In which I follow a recipe and don't write about it, and write two other recipes instead

Happy New Year! Hope you've had a fantastic Christmas/New year. I thoroughly enjoyed my Christmas, which contained lots of food, booze, a backing track of Peppa Pig (thanks to my two year old nephew) and a lot of trips up and down the M62. My Hogmanay was spent on a night shift at work but never mind. We celebrated in the office with cheese and party snacks.

After all the excitement of the festive season, I am now in the process of using up a load of leave. That means some time at home, cooking, cleaning, relaxing, and recovering from all the excesses of the last month. I should probably do some exercise too.

I didn't get as much cooking related stuff for Christmas this year as my tiny kitchen is already full to overflowing. I did get Nigel Slater's book Real Food, so in a rare break from tradition I'm going to follow a recipe. I think Nigel Slater's style of cooking is amazing, and I love his food writing. One of my greatest charity shop finds of last year was a very very old copy of Real Fast Food for about two quid, which I proceeded to read from cover to cover without actually cooking anything from it. Anyway, this time I toyed with the idea of coq au Riesling but decided it was a bit excessive for a Thursday night and made Roast Chicken with Basil and Lemon instead. I'm not one for typing out someone else's recipes – buy his book if you want it. But it was very good! It looked like this: 

So what's the point of this post? Well yesterday I inadvertently opened a tin of cannellini beans when I thought they were chickpeas (middle-class woes). I had to think of something to do with them today, and I thought I'd try out a cannellini bean mash to go with this chicken and a massive pile of green stuff. Plus, when I was writing it, I found a recipe on my hard drive for chicken soup which I'd never posted... so I'm putting it up as a bonus recipe. (Yes, I have random recipes kicking around on my hard drive. What of it? I even had a picture of it on my phone. I know, I should get out more)

Cannellini Bean Mash

Ingredients:

a leek, rinsed and finely chopped

a clove of garlic, finely chopped

a tin of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

a load of olive oil

a dollop of crème fraiche

salt and pepper

lemon juice (optional – I didn't bother this time because of the lemon-y chicken)

On a medium/low heat fry the leek and garlic in about three tablespoons of olive oil with a pinch of salt. Stir it regularly until it all gets very soft – probably about ten minutes. You don't want it to take on any colour.

Add the cannellini beans and heat through for five – ten minutes.

Add a big dollop of half fat crème fraiche and stir through, then season with some pepper. Start mashing.

Add more extra virgin olive oil to get the consistency you want. Because of the leek it won't go completely smooth anyway, I added another three or four tablespoons. Taste it, and add more salt and pepper if required. Serve with whatever you like.

I really enjoyed this as an alternative to potatoes. We've had a LOT of potatoes over the last few weeks... 

Now the bonus recipe:

Chicken soup

This is my rough recipe for chicken soup which I made up after three days of coughing, sneezing and generally being very dopey. It's not authentic Jewish-penicillin-chicken-soup, not least because I'm not Jewish. Maybe lapsed Catholic penicillin?

It's in two stages - first the stock then the soup itself. This probably made enough for three/four portions? You can add whatever veg you have to hand.

Ingredients:

one chicken carcass (or some chicken pieces, three to four bits? wings/drumsticks or whatever)

an onion, peeled and quartered

two carrots, one roughly chopped and one peeled and finely chopped

a leek, take the top leafy bit off and roughly chop then rinse it, finely chop and rinse the rest

3 or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed a wee bit

a quarter of a head of celery, take the spindly middle bits out and roughly chop, then finely chop a couple of substantial sticks of celery

a couple of big handfuls of pearly barley, rinsed (could use a couple of peeled, diced potatoes or some pasta. Some sort of starch anyway)

about a centimetre of ginger, roughly chopped into chunks

seasoning - a sprig or two of thyme, two or three bay leaves, 6/7 peppercorns, two cloves and a good pinch of sea salt

For the stock put all the reject bits of the vegetables (onion, roughly chopped carrot, leafy bit of leek, the garlic, spindly bits of celery and the ginger) and the chicken carcass in a pan with a lid, along with the all the seasoning. Cover with cold water, then bring up to the boil. Skim away any scum, turn the heat right down, cover it and leave it to simmer for about two hours.

