Turning Japanese

Mark and I were pretty tired the other night, so I wanted to cook something quick and uncomplicated. I had a pouch of white miso that had been sitting on the top shelf of the fridge for a while, so I took that as my starting point for a Japanese-inspired meal.

We slashed a couple of chicken breasts and marinaded them in a mixture of soy sauce and sherry (I'd have used sake if I'd had any to hand, but all I found was a bottle of Manzanilla sherry – for cooking purposes, Manzanilla or Fino make pretty good substitutes for sake. For what it's worth, if you're not dieting, a glass of dry sherry usually makes a good match for many Chinese and Japanese dishes). I added a dash of sesame oil, a couple of pieces of star anise and some grated ginger and left the chicken in the marinade for a couple of hours before I cooked it under the grill. I also stir-fried some mustard greens with some julienned ginger. But, as far as I was concerned, the centre of the meal was the miso-grilled aubergine – I just love aubergine for its depth of flavour and its versatility. It's a much under-appreciated vegetable and if it's not on your shopping list I urge you to buy (and try) some soon – you'll soon be as hooked on these beautiful, sleek purple vegetables as I am.

Aubergines and miso for two

2 small- to medium-sized aubergines
3 tbsp miso paste
2 tbsp dry sherry or sake
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp sesame seeds

Heat the oven to 200ºC. Cut the aubergines in half lengthwise, then score the flesh in a criss-cross pattern. Push a metal skewer through each aubergine half (to help conduct the heat through the vegetable) and place in the oven for about 40 minutes, or until cooked through.

Meanwhile, stir the miso paste, the sherry and the sugar together in a small saucepan over a low heat until silky smooth and put aside.

Toast the sesame seeds in a small frying pan until golden and put aside.

Pre-heat the grill.

Once the aubergines are cooked through, remove them from the oven and brush with the fleshy side with the miso mixture. Place under the grill and cook until brown. Sprinkle the aubergines with the toasted sesame seeds and serve.

Outdoor eating (part one)

I have to admit, I love a barbie. I'm a real sucker for eating outdoors (and so's Mark), so the minute the sun comes out, so does the Weber.

I often think dieting is easier when the weather's hot, too. For starters, I find I don't get terribly hungry once the thermometer hits the mid-20s C, but even when I am feeling peckish, simply cooked meat or fish and loads of veg and fruit tends to be the order of the day. All very healthy.

One of the first barbecues we had this year involved marinating some chicken in a spicy semi-liquid rub, then serving it up with some roast veg and a bean and tomato salad. Recipes below.

Marinade for spicy chicken:

20ml olive oil
1 tbsp chipotle in adobo (from www.coolchile.co.uk)
1 tsp ground cumin
juice from 1/2 lime
1 clove garlic, mashed
salt

Mix all the marinade ingredients together.

Skin two portions of chicken (I think a small leg and thigh is the best option rather than breast), then score the flesh almost through to the bone.

Rub the marinade into the chicken and leave for at least a couple of hours (and up to a whole day).

You can barbecue or grill the chicken. I served ours with a roast tomato, garlic and green bean salad; roast butternut squash and barbecued sweetcorn (the last is an indulgence, I admit).


Roast tomato, garlic and green bean salad:

250g cherry tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, skins left on
1 tbsp olive oil
150-200g green beans, topped and tailed
50g pine nuts
a small amount of dressing made from extra virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar and a dollop of Dijon mustard, plus salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 100C, then place the tomatoes and garlic in a roasting dish and sprinkle with olive oil.

Roast gently for up to four hours, by which time the tomatoes should have shrivelled and blackened a bit, and their taste will have intensified. The garlic should be soft and creamy. Allow to cool.

In the interim, blanch the beans and refresh them under cold water. Leave to one side until cooled.

Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan. Watch them carefully as they go from raw to burned very quickly.

Place the tomatoes, pine nuts and beans in a salad bowl. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins and toss them into the veg. Dress with a small amount of dressing.

Sweet and savoury

One of the things I found myself yearning for during my week in Georgia (isn't it funny how some weeks seem to last a very long time?) was fish, so I went out and bought a couple of tuna steaks for dinner the other night. I marinated them for a few hours in some lime zest (if you use lime juice, it 'cooks' the fish), minced ginger and chilli, soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil.

Alongside, I served wilted pak choy with strips of stir-fried ginger and, a new discovery, Asian butternut squash mash.

Asian butternut squash mash for two

1 medium butternut squash
2 star anise
1/2 stick cinammon
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp light soy sauce
a splash of sesame oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

Peel the squash and cut it into cubes (the smaller the cubes, the quicker they'll boil). Place in a saucepan of cold water with the star anise and cinammon and bring to the boil. Simmer until the squash is tender (depending on the size of the cubes this could be anywhere between 10 minutes and half an hour).

