There is something quite satisfying in coming home on a Friday evening and being able to put a chicken in a pot.

Most Friday evenings I just cook for myself. It is red meat night and all those who don’t eat can fend for themselves.

But this evening there was a craving for noodles and so I caved in and tried to work myself round something that everyone would eat. So I delved into another Diane Henry book and came up with Chiang Mai chicken noodles.

It needed both chicken stock and leftover cooked chicken and that gave the impetus to me taking a whole small free range chicken and putting it into the pot.

Before doing so I hacked into quarters. I then fried it off in some oil with a roughly chopped onion and some bits of carrot. As soon as it started to brown I poured in water to fill the pot, brought it to the boil and left it. Children came in and asked when they were going to eat and I said in an hour or so.

Once that hour was done I started to put it all together.

This meant getting the wok out of the basement and heating it up with some groundnut oil at the bottom.  A finely chopped onion was added and cooked until it just started to char. A couple of cloves of garlic were then stirred in. Then two teaspoons worth of turmeric and then some teaspoons worth (I wasn’t counting) of the green curry paste that has been at the back of the fridge for a few months now but is showing no signs of going off.

All that was stirred for a while at a high heat. I then added coconut milk and started to ladle off the stock from the pan where the chicken had been cooking.

As the sauce was left to cook I picked apart the chicken and put it to one side.

The sauce was still cooking so I took the time to chop up some spring onions, red chilli and coriander.

We were all about ready to eat. So noodles were stirred into the stock and as they softened the chicken was put back in. It was all seasoned with lime juice, fish sauce and sugar before being finished off with the spring onions, coriander and chilli.

I think it went down ok.