More noodley goodness: Orange & Ginger Soba Noodles

I found this recipe a while back, on my first visit to the beautiful vegetarian Indian food blog, Saffron Trail. And despite never having tasted it, I got a real craving for it a couple of days ago!

It's basically a noodle dish with a nice bit of steamed veg... and a gorgeous orangey, gingery, peanut butter dressing! Yum. I mixed the dressing up, and I could have probably eaten the lot of it with a spoon! (Peanut butter soup!!) I think this dressing would go amazingly well as a dipping sauce for chicken too.

While the original recipe calls for smooth peanut butter, I only had crunchy at home. While I probably will try it with smooth when I get a chance, I really liked the extra texture that the crunchy peanut butter added.

This is a great dish, quick and relatively healthy. I made up a batch in the evening and had it for dinner, then took the leftovers to work the next day. You must do this!!! It was even better on day 2!

Anyway, happy Friday everyone! Long weekend for me due to a public holiday... to celebrate I'm heading up to Notting Hill Carnival! Cross your fingers for some sun!

Orange & Ginger Soba Noodles

Serves 4...

• 3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• Juice and zest of one orange
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 250g soba noodles
• 6 Runner beans, cleaned and thinly sliced
• 3 carrots, ribboned

Prepare the Dressing...
Whisk together all the ingredients except the noodles and veg - taste and adjust seasoning or acidity - I added a dash more orange juice and another dash of soy. Set aside.

Prepare the Noodles...
Cook noodles according to packet - probably 5/6 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water.

Prepare the Veg...
We want these to be super lightly steamed - the crunch of the carrot ribbons go so well with the silky noodles! So maybe 3 minutes for the beans, and just a couple of minutes for the carrots.

Chuck it All Together!
If you want to eat this warm, heat the noodles by pouring boiling water over them. Mix together the veg and noodles; give the dressing a last whisk, then pour it over the top.

Mix through so that all the noodles are coated in the dressing.

If you fancy a faff, decorate with some raw carrot ribbons and orange segments. Or not!

Either way, tuck in, slurp it up, and wonder why you've never tasted gingery orange peanut butter before... Enjoy!

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Another Friday trio!

This week I'm going to send this over to Ruth at Once Upon a Feast for Presto Pasta Night! Though I think I'm early - at time of writing the last round up hadn't even been posted!

Its near the end of the month, so a cheap dinner is even more appreciated than usual. And that's why I'm going to send this to Frugal Fridays! Even taking into account that I used posh organic soba... this would feed 4 for about £4 - or ~ $8!

And finally, this is my second submission to Ruth's Bookmarked Recipes event. Check out the round up on Monday!

Psari Plaki - or Mary Queen of Cods!

When Peter the Greek of Kalafogas fame posted this beautiful baked fish dish last week I dribbled and drooled, stumbled and tagged as I so frequently do - and it entered the voluminous bank of 'recipes to make' that I have been cultivating for the last year or two.

But the next day when I went to pick up a piece of fish for a healthy post-Ibiza dinner, it popped back into my mind - so instead of the skate wings I picked up a beautiful whole cod instead! (I love my fishmonger - check out this 3lb beauty - for less than a fiver!!)


So Peter's dish is Ψάρι πλακί (did I pronounce that right Peter?? ;) or Psari Plaki - basically fish baked with tomatoes and olive oil (some sites say tomatoes and potatoes, others tomatoes with herbs or various veggies - but tomatoes are the constant.) Baked in the oven, and served with a load of crusty bread for mopping up the juices, how could I resist!?

So I trudged home with my huge cod (after making some phonecalls to ensure I'd have company to eat with!) and visited the bakers and greengrocers for the rest of my ingredients.

Peter's recipe specifies Cubanelle peppers. Now I wasn't too sure what those were, but he pointed me towards any sweet, thin-skinned pepper - the flavour of the dish would be overwhelmed by using bell peppers here.


The guy in the shop didn't know what these peppers were called, but they were thin-skinned and sweet - and worked perfectly!

Peter also recommended using old floury potatoes - not waxy or new. But decent old potatoes are not the easiest thing to find in England in July. So instead I reverted to one of my old favourites - Cyprus potatoes. A hint of waxiness, though not too much so, I thought these worked really well. They were creamy and smooth, and just falling apart enough to give some real body to the sauce.

But, anyway, back to the tale!

I got myself home and started laying out the kitchen, and quickly realised something. A 3lb fish is really, really big. Way too big to fit in any of my oven dishes.

There was only one thing to be done...

CRACK, HACK, SNIP

A hack, snip and a crack later, and we have it - behold Mary, Queen of Cods!

I'm not going to go into the detail of how I prepared the plaki - I followed Peter's recipe - and a lovely simple one it was too. I used fresh oregano from my garden, and I think I may have thrown in an extra tomato. Because it goes against my nature to do exactly what I'm told!


So anyway, the tatties and veg were layered in, the headless fish snuggled down amongst them, and the paprika olive oil slurry poured on top. I was about to put it in the oven... when I noticed Mary gazing forlornly from the counter with her one visible eye. There seemed to be such a lot of flavour going to waste in that beautful big fishy head.

The cats were at my feet looking hopeful. But I had plans to reunite Mary to her body...

Yeah, that'll do it!

I've no idea whether that added anything to the flavour - but it amused me so she stayed.

So (bear with me - I'm almost done) fifty minutes later, out she came from the oven. The smell was fabulous!

For me, the hardest bit of the whole thing was the carving (do you still call it carving for a fish?!) Lifted the fish out of the dish was a challenge. Then trying to remove skin and bones without destroying the fish?? Difficult to say the least! Half of my plates had skin-on fillets - the other half had skinless cod flakes. It was all polished off in record time though - with mountains of softly chewy white bread with a crisp, light crust. Absolutely beautiful, thank you for a fabulous recipe Peter. I do believe I'm going to start a new tag: 'recipes to make... again'!

Psari Plaki-ttie

I'm sending this over to Ruth for her weekly Bookmarked Recipes event. It's my first entry!