A Thai Dinner Feast at Recipease Notting Hill

I attended a cookery lesson at Jamie Oliver’s Recipease school in Notting Hill. It was a two-hour lesson that cost me £40 and was worth every penny. We weren’t taught by the great chef himself, but by one of his colleagues who made the learning experience fun and even treated us to grilled pineapple rice pudding at the end! Thai cooking is easy once you know how, and I took away two favourite, easy-to-make recipes to share with you.

Sweet and Sour Prawn Soup

Serves: 1. Prep time: 10 minutes. Cooking time: 10–15 minutes.

Ingredients

2 tablespoon olive oil
4 prawns
1 chicken stock cube
1 teaspoon palm sugar
1 tomato, sliced
2 mushrooms, sliced
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan on a medium heat. Add the prawns and cook for 2–3 minutes until pink.

To make the chicken broth, crumble a chicken stock cube into a cup of boiling water and mix.

Pour the chicken broth into the pan with the fried prawns. Add the palm sugar and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 5–10 minutes.

Put the raw tomato and mushroom slices into a serving bowl and add the prawn and broth mixture. Squeeze the lime juice into soup and serve.

Stir-fried Chilli Beef

Serves 1. Prep time: 10-15 minutes. Cooking time: 30 minutes.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
125g minced beef
25g white rice
1 small chilli pepper
2 spring onions, chopped
1 bok choy, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 small head of broccoli, chopped
2 teaspoons palm sugar
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the minced beef and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 5–7 minutes until the mince starts to brown and then transfer to a bowl.

Bring a medium-sized saucepan full of water to the boil. Add the rice and simmer on a medium heat for 10–15 minutes or until the rice has softened.

Meanwhile, heat the rest of the oil in the frying pan. Add the chilli, spring onion, bok choy, broccoli, palm sugar and lime juice and fry for 5–10 minutes on a medium heat until the vegetables have softened but retain a crunch.

Drain the rice and mix the ground beef and vegetables together. Combine and serve.