Asian Inspired Recipes You'll Make On Repeat

My friends, we need to talk about the most luscious and delicious peanut butter noodles you will ever taste. These are my spicy peanut butter noodles, coated in the most luscious creamy peanut butter sauce and spiced within an inch of its life. They are easy to make and they are going to start off with some noodles in a pot of boiling water. Do make sure you add a little bit of salt into your water. I've got some udon noodles here. They're going to cook in about 10 minutes. I'm going to get them straight into the pot. Isn't that quite fun? I'm glad we did that. Now, we're going to toss them just to make sure that they get nicely coated in all that water. And while they are cooking, we're going to make this brilliant sauce. It is, like I said, very simple to make but requires a few Asian store cupboard essentials. So I've got some chili oil, I've got some rice wine vinegar, I've got some sesame oil and some soy sauce and the most important ingredient is some peanut butter because this peanut butter is going to give you that luscious creamy coating. I have mentioned that once or twice already. So, into a pot, we're going about 6 tablespoons of peanut butter. Now, it is up to you whether or not you use smooth or chunky peanut butter but I actually like the chunky one because you get little bits of peanuts throughout it. And as it kind of melts down with all the other ingredients, you get this lovely sort of nutty texture. Then we've got 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce and I use dark soy sauce here because it has a really rich color and it's quite salty also. To that, we've got 1 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar. This gives you the sharpness in there along with the saltiness of the soy sauce. And then we've got 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. You really only need a tiny touch of that sesame oil because it's quite strong. And then I do think for that extra spice in there, you do need a hefty amount of chili oil. Now, you can get this chili oil where it has little bits of the chili in there. This is what I'm using here but if you wanted to go something a little bit less heat-wise, you can just use a normal chili oil. So, we're going quite a lot here. It's 3 tablespoons of this chili oil. Now that I've got this lovely spicy paste with peanut butter action going on there, we need to hit it with some of the aromatics. So, I've got some ginger and I've got some garlic which I'm just going to finely grate on one of these graters. Oh dear, that wasn't meant to happen but we'll leave it there. That's for later. So, a little bit of ginger and I do find you get the best from your ginger on one of these little graters just like this. It's just going to really elevate the flavor in here. So, just scrape off that ginger and make sure you get all of it into your sauce. Good, looking good. And then a little bit of the garlic as well. I've only got one clove here but if you wanted to add more, by all means go ahead. Right, we have garlic, we have ginger. This now goes onto the heat. We're going to bring it up to temperature and melt down that peanut butter. When it comes to simmering point, it is good to go. So, it only takes about 3 minutes just to come to that point. And I think my noodles should be good at this point. Yes, they are looking gorgeous. You can use any noodles you like here. Basically, that sauce can coat whatever you fancy. But these are udon noodles and they cook quite quickly. Right, let's go drain some noodles. So, this is melting down nicely and at this point you just want to loosen it out with about 1 to 2 tablespoons of water. This will help give you that really creamy sauce. It smells absolutely gorgeous at this point and it's all those fragrant ingredients that are going to coat these noodles and make a beautiful little dish. Right, this is the perfect consistency. My noodles are drained, my sauce is just about ready. In fact, I'm going to turn off the heat. And now we're just going to slice up some spring onions and some chilli just to serve over the top. Right, spring onions sorted. Let's grab the noodles. I have these beautiful udon noodles. I can't say udon noodles. God, that was very difficult. Anyway, we've got loads of udon noodles and now we need to dump in this beautiful, luscious sauce right over the top while it's still hot. In amongst there, we're going in there with some spring onions, some chillies, and a little bit of sesame seeds just to give it a bit more texture. And then just using our tongs, give it all a good mix through. We are now left with the most epic bowl of creamy peanut butter noodles that just need a final garnish of some spring onions over the top. We've got to go in with some more chilli and then a little last sprinkle of some sesame seeds just over the top. I mean, that is the quickest fix little noodle