Easy (Cheat's!) Black Bean Sauce

Easy, tasty black bean sauce recipe - save yourself an absolute fortune on those tiny packets of stir fry sauces you get from the supermarket!

No need to buy those over-priced sachets from the chiller cabinet every again - all you need to do is slice up two chillies and grate some ginger, add a few more ingredients and you've got yourself over a litre of sauce that you can freeze which will make around twenty portions or so!

Not only that, if you buy yourself a six pack of Lee Kum Kee black bean garlic sauce (see here for where I get mine, affiliate link which won't cost you any extra), that's twelve lots of the below recipe, which is...erm...  around 240 portions, and it currently costs £12.60 for a six pack. So, if you do the maths, supermarket sachets or jars cost around £1 for a two portion serving (so that would be £120 for 240 portions), so for the price of a few chillies and some ginger root, and a few store cupboard ingredients, you are genuinely saving over £100 overall by making your own - I've even shocked myself working that out!!!

Anyway, without further ado, here's the recipe - oh, and I tried to take a photo of just the black bean sauce, but it just looked like a pan of black stuff (!), so I've used one of my photos of beef in black bean sauce that I've taken previously. I hope you enjoy it!

Easy Thai Red Curry Sauce

Thai red curry sauce is incredibly easy to make, and extremely tasty and fragrant.

 

Who doesn't love a spicy, warming Thai red curry, with all of the variations you can have, and the complexity of flavour.

 

 

Not only that, if you have Thai red curry paste in your fridge, there all kinds of other things you can make with it, such as Thai fish cakes, or crab cakes.

This quantity of sauce makes around eight portions. If you want to make a smaller amount, and a red duck curry for two, see here for my recipe.

You can either make your  own red curry paste from scratch (my recipe is here and you can freeze it in portions), or you can buy it ready made for convenience - Thai Taste brand - this is my favourite, it lasts for ages in the fridge - affiliate link which won't cost you any extra to purchase, but gives me a few pennies towards my blog as I don't get paid and don't have adverts on it)

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 75g red curry paste (e.g. Thai Taste brand)
• 1 x 400g coconut milk
• 4 'double' kaffir / makrut lime leaves
• 20g palm sugar (or soft brown sugar)
• 4 tsp fish sauce

Method

1. Melt the coconut oil in a medium to large pan (non stick is easiest).

2. Add the red curry paste and stir until fragrant.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients, and simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionaly, so that the lime leaves can infuse into the sauce, and it can develop. Use with stir fries, or add ingredients to the hot sauce, or use as a sauce on the side. Freezes well. See notes.

Notes

I have got into the habit of very lightly stir-frying vegetables over a very high heat in a wok, so that they retain their crunch, but get a little char flavour (e.g. bite size pieces of onions and peppers, mushrooms, very thinly sliced carrots, short lengths of spring onions) and then cooling down, and adding ingredient such as sliced water chestnuts, sliced bamboo shorts, tinned straw mushrooms etc. then they will keep in the fridge for a few days, and you can take out what you need and add to a portion of sauce (depending how many people you're feeding. So, for example, for Thai red curry, I'd use onions and peppers, sliced water chestnuts, sliced bamboo shorts, three or four small cherry tomatoes per portion, a few pineapple chunks and about five light red grapes per portion. Then add your protein of choice, such as sliced duck, chicken, king prawns etc. If you can get hold of Thai basil, scatter a little on top when you serve it. Serve with jasmine rice or sticky rice.

Easy Satay Sauce

This is a delicious Thai version of satay sauce, that is ridiculously easy to make (and you can also freeze it) - try it, you won't be disappointed!

This is a scale-up of my original recipe, which also has a marinade for chicken skewers, and a recipe for pickled cucumber salad - the chicken and salad serve four as a main, or more as a starter - you can find the recipe here.

I found it beneficial to scale up, as then you use the entire tin of coconut milk, you don't have to stint on your portion of sauce if you're not limiting your calories, and it keeps really well in the freezer. And if you want to make your own Thai red curry paste, you can find my recipe here.

Wild Garlic Pesto

Make the most of seasonal fresh wild garlic by using it in a delicious pesto!

There's no cooking involved, it only takes a few minutes to make, and you can either store it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, or in the freezer for a few months or more.

What's more, you can forage it for yourself when it's in season for free if you're lucky enough to know where there is some - but remember to only take the leaves and not the bulbs, and only take as much as you need. If you can't find any for yourself, you can get it from certain shops when it's in season, or you might be lucky enough to have a friend who has it growing in their garden.

Easy One Dish Cauliflower Cheese - absolutely NO chopping!

No faff, no chopping, one-dish cauliflower cheese!

Forget making bechamel sauce and pre-cooking your cauliflower, you can cheat and do it the quick way instead, and no-one will know!!

 

If you want to make it even easier, you can skip the mustard, nutmeg and onion salt, and it will still taste great!

Honey Roast Cashew Nuts

Dangerously more-ish - make at your peril!

A lovely, naughty, sweet and salty, crunchy snack that ticks all of the boxes!

I don't need to say much more, other than 'Enjoy' (in moderation)!