There’s a lovely little Singaporean restaurant in North West London that my family have been going to for years. My grandpa used to love it (he spent his war years in that part of the world) and always amused the waitresses with his vast vocabulary of Indonesian and Malay swear words. Or at least they used to laugh politely. He would order the nasi goreng without fail each time – it was such a big portion he could never finish it, so (being the Jewish mother he always claimed to be) he always told us we hadn’t eaten enough and made us help him out. I don’t think I’ve ever left that restaurant feeling anything left than stuffed.

Nasi goreng literally means “fried rice”, and came about as a way to avoid wasting rice by cooking it up with other ingredients and making it into a meal. We’ve swapped starchy white rice for delicious protein-rich quinoa and given the traditional recipe a few other healthy tweaks to turn it into a super nutritious meal. The best thing about it is you can totally make it your own and add in other veggies, meat, prawns or whatever is in your fridge that needs to be eaten up! It takes no time at all to cook and is so delicious and a real comfort food.

Serves two

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup quinoa, uncooked
• 4 medium shallots
• 2 medium carrots
• 1/2 cup garden peas
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 birds eye chilli
• 1 tsp cumin
• A handful of fresh coriander
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp tamari (or soy sauce)
• 1 tbsp coconut oil

Cook the quinoa by boiling in a pan for around 12 minutes, then drain off the water and leave to stand.

Chop the shallots, carrots, garlic, chilli and coriander into small pieces, than place in a frying pan with the coconut oil, cumin and tamari.

Fry on a medium heat for a couple of minutes, then add in the peas and the quinoa. Once this is all mixed in, make a space in the middle and crack in the eggs – leaving them to fry for a couple of minutes before chopping them up with your wooden spoon and then mixing in with the other ingredients.

Fry on a low heat for a couple more minutes and then serve.

Love, Mrs H xx