dish you will ever make and they are absolutely gorgeous. I'm going to try some. In fact, I'm going to try and use chopsticks to see how this goes. If you like your takeaway meals, but you want to make them extra special, healthy, and make them at home, then this is the recipe for you. I'm going to show you how to make Singapore noodles. It's so easy and best of all, you can use lots of veggies and whack up your veggie content. So what we're going to start off with is chopping our veggies, but I do need to tell you that I have marinated some chicken strips with a little bit of soy sauce, some oyster sauce, and some garlic and ginger. And you leave that to sit while you get on with the rest of your recipe. So time to chop my veggies. I'm going to start with my garlic. So you just want a nice fine chop on your garlic and you don't have to be too careful, but I do like when I do like Asian dishes that there's a nice kind of difference in texture. So you've got a little bit of fine slicing going on. Stuffed, that's my garlic. With your ginger, what you want to do is take off the skin. So just run a knife around the sides of this and just grab one of these babies. If you've never used one of these, they're microplane graters and they are absolutely fantastic for getting the most out of your ginger or chili. And I'm going to use it for my ginger now. Give this one a good grate down. I'm using a lot of ginger because I love ginger and you do want to get a bit of a hit of it. So about two thumb-sized pieces will do the job here. Right, that's my ginger. So chop up the veggies, spring onions, celery, and carrot. And you can use whatever veggies you want here, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, it's up to you. I'm really giving my veggies a nice thin chop because they will cook much quicker. And now we're joined in the kitchen by the star of the show, Max the Dog, everybody! Hiya, Maxie! Hey! Okay, he's just come because he thinks it's food so I better crack on and get his dinner ready. Right, time to get that wok nice and hot. So heat goes on. Now the thing when you're making an Asian dish or any stir-fry is to make sure that your wok is hot. And that is the biggest mistake people mess, the biggest mistake people make even. The reason you get a gloopy, sloppy stir-fry is because your wok is not hot. If it's really hot like that, you get this fiery heat that really cooks it nice and quick and that's exactly what I'm looking for now. So I'm going to let that heat up. I'm going to get a little drop of sunflower oil in there. And you want to keep it heating until it just about starts smoking. And when it starts smoking, you know that it's nice and hot and ready to rock. We've got that lovely marinated chicken and this goes straight in. It does sizzle, but stick with it. You need to make sure that your wok is nice and hot. And as soon as that sizzle dies down, you've got a beautiful cooking wok that isn't going to reduce in its heat. So give it a good mix through, fry it off. And you want to cook this just until that chicken is just about cooked through. Right, come in here and check this out. We've got beautifully cooked chicken at this point. So this is the way you need it to be before you transfer it out. The chicken is nice and firm and it's cooked through. So transfer it over to a plate and get that pan straight back on the heat. Add another little bit of olive oil or sunflower oil or rapeseed oil in. Little drop goes in. And now you need to hit it with those great flavours. So I'm going to start off with a little bit of the garlic and ginger. Straight into the pan and give it a good mix through. And as soon as those ginger and garlic pieces start to become aromatic, you want to hit it with all those veggies. Oh, if you could smell this right now, you would be making this for your dinner tonight. Try it out. Okay, veggies go in. Pile our spring onions, our celery and our carrot in there. And we've got some bean sprouts as well. And now all you need to do is mix it through. In with a drop of sesame oil for a nice nutty hit. About a teaspoon, no more, it's quite strong. And then some oyster sauce. Gives it a lovely kind of rounded salty flavour. And for both colour and saltiness, I've got some dark soy sauce. And do try and get the dark soy sauce here, because it really does make a difference to the colour and the taste. There's a little bit of molasses in there, so it really deepens the flavour. Once those veggies are nice and tender, but they still have a bite, the chicken goes straight back in. We're going to add in some pre-cooked noodles. You can use rice noodles, egg noodles, whatever you have yourself. And now the final ingredient, a little bit of curry powder. So get that in there. And you want to add that just at the last minute. A little bit extra for love. Mix that through. Oh, and I have the best utensil to do this, hang on one