Laksa part two and a Bush Festival plug

Do you remember my first ever post? In which I discussed starting a blog and what I could write about it? One of the options was Shepherds Bush, the fascinating area of London in which I live, but I decided that a few of the blogs I follow already did a great job of covering activities in the area. One of the blogs I was talking about was Bird In The Bush (also linked in my blog list on the right of your screen, unless you’re on a mobile).

It can pay off to have useful up to date information on the area you live, especially when you live in London where the word 'local' can very quickly lose its meaning. Blogs such as Bird’s are a great way of finding out what’s going on. This was recently evidenced by a chain of events which, via me reading the Bird In the Bush blog, resulted in the lovely Claire (my ever suffering partner) and a friend running a crafts stall at the upcoming Bush Festival. A side effect of this is that my house (and the tube, and the bus and everywhere) has now become a full time knitting factory for the next few weeks as home crafts are crafted for the craft stall.

Bush festival is on Saturday August 13^th on Shepherds Bush Green, so get yourself down there! If you have any questions about Bush Festival have a look at their website or post a comment below and we will try and point you in the direction of an answer...

Now it may seem like I’m plugging my girlfriend’s stall and Bush Festival, but really this has just been an introduction allowing me to be smug and mention that my new shiny blog was featured in one of Birdie’s recent posts. I am very pleased about this. Anyway I will now proceed deactivating narcissism mode for today and getting on with the laksa recipe....

There are lots of different types of Laksas and I’m going to try and explain a few different ways you could prepare it over the coming weeks. The version I make most often involves chicken, prawns and beansprouts. By all means substitute out the chicken to make this pescetarian. I would suggest squid or cuttlefish would go well. You can also add extra veg to make it go further, pea aubergines can be a nice addition.

A much more fish orientated laksa recipe will follow- maybe even tomorrow!

Curry Laksa Ingredients

Oil, for frying (I use groundnut oil when I have it in)

400ml of Coconut Milk (from a can is most convenient)

300 ml good quality Chicken or Vegetable stock (If using bought stock I like knorr stock cubes or Marigold bouillon)

A small handful of curry leaves (I tear them up and add them to the stock)

300g noodles (Most noodles will work fine within reason, ie don’t try and use your pot noodles, that’s just silly)

300-400g chicken, chopped into bite size pieces (I recommend skinless thigh fillets)

200g fresh king prawns

150g Bean sprouts or trimmed green beans

3 tbsp Oyster sauce

3 tbsp Fish sauce

1 tbsp Palm Sugar

juice of 1 Lime

5 kaffir lime leaves (shredded by hand or knife)

Handful chopped coriander

small handful chopped mint (very much optional)

To garnish (all optional)

Chopped coriander leaves

Dried anchovies, shallow fried (buy in packs from oriental supermarkets)

Sambal

Crispy fried shallots (buy in little tubs from oriental supermarkets)

boiled egg (halved)

Method

Heat up your oil in a wok or large pan. Once the oil is hot add your laksa paste and stir fry it until it is giving off lovely aromas, this should take 4-5 minutes. Add your coconut milk and stock (with curry leaves in). Continue stirring and then add your chicken. Bring the liquid to the boil and then reduce the temperature until the broth is simmering. Leave it like this for 5 mins.

Meanwhile place your noodles in boiling water. They should cook in 4-5 mins. Move them into a container or into serving bowls.

Add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice to the laksa in the wok. Stir thoroughly and taste. If it needs more salt add more fish sauce, if it needs more flavour add a bit more oyster sauce, if it needs sweetening add more sugar and if it needs to taste more sour add more lime juice.

Add the beansprouts followed by the lime leaves, chopped coriander and mint. Stir well. Let it cook for another 3 minutes.

If you are frying dried anchovies as a garnish do this now.

Add your prawns.  Stir thoroughly for another minute.

Serve over the top of noodles in a bowl. Garnish with fried shallots, fried anchovies, coriander and sambal.

