Pad Thai

I love Pad Thai – the delicious sweet and savoury noodle combination is always a winner. I love that there's filling egg mixed in with the noodles! You could use silken tofu in place of the egg to get that eggy texture. I haven't tried that yet... I have made my version with firm tofu (in addition to the egg) and, although it may not be the most authentic, it is made using ingredients that are available from most supermarkets.

Like most stir-fry-type recipes, this is pretty fast-paced so have all your ingredients to hand and be prepared to give it your full attention! It does mean that a delicious dinner can be on the table within 20 minutes – faster than an oven-baked ready-meal! I can't beat that pesky microwave though...

Pad Thai
Serves 2


120 g rice noodles
1/2 a bell pepper
1/2 a pack of firm tofu cut into cubes
4 spring onions (or "scallions" to my American readers)
2 eggs

1 lime
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
Peanuts (unsalted or roasted and salted - your choice; chopped)
Coriander (or "cilantro"! to serve)


Start by chopping the bell pepper, spring onions and tofu, taking care to dry the tofu cubes on some kitchen roll. Boil some water in a pan and soak the rice noodles (they should be cooked by the time you need to use them – you could soak them in a saucepan and if they're not quite done, boil them for a minute or two).

Warm up a wok with a couple of teaspoons of oil. When hot add the spring onions and peppers and fry for a minute. Add the tofu and fry for a further 2 minutes. Add the fish sauce, sugar and rice-wine vinegar. Add the noodles and stir to coat. Move the contents of the wok to one side and quickly add both eggs. Leave the noodles where they are while the eggs cook – stir them to scramble them. When they're separated into egg-bits (after a minute or two), stir them through the noodles. Taste and add more sugar or fish sauce.

Serve in bowls and squeeze a quarter of a lime over each bowl. Put the other quarter of a lime at the edge of the noodles. Sprinkle the peanuts and coriander over the top in an artistic flourish!

NB: I just realised this isn't vegetarian - darn that fish sauce! For Veggies, use soy sauce instead.

Apple and carrot chutney

I've just noticed that the past few months, all my posts have been written on a Monday! What a strange and completely unconscious decision of mine! Anyway, today is TUESDAY and I'm going to write a post about my chutney. I haven't actually tried it yet – family, please can I have some feedback on the chutney? I'll only post the positive responses of course – my scientific mind is wincing at the very thought of this bias – but it's only a blog!

I found this recipe because I thought a carrot chutney would be interesting and good value (since I was not making my chutney in the traditional way when there is a glut of fruit or vegetables, but for Christmas, I needed something that wasn't really expensive because it was out of season). As it happened, this is more of an apple chutney with a bit of carrot thrown in. No matter – it was still fun to make and (I hope!) tasty.

Apple and carrot chutney

Thank you good people of ScotClans from where this recipe was borrowed. Not having much experience of making chutney, I didn't want to chance it with an experimental batch!

225 g onions, chopped
900 apples, cored and chopped
110 g carrots, topped, tailed and diced
2 garlic cloves very finely diced
110 sultanas, or raisins
50 g fresh ginger, peeled and grated
15 g ground coriander
15 g paprika
15 g mixed spice (allspice)
15 g salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
340 g brown sugar
750 ml malt vinegar

Put the onions, apples, carrots and garlic into a preserving pan with the vinegar. Cook gently until all softened, then stir in all the other ingredients. Slowly bring to the boil, then simmer for ½ hour, stirring from time to time to stop the chutney sticking to the pan.

When it is thick enough that you can draw a wooden spoon across the base of the pan and leave a channel behind it that does not immediately fill with liquid, the chutney is ready.

Turn into sterilised jars, seal and cool. (There should be enough to fill 12 jam-jars)

Store in a cool, dark cupboard for at least 2–3 weeks before eating.

This did make our house smell of vinegar for the whole weekend, so I wouldn't advise any fancy parties or estate agent viewings on a chutney-making weekend. It probably works in the opposite way to freshly brewed coffee and baking bread...

Fresh garden vegetable pasta

I've been watching green tomatoes grow all summer and now I'm finally getting a regular supply of tasty, red, ripe ones (it's almost September!), although I should be very grateful really, because these tomatoes grew without me realising when I used some of last year's tomato growbag to top up the pots on my patio. So instead of growing flowers, up came tomatoes! I didn't even realise they weren't flowers until they were quite big and had that tomato smell. Shame about the flowers. I also have some late runner beans, which my Granny gave me as little plants. They're enjoying the wet weather and beginning to grow some delicious beans. The rest of the vegetable patch contains some gladioli, which were going to be cut flowers but only one made it into the house, a cabbage from last year that survived the caterpillar attack and a forgotten pepper plant that might grow a pepper, one day. You can probably tell, I'm not that great at maintaining my veg patch, which makes me all the more grateful for this lovely pasta dish, the ingredients for which grew all by themselves!

