Jamie's Thai Red Curry

I had to take this photo on the hoof with my crappy Nokia, which is why it's so bad. I mean, I sort of wonder why I'm bothering with it, but you do all make such a fuss if there aren't pictures every ten seconds. If you want a nice picture, you can find one here

My husband used, for a long time, to go out with Katie Razzall off the Channel 4 news. She is very grand, Katie - tall and blonde and looks like you'd never find her hunched in a corner picking her cuticles with anxiety about having to take her 5.5 month old baby to Norfolk for the weekend. For example. She is married to a terrifically handsome actor called Oz, who is the sort of person that people having a party feel very relieved to see coming up the path.

They invited us round for dinner, which was very exciting because no-one ever invites us round for dinner, ever. I think it's because they are worried about cooking for my husband but my husband thinks it's because everyone hates us. As with everything in life, I think it's probably a combination of the two.

Katie made this Thai Red prawn curry out of Jamie's 30 Minute Meals and it was really storming success. My husband ate so much that he woke up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache and a sweat on.

We briefly talked about how Jamie's 30 Minute Meals don't take 30 minutes, which I always get very upset about because they DO take 30 minutes to actually make but he means 30 minutes with all your ingredients and all your chopping boards and everything already to hand. So no, from a cold standing start in an empty kitchen, they don't take 30 minutes BUT HE NEVER SAID THEY DID. I didn't say any of this at all because my policy in public these days is just to smile and say nothing controversial.

My husband has other ideas and wound everyone up all night by saying how terrific he thinks Rebekah Brooks is. I silently agreed because I have been on the receiving end of a Rebekah Brooks love-bomb and I've still got hearts and little tweeting birds circling round my head.

So, this is Jamie's Thai Red Prawn Curry, for 4.
It can  be found on p.132 of 30 Minute Meals.

2 stalks lemongrass
1 fresh red chilli
2 cloves garlic
bunch coriander
2 red peppers in oil (you can get these in a jar from waitrose)
1 heaped tsp tomato puree
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
2cm piece fresh ginger
8 large unpeeled raw tiger prawns
200 sugarsnap peas
220g small cooked prawns
1 400g tin coconut milk

1 Put everything except the prawns, coconut milk and peas into a food processor and give it a good whizz. This is your curry paste.

2 Heat some oil in a pan and fry the tiger prawns for about a minute. Then add a tablespoon of the curry paste and fry for another minute. Tip all this into a dish and put in a 200C oven for 8-10 minutes.

3 Put your prawn pan back on the heat with more oil. Add the peas and the small prawns. Tip over the rest of the curry paste and stir round for a minute or two then add the coconut milk, stir and leave to simmer on a low to medium heat for 10 minutes.

You serve the prawns on the side with some lime wedges and rice and a finger bowl is useful, too.

It's tremendous, really - with all sorts of fish, I imagine not just prawns.