sec. Where are my hands? This is the only way to mix through your noodles. So grab these babies and just get in there. I don't know what you call these, I like to think of them as aardvark cans. So just mix through with those and get your noodles completely coated. Okay, now you don't want to overcook it, so just whack off the heat. It's all gone very quiet and calm now. As soon as you turn off the heat, it just kind of calms down a little bit. So tumble this out onto a nice big serving platter. And look at that. These are serious noodles. You'll never have to dial the takeaway again. Look, easy. Last sprinkle of some spring onions over the top. And now, all that's left to do is taste it. So I'm going to grab a fork. This is worth waiting for. Have a little swirl of noodle, a little bit of chicken, a little bit of veggies. Give it a go. It's so good. It's summertime and I am going to show you how to make a really tasty little supper. Very quick to make, only a few ingredients and it really packs a punch. So I've got some chicken thighs and I'm going to chop up three ingredients. Some lemongrass, some chilli and some garlic. And just give it a good fine chop. You can take out the seeds if you want to but I'm going to leave them in. I like that extra bit of heat in there. This combination of three flavours, the chilli, the garlic and the lemongrass creates something really unique as a basis for this dish which is going to be really tasty. So lemongrass goes in as well. Take off the ends and take off the woody tops. And we're going to get rid of those and just take off that extra, extra leaf. You can save those for your bath if you want to. And then all I'm going to do is just chop these up nice and fine. The minute you start slicing through that lemongrass, the smell is absolutely fantastic. I think my neighbours are going to start coming over to their house to try and get some of this. It smells so good. Okay, lemongrass, chilli, garlic. Classic combination. The combination that's going to make this dish so, so tasty. Give them a good, good chop through. And now the sun's come out. I feel like it's proper summertime now. When you're making this dish, make sure that you get a nice fine chop on your chilli, garlic and lemongrass because that lemongrass can be a little bit woody but also you want to make sure that all your ingredients go completely over your chicken and completely coats it. So get that straight in on top of the chicken. And in the chicken here, this mixture that I've got, it's chicken thighs. And I love using chicken thighs in this dish because it's the brown meat. It's much more tender, much more flavoursome. And it really is inexpensive as well to buy. So I've got my chilli, lemongrass and garlic mixture in here. I'm going to add a tablespoon or so of fish sauce actually which is going to give us a nice salty element in here. And I just want to mix that through. Nice hot wok, sunflower oil, get your chicken in. Give it a good mix through, get coated in that oil and then let it sit. Don't stir it too much because otherwise the temperature in the pan will just start to reduce down. So let it sit for a minute and then stir fry it. The chicken's been frying off and it's just got a nice little bit of colour and I'm going to hit it with some curry powder. And the curry powder is going to add wonderful dry heat and aromaticness in here. So get it completely coated in there. I'm also going to add a little bit of sweetness from some sugar. And it's really important just to balance out your flavours with that little bit of sweetness especially in Asian dishes. And you want to fry this off just until that curry powder starts becoming alive, starts becoming aromatic and you can smell it. Now I need to braise my chicken. And I've got some chicken stock to do that. So a nice bit of chicken stock goes in on top of this. Just enough to cover the chicken. And this is going to help get a wonderful sauce in there. So mix it through and just allow that to simmer away. And the sugar in there is going to help caramelise it down and thicken the sauce. Check this out. Sorry, that was Max. I was about to tell you to check this out. But Max is having a very bad time because no one's throwing the ball for him. Look, our sauce has reduced down. We're going to hit it with some fresh herbs. I've got some coriander, I've got some mint, I've got some basil. Tear them up like this and just rip them into little pieces and just stir them through. Just right at the end of the cooking time, it adds wonderful freshness. Right, we've got a big pot of rice ready to go. Serve this up. And then over the top of this, we have our lovely chilli and lemongrass chicken. So there you go, lovely sauce over the top. And then to finish it off, I'm just going to hit it with some more of those fresh herbs. Great little dish, my chilli and lemongrass chicken. And I'm going to try some, tell