eggplant, mint & yoghurt dip from Feast by Nigella Lawson.

Over the long weekend I had grand cooking plans. I was going to make donut holes from Emiko Davies new book Florentine and also banana bread from The Violets Bakery Cookbook but those plans fell through when I pull out my full container of flour and I had friends show up. Unwanted friends. Weevils. They gave me the heebie-geebies. I didn't inspect the moving critters for long. I ran the plastic container to the garbage bin as fast as I could and closed my cookbooks with a heavy sign and a shiver. Isn't baking what your meant to do on a long weekend? Fill your tummies full of delicious baked goods?? Scared with what else might be lurking in the other flours I decided that with the creepy-crawly feeling on my skin, I'd leave the baking for next weekend and make dip instead. We were going to a welcome home drinks so nibbles were appropriate, although I am sure they would have welcomed donut holes just as much.

I decided to make the eggplant, mint and yoghurt dip from Nigella Lawson's Feast, I've made this a few times now over the years and it's always a winner. Feast was also one of the first cookbooks I ever bought myself and is full of splattered pages and bookmarked recipes, as a good cookbook should be.

I roasted the eggplants until tender but blackened on the outside and picked some 'mint gone wild' from our little balcony then slowly fried an onion and lots of garlic in olive oil until soft. It's a perfect recipe to potter around the kitchen and whip together something like say banana bread while you wait for everything to cool...

The dip is comforting yet fresh and best served with some crostini or toasted pita bread but I didn't have either so served it with crackers (which Tristan ended up leaving on the kitchen counter) and carrot sticks to counteract the chocolates we've all eaten.

Can't say my craving to bake has been satisfied or my craving to eat home-made sweet treats but my jeans are certainly happier not having to fit in a donut or two after everything else I consumed over the weekend.

Fingers crossed my baking ideas this weekend go to plan.

eggplant, mint & yoghurt dip

recipe adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson

2 medium to small eggplants
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 small onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
pinch saffron threads
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
3/4 cup thick greek yoghurt
2 tablespoons pinenuts, toasted
salt and pepper

- Preheat your oven to 220C/400F and prick the eggplants with a fork all over.

- Place on a tray and roast for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until the insides have a soft squishy texture and the skin slightly darkened. Let them cool enough to handle, the scoop the insides out into a sieve to drain.

- While the eggplant flesh is draining, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over low heat and fry the onion and garlic until soft and almost golden, about 10 minutes. Add the eggplant flesh to the onions and cook for about 4 minutes, breaking up any bits that need it. Take off the heat and season with salt and pepper and allow to cool completely.

- Soak the saffron threads into 2 tablespoons of just boiled water and let sit so the water turns a vibrant yellow orange colour.

- Once the eggplant is cooled, mix in the greek yoghurt, saffron water, one tablespoon chopped fresh mint and another good pinch of salt and pepper.

- To serve, sprinkle over the remaining fresh mint, pine nuts and a drizzle of olive oil.

Plum crumble for two.

Happy Easter everyone!

This long weekend has been 4 days of being a hermit inside and lots and lots of eating. Even though the shops were closed most of the weekend it hasn't stopped me cooking and eating... as I write this there is a chocolate pie chilling in the fridge, waiting to be dressed in vanilla whipped cream (blog post to come soon). It's been a rainy weekend and all I felt like was comfort food.

At about 7 o'clock last night, I decided I wanted dessert. But on Thursday night after work when everyone was raiding the local supermarket before the long weekend like they were stocking up for a zombie apocalypse I avoided the shops. This meant I was stuck with what was in my cupboard until they reopened which was the basics of basics. 

So what do you do with fruit that is over ripe, the scrapings of the butter, some sugar, flour and oats? Make a crumble of course!!!

So rich and decadent for such simple ingredients and I got to use my new little pots.

I adapted Nigella Lawson's recipe 'Jumble-berry crumble' from Nigella Express but used plums instead of berries. There was probably an excessive amount of crumble on top for two and could have been split over 3 ramekins but it was still the long weekend so why not indulge and over eat?! (I am sure next week I will crave salad, salad and more salad).

This dessert is also great to prepare in advance for dinner guests. Just bung it in the oven about 40 minutes before you want to eat dessert. It's super simple too, all I did was cut the plums into wedges and divide them between the ramekins, mix them with 1 teaspoon of raw sugar then top with the crumble mix. You can also freeze the crumble mix in zip-lock bags (if you make too much or want to double the recipe) so you have crumble in seconds next time. You can also substitute the plums for different fruit or a combination of fruits. Apple and plum is a delicious combo!

