h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah, a Wednesday off! It was crisp but clear this morning, so I took the dogs for a long walk on a little path that nestles between a golf course and the train line. It is through some splendid old trees, and always cheers my spirit. Mind you, it was rather mucky this morning, so both mutts had to have a bath afterwards.

I'm cooking a Jamie 15 minute meal this evening - should get it done in under an hour, lol! Well, the most time consuming part is all the veg chopping, so I plan to do that this afternoon before my running training, and then it'll be ready to go when I get in.

It's called "Lucky squid and prawn, with spicy vegetable noodle broth". I found some raw prawns yesterday on special offer, and I usually keep squid in the freezer, so I only needed to obtain the veg (pak choi, sugar snaps, cauliflower) and some keffir lime leaves. I always omit lemongrass from recipes, as Rog claims it tastes soapy.

After that, I feel a large glass of Chardonnay and The Apprentice will round the day off rather nicely. Pip pip!

Rog is right! Lemongrass* is strange. It tastes ok on its own, or lemongrass-flavoured sparkling water is ok. But something odd happens when you combine it with other ingredients.

*autocorrect keeps wanting me to call it Leningrad.

[Amy P]

Just wanted to record that the meal was excellent, and will definitely be repeated. Probably with more mushrooms.

I loathe squid so I'd leave that out, but I love lemongrass.
The dish sounds great - care to share the recipe? (we keep lime leaves plus other assorted leaves in the freezer for culinary emergencies)

I've only ever had one kind of emergency I needed leaves for, and you wouldn't want them kept in the freezer beforehand.

the kind of emergency (non culinary) that I have needed leaves for in the past were better when they came out of the fridge. Cabbage leaves for - look away squeamish males now - mastitis.

From memory....


Make a spice paste with ginger, garlic, chili, fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, lime leaves, coriander stalks and honey.

Stir half the paste into a bowl containing raw prawns, quartered mushrooms, and squid (opened and scored criss cross)

The other half of the paste, add to a litre of chicken stock. To the broth, add finely shredded bok choi, red pepper, sugar snaps and cauliflower. Add egg or rice noodles. While that's simmering, throw the fish and mushrooms onto a hot griddle pan. When cooked, cut the squid into pieces, and serve the fish and mush on top of a bowl of broth. Oh, add lime juice to the broth and sprnkle with the corander leaves.

sounds good - we make this kind of thing but usually with chicken. It all got exciting when we found that our local cheapo supermarket sells baby pak choy

I like Lemongrass, too, although I can imagine how it would be called soapy. Thai green curry I find very tasty.

I don't like squid either, though...