I sometimes put the garnishes on little serving dishes and let guests do their own garnishing.

Traditionally this would be eaten with chopsticks and a soup spoon.

This recipe laksa certain something

Shortly after moving back to Newcastle after my stint in Manchester I moved into a house in Forest Hall with one of my oldest friends TL. Now T isn’t my oldest friend through age, rather he has had the misfortune of knowing me since I was four when we started school together many many moons ago. We coincidentally (I think, unless there’s something he’s not telling me!) then went to University together, lived together (as this blog describes), lived on the same street before I moved to London and he moved to the countryside. Now he keeps chickens and grows vegetables whilst I get tube-rage and write blogs which probably tells you more about the differences between London and County Durham than anything else.

Right, so I was up to us moving in to Forest Hall. Now 21 year old men are not really known for their cooking abilities and we were no exception. We were (and are) both big fans of food, despite T weighing about half as much as me, but our lack of kitchen ability and funds limited our culinary forays somewhat. This coupled with the fact that any money we did have was quickly spent on other things such as compact discs and going to pubs, lead us to one inevitable conclusion.

Soup.

Canned Heinz vegetable soup in fact. I occasionally ventured into the Heinz tomato soup world but this was scoffed at by T who was not so keen on this one vegetable (technically fruit, I know) alternative. We had quickly assessed the food options available in local shops and by far the best value one was a can of soup paired with a loaf of brown bread. I suspect this meal cost as little as a pound.

(Rather depressingly my google image search for 'Heinz vegetable soup' brought me to 'www.a-taste-of-britain.de' website. What must Germans think of us if our best food is an American produced canned soup? Then again the sauerkraut sat at the back of my fridge since Eurovision isn't disappearing quickly or a fair representation of German food)

These days I very rarely eat canned soup but I still get my soup fix through making my own. I am now a big fan of home-made soup. Looking back it seems a bit ridiculous that we bought  super salty factory soup when it is both cheaper and tastier to make your own.

My soup making has evolved from making my Mum's winter chestnut speciality, through other root vegetable soups (oh and Jamie O's mushroom soup gets an honourable mention) to eventually starting on South East Asian soups. I love South East Asian food, and the soups are no exception. These kinds of dishes allow me to combine my love of soup with my love of spicy food. Win-win.

I promised you a laksa recipe a few posts ago and here we are. I'm classifying laksa as a soup although I think some folk may take umbrage to that, but I've just written a soup related intro so tough. There's a million different recipes for laksa, but this one is a good compromise between authenticity and ingredient availability in West London.

I'm going to split this into two, so expect the second half later today. For now I'm going to talk about the laksa paste. Half the challenge could be assembling the ingredients I'm afraid, this one requires quite a few things that you may not keep in your kitchen as standard. Don't dash off to the shops immediately though! If you're going on a trip to a Thai or Asian supermarket it might be worth waiting for the rest of the recipe...

Shepherds Bush Laksa Paste

Right, there's some ingredients in this that some of you may not be familiar with so I'll talk about them a wee bit and give some tips on where to get them, focussing particularly on shops in the Bush.

Kaffir lime leaves

The kaffir lime grows on a thorny, bush-like plant in South East Asia and both the fruit and leaves of the plant are used for cooking. I've never come across the fruit itself in the UK but the leaves are relatively easily obtainable. These leaves have a delightful aromatic citrus quality and can really transform a dish. They are typically cut or torn up before being used. I always give them a sniff before putting them in any food as the smell is wonderful.

As I understand, it is illegal to import fresh leaves into the UK as there could be non-native fauna of some description hitching a lift on the leaves, but there are dried and frozen leaves available. Now you can get the dried leaves in most supermarkets but in my opinion they are pretty rubbish. The frozen leaves on the other hand are pretty good and will keep for ages in your freezer, but you may have to make a visit to your local Thai or Asian supermarket to pick them up. If you live in the Bush, you have two local options that I'm aware of: Sri Thai on Shepherds Bush Road sells big bags of frozen leaves for about £2, bargain- mine has lasted me ages. 

