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.

Leith's cookery course. Day one: Citrus polenta cake

Today I started a cookery course at Leith's School of Food and Wine in Hammersmith. It's a 3-day course entitled Elegant Entertaining. I was so excited to be there that I almost cried several times during the morning demonstration! If you know me, you know that it's not unusual for me to feel like that, but it does indicate my pure joy at cooking beautiful food. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, which will be a whole day of cooking (today was half demonstration and half cooking). First we made this lemon poppy polenta gluten-free wonderfully moist cake. Then we made pasta! I expect I'll go on about that more later. I am now going to buy a pasta machine. And a MagiMix.

Citrus polenta cake
Adapted from Leith's Baking Bible


3 eggs
130ml sunflower oil
130g caster sugar
zest of one orange
zest of one lemon
105g ground almonds
75g polenta
3/4 tsp gluten-free baking powder
1 1/2 tbsps poppy seeds


For the syrup:
Juice of one orange and one lemon
55g caster sugar


Heat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 23cm cake tin and place a disc of greased greaseproof paper in the base.

Beat the egg yolks, oil, 110g of the caster sugar (or just reserve about a tablespoon from the original 130g sugar) and the orange and lemon zest until smooth. Add the ground almonds, polenta, baking powder and poppy seeds to the egg mixture. Fold to combine.

Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks in a clean bowl then beat in the remaining caster sugar. Fold into the cake mixture. Turn into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 35–40 minutes. A wooden cocktail stick inserted into the centre should come out clean when the cake is cooked.

Cool the cake in the tin while making the syrup. Place the orange and lemon juice in a small saucepan with the caster sugar over a low heat. Heat until the sugar dissolves then bring the mixture to the boil. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Pierce the cake all over the top and pour the syrup into the holes. Leave to settle for a few minutes before turning out of the tine and up the other way (so the holes are now on the bottom). If you wish, you could make more syrup to drizzle over the top.

It's really good with creme fraiche and raspberries.