 Thai larb is a meat salad variation. It's hot, sour, sharp, everything you'd expect from a rustic Thai dish.
This one is a vegetarian version of a thai larb, using shitake mushrooms as the main ingredient instead. Using mushrooms ensures that the 'meaty' texture is still present, while of course, being a lot lighter. Shitake mushrooms are easy and cheap to find, and for this particular recipe, I'm using the fresh ones instead of dried. Shitake mushrooms are high in vit B5 (hello nice skin/hair!), selenium and zinc, and this meal, together with fresh herbs, peanuts, garlic, and ginger, can only mean good things for you. What You Need: 200 gms shitake mushrooms, cut into dice-sized pieces 1 big clove garlic, peeled and chopped 1/2 inch ginger, grated 1 red chili, sliced thin 1 torch ginger, thinly sliced Some mint or coriander, roughly torn 1 handful toasted peanuts 1 tbsp fish sauce Juice from 1/2 lime Lettuce or cabbage What You Do: 1. Before starting to cook, it helps to get all the ingredients prepped and ready, because this will be fast cooking over fire. 2. In a large flat bottomed pan on low heat, add 2 tbsp cooking oil. Add diced mushrooms, and cook for 4 mins. 3. Add chopped garlic and grated ginger, and half the chili. Toss and cook for a further 2 minutes. 4. Turn off gas. Add the torch ginger, half the peanuts, fish sauce and lime juice. Taste. Adjust according to your tastes. You're looking for a balance of heat, saltiness and sourness. 5. Transfer to a plate, over some cabbage or lettuce leaves. Sprinkle the rest of the chili, peanuts and coriander/mint if using. 6. How to eat: Great on its own in the cabbage/lettuce leaf 'cups' (great for when you're trying to eat healthier!), or as a dish for your rice.  Here's how garlicky this pasta is: you'll need 12 cloves of garlic. Big, fat, 12 cloves of garlic. This particular pasta sauce recipe is extremely smooth, almost like a garlicky, slightly spicy tomato puree smothering some pasta. You can easily make double batches, and freeze them (it almost seems like most of the recipes in here are freezable ones these days, but that's how I roll). What I like about this arabiatta recipe is that it elevates the basic pomodoro you're used to, with hints of fragrant fennel seeds, specks of garlic in the sauce, and a hint of chili flakes. You can use any pasta you like, but I find that rigatoni or penne works best, as the smooth sauce fills in the pasta holes really well. This one is definitely a pasta recipe to place in your repertoire of "I'm lazy but I still want a nice, warm dinner" category. This recipe makes 2 bowls of pasta. What You Need: 12 cloves of garlic, peeled 1 can of whole tomatoes 1 tsp fennel seeds 1/2 tsp chili flakes 1 small handful fresh basil, chopped Dried rigatoni/penne pasta What You Do: 1. In a large pot filled with salted water, bring to boil. Add in pasta and cook according to packet instructions (about 5-7 mins). 2. In a large pan, add 3 tbsp extra virgil olive oil. Add the whole garlic. Start the heat on low. Slowly cooked the garlic until they become yellow (don't let them burn!). 3. Remove the garlic into a food processor. Add the canned tomatoes, fennel, and chili flakes. Whiz until smooth. 4. In the same pan with the olive oil, add this processed puree mixture. Season with salt and pepper, add the basil. Cook under low fire for about 15 mins. 5. When the pasta is cooked, remove to plate, and scoop over the sauce. Finish with some shavings of parmesan, if you like. 6. If you intend to Instagram this plate, it looks better if the pasta is mixed with the sauce first.
 Pesto, otherwise known as the green thing you smother your pasta in, and has a woody, nutty taste, is a staple in Italian cuisine. You probably get them in jars at the fancy grocery store, or say stuff like "Ohhh I had them when I was in Rome with my now ex-husband!"
Well, guess what. You can make perfectly decent, fresh pesto at home, right here, in your (my) humid, SE Asian apartment. It takes 5 minutes, and tastes 5 times better than the ones in the jar at the Italian food section. You can even freeze them for future use. The traditional recipe uses pine nuts, and pine nuts are basically so freaking expensive here, and no one should be paying that much for some nuts. No one. So for this recipe, I'm recommending a much cheaper substitute - whole almonds. Once you have yourself a batch of fresh pesto, the possibilities are endless. Endless. Spread them onto your grilled cheese sandwiches. Toss some warm pasta with them. Slather a piece of roast chicken with them and think of yourself as Martha Stewart. Roast a pile of vegetables and toss them in the pesto, and you've got yourself an elevated roast veg tray. What You Need: 100 grams fresh basil 1 clove garlic, peeled 1 handful almonds, roasted or not roasted 1 tbsp. lemon juice 3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil 1/2 tsp salt 2 tbsp grated parmesan What You Do: 1. There is only one step here, to be honest. Dump all that stuff in your food processor, and blitz until smooth. If it's still chunky, add a small dash of water to get it going. 2. Store in a small jar, in the fridge, or freezer. In the fridge, it keeps until 4-5 days. |
