I quite often get my stir-fries wrong; some ingredients end up overcooked or the whole thing ends up too oily or watery. I found some good advice in 200 Wok Recipes which I was given as a Christmas present. In general I don’t like these little bargain bumper recipe books, but this advice seems good. This is my summary:

* Cut all ingredients into small pieces that will cook quickly and evenly e.g. no big broccoli florets next to finely sliced carrots. Add tender veg such as beansprouts at the end to retain crispness.

* Do all weighing, slicing and chopping before you start cooking. Keep all ingredients to hand to be tipped into the wok at the right moment.

* Use only lean cuts of meat trimmed of excess fat and not those that need extended cooking to become tender. Use seafood that keeps its shape e.g. monkfish, prawns and avoid delicate fish like seabass.

* Get the wok smoking hot before starting to cook. It takes a while for the heat to reach the wide rim. When the oil shimmers in the pan it’s time to start cooking. (But won’t this burn minced garlic and ginger?)

* Stirfry in small batches; as soon as ingredients are added to the wok the temperature drops dramatically. Brown the meat or fish first, them remove it to add back in at the end, otherwise it will stew instead of frying.

* Keep stirring to ensure even cooking and prevent sticking and burning. Add a little liquid (usually water but could use stock or soy sauce) to finish, once ingredients have been seared and browned.

So, following from the advice above, perhaps I shouldn’t be adding noodles into the wok as this makes the total volume far too large. Perhaps I should cook them separately and layer the stir-fried stuff between the noodles when serving? Or I could fry off the noodles in a separate wok?

Sounds as if it will be useful to keep a large warmed bowl to hand to transfer cooked ingredients into.

Based on Moroccan bream from Jamie’s 15 min meals this is my Moroccan bream:

I used 2 whole bream, scaled and gutted with heads and fins removed and rubbed harissa inside the fish. The outside of the fish needs to be oiled before being wrapped them in foil, then baked in the small oven for about 30 mins (until the internal temp reached 45 ish), turning halfway through the cooking time, with the dial at 150C. Then rested in the foil for 10 mins.

Roast celeriac was based on Nigel Slater roast celeriac recipe with the large oven at 175C + fan and the flavouring was ras al hanout.

Served with greek yoghurt with chopped mint stirred through it and cous cous containing fried off onions and garlic, petit pois, pea shoots, chopped up stoned olives (instead of salt) and drizzled with pomegranate molasses. One thing about couscous: it swells by about 3 times when it’s cooked, so best to stir through appropriate amounts of the other ingredients afterwards.

I used the Waitrose roast parsnips recipe, except I would set the oven to 175C with fan.

I unexpectedly ended up with a whole sea bass that was scaled, gutted and had the head, fins and tail removed. I decided to do it Moroccan style, after the success of the Jamie Oliver lamb shank & tomato tagine.

I marinaded the fish by rubbing the inside with ras al hanout and leaving it at room temp for half an hour. In the meantime I made the sauce to braise it in using onion, garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander and tinned tomatoes. It was very good.