When it's done, pour the stock through a sieve and put it back in the pan. Add the pearl barley and bring it back up to the boil before turning it down and simmering for twenty minutes. Then add all the other vegetables – ie. The nicely chopped stuff. Now simmer until everything's cooked. If you did chicken pieces in the stock you can pull off the meat and add it to the soup too.

Then it's done. Eat whilst under a duvet, then go back to bed.

 

Smoked Mackerel Chowder

We've been very busy the last few weeks and I've not really been keeping on top of things in the kitchen. This includes buying food. Joe has been a legend and has done the shopping, but that can mean we have an awful lot of some random things. Often it means we have a lot of booze and meat. Strangely, this time, we have a lot of celery and potatoes.

I'm not very good at cooking for one. I tend to make big pots of stuff and really struggle to downsize. Normally when I am on my own I make a stir fry or noodle soup. This time I fancied something different, but I still wanted to use up some stuff and avoid going shopping. I found a solitary smoked mackerel fillet in the freezer so I thought I'd make some sort of chowder. (I defrosted some prawns so I had a bit more meat) I did buy some soda bread to go with it.

Ingredients (to serve one very hungry person) - 

 

One smoked mackerel fillet, with the skin peeled off and flaked into chunks

Three/four big prawns, uncooked and chopped into 1cm chunks

Two medium potatoes (or three small ones), peeled and diced into 1cm chunks

One stick of celery, finely chopped

Three spring onions, sliced into 1cm pieces

Half a small tin of sweetcorn/three or four baby corn sliced into chunks

A small handful of frozen peas

A bay leaf

A quarter of a pint of milk

Two teaspoonfuls of crème fraiche

A quarter of a pint of vegetable stock

A handful of fresh spinach

Melt a little butter with a spoonful of vegetable oil over a low heat then add the potatoes, celery and spring onion with a pinch of salt. Fry slowly until they soften a bit. Then stir in the crème fraiche.

Stir in the milk, vegetable stock and bay leaf, simmer for five minutes then add the peas and sweetcorn and smoked mackerel. Keep the heat low and simmer for another five-ten minutes until the potatoes are completely cooked. 

For the last minute or two add the chunks of prawn and the spinach until they cook. If you happen to have chopped parsley or chopped chives add some finely chopped at the end. I didn't have any. 

Serve with big slabs of brown soda bread spread with butter.

This was great. Cheap and really tasty. It would be better with smoked haddock, because that would flavour the soup more, but still, this did the job.

I'm aware posting this means I've done two soup recipes in a row but I think this is more of a stew... later in the week I'm going to make a really easy pie. Maybe I'll put that one up here to remind you I do eat solid food occasionally.

Home comforts and cheap eats.

This is a rare post about soup. I make it almost every week but rarely put the recipe up, as it took me years to convince people that it wasn't the only thing I ate. But now, with autumn well and truly here, it is the perfect time for soup. It's healthy, cheap and very very easy. Make it now. Freeze some of it. Have it on night shifts when you're cold and sleepy. 

Split pea and ham soup

My mum used to use ham hock in soups all the time, but I don't remember them being enormous. I don't know if hock is just the Scottish phrase for it but never mind. My conversation with the butcher went like this:

Me: “Have you got any ham hocks?”

Him: “Do you mean ham shank?”

Me: “Is it the same thing? It's for soup”

Him: “Yeah it's good for soup.”

(produces a ham shank the size of my head)

Me: “Jesus it's enormous!”

Him: “Yeah you're going to have a lot of soup.”

And yet, it was only £2.80. And I go to a good butcher, where the meat is free range and brilliant. £2.80. Amazing. So I'm now concocting other recipes for this rather ugly but totally delicious cut of meat. Honestly, I don't buy cheap meat, but cheap CUTS of meat are the way forward.

So with some split peas from the back of the cupboard and the cheap meat this probably works out at about 35p a portion.

