Friday 28 March - Pad Thai

I've not made Pad Thai for years, but found a lovely looking recipe in one of Rick Steins books, We now also have the advantage of a local Thai grocery store so all the ingredients were easy to get hold of - even the correct type of noodles. The only ingredient that took three shops to find was the bean sprouts.

Here are all the ingredients laid out before, and after preparation.

Once prepared it was simply a case of adding them to the wok in the correct order.

Starting with the garlic, chilli and raw prawns

Next the eggs

and finally all the noodles, vegetables and flavourings

Served with a squeeze of lime juice. The flavour was lovely, although we felt a bit more colour would have been nice.

For afters my new favourite thing - tapioca, but for an Eastern twist, cooked in coconut milk.

I cooked it very slowly over a heat diffuser, with a spoonful of sugar and some added whole milk.

Once cooked it was cooled and some cream was stirred in. I then layered it with another of my current favourite things - ready pureed Mango that I buy in the Indian Grocery store. This also makes brilliant sorbet with no other ingredients required!

Possibly one of the nicest things I've cooked in a long time - and plenty left over for the next couple of days too.