Chicken Pad Thai

Original recipe found here.

What you need:

• Thai rice noodles
  
• 500+g raw chicken breast or thigh meat, sliced
• Marinade for Chicken: 1 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in 3 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• optional: 1-2 fresh red chilies, minced
• 3 cups fresh bean sprouts
• 3 spring (green) onions, sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh coriander
• 1/3 cup crushed or roughly chopped peanuts
• 1/4 cup chicken stock
• 1/8 tsp. ground white pepper
• vegetable oil for stir-frying, and wedges of lime
  PAD THAI SAUCE:
• 3/4 Tbsp. tamarind paste dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce, + more to taste
• 1-3 tsp. chili sauce, or substitute 1/2 tsp. or more dried crushed chili or cayenne, to taste
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar

What to do:

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil and remove from heat. Dunk in your rice noodles. Allow noodles to soak while you prepare the other ingredients. Note: you will be frying the noodles later, so you don’t want to over-soften them now. Noodles are ready to be drained when they are soft enough to be eaten, but are still firm and a little “crunchy”. Drain and rinse with cold water. Set aside.
• Make the Pad Thai Sauce by combining the sauce ingredients together in a cup. Stir well to dissolve the tamarind paste and brown sugar. Set aside. Note: this may seem like a lot of sugar, but you need it to balance out the sourness of the tamarind - this balance is what makes Pad Thai taste so amazing!
• Place chicken slices in a small bowl. Stir together the marinade and pour over chicken. Stir well and set aside.
• Warm up a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 1-2 Tbsp. oil plus garlic and minced chili, if using. Stir-fry until fragrant (30 seconds).
• Add chicken together with the marinade. Stir-fry 30 seconds to 1 minute. When wok/pan becomes dry, add a little chicken stock, 1-2 Tbsp. at a time, to keep the chicken frying nicely. Continue stir-frying in this way until the chicken is cooked (5-8 minutes).
• Add the noodles, and pour the Pad Thai sauce over. Using two spatulas, wooden spoons, or other utensils, immediately stir-fry the noodles. Use a gentle “lift and turn” method (like tossing a salad) to prevent noodles from breaking. Stir-fry in this way 1-2 minutes. If you find your wok/frying pan too dry, push noodles aside and add a little more oil to the bottom (but no more broth, or the noodles will become soggy).
• Add the bean sprouts and sprinkle over the pepper. Continue “tossing” 1 more minute, or until noodles are cooked. Noodles are done to perfection when they are no longer “hard” or crunchy, but chewy-sticky wonderful!
• Taste-test for seasoning, adding more fish sauce until desired flavor is reached (I usually add at least 1 more Tbsp. fish sauce). Toss well to incorporate.
• Lift noodles onto a serving plate. Top with generous amounts of fresh coriander, spring onion, crushed/chopped nuts and fresh lime wedges (lime is great squeezed overtop)

Bacon, Egg, Potato and Spinach Pie

Original recipe found here.

What you need:

• 400g Flaky Puff Pastry
• 400g Bacon, rinds cut off
• 400g Potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm chunks, boiled until tender and well drained
• 100g Frozen Spinach, thawed, squeezed dry
• Salt
• Black Pepper, freshly ground
• 9 Eggs & Beaten Egg for brushing

What to do:

• Heat oven to 200°C.
• Divide the pastry into 2 equal pieces. Roll half the pastry out on a floured surface and line a 22 cm diameter by 5 cm deep, loose-bottomed flan tin.
• Layer a third of the bacon on the pastry.
• Add the potatoes, making sure they are evenly spaced.
• Break 6 eggs and put each one in amongst the potatoes. Be careful not to break the yolks.
• Layer another third of the bacon on top.
• Tease out the spinach and place on top of the second layer of bacon.
• Break the remaining 3 eggs on top of the spinach.
• Finish with another layer of bacon.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Roll out the remaining pastry and cover the pie, crimping the edges shut.
• Brush with beaten egg, make a few slits in the top and place in the oven for 40 minutes or until well browned, puffed and well cooked.
• Remove from the oven, cool a little then serve.

Rainbow Vanilla Cupcakes

This is pretty simple, basically use your favourite vanilla cupcake recipe and divide the mix into several different bowls (for the different colours) - I used just four today. You can either layer these or for something a little less time consuming, spoon random blobs! The recipe I used for this at the time is below :)

What you need:

• 1 Cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
• 115 grams butter
• 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 Cup milk

What to do:

• Preheat oven 175 degrees C and line muffin tray with patty cases
• Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs, then add vanilla extract
• Combine flour, baking powder then stir in milk until batter in smooth
• Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when poked through the middle of cupcake.