Low Fat, Low Sugar: Essential vegetarian collection. Rose Elliot

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СКАЧАТЬ light misting of oil to vegetables before roasting or frying, you might like to make an oil spray by putting some olive oil into a spray bottle, topping up with 8 parts of cold water and shaking and spraying when required.

      Spices: apart from the very hot spices, such as chilli and cayenne, these are usually allowed and are invaluable for making low-fat, low-sugar meals taste really good. A particular favourite in this book is cumin, in both seed and powdered form; ground coriander and turmeric are also invaluable, as is nutmeg – buy it whole and grate as required. Freshly ground black pepper can also be used freely. Buy the spices as you need them for a particular recipe and you’ll soon build up a useful collection.

      Fresh herbs: I think the availability of a wide range of fresh herbs is one of the factors that has made the most impact on our cooking in the last ten years. They are a wonderful way of adding freshness and flavour to dishes and make a very appetising garnish. Fresh ginger and garlic are also indispensable flavourings.

      Salt: may not be recommended by most health experts, but it is difficult to reduce while still retaining flavour. As a substitute, I have recently been using a sodium-reduced sea salt from Iceland. It is the best of the reduced sodium salts that I have tried. Reduced sodium salts contain a higher percentage of potassium than normal salt, so if you’re having treatment for a kidney or heart disorder, check with your doctor before using it.

      equipment and techniques

      The only special equipment needed for low-fat, low-sugar cooking is one or two non-stick pans: ideally, a large non-stick frying pan with a lid and a medium-sized saucepan for making sauces and other mixtures that tend to stick. A non-stick baking sheet or tray is also useful or, alternatively, you could buy some of the non-stick fabric which you simply place on an ordinary baking tray. It can be washed and re-used time and again.

      DRY-FRYING

      The recipes in this book are fairly simple and do not involve complicated techniques. However, what I call ‘dry-frying’ is used in quite a number of the dishes. This is simply cooking in a frying pan or saucepan (non-stick) without added oil or liquid. By dry-frying an onion, for instance, you can get a result very much like fried onion. Put a fairly finely chopped onion into the frying pan, cover with a lid and set over a gentle heat. Let it cook for 6–7 minutes, stirring often. It will soften and become lightly flecked with brown. Turn up the heat if you want to brown it more, but take care because it’s easy to burn it and get a bitter flavour. If this seems likely, add a little water or stock and continue to gently ‘fry’ the onion until the liquid has disappeared and the onion is tender.

      You can use this technique with any vegetable if you want a fried effect without using fat. If using no fat seems too extreme, you could try using just a teaspoonful of olive oil. It’s surprising how little you need. When I started experimenting with recipes for this book I initially used a teaspoonful of oil for the frying process, but having tried frying onions without any oil, decided to opt for this ‘purer’ approach which seemed to give results which were just as good. Once you start using little bits of oil here and little bits there, it starts to add up and the diet stops being ‘low fat’. However, how low you go is up to you; because the recipes are strict you have the scope to add a little fat here and there where it matters to you. One tablespoonful of oil adds 15 grams of fat to a recipe; a teaspoonful adds 5 grams of fat.

      THE OIL AND WATER SPRAY

      I think the idea for this originally came from low-fat cook extraordinaire Sue Kreitzman. All you do is buy a small spray bottle at a chemist or garden centre, fill this with olive oil and water in the proportion of 1 part oil to 8 or 10 parts water, shake well, then spray over your food. I use this on Mediterranean vegetables such as aubergines (eggplants) and courgettes (zucchini), or on burgers and rissoles before grilling or baking them. An alternative would be to use one of the oil sprays which you can buy in supermarkets, but making your own is so easy and you know exactly what’s in it. The only time when a supermarket oil spray is useful is for greasing cake tins (pans), although if you use non-stick baking parchment you don’t need it.

soups

      When making a soup I generally start by sautéing an onion and any other vegetables in a tablespoonful of olive oil or a small amount of butter, as I have found that this gives the soup a superior flavour. However, wanting to keep the recipes as ‘pure’ as possible, I also experimented with dry-frying the onion and other vegetables before adding the stock or water and found that this also worked well. This process seems to draw out the flavour and, if you allow the vegetables to brown, caramelises their natural sugars and adds to the finished taste of the soup. So after much testing and experimenting, I decided to use this method as a basis for many of the soups. However, if you want to add a little fat, sautéing in 1 teaspoon of olive oil will usually add only about 1 gram of fat per serving.

      Good stock can also contribute enormously to the success of a soup and is not difficult to come by now that you can buy vegetable stock in supermarkets or make up your own from good quality stock cubes or – my favourite – vegetable bouillon powder.

      Of course in low-fat cookery you can’t rely on a splash of cream to add the final touch to soup and a spoonful of low-fat yogurt somehow doesn’t have the same effect. I think that often the nicest finishing touch is a generous scattering of chopped fresh herbs, which are easy to get almost anywhere all the year round.

flageolet bean, leek and watercress soup

      Pale green flageolet beans give this soup a delicate flavour, plentiful nutrients and a slightly thickened texture. You can buy them in cans at large supermarkets.

      serves 4

      2 leeks, sliced

      425g/15oz can flageolet beans

      600ml/20fl oz/2¹/₂cups vegetable stock or water

      1 bunch or packet of watercress

      salt and freshly ground black pepper

      Put the leek into a non-stick pan, cover and cook very gently for about 7 minutes, until the leek is becoming tender, stirring from time to time. Drain and rinse the beans, then add them to the pan along with the stock or water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and leave to boil gently for 10–15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the leeks are fully cooked. Put a ladleful of the soup into a food processor or blender with the watercress and whiz to a purée. Return this to the saucepan, stir and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring back to just below boiling point and serve.

roasted butternut squash soup with cumin

      Butternut squash has a glorious dense golden flesh with a very sweet flavour. I think the best way to cook it, to bring out all the flavour, is to bake it. The squash can be baked in advance, when convenient, then you can whiz up this delicious soup in the minimum of time.

      serves 4

      1 butternut squash

      1 onion, chopped

      1 large garlic clove, chopped

      1tsp СКАЧАТЬ