you what I think. Try some of this. It's really important you get that sauce in there. It's really sweet and spicy. You know what? You have to make it with the chicken thighs because they become really tender when they're braised down in that liquid and they absorb all those great flavours. I want to show you today a very simplified version of a classic ramen. This is a Cheat's charred chicken ramen that is all about the infusing of the chicken with mirin and soy sauce and sesame oil and then charred on a hot brittle pan until we have deep, smoky flavour. You infuse that with chilli, garlic and ginger and you have a broth that is ready for your chicken, noodles and lots of gorgeous veggies. There's a few ingredients but it is a very simple method and the first step is marinating the chicken. So I have chicken thighs that I'm going to add some sesame oil, some mirin and some soy sauce to. I believe that using chicken thigh meat here, skinless and boneless is going to give you much more flavour than a chicken breast here. So go the extra mile and get it. And marinate it in a little bit of soy sauce, some mirin and some sesame oil. It's going to add great flavour and a lot of those ingredients are just store-covered ones that you most likely have to hand. So it's a very easy and simple marinade. Leave it overnight if you have the time or even about 20 minutes will do the job. So while that's marinating, I have some chicken stock that's come up to temperature in my pot here and this is just a basic chicken stock. It's a store-bought one but what I want to do is infuse it with lots of great flavour and that comes in the form of some ginger, some garlic and some chilli. So let's get chopping. Whenever I have the spice of chilli, the aromatics of ginger and garlic, I know that it's going to infuse whatever dish I'm cooking with lots of great flavour. So this finely sliced concoction now goes straight into the pot and it's going to infuse for 15 minutes. Now we are starting to infuse all that great flavour to just boring old chicken stock. It just elevates it completely. Now while that is simmering away and infusing for 15 minutes and my chicken is marinating, I'm going to prep up the veggies. I have a combination of bean sprouts and tender stem and some spring onions but I want to add shiitake mushrooms and carrots to the broth as it cooks out. So let's get prepping. Okay, we've got shiitake mushrooms sliced. I have my carrot ready to go and now my time is up on my infusion of this broth. So it's had about 15 minutes. I'm going to scoop out the chilli, ginger and garlic. It's done its work. It should have flavoured it up at this point and then we're going to get our veggies straight in. Once the carrot and the shiitake mushrooms are in the broth, I want to cook them out for five minutes again to infuse all that mushroomy flavour, the sweetness of the carrots and just give it a time to cook out. And while it's cooking out, I have a hot griddle pan that's come up to temperature and we're going to cook off the chicken until we have deep char marks. So let's get cooking. Now when it comes to griddling your chicken, the temptation is the minute you get into the pan to start poking at it, but really this is your moment to leave it and allow it to get those deep char marks. As it starts to cook out, it releases a little bit of moisture, a little bit of fat and that will help you to know that it's ready to be turned. So if you tease it at the edges and it still is sticking to the pan, give it a minute more and let it cook out and then you should be in a good place to turn it and cook it completely. Just have a look at that really gorgeous chicken that has taken on all that great flavour, the mirin, the soy sauce and the sesame oil. But not only has it taken on the marinade, it now has that smoky element that you get from the griddle pan. That's why one of these is so worthwhile using. Chicken's almost cooked. Our broth is now looking good with all the ingredients in there. I want to drop in one more veggie. I've got some tender stem broccoli. I'm going to slice up some spring onions and we're almost into assembly time. Now that broccoli only needs a minute or two more and then once it's nice and tender, it's time to serve. So we're into assembly time. I've got ramen noodles ready to rock. I've got soft-boiled egg. I've got some bean sprouts. And now I just need to slice up my spring onions. There you go. A very, very simple cheat midweek ramen that's perfect for the whole family. Lots of great flavour from the smoky chicken, the beautiful broth, all the lovely veggies in there. There's lots of things going on in here. Today I'm going to make beautiful Thai fish cakes. Beautiful little morsels of fish with aromatic flavours and wonderful crispy exterior. Very easy to make and it starts off by chopping a whole load of ingredients. I have some spring onions which I'm