Ingredients:

a ham hock

half a pack of green split peas, rinsed

a carrot, scraped and roughly chopped

a couple of onions, peeled and roughly chopped

a clove of garlic, peeled and sliced in two

a couple of bay leaves

lots of water

pepper

normally I would have a couple of roughly chopped sticks of celery

too, but the celery in our fridge had gone bendy

1. I boiled the ham for a short blast on it's own before cooking as it's an insanely salty piece of meat. Some ham hock recipes I've seen say you should soak it overnight for this reason. That would require planning though. Put it in a soup pot, surround with water and bring to the boil for ten minutes. This helps to take away some of the saltiness, and any scum from the ham (no one wants scum).
2. Pour away that water and put the ham to one side. Wipe any scum from the pan.
3. Fry the onions garlic and carrots on a low heat in a little vegetable oil, then add the ham, bay leaves and split peas to the pan
   
   

   

   Ugly, isn't it?

4. Top up with a full kettle full of cold water. Probably a couple of litres. Bring it up to the boil, then lower the heat stick a lid on and leave it to simmer for ages, depending on the size of the ham. At least two hours but probably more.
   Go with your instinct on this. I did it for two and a bit hours but then we were due to go out for dinner, and I didn't feel like the ham was quite falling apart enough. We do have a rubbish electric hob though, which takes an AGE to cool down, so I just switched the hob off and left it while we went out. I would guess it probably bubbled away for about two and a half in the end.
5. Remove the ham and bay leaves and blend the rest of the soup. When the meat has cooled remove the skin and bones, tear up the meat and add as much of it back to the soup as you like. Use the rest for sandwiches or something. I've frozen some so next time we have chicken I can make a chicken and ham pie.
   
   

   

   A dinner plate full of ham!

   
   

   
   
6. DON'T ADD SALT. It won't need it. Even for a salt fiend like me.

The enormous piece of ham was a revelation. I'm already plotting recipes which involve ham hock and pearl barley.

A friend and fellow food blogger has just mentioned lamb breast as an equally delicious cheap cut of meat. Any others that I don't know about and should be cooking? It might just be the theme for this winter...

Soup recipes

One of my work colleagues is very pregnant (actually a couple of them are), and wants to start filling her freezer with soup for when the baby comes along. I said I'd cobble together some recipes for her and here's the result! I thought I might as well put them up as a bonus post - enjoy! Sorry for the lack of pictures.

All of these can be changed depending on how you like them! Just keep tasting them and season with salt and pepper. All should freezable. All use chicken or veg stock – and the amount stated is just a rough guide. Add a bit more or less if you think it needs to be thicker/thinner. If you don't have a hand blender I'd suggest getting a cheap one from the supermarket, they're a godsend! And if you get one with a little bowl attachment you'll never have to chop ginger and chilli again.

Leek and potato

• peel and slice about five decent sized potatoes
• chop and rinse about 3 or 4 leeks (depends on the size of them)
• fry leeks on a low heat with a chopped onion in some butter and a touch of normal cooking oil
• put in the potatoes and stir around for a couple of minutes
• add a pint and a half of stock (chicken or veg)
• add a splash of milk
• season with salt and pepper
• when the potatoes are soft, add a splash of cream and blitz with a hand blender until smooth

Curried carrot and lentil

• chop an onion and two cloves of garlic and three or four good sized carrots
• fry over a low heat in a little oil
• add half a teaspoon of curry powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cumin. (if you don't have any cumin use a little bit more curry powder instead)
• rinse two handfuls of red lentils and add to the pan with one and a half pints of stock.
• Season it, then when the carrots are cooked and the lentils soft use the hand blender to blitz it

Spicy butternut squash

• you'll need a big sharp knife for this. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, quarter the squash and scoop out the seeds. Drizzle a little oil over and season them. Shove in the oven for about half an hour or until it's soft.
• Meanwhile fry on a low heat an onion, two cloves of garlic and a chilli (all roughly chopped). You could also use a bit of peeled, grated ginger if you can be bothered. Add a pint of stock.
• Let the butternut squash cool a bit once it's cooked, then take all the flesh out and add to the onion and stock etc. (if there's still a few bits of skin it doesn't really matter, you'll blitz it anyway and it won't do you any harm.
• Add a tin of coconut milk. Blitz. You could add a squeeze of lime juice and some chopped coriander at the end if you wanted to.
• FOR A NON SPICY VERSION: don't use chilli and ginger, don't add coconut milk but use more stock and a touch of cream.