Alternatively you can walk down to Thai Smile on Kings Road in Hammersmith near Ravenscourt Park tube station. Thai Smile sell little packs of frozen leaves for about 80p but this will work out considerably more expensive in the long run. If you really must, you can get dried leaves in the big supermarkets but I highly recommend seeking out the frozen ones.

Belacan (shrimp paste)

This stuff smells like death. If you sniff the jar or a spoon of the raw stuff it will send a shudder down your spine. I've never been in a zombie apocalypse but I imagine it may smell a bit like this. Yuck. Once cooked however it provides a really distinctive earthy flavour and is an essential part of many Malaysian dishes. It's made from sun dried shrimp so isn't vegetarian friendly. Best bet for getting this is Thai supermarkets, Sri Thai and Thai Smile both sell different sized jars of the stuff. I buy big ones which last me ages. I think the big jars are about £4. I may have seen this for sale in Waitrose in Westfield but I may be imagining it and in any case I doubt it's great value.

Dried Shrimp

Doesn't need much explanation this one. Buy in oriental shops. Soak in water and then drain before use.

Lemongrass

You'll most likely have come across lemongrass before. I avoid the dried sticks and the pastes as it's easy enough to find some fresh sticks . You can even pick up fresh lemongrass in Morrisons these days, but at 80p for two sorry looking sticks I'd make the journey to Sri Thai and pick up a bundle of 12 big sticks for £2.09. You can whack 'em in the freezer if you're not going to be using all of them quickly. When you're using lemongrass you should remove the woody outer layers. Then chop up the bottom third of the stick after removing the end.

Galangal

This is a rhizome, like ginger, and the two do look fairly similar. Galangal has similarities to ginger but with a bit more citrus and the flavour sometimes seems more delicate. It doesn't seem delicate though when trying to chop it up- it's hard stuff so get out your best knife and be careful.

Morrisons now occasionally sell fresh galangal and, unlike their lemongrass, seems decent value. You still may be better off going to a specialist shop though. I freeze the galangal I'm not using in the near future. Cut off the outer skin like you would ginger and chop finely.

Fresh turmeric

Another rhizome! You'll be aware of the powdered turmeric that is available in all supermarkets and Indian shops but you may not have seen the fresh rhizome. Once you remove the outer layer it reveals a bright orange flesh with a fascinating smell and taste- it reminds me of a spicy carrot. Now this ingredient gives things great taste and colour- including your fingers and clothes if you are not careful. Unless you're not bothered about having fingers like an Oompa-Loompa I suggest caution when preparing fresh turmeric. I often get my fresh turmeric in Morrisons as it seems like good value. If you can't get it there pop to Sri Thai or your local Thai supermarket.

Ingredients:

As is can be quite a pain collecting all the fresh ingredients for this, I recommend making a big batch. This makes enough for about six big servings of the final laksa. You could quite happily double the quantities and freeze what you don't use for next time.

2 tsp of curry powder

2 tbsp of red chilli powder

2t bsp of coriander powder

1 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of sugar (play with this amount depending upon how sweet you like it- I use palm sugar available from Sri Thai in tubs)

12 little Thai fresh chillis (seeds and all- this makes for quite a spicy laksa so do feel free to reduce quantity or remove seeds) 
8 dried chillis (again reduce if not keen on spiciness)

 4 tbsp of dried shrimps (soak in water and then drain)

18 candlenuts or macadamia nuts (I go to the Asian costcutter on Queensway for candle nuts, but to be honest Macadamia just as good and easier to find)

10 kaffir lime leaves (central rib removed, leaves ripped into small bits)

5cm of fresh tumeric (peeled, chopped)

8cm of fresh ginger (peeled, chopped)

8cm of fresh galangal  (peeled, chopped)

8 big shallots, roughly chopped

6 cloves of garlic  (peeled, chopped)

2 tbsp of dried shrimp paste or belacan

4 stalks of lemongrass (remove outer layers, chop up bottom third)

Method

Easy peasy. Now purists would use a pestle and mortar to make this. I don't want RSI though so usually use a food processor. Add all the ingredients and whizz until it is a smooth paste. I've sneakily taken a photo in the pestle and mortar though (it's more photogenic than our magimix).

