Easy family recipes from Adam Liaw's Tonight's Dinner 2

You're probably reading this because you're intrigued by the chicken component, but I wrote this recipe mainly for the greens. Barbecuing is a great way to cook vegetables, including leafy greens.

Ingredients

Chimichurri:

Method

1. Using kitchen scissors, cut the backbone out of the chicken and reserve it for making stock. Place the chicken in a large bowl and season well with salt and pepper. Pour over the vinegar, soy sauce and half the olive oil, rubbing all over the chicken. Set aside for about one hour.

2. Meanwhile, combine all the chimichurri ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. Stand for at least 30 minutes before using.

3. Heat a hooded barbecue grill to 160C. Grill the chicken, skin side down (see tip) and with the hood pulled down, for 20 minutes, and then skin side up for a further 20 minutes. (Alternatively, if you don't have a hooded barbecue, you can roast the chicken in a preheated oven at 200C fan-forced for 40 minutes.)

4. Rest the chicken for 15 minutes.

5. While the chicken is resting, increase the barbecue heat to high. Drizzle the vegetables liberally with the remaining olive oil and season well with salt. Grill separately in batches until cooked to your liking. The beans, broccoli and spring onion might take five to six minutes, but the spinach should cook in just a minute or so.

6. Serve the chicken on the greens, with the chimichurri spooned over the chicken, and in a bowl on the side.

Serves 4.

If this is the kind of thing you'd order in a restaurant but feel nervous about making at home, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. As the noodles steam they soak up not just the sauce but the juices from the prawns, producing something so delicious you'll be making it again and again.

Ingredients

Method

1. Soak the vermicelli in cold water for 20 minutes.

2. Heat the oil in a small saucepan and fry the garlic, ginger, chilli and spring onion until the garlic is lightly browned and the spring onion fragrant. Remove from the heat. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauces, Shaoxing wine and sugar and stir them through.

3. Drain the vermicelli and place on a lipped heatproof plate. Arrange the prawns on top, then pour the sauce mixture over. Steam for 10 minutes in a bamboo steamer or steam oven (see tips), until the prawns are cooked and the noodles softened.

4. Lightly stir the noodles to ensure they're all coated with the sauce, then scatter with coriander and serve.

Tips:

Rice vermicelli and mung bean vermicelli may look similar when they're dried and in the shops, but they are very different things. Read the labels closely to avoid getting the wrong ones.

Bamboo steamers are cheap and available from Asian grocers. You can place them in a wok or over a pot. If you don't have any kind of steamer, an upturned bowl in the base of a large, lidded pot will work just as well.

Serves 4.

These pan-fried scones make a great breakfast, but can also be a simple afternoon tea. The key is frying the scones slowly in plenty of butter. And when I say "plenty of butter", I mean I want you to look at the amount of butter in the pan and then check the recipe again because you're worried.

Ingredients

Method

1. Combine the flour, salt and milk in a bowl and mix until it just barely comes together into a shaggy dough. Do not overmix the dough. I repeat, DO NOT OVERMIX THE DOUGH. It should still be lumpy and inconsistent.

2. Shape the dough into a rectangle about 2cm thick on a cutting board, and then cut out rounds with an 8cm cutter. Gently re-form any leftover dough and cut rounds again until all the dough is cut. (You could also cut square puftaloons with a knife if you prefer.)

3. Heat one-third of the butter in a small frying pan over a low heat. Fry three to four puftaloons at a time for about three minutes on each side, until browned.

4. Serve the warm puftaloons with jam and whipped cream.

Tip: Look, just use plenty of butter, OK?

Makes 8.

Banh trang nuong is one of my favourite Vietnamese foods ever, and it's so incredibly convenient. The dried rice papers can be kept in your cupboard for ages, and all you really need to do to make it work is fire up the barbecue or chargrill pan and pick a few toppings.

Ingredients

Method

1. Cut the pork belly into 1cm cubes. Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add about one to two tablespoons of the oil. Fry the pork belly for about five minutes, until lightly browned. Add the spring onion, garlic and ginger and fry for a minute, until fragrant. Add the fish sauce, sugar and remaining oil and cook, stirring occasionally, for three to four minutes, until the pork has caramelised. Remove from the heat.

2. On a preheated barbecue grill, or in a dry chargrill pan, and working in batches, cook one of the rice paper sheets on one side over a medium-high heat for about a minute. Flip and spoon on some of the pork belly mixture and a generous amount of its oil, and a bit of beaten egg.

3. When the egg sets and the rice paper is crisp, remove the rice paper to a chopping board. Cut into pieces with scissors, scatter with the coriander and serve immediately, with mayonnaise and sriracha for drizzling over.

Tips:

You don't need to reconstitute the rice paper by soaking it in water. It will grill to a crisp base for your toppings.

The pork belly topping is quick to make, but you can use sliced ham or luncheon meats if you prefer.

Serves 6.

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