The Wholefood Pantry
Page 5
Always ensure the steak is at room temperature before cooking it; this will allow for even cooking.
The cooking time will, of course, vary depending on how thin or thick your steak is. Cook for less time for a thinner steak and allow more time for a thicker steak.
When the steak first hits the griddle pan, respect that first contact and don’t move it. Leaving the steak alone allows it to form a nice crust and caramelise beautifully.
The perfect nutrient-dense Bolognese.
SERVES 4–6
There are almost as many versions of this controversial dish as there are Italian nonnas in the world. Over the years I have come up with what I think is a delicious and satisfying version, with the bonus that it is also incredibly nutrient dense and easy to make. It’s a great dish to make more than you need and pop the rest in the freezer for a quick meal when you need something in a hurry. The liver and bone broth are the secret ingredients here for making this ragù super nutrient-dense. The addition of cacao is certainly not Italian, but it adds a depth to the flavour that is hard to put your finger on when you taste it, yet deeply delicious.
A generous knob of butter
120g smoked streaky bacon, finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 celery sticks, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 rosemary sprig, leaves picked and finely chopped
300g coarse beef mince, at room temperature
40g chicken liver, finely chopped
150ml chicken bone broth, or quality chicken stock
Finely grated nutmeg
150ml dry white wine
400g passata
Handful of sweet cherry tomatoes
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon 100% cacao, finely grated (optional)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Melt the butter in a heavy-based flameproof casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid over a medium heat. When the butter is sizzling, add the bacon, then the onion and cook until softened. Next add the carrot and cook for a few minutes, then add the celery, garlic and rosemary and cook for a few minutes more. The vegetables should start to become meltingly tender, the onion should be softened and the bacon will have released its fat and be starting to smell wonderfully fragrant.
Add the beef mince to the pan, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. Brown the beef, stirring every so often to break up any lumps. Season lightly with salt and pepper to tease out the flavours, then add the liver and allow this mix to cook for about 5 minutes.
Pour in the chicken bone broth and grate over a little nutmeg – ¼ teaspoon or less. Simmer until almost all the broth has evaporated, which should take about 30 minutes.
Pour in the wine, passata, cherry tomatoes and tomato paste and stir well. If using cacao, add that now too. Put the casserole dish in the oven, with the lid slightly offset, and cook for at least 3½ hours until the entire mixture has really come together and the meat is deliciously tender, fragrant and flavoursome. Check it every so often and top up with chicken bone broth or water if it seems too dry. If your oven burns hot, reduce the temperature a little to keep the bolognese from drying out. Before serving, season to taste with salt and pepper.
Serve with courgetti noodles or even a hasselback sweet potato and a sprinkle of Parmesan or Pecorino.
Veg-loaded burger patties (or meatballs).
SERVES 4–6
These are my delicious veg-loaded burger patties, a nutrient-dense version of the classic patty. You can also use this mix to make meatballs, which is actually how I came up with the idea. I was making meatballs and experimenting with adding veg instead of breadcrumbs. The mix works great cooked both ways. The kids don’t even know that you’ve added lots of veg to their delicious burger! You could use carrots or beets, or grated courgettes with some of the liquid squeezed out. Here I’ve kept the flavouring simple, but you could add a teaspoon of one of my Spice Mixes from here to add a bit of attitude to the mix. Try different accompaniments, too: for example, if you add some of the Moroccan spice mix to the patties you could serve up a green salad and some of the flavoured yogurt.
4 tablespoons ghee
1 large onion, finely chopped
450g beef mince
2 large carrots, finely grated
1 teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten (optional)
1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme or parsley (optional)
Set a large frying pan over quite a high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the ghee and fry the onion for about 5 minutes, or until golden and softened. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool. Wipe the pan clean.
Put all the remaining ingredients, except the ghee, in a mixing bowl, add the onion and give everything a good stir with your hands, squeezing the mixture between your fingers until it becomes sticky and fully mixed.
