It’s been a while since we’ve done our supposedly weekly Thai Monday, so over the weekend we hastily chose a couple of recipes and bought what we needed to.

First up was Hot and Sour Soup of Clams with Chillies and Lime:The recipe describes this as an “austere” soup because of its simplicity. It contains stock slightly seasoned with sugar and salt, and the clams are cooked in the stock until they open. Then add a couple of bruised chillies, a squeeze of lime juice and garnish with coriander leaves. Very simple, and distinct from some of the complex recipes that we’ve used in previous Thai Monday instalments. The chillies and the lime juice add their flavour to the dish, but just enough so that you know they are there.

The soup would be good served alongside something more complex. However, in our haste to choose recipes, we ended up choosing something that was similar in many ways:

The Spiced Minced Chicken Salad is a larp style salad, which generally includes minced or chopped meat cooked in the dressing and flavoured with dried chilli.