Pork and coriander rissoles with sticky coconut rice

These rissoles are really easy to make and have a lovely, light flavour from the coriander and lemon. This amount makes 4 to 6 patties, depending how big you make them and how hungry you are.

What you need:
500g pork mince
1 shallot
2-3 cloves of garlic
handful fresh coriander leaves
zest of a lemon
seasoning

For the rice:
50g basmati rice
50ml slightly sweetened coconut water

What to do:
Blitz the shallot, coriander and garlic in a food processor or chop very, very finely. Put into a mixing bowl with the pork mince, lemon zest and seasoning, then work it all together. Shape into burger patties and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. To cook, fry them in a little vegetable oil for about 6 minutes on each side.

To make the rice, put the basmati is a sieve and rinse well under the cold tap until the water runs clear. Put in a pan and add the coconut water. Bring it to the boil, then put a tight lid on it and turn the heat right down until is just simmering. It should take about 12 minutes for all the liquid to be absorbed and for the rice to be plump and sticky.

Cook's tips:
Uncooked rissoles can be frozen - wrap well in cling film, separately, then pop them in a container or freezer bag. They need to be thoroughly defrosted before cooking.

Coconut water is widely available now. Most supermarkets stock it and you can also find it in Asian grocery stores and health food shops. I like the plain version to drink but the slightly sweetened variety, which often has coconut shreds in it, is my preference for the rice. Add a small pinch of sugar to the coconut water if you only have the unsweetened sort. If you can't find coconut water, a mix of about 30ml low-fat coconut milk and 20 ml water works well.

It's a good idea to start the rice before you start frying the rissoles - it needs time to come to the boil and if it's ready before the rissoles, just take it off the heat and leave the lid on to keep it hot until you're ready to plate up. 

South-east Asia in a bag

The #foodiepenpals “club” never ceases to thrill, surprise and amaze me – although I cook for one day to day, food for me is also about sharing and that’s where #foodiepenpals just keeps delivering. I love putting a parcel together every month for the recipient I’ve been matched with and there’s also the anticipation of getting one in return from yet someone else.

There was extra excitement in store this month, as my parcel not only arrived hand-delivered but was also entirely homemade. Lex, aka LadyNom1, was passing through my neighbourhood so she dropped by for tea and a natter, while handing over this exotic-looking bag.

Lex writes the LadyNom blog and runs a supper club called Nomsensical in Altrincham, just south of Manchester. There are several supper clubs in my city although I’ve yet to attend one. We had a chat about these and she encouraged me to sign up for her next one. I then told Lex about Manchester’s legendary GastroClub, which she’d never tried yet. It’s currently on hold but hopefully she’ll book when it gets going again.

After she left, I dived into Lex’s bag of goodies, which contained four jars of handmade fresh dips and pastes from south-east Asia. She certainly knows her stuff, having travelled extensively in the region and cooked professionally there so these were all as authentic as can be. She’d very thoughtfully made up each jar in one-person portions for me – Cambodian amok curry paste, a Laotian spice paste for fish and noodles, a Vietnamese dipping sauce and a Thai curry paste.

She’d also included six (six!) pages of info about her travels and the food, plus a recipe for each item, also thoughtfully in one-person portions. Most of my repertoire is pan-European so I was delighted to receive such a fabulous parcel and couldn’t wait to get cracking in the kitchen.

I chose to cook the Cambodian amok first – you’ll have to ask Lex for the recipe, but it’s a mix of chicken and spinach or beet leaves steamed in coconut milk and her spice paste, which is based on coriander. For true authenticity, you’re supposed to wrap it in a banana leaf but I used her suggested method of steaming it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water instead. It was fragrant and warming, the perfect supper for a chilly, drizzle evening.

Thai-style soup with glass noodles

I had a major craving for heat the other day. Not the sort where I pile on the woollies and sit with my back to the radiator, but heat in the form of chillies. I'm also haunted every time I open the larder by a huge pack of glass noodles that I bought several months ago and have yet to open. Something soupy and Eastern came to mind. Something that would make my tongue seriously tingle while nourishing me.

I needed to hit my local market anyway, to stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables so it was a matter of moments to add fresh chillies, lemongrass, coriander, a hand of ginger and a bag of limes to my basket.

This soup is quick to put together and makes a generous bowlful. The noodles make it surprisingly filling.

What you need:

1 tbsp homemade Thai spice paste
2-3 spring onions, sliced into small rounds
1 small carrot, sliced into matchsticks
A small handful green beans, top and tailed
12 baby button mushrooms
1 small packet jumbo prawns
Coconut milk (optional)
1 pint stock
Vegetable oil
Glass noodles, 1 twist

What to do: 

Make up the stock. Heat the oil in a deep pan and gently fry the spring onions until they start to soften. Add the spice paste and pour in the stock. Add the carrots, beans and mushrooms and simmer until just tender. Meanwhile dump the glass noodles in a heatproof basin and cover them with boiling water. Leave them for 10 minutes to soften. Add the prawns to the soup and simmer for 5 minutes. Check the seasoning - if it's too fiery temper it with a little coconut milk (there is already some in the spice paste). Drain the noodles well and put in the bottom of the soup bowl then ladle the soup over the top. 

Cook's tips: 
If you have fresh stock, great, but a chicken stock cube will do the job just as well or some vegetable stock powder. If you use bought stock, it will be saltier so check the seasoning as you go.

Glass noodles are easiest to find in Chinese supermarkets but sometimes turn up in Asian stores or even the big four supermarkets.

If you've no fresh spice paste, use a small tablespoonful from a jar of Thai red or green curry paste. You will need about half a can of coconut milk, in that case, and possibly less stock.   

Thai-style curry paste

Those jars of Thai red or green curry paste you can pick up in any supermarket are the sort of thing it's useful to keep in the back of the larder. Gawd knows I've been bailed out of a dinner dilemma on more than one occasion by a jar of paste, some leftover cooked chicken and a carton of creamed coconut.

Fresh paste is so much nicer though, the flavours more intense, the colours brighter. And of course, you can tinker with the quantities to suit your own taste.

This takes about 5 minutes to rustle up and makes a decent quantity, with enough left over to freeze a few portions.

What you need:
3 chillies, red, green or mixed, deseeded
4 cloves garlic, peeled
About 3ins fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into chunks
3 stems fresh lemongrass
1 large or 2 small limes, halved
10 black peppercorns
1/2 tsp each of ground turmeric, ground coriander and ground cumin
1/3 tin coconut milk
Very generous handful of fresh coriander

What to do: 
Put everything into a food processor and whizz to a paste. That's it! Use in a recipe in the usual way - add it once you've fried the onions and before you add the other ingredients.

Cook's tips: 

A generous tablespoonful of this mixture is about the right quantity for one portion of curry or soup. You can keep the leftovers in a sealed jar in the fridge but you should use it up quickly in that case. I freeze it in small portions - my local curry house delivers the relishes in little plastic cartons when I order in a takeaway and they are the perfect size for this. 

You can also use the paste as a marinade for prawns or meat. Give the two about an hour to get to know each other, or marinate overnight in the fridge.