Nourished

Pineapple

Recipe

Antioxidant Rich Smoothies

Smoothies can be a quick way of consuming wasted calories, or with a little planning and foresight, can add valuable minerals and vitamin to your diet – forget throwing in a banana and some milk, and concentrate on building a smoothie recipe which offers you more…  Once you familiarise yourself with the nutritional properties of some of the ingredients, you can tailor something to suit your own specific needs, as I have done here.

The quantities given will make 2 large smoothies – have one for lunch, and save the other for an evening snack, when you feel the chocolate munchies coming on.  Not only will the cacao nibs kill the craving, but they’ll give you a better sense of well-being than chocolate, in my opinion…

Cacao and Coconut Smoothie

50ml almond milk
330ml coconut water
40g coconut flesh
2 bananas
1 Tbsp organic cacoa nibs
1/2 mango
1 passion fruit
50g pineapple
big handful of ice
{handful of mint, for an mint-choc hit ;0)}

Blend all the ingredients together, until the texture is to your liking. The cacao nibs will add fibre, but if you find the texture unpleasant, you could always use ground cacao. Personally I think it adds to the fullness of the smoothie.

Nutritional information:

Almond milk is made from whole, blanched {or sometimes unblanched} almonds which have been soaked in water overnight.  Whizzed with the fresh mineral water the following day, you drain them through muslin 0r nut bag, and use the resulting liquid in place of dairy milk.  The flavour is actually rather refreshing, though not good for cappuccino’s etc.  Nut milks are much higher in protein than cow’s milk, with a lower saturated fat content, and higher level of healthy fats.  Unsweetened almond milk has a low glycemic index, so won’t cause your blood sugar levels to spike – a key consideration when looking for smoothie ingredients, which are so often fruit based. Being non-dairy, it doesn’t require refrigeration either, which makes it great to take out with you for the day!  What else?  There’s no lactose or casein, so it’s eminently suitable for those on a dairy-free, lactose-free, or casein-free diet.  It’s also vegan and vegetarian friendly, so can be enjoyed by everyone apart from our poor nut-allergic chums!  To sweeten almond milk, soak a couple of dates in water for an hour, and blend into the filtered milk.

Coconut water can be a bit of an acquired taste on its own, but add it to juices and smoothies, and it brings a whole heap of benefits to the party.  Containing sugars, minerals, vitamins, cytokinins {which are anti-carcinogenic}, amino acids, cytokine {anti-ageing and PH regulation}, electrolytes {including potassium and sodium, both of which aid rehydration, and give coconut water a similar electrolyte balance to blood}, bioactive-enzymes {which aid digestion}, and phyto-hormones {which are currently touted to be anti-ageing, antioxidant, and again anti-carcinogenic}.

Bananas contain potassium, vitamin B6, magnesium and vitamin C.  Potassium is particularly useful for improving heart health, and lowering blood pressure.  They also contain tryptophan, which can improve your mood and help your memory.  Not just for the kids and the gym freaks after all!

Mango contains an antioxidant called zeaxanthin, which helps filter out blue-light rays, and decreases the risk of age-related macular-degeneration.  The beta-carotene found in its rich orange flesh has been shown to have an adverse affect on colon and prostate cancer.  Again rich in potassium, but also in fibre and Vitamin A, this makes mango a must-eat fruit in my family {my family are predisposed to macular-degeneration, and my father has just finished prostate cancer treatment!}  Eat those mangoes people!

Passion fruit contains dietary fibre, high levels of vitamin C, but also vitamin A, beta-carotene, and our good friend potassium.

Pineapple is the only known source of Bromelain, which is thought to improve joint mobility, decrease joint inflammation, alleviate joint pain, and inhibit tumour growth.  Again it contains vitamin C, betacarotene, and potassium, making this smoothie a real power-house.

Cacao nibs contain flavonoids, similar to those found in tea, grapes and berries.  Whilst research into flavonoids is ongoing, particularly around the quantities which need to be consumed, they are reputed to lower cholesterol, and act as an anti-inflammatory.   They also contain  polyphenols, which again help with cardiovascular health, and are thought to inhibit strokes and cardiovascular disease {both through improving platelet ‘clogging’ and strengthening artery walls}.

Alternatives:  You could swap out the banana for an avocado – it would increase the fat content significantly, but would create a smoother mouth-feel, which would work well with the flavour of the cacao.  You could also add coffee beans and/or a shot of coffee, as a perfect breakfast pick-me-up – it’s yummy!

Baking

Pain Perdu, Pineapple and Coconut

We haven’t been to Marcus Wareing’s eponymous restaurant since it was re-branded.  It’s a little art-deco jewel-box of a restaurant, but the atmosphere seemed just as hushed at lunchtime as before… Still.  The food was good, and I was particularly enamoured with this dish – a little chef’s joke…  The pineapple tastes of coconut, which initially confuses the senses, especially as you try to work out how… I pressed the waitress, it’s clearly compressed, because of the texture, but what with? And then of course it struck me – Malibu – the scent led me by my nose to my teenage years.  Malibu.  When was the last time you tasted Malibu?  Well, rest assured, in this dish it’s absolutely delicious, as long as you like coconut and pineapple.

