While I wouldn’t say we’ve ever really ‘celebrated’ Chinese New Year together as a family, we do enjoy making the most of the opportunity to indulge our love of asian inspired food.

Sharing a meal is a great way to introduce another culture to the children and the perfect opportunity to talk through the stories and traditions associated with the celebration.

Last weekend, I created an entire feast around a single recipe from John Lewis Cook Edition, a quarterly food magazine that’s available for free via the App Store and Google play store.

The publication is full of beautiful photography and food styling, as well as countless ideas for cooking and entertaining in the home. I’m quite keen to make the apple, cardamom and clementine sponge pudding featured on the back page!

Preparing Vegetable Spring Rolls by Ching He Huang was a new experience for me and a task that definitely falls beyond the realms of my usual cooking repertoire. I tend to avoid fiddly food and I’d certainly never deep-fried anything before, but I very much enjoyed getting to grips with this recipe.

I found dropping the raw rolls into boiling hot oil a slightly nerve-racking experience, but the end result made it all worthwhile as they tasted better than anything I’ve ever had from the supermarket or a takeaway. I felt quite proud of myself as the family tucked in!

The rest of my menu included Asian-Style Salmon Noodles and a refreshing Bean Sprout Salad, both dishes adapted from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals. It’s colourful, flavoursome food at its best, the kind of cooking I’m crazy about.

The salad makes a tasty light lunch on its own and if you’re not in the mood for a full-on feast, you can serve the salmon noodles solo too.

Bean Sprout Salad

You will need:

• A large bunch of fresh coriander
• 1 x 400g of bean sprouts
• 100g cashew nuts
• runny honey, for drizzling
• 1/2 a fresh red chilli
• 300g mango chunks
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• 1 lime

1. Pluck the leaves from the coriander and place them in a large bowl. Finely slice the stalks and add them to the bowl with the bean sprouts.

2. Place the cashews and a lug of olive oil in a frying pan on a low heat. Leave to toast, tossing occasionally until golden. Remove the pan from the heat, add a good drizzle of runny honey then toss and set aside.

3. Finely slice the chilli. Add this to the salad along with the mango. Tip the honey-toasted cashews over the top before dressing the lot with lugs of soy sauce, olive oil, sesame oil and the juice of 1 lime. Toss everything together with your hands, being careful in case the nuts are still hot.

Asian-Style Salmon Noodles

You will need:

{for the salmon}

• 2cm piece of fresh ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 small red onion
• 1/2 a fresh red chilli
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 limes
• 4 salmon fillets, skin on, scaled and pin-boned
• Chinese five-spice

{for the noodles}

• 4 spring onions
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2cm piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
• 1 tsp Chinese five-spice
• 3 tsp cornflour
• 900ml of vegetable stock
• 200g sugar snap peas
• soy sauce, to taste
• 200g dried fine egg noodles

1. Peel and roughly chop the ginger, garlic and red onion. Place in a liquidiser with the chilli and the soy sauce. Squeeze in the juice of both limes and blitz to a slurry. Taste to check the balance of sweet and salty, then cover the base of an earthenware dish or tin that will snuggly fit the salmon. Add a couple of lugs of olive oil and gently place th salmon atop, skin side up. Sprinkle a little Chinese five-spice and black pepper over th skin and slide it into the oven on the top shelf for 18 minutes or until perfectly cooked through.

2. As the salmon nears the end of its cooking time, trim and finely slice the spring onions, placing them into a pan on a medium heat with a good lug of olive oil. Add the garlic and ginger, mix well and cook for another 30 seconds or so.

3. Stir the five-spice and cornflour into the pan. Pour in the stock and add the sugar snaps. Turn the heat up to high, bring to the boil, then taste and correct the seasoning with soy sauce. Add the noodles, turn the heat down and pop the lid on.

4. When everything’s ready to serve, divide the noodles and their broth between bowls. Top each one with a piece of salmon and some spoonfuls of delicious sauce from the roasting tin.    

Do you love Asian inspired food? Any recipes you think I should try? What should I deep fry next? Don’t forget to tell me if you give any of these dishes a whirl!

Love Audrey xxx

This post was produced in collaboration with John Lewis who provided the kitchen equipment and ingredients needed to prepare my feast.