To make burgers, wet your hands and shape big spoonfuls of the mix into burger-shaped patties. You can make the burgers whatever size and thickness you like, but I tend to make 4–6 with this amount of mixture. To make meatballs, simply take small spoonfuls and then roll them between the palms of your hands to create walnut-sized balls.
Put the pan back on a medium heat and add the remaining ghee. When it is hot, add the patties or meatballs and cook until nice and brown on all sides and cooked through. The time they take will vary depending on the strength of the heat and the size you have made them to, but generally the burgers would need 3–4 minutes on each side, and meatballs might take 10 minutes in total. If they’re burning on the outside before the middle is cooked, reduce the heat. The burgers can also be cooked on a griddle or barbecue.
Serve the burgers with a salad and your favourite sauces – my probiotic tomato ketchup is excellent with them. You could also serve with homemade oven chips.
If you’ve made meatballs, serve them as they are or make the tomato sauce for a good old meatballs supper, served over the courgetti and top with Parmesan.
Shoulder of lamb with rose harissa and fennel.
SERVES 6–8
Cooking a shoulder of lamb couldn’t be more easy than this. With a long, slow cook the meat literally falls off the bone, and lamb, fennel and rose harissa make for a delightful ménage à trois. This is an easy way to cook lamb shoulder and the basic method can be used with other spice combinations. If you have any extra dried rose petals, sprinkle them over the dish at the end for a final flourish. This lamb goes beautifully with my garlicky minty yogurt.
4 large onions, halved and finely sliced
6 fennel bulbs, cleaned, trimmed and each cut into 6 wedges
4 whole bulbs of garlic
Juice of ½ lemon
50ml sherry vinegar
250ml red wine
75ml olive oil or ghee
2 heaped tablespoons rose harissa
1.5kg shoulder of lamb on the bone
TO SERVE
Dried rose petals (optional, but they do add a certain fragrance and beauty)
Pomegranate seeds (optional)
Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas mark 4.
Select a large roasting tin, big enough to hold the lamb and fennel quite snugly. Put the onions, fennel and garlic in the tin and pour over the lemon juice, vinegar, wine and olive oil. Next rub the rose harissa over the top of the shoulder of lamb, massaging it in gently. Nestle the shoulder into the vegetables and then pour over 1.2 litres of cold water. Cover the whole dish in a double layer of foil, ensuring there are no gaps.
Transfer the tin to the oven and cook for 1 hour, then reduce the temperature to 150°C/130°C fan/gas mark 2 and cook for a further 4–5 hours or until the meat is meltingly tender and falls off the bone at the prod of a fork. For the final 30 minutes, remove the foil and increase the heat to 170°C/150°C fan/gas mark 3. When the lamb is done, carefully transfer it to a serving platter.
St
rain and discard the fat from the vegetables. The slow-cooked onions and fennel should now resemble a tender vegetable chutney. Serve the slow-cooked fennel compote with the lamb and sprinkle over some dried rose petals if you have some. If you like, you could also scatter over some pomegranate seeds for added colour and a pop of freshness and acidity.
Don’t carve the meat; instead use two forks to flake it off the bone.
Try serving with flavoured yogurt, a big green salad with pomegranate seeds (see here) or herbed cauliflower rice.
A crispy skin fillet of fish.
SERVES 1
My son loves crispy skin on his fish, so I have perfected the art of achieving it. This is a super-easy, no-fuss way of cooking fish – great for a quick and healthy mid-week meal. Fish is full of anti-inflammatory omega 3s, brain-boosting healthy fats and vitamin D, which every single metabolic process in the body requires – and it just happens to be delicious!
Fish fillet cooked this way is great as it is, served with a lovely crisp green salad or, for a truly comforting and hearty meal, serve it with my probiotic tomato ketchup and homemade oven chips.