I hope this simple but indulgent recipe satisfies your craving for comfort desserts on a rainy night in or impresses some dinner guests. Serve with some good quality vanilla ice cream and you can't go wrong!

ps. I'm pretty sure I could have bribed the zombies with this crumble and would have definitely survived the apocalypse. 

pps. Can you see it? Can you see it??? new name :)

Plum Crumble for two.

Serves 2 greedy people

(Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express cookbook. Find original recipe here)

For the crumble:

80g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

50g unsalted butter, cold and diced

20g rolled oats

3 tablespoons of raw sugar

For the fruit:

5 small plums, cut into wedges

2 teaspoons of raw sugar

- Place the fruit into two ramekins then mix one teaspoon of sugar into each. Set aside.

- For the crumble mixture; place the flour and baking powder in a bowl and rub in the diced butter using you're finger tips until you have a lumpy sand texture. Stir in the oats and sugar until combined then divide the mixture on top of the two ramekins.

- Bake in a 180C or 350F pre-heated oven for about 30-40 minutes or until the fruit starts to bubble at the edges and golden on top.

- Serve with some good quality vanilla ice-cream. Enjoy.

Fairy Cakes (turned Spiderman) from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.

If you don't already know I have two nephews who are typical boy boys. Super hero's and guns and lego and cars. You name it and they love all that sort of stuff! The youngest turns 5 next week but had his birthday party on Saturday and if you follow me on instagram you would have already seen that the request this year was Spiderman cupcakes. Last year it was teenage mutant ninja turtles. Having already done it last year I thought I was completely prepared and knew exactly what I was doing and I wouldn't be under pressure at all. WRONG! I would make absolutely no money if I did this professionally and not just for family love. They took me 5 hours. By the end of them I didn't want to see another spiderweb on a red or blue cupcake for a very long time. It was a relief to deliver them to Wizzy World at 3:30pm and know that they will be demolished by tiny mouths any moment.

The recipe I used for the cupcakes is Fairy cakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess (I doubles it in the photo above) and its super easy if you don't have a free-standing mixer and are sick of wiping the walls of butter and sugar from using a hand held mixer. You put all the ingredients in a food processor and wizz until they are combined. Add some milk to loosen the batter up a little and there you have it! Cupcakes that aren't only easy but taste awesome too.

I used the Buttercream icing recipe from Donna Hay Modern Classics 2 because Nigella uses packet royal icing to ice her's and I had strict instructions that these needed to look like spiderman.

I added cocoa to both the cake batter and buttercream to make a chocolate version. The vanilla are still best though :)

After they were cooled I iced the cupcakes, making them as round and even on top as possible with the buttercream then placed them in the freezer for 5 minute to make the icing set hard.

I then used Ready to Roll icing called Fondarific Buttercream Fondant I got from Cake Decorating Central. This is one of the easiest ready to roll icing I've used so if you're a first timer I high recommend this brand of icing. Use a little cornflour to stop it sticking to your bench and rolling pin then roll it out about 2mm thick. Using a round cutter about 7.5cm in diameter (or another size that fits the top of your cupcake depending on how big you made them) cut out circles then place them over the cupcakes and using your finger tips gentle fold them around the edges. I used black colour to paint on the webs and then white ready to roll icing cut out for the eyes.

**This is where I would cue a video if i was more organised and tech-savvy**

I'm sorry if that completely confused you. This is the clip I used for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cupcakes I made last year which might give you a better idea of how to roll and place the icing on the cupcakes.

These cupcakes are soooo good without the coloured icing. I personally peel the icing off when I get cake or cupcakes with the Ready to Roll stuff on there and just eat the buttercream and cake underneath. So if you want to give this a go without the spiderman look I've listed the recipes I used below.

Have a go and let me know what you think!

Fairy Cakes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess.

makes 12 fairy cakes

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

125g self raising flour

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2-3 tbsp milk

1x Buttercream icing (recipe below)

- Place all ingredients into a food processor except the milk and WIZZ it all together until everythign is combined really well.

- With the motor still running add the milk and then pulse until you get a smooth batter. 

- Divide the batter between 12 lined cupcake moulds. It looks like it wont make 12 but trust me it does. Each patty case only uses roughly a heaped tablespoon.

- Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden on top and a skewer comes out clean from the middle.

