Poached chicken in citrus Wakame Broth

All the comfort of Jewish Chicken Soup, minus the schmaltz, plus Thai freshness and clarity. One to be enjoyed in health and in sickness.

1. Prepare a stonker of a good chicken stock. Any free-range chicken carcass will do.

2. Soak 5g of wakame in some water, drain when rehydrated, and chop coarsely (swearing optional but keep the chunks to about 2-3 cm square).

3. Chop and mince the Usual 3 (garlic, ginger and chilli). Also add a couple of kaffir lime leaves… Just discovered they sell these things in jars, shredded and preserved.. SO much better than the desiccated items we’ve been forced to use so far, really give a kick.

4. Add to the 1 litre of the stock, and poach a couple of chicken breasts in it (this is for 3 very hungry people). For about 10 minutes, then let cool in the broth for another 10 while you:

5. Cook the soba noodles (100g approx). I see no reason why one wouldn’t do this in any residual stock you may have left – plus extra salt.

6. Strain the noodles. Extract the chicken from the stock and slice/shred thinly, and then strain the poaching stock of its store of solids. Return to pan.

7. Chop some bok choi, put into the strained stock, and simmer ever so slightly just to take the rawness of – heat it up, even.

8. Montage time. Combine wakame, some fresh bean sprouts, the bok choi, the strained noodles and the chicken together with the stock and add 80ml of zesty fresh lime juice, and a couple of spoons of Nam Pla. Technically you’re meant to assemble this in the dish and pour a bit of the stock over it but judicious scooping from the well-mixed pan should probably do it. Fresh, zingy, light yet satisfying. I believe the Health Points are at pretty much maximum level. Enjoy!

Fenel and blood orange salad

Slice your oranges (or ruby grapefruit, in this case) into bit-size chunks, and arrange on plate with thinly-sliced fennel.

Add rocket, black olives. Drizzle over with olive oil lightly. Tasty-zingy-yummy.

Braised chicken with Lemon and Honey

Another lemon-chicken variation - different enough though to have a seperate entry. You cut up a chicken into pieces, and fry off and brown them on a high heat, extract. Fry up a sliced red onion on a lower heat, in the same pan. Add 12 cloves of garlic (peeled but not cut up) during the last minute of frying. Return the chicken to the pan with the garlic and red onion, add 1 lemon cut into cubes, 200 ml ish of chicken stock (we didn't have any fresh so we used powdered stock and wine instead), and 125 g honey, and simmer away for a good 15 minutes or until the chicken's done. Then extract the chicken once more and put under a grill to toast up again while you turn the heat up on the remaining sauce and bubble and reduce away. Serve the chicken with the reduced sauce poured over and some fresh organo leaves on top.

It's a right hum-dinger of a way to serve chicken, and we had it with 'Shepherd's' salad with feta and some slices of sourdough bread (homebaked today, mind you, homebaked...).... divine.

Citrus Steamed Barramundi with Potatoes

A good dish, and a simple – with the one caveat that you really, REALLY must season the potatoes very well. They absorb a terrific amount and really need it.

Original recipe says foil parcel lined with greaseproof paper – I assume this is so that the potatoes won’t stick to the foil but really we found it was fine just with the foil. First, peel, slice and boil some potatoes so that they’re reasonably tender. Then prep and grease the foil the dish will be baking in. Layer the potatoes on the bottom (seasoning very well). Then lay your barramundi fillets (or whatever white fish you have to hand) on top, and put in some lemon balm, or mint, or even basil - or a combo – knock yourself out. Top with segmented (peeled) citrus slices – orange and lemon in this case I think. Finally, add your beans (we believe these just went on raw, and cooked very nicely in there). Wrap up nicely and cook in manner of your choice – oven or barbie.  Dish out at table. You can also do these in individual portions, of course. We went for family style.

Divine Bonito with Chard Mountain and Citrus Salsa

Simply fantastic meal, can’t remember if we’ve ever had bonito before – lovely sort of cross between tuna and mackerel, gorgeous. All we did for this was:

Fillet your bonito, season, oil up the fish-sandwich barbie thing (see pic) and cover the flesh side with slices of lemon. Put on barbie.

Boil up copious quantities of chard, and dress with olive oil, lemon juice, seasoning. Actually though in retrospect we discovered that wasabi goes extraordinarily well with the earthy flavour of chard, and will endeavour to work this into our future dressings – in moderation of course so we don’t blow our heads off.

Make your salsa of diced grapefruit and ripe tomatoes.

Serve all in a fantastic and colourful pile of deliciousness. Don’t even think of putting any carb on here, it’s absolutely unnecessary. Really tasty stuff.

Lemon chicken

Lemon chicken

Pre-heat oven to 160 gas mark (very slow if elec.) Put chicken pieces (preferably thighs) several unpeeled cloves of garlic, fresh thyme, two lemons cut in eight pieces in roasting tin , sprinkle with oil and white wine and pepper; mix all together, make sure chicken pieces are skin side up, cover tightly with foil and roast for 2 hours. Remove foil and roast for 30-45 minutes longer at 200 temp. Turns out brown and almost caramelized. Scatter more fresh thyme on top. Delish and simple.

Seared Squid with Citrus and Mango Salad

Prepare:

• A mango, peeled and sliced.
• Squid tubes (about 1 largish one per person, depending on how hungry you are) - sliced down the side and into halves, then criss-crossed
• A mix of 1 tsp Nam Pla, 1 tbs soy sauce, juice 1/2 lime, and plenty of chopped fresh coriander
• 1/2 a red onion, finely diced.
• Some salad leaves of your choice.

Then:

• Gently fry the onion and once it's soft add it to the fish sauce mix.
• Arrange the salad leaves (no need to dress) (the salad that is - the rest is your choice) and the mango on plates.
• Fry the squid rapidly on a high heat (or barbecue) - take off heat as soon as it curls up. Should be no more than 3 minutes max. Don't cram them, fry or grill in batches if necessary.
• Return all the squid to the pan, add the fish sauce mix and stir. Take off the heat at once and arrange over the plated salad, pouring over the pan juices. Serve with wedges of lime.

You wouldn't believe how filling this is, and no carbs to speak of! Lovely, recommended.