food & Drink
It’s not just ease and speed that attracts Ching to stir-fries. For the north-London based cookery book writer, it’s a dish that offers myriad health benefits, variety (“It’s not just your hoisin sauce or your oyster sauce”), and feeds into sustainability. Half the recipes in Stir Crazy are vegetarian and vegan, and when meat does feature, it makes up no more than 20% of a dish. “In Chinese restaurants, the majority of the dishes are meat-based, but traditionally in Chinese cooking and culture, it was 80% vegetable based and meat was only a luxury,” says Ching, explaining that she wanted to return to those roots. “It’s really about the quality of ingredients, not quantity, and you get what you give from the planet. Unfortunately, we’re taking a lot more than we’re giving [at the moment]. “We need to cut down on our meat consumption, we all need to.” Food is medicine as well as fuel For Ching, food is as much about eating well as it is about taking care of yourself. “Traditionally in Chinese culture, food is medicine - we’ve always believed you heal yourself through what you eat.” Raw foods are considered cleansing and able to help detoxify the body; cooked foods are nourishing and when lightly sauteed or steamed, nutrients are unlocked and food is more easily digested; then there are healing foods - like goji berries, shitake mushrooms and ginseng, “which are eaten occasionally when the body needs it to heal itself ”. “You need to cleanse, you need to detox, you need to nourish and you need to heal,” says Ching with feeling, noting that it’s all about balance. “What nature gives us is perfect,” she says, remembering the pale-fleshed sugar loaf pineapples with edible stalks that she ate on a recent trip to Hawaii. “Our body is perfect too, if we treat it right - everything works in harmony, if we give it a chance.”
TIGER BAY 14-25 November
Interiors emporium Rockett St George, is renowned for its quirky eye and distinctive, glamorous look - and capturing these vibes in your own home has never been easier, as brand founder Jane Rockett and Lucy St George have shared their secrets in a new book, Extraordinary
Interiors.Here, Jane and Lucy talk to us about how it all began, staying inspired, and how to recreate their style in your own home... their secrets in a new book, Extraordinary
Interiors.Here, Jane and Lucy talk to us about how it all began, staying inspired, and how to recreate
their style in your own home...
THREE-CUP CHICKEN STIR-FRY SERVES TWO
Place the chicken in a bowl, add the salt and ground white pepper and then dust with the cornflour. Mix well to coat then set aside.
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3 4
Heat a wok over a high heat until smoking and add the rapeseed oil. Add the ginger
slices and fry until crispy and golden, then add the garlic and red chilli and toss for a few seconds to release their flavour.
Add the chicken pieces and leave for 10 seconds to sear and colour, then flip them
over. Season with Shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry and stir-fry for two to three minutes on a high heat until the chicken is almost cooked.
Add the light soy sauce, the toasted sesame oil and sugar and cook for five minutes until
the liquid has almost evaporated. Te chicken should have a dark brown, slightly sticky shine. Add the basil leaves and toss through to wilt, then take off the heat and serve immediately.
INCREDIENTS
250g boneless chicken thighs, sliced into 1cm x 2.5cm cubes * Pinch of sea salt flakes * Pinch of ground white pepper *1tbsp cornflour *1tbsp rapeseed oil
Large knob of fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into large slices * 2 garlic cloves, crushed but left whole * 1 red chilli, sliced into rings * 1tbsp Shaohsing rice wine or dry sherry * 50ml l
ow-sodium light soy sauce * 50ml toasted sesame oil * 1 tsp caster sugar
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