I'll tell you how I use the paste in second post to be published shortly.

I'm not the only fan of local shops! I recently stumbled across this, in which Nigella Lawson talks about two Bush businesses...

Sneak preview

We're gonna have a hummus party, pom pom

My brother likes red pepper hummus. He likes it a lot. He puts it in sandwiches, on toast, in cups of tea and even bathes in it. Ok, maybe not the last two but what you need to take away from this opening paragraph is that he really likes that red chickpea goodness.

Seeing as he lives only half an hour away on the train I should probably see more of him but we're both so super busy (disorganised) that we only meet occasionally. In fact, I don't think I've seen him since Christmas which is a terrible state of affairs, but when we do spend some time together we usually have a lorra lorra laughs . Thanks Cilla. So I was excited when it turned out he was in London this weekend and had the whole of Sunday afternoon to spend with us.

Now given his love for hummus it seemed a good idea to have a bash at some Middle-Eastern / Arabic food. This is an especially good idea when you live in Shepherds Bush given the excellent Arabic supermarkets on Uxbridge Road, where all you might need for shish, kofta or falafel is readily available. The downside to this is that Bush institutions such as King Solomans (gonna do a whole blog on this place at some point) have set the standards for this kind of food very high.

So off I toddled this morning to Damas Gate and Al Abbas (two excellent shops, more on these at a later date too) to stock up on ingredients. You'll be pleased to know I've not spent much time in the Arab world so I won't be regaling you with any tedious travellin' tales as have dominated previous blogs. I have, however, recently acquired a new camera. I'm still learning to use it but it's great fun. You'll probably have to excuse in the next few blogs, too many photos and a fairly poor standard of photo at that!

Without further ado, let's get on with the food.

Shepherds Bush Chicken Kebab and Sides

Today we made basically made 5 things:

•  Marinated chicken kebabs
• Red pepper hummus
• Classic hummus with parsley
• Lebanese style aubergine salad
• Garlic yoghurt sauce

If you're doing this exactly the same as us, the first thing you'll want to do is get the chicken marinating. For this reason we'll put this recipe in first. After you've got your chicken in the fridge absorbing the goodness you'll want to start making the sauces/hummus before cooking the chicken last.

Chicken Kebab

We eat chicken kebabs fairly frequently but often refer to them as 'home-made King Solomans'. Now I've never really been into kebabs, or at least what many people, especially in Newcastle, think of as kebabs. By this I mean donner kebabs. I was once told by a kebab shop owner in Manchester that it was such poor quality meat that he wouldn't eat it- and this was by the man trying to sell the stuff!

King Solomans, on the other hand, sells beautifully marinated meats cooked as you wait (and watch!) grease free on a hot plate. Delicious and healthy too! Every time we make these at home we make a different marinade and they've all tasted good so far. Today we made one using sumac, a new spice I was introduced to by my friend's new book (review of which to follow soon). Sumac has a really interesting intense citrus like flavour and I'm looking forward to using it more in future.

600g chicken breast diced into mouth size chunks

2 fat garlic cloves (peeled, crushed on the side of a knife and then chopped)

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp black peppercorns

2 tsp sumac

2 tsp mustard oil

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp chilli powder

Juice of 1 lemon

All of these ingredients can easily be found in Damas Gate or Al Abbas at a total cost of about £6 and this is easily enough to feed about 4 people. I've got a theory that you could marinade prawns in a similar manner but have yet to try it.

Get a pestle and mortar and crush the peppercorns into a fine powder. Add the garlic and pound together. Add your turmeric, sumac, salt and chilli powder and continue to pound. Once it is a consistent dry paste add the mustard oil and lemon juice and mix well. Put your cubed chicken into a suitable marinating vessel and pour over the marinade. Mix in well, ensuring all the chicken is covered, and leave for as long as you can in the fridge, preferably overnight but a few hours will do.

