Category Archives: Light lunch

Lemony Prawns

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I love prawns. And lemon. And corriander. This is a really quick recipe and it’s so tasty! It’s good as a light lunch, snack, part of breakast. I like to savour the taste of these prawns and the more lemon I add, the better! Chilli and lemon is a wonderful combination, I need to use it more.

Ingredients
salt
Pepper
Crushed Red chilli flakes
Fresh Lemon
Fresh Corriander
Prawns
Tiny bit of butter or ghee
You could also add a little crushed or minced garlic.

Method
See the images and captions below lol.
As good as coconut oil is, I would never use it on prawns. They have such a light delicate flavour and I think coconut oil would overpower them too much. But that’s just me… Hmm, soeaking of coconut oil, I’ve kinda abandoned it lately… oops?

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Mix prawns with spices, some corriander and lemon in a small bowl

Fry the prawns for a couple of minutes just to warm them through really...

Fry the prawns with a bit of butter/ghee for a couple of minutes just to warm them through really…

The prawns curl up and get some 'colour' when they're cooked enough. Make sure you leave some sauce because it's uber tasty and tangy, just how I love it! Dry prawns are not cool.

The prawns curl up and get some ‘colour’ when they’re cooked enough. Make sure you leave some sauce because it’s uber tasty and tangy, just how I love it! Dry prawns are not cool.

Serve with pan-fried/roasted mediterranean vegetables and Tomato salsa. Add more lemon to the prawns after cooking if desired... it's good for you!

Serve with pan-fried/roasted mediterranean vegetables and Tomato salsa. Add more lemon to the prawns after cooking if desired… it’s good for you!

The juices from the salsa and prawns mixed together is scrumdiddlyuptious!

Ezme Salatasi recipe.
Pan-fried or roasted Mediterranean vegetables.

Kebabs & Burgers

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My thoughts on the best type of meat for this recipe:
Mince chicken (leg and thigh is best as it has fat, chicken breast would be too dry and crumbly)
Mince Lamb (leg is best)
Mince beef (whatever the butchers have I guess)
You could use mutton too but, meh, it’s not my thing

We’re a big Asian family and so when we make this for everyone we can get through quite a bit of meat, plus it’s good to have extra so you can freeze them and take them out when you have company.
Again, I don’t measure things, I eye ball everything, really I do, I guess it’s an Asian thing although most of my friends follow recipes quite strictly. Personally I think that’s more for unexperienced cooks (unless it’s baking, of course). Forgive my lack of measuring as all quantities are up to you. Once I make the mixture I always pan fry a small tester just to make sure it’s how I like it. A good cook always tastes their food, take note!

Ingredients
Mince meat of your choice
Onions
Fresh corriander
Fresh green chillies (with seeds, put some fire in your food!)
Salt
Crushed cumin
Crushed corriander seeds
Chilli powder
Dried Pomegranate powder (WHAT?! Trust me, it’s good and makes a huge difference)

Method
Put your mince in a large bowl. Blitz all your fresh ingredients and spices in a food processor until chopped. Not finely but not overly chunky, kinda inbewteen. Add the mixture to your mince, mix well and pan fry/grill/BBQ a taster. Add more spices depending on your preference and re-taste. Once you’re happy, pan fry, BBQ, skewer these bad boys and serve up in a non-paleo manner.

Please, do NOT deep fry these kebabs now matter what they’re for. My family have never deep fried kebabs but during Ramadhaan when people send over iftaar (may Allaah reward them in abundance aameen) or when I visit other people and I’m served kebabs, they’ve been deep fried. You have taken what could be a really healthy snack and dunk it in oil for ages until it’s over cooked, hard and INCREDIBLY bad for you.  I think it’s an Asian thing as my neighbours do this a lot and I’m sure some wedding caterers do it too. Seriously, stop it, while you’re at it, throw out your chip pan and deep fryer, you really don’t need it.

TOP TIP: For juicy, succulant burgers which are perfectly cooked and moist, just flip the burgers once. Yep, that’s the secret to a great kebab/burger.

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Fresh and dried ingredients blitzed in the food processor… not too fine and not too chunky

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Minced meat mix with ingredients in a bowl.

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Fry the burgers well on one side before flipping. Remember just to flip once only to keep the burgers moist

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They’re not burnt lol… one side needs to be cooked well for a few minutes longer than the second side. They’re only flipped once and *I* don’t want my burgers raw thank you very much

Burgers/kebabs served with home made tomato salsa

Burgers/kebabs served with home made tomato salsa

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Alternative serving suggestion, tomato salsa and burgers served on bed of raw bean sprouts, yummy!

You can find my Turkish tomato salsa aka Ezme Salatasi recipe here.

Stuffed pan-fried salmon

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After making this, I think I love salmon.

