Bikers Hairy - The Hairy Bikers Asian Adventure: Over 100 Amazing Recipes from the Kitchens of Asia to Cook at Home

You might think this kind of food is tricky to prepare but its really not. The main ingredients are things you cook with all the time, like chicken, beef, pork, fish and prawns. Yes, there are few things in the recipes that you might not have heard of but well help you with those and soon youll be a dab hand with the dashi. Weve come back with a great range of recipes for you to cook at home; from simple family supper dishes to more fancy feasts for the ones you love. And dont think weve abandoned our quest for healthy eating. While some of these dishes are quite hearty, there are loads of recipes that are packed with flavour but not too high in calories. They fit our mantra of taste first, calories second, perfectly.

One of the wonderful things about many Asian dishes is that theyre quick. Whack it all in a wok and youve supper on the table in no time. You do need to think ahead a bit and get everything in, and some dishes also need marinating, but its not difficult. The important thing is to have everything chopped, grated, peeled and crushed before you start cooking, then the rest is a breeze. Chefs call this sort of preparation mise en place; we call it getting all your bits ready.

You dont need lots of special equipment. We visited a family in their apartment in Hong Kong where grandma cooked up a storm, producing a banquet for six with a wok and one gas ring. We barely saw an oven the whole time we were away. Certain techniques such as stir-frying are common throughout Asia so once you get the hang of these, youre flying.

One thing that we hadnt realised was the amount of regional variation. Thailand, for example, is almost as big as France and has as much diversity in its cooking. The food in Tokyo is so different from the meals we had in the more traditional city of Kyoto. But the big discovery was street food. Its everywhere and we ate anything we could get our hands on. People pick up onigiri rice balls, for example, for a quick bite just like we might grab a pasty at the garage. In the market in Tokyo everyone was eating octopus balls when we might dig into a bag of chips. Eating out in some of these countries is so good and so cheap that its a way of life for many people. In Bangkok there are apartments built without kitchens because people dont need or use them!

An Asian meal doesnt necessarily follow the same structure as ours starter, main and pud and a number of dishes may be served together at a meal and all have equal importance. By all means, create your own banquets if you fancy but its fine just to pick and mix the recipes you like and serve them up to your family in the regular way. How about trying a green papaya salad followed by some prawn katsu burgers, then something from our puds chapter?

Now puddings. We did struggle to find desserts that suited our western palates, particularly in terms of texture. Weve included a couple of proper Asian cakes and puddings but weve also come up with our own ideas, using local ingredients such as papaya and coconut. We love them so we hope you do too.

Our Asian adventure was a mind-blowing experience and we learned so much about the food of the countries we visited. We discovered some amazing dishes and we came back more excited than ever about Asian food. So get ready to tantalise your taste buds and get cooking Asian-style.

You can do almost anything with a wok stir-fry, pan fry, braise, steam, smoke food, protect yourself from the rain! You can use a frying pan of course but woks are available everywhere from kitchen shops to supermarkets and you can get one for around a tenner.

A traditional wok is made of carbon steel. Before you use your wok for the first time, you need to wash and season it. To do this, scrub the wok well, then rinse and put it on a low heat to dry thoroughly. When its dry, pour in a couple of tablespoons of groundnut or vegetable oil and heat gently. Carefully wipe the warm oil over the inside of the wok with some kitchen paper. Continue to heat for 10 minutes or so, wiping the oil over the surface of the wok occasionally. The wok will start to darken in colour, which means it is now seasoned.

Once youve done this, clean your wok gently after use and dont scour unless you have to. If you do need to scrub off any burnt food or rust from your wok, season again after cleaning.

KNOW YOUR INGREDIENTS

Some of the recipes do have long lists of ingredients, but dont worry youll find that many of them are spices and seasonings that are added in a flash. You might spot some that are unfamiliar to you but weve put together a little guide, which youll find . This will tell you all you need to know in order to cook the recipes in this book.

The big supermarkets all stock plenty of Asian ingredients but weve also included a list of specialist shops and online suppliers (see . Once you have your basics youre away. We find it useful to keep all our Asian spices, sauces and flavourings together in a box so its all handy when you want to cook something.

Obviously the more of the proper stuff you can get the more authentic your recipe will taste, but dont panic if you cant find everything and you have to use ordinary shallots instead of Thai or regular basil instead of holy basil. The dish might not taste quite how it does in Chiang Mai but it will still be good.