I’m not sure where to start with this dish!!this dish is sooo good!!! The recipe is taken from my food hero Mr Rick Stein and his book Rick Stein at home which was written during lockdown.

When I leave work on a Friday night I tend to go and park up in the local Sainsburys. I put a cook book in the car, have a flick through and find a dish that inspires me. Just walking around the shop helps me shut off from work, just that little bit of headspace I find works.

Such a simple dish requiring different methods of cooking that when it all came together the finished dish was just out of this world, a taste sensation!!! Sadly, the sauce making process required fish sauce, anyone that’s used fish sauce knows the smell lingers haha.

First and foremost the important sauce.

Ingredients- 4 tbsp of fish sauce, 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar, 2 tbsp of lime juice, 2 tbsp of brown sugar, 1/2 tsp of cornflour, 1 red chilli finely diced & 2 garlic cloves finely diced.

Method- place the fish sauce, red wine vinegar, lime juice & brown sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Mix the cornflour with 1 tsp of water to create a thickening agent. Once the sauce has come to a boil add the cornflour mix, stir in and simmer for a minute. Remove from the heat allowing this to cool slightly. Once the thick gloopy sauce has cooled add the chilli and garlic then set aside to until the dish has been plated up.

Once the sauce has been made you can move onto the rest of the dish which can be made in real time.

Ingredients- 1 heaped tsp of ginger paste, 2 large chicken breasts, 1/2 cucumber, 4 spring onions, 150g bean spouts (1/2 a bag of your usual supermarket product) small handful of fresh mint (taken from my garden) large handful of fresh coriander, 1 tsp of sesame seeds & a good handful of salted peanuts. The last two give an amazing texture to the dish with the sauce drizzled on top is like wow!! Sorry, I digress.

Method- add the ginger paste to 1 litre of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Once boiling the kitchen will be full of the smell of ginger….mmmmmm. Add the chicken breasts to the water to start the poaching process. You genuinely forget how tasty and moist chicken breasts are when poached!! This process takes 6 minutes.

Whilst the poaching is bubbling away place a frying pan on a high heat. Once hot add the sesame seeds and peanuts to dry roast these. As they start to smell great remove from the heat.

Finely dice the coriander, mint & spring onions. Cut the cucumber into thin slices. Add all of the above to a mixing bowl.

By now the chicken will be ready. I always use a temperature probe to double check the thickest part of the meat. Remove from the heat and allow the chicken to rest in the water.

Using the same pan, heat a little sesame oil and crisp up your bean sprouts. Once these are cooked add them to your mixing bowl.

Remove your chicken breasts from the cooking stock and shred the meat. Add the meat and the bean sprouts to the mixing bowl and coat with all the other ingredients.

To finish this dish plate up the mixture then drizzle over the pre-made sauce and dry roast mixture.

I would recommend this dish to anyone. It’s not an expensive dish by any means.

As I write this in reliving the tastes. Just amazing. Thank you for reading.