You know the weather’s bad when you have to get a chainsaw out before you can move the car.

Yesterdays wild storm wiped out our electricity and uprooted our trees. We could see the trees lift from the ground from the security of our kitchen and land in odd places. It wasn’t the kind of day to go anywhere if at all possible but I did go up to our garden to check the chickens hadn’t blown away and give them some food. I couldn’t get to the shops but we still have a few tatty looking veg in the garden. There are leeks that have the green blown off, skeletal kale, the odd beetroot and some quite robust celeriac – robust mainly because they are growing underground!.

I gathered all the beetroots that I could find, half a dozen leeks and some celeriac and headed back to the house to try to get the dinner going before it was totally dark. I made a stew based on recipe for ‘Beet Bourguignon” from the Green Kitchen Stories. This was partly to get rid of a half bottle of red wine that was sitting around on the kitchen counter. I know you’re not meant to cook with rubbish wine but it’s difficult to pour it down the sink when it’s so expensive. It actually did an excellent job , certainly tasted better in the stew than the glass. This take on boeuf bourguigon is very clever. I made it with beetroots, leeks and carrots. The earthy vegetables tasted sweet and unctuous after braising in the wine. I cooked some puy lentils and fried some mushrooms which I stirred in at the end. We ate this with ‘vegetable basket’ mash, that being the celeric from the garden, a parsnip, half a sweet potato, a chunk of pumpkin and a couple of spuds.When they were cooked i put them through the potato ricer which worked perfectly. Who needs electricity! I whisked in some olive oil and we ate it with the ‘bourguigon ‘ on top .It made a delicious dinner  – all the better eaten in the candlelight.

Tamarind trees grow all around the island of Ko Chang Ranong . They can grow pretty big and the ripe tamarind pods scatter around so that when we are walking  under these trees they are crunching underfoot. The pods are quite big and plump, about the size of baby broad beans. The pod itself is brown and the interior is a kind of rusty terracotta with seeds the size of pumpkin seeds encased in a soft pulp. This looks quite different from what we buy at home which is either in solid dark brown blocks or as a concentrate.

As you might expect they feature on the menu in a few different guises. My current favourite is Crispy Fish with Tamarind sauce. This is usually red snapper or barracuda, deep fried, and served with a delicious sweet sour tamarind sauce on top.garnished with crispy shallots and lime leaves. or fried garlic slices.  The fish are slashed a few times, through to the bone, on each side and slipped into a wok with a couple of inches of hot oil. The sauce is made with tamarind pulp, palm sugar and fish sauce with the addition of chilli, garlic and shallots.

It’s definitely a recipe that I will add to my repertoire, The fish could be pan fried, grilled or steamed and served with the tamarind sauce if you don’t want to deep fry whole fish.

Here’s an interpretation of the tamarind sauce recipe from last night. I quizzed the chef for the ingredients and  I’ve written it using tamarind concentrate as our cooking expert in Penang reckoned that if fresh tamarind paste wasn’t available the concentrate had the edge. I’m not entirely sure that the tamarind concentrate that we get is the way to go but I have to wait until I get home to try it out.

Meanwhile here’s my notes

For the sauce;

2-3 chillies – less if you don’t like spicy

2-3 cloves garlic

2 shallots

a little oil

1 tbs tamarind concentrate

2 and a half tbs palm sugar or light muscovado sugar

3tbs fish sauce

50 mls  hot water

Peel the garlic and shallots and finely chop together with the chillies.

Mix the tamarind with the water and fish sauce and stir in the sugar.

Fry the garlic/chilli/shallot paste for one minute in a little oil then add the other ingredients, bring to the boil then reduce until the consistency of honey.

For the garnish either slice peeled garlic thinly and shallow fry until lightly browned – not as easy as it sounds as it’ll burn in a jiffy so keep a sharp eye on it or fry thinly sliced shallots until crispy or fry lime leaves until crispy.

Pour cover the fish and serve with the garnish sprinkled over the top