I’ve just finished the first week of my scary new job so decided to finally write about the last thing I cooked as I was too lazy to do it before.
After leaving Zoo on the 12th I was technically unemployed for a week. I had decided to spend my time preparing for my new position and trying out a lot of recipes but instead I went to Manchester and gave myself a two-day hangover.
My friend Asha is in her third year of a drama degree there and is currently in the middle of her dissertation. So obviously I thought that this would be the best time to go up and demand all of her attention. Intent on giving the poor student a taste of the high life I crashed through her front door with four bottles of champagne and expected to be knee-deep in Pot Noodle and empty pizza boxes. In actual fact I was greeted with a fridge full of fresh food, green tea and fancy cook books. In the end I was the only real student there at all: drinking beer at the crack of midday, watching two week’s worth of Neighbours on the internet and eating chips for breakfast.
I arrived on Shrove Tuesday and the plan was to make pancakes for lunch. To relax before this challenge we cracked open a bottle of Bollinger and I helped Asha learn some lines. I absolutely love doing this and get far too in to it. Unfortunately I went mental and was unable to do my crap American accent for one of the characters so did the whole thing in my crap Australian accent instead. I realised it was time to stop once Asha told me she was ready to punch me in the face. By now we were well and truly squiffy and pancakes were replaced by a trip to Pizza Express, washed down with a bottle of their rose cava. After dinner we weaved our way to a fundraiser for Asha’s play where within two minutes I had paid £3 to have a penis drawn on my hand - which only came off on Thursday evening. After a few more drinks we trotted home where it seemed essential to open another bottle of bubbly while Asha taught me when to use ‘who’s’ and ‘whose’. I thought I’d mention this as a word of warning to anyone else who thinks leaving school at 14 might be a good idea. There really isn’t anything more embarrassing than reaching 21, still not knowing and having to ask your friend to explain it.
Apart from the two of you then Googling ‘whom’.
Wednesday was a bad day for the both of us. Having managed not to be sick Asha sloped off to a rehearsal and I decided the best thing for my hangover was to drink four cans of Coke. I was wrong and spent most of the afternoon twitching and unable to concentrate on the high-brow documentary I was watching (http://snipurl.com/uf8wp). Later we recovered enough to make it to the cinema where we saw A Single Man. I cried through out most of it and I’m still unsure if that’s because it was very sad or my body was just doing anything it could to get all the alcohol out of my system. Cooking had once again fallen foul of the demon drink.
Waking up with a (vaguely) clear head on Thursday meant it was finally time for pancakes. In to a bowl went 100g of plain flour, a pinch of salt, one egg and 300ml of milk. It started to look like batter once Asha snatched the bowl from my grasp and beat it properly. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen her hovering by my shoulder, hopping from foot to foot, itching to say ‘shall I do that?’ so prolonged her agony for as long as possible. We had planned to go shopping that morning but after our slightly undercooked breakfast lazing on the sofa all day seemed a much better idea.
That evening we pulled our socks up and planned a lovely farewell dinner. We picked an invention of Asha’s based on a Nigella Lawson recipe.
I suppose you would call it a Thai red chicken and mango curry. Apart from the fact it isn’t red. The list of things you need seems rather long but when you’re as middle class as Asha most of the ingredients are in your kitchen anyway. And they are:
1 tablespoon of wok oil
1 spring onion, finely sliced
½ - 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
Diced chicken
2-3 teaspoons of red Thai curry paste
2 cloves of garlic
200ml of coconut milk
250ml of chicken stock
2 teaspoons of fish sauce
Assorted veg (we used mange tout, baby corn, courgette and broccoli)
The juice of half a lime
Diced mango
Fresh coriander
Heat the wok oil in, surprisingly, a wok and add the spring onion, chilli and garlic. Brown these off and add the curry paste.
Throw in the chicken and give it around five minutes to start to cook properly.

Pour in the coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce before bringing to the boil. Chuck in whatever vegetables you’re using and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, adding some coriander five minutes before it’s done.
Squeeze the lime juice over everything, add the mango and give the curry another five minutes or so for it to soften. Serve with some more fresh coriander on top. I would have uploaded a picture of it but I took it on my phone and it looks a bit unappetising.
I realise that this was very, very long and I could have just skipped straight to the curry but this saves me having to repeat what I did on my week off to anyone who bothers to ask.