The plate comprised Malibu compressed pineapple, a coconut ice-cream, coconut curd, toasted brioche cubes, and coconut meringue.  I wasn’t terribly fond of the coconut curd, so I thought I would experiment with a coconut-milk creme patisserie (in the Thermomix)…  For the coconut meringues I used the Meringue Girls recipe, which I’ve made often before. It’s a very clever little dessert – you can prepare all the elements well in advance (perhaps with the exception of toasting the brioche), and then assemble when you’re ready.  You see.  I make sweeping statements like that.  Yes, it’s a clever dessert, and easy,  if you own a chamber vacuum sealer and a Thermomix.  I’m still posting it, because someone out there will…

As the recipes are quite long, you can find them listed in the Plating section.  The pineapple was cubed (as accurately as your patience will allow), and popped into a vacuum pack bag – I included 40ml of Malibu, and compressed under full pressure.  I left it in the fridge for 48 hours to absorb the flavour.  The compression will also change the texture of the pineapple, making it denser, and less fibrous (it effectively changes the cell structure of the fruit – it’s also an amazing technique to use on watermelon, for example).

To Plate:

Malibu compressed pineapple
Coconut meringues
Coconut-milk creme patisserie
Coconut cream ice-cream
Brioche cubes, dipped in egg and fried in a little butter

Notes:

  • The coconut version of the creme patisserie worked incredibly well – I used 300g of coconut milk, and upped the flour to 45g, but that was because I included 20g of Malibu, and also wanted to be able to pipe the cream into quite firm ‘peaks’…  The coconut flavour was subtle, but discernible, and the texture was exactly like the normal version.  I didn’t refrigerate it, but did whisk through some more malibu before piping onto the plates.

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Recipe

Malaysian Prawn and Pineapple Curry

Hubby makes a LOT of curries – curries and tagines. He’s often constrained by my need to eat fish or shellfish, but luckily there are any number of dishes from Asia and the Indian subcontinent which suit my requirements perfectly.  His favourite cookbooks are those by Atul Kochhar, Rick Stein and more recently my chum Dhruv Baker, and he also attended one of Atul’s courses, and prepared a meal for the lunch service. Hubby gained a number of useful insights into preparing curry, chief of which appears to be proper cooking of onions.  This recipe is actually a Malaysian curry, known as Udang Masak, and is based on one taught to Atul by Maria Mustafa…

 
Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable or groundnut oil
Flesh from 1/2 small pineapple, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons palm sugar
500g raw prawns, peeled but with tails left on, cleaned and deveined
3 small tomatoes, cut into quarters
300ml coconut milk
Salt

Serves 4-6

For the paste:
2 thick lemongrass stalks, thinly sliced
3 shallots, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
3 red chillies, chopped
1 green chilli, chopped
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
4-6 candlenuts or macadamia nuts
A few spring onions, chopped into 2.5cm lengths to garnish

Method:

  • Pound or blend together all the paste ingredients with 2-3 tablespoons of water to make a fine paste. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the paste over a medium heat for 5-8min or until well cooked (there should be no smell of raw garlic and the oil should have started to separate out).
  • Add the pineapple and sauté for 2-3min, then add the sugar, some salt and 400ml water [see Notes]. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 3-5min or until the pineapple softens.
  • Add the prawns and continue to simmer for 4-5min or until the prawns turn pink and opaque. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 2-3min, then pour in the coconut milk. Bring back to the boil, stirring well. Simmer gently for a further 3-5min, then serve, garnished with a few batons of spring onion.
Notes:
  • The curry is quite fragrant, and very sweet.  If you’re going to make it, I would suggest serving alongside a contrasting dish, perhaps Dhruv Baker’s green bean salad, with red onion and black mustard seeds.  It’s a delicious curry, and well-suited to those who don’t like very spicy curries.
  • Hubby didn’t add all of the water – he added around 150 ml he thinks, and that was still a little too much liquid.  Either Atul drains the curry a little before serving it, or something has been lost in the recipe process.  Below is the photo of Atul’s dish.  (I should point out Hubby’s is in a serving bowl, rather than an individual portion – hence the difference in quantity :0)

Baking

Coconut Milk Creme Patisserie

231d6-p1010309I use the standard Creme Patisserie recipe on the blog a lot, but in a recent recipe (which contained a coconut curd), I thought I might make a coconut milk variation – after all the fat content of coconut milk is quite high, and the consistency can be similar to milk.  I altered the recipe slightly, but that was because I included 30ml of Malibu, and an increased quantity of flour – I wanted to be able to pipe the creme pat into quite stiff peaks on the plate, for a specific dessert.
Ingredients:

300g coconut milk 60g unrefined caster sugar
30g unsalted good quality butter
30 ml Malibu 45g plain flour
3 free range egg yolks
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
pinch of salt

Method:

Put all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and cook for 7 minutes at 90C, speed 4.

Give it a quick whizz at the end to ensure it’s smooth, then pour into a bowl and cover with cling film until it’s cool.
 
Yes – that’s it!  Keep it in your fridge until you require it.

Oh. And if you’re stupid enough to stick in a block of quite cool butter, do put the lid on properly and start the machine quite slowly.