When you're ready to cook (if following all of this meal this will now be the last stage) you can either put it onto skewers if using a proper outdoor BBQ. Or just as is on a griddle pan. Cook on a high heat for 6-10 minutes, turning once halfway through.  I used a griddle pan because of today's British weather and because of the chargrilled pattern it gives the meat.

Garlic yoghurt sauce

Kebab shops always have a garlic sauce on offer - of variable quality. This version is fairly simple and healthy and very garlicy. If you don't like things too garlicy it might be wise to reduce the garlic by a couple of cloves. Also worth bearing in mind, this makes quite a lot so halve the ingredients if you like but I think it goes well with a number of things so don't mind having some in the fridge for a day or two. This also coincides with the yoghurt pot size I bought in the 'Ass Gate (as Claire and I often call the shop).

500g low fat (I used 3.5%) yoghurt

6 cloves garlic (peeled)

3 tbsp lemon juice

Tiny pinch of salt

Handful chopped parsley

This honestly could not be easier. You just put all of the above in a food processor and whizz it. Taste it and add more lemon juice and salt if needed. Invest in chewing gum, as you will stink. Or hope that everyone else has some too!

Red pepper hummus

My brother says this is better than the supermarket brands and he's had the lot. This makes quite a lot of hummus so halve the quantities if you like however chickpeas come in pretty standard sized cans so not too much flexibility. You could use half a can for this and half for the normal hummus recipe which follows. Or just make one or the other.

3 red bell peppers

400g can of cooked chickpeas (I experimented with dried chickpeas on Friday but ended up burning them whilst in the pub)

2 cloves garlic

100ml tahini (sesame seed paste)

4 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 2 lemons

1 tsp Cayenne pepper

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp salt

Heat the oven to 180⁰C. Wash and halve the peppers, removing the seeds etc, place on a baking tray skins facing up and brush with olive oil. Place in the oven, near the top and roast for half an hour until the skins are crinkly and the flesh soft. Once they have cooled down for a few minutes, peel off the skins, it should come off easily.

Open your can of chickpeas and drain them over a bowl (so that you keep the water they come in.)  Add them to a blender (can use a food processor but a blender is more likely to give a finer hummus) with the garlic, tahini and the peeled red peppers. Blend it to a fine paste -  every now and then stopping the blender and  pushing the mix down as necessary. Add the olive oil and a table of the chickpea juice and whizz again.  Add the salt, cumin, half the lemon juice and the cayenne pepper and whizz it again. Taste it and add more salt, lemon juice and cayenne pepper to taste. Tip into a suitable container and store in fridge until you're ready to eat.

Classic hummus with added parsley

This is like the one above but even easier. It's more of a standard hummus, we added parsley which was a nice addition but this is optional.

400g cooked chick peas

2 cloves garlic (peeled)

100ml tahini

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin

Juice of 2 lemons

4 tbsp olive oil

Handful of parsley (optional)

As above put the chickpeas, garlic, tahini in the blender and whizz.  Blend it to a fine paste -  every now and then stopping the blender and  pushing the mix down as necessary. Add the olive oil and a tablespoon of the chickpea brine and whizz again.  Add the salt, half the lemon juice and the cayenne pepper and whizz it again. Taste it and add more salt, lemon juice and cayenne pepper if needed. If you're using parsley, tip the whole lot into a food processor with the parsley and whizz. Tip into a suitable container and store in fridge until you're ready to eat.

Lebanese style aubergine salad

We bought an aubergine this morning and just used random other ingredients with it to make a salad.

1 aubergine (washed and sliced into wedges)

1 big tomato or two small tomatoes cut into rough chunks

1 roasted red pepper (we had one left over from the red pepper hummus)

Handful of parsley (roughly chopped)

Juice of half a lemon

Pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 180⁰C.  Lightly brush the aubergine with olive oil, sprinkle with a little bit of salt and roast on a baking tray for about 20 minutes. Take them out of the oven and cook on a hot griddle pan for a few minutes on each side.