going to stir through alongside these lovely green beans. But before I get to that, what we need to do is get our base flavours sorted. So I have some chilli, some ginger and some garlic. Just take off that outer skin on the garlic. Ginger is a classic little one and it has a wonderful hum of heat. Take off that outer skin. So just give it a rough chop. With your chilli, just take off the top and then just give it a rough chop. And then these three ingredients get plopped into a food processor. And you just want to blitz it until you get a nice, fine blitz, which is what I'm looking for. The minute that blitzer goes on, you get whacks of that beautiful chilli, lots of heat. That wonder... Excuse me. A lot of... It's got up my nose. You'll have to give me a minute. Now that I've had a minute, the chilli, ginger and garlic are beautifully blitzed through. And all is well in the kitchen. To this mixture, we are going to add some white fish fillets. You could use cod, you could use haddock. But what you need to do is make sure that the skin is off and any pin bones in it have been removed. Because that's quite important. So just on your board, just slice this up. And you want to kind of give them into nice bits that will blitz down easily. Before we mix it through, the important ingredients here are an egg to bind it. And alongside the egg, we're going to use a little bit of zest from the lime. And you can already see by adding all these great ingredients that you are going to get the taste of Thailand. All running through these fish cakes. Speaking of the taste of Thailand, one ingredient which says Thailand to me is fish sauce. So about a tablespoon goes in here. The last ingredient, some red curry paste. About a tablespoon of this. And get this lid on and just blitz it up. Okay, check this out. We have a lovely smooth fish paste. And it's this fish paste which is going to form our beautiful Thai fish cakes. So to go in, I have some spring onions. So flip that board so there's no fish on these. And just take off the ends and take off just the little tips of the top. Because you don't want to throw away too much here. And then all I do is give it a nice fine slice on the diagonal. So I'm just going to tumble out this fish mixture into a bowl like this. With this mixture, you can now add in those spring onions. And add in those green beans. And then using your hand, oh all of the green beans, we'll put them all in. Using your hands, get in there and just mix this through until you have a nice even distribution of the green beans and the spring onions. Great. Oh, and the last ingredient I nearly forgot is some coriander. That is one of my favourite smells in the world. That wonderful fresh green taste of coriander. So get that in there. Just kind of tear it up and you should be left with something that looks pretty good. And get your hands back in there and give it a good mix. Once this is nicely mixed through, take I would imagine sort of golf ball sized pieces of this mixture. And just kind of work it in your hands a little bit until you have a nice kind of even, I suppose it's a little kind of small mini burger it looks like. And just pat it down and then set it onto a plate. The great thing about these Thai fish cakes is that if you were making them for a little dinner party or you're having some friends over, they're perfect to make ahead. You can just cover them with cling film and leave them in the fridge until you're ready for them. But I'm ready for them right now. So I'm going to fry them up in a frying pan. Get your heat on. Get a nice bit of oil in the pan. Once the pan is nice and hot, just slip these little fish cakes. As soon as you have that wonderful golden brown color on the outside, it's ready to flip over. And they're pretty much nearly cooked through. So just finish them off on the other side for about a minute or so. Right now, my friends, it smells incredible in this kitchen. These fish cakes are so, so ready. So, so done. It's now time to serve them up. So all I'm going to do is serve them straight onto a little chopping board. And to serve alongside them, I'm going to add in a little bit of sweet chili sauce, just in a nice dipping bowl on the side, so that as you bite into these hot, wonderful, aromatic, lovely fish cakes, you have this wonderful sweet chili hit on the side. It is so, so tasty. But to finish it off, we're going to add in some spring onions over the top, just as a nice little garnish, looking pretty. And then some lovely coriander. Last bit of coriander over the top and check this out. How good does that look? Perfect little finger food. Really, really tasty. And now, I'm just going to have to ruin it all by dunking it in some of that beautiful sweet chili sauce. It is hot, but it is so good. One of the most common questions I get asked is, what is your favourite dish? And one of my favourite dishes has to be a