174: Inspiration for a lamb chop, p83, and 175: A carrot salad, p308

Oooh, I wasn't expecting this for the lamb chop recipe - only really properly realised it was a salad when I was reading through the rest of the recipe whilst the lamb was marinating. Just using soy and garlic for the marinade worked brilliantly, the lamb was lovely and tender and soaked it all up, and mixed with the spicy, hot, sour, sweet leaves, was delicious.

The carrot salad sounded like it would also be rather dull, but turned out to be really rather nice! Again, don't much like eating nuts raw but slightly toasted in a dry frying pan something happens to them which suddenly makes a big improvement... The dry peanuts, plus the lemon and walnut oil, stop the grated carrot making the salad end up a sodden orange lump. Not really enough for a main meal but a good side dish or maybe even a starter?

150: Plum crisp, p286

Another day, another crumble. Of sorts :)

Godda cold. Needed comfort food. Crumble. What more does one need? It's a bit of a half hearted crumble - maybe I should have used a smaller dish as the plums were kinda spaced out, with the crumble sprinkled over, but it looked rather rustic and thrown together in a haphazard sort of way. And it tasted pretty good... still got the cold though :(

106: Vietnamese beef salad, p191

Fiery!! A hot, sweet and sour salad to knock your socks off on a Tuesday evening. Yummy though. Wasn't sure about the choice of cut, sirloin is quite thick, but it did mean it stayed deliciously pink inside when griddled. Not so sure about the lime leaves - I couldn't get fresh leaves, and thought a jar of finely chopped lime leaves in water would do, but they were pretty tough and although they added the right flavour, also added the feeling that somehow lots of bits of dried grass cuttings had got into the salad. Ho hum.

99: Steamed sea bass with ginger and cucumber, p180

Not a whole seabass, as per the recipe, and not for one person - but two seabass fillets for a light lunch for two of us. And it was scrummy! More clean simple asian flavours, with the nam pla, soy, lime and coriander, served with jersey potatoes, very Nigel... And very simple. Never having cooked seabass before, one thing this book is definitely doing is teaching me to cook fish I wouldn't normally cook, which is quite fun. Yummy.

52: Five-spice quail, p169, and 53: A hot, sour bean shoot salad, p163

Quails. Possibly the most anthropomorphic little carcasses to cook with - especially when their little legs aren't tucked/trussed up as in a chicken you'd roast, but instead are sticking out in a slightly disturbingly human way - with little knees and calves - making them look like little decapitated bodies...

But oh so yummy when marinated in a garlicky chinesey spicy mix, and then roasted...

Very easy little recipe and surprisingly the meat didn't dry out at all and was deliciously moist, and the coating had quite a kick to it.

Went really well served with another lovely crunchy hot Asian-style salad (we're really liking these salads) with spinach and bean shoots, and a good dollop of chilli and nam pla.