Soya Bean Snack Attack

Along with yuzu and sashimi the wondrous edamame bean is one of my favourite things in the Japanese culinary canon. It's the perfect legume - delicious, nutritious and filling. I hate the term 'superfood' but this green giant is packed with vitamins and are so, so good for you. A mere 1/2 a cup contains more fibre than 4 slices of wholemeal bread and you can eat them with almost anything.

They're super with fish (especially battered or breaded with caper-heavy tartar sauce), wicked in a stir-fry and asian broths and my husband always adds them to his Vietnamese beef salad. My favourite way to eat them is as a snack, warm and doused in a good soy sauce. If you're buying supermarket soy sauce, don't bother with anything less than Kikkoman. I know there's a lot of salt going on but if you want to bring out the full character of the beans, sprinkle a good sea salt over them too, the flakey crunch works perfectly.

You can buy fresh edamame beans in their pods from Japanese food stores but if like me you live in the sticks, frozen ones (such as Birds Eye) are near perfect and the one benefit here is that they're as fresh as daisies.

I'm known to grab a handful straight from the freezer...they're that good.