Pad Thai. One of those beautiful noodle dishes, bursting with aromatic flavours. And it's one of those classic Thai dishes that has just become worldwide famous. So I'm going to show you how to make it. It is so snappy, so quick. Three garlic cloves go into a pestle and mortar. We're going to chop up a chili. If you want to take out the seeds, do, but I like it with lots of spice. So get your one red chili in there. And talking of that coriander, come over here. Come over here and have a look. Because in the base here, do you see all those little coriander roots? You want to use them because they're so full of flavour. A lot of people throw them away. Look at that. See all those? Full of flavour. Give them a good smell. They are the most aromatic, beautiful smell you will ever get. So rip up some of that. And now I'm going to use the juice and the zest of two limes. The minute you start grating this on your little microplane grater, the smell is so, so fragrant. It's kind of like summer mojitos. I love that smell. Right. Loads of lime zest. Bash it. Bash the bejesus out of it. Okay. Look in here. This is where the magic's at. If you want a good Pad Thai, you have got to get this paste right. So get this right and you are on to a winner. Right. So get that wok nice and hot. Get some sunflower oil in here. And just a good tablespoon or so. And you want it to be smoking. Don't be afraid of the sizzle factor, okay? You want to swirl that around the sides like this. And then get that beautiful paste straight in there. It's going to fizz. It's going to buzz. It's going to do all those wonderful things. It's going to spit. You just need to stand back, okay? Woo-hoo-hoo! Spread it around the base of the pan. Let that aromatic flavor erupt during the kitchen. And what you will get is that wonderful waft of smell up your nose. And my fire alarm is probably going to go off, but we'll stick with it, okay? As soon as it starts to become aromatic, get your rest of your ingredients in there. We've got some prawns. They're going to fry off. We've got some bean sprouts. And we've got a good handful of those spring onions going in here as well. Give it a mix through. In on top of that, we've got some lovely noodles. Lovely rice noodles. Really important that you get rice noodles here. They're kind of the authentic ones you need to get. In with your lime juice. Straight in with the juice of two limes. In with some brown sugar. Really important with these Asian dishes that you get that sweetness, the saltiness, the sourness. And for the... Sorry, the chili is hitting the back of my throat. For that saltiness, we're going to get some fish sauce in there. Now, I'm going to grab my favorite kitchen utensil. My Ardvar cans. Get them in there. Mix it through. If you like the look of this recipe and you think you want to give it a go, the recipe, of course, is in the box below. And if you'd like to see more of these sorts of recipes, make sure to subscribe as well. It's looking pretty good, but it's not done yet. So what I'm going to grab is two lovely free-range eggs. Crack them in here. Give them a good mix through. So straight into the center. Just slowly break them into the bottom of the pan. Wait, the lads are choking. I've just lost two cameramen who now no longer have the use of their lungs. You all right, lads? You okay? Yeah? Yeah? Okay, great. We'll keep going. The guys want their Pad Thai. Okay, look at this. It starts to cook through and it becomes really beautifully thick and gloopy and tasty and just the way your Pad Thai should be. Noodle's done. It's time to serve up. Grab some of that lovely noodles. Spread them onto your dish like this. Add some crunch from our bean sprouts on top. Grab a good handful of these lovely coriander leaves. And now for the crunch factor, a little bit of salted peanuts over the top here. Finally, well, not really finally. I'm not done yet. Get a bit of spring onion action on the top. Now finally, a last little sliver of lime wedge over the top just to give a nice squeeze of that last bit of lime juice in there. That wonderful freshness. Stick it in there. Allow yourself to give a nice final squeeze over the top. Beautiful. How good does that look? Ladies and gentlemen, a fantastic Pad Thai. How good does that look? If you want the recipe, it's on my website. And, of course, subscribe, like, share. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. You'll see it all there. But now what I need to do is try this. I'm gonna dig in here. Just get some of that lovely noodles at the back. And all those lovely chunky bits when you get it up on the fork. Oh, so good. When I used to travel in Thailand, this was one of my favourite dishes. You get it everywhere. But making it at home is so easy. And I want you to give it a go. Very, very simple to make. The recipe's down in the box below. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.