce.

Return the okra to the pan and gently stir into the sauce, taking care not to break the delicate pieces as they add to the texture and structure of the dish. Cover and simmer for about 4 minutes over a medium heat, then remove from the heat and leave to rest, covered for at least 10 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.

Reheat over a low heat, sprinkle with the remaining chopped coriander and serve.

• place the sugar in a heavy, thick based pan and heat gently until dark gold.
• Add the water and stir until you’re happy with the colour of the caramel.
• Pour in the cream, mix well and add the miso. Combine, check the taste and pour the hot sauce over cold scoops of vanilla ice cream, sprinkled with toasted coconut.

The taste of purest summer (even if it is a bit schizo and drizzly out there). Especially good with a bit of grilled dsalmon on the side.  Lunch box leftovers an added bonus.

FOR THE SALAD

broad beans podded and blanched for a minute

orzo, cooked in chicken stock, drained and cooled

1/2 red onion very finely chopped

1/2 preserved lemon, very finely chopped

shredded lettuce

handful of toasted almonds and sunflower seeds

FOR THE PESTO

broken Brazil nuts (you can usually buy these on offer in Holland & Barrett)

finely grated Parmesan

olive oil

2-3 cloves of garlic

sea salt

basil

-mix the salad ingredients together

-whizz the pesto in a blender (adjust quantities according to taste) and mix with the salad

To save me from scoffing the lot, my husband took them to his office and it looks like the Transferwise team had a pretty good time with them too.

Place the paneer skewers over the rice and garnish with halved cherry tomatoes.

A deeply refreshing way to combat all this humidity and super easy to make. Don’t expect any big, bolshy in your face flavours, this is all subtlety and lightness. I’ve found it surprisingly hard to find ice cream in the shops for my 2 year old that isn’t full of sugar and xanthan gum. My reduced nonsense version has gone down an absolute treat.

I must confess to not being the world’s greatest rosewater fan (it always reminds me of long, tedious hours spent hanging around incense-laden sari shops in Southall while my mum and her friends would marvel over roll after yawnsome roll of silk) so I’ve added just enough to provide some background noise. Feel free to stir in more if you like.

1 large cucumber, peeled and cut into chunks

1 tbsp. lime juice

small bunch mint leaves (about 25g)

100g sugar

300ml double cream

1 tsp. rosewater (use the stuff from the Indian shops for a more intense fragrance)

2 tbsp. syrup from a jar of stem ginger or honey

big pinch or two of sea salt

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

blitz the mint and sugar in a food processor. Add the cucumber chunks and lime juice and continue to blend until quite liquid.

Heat the cream over a very gentle heat and tip in the cucumber mix plus all remaining ingredients.

Churn in an ice cream maker and freeze.

So this was a life saver. Proof that you can conjure more exciting meals from your freezer than simply defrosting a lasagne. Oh and don’t be put off by the idea of caramel and fish – the counter weight of garlic, chilli and fish sauce means everything works quite beautifully.

from The Vietnamese Market Cookbook by Van Tran and Anh Vu

serves 4

500g salmon fillets
50g thinly sliced ginger
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
200ml coconut milk (I hacked some off a block of creamed coconut and mixed with hot water)
2 bird’s eye chillies, finely chopped

marinade:
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. gia vi (or a mix of 2 parts sugar, 1 part sea salt, 1 part ground black pepper, 1 part garlic powder)
1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tbsp. loose green tea
2 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tbsp. crushed garlic
2 tbsp. chopped fresh ginger
1 tbsp. chopped galangal (or 1 extra tbsp. ginger)

caramel sauce:
4 tbsp. sugar
250ml water

cut the salmon fillets into 4cm chunks. Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl and rub into the salmon. Cover and leave in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

To make the caramel, place a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium heat, add the sugar and leave for 2-3 minutes without stirring. Turn the heat down to low and then stir constantly for about 2-3 minutes, until no grains of sugar are visible. The sugar will begin to melt and turn a brownish colour. Pay special attention to the colour of the caramel under the bubbles as it will darken very quickly. Just before it turns dark, add the water and cook until it boils. Don’t worry if the sugar hardens upon contact with the water, as it will melt as it cooks, forming a caramel sauce.

Leave the caramel sauce to cool down for about 10 minutes, then stir in the sliced ginger.

Pour this sauce over the marinated salmon, then cover and leave in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

Now put a pan over a medium heat, add the vegetable oil and add the marinated salmon.

When the salmon starts to bubble, pour in the coconut milk and then taste the sauce again and add more fish sauce or sugar if necessary, before adding the chopped chillies.

Turn the heat down to low and leave the salmon to simmer for about 25 minutes, until the sauce has thickened and reduced by half.

Serve with rice and pickles.

Hola! It’s me, baking a chocolate stout cake in my first video for Stork. If you’ve got muscovado sugar I urge you to use that instead of caster – it really does echo those dark, boozy notes quite brilliantly.

Dishes like hambaga, mentaiko pasta and potato salada (potato salad) – all reinvented and made wonderfully and uniquely Japanese.  These impressions of European food served alongside mounds of seasoned rice and fish in bento boxes saw me through many a train journey, emergency trip to the 7-11 and school lunch during the years I lived out there.

Japanese potato salad is more like a Russian salad with gently pickled vegetables folded in. I was recently sent a review copy of the excellent Japanese Soul Cooking (by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat) which has a whole chapter on Yoshuku recipes including ones for ebi gratin and saikoro steak, which I’m also looking forward to making.

Here’s their version of potato salada, the only adjustments I’ve made are a smidge of Dijon, a touch of sugar to balance and red onion instead of Spanish. Make sure you use proper Kewpie mayonnaise for this, it’s really not the same otherwise.

serves 4

2 medium Maris Piper potatoes, (about 450g/1lb) peeled and coarsely chopped

1 tbsp. plus 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

115g (4 oz) cucumber, thinly sliced (if using Japanese or Persian cucumbers leave the skin on, otherwise peel and deseed)

1/2 medium carrot, (about 55g/2 oz) peeled, thinly sliced

1/4 medium Spanish onion (about 85g/3oz) peeled and thinly sliced

125ml (1/2) cup water

1 tbsp. vinegar

60ml Kewpie mayonnaise

method

– to cook the potatoes, fill a saucepan large enough to cover the potatoes with water and add 1 tablespoon of the salt. Place over a high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium, and cook the potatoes for about 10 minutes or until a skewer goes through them easily. Drain and coarsely mash the potatoes, so small chunks are still visible. Set aside and allow the potatoes to come to room temperature.

– Add the cucumber, carrot, onion and 1 tsp. of the salt to a bowl. Use your hands to mix the ingredients, making sure they’re well coated with the salt. Allow the vegetables to cure for 5 minutes. Add the water and swirl the ingredients in the water to remove the salt. Squeeze the cured vegetables tightly with your hands to expel the liquid.

-Add the vegetables and potatoes to a large bowl and mix together well. Add the vinegar and mix to combine. Add the mayonnaise, pepper and the remaining 1/2 tsp. salt. Mix together well until the salad is smooth, and serve.

Variations- you can also add a couple of hard boiled eggs for extra richness and flavour. Mash the eggs and add them along with the potatoes and cured vegetables.

You can also riff on this recipe in a bunch of ways, to wit: Add 25g mentaiko, spicy marinated pollock roe. Or add 90g cooked hijiki. Or add 2 tbsp. of chopped shiso leaves or 1 tbsp. curry powder, or 2 tsp. karashi mustard or 1 tsp. shichimi togorashi or 2 tsp. wasabi or 1 tsp. red yuzu kosho.