Three Healthy Recipes from Eat Well With Nell

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

Sweet potato is a great source of slow release energy. If you peel the sweet potato you don’t get the flecks of skin and you’ll have a more sophisticated looking soup, but the skin contains lots of fibre and there is vitamin C lurking just under it. Fresh ginger gives this soup a pleasant kick and the coconut adds a sumptuous richness.
Coconut milk is not the liquid found inside a coconut, but is made from grated coconut meat steeped in hot water – the flesh is then squeezed and the resulting white liquid is coconut milk. Coconut milk may also speed up your metabolism.

Serves 4–6

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 thumb fresh ginger, chopped
• 3 sweet potatoes (scrubbed if unpeeled), roughly chopped
• 500ml vegetable stock, made with non-additive cubes such as Kallo organic or - Marigold Swiss Bouillon powder
• 400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 400ml can coconut milk

Method

Heat the oil and cook the onions till soft, then add the garlic and ginger and cook for a few minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and stir to coat with the onion mixture. Now pour in the stock, cover with a lid and simmer till the potatoes are soft. Stir in the chickpeas and coconut milk then blitz the soup in a liquidiser. Reheat if necessary.

Memory-Boosting Poached Fish in Lime and Ginger Sauce

While I was working on this chapter of the book I was asked to review some stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was delighted, till it struck me that I daren’t risk writing notes during shows for fear of the comedian mercilessly picking on me. I decided to rely on memory. So for my pre-show supper I made this poached fish dish to sharpen up my brain cells.
The benefit we derive from food is often as much psychological as it is physical: I knew I had done something – eaten – to improve my memory, therefore I felt confident it would not fail me. As an added bonus all the protein, essential fats and complex carbohydrates in this dish gave me the required stamina for a night out at the Fringe.
This is a lovely, simple way to cook oily fish and enjoy the contrasting flavours and textures of mackerel and salmon plus, of course, all their brain-boosting eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).
This dish can also be eaten cold.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 5 green spring onions, chopped
• large knob of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 4 tablespoons soft brown sugar
• juice of 1 lime
• 500ml cold water
• 125g salmon fillet
• 125g mackerel fillet

Method

Put all the ingredients, except the fish, in a large, shallow pan and bring slowly to a gentle simmer. Then add fish and poach till just cooked (about 7 minutes). Lift out the fish using a slotted spoon, cover with foil and keep warm. Bring the poaching broth to the boil and reduce to a dark syrup, then strain.
Serve the fish with the strained syrup spooned over.

Whisky Mac Cheesecake

On a cold, wet day I love to drink a Whisky Mac – whisky with a shot of green ginger wine. I’ve celebrated several very happy Burns Nights and Hogmanays in Hong Kong and Scotland with this Whisky Mac-inspired pud.
The spice of the ginger and the alcohol of the whisky cut through the almost cloying creaminess of the mascarpone in this recipe.

Serves 8

Ingredients

Cheesecake Base

• 240g ginger biscuits
• 120g unsalted butter

Whisky Mac Filling

• 400g full fat cream cheese
• 250g mascarpone
• 180g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 6 pieces of stem ginger plus syrup
• 4 tablespoons whisky (or to taste)

Method

Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/Gas 2.
Pulverise the biscuits – the best way is in a food processor, or put them in a tough plastic bag and smash with a rolling pin. Melt the butter, add the biscuits to the butter and mix, then press into a greased, loose bottom 20cm cake tin. I find it too hard to go up the edges, so covering the base is fine.
To make the filling, put all the ingredients up to and including the eggs into a food processor and whizz. Then quickly pulse the pieces of stem ginger. Add in about 2 tablespoons of ginger syrup and 4 tablespoons of whisky, mix through, taste and add more if necessary.
Pour onto the prepared base and bake in the centre of the oven for 30–40 minutes till just set. You can leave the cheesecake in oven overnight to cool down gradually.