KitchenDaily is a brand new site for cooking newbies - Discover great recipes for cooking, browse menu ideas for dinner tonight, learn how to cook, get cooking tips or find food inspiration from.

If you're wishing you were on a Thai beach right now, bring the taste of holiday back to the UK with Gizzi Erskine's recipe.

The celebrity chef says, 'If we were in Thailand we would be eating this salad with firm, under-ripe, mouthpuckering green mangoes, but the crispy chicken also sings alongside creamy, juicy ripe ones.

'It's sweet, it's sticky, it's sour, it's hot, it's refreshing – so although it may not be completely authentic, there is no denying that this salad's jolly good.'

Serves 4
Preparation time 20 minutes
Cooking time 15 minutes

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 boneless chicken thighs, skin left on
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
3 tablespoons golden caster sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
a 3cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and grated
1 red Thai chilli, chopped

For the salad
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 banana shallots, peeled and sliced
1 ripe but firm mango
2 red chillies, seeded and cut into thin strips
a small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves picked
a small bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked
juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 teaspoon caster sugar

Method
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Rub the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and lay them skin side down in the pan. Cook over a medium to low heat for six to eight minutes, then turn them over and repeat on the other side until they are cooked through and the skin is crisp and golden.

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside while you make the glaze. Add the fish sauce, sugar, 1 tablespoon of lime juice, the ginger and chilli to the pan and stir until the sugar has melted. Let the sauce bubble for a few seconds, then return the chicken thighs to the pan briefly and coat them in the sauce.

Remove from the heat and leave to rest while you make the salad. Heat the oil in a smaller frying pan and add two-thirds of the shallots. Stir-fry them over a medium to high heat for five minutes or until crisp and golden, then turn them out on to a sheet of kitchen paper to cool and drain.

Peel the mango, then slice each of the cheeks off. Slice the mango flesh into long, thin slivers and put them into a bowl with the remaining uncooked shallots, red chilli and herbs.

In a smaller bowl, mix together the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar, and pour over the salad. Toss the salad and divide it between four plates.

Slice the chicken and put a few slices on each plate. Sprinkle with some of the crispy shallots, then drizzle the remaining sauce in the pan over the chicken and serve.

Top tip: A pomelo, which is like a giant grapefruit, would make a fantastic alternative to mango in this salad. Simply swap the mango for half a pomelo, peeled and segmented.

Taken from Gizzi's Kitchen Magic by Gizzi Erskine published by Virgin Books, priced £20