Fresh garden vegetable pasta
Serves 2

100g spiralini (or your pasta of choice)
8-10 fresh cherry tomatoes
4 runner beans
A handful of capers, rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
A handful of marjoram (or oregano - I just happen to grow marjoram in my garden)

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the packaging. Chop the runner beans into short lengths, about 2 cm each and add to the pan with the pasta towards the end of cooking. Chop the tomatoes into quarters and the capers into smaller pieces (I find this distributes their salty flavour, especially the bigger varieties). When the pasta is cooked, drain most of the cooking water, but leave a few tablespoons of water behind in the pan. Add the tomatoes, capers, olive oil and balsamic vinegar and toss to combine. Sprinkle the marjoram on top to serve.

Leith's buttermilk bread

Days two and three of the Leith's cookery course were so much fun! We made sweet sable biscuits (using the magimix - I am now the proud owner of a MagiMix 4200!), buttermilk bread, beetroot and goats cheese tart, and most excitingly, we learnt how to fillet fish! I filleted a mackerel rather well, if I may say so myself. The last time I saw a mackerel was on the Parasites and Vectors module of my biology degree where we had to pick little (still live) worms out of the fish's gills and body cavity. It put me off mackerel for years. This time though, I didn't go looking for those, I just set about getting the lovely flesh off the bones. Sadly no pictures of that, but I do have the recipe for wonderfully sweet buttermilk bread, which was a lot of fun to make.

Buttermilk bread

15g fresh yeast
100ml milk, scalded (sometimes the proteins in the milk can react with the yeast so it is best to "scald" the milk - heat it until a skin forms but do not boil it)
1 teaspoon caster sugar
450g strong plain flour
2tsp salt
30g butter
190ml buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
beaten egg to glaze

Dissolve yeast with a little milk and sugar in a small bowl. Sift the flour with the salt, then add the butter to the scalded milk. Stir the buttermilk into the scalded milk, add the yeast mixture and pour about two-thirds of the liquid into the dry ingredients. Mix vigorously and continue to add liquid until you have a sticky dough.

Lightly flour a worktop and turn the dough out onto it. Careful not too add too much flour or it drys out the dough. Keep your hands clean and free from bits of dough as you knead. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a piece of lightly greased clingfilm. Leave to rest in a warm place until it has doubled in size. If you like, you can leave it in the fridge overnight (it just slows down the rising action of the yeast).

When the dough has risen, knock it down and knead for a minute or two. Grease a 1kg loaf tin and shape the dough into an oblong and place in the loaf tin. Cover and leave to prove until it has nearly doubled. Brush the top with beaten egg, or dust with flour.

Bake the loaf for 30 minutes or until it is golden and firm.

Turn the loaf onto a wire rack to cool. It should sound hollow when tapped. If it doesn't, turn it over and put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes.

We all sat down to a delicious three-course lunch on the third day, consisting of bruschetta canapes (above) crab soup (with buttermilk bread), duck breast (where we learnt how to render the fat) with madiera sauce, followed by champagne and strawberry jelly. I'm not in this picture, as I took it!

Banana nutmeg waffles

The waffle story began, rather unexpectedly, in Iceland. Hubbie and I went there on holiday to look at geysers and the blue lagoon. When we awoke in our hotel on the first morning and went downstairs for breakfast, the smell of waffles wafted (I wonder if the smell of waffles has anything to do with the word "wafted"?!) up the stairs. We were very pleased to see a waffle iron and batter and made ourselves some waffles - we've been talking about them ever since and Hubbie bought me a waffle-iron for Christmas (romantic isn't he?). This morning I made banana waffles. It is a failsafe recipe and we always have bananas in the house.

Banana nutmeg waffles 

Makes 4 waffles. This recipe came from here and is in American cup measurements, but all you have to do is go and buy cup measurers, and it opens up a world of possibilities! I modified it slightly by adding wholemeal flour – I think it adds sweetness.


3/4 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 cup semi-skimmed milk
1 egg
2 ripe bananas, sliced


Preheat waffle iron. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour milk into a jug or bowl and add the egg and sliced bananas. Mash the bananas into the milk using a fork and mix the egg. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. The mixture is much thicker than normal pancake batter so don't be tempted to add more liquid.