Drain and remove the anise and cinammon. Return the squash to the saucepan and, over a medium heat, mash until smooth. The squash contains quite a lot of water, so keep stirring and mashing until the water has all boiled away, otherwise you'll end up with sloppy mash.

Once you're satisfied that the texture is right, add the mirin, maple syrup, soy and sesame. Don't add them all at once, but taste as you go instead as the amount you'll need depends on how much mash you've got in the pan. Season to taste and serve.

Simple and seasonal is good

If you're not going to eat your bodyweight in indulgent goodies (I find myself yearning for a plate of really good chips – a bit of a surprise, I thought it would be chocolat I missed most) you might as well make sure that you eat well. By which I mean that it's becoming even more important to me than it ever was to cook with really good, fresh ingredients.

A few nights ago, Mark and I settled down to a beautifully simple supper (left) of grilled lemon sole, Jersey potatoes and a mixture of samphire and wild garlic.

Samphire, if you've never eaten it before, is a green vegetable that grows in marshy areas near the sea; there's a tangy saltiness to it that evokes the taste of the sea, which is what makes it particularly good as an accompaniment to fish.

Wild garlic leaves are in season now – for a few weeks only, so if you find some, snap it up! The leaves have a mild flavour – more of a gentle fragrance than a full-on blast of garlickiness.

Grilled lemon sole, Jersey royals, samphire and wild garlic for two

1 medium-large lemon sole (or Dover sole, if you really want to splash out)
some Jersey royals (be sensible about how many you put on your plate – I had four small spuds while Mark had about double the amount)
150g samphire
a good double handful of wild garlic leaves
1 tbsp olive oil
a small knob of butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Get your fishmonger to clean the fish for you. Place it on a grill tray, brush it lightly with olive oil, then season. Grill until cooked, then turn the fish over, oil lightly, season and grill until cooked through.

Meanwhile, cook the spuds in pan of salted water (bring to the boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, until done).

Cook the samphire in boiling water for about 4 minutes, the drain.

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan over a medium flame and chuck in the wild garlic. Once it begins to wilt, toss in the samphire and heat through. Melt the butter into the greens.

Fillet the fish, divide into two portions and plate up with the spuds and greens.

Dishes that pack a punch (part one)

One of the reasons I've always dreaded going on a diet is that the recipes in most diet books are so bland. The prospect of nibbling on rice cakes, lunching on cottage cheese and dining on steamed chicken and veggies for a week horrifies me. The thought of eating beige food for several months, a year even, just doesn't bear contemplating.

But over the past few weeks I've stumbled upon a secret. For me, the key to dieting lies not only in eating little and often but also in making sure that the food I eat is really and truly tasty. Most of the meals I've really enjoyed over the past month have been packed with taste – some of them have been spicy while others have just featured strong flavours.

There's one particular dish that's becoming a bit of a regular round here: sweet potato and feta. Quick to prepare on a weekday evening, but full of punchy flavours, this combination of sweet, savoury and salt is something that appeals to both Mark and I. Mark's portion is almost double the size of mine and we both fill the rest of the plate up with a zesty salad (try a bag of rocket and watercress or herb and green leaf salad, slice up half an avocado and add a handful of roughly chopped walnuts, then dress it with a small amount of simple vinaigrette – I usually use some walnut oil to enhance the walnuts in the salad, plus a tarragon or white wine vinegar and a dash of Dijon mustard in my dressing).

Sweet potato and feta for one

1 x 200g sweet potato 50g feta, cut into small cubes 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted in a frying pan 1-2 spring onions, sliced 1 tsp orange juice
1 tsp olive oil fresh coriander, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
Heat the oven to 200C, then roast the sweet potato for about 40 minutes (it's done when a knife will cut through to the middle easily).
While the sweet potato is cooking, mix the other ingredients together (you can add a pinch of salt, if you want, but taste the mixture first as the feta can be quite salty anyway).
Once the sweet potato is cooked, slice it lengthways, then pour the feta mixture over it. Serve with the salad.

Another dish I find I'm enjoying at lunchtime is inspired by Japanese cuisine. A mixture of rice, fish and vegetables, it's very simple to prepare, but its salty/smoky/umami flavours leave me feeling really satisfied for a long time.

Japanese rice and fish for one

50g brown rice
100g sprouting broccoli or broccoli florets
50 smoked eel
1-2 tsp light or Japanese soy sauce
furikake seasoning (available from Asian food stores)

Cook the rice and set aside to cool.
Cook the veg and set aside to cool.
Place the cold rice in a bowl. Slice the broccoli and eel and stir into the rice.
Season with soy sauce and sprinkle with furikake.
That's it. What could be simpler?