- Allow to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then take the cakes out onto a cooling rack.

- Ice cupcakes with Buttercream when cooled.

Note: If you wanted to make a chocolate version add 2 tbsp of sifted cocoa powder in with all the ingredients and an extra tbsp of milk.

Buttercream Icing from Donna Hay Classics 2.

250g unsalted butter
2 cups of icing mixture, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

- Whip butter and vanilla until pale and creamy using a hand held mixer or if you have guns beat until pale by hand.

- Add the icing mixture and whip until well combined and still light and creamy.

- Ice your cake or fairy cakes then refrigerate to set.

Note: If you wanted to make a chocolate version add 1 heaped tablespoon of sifted cocoa to the icing mixture.

Nigella Lawson's Coq au Riesling from Nigella Express.

I love simple every day ingredients coming together and making that delicious dinner that reminds you of home. Who can go wrong with chicken, white wine, bacon, garlic and mushrooms?? Ok maybe a vegetarian but they are seriously good together. Add buttered pasta and holey moley look at what you have just created for dinner.

Last night I made Nigella Lawson's Coq au Riesling from her cookbook Nigella Express. This book does make you think from the name of the book that its all express dinners and in some ways it is. There are recipes that take 10 minutes to prepare from start to finish and then some like the one I cooked last night which are super quick to start then all you do is leave it for 30 minutes cooking, while if you're like me go and have a shower after a sticky day at work then when you get out and get in your jimmy-jams your dinner is nearly ready. I'm sure I say this all the time but I love meals like that!

I have this problem though where I like to keep adding ingredients when I cook by myself... especially if I'm the only one eating it like tonight (I made Nigella's recipe yesterday). I am writing this and I feel like I could kill the next person to walk in the apartment with my garlic breath. I even tried to eat something sweet after to cancel it out and all these lovely shortbread biscuits tasted like were garlic shortbread... yuk! Getting back on track... I struggle with recipes that don't require many ingredients and I feel I keep having to say to myself 'trust the recipe Dani... trust the recipe!' because otherwise I'll try and add an onion to everything or find some dried herbs in the cupboard or if I'm feeling really adventurous I'll find some jarred goodies in the fridge and sometimes it works but on those rare occasions (like tonight)... I fail. But it just shows that we are all human and we can all learn from mistakes.... mine tonight is no raw garlic chunks in carrot salad. On the plus side - if a vampire tries to get me tonight I'm safe! (or is that onions?)

Anyway this recipe I made last night was so good and I trusted what Nigella told me to do and didn't add anything extra. I did however not have garlic oil but I've seen on youtube clips that if you add whole cloves of garlic to oil and heat the oil it makes a kind of instant garlic oil. I left the whole garlic cloves in there and then fished them out and gave them to Tristan when I served up. And used a pinch of dried dill to garnish instead of fresh. It was so much yummier than my disaster of a dinner tonight. It was chickeny and winey and smokey from the bacon and you all know how much I love pasta! This weeks shape was casarecce which is like curled slightly twisted tubes. I loved them. One of my favourite shapes yet!

Try this recipe below. It's super easy, simple and very tasty! An all round winner in my books :) And trust the recipe!!!! TRUST THE RECIPE!

Nigella Lawson's Coq au Riesling from Nigella Express.

serves 3
(Original recipe here. The recipe below has been adapted slightly to feed 2 people plus one lunch)

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
100g streaky bacon, diced
1 leek, finely sliced
4 boneless chicken thighs, chopped into large-ish chunks
2 small bay leaves
250g button mushrooms, roughly torn into pieces
500mL dry white wine
salt and pepper to taste
400g casarecce pasta (or any type of pasta you like)

- Heat the oil in a casserole pot and add garlic cloves and bacon. Fry for 3-4 minutes on a medium heat.

- Add the leek to the pan and cook for 1 minute to soften.

- Add chicken pieces, bay leaves and mushrooms to the pan. Mix everything through then add your white wine.

- Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer then cook for 30 minutes covered.

- Cook pasta according to packet instructions or until al dente. Put a knob of butter over the piping hot pasta and mix through.

- Taste the chicken and sauce then season with salt and pepper.

- Serve the Coq au Riesling on top of the buttered pasta and then sprinkle a pinch of dried dill (fresh would be better but I only had dried) on top.

Nigella Lawson's Double Potato and Halloumi Bake from Nigella Bites cookbook.