Transfer to a bowl, add the tomatoes, red pepper and parsley. Dress with some olive oil, the lemon juice and a pinch of salt. We reckon you could eat this hot or cold.

Other stuff you may need

Kobez flat bread

Chilli sauce (we used some bought stuff from chinatown)

Coriander to garnish kebabs

Sliced tomatoes and/or other salad to put in kebabs

Serving

We heated the flat breads on a large dry frying pan.

We then just put everything onto a table and let people help themselves to their own individual preferences. Woop!

With thanks to Claire who typed lots of this after she saw me struggling.

Unity Is Strength

Do you know what the nation’s favourite cuisines or takeaways are? Do you? Eh eh? Oh dear I can tell by the tortured look on your face that you’re worried about giving the wrong answer. OK, I’ll help you out. Let’s have a look at some stats.

Graph and Table: Nation’s favourite takeaway.

So did those stats help? They’re more than likely entirely made up to suit the agenda of whichever evil PR agency commissioned the survey but I don't want that to get in the way of our discussion so let's take them at face value.

Well, as we  now know, the answer I was looking for was Chinese and Indian. But where am I going with this when I previously said I was going to talk about Malaysia? Well China and India have had a massive influence on the food of Malaysia...

As you educated types no doubt know Malaysia is in South East Asia, pretty much equidistant from India and China. What makes it much closer to these two countries in culinary terms rather than geographical terms is a history of migration. I find this interesting but if it's not your bag skip to the bit with the pretty photos!

So the indigenous people of Malaysia are the Malays. They share the same ancestry  as Indonesians and are not, as a Texan lady we met in Malaysia claimed, the product of Indian and Chinese people breeding. The Malays were certainly living in Malaysia a long time before Chinese or Indian immigration!

Next on the scene were the Peranakan or Baba-Nyonya. These guys were Chinese immigrants to the Malaysian pensinsular in the 15th and 16th centuries who, over time, began to adapt some of the customs of the Malay people. There is still a large Chinese community in Malaysia and, especially, their closest neighbour, Singapore. As the decades and centuries passed a unique Chinese-Malay (or Nyonya) cuisine developed as Chinese cooking methods and traditions combined with the spices and ingredients available in Malaysia.

Several hundred years later the British appeared on the scene and in true Imperial style decided that they needed hard working resilient workers for the rubber plantations. The logic of the time dictated that the correct course of action was to ship in workers from elsewhere in the Empire and, lo and behold, a large community of Indian workers was established in Malaysia. Like the Chinese before them, the Indians adapted their style of cooking to the Malaysian environment resulting in new styles of cooking.

If you spend any time in a large Malaysian city now, you will find each town has a distinct Chinatown area and Little India with their own distinctive sights, smells and, most importantly, tastes. If you have any interest in food and are at least a bit of an adventurous eater it is a very good place to be! Phew. So after a rather long winded introduction including some boring history which will be of interest to only a minority of you, I have now got an excuse to share some photos of food in Malaysia.

On our first day in Kuala Lumpur we passed a man in Chinatown selling Tea Eggs. Intrigued we bought some to find out that they are, um, eggs boiled in tea. They were in fact very good and I keep on toying with the idea of making some here. I still haven't but watch this space.

I like eating spicy food any meal or time of the day (I first discovered this in India- thanks Rupesh and family) so I was delighted to discover that Malaysia's unofficial national dish, Nasi Lemak, is a delicious spicy dish traditionally served at breakfast. With its roots in indigenous Malay culture Nasi Lemak is traditionally served on a banana leaf and is composed of a number of delicious elements. Rice is always a part of this dish and is steamed with coconut cream to give it a luxurious texture. This is served with some or all of: fried anchovies, roasted peanunts, boiled eggs, a spicy sambal paste and curried meat such as chicken or beef rendang. Luckily for Claire it was also possible to get this for meals other than breakfast and she is enjoying it in this next photo.

