After a couple of weeks of remembering how to be self-employed, I think I’ve started to come back down to earth. Working for myself was supposed to give me more control over Scraps, as well as zero excuses not to stop whatever I’m working on and go for a big fuckoff walk. So far, I’ve largely kept my head down, and despite boasting about getting into jogging (for the second time this year) I have mainly stayed inside. I’ve been blaming the heat. I’ve been blaming the economy (?!). I’ve been blaming the lack of lumbar support in my WFH set up (a set up that has persisted for two and a half years now). Nevertheless, he did whatever the opposite of ‘persisted’ is.
One side effect of being busy is the cooking has been less experimental and more reliable than ever. We’ve had pork larb, my go-to weeknight meal. Rob did a pineapple fried rice from the New York Times cooking app that was really good; every bite both sharp-sweet and salty-savoury. There’s always spaghetti tossed through a sauce of olive oil, chilli, garlic, and achovy, usually dusted with lemon zest and parsley.
In that spirit, this week’s recipes are less meals and more go-to outfits to dress the stuff you may already have in your fridge. One is an almost Argentinian-inspired red pepper sauce I developed after being sick of staring at a half-jar of red pepps every time I opened the fridge. I smeared it on a platter topped with charred steak and from-the-freezer French fries, but it would be so great tossed with cooked pasta, maybe with some chunks of roasted aubergine. A tablespoon of it stirred through mayonaise would make a great addition to a chicken salad sandwich, too.
Couldn’t be anything else this week
The other is less my own invention but something I have made a huge jar of to keep in the fridge — a sort of simplified version of the Vietnamese som-tam dressing. Good for tossing through finely shredded vegetables to make a slaw, or drizzled over roughly chopped fresh tomato and watermelon. I’ve been having it with leftover roast chicken salad, too.
Some other housekeeping stuff: Scraps is going to come out fortnightly throughout the summer, mainly because I have some other commitments that I have to prioritise, but also to give me a bit of room to get freelancing off to the best possible start. It’ll hit your inbox on Monday afternoons.
1.Charred red pepper sauce
I started thinking about making this recipe when a jar of red peppers wouldn’t get out my eye line. Every time I opened the fridge it was there, and I never knew what to do with it. I think we’d been to Nandos, where I’d left regretting not ordering the pitta with red pepper dip, and I started wondering if the best thing for the peppers was maybe blitzing them in the Nutribullet with some other things.
Fresh parsley, garlic, lemon, salt, chilli flakes. A diced shallot. I added a splash of red wine vinegar and realised this was basically a red pepper chimichurri (one of my favourite ways to use up herbs). After a couple of aggressive whizzes in the blender, I kept it in the fridge, and the next day simmered it in a saucepan, before serving with charred, sliced steaks and some freezer chips for a decidedly Argentinian inspired dinner.
You’ll know I don’t measure by now but here’s some rough numbers: half a jar of red peppers. A handful of parsley. The juice of half a lemon. A shallot. A tablespoon of the jarred pepper oil (keep the rest and use it in salad dressings, or even to make your own mayonaise if you’re really feeling fancy. Also great drizzled over an oven pizza). A teaspoon of crushed chilli flakes. 1-2 garlic cloves depending on how much snogging you have planned.
As I said earlier, this would be great with pasta, in sandwiches, or even for dunking sliced pitta breads into. I also like the idea of having it with meatballs, and it would be really nice smothered over a piece of cod before baking it in the oven.
2. The Som-tam (ish) sauce to drizzle on everything
This isn’t my recipe — I have Mitch Tonks to thank for this. He’s a chef and the founder of Rockfish, a tinned fish company, and we recently worked on a story for Men’s Health together. As part of an introductory guide to tinned fish for the magazine, he developed this recipe for sardine som tam, which uses tinned fish and finely julienned vegetables as the base for a really good lunch.
The piece will be out in September, so until then, I want to share the dressing, because since we spoke I’ve made it at least four times. The last time, I doubled the quantities, because it keeps for so long in the fridge, and I’ve been using this spicy, funky, sweet drizzle on everything.
The base is a teaspoon of light brown sugar (white sugar is also fine, but I like the subtle toffee notes of light brown, which pair really well with the next ingredient). A dash of fish sauce, to taste — different varities have different strengths. I like a couple of shakes myself. Next, the juice of one lime, and two garlic cloves. Smash them, mince them, roughly chop them, whatever you feel like doing. I like to whack them with the back of a knife then finely slice.
Mix this together and you have your som tam base. I usually also add in a shredded finger chilli, too. You can double it and just keep it in the fridge for any leftovers. I’ve been making rough salads with watermelon, red onion, and tomato, and this is great poured over it with a handful of coriander and a dash of hot sauce. It’s also great with steamed white rice and salmon, with tinned fish, per Mitch, and I’ve been tossing finely shredded vegetables in it, too, to make a really punchy slaw. Bash a cucumber up until it bruises, roughly chop it, and toss it in this sauce for a good side dish.
FYI, if you’re wondering what the crunchy topping is on my rice bowl, I found these salty fried ramen snacks in a Japanese food shop and they make a great alternative to crispy onions
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