Chop, chop (+recipes)

Food cooked and eaten with chopsticks tends to be fast, tasty and easy to eat.

Here I am, an apprentice cook in a Japanese restaurant. The master isn't in yet but I am busy polishing chef shoes, sharpening sashimi knives and brewing green tea for his arrival.

It is two months in and I have perfected the art of cooking with knitting needle-length chopsticks, thanks to staff dinners involving steamed peas and soybeans.

It is fair to say that I didn't encounter a pair of tongs until I entered a Western kitchen, where now, funnily enough, the chopstick has been embraced as part of everyday living.

Chopsticks date back to China 5000 years ago. Chinese chopsticks - Kuai-Zi - are rectangular in shape with squared-off ends.

The wooden utensils were introduced in Japan for ceremonial events around 500AD but quickly gained popularity.

Japanese chopsticks are shorter by 15mm than Chinese ones. They are shaped like rounded tweezers and tapered to a point.

According to the Chinese, the chopstick is said to improve memory, increase finger dexterity and can help you fine-tune your calligraphy writing.

To the modern cook, however, chopsticks signify dishes that are quick to cook and food that is sliced into small pieces for easy eating.

The chopstick also comes with its own symphony of noises: the slurping of noodles; the crunching of steamed, silky, sauced vegetables; and the scraping of caramelised rice on the side of a broth bowl.

Japanese chopstick rests - Hashioki - save your chopsticks from dripping sauces on the table or collecting foreign entities off the table top. You can buy these rests in single settings or as a five-piece set - four is unlucky.

If you own bamboo or wooden chopsticks, hand-wash and air dry them as harsh detergent will bleach the chopsticks.

Chopstick meals are some of my most enjoyable. They involve very little clean-up, are designed to be accessible and they give you an excuse to sit down with bowl in hand to watch the telly.

This style of cooking also embraces cheaper cuts of meat.

I tend to look for trim pork pieces, chicken tenderloins, beef schnitzel or quick-cooking fish such as tarakihi, john dory or gurnard.

Trying placing the meat, whatever you're using, into a marinade of honey, Thai chilli sauce, low-salt soy, lemon juice, five-spice powder, oyster sauce and water. Refrigerate for two hours, then drain but keep the liquid. Wok fry thinly sliced greens such as beans, carrots, mung bean sprouts, Chinese cabbage, red onion and garlic.

Stir-fry the meat in small batches, pour in the marinade with a last stir-fry to heat, then toss through your vegetables.

Consider dried egg noodle nests rehydrated in boiling water or use sexier noodles such as hokkien, somen or soba for a gluten-free meal.

Whatever you do, don't set a table with an uneven number of chopstick pairs - superstition has it that you will miss the next train or plane.