Mushroom

• chop an onion and a clove of garlic and fry over a low heat in a little butter.
• Slice a packet and a half of mushrooms. The normal size from the supermarket. Add to the pan and fry for a few minutes
• add a pint of stock and a touch of milk
• after it's bubbled away for about half an hour the mushrooms should be done
• add a touch of cream and blitz

Turkish lentil

Had this in Istanbul and loved it, so came home and worked out the recipe. It sounds weird but it's really nice.

• fry a finely chopped onion over a low heat in some butter. Add a pinch of chilli flakes and three quarters of a teaspoon of paprika. (chilli flakes optional)
• rinse four or five handfuls of red lentils and add them to the pan along with two handfuls of bulgur wheat and a good squidge of tomato puree
• stir around for a minute or two, then add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• give it a good stir to make sure its not stuck to them bottom then cover and simmer on a low heat until the lentils are cooked.
• Add the juice of half a lemon and a good teaspoonful of dried mint.

Minestrone-ish

Minestrone can be anything with some veggies in it. I tend to make it to use up any old veg I have lying around. You can add anything you like to it. The only problem is because you don't blitz it takes a bit more time to chop it finely! Here's one version:

• Fry some bacon pieces, lardons or chopped bits of bacon
• Add a finely chopped onion, a clove of garlic or two and a couple of sticks of celery over a low heat.
• Add some finely chopped carrots and a tin of rinsed borlotti beans. (could also add some chopped mushrooms?)
• add a pint and a half of stock, season
• bubble away till all the vegetable are nearly cooked, then add some frozen peas and about three handfuls of fresh spinach. After a couple of minutes it should be done – you don't want the spinach and peas to be on for too long.

For a different version – add a tin of tomatoes too. You can add pasta bits but it won't freeze too well. Could add chopped parsley and basil at the end too.

Tomato and basil

• fry a chopped onion, chopped celery and garlic.
• Add two tins of tomatoes
• add a pint of stock, bubble away for twenty minutes
• add a touch of cream
• season, then blitz
• add some finely chopped basil

If you happen to have the rind bit of some parmesan kicking around put that in when you add the stock and let it bubble away for twenty minutes then fish it out. Sounds weird, but adds a nice savouriness to it.

Chicken and vegetable (add any other veg you want – spinach or peas are good to add at the end) – Make it with less stock and it'll be like a stew

• finely chop an onion, some celery, a couple of cloves of garlic and fry on a low heat
• add two decent sized potatoes and a carrot, peeled and diced. (when these cook and break down they'll thicken the soup a bit)
• add a pint and a half of stock. Season
• add a tin of sweetcorn (drained)
• put two whole raw chicken breasts in. Cover, turn the heat right down and let it simmer for about twenty minutes
• after this time the chicken should be cooked, so take it out and let it cool slightly before shredding/chopping and adding back to the soup.

Using my Christmas presents: Slow cooked beef shin and mash.

Happy New Year! Hope you've all had a lovely one. I was in the Highlands. Can't lose really!

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions. It's January, it's cold, and therefore it is not the time for diets. To be honest, I've never been on a diet in my life, I love food too much. I eat pretty healthily and don't have a sweet tooth (the recipes on here are the ones I make as a treat at the weekend). I admit, I could try and sort out my crisp and wine intake a bit more... but ah well. Life's too short. And now is the time of year for comfort food.

As well as this, I got some cracking Christmas presents which mean I absolutely have to make lovely stodgy food! We now own a Le Creuset casserole dish and I'm very excited! Plus I got a potato ricer, and they're supposed to make the best mash ever.

However, we are on a January budget... so it's time for cheap cuts of meat. I went to the butcher and bought a pound and a half of beef shin for a fiver. Brilliant. It does mean it has to cook for ages, but that's all the better as it left me with a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon.

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees.

First, get your butcher to cut your beef into casserole sized pieces (or do so yourself) and toss it in a little bit of seasoned flour. Get some oil nice and hot in your pan (either a big casserole dish that can go on your hob or a large saucepan) and fry the meat off a couple of pieces at a time. Don't do it all at once as it'll steam, you want lovely brown sticky bits at the bottom of the pan. 

You want it WELL browned. (Although not burned, obviously)

Put the meat to one side, then fry off a couple of sliced onions and some sliced celery. I also fried off a load of halved mushrooms, to make the cheap meat stretch even further, but this is optional. You could add root veg if you want? But I didn't want the sweetness of carrots or anything, I want this to be really rich and savoury. While it's frying use your wooden spoon to scrape up the brown stuff from the bottom of the pan – that's pure flavour.

