I’m such a huge fan of my Thermomix that it was one of my first purchases when arriving here in Hong Kong. I’d left my original one behind in Beckenham to aid the offspring in making quick and nutritious meals for themselves… I’m a big fan of steaming chicken and fish, which leaves it succulent and tasty, somehow much fresher than all the frying that goes on here. I also love Hainanese Chicken Rice, tender steamed chicken and rice served with fresh vegetables and a powerfully aromatic dipping sauce accompaniment.

Imagine, then, my joy when I found this recipe in the Thermomix-oriented book Steaming Hot by master baker Sophia Handshuh. (Incidentally, Sophia’s body is youthful enough to process all her delicious carbohydrate creations effortlessly but I’ll be interested to see what she looks like when she’s 50.) The recipe resembles one of Ottolenghi’s in its multitude of ingredients, but we had nearly all of them knocking around in our cupboard anyway, as our lovely Ms Jenevieve generally cooks Asian-style for us. Putting together all of these flavours is a sort of therapeutic alchemy in itself.

The end result was delicious, and would have been better if I hadn’t made the wrong assumption that the big sack of rice in our cupboard was jasmine rice. It was more basmati-like and did not cook properly in twenty minutes, so I gave it a bit longer and overcooked the choi sum accompaniment in the process. Oh well. You live and learn.