Name: Spicy Thai Beef Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 250 g egg noodles (Optional. I do this as a side for hungry growing teenagers); 4 minute steaks, sliced thinly ((locally sourced where possible)); 2 tsp fish sauce; 2 tbsp ginger, grated; 2 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tbsp rice vinegar; 2 tsp brown sugar; 2 tbsp oil; 1 juice of lime; 2 tsp fish sauce; 1 tsp brown sugar; 1 clove of garlic, crushed or grated; handful of mint, chopped; 1 carrot, grated; 1 cucumber, grated; 400 g bean sprouts; handful of peanuts, crushed; 1 red chilli chopped; half a handful of coriander, chopped

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Simple, refreshing mid-week meal

SERVES: 4
PREP TIME: 5 mins
COOKING TIME: 15 mins
DIFFICULTY: easy
IDEAL FOR: family, midweek meals
BUDGET: £

The Full Moon party

That was my introduction to Thailand.

Not bad you might say, if not a little skewed in learning about the Thai culture.

True. But man, it was fun.

And it was also back early 1999, when the internet was still ‘dial-up’ and no-one had mobiles.

Which meant the only way you knew where to go and what to do as a backpacker was either the Lonely Planet guide (aka The Bible) or word-of-mouth.

So after a year of travel and weird odd jobs around Australia – cauliflower cutting, asparagus packing, boat cleaning – I ended up in Sydney.

Where I become a waitress in a new event centre in Darling Harbour with a bunch of (mainly) Brit backpackers.

And where we worked incredibly long and hard days and any spare time we had, we partied just as long and hard.

But they were brilliant times and I gained one of my, now, oldest and best mates from this experience.

However, it was myself and my friend Ali who decided to hit the South East Asian backpacker trail together and one plan was to find this talked about Full Moon party hidden on the island of Koh Phangan.

An aside…

Ali and I spent around 5 months backpacking around SE Asia and India, then we landed in London (broke), found work and flats in London and after a year drifted off on our different paths.

Again, this is pre-Facebook and pre-cheap mobiles so maintaining contact was much harder than it is today.

But, the coolest thing EVER happened recently…

After 20 years!! (yes, it’s a long time and made us both feel old) we literally bumped into each other outside Farringdon Station last September rushing to our separate appointments.

I called out, Ali stopped in his tracks and we diverted from our plans to grab a pint, have a giggle and swap numbers.

So we’re back in touch!

How cool is that?!

Koh Phangan (& Ali and I) may have changed but Thai flavours have not

I know it’s typical to say this but, from what I can see about the Full Moon party these days, it’s changed a lot.

They now have 20 000 – 30 000 people visit every full moon, packaged tours and an entrance fee to the beach.

When we landed here, it was more like an adventure to find this beach and only a couple of thousand people were there to enjoy it.

It was super chilled and everyone visiting was a skint backpacker, just hanging out enjoying the chilled atmosphere, meeting new people from around the world and eating amazing, flavoursome, cheap thai food.

This was my first true introduction to Thai food – Pad Thai, Tom Yum soup, Banana Pancakes!…

4 flavours of Thai cooking

Thai food cooking can be thought of as difficult due to the careful balancing of it’s flavours and spices.

There are four key flavours that are the basis of Thai cooking — sweet, sour, spicy and salty.

And the trick is to achieve the correct balance.

Examples of the 4 flavours used:

Sweet – palm sugar
Sour – lime juice, lemongrass, tamarind
Spicy – chilli pepper, peppercorns, ginger
Salty – fish sauce, soy sauce