The Captain's Table

 Time for another recipe. Next week I'll tell you how to pan-roast a chicken, but this will more than suffice for now: Nasi Goreng. I warn you now, this is far from an authentic masterclass, but it'll get you there for a sweet and spicy stir fry treat of an evening. Ingredients: For the paste : Three cloves of garlic (minimum) 2 inch/5cm long piece of ginger 2 birds eye chillis Half a red onion Tomato puree Oyster sauce Light soy Kecap Manis For the fry : Meat or Tofu (I used pork in this instance) Vegetables Day-old rice EGG You will need : Pestle and mortar/blender Wok Rice cooking equipment Egg pan The Method: Start off by cooking off your rice first. It is  possible to use freshly made and cooled rice, as cardinal a sin as that is, but if you're short on time/suddenly inspired to make this, it will work - as long as you get the lid off and allow as much steam to escape the cooked grains. I use basic long grain rice as standard - cheap by the kilo compared to basmati, b...

Here's a quick one. When I was at uni, I managed to get the three-ingredient stir fry down to about 20 minutes from prep to plate, including rice or noodles. How? Well, mainly heat, and lots of it. I eat stir fry meals, ooo... maybe as much as 4 or 5 days out of seven? As I've said many times before and will do so again, I don't really eat much in the way of vegetables due to deep-seated texture and flavour problems, and this super-fast method allows me to control those two factors more easily. Over the years, of course, my tastes have gradually changed and my methodology has improved, so let's run down a classic... The secret to all of this is keeping your pan really seriously terrifyingly hot - hard to achieve with a normal domestic hob, but do the best you can. Here's the OG method - this will sort you out literally in minutes.  Everything is based around having a "main" ingredient that you accompany with other things, so meat or seafood or tofu or...