Quick Pickled Vegetables

OK, I admit it, I am obsessed.  I love quick pickles as a way of adding to a summer salad and jazzing up vegetables.

This is the basic pickled vegetable recipe, and can be adapted to any vegetable.  The trick is to combine herbs and spices that you enjoy.  Use the pickles in salads, on sandwiches or as side dishes, they are great for summer.  They make great Christmas presents too.

It is a very forgiving recipe, and I have often chopped the herbs in the blender with the water before adding them all to the pot.

You can keep these for up to 5 days in the fridge, or use them after about 1 hour.

Vietnamese fish cakes

I have several recipes for these fishcakes, and they all involve fish and red curry paste.  Then the fish cakes turn out too strong for me, with no taste of the fish.  When I saw a Bill's recipe with no curry paste, I tried it out, found it a little too simple and modified it as below.  These cakes taste more of fish than curry and so they do not assault the senses!

 

If you cannot get snake beans, just use normal beans. If you like the fish cakes a lot more spicy, add a chopped chilli to the fish mix.  Serve with a simple Vietnamese salad of lettuce, mint, coriander, sliced mango, bean sprouts and a dressing of lime, olive oil seasoned with a dash of soy, fish sauce and sugar.  As for the fish - I use the cheapest white fish fillets at the market, the only thing to avoid is very oily fish.  You can make really little fish cakes and serve them as starters for a party with the dipping sauce.

 

I made a batch of these and froze them, then vacuum  sealed them and froze them - turned out great, just defrost and fry.

 

The recipe makes enough for 4, with a few left over for lunch the next day.