One of the great experiences of eating in many parts of Asia is the food of street hawkers who offer amazing food at unbelievably low prices. Malaysia is no exception and even in Kuala Lumpur where the street food was expensive (by local standards) we had some great dishes. One of the more amusingly named of these was frog porridge.

Oh and we made friends with a crab.

Before eating his mum. Oops. As usual this chilli crab was a messy dish to eat! So good though.

But probably my favourite food out there is Laksa. Delicious. Associated most strongly with Peranakan cuisine laksa is, in essence, a curried noodle soup. There are probably as many laksa recipes out there as there are laksa chefs but it is truly delicious and a versatile dish which can be adapted to all tastes and diets. Laksas range from simple vegetarian or seafood affairs to full blown carnivorous soups complete with congealed pig's blood, as they eat in Penang.

I'm going to write in more detail about laksa in a future post and include my Shepherds Bush version of the recipe, so tune in at a later date if that sounds appealing.


In Singapore, against the advice of a well travelled friend, I ate oyster omelette. It was delicious but is the prime suspect in making me ill so I have mixed memories of this dish. On a brighter note the man I bought it off was an awesome guy who's favourite football chairman of all time is Sir John Hall. I don't know if I even have a favourite football chairman.

But now I am going to talk about a recipe- my first one on this blog and to make things even more exciting it's a request! Ms T of Burnopfield wrote in (OK texted) saying I should include this  Malaysian recipe for spicy sambal aubergine as I cooked it for her last year. It's fairly straightforward and requires making a sambal paste which is a versatile ingredient also used as a condiment by Malaysians.

Iain's Sambal (Chilli Paste) Recipe:

Warning: This can create quite a lot of spicy smoke so may be worth opening a window before you start if you don't have an extractor fan.

There are many different sambal recipes out there. this one is fairly simple and does not include belecan (shrimp paste) since I am using dried shrimp in the recipe which follows. Its simplicity can be a boon as it is versatile enough to be used in loads of dishes or as a spicy condiment.

20 dried chillies (seeds taken out and soaked for a while to soften)
10 fresh red chillies (seeds out and sliced, SE Asian scud chillies perfect)
9 shallots (peeled and chopped, red shallots best but given how much cheaper normal ones are I often use them)
6 cloves garlic (peeled and chopped)
4 tablespoons groundnut oil

Use a mini food processor (coffee grinder) to blend all the ingredients well or if you want to be more traditional use a mortar and pestle to pound all the ingredients into a paste.

Put your oil in the wok on a high heat. As soon as the oil begins to smoke, transfer the paste into the wok and stir-fry continuously for a few minutes or until you smell the heat from the paste and the oil begins to separate from the sambal.

Take it out of the wok and set it aside Once cooled it can be refrigerated for future use and should keep for a good few weeks or even months.

Sambal Eggplant Recipe

Medium sized aubergine (great price at Damas Gate if you live in the Bush)
2 tablespoons dried shrimps (soaked in warm water and then rinsed, buy at Sri Thai on Shepherds Bush road)
1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons sambal paste (if you like spicy, use even more tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon palm sugar (available in big tubs at Sri Thai)
2 teaspoons fish sauce or to taste
2 tablespoons groundnut oil

Rinse the eggplant with water and cut into small bite size chunks.

Heat up the wok with oil. Once hot add the shrimps and your sambal paste and stir-fry until aromatic. Then add your aubergine chunks.

Continue to stir-fry until the aubergine cooks to a soft texture. Add your fish sauce and sugar to taste, dish out and serve hot.

So you've made it to the end, good work. I'll explain the title. The national motto of Malaysia is 'Bersekutu Bertambah Mutu' and it is a nod towards the mixed ethnicity of their population as it translates as 'Unity is Strength'. I don't think Britain has a national motto, but if we did, what would it be? Answers on a postcard, or even better, on a comment.