Healthy eating gets flavour boost

“Was your New Year’s resolution to eat healthier? Then I hope you are still keeping to it. If you are already waning, then it might be that your healthy choices need a flavour boost.

It is important that, if you are going to reduce the fat, salt and sugar content of foods, you add extra flavour with other ingredients. That’s why, in my new `Fresh and Lean’ promotion for the hotel’s La Brasserie menu, ingredients like chilli, ginger, garlic, spring onions, coriander, citrus, spices, and honey feature strongly. I think increasing the depth of flavour of foods hoodwinks the taste buds and the tummy into thinking the food is richer than it actually is.

The dishes I have created are all jam-packed with flavour so our customers won’t feel cheated if they go for the healthy option. On the menu, there is a poached chicken roulade stuffed with herbs, and a grilled fillet of sea bass with a ginger and garlic puree.  Our healthy desserts feature an exotic fruit salad, steamed fatless apple sponge, Bramley apple sorbet, and curd cheese with baked figs and honey.

And the starter would sit happily at a dinner party as it comes with an entertainment factor, whether you want to eat healthy or not. I’ve included the recipe below. You might need to have a good look in the speciality aisle of your local supermarket for some of the ingredients, but most of them stock things like pickled ginger and wasabi paste. 

Serve with chopsticks and a brief demonstration on how to eat it – pick up some salmon and pickled ginger, then dip into the thick soy sauce and wasabi. Wash down with a mouthful of hot consommé.  But warn your guests to go easy on the wasabi paste – it might be an innocent-looking green colour, but has a wicked kick that could send your taste buds into aftershock.

Healthy thoughts will be far from the menu when the Sofitel hosts a Burn’s Supper dinner on January 21 for members of the Mid-Sussex Caledonian Society, a group which favours all things Scottish. For the main course, I will be doing guinea fowl, but the first two courses are set in stone. It has to be Cock-a-leekie soup to start, followed by `Haggis, neeps and tatties’.  

We have hosted this delightful group of people for the past eight years and I thoroughly enjoy being part of the event by parading the haggis around the dining room, accompanied by the bag-piper. And if I so much as dared to reduce the fat and salt content of this `great chieftain o' the puddin-race’, I think there would be a tartan uprising!”

Peppered salmon and miso shot

Serves 4

4 x 50g salmon fillets – very fresh, use on day of purchase

One dessertspoon  crushed black and Szechuan peppercorns

One tsp rock salt

2 tsps wasabi paste

Pickled ginger

Thick soy sauce

One spring onion for garnish, thinly sliced

For the miso consommé:

100 ml water

One tabs light soy sauce

One leaf dry wakame seawood, or nori

One tsp of bonito flakes or a little shake of Thai Fish sauce for flavour

Few coriander stalks

Method:

To make the miso consommé, put the ingredients into a pan and heat to about 85 degrees. Turn off the heat and let infuse for about ten minutes and then strain through a fine strainer.

Sprinkle the salmon fillets on both sides with pepper and salt.  In a hot frying pan or griddle, sear the fillets for about 30 seconds each side.   Slice thinly. To serve, take four plates and fan the salmon slices onto each. Add a couple of blobs of wasabi paste and some slices of pickled ginger. Sprinkle with spring onions and drizzle with thick soy sauce. Serve with a shot glass of warm miso.