healthy

Pork Tacos – Easy and Healthy

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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I like to think that we eat very healthily and while it’s true that we eat very little processed food, in many ways our diet leaves a lot to be desired. The other week, for example, I made a really delicious kale and chorizo pasta sauce. And finished it off with great dollops of cream. Unprocessed – apart from the chorizo, yes. Healthy – well, yes, because KALE and also tomato and onion … but how many of those brownie points would have been taken away by the chorizo and cream? And you know what – I put bacon in it too! It tasted really good!

After that, I figured I should probably put a bit more effort into ensuring some balance in our diet. I told Andy this and the look of horror he gave me suggested he thought we were about to start eating celery (I love it, he hates it) and lettuce.

I’m not guaranteeing that this is going to last but in a burst of initial enthusiasm I had a look around for ‘healthy’ recipes. There are tons of them – and let’s face it, while fat does indeed mean flavour, I also have an obscenely well stacked spice drawer so there are other ways of making food fun.

Andy loves things in wraps – tacos, tortillas, quesadillas, yiros, all that kind of stuff. Weirdly, because I am a carbohydrate junkie, I am not so bothered about this style of eating so when he suggests it I usually pull a face and try to convince him that something else would be good.

So when I found this pork tacos recipe, a light bulb went off. I can produce something healthy that he will like, with very little effort. Naturally, I had to play around with this. Not least of all the fact that the original recipe uses only kidney beans for the salsa. Despite my love of legumes, kidney beans I am not a fan of. Fortunately, four bean mix to the rescue. Kidney, cannellini, chickpea and butter beans.

With tinned beans ALWAYS rinse them before use. While you can buy ones that are low salt, tipping the beans into a sieve and giving them a rinse in some running water washes off the horrible ‘tinned’ smell, and gets rid of the often quite thick (and salty) water that they’re in.

We’ll be having this again (although I will remember to buy fresh coriander next time!) because it was super quick and delicious. Never mind healthy – even I enjoyed it and enthused about it! With our four small pork schnitzels we had plenty for dinner, with left overs for Andy’s lunch and some left over bean salsa for me. The quantities in the original recipe might just stretch to 4 people but you would probably want some extra salad or not be particularly hungry.

Also, this can be a very easy prepare ahead dinner as the salsa can be made in advance and the pork can sit in the fridge in its marinade. By using pork schnitzels (rather than the original recipe’s choice of pork steaks) you really reduce the cooking time too!

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Pork Tacos – Easy and Healthy

Ingredients

    pork
  • 4 smallish pork schnitzels - about 400g of meat all up
  • olive oil
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
  • juice of one lime
    • salsa
  • 1 tin of four bean mix, rinsed and drained
  • ½ ripe avocodo, chopped
  • ½ red onion, finely chopped
  • 2 medium ripe tomatoes, chopped
  • ½ red chilli, finely chopped (seeds removed)
  • juice of one lime
  • fresh coriander - roughly torn or cut
  • salt - to taste
  • 1 packet (6) of small tortillas

Instructions

  1. Place the pork schnitzels in a bowl with the oil, cumin, coriander, chilli powder, garlic and lime juice. Mix well and set aside while you make the salsa and heat a pan.
  2. To make the salsa - mix all the ingredients together and season to taste.
  3. Heat a non stick pan with a little oil and cook the pork schnitzels. Allow them to rest before slicing them.
  4. To serve, place the meat and salsa on a wrap and eat!
  5. I added a smear of sour cream to mine, Andy added sriracha sauce and we both added some sliced lettuce.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pork-tacos-easy-healthy/

Warm Middle Eastern Salad with Wallaby

- Alex Prichard 1 Comment

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Disclaimer: Lenah Game sent me a voucher for the wallaby.

A while back I won The Blue Ducks, a book unpromisingly subtitled “Delicious Food, the Importance of Community and the Joy of Surfing”. Well, delicious food and community I can get on board with … but surfing … meh, I wasn’t so sure.

I read through it with very low expectations but came away very impressed and keen to try out, at the very least, the fennel ice cream (that still hasn’t happened). And then, the book was buried under all manner of picture books and Octonauts paraphernalia.

But the planets aligned, as last week Lenah Game got in touch and asked if I wanted to try some Tasmanian wallaby, newly available in South Australia. It had never occurred to me that wallaby would be edible and that I might be able to buy it but, given the opportunity to put a new meat on my plate, I was all for it.

Lenah wallaby is wild and humanely and sustainably harvested. Unlike sheep and cows, it’s a lot kinder to the Australian environment and Lenah Game makes sure that as much of the animal as possible is used. Wallabies don’t produce methane and require a LOT less water than cows and sheep do. Not only is the wallaby a very environmentally friendly thing to eat it is also super healthy. Like many game and wild meats, it’s very low in fat so you can feel virtuous all round.

