Food News, with Christine Rutter

IT is the banquet that every man can create.

The ultimate fast food feast takes just 30 minutes to prepare, regardless of your culinary expertise, and is a perfect speedy way to celebrate Chinese New Year on January 28.

The celebrations fall between January 20 and February 18 because they are based on the lunar calendar.

Eating is a communal affair in China and the New Year celebration is a big event - so why not celebrate it with a mouth-watering banquet of your own? To prove just how easy it is to conjure up a magnificent Chinese culinary spread in a matter of minutes, we put the Mayor of Blackburn, Coun Peter Greenwood, to the test.

We didn't want to take any chances so we recruited Chinese chef Ming Fu from Mr Fu's Cantonese Restaurant, on Preston New Road, Blackburn, to make sure things went according to plan.

And who better to judge Peter's cooking achievements than his wife, Mayoress Dorothy? Would-be Chinese cooks are often put off preparing a stir-fry because of the number of ingredients needed to prepare a delicious dish, which is why we got some help from the people who pack all the ingredients into a bottle. With the help of Sharwood's sauces and noodles and other products from Morrisons in Blackburn, in half and hour Peter created a Chinese New Year banquet to rival any restaurant creation.

Under the supervision of Ming, he made a hearty soup for starters.

The soup, which is traditionally served at a Chinese banquet, originates in the north west of China and is delicately spiced with Sharwood's sweet chilli sauce.

The main course was a salmon dish traditionally eaten at celebrations in Hong Kong and southern China, as well as a sweet, rich Peking-style sauce for a chicken dish.

A noodle dish is a must for a Chinese New Year banquet. The three-mushroom noodle stir-fry Peter cooked up is a wholesome vegetarian dish.

Peter managed to meet his deadline but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so what did Dorothy think?

"I was genuinely surprised that he managed to cook up such a marvellous banquet in just 30 minutes," she said.

"The banquet was first class - like something you would eat in a restaurant," she said. "The salmon was my favourite."

Peter said: "I'm no stranger to cooking but there is no doubt that any guy could easily make this banquet.

"It was just a case of cooking the food in the wok or oven and heating up the sauce. It was that simple.

"The timing is the most difficult part of this banquet. Ming's tips were very useful."

He added: "It went very, very well indeed. I would have been satisfied if I had gone into a restaurant and ordered any one of these dishes.

"I feel I could cook up another banquet after this. You may see me with a wok in my hand at the Mayor's Ball now."

A selection of easy-to-cook Chinese recipes appears on the Food News page of today's Lancashire Evening Telegraph

Top menu prices cut for charity

LANCASTRIANS have been given the rare chance to sample the delights of an expert chef for a knock-down price - as well as raising cash for charity. Nigel Haworth, former Egon Ronay Chef of the Year and member of the Masterchefs of Great Britain, has designed a tantalising menu for the Financial Times Lunch 1998.

His restaurant, Northcote Manor, at Langho, near Blackburn, is among a number of restaurants nationwide who are participating in the newspaper's offer, which entitles anyone to lunch for £5, £7.50 or £10 - in the hope that diners will make a donation to Save the Children in envelopes provided after they have dined.

Nigel's two-course meal for a tenner includes appetisers such as game with pearl barley and main courses ranging from fillet of pork to corn-fed duck with black cherry sauce. The offer runs until Friday, February 6.

Previous news story

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.