Peanut and Ginger Stir Fry

We had a lovely weekend, cycling to the beach with some friends of ours and chilling out in the shade after a gorgeous swim in the ocean. When we got back we hung out some more for a nice lunch and a little 6 Nimmt. Our friends served us a really nice warm salad which inspired me to try a different take on my usual stir fry. Served over plain white rice, this gorgeous combination of peanuts and ginger really warms the tastebuds and sets off the fresh greens.

Ingredients:

• a ladle of plain white short-grain rice
• two spring onions
• a large thumb of ginger
• a few handfuls of mange-tout or sugar snap peas
• a generous handful of  roasted salted peanuts
• a big handful of sprouting seeds or alfalfa sprouts
• soy sauce

Cover the rice with two ladlefuls of boiling water, and simmer for ~10 minutes, or until cooked. Finely chop the spring onions and peel and finely grate the ginger.Slice the mange touts or peas in half lengthwise. Roughly chop the peanuts. In a large wok, get a little vegetable oil nice and hot, then fry the spring onion and ginger for a minute, turning constantly. Throw in the mange tout or peas and stir fry until the peas are cooked and bright green, but before they wilt. Stir in the alfalfa sprouts and peanuts, then turn off the heat. Serve the stir fry over the rice, with soy sauce on hand to add if you need it.

Mung Bean Sprout Risotto

A strange-sounding combination, to be sure. It started out as an entirely different recipe - 'A risotto of spelt and pea shoots'. Then I attempted to obtain the ingredients from my local market:

Nigel: Now easily available from supermarkets and grocer's, this ancient grain has an extraordinary comforting quality.
Me: Do you have pearled spelt?
Shelf-stacker: *blank look*

Me: It's like spelt - but before it's been ground into spelt flour...
Shelf-stacker: We have pearl barley...
Me: Thanks...

I didn't even try for pea shoots. Pea shoots? Really? And Nigel grows them himself in a tray? How much time does this man have to wash things? I picked up a pack of mung bean sprouts and hoped for the best.

The remaining ingredients were an onion - substituted with a shallot - and vegetable stock - replaced with an amazing chicken stock we'd made with the chicken carcass at the weekend. OK - I didn't substitute the Parmesan or butter... cheddar and lard just didn't sound right!

Anyway, it turned out surprisingly well. Strangely nobbly complementary textures. It was very easy - just make the simplest onion and rice risotto base and then stir through mung bean sprouts at the end... I suspect the recipe might have been lost in substitution!

Prosciutto, Avocado and Egg Salad

Always wonderful to come home and find something like this waiting for you :) Rocket, avocado, prosciutto, perfectly-cooked eggs and lovely sprouting seeds tossed together in a mustardy sauce, with a pumpkin scone I prepared earlier ready for slicing in the background - probably the last one until autumn, as the pumpkins seem to lose all flavour in the summer, and this one had to be heavily spiked with thyme and pepper to give it enough flavour.