Once everything has fried down nicely and picked up some of the colour from the bottom of the pan put the meat back in and stir in a couple of tablespoons of tomato puree. Whack up the heat and pour in as much red wine as you're willing to spare, about half a bottle for us! Then top up with some water or beef stock. You want the meat to be just about covered. Shove in a few bay leaves and some thyme, then season well. Put a lid on (or decant it into an oven proof dish, then put a lid on) then put in the oven for ages. I reckon about three hours should do the trick. Check it regularly to make sure it's not drying out, and add more water if you think it's getting low. You could also put some tin foil directly on top of the casserole underneath the lid to help contain the liquid if you're really worried about it drying out.

Mash: Peel your spuds and chop into fairly big chunks. (if they're too small they soak up more water; no one wants watery mash) Boil in salted water.

My latest trick with mashed potato (whether you have a ricer or standard masher) is to leave the potatoes sitting in the collander for five minutes after they're cooked. It stops them from being too watery as they drain more thoroughly, but more importantly give off loads of steam and dry out a bit. This isn't groundbreaking stuff, I probably saw it on the telly, but it really does make a difference.

While they're doing that, heat your butter and a little drop of milk over a low heat, and season it. Then either tip your spuds back in and get mashing, or send them through the ricer straight into the pan.

Serve with bloody great piles of veg. Delicious. The rest of this is going in a pie.

This weeks soup: Sort of potato and bacon. It's an interpretation of a Simon Hopkinson recipe which made me realise all my chives have died in the winter. It's cheap as chips and surprisingly tasty (even without the chives):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/potato_soup_with_soured_27576

Whilst making this I was mostly listening to: Lots of stuff. After all it was in the oven for three hours. But it included Laura Marling and Bon Iver.

This is not just a stir fry (and Turkish lentil soup)

Last time I bought steak from the butcher, he very kindly gave me some off cuts he had leftover (it pays to go when he's just about to close). They've been sitting in my freezer for some time while I worked out what to do with them – not quite big enough for steak and chips but I wanted to do them justice!

I decided to do a stir fry – but try and make it a bit nicer than my usual chuck everything in the wok and hope for the best.

Bit blurry as I was stirring at the time!

First, do all the prep! It really is the key with stir fry – as it only takes five minutes to cook.

Blitz up a glove of garlic, a chilli, and about an inch of peeled ginger. Crush together some cumin) and some coriander. (All a bit fusion, I'm guessing this wouldn't be that authentic but I love cumin

Finely slice into strips all your veg; whatever you've got really. I used carrots, peppers, broccoli, mushrooms and courgettes.

Prep everything before cooking

Cook your noodles according to the packet! I used rice noodles. When they're cooked rinse through with cold water to keep them separate. Put to one side.

Mix together a teaspoonful of cornflour, with two tablespoons of rice vinegar and a tablespoon or two of soy sauce. I have some new soy sauce from a Chinese supermarket which is INSANELY dark. Really tasty, but turned everything a bit brown with only a few tablespoons of it! If you do live/work near a Chinese supermarket I would recommend buying a big bottle of soy sauce – the little bottles in the normal supermarkets just don't really compare.

Have some finely sliced spring onions at the ready, and some sesame oil. (I'd run out of spring onions unfortunately!)

Season your steak with a little soy sauce, then fry on a really high heat in the wok for two minutes on each side. This is really nice sirloin so I want it to be a bit rare, and it will be heated through at the end.

Put to one side and allow to rest while you make everything else. Heat some oil in the wok (it doesn't need cleaning after the steak) Once it's quite hot throw in your garlic/ginger/chilli mix then the spices. Add all your veg. Stir before adding the soy/cornflour mix. Keep everything moving around, then add the rice noodles. Whilst everything is heating through, slice the steak into strips. 

Taste it – and add more soy sauce if you think it needs it.(depends on the quality of your soy sauce really)

Chuck in the steak, sliced spring onion and a drizzle of sesame oil – and it's done!

This week's soup is Turkish lentil. I rarely put my soup recipes on here, but thought this was good enough to share. When we were in Istanbul we had this and I thought it was lovely, I've since googled, tasted and guessed until I came up with a reasonably authentic version. It's really cheap, and really easy!

