Comfort food, Thai-style

When things go wrong in life, and all is bleak, sometimes declaring hakuna matata doesn't quite cut it. These are the times when food can provide the most succor. A billowing cloud of creamy, fluffy mashed potato with a pool of melting butter as a voluptuous blanket for the over-tired and under-nourished; a pint of Ben&Jerry's to cry into when you've been chucked; numb, vacant, empty bites at a banana make velvet pillows for the aching lump in your throat when you're grieving for a lost friend; a mug of milky, sugary tea: a warm, deep cuddle from the inside out.

Today, I don't have my mother's shoulder to cry on. Words of comfort through a telephone are just not the same. I need something tangible, something soft and tender and soothing. There is no-one else to make it for me today.

Yesterday I bought a beautiful, gleaming vermillion fillet of rainbow trout, fresh and slimy from its recent catch. I had in mind some sort of nursery supper; fishcakes, firm and round and dependable, with something green. Today seems as fitting as ever for such a meal. At around nine, I finally decide I'm hungry, and open the fridge. There is cream, butter, milk, the fish, and potatoes in the cupboard; all I need for the little cakes. Then, like beams of sunshine breaking through cloud, I am roused by the loud, fragrant and lively scent of Thailand (or at least, how I expect Thailand smells). Bright, hot chillies; the spritz of lemongrass; knarly ginger and garlic. It is a lift like no other.

An idea starts to form in my head. I've got some purple-sprouting broccoli from Borough, my favourite way to cook it being in oyster sauce with chilli, ginger and garlic. This, with some hot and crisp fishcakes, will wake me up with a jolt; the equivalent of being told to 'buck up' by the school matron - only a lot tastier.

Thai fishcakes have to be really over-flavoured in order to be any good - if you've ever ordered them in a pub or such-like you will no doubt have shared my disappointment in such a needlessly mediocre meal. Under-season at your peril.

Thai-style fishcakes

fillet of a well-flavoured fish - I used the rainbow trout

floury potatoes - Maris Piper or King Edward
1 egg
chilli
lemongrass

ginger

coriander

spring onions

lime or lemon, zest and juice

panko (Japanese cracker breadcrumbs), or plain water biscuit crackers, smashed to smithereens

a beaten egg

Purple-sprouting broccoli with oyster sauce

Purple-sprouting broccoli, bok choi, or any dark Chinese leaf

oyster sauce

chilli

ginger

garlic

For the fishcakes, put the fish into a pan of hot milk and poach until just cooked. Boil the potatoes, drain and mash. Let cool ideally, to make the mixture easier to handle.

Put all the aromatics, finely chopped, into a mixing bowl, add the potato and an egg, and mix well to bind. Season very well with salt and pepper. Then add the fish and gently mix it in, so that the flakes are a decent size and everything is distinguishable from each other. Form the mixture into cakes of any size you like, then dip in the beaten egg and roll in the cracker crumbs. Get a little production line going; this is all quite therapeutic.

For the greens, put the chilli, garlic and ginger, all sliced finely, into some oil and heat. Put in the broccoli, turn in the mixture and then add a good few glugs of oyster sauce. Cover and let steam for a few minutes or so.

Fry the cakes in some hot oil, flipping them over gently when they turn brown. When both sides are done, drain on kitchen paper. By this time your stomach may be aching with greedy excitement, and your problems should be long gone. All that matters now is eating.

Serve with the greens, and some sort of sharp sauce, if you like. I mixed a bit of lemon juice with some Greek yoghurt, salt and pepper - not authentically Thai I'm sure, but very welcome with me. In your satisfaction and gusto, nothing will seem quite as bad as it was before, and the warmth spreading through you, echoing brighter and sunnier climes is, believe me, a true comfort. There is nothing to rival a full stomach.