Finn - Why she chose to create her dish for Camile Thai. In her own words

Whats going on?

So if you’re a Dublin living human, or indeed Limerick, you may have noticed my face, looming at a much higher height then usual, in all the lovely Camile Thai restaurants and carry outs.

I teamed up with the folks at Camile to create a dish for their menu inspired by some of my favourite flavours and ingredients.

The Dish?

One of the things I love about Camile, beyond just my general obsession with Massaman curry, is the notion that a takeaway can be healthy. So much of our fast (or in this case I also just mean quick) food culture is taken up with food that does absolutely nothing for our bodies and just blasts them with an overload of sugar, salt, fat and a dose of MSG for good measure. So its really awesome that the chefs at Camile are whipping up good food in literally minutes.

I wanted to bring some of my passions - like the ocean and trying new and unusual foods to this dish. I believe that if I'm ordering in or eating out, it's always great to get something you cant make yourself or something that's difficult to find. With that in mind I really REALLY wanted to create a gluten free teriyaki style sauce that wasn't loaded with nasty refined sugar and then top it all off with loads of greens.

Eh Voila - the plan - A wild prawn teriyaki stir fry with lots of fresh greens topped with Thai toasted rice powder and a wedge of lime.

The ingredients?

Wild Prawns - As part of my degree in marine science I studied fisheries and aquaculture, so it has always been really important to me to use good, sustainably sourced seafood. I’ve seen the best and worst practices when it comes to fish farming and sea fisheries so when I was building the backbone of this dish and I heard Camile where using wild prawns I knew instantly that was where I wanted to start.

Teriyaki Sauce - I’ve mentioned it above, but its almost impossible to find gluten free teriyaki sauce, so I loved the idea of creating a version that anyone that's avoiding gluten could have, thus adding a new flavour back to the menu that many may not have had in years. And sure, while we’re doing that, why not cut out unnecessary refined sugar to boot!

Toasted Rice Powder - I love love love tasting tastes I’ve never tasted before - there’s a good chef tongue twister - I had started experimenting with this as an ingredient at home and it adds a perfect crunchy nutting topping to the dish without adding nuts or crunchy crumb type things that might contain gluten.

Greens - Like I said, you’ve just got to get the greens in. The thought of all that lovely chlorophyll and what it's doing for your body. Not any old greens mind, some fresh crunchy green beans, broc and Asian cabbage.

Spring Onions - While I love to cook with onions at home, I tend to fry or bake them to within an inch of their lives, so for something like a stir fry when the ingredients are just having a quick hop about the wok, I like something a little bit more delicate that still has that lovely savoury oniony flavour.

Lime Wedge - Just because I’m obsessed. Lime on/in everything. Dinner, desserts, water, cocktails...you get the gist!

So guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing the workings of my mad scientist brain and how I love to build the elements of a dish.

My wild prawn stir fry is available for a limited time only so get yourself down to Camile and give it a go! I’m loving hearing peoples reactions to it, so please tag me if you try it!

Finn.

Order the dish HERE

Check out Finn's own website HERE