Shredded thai chicken salad

Serves 2

4 tbsp Thai fish sauce
2 limes , juiced
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 small red onion , halved and finely sliced
2 cooked skinless chicken breasts , shredded
½ small white cabbage , shredded
2 large carrot , shredded
2 red chillies , shredded
a small bunch mint , roughly chopped

Combine the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar then put in a bowl with the onions.

Toss and leave for 10 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix together.

Stir fried Chicken with Basil

Serves 4

4 chicken thighs, cut into cubes
2 Tb vege oil
2 Tb ginger, finely chopped
2-3 chillies
1 Tb garlic, crushed
2 Tb palm sugar, grated or sliced up if hard
2 Tb fish sauce
big handful basil leaves, Thai or common, roughly shredded
coriander leaves
extra sliced chilli for garnish
steamed rice

Heat a wok to very hot and then add the oil.

Add the ginger, chllies and garlic and cook for just a few seconds - do not burn these or your dish will be ruined.

Add the chicken and stir fry that until it is just cooked and coloured. You may need to do this in two lots if you don’t have good heat as you don’t want it to stew.
Add the palm sugar and the fish sauce and cook until the whole lot looks sticky.

Stir through the basil leaves and serve garnished with the coriander leaves and extra chilli.

Serve with the steamed rice.

Grublover comment
This is another really easy, healthy weeknight dinner for which I usually have all the supplies on hand.  It is especially nice in the summertime when we have an abundance of fresh basil in the backyard.

Thai Chicken and Basil from Terry Durack’s ‘Yum’…Recipe provided by Fiona T Nichols

Serves 4










500g chicken thighs, cut into strips
3-4 red or green chillies
2 tablespoon flat leaf parsley
bunch of fresh basil leaves
4 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 tablespoon fish sauce (nam pla)

Slice chillies into thin slivers and finely chop parsley. Pluck basil leaves and reserve them.
Heat oil in wok, cook chicken over moderate heat for 3-4 minutes.
Add the chillies, most of the basil and the chopped parsely.
Cook, stirring as you go, for another 3-4 mins. Splash in fish sauce and stir through.
Add remaining basil and serve with plenty of jasmine rice.

Grublover comment
Thai Chicken and Basil (from Terry Durack’s ‘Yum’, in which he says that this recipe taught him that you could toss things in the wok while half-drunk and without a care in the world, and still be able to feed people without killing them)

Tigerlils II

Stupidly I returned to Tigerlils, being sucked in by a free lunch.

Again I was extremely disappointed.

No need to even comment on the food because I feel sick to the stomach thinking about it but it looked and tasted like it had been sitting around with flies laying eggs on it for hours.

I vomited straight after.

Don’t go here if you value your health at all.

Tigerlils

437 Murray St, Perth(08) 9322 7377

Tigerlils is "restaurant" by day, and turns into a trendy bar at night. It’s really just the old Spirit Soundbar spruced up with some Chinese lanterns.I went for lunch last week with a few girls from work and was severely disappointed.I ordered the thai beef salad ($19). The girls ordered pad thai ($17) and a fish curry. The meals were bland and boring and I got violently ill that night from my meal. The whole salad tasted like it had been dumped on the plate out of a bowl in the fridge.Thumbs down. Don’t bother.

Chicken and pumpkin stir fry

Serves 4

2 Tb peanut oil
2 onions, sliced
2 small red chillies, seeded and chopped
1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
4 chicken breast fillets, sliced
600g pumpkin, peeled and thinly sliced
3 Tb fish sauce
1/4 cup small basil leaves

Heat the oil in a preheated fry pan or wok over medium to high heat.
Add the onions, chillies and pepper and cook for 1 minute.
Add the chicken and cook for 3 minutes or until browned.
Add the pumpkin and fish sauce, cover and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is just soft.
Stir through the basil and serve with steamed jasmine rice.

Grublover comment
This is taken from Donna Hay’s ‘Off the Shelf’. It is a great book full of recipes like these where you are likely to have the ingredients on hand.
We added about 1-2 cups of frozen peas right at the end and it was a great addition (but maybe cut the amount of pumpkin if you’re going to do this).