28 March - crispy pork and noodles

It was a lovely sunny day, so lunch with a friend was outdoors at Browns. I had a rather chewy hot chicken sandwich, but it was okay with plenty of mayo and a few chips on the side, and it was just nice to be eating outdoors.

Tris was out this evening, so I used up the remaining cooked pork belly with some noodles, loosely based on a Jamie Oliver recipe. I stir-fried some spring onion, chilli and sliced red pepper, then added the shredded pork and a sprinkling of five-spice powder and fried until it went golden and crispy. Finally, I added some sliced pak choi and a splash of soy sauce and mixed it in with some noodles. The result was really delicious - all that lovely caramelised pork fat and spices - yum!

13 July - spicy pork noodles

With pork mince left over from yesterday, I looked up a recipe I'd used before in an old Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine for spicy pork noodles. Whilst pulling the various ingredients out of the cupboards before I got started, I noticed that the sweet chilli sauce was looking a bit worse for wear and when I checked the best before date, it said March 2009 - oops! It normally goes in the sauce with the oyster and soy sauces, but I substituted some fresh red chilli at the beginning and a spoonful of sugar to the sauce.

• Stir-fry a few chopped spring onions, some chopped red chilli and some grated fresh ginger.
• Add about 250g pork mince and fry until browned.
• Mix together a good tablespoon oyster sauce, the same of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar, then mix in with the mince. Stir and simmer for a couple of minutes.
• Mix a good teaspoon of cornflower with a couple of teaspoons of Chinese cooking wine to a smooth paste. Add it to the mince and stir to thicken.

I served the spicy mince with a small pile of noodles and some tenderstem broccoli - lots of nice flavours in the mince with the simple noodles and clean-tasting broccoli worked well together.