So I've been a little bit bad on my posting this week. I started so well and I feel I've gone down hill which is dissapointing. I am hoping to be better this week and try and post more frequently.

I've just got home from fathers day breakfast. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD! Hope you had a good breakfast, I enjoyed it! Mum and Tristan cooked scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, grilled tomatoes, bacon, sourdough and then fruit toast to finish. It was so delicious! I ate too many chip sangers last night for dinner... terribly unhealthy dinner but quite tasty so it was nice to have a big breakfast.

Ok back to what I made on Thursday night.... eeek it's Sunday and I haven't posted what I made on Thursday for dinner yet. I'm terrible... Muriel.

I decided that because I'd mastered the chicken tray back last week that it was a new tray bake to try and I guess because Nigella Lawson's worked so well last time I'd try another tray bake of hers. I made the Double Potato and Halloumi Bake from Nigella Bites. Who doesn't love cheese? This was a delicious mixed potato bake with all the little extras that roast veggies should always have (garlic cloves and onions) with sweet capsicum throughout it then covered in burnished thin slices of squeaky halloumi cheese. YUM! We had it with steak that Tristan cooked on the BBQ. One day I'll cook a steak on the BBQ but I'm a little hopeless on a BBQ... I always end up with either well done steak with charcoal bits or a steak that is still moo-ing on my plate.

This dinner is another great dish to bung everything in an oven tray, shove it in the oven, go have a shower or potter around before dinner then just add the cheese for the last 10 minutes of cooking and  serve. It would be great by itself as a vegetarian main or as a side like we had it. I even had it cold for lunch the next day. Just add a little splash of balsamic vinegar to it when it's cold and you have an amazing roast vegetable salad. The halloumi doesn't do so well the next day so eat all of it straight away (I'm sure that won't be hard) and then add some feta the next day to turn it into a kick-ass salad!

Such a pretty colourful dinner!

The recipe says to use sweet potato and normal baking potatoes. When we were at the supermarket I found a  red sweet potato. I had no idea what it was like but I did expect it to be red on the inside but it was white and oxidised very quickly and turned a very unappetising splotchy brown colour. It tasted great when cooked, sort of in between a sweet potato and a normal baking potato. This is also a great recipe to double if your having friends over and just divide everything between two baking trays and there is no exact amount of any ingredient. If you want just sweet potatoes then just had sweet potatoes, if you don't like sweet potatoes this can be made with normal baking potatoes or carrots or pumpkin!? Ahhh the vegetable combinations are overwhelming!! Just bake it all until the veggies are cooked through and top with cheese... mmm I love halloumi.

Nigella Lawson's Double Potato and Halloumi Bake from Nigella Bites cookbook.

serves 2-3
(recipe adapted to suit to amount of potatoes I had at home)

3 medium sized baking potatoes
1 medium sweet potato
1 medium red sweet potato
1 red onion
6 cloves of garlic
1 red capsicum
1/2 yellow capsicum
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
 black pepper
180g halloumi cheese, thinly sliced

- Preheat oven to 200 C or 400 F.

- Cut the baking potatoes into 2cm pieces.

- Cut both sweet potatoes into 4cm pieces, they don't take as long to bake as normal potatoes.

- Peel and cut red onion into 8 wedges.

- De-seed and roughly cut both capsicums into 2cm pieces.

- Throw everything into a baking tray with the garlic gloves and extra virgin olive oil and give a good toss together. Make sure everything is spread out on a single layer and you haven't over crowded the tray. Split into two trays if you need to.

- Bake for 45 minutes (or until the potatoes are soft/cooked through). Place the halloumi over the top and bake for a further 15 minutes or put under a grill until melted and golden.

- Serve by itself or as a side dish. (don't forget it makes an amazing roast veggie salad the next day with a splash of balsamic vinegar!)

Nigella Lawson 's Italian Traybake from Nigellissima.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"

Remember that saying? Also remember my chicken tray bakes that take forever to cook and we end up eating at midnight or serving raw chicken to a dinner quest? Well... guess what?! I have not been put off by a chicken tray back. Nope. And all my efforts paid off!

SUCCESS!!! Wahhoooooooooo

This week I chose Nigella Lawson's Italian Traybake from Nigellissima. I was only serving two for dinner so halved the amount of meat in the recipe and made sure I didn't over fill my baking tray. No double layers, everything on a single layer. I pre-heated my oven as soon as I got in from work. And I left it in the oven for an hour, turning half way through. I cut my potatoes to the size the recipe told me to and butterflied my sausages. I was going to make this fail safe.