Life is a minestrone...

According to 10cc (a 70s pop group for those of you not old enough to remember them), life is a minestrone, topped off with Parmesan cheese. I'm not entirely sure that my own life is a minestrone (whatever that means), but I've certainly been eating enough of the stuff over the past few days. It's the kind of recipe you need to cook in large quantities, and you can either do what I did, and have a bowlful a day for a few days, or you can freeze some and save it for later.

I spent a happy 40 minutes or so in the kitchen on Saturday cooking a large vat of soup (see recipe below) and it's done sterling duty over the course of four meals (three of which have been shared with Mark). The combination of cannelini beans, loads of veg and a thick tomatoey broth makes it the ideal dieter's lunch on a cold winter's day. I found that a bowlful of the stuff kept my appetite at bay for most of the afternoon – just what the nutritionist ordered (or what the nutritionist would have ordered if I was going to see one).

The first time round I sprinkled about a tablespoon full of Parmesan on the top, but to be honest it was a waste of time. The cheese just vanished into the soup and was pretty much undetectable. Far better, I think, if you're craving that hit of cheese, to cut off a small lump – about the amount that, grated, would give you a tablespoon's worth – and nibble it in between mouthfuls of soup. If you get bored with basic minestrone, you can jazz it up by adding a teaspoonful of pesto to the soup as you're reheating it – the basil flavour works really well in the tomatoey soup.

Pesto was also a key component in our Monday-night dinner of pesto-marinated chicken and ratatouille ( see recipe below). The chicken is one of the world's simplest dishes to prepare: all you do is take a breast fillet of chicken (without skin, alas) and make three or four deep slashes into the flesh. Mix a heaped teaspoon of shop-bought pesto (or home-made, even better, yum) with a couple of tablespoons of 0% fat yoghurt. Rub the marinade into the chicken and leave, covered, in the fridge for a minimum of four hours. When you're ready to cook the chook, wipe some of the pesto yoghurt off the chicken (leaving a thin coating) and place under a hot grill. Cook on both sides and serve with ratatouille or a green salad.

Ratatouille for four

1 medium aubergine, cut into thick slices
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 courgettes, cut in half lengthways then cut into half circles
2 peppers (preferably one yellow, one red), quartered, deseeded and cut into thick slices
200g chopped canned tomatoes
a handful of basil leaves, torn
salt and feshly ground black pepper

Salt the aubergine slices and place them in a colander with a heavy plate or bowl on top to weigh them down. Leave for at least half an hour, until the salt has leached the bitter juices from the aubergines. Rinse, pat dry and cut into chunks.

Fry the onion with a scant tablespoon of the oil in a saucepan over a low heat (I've found that using a bare minimum of oil means that the onion burns easier than it usually would. A low flame and taking your time helps avoid the problem, but stir frequently) until it is soft and translucent.

While the onion is softening, fry the aubergine in a tablespoon of oil (only use the remaining oil if you really, really have to; aubergine soaks up oil like a sponge, especially at lower temperatures, so get the oil good and hot before adding the veg). If the aubergine looks like it's starting to burn before it's cooked through, remove it and place it in a bowl covered with a saucepan lid or plate. The steam will help finish off the cooking.

When the onion has softened, add the garlic and cook for a further minute or so. Add the courgettes and fry for a few more minutes, until they start to soften. Finally, stir in the pepper strips and fry for a further couple of minutes.

Pour the tomates into the saucepan and stir. Bring to the boil, then turn heat down to a simmer, stir in the aubergines and season with salt and pepper. Cook, covered, on a low heat for about half an hour. Garnish with torn basil leaves and serve warm or at room temperature.


Minestrone for at least eight (this is a pretty free-form recipe, so feel free to adjust it to include other appropriate veggies)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large or 2 medium onions, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
2-3 leeks (depending on size), sliced finely
2 carrots, peeled and cut into medium dice
1 bulb of fennel, chopped
3 stalks of celery, sliced
2 litres chicken or vegetable stock
600g chopped canned tomatoes
3-4 sprigs of thyme, chopped
2 bayleaves
2 x 400g cans of cannelini beans
2 courgettes, cut lengthways into quarters, then sliced into chunks
torn basil leaves, to garnish
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil over a low heat in a large saucepan, then cook the onion gently until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute.

Stir in the leeks and cook until they start to soften, then add the carrots. After another 3-4 minutes, tip the fennel and celery into the saucepan and continue to fry gently.

Pour in the stock, turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, then add the chopped tomatoes, thyme and bayleaves. Simmer for half an hour or so, uncovered.

Add the the beans and the courgettes and season to taste. Once the courgettes are tender, you can serve the soup, garnished with a handful of torn basil leaves.