To Start - Crab & Mango Salad.

Food Stories and I decided we'd enter Nom Nom Nom '09 - a cooking competition for bloggers of all kinds. We were tasked with designing a 'sexy, seasonal, sustainable and simple' menu, and we were then to buy all the ingredients for the meal for four people, at Marylebone Farmers' Market, and Waitrose. We made up a menu over e-mail, tipsily tested it out and decided "yes!". So off we trooped, early on a Sunday morning. Armed with quite a few G&Ts, (we were called the Go Go Gin Girls, after all), we set about cooking up a storm.

So what did we make?


Crab & Mango Salad

Serves 1

100g crab meat - a mixture of white and brown

1/4 mango, diced into 1cm cubes

Small handful mixed leaves

The green parts from 1 spring onion, finely sliced

Sesame seeds to garnish

For the dressing

1 small red chillli, de-seeded and chopped

1 small handful mint leaves and coriander leaves, chopped

1 small clove garlic

Juice of 1/2 lime

1 small piece ginger (about 2cm square), chopped

A good pinch of sugar

1 tbsp flavourless oil

Salt and pepper

Begin by making the dressing. Crush the garlic, ginger and chilli in a pestle and mortar with the salt until it is broken down and combined. Add the mint, coriander, lime juice, pepper and sugar and work in well. Add the oil and mix again. Adjust the quantities as necessary.

Combine the crab meat with the mango cubes. Place a chef's ring in the middle of a plate and add the mixed leaves, pressing down gently. On top of this add the crab and mango mixture, again pressing down gently before gently lifting off the ring.

Swirl the dressing around the sides and sparingly scatter with spring onion slices. Garnish the crab with sesame seeds and serve.

Well, we thought it was pretty damn special. The crab meat was sweetened nicely with the mango, and the dressing packed a punch, but was mild enough to enhance the delicate flavours of the crab.

Sadly, we didn't win.

Drunken hugs - Photo courtesy of Qype

But there's still the Viewer's Choice Awards! Please vote for us here; we are the Go Go Gin Girls.

The rest of our menu? Duck with Gooseberry Sauce, and some delicious Cherry Samosas. Recipes to follow in due course.

Read about Helen's version of events here.