We had fluffy roast potatoes and chicken thighs that fell apart and sausages that had gnarly little crunchy bits on them. Soooo Delicious! Oh how I've missed fluffy roast potatoes. They were crunchy and soft and YUM!

I should have trusted Nigella first... She was one of my first true food hero's and her recipes always seem to impress! Her book 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' was the first Cookbook I stole from my mother and I still have that copy today. Oh I do love her and her dramatic and colourful ways of describing ingredients when she cooks.

 I found this recipe on her Nigellissima App....this weeks meal planning was pretty shocking. I worked an extra day this week and was totally not organised, so on my way home while I was stuck in traffic I meal planned. Yes I know... very illegal but I was a hungry woman who was stuck in a fogging up car in the pouring rain with a window half open getting a wet arm on a mission... who still had to face the supermarket. Most of the recipes I found online, knowing I had the books at home. There are so many good recipes online but I have thousands of pages sitting in my living room waiting to be cooked from and shared with you lovely readers. So I tried my best to find recipes that were from books I was yet to share with you. There are still so many recipes and meals and food I want to make and blog about. If time and money weren't an option I would eat like a king every meal (ok I defiantly want a dishwater too... or washing up wench). I would also probably be the size of a house...

I definitely recommend this meal as a mid week dinner you can quickly throw everything together in a baking dish, chuck it in the oven while you have a shower or get comfy and an hour later you have a mini roast dinner. The only addition I would add is some garlic cloves chucked in there in their skins so they get soft and mellow.

Yay so excited a tray bake worked!! (photo looks like it was a little burnt but I swear I wasn't!).   It proves the saying right... keep trying (or traybaking) and eventually you'll get it right. Tristan was also pretty happy eating at a decent time and everything was cooked :)

Nigella Lawson's Italian Traybake from Nigellissimia.

serves 2

(recipe adapted slightly)

500g potatoes, cut into 2cm chunck

4 chicken thighs, deboned

3 italian sausages, butterflied

4 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 lemon, zest

Salt and Pepper

olive oil

PRHEAT YOUR OVEN! 220°C or 400°F.
(if your oven is fan forced you make not need it on so high)

- Line the very base of your baking tray with foil or baking paper.

- Arrange your chopped potatoes, chicken thighs sausages in your baking tray. Make sure nothing is overlapping or on top of each other. If it is, split everything between two baking trays.

- Finely chop half the rosemary leaves and sprinkle over the chicken. Place the other sprigs of rosemary around the tray.

 - Zest the lemon over everything and give it all a good helping of salt and pepper.

- Finally drizzle with some olive oil and bung it in the oven for 1 hour or until everything is cooked through and the potatoes have a fluffy centre. If your oven is an uneven cooker (like mine) turn it half way through.

ENJOY!

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding from Kitchen.

On Thursday night this week we had a dinner date. For dinner we had a choice of 'Steak and veggies or Lamb shanks? Ps. Pete makes pretty good Lamb Shanks :)' Well I think there was a clear winner even before we were given the choice, we were sold on lamb shanks. Not that there is anything wrong with steak and veggies but Lamb Shanks mid week, I was not passing that up!

It was my job to bring pudding so thats exactly what I did. Travelling pudding.

Now I LOVE bread and butter pudding but ew yuk to sultanas! I have an aversion to dried fruit in some things. They are allowed in a couple of things and thats it. Christmas Pudding, yes. Hot Cross buns, sometimes. Bread and Butter pudding, hell no! So when I saw Nigella Lawson 's Chocolate chip bread pudding from Kitchen, how could I resist? It was so easy to transport too and just put it all together when we got there and bung it in the oven for 45 min. The melted chocolate chips throughout it made it so decedent and rich. When it says it serves 4-6, it definitely can serve 6 unless your still hungry from dinner as its very filling. There was four of us and only a tiny bowl of left overs and we were all supporting food babies after.

All I kept thinking after making this is the endless possibilities which can be made with the simple custard mixture and bread... you can add frozen raspberries which would give a lovely sharp tang to the smooth vanilla flecked custard, or make Nutella sandwiches out of the bread and then drown it in custard, you could add chopped nuts on top to give more crunch, or zest lemons into the custard and fill the bread with lemon curd, or add cocoa powder to the custard and make a chocolate based custard, use brioche/ croissants/ hot cross buns or finger buns instead of plain bread... the variations are unlimited!

