Cookery author Jack Monroe's easy recipe is perfect for days you don't have the energy to think about dinner
Jack Monroe's latest recipe book, Good Food For Bad Days recognises that eating properly is one of the biggest hurdles when you're feeling down; the books is filled with recipes (dubbed 'depressipes' by Jack) that give you everything you need in a dish; they are inexpensive, simple and filling so that cooking and eating a nutritious meal doesn't seem like an impossible task on dark days.
"These noodles take mere minutes to throw together and you can pad them out with veg to make them go further and ramp up their nutritional value," says Jack. "I sometimes like to add a cupful of those small, diced, mixed frozen vegetables and some extra peas, too. Don’t be put off by the jar of salmon paste suggestion; I’ve found it to be a surprisingly versatile ingredient in speedy budget cookery, and it works well here."
Ingredients
Serves: One hungry person, with leftovers.
100g onion or frozen sliced onions
1 tbsp fresh root ginger, grated
1 clove of garlic, grated
400ml full-fat coconut milk
1 stock cube
1 tbsp curry powder
A pinch of chilli, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
1 x 170g tin of salmon or jar of salmon paste
100g dried noodles
70g frozen edamame beans or peas
A dash of lime or lemon juice
Method
Add your onion into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the ginger and garlic, and pour over the coconut milk. Crumble in the stock cube and add the curry powder, chilli and pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Drain the salmon and tip into the saucepan, or stir in the salmon paste. Stir well to combine, then cover and cook on a vigorous simmer for four minutes.
Add the noodles and the edamame or peas and replace the lid. Continue to cook for six minutes at a slightly less vigorous simmer, then turn off the heat. Allow to stand for a few minutes for the sauce to thicken as it cools and the noodles continue to cook in the residual steam.
Serve with a dash of lemon or lime juice and extra black pepper, to taste.
Jack Monroe is an award-winning cookery writer and a campaigner against hunger and poverty in the UK. She is author of the bestselling cookbooks.
Buy Good Food for Bad Days , £7.99