Grab Your Chopsticks!

Preparation Time: 20 mins
Cooking Time: None
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 4

Chocolate Ginger Lychees

Ingredients

500g lychees
60g candy ginger
185g dark chocolate

Method

1. Drain lychees and allow to stand until dry.
2. Cut ginger into strips and stuff each lychee with the ginger.
3. Melt the chocolate in a pan and once melted allow to cool slightly. Dip each lychee in the chocolate then place on a piece of greasproof paper until cool.

Result

A very nice dessert!

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 2

Fish Curry

Ingredients

400g Fish fillets
1 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped and seeded
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp ketchap manis
juice from 1/2 a lemon or lime
4 tsp dessicated coconut
1 tsp turmeric
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp shrimp paste or 1 tsp fish sauce
2 tsp lemon grass
2 tsp garlic, crushed
2 chillis
2 tsp ginger, finely chopped
salt & pepper

Method

1. Cut the fish into large chunks.
2. Fry the dessicated coconut without oil until evenly brown, then add oil, ginger, chillies, garlic and lemongrass, and fry for 30 seconds. Add the shrimp paste and coconut milk, chicken stock, turmeric, sugar, salt and pepper and lemon juice. Simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Add the fish and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

Result

A great taste!

Preparation Time: 25 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Difficulty: Medium
Serves: 2

Red Curry Prawns

Ingredients

1 kg peeled & deveined prawns
1/2 cup coconut cream
2 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 spring onions, chopped
2 stems lemon grass chopped
2 tbsp red curry paste
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 small red chillis

Method

1. Heat the coconut cream in a pan, along with the spring onion, lemongrass and curry paste and stir over a heat for 5 minutes.
2. Add the coconut milk, bring to the boil and add the prawns simmer for about 10 minutes.
3. Season with fish sauce and sugar, and add a little of the chilli to taste.
4. Serve over jasmine or basmati rice

Result

This dish has a really nice subtle curry taste and is not too hot.

It would be hard to define the basics of Asian cooking. In China alone there are many different styles ranging from the fertile North where the crops are watered by the Yangtze River, to the South’s Cantonese Guangdong Province style and the West’s Szechuan and Hunan Provinces. Our scope of Asian food goes farther afield even than this, including Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, Malaysian, Philippine, Thai, Vietnamese and the latest in the family, Fusion.

Fusion isn’t strictly Asian food, but since it has an Asian influence we decided to include it. Fusion, for those who don’t know, is the literal fusion of Asian cuisines and that of the rest of the World. Known also as East meets West, this delicious combination marries the foods of the West with the spices and presentation of the East and vice versa.

Asian cooking is an art spanning many centuries. As early as 3000BC, the Chinese were practicing their cuisine, though not as elegant as modern Asian cooking it was way ahead of its time. Along similar lines the Indians developed their cuisine and all the provinces and countries between were influenced by both sides, although merit to their own cuisines should definitely not be discounted.

Looking at a map of Asia, you have India on the far left, and China and further afield on the far right. Imagine a pot of curry spices next to India and a bottle of Soy Sauce next to China. You can start to get the idea of how two different cooking techniques came to merge across the countries in between. For instance, the Indians use lots of curry in their dishes, but very little (if any at all) Soy Sauce. China however, uses lots of Soy Sauce, but very little (if any at all) curry. Thailand however, and those in between use both and more, in essence a kind of fusion occurred in this region over time. Now that Asian food has become quite popular, the West has borrowed some techniques from the East and no doubt the East from the West. True fusion cuisine takes the best of the best.

Cutting techniques also differ between the Asian countries, the Indians prefer a chunky, cubed sized piece of meat, about 2.5cm x 2.5cm, while the Chinese and most of the East Asian countries prefer their meat to be sliced into strips. These small subtle differences are what sets the cuisines apart.

Preparation Time: 40 mins (including 20 mins marinading)
Cooking Time: 5 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 2

Chilli Black Bean Beef

Ingredients

400g Beef steak
1 green pepper
100-200g beansprouts
100-200g mushrooms
2 tbsp black bean and garlic sauce
2 tsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tsp dark soy sauce
salt & pepper
2 tsp cornflour & water mixed

Marinade

1/2 cup rice wine
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
3 tsp honey

Method

1. Cut the beef into thin strips, and place in a bowl with the marinade ingredients. Leave to marinade for 20 minutes.
2. While the meat is marinading, cut the green pepper into strips removing the core and seeds. Chop the mushrooms into pieces, or leave them whole if they are not too large.
3. Drain the meat. Add a little oil to a hot wok, the oil should smoke, then add the beef stirfrying for one minute.
4. Add the black bean sauce, the soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce. Stir fry for one more minute.
5. Add the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and fry for another minute.
6. Add the cornflour and water mixture and stir until the sauce thickens.
7. Serve on top of rice or noodles.

Result

A very nice dish, the dark soy sauce and rich black beans give the dish a very savoury taste.

Preparation Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 5 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 2

Tea Butter Prawns

Ingredients

400g prawns
1 tbsp green tea leaves
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp ginger
1 small onion
150ml fish stock
1/2 tsp five pepper mixture
2 tbsp butter
2 sping onions chopped
oil
salt

Method

1. Deshell and devein the prawns
2. Brew the tea in 250ml of boiling water, leave to brew for 15 minutes.
3. Heat a little oil in a wok and cook the prawns for one minute. Strain the tea and add the liquid, add half the tea leaves. Stir for a minute.
4. Remove the prawns and add the rice wine, onions, ginger and fish stock and cook until the sauce has reduced to about a third. Add salt and pepper and butter. Add the prawns and cook for one minute.
5. Serve on top of rice or noodles.

Result

Excellent.

Preparation Time: 20 mins (including 10 mins soaking)
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 2 – 4

Yakitori

Ingredients

1kg chicken breast
1/2 cup sake (or chinese rice wine)
1/2 cup soy sauce (preferably Japanese)
1/2 cup mirin (or vegetable stock)
2 tbsp sugar
2 green peppers

6 – 8 skewers

Method

1. Soak the skewers in water for 10 minutes.
2. Cut the chicken into cubes, cut the green pepper into square pieces, and thread on to the skewers.
3. Fry or grill the skewers until the chicken is golden brown and cooked through.
4. In a pan, combine the sake, soy sauce, mirin and sugar and heat until it boils then pour over the skewers making sure that they are coated.
5. Serve plain as a snack or as a main meal with rice or noodles.

Result

A great taste, I have made this twice during the time that I first made it and the addition to the site!