Chicken in a Spicy Coconut Broth

What is it with Thai soups? From my, albeit, limited experience of them the more they look like dish water the more amazing they taste. Every spoonful is a constant battle for the taste buds attention with a complex blend of different flavours and this one is no exception.





The recipe is a very easy one from Ramsay's World Kitchen and I could literally drink the broth by the gallon.

Recipe serves 4-6 as a starter

Chicken in a Spicy Coconut Broth (tom ka gai)

Ingredients
2 boneless chicken breasts
Sea salt and black pepper
400ml tin of coconut milk
600ml water
3cm fresh root ginger, peeled and sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves, ripped up
1 lemongrass stalk, halved length ways
2 red chillies, halved length ways and deseeded
1 Tsp palm sugar or light brown soft sugar
21/2 Tbsp of Fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
100g button mushrooms
handful of coriander leaves

Method
Slice the chicken into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside
Pour the coconut milk into a pan along with 600ml of water
Add the ginger, kaffir, lemongrass, chillies, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice
Bring to a simmer and cook gently for about 5 minutes, allowing the flavours to infuse
Add the mushrooms and simmer for 3 minutes
Add the chicken and simmer until cooked through, about 2 minutes.
Serve by discarding the chili, lemongrass, ginger and lime leaves or be traditional and leave them in but don't eat them.
Garnish with coriander

Enjoy

100 Blog Posts

Waaaaay back in the summer of last year, I had finished my degree and waiting for my next qualification to begin in September. One day I got bored and decided to have a go at writing a blog. I figured if I was to stick at it then it would have to be something I was interested in. so what better than food? Pretty much every single part of my life revolves around the stuff in some way so I may as well write about it as well.

I never actually thought I would be sat here writing my 100th post, I figured once I started University again by September I'd get bored with it and leave it to be forgotten in the depths of the Internet but alas no and here I am writing this and wondering what blog post 101 will contain.

It's been a fun 11 months. The blog plus Twitter has opened up many an opportunity and events that otherwise I would never have known about it. So I think to mark 100 posts I'll recap on some highlights:

Recipes
Birthday cake - easily one of the best cakes I've made and my first venture into sugar craft

Buttermilk scones - the first ever recipe post.

Beef wellington - Christmas Dinner, beats turkey any day

Chicken and papaya curry - The first blogger challenge hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen

Chocolate, honeycomb and truffle cake - well just look at it, it's huge!

Fig Tart - another blogger challenge, a thing of beauty.

Events

My Secret Tea Room - hosted by the delightful 'Bakelady' with superb home baking and my first ever underground supper club

The Spice Club - another underground supper club hosted by Monica and her lovely family, superb Indian food.

Test Space Kitchen - a deconstructed whole hog followed by a huge Eton mess in an abandoned run down old building? you couldn't make this stuff up.

Clandestine Cake Club - turn up with a cake in a random location, eat loads more of other peoples cake, meet lots of lovely people. drink tea. - brilliant

Well there you are, a few highlights since I started and I haven't mentioned all the superb restaurants I have visited in Leeds, Sheffield,  London, Edinburgh etc...

Here's to the next hundred, hope you will join me.

Cheers

Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting.

For this months Clandestine Cake Club meeting the theme was Flirtatiously Fruity and Succulent Savoury. For an excellent review go here and look at what else turned up.

I decided to go for the flirtatiously fruity and decided to make a recipe I found on BBC Good Food and adapted slightly.




Mixed Berry Cake with Cheesecake Frosting
Ingredients
175g soft butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 Large Eggs
225g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
142ml carton of sour cream
350g of mixed berries. I used; blueberries, raspberries and blackberries

Frosting
200g Philadelphia cream cheese
100g icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180C (fan =160C)
Line a deep loose based cake tin.
Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla and beat together until well mixed.

Beat in 4tbsp of the soured cream.

Stir in the fruit gently, leave about 50g to decorate.

Tip into the tin and bake for 50 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes then tip out onto a wire rack to finish cooling

Frosting
Beat the soft cheese, icing sugar and the remaining sour cream together until smooth and creamy.
Spread out on top and decorate with the remaining fruit.

Enjoy.

I took a picture of my plate after my first assault of the rather long table filled with cake at this months event:

Not bad for a first course. Yum