1 fillet of fish (about 230g), skin on (salmon, sea bass, pollock, cod, snapper, hake or red mullet are good choices)
Ghee or grapeseed oil (or you could use olive oil or cold-pressed sunflower oil)
A knob of butter (optional)
½ lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Get the pan really hot over a medium–high heat – leave it for several minutes before you start cooking. I use a heavy-based steel or cast-iron pan. A non-stick pan prevents sticking, but you won’t get the skin really brown and golden.
First wash the fillet, then dry it really well with kitchen paper, otherwise the skin won’t crisp. Season on both sides with salt and black pepper.
When the pan is hot and the fish is seasoned, coat the pan with a little oil – enough to give an even coating on the pan. Use one with a high smoke point like ghee or grapeseed. Allow the oil to heat, and just before it starts to smoke, quickly add the fish, skin-side down.
The fillet will contract and curve upwards. When this happens, take a flexible spatula and press the entire fillet gently back down and hold for a few seconds. This will ensure even cooking and crispy skin all over.
Leave the fish to cook, without messing with it too much. When you can see a lovely golden brown colour on the edge of the skin and the edges of the fish flesh become opaque, carefully and gently use a spatula to lift up the fillet and flip it over. The fish is delicate, so try not to break it up. At this point it’s already about three-quarters cooked, so it will need only another couple of minutes on the second side.
Add a knob of butter for flavour at this point if you like, and use it to baste the fish while it finishes cooking.
Remove from the pan and serve with a squeeze of lemon and your favourite sides.
Eggs.
Eggs, glorious eggs.
I am so happy that medical science has finally caught up with common sense in recent years with regard to the humble egg. The delicious little orb of goodness has been given a bad name in the past few decades, with scientists telling us that eating eggs raises our cholesterol levels. Happily, this myth has been thoroughly debunked so we can all go back to having eggs for breakfast, guilt free. Although, I’ll freely admit, I’ve never not had eggs for breakfast at least a couple of times a week. They’re my go-to quick and nutritious fast food. Almost nothing on earth is as delicious as a soft-boiled egg, with a tiny knob of butter and salt and pepper, sprinkled into the hole in the top – absolute heaven. I love eggs all ways: softly scrambled, gently poached, fried in ghee, cooked as a Spanish tortilla or with vegetables in a frittata, as a soft-centred omelette… Middle-Eastern shakshuka eggs are amazing too. There are endless ways you can serve an egg.
Eggs are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet, an original superfood. They are loaded with vitamins A, B2, B5, B12, folate, phosphorus and selenium. Eggs also provide vitamins D, E, K, B6, calcium and zinc, and they’re packed with protein and healthy fats. To get all this nutritional benefit, you must eat them as a whole food, though; don’t eat just the whites or just the yolks.
When buying eggs, it’s very important to remember that quality is paramount. Barn-raised hens that have no access to sunlight and don’t have a healthy diet do not lay healthy eggs. Eggs laid by these deprived birds just don’t have anywhere near the same levels of immune-boosting, brain-boosting goodness they should contain. So please try to buy organic, free-range eggs from birds that are free to enjoy grass, bugs and sunlight, all the things chickens need to lay healthy, delicious and nutritious eggs. Better still, buy some hens and have your own fresh eggs every morning!
Softly softly scrambled eggs.
SERVES 2
Soft, scrambled eggs have to be one of the most comforting foods. If you want to make the following recipe dairy-free, omit the cream (although it does make for a very soft creamy scramble) and cook the eggs using ghee or coconut oil instead of butter.
4 organic, free-range eggs
Dash of cream (optional)
A knob of butter (or ghee or coconut oil)
Small handful of parsley or chervil, or both
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Set a medium frying pan over a medium heat on the smallest ring.
Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk briskly with a fork. You don’t need the yolks and whites to completely emulsify; it’s nice if they are still a little separate. Add the cream, if using, and season with salt and pepper.
