Pad's Thai with Tiger Prawns and Tamarind

Another lovely tiger prawn HelloFresh! Recipe, next week I will be reviewing Gousto to see how the services compare.

I didn't know what tamarind was until I picked up this recipe (for those who still do not know it's a fruit used in Worcestershire and HP sauce) but it fit perfectly into my aim of trying new food and ingredients.

150g Tiger Prawns, 2 Nests of Noodles, I Tbsp Tamarind Sauce, 1 Tsp Muscavado Sugar, 1 Tbsp Soya Sauce, 1 stock cube, 1 Tbsp Peanuts, 1 Tsp Red chilli, 1 Cup of Beansprouts, 1 Cup Coriander, Half a Tbsp Ginger, 2 Cloves Garlic,           3 Spring Onions, 1 Lime

As with the Other HelloFresh! Recipes we start by chopping up all the ingredients (garlic, chilli, ginger, spring onions), make sure to separate the white part of the spring onion from the green, and crush your peanuts.

Mix together your Tamarind Sauce, Soya sauce and the Muscavado sugar in a bowl and put to one side.

Dissolve your stock cube in a pan of boiling water, add the noodles and cook until al dente, drain and keep a couple of tablespoons of the water.
(or you could just leave a little in the bottom of the pan when draining, that's what I did!)

Heat up a tablspoon of oil in a pan and cook the ginger chilli and garlic of 30 seconds before adding the white spring onions and prawns. Cook until the prawns turn pink then add the noodles and stir in your sauce (add the extra liquid from the noodles now if you set it to one side rather than being lazy like me). give it a good toss for a few minutes.

Finally take off the heat and add the bean-sprouts and squeeze half of the juice of a lime over the top.

Serve in heated bowls with the coriander, green spring onion and peanuts sprinkled on top.

Result:

 

The prawns and noodles were lovely but there were a few too many flavours for me. The combination of chilli, garlic, spring onions, lime and coriander left a confusing taste. The crunch of the peanuts was great but I would probably leave out the lime and coriander next time.

 

Recipe Score:

 A lovely fresh dish but too many flavours happening at once!

 

The Ferrari of Zesty Orange Beef Stir Fry

This is my second recipe from Hello Fresh! it's really a different take on a recipe I usually cook at home. Usually I would buy ready cut up beef, some veg and a sauce but this recipe has a lot more flavour and isn't as tricky as it looks.

200g Flank Steak, 1 Orange, 2 nests of Egg Noodles, 80g Mange Tout, 1 teaspoon Muscavado Sugar, 2 cloves of Garlic, knob of Ginger, 1 Lime, 1 teaspoon Sesame Seeds, 4 tablespoons of Cornflour, 1 tablespoon of Soy Sauce, 1 Red Chilli

As with the Tiger Prawn Linguine recipe, first I chopped up the ingredients; chilli, garlic and ginger. The skin of the ginger can be peeled off with a spoon(!) before chopping. Zest a quarter of a teaspoon of orange and squeeze half the juice. Next I mixed together the orange juice, zest, soya sauce, and sugar in a small bowl.

I then sliced the beef thinly and coated in cornflour with a pinch of salt and pepper before stir frying the beef for 2 minutes and taking off the heat. Boil the noodles in a pan of hot water for four minutes. Finally cook the ginger, garlic, chilli and mange tout for 2 minutes before adding the beef, noodles and sauce.

Mix it all up and serve with the sesame seeds sprinkled on top!

Result:

Again Hello Fresh! delivered a dish full of flavour. The ginger really stands out and this time I didn't add too much spice as the fresh chilli was quite mild and I removed the seeds! (leave the seeds in if you like a bit of kick)

Recipe Score:

I could have made something similar with a ready made sauce but the ginger and fresh chilli are worth adding.

Tiger Prawn Linguine with Chilli and Sun-dried Tomato

This is my first attempt at a recipe from Hello Fresh!, a home delivery company which supplies you with ingredients and recipes to make fresh restaurant quality meals at home in half an hour!

I love prawns and my fiancé has only just started eating prawns so I was really pleased to get this recipe in my first box of goodies.

My "Hello Fresh!" ingredients and recipe ready to cook

The first part of the recipe was to chop up all my ingredients: garlic, onion, sun-dried tomatoes and parsley. This is actually a really good method, obvious, but it really makes the rest of the cooking easy as you don't have to stop to prepare anything later.

Next the garlic onion, sun-dried tomatoes and chilli went into a hot pan with a little oil. Once the onion was soft I added a tin of tomatoes and half a teaspoon of sugar, then let it bubble while I popped the linguine into a pan of boiling water. Add raw prawns to the tomato sauce, drain linguine, and toss together with the parsley.

Result:

The dish was full of flavour but very hot; when it said add the chilli I poured the whole little cup in rather than just a pinch! The result was very hot but still demolished quickly just with plenty of water.

We both really enjoyed this recipe and I would definitely make this dish again but be careful with the chilli flakes!

Recipe Score:

 

(please note: my own cooking probably deserved a 4 but it wasn't the recipe's fault that I can't read "pinch"!)