Posts made in April, 2008

Sweet chili prawn kebab salad

Sweet chili prawn kebab salad

Sweet chili prawn kebab salad is a simple salad to make, even more so if you add a little cheat, like I did, and use a ready prepared sweet chili sauce to marinade the prawns. Don’t use a whole jar for the marinade though, you will want to save some to use as a dip.

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Herbs and Spices

Herbs and Spices

Herbs and spices are invaluable ingredients for all types of cooking, not just when making salads. Herbs and spices add flavour and/or aroma to foods, enhancing meals in bold or subtle ways.

Of course we all have our favourite herbs and spices, and at the same time we have those that we are not so fond of, after all taste is a personal thing. There are also those times when we are following a recipe and find we do not have a particular herb or spice to hand, and in those situations we need an alternative, just as we would want to find an alternative to herb or spice we are not keen on.

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Does Olive Oil go bad?

Does Olive Oil go bad?

Twice a year my neighbours go on a day trip to Calais, France, they hire a van, a rather big van, so big you could probably stage a moon landing in it. They go on this trip twice a year to do what they call, stocking up on essentials, in reality what happens is this; Mr Neighbour will fill the van with enough cut-price Red Wine to float a cruise liner, while Mrs Neighbour will buy enough cheese to feed a small nation for a month.

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How do marinades work?

How do marinades work?

So, how do marinades work? Well you might read an awful lot of web pages and recipe books that tell you that a marinade will tenderise meat. This isn’t strictly true, hitting a piece of meat with a meat hammer or rolling pin will tenderise it. Marinades do something else.

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Thai Marinade for beef

Thai Marinade for beef

This simple and delicious Thai marinade is excellent for beef, especially a sirloin steak. Of course you’ll want to serve this with a salad, I recommend a simple salad of shredded lettuce, cucumber and tomato.

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