Finely chop an onion and cook in some butter on a low heat in an enormous pan until it goes a little golden, but not caramelised. Stir in a good teaspoonful of paprika. Add a small cupful of red lentils, and half a small cupful of bulgur wheat. Stir this around until it's coated with the butter.

Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato purée, and a couple of pints of vegetable stock, and a good pinch of chilli flakes (if you like spicy food). Simmer until all the lentils have broken down (about half an hour). When it's cooked, crumble in a teaspoon of dried mint, and the juice of about half a lemon. Season to taste. It's that easy. And trust me, it's lovely. Eat with pitta bread if you're trying to be authentic!

My packed lunches for the rest of the week

 Whilst making this I mostly listened to: the new Laura Marling album. I think she's ace.

Feeding the post holiday blues

It’s a while since my last post, but that’s because we’ve just come back from an amazing holiday in Istanbul. I’d highly recommend it! There was so much to see, we ran out of time even though we had a full week.  We also spent our time eating bread with sheeps cheese, kebaps, baklava, fresh fish and drinking loads of tea (and not particularly good Turkish red wine).  

Basically a week of over-indulgence. It was brilliant.  And now we’re home wading through about four loads of washing and facing slightly unhealthy bank balances, my plan to tackle this is to cook, cook and cook some more.  So here we go, three recipes in one blog:

1.  The slightly luxurious, drink it with wine, pretend you’re still on holiday meal:  Asparagus Risotto.

Anyone who has lived with me will know I make a lot of risottos.  I love risottos, and they’re pretty easy, just keep it constantly on a lowish heat.

Fry finely chopped onion, celery and garlic in a little butter and oil so it goes slightly translucent but doesn’t colour. 

Add the risotto rice, and cook for about thirty seconds so all the grains are coated in buttery goodness. Add a decent glassful of white wine, give it a stir and let all the wine cook down.

Snap the woody ends bits of your asparagus and chop the rest into chunks about a couple of centimetres long. Add these, and a ladleful of stock, and keep stirring. 

Gradually keep adding stock about a ladleful at a time and regularly stirring for about fifteen minutes, until the rice is cooked. It should still have a little bit of bite.

Stir in a good handful of grated parmesan, a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Have with salad and cold white wine…

  

2.  The store cupboard, cheap and cheerful, batch cooked meal: Chorizo and bean stew.

I split my life between Hull and Leeds, and struggle sometimes to keep eating healthy tasty meals while away.  To rectify this, I made a VERY easy stew to last me a couple of nights.

Fry some chopped chorizo in a little oil, until the oil starts to turn red. 

Add a chopped onion, some chopped celery and some garlic and chilli. Everything should keep a bit of an orange tinge. Then add some extra paprika and chilli flakes, stir in, before adding loads of veg. For me, this was peppers, courgettes and mushrooms.  

Add a tin of beans, I used borlotti, and a tin of tomatoes.  Add some tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and top up with water. Let it bubble down for quite a while (probably about half an hour) and continually check for seasoning, it’ll take quite a lot of salt and pepper.

If it tastes too spicy or too sharp, add a little sugar to take the edge off it. Stir in some spinach at the end.

Done! I’ll be eating this with some cous cous. 

3.  The post-holiday diet starts today, healthy vegetable-tastic soup: Sort of Thai vegetable and noodle soup.

Blitz up a decent amount of garlic, chilli and ginger, and fry it in some oil with some sliced onion.  Add a spoonful of Thai curry paste. And fry a little.

Then add a load of veggies, for me this was sliced pak choi, thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and green beans, and a few halved cherry tomatoes. 

Add some stock, and allow it to bubble away but not for too long (best if the veggies retain a little bit of bite) Add some lime juice, and plenty of Thai fish sauce (to taste) at the end, as well as some chopped fresh coriander.

Meanwhile, cook some noodles separately.  I was looking for rice noodles, but they were sadly lacking from my supermarket so I ended up with udon noodles. When they’re cooked rinse them with cold water to keep them separate.

Because I was taking this to work for lunches, I let it cool in separate containers, then added the noodles to each one.

I made this with home made chicken stock, but if you were going to be making a veggie version just use vegetable stock and soy sauce instead of Thai fish sauce.