Spray preheated waffle iron with cooking spray. Pour two tablespoons of the waffle batter onto the hot waffle iron.  Cook until golden brown (about 2 minutes in my electric waffle iron). Serve hot with fruit and syrup.

Chocolate-orange-fondant chocolates

I experimented a bit making chocolates at Christmas but I've been wondering for a while if there is a way to make a creamy chocolatey centre to a chocolate without using cream. My brother and his family are vegan so I was primarily thinking of something they could eat. On the plus side, if the chocolates do not have cream, they will probably keep for a lot longer. Here are the results of my experiment!

Chocolate-orange-fondant chocolates


90g good quality dark chocolate


For the filling:
60g good-quality dark chocolate (this adds up to one 250g bar so you can just go ahead and melt the whole thing, then use about a third of it for the filling)
Zest of half an orange
3 tsp Cointreau or Grand Marnier
1 tsp orange extract

Melt all of the chocolate (I'm a bit naughty and use the microwave instead of a bain-marie, but if you do, just be careful the chocolate doesn't overheat and burn and use a low setting). Pour about one third of the chocolate into a mould and as it sets, stand the mould upright for a few minutes, then on it's side and keep rotating to try and coat the walls of each chocolate cavity. This way, the filling should be encased in chocolate all the way round and is not tempted to escape out of the sides. (I got my mould from Lakeland, but they're probably available online.)

To make the filling, transfer another third of the melted chocolate to a separate bowl and add the filling ingredients. The chocolate "froze" (when it changes texture and sets) when I added the alcohol so make sure you add it gradually. Although, having said that, I quite liked the change in texture. To try to unfreeze it, I just heated it a bit more – gently – then added a teaspoon or two of water and stirred vigorously (although it will never really go back to how it was once this has happened).

Pop a blob of the filling inside each chocolate cavity and then fill with the remaining melted chocolate, taking care that it makes it's way round the sides of each blob of filling. Place in the fridge and turn out when set.

I added gold dust to the top of my chocolates (actually to the bottom of the mould, with a clean paintbrush), which is available in Waitrose. I also bought edible gold leaf to decorate my chocolates, which is made of - you'll never guess - gold! Who would have thought that pure gold is edible? It doesn't taste of anything though...

Peppery Thai basil noodles

My husband and I went to New York in April and after visiting this church (we thought we might see Tim Keller! We didn't, but it was still pretty cool) we went for a late dinner in Greenwich Village. We only had four days in the city and we wanted to make the most of our time there, so a look at the Village area at night was better than nothing.

We came across a very good value Thai restaurant (our wallets were feeling a bit battered!). We chose noodle dishes and were both disappointed by our choices - mine was too bland and my husband's was too spicy. Once we had swapped, I was in heaven! He had chosen a very peppery basil noodle dish which I have attempted to re-create (I say "attempted" to be modest - it was pretty darn tasty!).

Peppery Thai basil noodles
To serve one


1 carrot
2 chesnut mushrooms
small handful of curly kale (or your favourite greens) 
40g buckwheat (or your favourite) noodles
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp red peppercorns
2 tbsp fish sauce (or nam pa)
3 tsp sugar
3 or 4 sprigs of fresh basil (I used regular basil but I'm sure it would taste even better with Thai basil)

Peel the carrot and chop into thin sticks. Boil a half-full kettle. Spray a wok with cooking spray or 1 tsp oil and add the carrots once the pan is hot. Chop the mushrooms and curly kale into thin slices and add them to the pan when the carrots are starting to char on the edges. Keep moving everything around the pan by flipping it, or stirring.

Add the noodles to a bowl with the boiling water from the kettle and leave for 5 minutes or until tender. Grind the peppercorns in a food processor or pestle and mortar. Drain the noodles and add to the wok with a few tablespoons of the water the noodles were soaking in. Add the peppercorns, fish sauce, sugar and basil and stir thoroughly.

Carrot salad

I think this is a bit of an 80's salad but I have recently realised how wonderful this simple dish is. I remember my mother always making it for our annual family barbecue. And for me, the best thing about a barbecue is, by far, the salads. This one is winning for me at the moment. Carrot and vinegar make a perfect pair and the raisins add even more sweetness.

Carrot salad

200g carrots

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

30g raisins (it's even nicer if the raisins are soaked in water overnight first, but not essential)

Peel and medium-grate the carrots (make sure you reserve all the lovely juice). Add the raisins and vinegar and mix well.

I'd like to experiment with adding coriander (a classic flavour combination) or cumin for a more spiced version. I'll keep you posted.