Easy Mexican 'Green Rice' - Arroz Verde (with cauliflower rice substitution method)

Give your rice a bit of colour and flavour for a change! Also good the next day as a cold dish.

Rice cooked the Mexican way in chicken stock, flavoured with garlic, coriander, Jalapeno chilli and a squeeze of lime - the next day, add extra lime juice, fresh coriander and a slug of olive oil, and serve cold as a delicious rice salad.

Delicious served with my Chicken in Chipotle sauce and Frijoles di Olla (Mexican beans), or cold the next day with my Yucatecan-Spiced Chicken Skewers and salad.

Serves four to six as a side dish (I eat about an eighth of this quantity!), 191 calories per serving for six servings (scale up or down as appropriate, it's 144 calories for an eighth etc. ). [Calories in square brackets]

If making with cauliflower rice (see Variations below), 78 calories per serving between six; 117 calories per serving if served between four, .

Thai Red Duck Curry (Gaeng Phed Pet Yang)

I do love the exciting mix of different flavours and textures in a Thai red duck curry... they're amazing!

I don't think there's another curry *quite* like it, especially if you go the whole hog and make your own Thai red curry paste! (I thoughtfully posted my recipe here for you, including Thermomix instructions which will keep for a few weeks in the fridge, or freeze in portions and keep for months, just before I posted this, the first of my Thai recipes including red curry paste - or if you don't want to make your own, you could use one of the better bought brands, e.g. Thai Taste).

 

This recipe serves two, and is easily doubled (or serves more as part of a meal with accompaniments).

Calories (if you're counting) are 472 per serving, if made with full fat coconut milk and served to two people; 350 per serving if made with ‘light’ coconut milk.

Chicken Creole

A spicy Louisiana dish with traditional flavours from the Deep South

Having been set the challenge of coming up with some healthy, yet authentic-tasting versions of dishes from the USA, this is where I'm starting - because you can't go far wrong with chicken, onions, peppers and tomatoes as a base, and a bit of a kick!

Traditionally, this would be made with chicken portions (with skin on), but to cut the calories, I've used skinless chicken breasts (or half-breasts, as those from the USA would call them!) and cut down the oil and butter in the sauce. And you know what... I doubt you'd even be able to tell the sauce was lower fat, because it has all the flavour!

This serves four, at 203 calories per portion and is simple to make, and a great family meal.

Bengali-Style Salmon with Steamed Vegetables and a Spicy Yoghurt Sauce

A delicious and healthy way to cook salmon, packed with flavours

I've made this many times over the years, since I first discovered it - it's such a great way to cook salmon and keep it moist.

It has evolved a little over time, with technology and to my tastes, so I now cook it in my Thermomix as an all-in-one meal with vegetables and rice or cauliflower rice to boot, but you can steam it conventionally together with the vegetables, or bake it in the oven in parcels - whichever is your preference! (I'll include instructions to cover all bases, of course!).

If you're counting calories, they are as follows per portion:

Bengali salmon - 286 calories
Steamed green vegetables - 32 calories
Cauliflower rice - 76 calories
Total - 394 calories

Sautéed Cauliflower, Cumin and Almond Crunch

Sometimes, it's the littlest things...

This was a little whim of mine, when cooking some seafood (octopus). I say whim, but I spent nigh on a week trying to think of flavours which would go with it! I still hadn't quite decided what to do with it on the day of cooking, so I looked in the fridge and I thought the cauliflower flavour would really complement it (because it works so well with scallops, which have a sweet, delicate flavour), along with having the delicious savoury maillard edge from caramelising the florets in a pan, together with extra crunch and nuttiness from the flaked almonds and coconut oil and some heady, earthy flavours from the cumin seeds, with a final sprinkling of sea salt.


 

That is almost directly how my thought process works, in written form! Thinking about which flavours go well together, then how I can get contrasting textures, and then add different dimensions on top of that. My mouth is just watering thinking about it!!!

It's very simple to make, and only 142 calories per portion as a side. And, it's really, seriously tasty and delicious!

Coconut, Lime and Coriander (Cilantro) Cauliflower 'Rice'

What's that? Cauliflower 'Rice'?

Well, faux-rice is probably a better term, also known as cauliflower 'cous cous'. Anyway, I've covered that bit here, and this is a recipe to give you an idea of something to disguise the taste of cauliflower do with it.

This is nice served with grilled fish, chicken (such as my Cajun chicken) or pork, or in a plainer form (e.g. you could leave out the lime and coriander) with curries (e.g. Indian, Thai), or leave out the coconut and serve it with something Mexican. Or swap the coriander for some fried shallots and roasted cumin seeds and a squirt of lemon, and serve with some pan-fried shallots, with a couple of tiny roasted florets or temupura florets, some cauliflower puree and call them 'textures of cauliflower', like in restaurants... (where's my slightly sarcastic font gone?).

Anyway, I digress, here's the recipe...

Cauliflower 'Rice'

Cooks in just a couple of minutes!

Just a quick post (although it will take me longer to post this, than it will for you to make some cauliflower rice!) for those who are not familiar with this 'phenomenon'.

Also known as cauliflower 'cous cous', it's basically just cauliflower florets (minimal stalk) pulsed in a blender (or grated on the largets setting) until it resembles grains of rice (or cous cous) and then cooked quickly.

Beef in Black Bean Sauce

Where else to start, but at the beginning?

One of the first 'proper' Chinese dishes I made, I remember watching Ken Hom make beef in black bean sauce on the television, and furiously scribbling a recipe into the back of some tragic early 90s microwave so I could have a go myself (at some point where I could afford to buy steak). Ah, halcyon days...

Twenty years later, I'm perfecting my own version, using authentic ingredients with a little less oil. So this is it, and the two most important things I'd say in order to get the best out of this dish are the beef, and a good non-stick wok. You want the beef pretty much half-frozen in order to be able to slice it into really thin, uniform slices, and then a good non-stick pan to be able to fry it quickly and evenly in a small amount of oil without it sticking.

This is still one of my favourite dishes, and I highly recommend sourcing some salted, fermented black beans (oriental shops sell them, they're cheap, and they last for aaages - the ones which have ginger in too are fine - just pick out the odd slice of dried ginger before using) to make your own sauce, they're delicious and very versatile.

A really tasty, popular dish – versatile too, as you can substitute chicken, king prawns, tofu, mushrooms or whatever you fancy if you don't want to use beef (see note below for changing it around to suit you)!

Want to save money on expensive cuts of steak, and make this using your pressure cooker? My pressure cooker recipe is here.

Serves two,  329 calories per portion (365 if using Amoy stir fry black bean sauce). Easily doubled, and everyone else will love it too on a non-fast day.