I substituted a few things in this recipe and added a vanilla pod and seeds because when there is an opportunity to add vanilla I jump on it. I also used 300mL of cream instead of 125mL as suggested because I didn't want half a carton of cream to sit in my fridge and go to waste, this made the custard richer than it should have been but I hate wastage. If I was to make it again and I knew the rest of the cream wasn't going to go to waste I would have followed the recipe exactly and only put in 125mL of cream and 500mL of milk.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding. (BYO Style).
(Recipe adapted)
Serves 4 hungry people or 6 for dessert

250g white bread, cubed (Nigella suggests to use stale bread but I just used plain bread from the freezer, thawed)
100g chocolate chips
3 eggs
40g brown sugar
2 tbs dark rum (I used a spiced rum called The Crackin')
300mL pure cream
325mL milk
1 vanilla pod, scraped
4 tsp raw sugar (Nigella uses demerara sugar but raw sugar is very similar and alot cheaper)

- Start by buttering the oven-proof dish your going to bake the pudding in (I used a 23cm diameter x 6cm deep dish) and put your cubed bread in there to sit while you make the custard.

- In a bowl, whisk the eggs, brown sugar, cream, milk and vanilla seeds and pod in a bowl until well combined. If you are making this to bake straight away add your rum now too. I added mine right before I put the pudding together in case it started to cook the eggs. (Pour into a leak-free container if taking this dessert BYO.)

- I scaled my rum in a jar, raw sugar in a little container and chocolate chips in a zip-lock bag. Covered my dish of bread, packed my pink enviro bag with everything and off we went.

- When I got there I added the rum to the custard mix, took the pod out, tossed the chocolate chips with the bread then poured the custard mix over the bread and chocolate chips. Let it sit for about 20min then put it in a preheated 170 degrees Celsius oven for 45 min.

- Allow it to sit for 10min. Then dig in! Be warned... VERY RICH!

Nigella Lawson's Vietnamese Noodle Soup from Kitchen.

Nigella Lawson came visiting my kitchen tonight for dinner and it was so delicious!

Tonight I made Nigella Lawson's Vietnamese Noodle Soup from her book Kitchen. It was meant o be made with pork fillet but due to my massive debt I've accumulated throughout my apprenticeship my budget does not include pork fillet for dinner. I used chicken breast instead and it still tasted amazing!

Planning our meals this week, I realised I wanted something spicy and fresh one night but realised I didn't own any Vietnamese or Thai food cookbooks. I'm sure there are lots of recipes that I'm yet to still find hidden in the books on my bookshelf but none that solely focus on that specific cuisine. Yes, in my huge collection I found a hole... looks like I'll need to do some research to fill that gap. The latest books that are on my wish list are all French food based or American cuisine but it looks like I need to do some more research and maybe buy a new bookshelf at the same time.

This recipe in Nigella's Kitchen was in the Hurry up I'm Hungry! section which during the week quick meals work well for me and I assume others too. I read this recipe and it sounded perfect. Quick, spicy, soupy, noodles... mmmm yum!

Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup from Nigella Lawson - Kitchen.
(recipe adapted)
Serves 4 or 2 hungry people

1 large chicken breast, thinly sliced
2 Tbs lime juice
2 Tbs soy sauce
1/2 tsp paprika
2 Tbs fish sauce
270g ramen noodles
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, crushed,
6 spring onions, sliced
a thumb sized piece of ginger, grated
1 chilli, thinly sliced
1 L chicken stock (Nigella even says stock cubes are fine here so it was a green light to use them)
250g bean sprouts
1 bunch pak choi, roughly chopped
1 Tbs fresh corriander, leaves and stalks

- Place sliced chicken, lime juice, soy sauce, paprika and fish sauce in a bowl and let sit for 10 minutes.

- Meanwhile cook the noodles as the packet instructions tell you to and refresh them in cold water.

- Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan and add garlic, ginger, coriander stalks and chilli and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the chicken and all the juices to the pan and cook for a few minutes stirring until the chicken had cooked through. This wont take long if you have sliced it thinly.

- Add stock and bring to the boil. Add bean sprouts and pak choi and allow soup to come back to the boil. Taste the soup to see if it needs more seasoning and add extra soy sauce if needed.

- Serve noodles in each bowl, pouring over ladles of fragrant soup with the chicken and vegetables. Top with coriander leaves and a little extra splash of lime juice. Enjoy. I did :)