So we were sitting on the sofa, doing our meal planning, scratching our heads over one meal when I dug out The Three Ducks and spotted a middle eastern lamb salad. It used lamb fillet and I remembered that Lenah produced wallaby fillet and … the rest is history.

The bonus here is that wallaby fillet (at roughly $30 a kilo) is markedly cheaper than lamb fillet. We bought two packets of fillet (both around 350-400g) and this served us for dinner, Andy for lunch and the toddler for dinner the next day. For two people and one meal you could easily get away with one packet.

Don’t over cook the wallaby – medium rare is about as cooked as you want to go – and allow it to rest. Lenah also notes that you need to cut the fillets diagonally across the grain. As the meat is vacuum packed, it will repay you opening it and ‘decanting’ it into a bowl for a bit of a rest prior to cooking.

We both loved the meat – it’s not gamey at all and don’t imagine it’s like kangaroo – it’s a lot more subtle. We’ll definitely be buying more in future … I can’t wait for some cold weather to try out the shanks.

Lenah Game wallaby is available from Foodland IGA supermarkets at Golden Grove, Hallett Cove, Littlehampton and Seaford and should be available in even more stores soon.

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Warm Middle Eastern Salad with Wallaby

Ingredients

  • 350g approx wallaby fillet
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 zucchini
  • ½ red onion, finely sliced
  • ½ cup coriander, chopped
  • ½ cup mint, chopped
  • 2 tomatoes, halved.
  • 2 tsp sumac
  • plain yoghurt

Instructions

  1. Heat a griddle pan and put the oven on its warm setting.
  2. Slice the zucchini lengthwise. If you have a mandoline, use this on the second thickest setting.
  3. Grill the zucchini and place in a bowl in the oven.
  4. Season the wallaby fillet with the cumin, salt and pepper. Griddle in a very hot pan in small batches. You'll only need a couple of minutes each side. Place the wallaby on a plate and rest in the oven.
  5. Grill the tomato.
  6. Mix the onion, coriander, mint and zucchini. Top with the tomatoes and the wallaby, sliced diagonally.
  7. Finish with a spoonful or two of yoghurt and dust with sumac. You can either toss the salad in the bowl or spoon it into a flat bread to make a very Australian kebab.
https://eatingadelaide.com/warm-middle-eastern-salad-wallaby/

South Indian Sambal

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

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We try to eat fish at least once a week and, I have to confess, I really struggle with making sustainable fish choices outside farmed salmon. I want to choose fish which is fresh, local and sustainable – especially when a recipe calls for a firm white fish. We all love flathead but not only is this a bad choice, it’s also stupidly expensive. And sometimes (as in, a Sunday afternoon after a couple of hours at a 3 year old’s birthday party) your choice is dictated by what’s in the supermarket.

Anyway, the happy outcome of this story is that the following sambal would work brilliantly with other proteins. A tandoori lamb chop, a chicken breast, or even snuck into a chicken burger. Or on top of some fish, if you can find something that ticks all the boxes.

Don’t be put off by the fact that the following recipe contains coconut. It’s essential, more for texture than flavour. If you have access to fresh grated coconut, even better, but dessicated will do (I’m testament to that!).

The sambal can be prepared in advance (and I suspect this would improve it) and can be tweaked to suit your preference. Just don’t go overcomplicating things.

I served the sambal on top of the pan fried fish, with steamed green beans and a generous side portion of spicy fried potatoes. Even with the potatoes this is a very healthy dinner.

The original recipe comes from taste.com.au.

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South Indian Sambal

Ingredients

  • ½ small brown onion, finely chopped
  • ½ red onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • ~ ¼ cup of coconut - either dessicated or shredded fresh
  • fresh green chilli, finely chopped, to taste
  • 1 tomato, finely chopped (deseeded, if you can be bothered!)
  • generous handful of coarsely chopped fresh coriander
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 pinch caster sugar

Instructions

  1. On a mediuam heat, heat some oil (I used peanut) in a pan, and add the onion. When the onion starts to soften, add the ginger and mustard seeds.
  2. When the onion is soft, add the coconut and toast until the coconut just starts to change colour. You need to pay attention here because burnt coconut will taste awful and you won't be able to rectify things!
  3. Place the chilli in a small bowl. Tip over the hot onion and stir through. Allow to cool slightly before adding the tomato, coriander, lemon juice and sugar. Mix well. Taste and correct seasoning (you may want to add salt) if necessary.
  4. If you're making in advance, store in the fridge, but serve at room temperature.
https://eatingadelaide.com/south-indian-sambal/