At any time of the year in Hong Kong you can find fresh fish and there's always a supply of good frozen fish in the supermarkets. Along with vegetables and spices, fish makes a heart-warming stew or soup along with a chunk of homemade bread.

Bread is served with any meal during the day, from breakfast to supper and at snack times too. The simplest bread can be made from water and flour and cooked in a skillet or frying pan.

The basic formula for quick flatbread that's ready in very little time is also used to make pizza base and pita bread. And used for socca (French) or farinata (Italian), a thin unleavened crepe made from chickpea, cornmeal, buckwheat or whole-wheat flour and produced commercially in Indian cuisine to make pappadums from besan (chickpea) flour (available from Indian and health food stores) you can also get good results using whole-wheat flour.

When pressed for time making (unleavened) bread, you can dispense with the "resting" time. To make leavened bread add yeast and allow the dough to rise for a time before baking in an oven for a better-textured bread, tastier and chewier.

To make flatbread: in a large bowl mix together 1 cup (scant 5 ozs) whole-wheat flour or chickpea flour, 1 small tspn salt, 4 Tbsp olive oil and gradually add 1 cups (3/4 pint/ 24 Tbsp) water, whisking all the while to keep it free from lumps. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and set aside while you heat your oven to 220C (450F). The batter should be about the consistency of thick cream/thin pancake batter. Oil a 12-inch pizza pan or an all-metal skillet that will fit into your heated oven and bake under the broiler until it colors. Allow to cool before sliding a narrow spatula under the bread and lifting it out onto a plate. Sprinkle with sea salt and cut into crisp wedges - it may flake but that's part of its attraction.

To make in a skillet on the stove top - ideally a cast iron skillet - pour a little of the batter into the heated and lightly oiled skillet - just enough to cover the bottom, the same as you do when making pancakes. After a minute or so, flip it over and cook on the other side. It should crisp up very quickly and is great for dipping.

Softer Pita bread is easy to make. It takes just 10 minutes kneading and mixing the dough, about one hour to prove, a few minutes to roll out, spread on a baking stone and in around five minutes you have the most amazing freshly baked pita bread. Pita: mix together 175 g strong wholemeal bread flour, 75 g strong white bread flour, 5 gms salt, 7 gms dried yeast, 2 tspn olive oil and 150 ml cool wateradded a little at a time. Ideally, the dough should be soft but not soggy. Allow it to rest for 1-2 hours before baking.

As a variation, you can bake in loaf tin in the oven. It takes longer to produce, but is rewarding. In UK, wholemeal bread is made with flour milled from 100% of the grain, though in other countries the term usually refers to bread made with predominantly 100 percent wholemeal flour.

Using the same ingredients but less water, make a wholemeal loaf, start by dissolving 1 sachet of instant yeast and tspn sugar in a little warm water, allow to froth up before adding to the dry flour and mix very well before setting this aside to rest. The dough is baked after the rising time, 2-4 hours. Sometimes the leavening agent (yeast) is combined with some of the flour and water a day or so ahead of baking and allowed to ferment overnight. On the day of baking, the rest of the ingredients are added, and the process continues as above. This produces bread with more flavor and full rich texture.

Fish stew: Use fresh or frozen fish such as mackerel or tilapia cut into pieces. In a skillet with 1 Tbsp of olive oil, fry 1 thinly sliced yellow onion, 2 cut up stalks of fresh celery along with the leaves, 3 cloves of crushed garlic, 1 tspn grated ginger root, 1 tspn cumin seed, 1 tspn turmeric, 2 Bay leaves, 1 x 3-inch long piece of cinnamon - either Chinese or Indian, 1 small chili finely chopped and 1 x 14oz (500 gms) tin of chopped tomatoes in tomato juice along with 100 ml (4 fl oz) of water * and simmer stirring frequently for 15 minutes before adding the fish pieces and seasoning, and cook until the fish turns opaque - about 4 minutes. If you have an unexpected guest arriving at the last minutes or would like to make extra to enjoy for lunch next day, at the * stage you can add 1 tin of well-drained chick peas (garbanzos), and heat through for 5-6 minutes, before adding the fish pieces, salt and white pepper and simmering for a few minutes to cook the fish. Store any leftovers in a covered container in the fridge overnight. Great cold with pita bread or warmed through but be careful not to overcook.

(HK Edition 01/10/2014 page7)