Add the butter to the pan and let it sizzle a little. Pour the egg mix into the pan and turn the heat down to low.
Gently stir using a wooden spoon, carefully turning the eggs so the bottom layer gets lifted to the top and the top is turned to the bottom to scramble the eggs evenly. They will take 4–5 minutes to cook. Don’t rush it: slow and gentle is key here.
When the eggs are mostly scrambled but still have an unctuous creaminess to them, sprinkle over the herbs and then plate up. Best eaten with fresh sourdough bread or other homemade bread.
These eggs are good served with my slow-roasted tomatoes, and a sprinkle of dukkah.
A delicious fried egg, with crispy sage.
SERVES 1–2
Cooking eggs this way makes them perfect for topping noodle dishes, fried greens, roasted sweet potatoes or pretty much anything. I like the way they puff up and go really crispy. If you want to create the classic fried egg, just use less oil – about half a tablespoon.
2–3 tablespoons ghee or odourless coconut oil
2 eggs
6–8 sage leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Put a medium or small pan over quite a high heat. When it starts to warm up add the ghee or coconut oil, and allow the oil to warm – you don’t want it smoking, though, just hot enough for the egg to sizzle but not explode. Crack the eggs straight into the pan, keeping them at quite a high temperature so that the edges go crispy. As the eggs cook, tilt the pan and spoon over the hot fat.
When the edges are crisp and no parts of the white are still runny or uncooked, use a fish slice or slotted spoon to slide the eggs out of the pan and onto a waiting dish.
Once you’ve scooped out the eggs, throw in the sage leaves and cook for no more than 15–20 seconds. Scoop them out and sprinkle over the fried eggs along with some sea salt and black pepper.
Serve over freshly cooked noodle or rice dishes, toasted sourdough with avocado or slow-roasted tomatoes, or with roasted veg and a green salad.
If teaching kids to fry an egg, add only a little oil to the pan and show them how to crack the egg into a teacup first, which makes it quicker and safer for little hands to pour the egg into the pan holding the cup handle, rather than cracking the egg directly into the hot fat, which can spit.
A perfect poached egg.
SERVES 1
Many people have asked
me how to create the perfect poached egg, and, to my mind, it’s all down to the freshness of the egg. Unfortunately, finding very fresh eggs is not always possible. Supermarket eggs are not actually that fresh. Even though they are well within their use-by date, this doesn’t mean they were laid the day before. If you crack an egg that has just been laid, the white of the egg will hold its shape, nice and neat, not spread out. If you crack open an egg that is more than a few days old – even a week or two old – the white will spread right out, covering a large area.
When you are poaching an egg, a super-fresh one will hold that lovely neat shape beautifully, creating the perfect poached beauty. Poaching an egg that is anything less than super fresh will have that craggy look, very untidy, and not at all the lovely thing we are after. I might add, though, that they will both taste wonderful, it’s just they don’t look the same. However, there are a few tricks that will help you to create the perfect-looking poached egg even when it is not a super-fresh one.
1–2 organic, free-range eggs per person, as fresh as you can find
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar (this helps the eggs to hold their shape)
Fill a medium, high-sided frying pan with water to a depth of a couple of inches, set over a medium heat and bring to a bare simmer – you don’t want the water to boil.
Crack your first egg into a ramekin or teacup and have your toast or salad ready before you start to cook.
Add the vinegar to the pan of barely simmering water, then carefully swirl the water to make a gentle whirlpool. Slide the egg carefully, white first, into the centre of the whirlpool. Allow the egg to cook a little then move it out of the centre with a slotted spoon, then repeat with a second egg.
The eggs only take about 2–3 minutes to cook for a soft poached yolk. You can lift them up out of the water with the slotted spoon and give the yolks a prod to see how done they are. If they are ready, lay them onto kitchen paper to drain or, if they need more cooking, lower them gently back into the water to cook a little longer.