Before I give you the ‘recipe’ I should probably state that I unintentionally cooked it how is should be cooked. What?! I mean, I used to like my meat and fish cooked so much that people would class it as overcooked. I have a thing about raw looking meat on my plate, it’s not right, I don’t know how people eat it.
But anyway, this salmon fillet, it was my version of undercooked but a normal person’s version of properly cooked, you know, the kind you’d expect to given in a 5 star restaurant.
I can’t tell you how gorgeous the skin was… something I really disliked in the past. Skin to me was always gooey and gross. The way it’s cooked here makes it cripsy yet succulant and the buttery taste is really nice too!

You’re probably wondering how I stuffed a skinny little fillet too… it’s actually simple.
Take a knife and cut a ‘slit’ through the side of your salmon fillet going along it. It’s should be about halfway between the skin and top of the fillet and by ‘along’ I mean a slit going horizontally, (from left to right) NOT vertically (top to bottom)… That’s called cutting!

Ingredients
Dill
Salt
Pepper
Fresh Lemon
Ghee or Butter
Olive oil (just a few drops to prevent your butter from burning when you fry your fillet)

Method
Mix a pinch of salt, pepper, dill and lemon and stuff this into the slit of the salmon.
Turn the fillet skin side up and season. Turn back over the right way and season and add dill and a bit of lemon juice.
Melt the ghee or butter in a small frying pan or skillet, place the salmon skin-side down and turn on high to get a night crispy skin. Fry for about a minute to a minute and a half.
Turn the fillet over and cooked for a further 3 minutes on a medium to low heat (if you want your salmon cooked a little more you could probably put a lid on top to steam the fish but careful you don’t make your skin go wet and soggy!). drizzle a tiny bit of lemon on the skin while it’s facing ‘up’, flip the fillet over when cooked, add lemon and more fresh dill. Serve with veg and tomatoes and enjoy!

Dill stuffed salmon fillet served with veg and pan-fried tomatoes

Dill stuffed salmon fillet served with veg and pan-fried tomatoes

Curried Pink Salmon

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I’m not a big fish eater. In fact, I have a dislike for fish, especially those which I refer to as “fishy fish” – which simply means they have a realy strong fishy smell and flavour such as halibut, plaice, haddock etc. I used to only eat cod and even then it was in the form of fish fingers or fish cakes. That’s actually pretty sad now I think about it. I actually don’t eat cod anymore, not even the fresh kind, how weird.

Even though tinned tuna is a “fishy fish”, I like it – or at least I used to like it. After turning paleo my taste buds were cleansed. I made a tinned tuna salad and almost died because of the metallic taste of the fish, okay, so I didn’t almost die but it felt like I was eating poison! Since then I haven’t touched the  stuff and I have no intention of doing so ever again inshaaAllaah. I do eat fresh tuna steaks which are nice and not fishy tasting at all. If you’re like me and dislike fishy fish, try fresh tuna, you’ll love it!

Anyway, salmon is something I’m not too keen on, I’ve tried fillets, steaks, smoked and so on but it’s not for me. However, my sister makes a nic pink salmon curry. It’s really simple and I love it. It also uses tinned salmon (which I will eventually stop using and inshaaAllaah. I’ll opt for the fresh stuff as I heard it tastes better… plus it must be full of even more good stuff, right? But for now this is better than nothing and a step in the right direction for me).

Ingredients
1 large tin of wild pink salmon
2-3 tablespoons Butter
6-8 tomatoes
Fresh corriander
1 finely sliced fresh green chilli
1-ish tablespoon of Chilli powder (it’s not a lot really but you can add less)
Salt

I know what you’re thinking ‘No cayenne or paprika??!’ – No… it’s tempting but there’s a line and if I add them to this recipe I’d have crossed it. There are simply some foods you do not mess with.

Method
Melt the butter in a non-stick pan/small wok. Slice the tomatoes into wedges and add them to the butter with a slightly generous pinch of salt, chilli powder and the sliced green chilli. Cook on a medium-low gas until the tomatoes fall apart and are nicely cooked down. Add the tinned salmon (do NOT drain any juices or oil as that’s the omega-3 fish oils) and add the stalky parts of the fresh corriander – finely slice them first. Make sure the fish is broken down into flakes. simmer for about 20 minutes and add the rest of the corriander leaves, also finely chopped.

Add the tinned salmon with the oil when the tomatoe base has cooked down

Break down the salmon into small flakes and simmer for a few more minutes

Chop the corriander leaves and add tot he salmon once the liquid has reduced and simmer on a low heat, stirring occassionally

Remember my Totally paleo pizza base? It makes a good flatbread to have with this dish, one alternative to bread

Et voila! Serve your pink salmon with ‘slices’ of ‘flatbread’