Cooking Organic Food

No-one knows when human beings began to cook their food. There is a theory that early man found animals killed and cooked by bush fires, appealing, as well as easier to pin down, and decided to replicate the effect for himself. Cooking food makes it safer to eat by killing off harmful bacteria and neutralising poisonous elements.

For instance it is vital to boil beans, particularly kidney beans, hard for at least ten minutes to neutralise poisons. But it is a swings and roundabouts situation, because cooking food makes it softer and more digestible, and less likely to pass through the gut without being processed. When you cook grains with water, you burst the tough cellulose wall and allow the soft starch inside to expand and soften. But boiling vegetables and then discarding the cooking water removes much of the nutrient value. Steaming vegetables is a preferable method, as it retains nutrients. The water underneath can be used in soups.

 Cooking vegetables in the minimum of water, and then pureeing them without discarding it maximises nutrition. And finely grating vegetables makes them easier to digest, has all the benefits of juicing without the effort, and retains the fibre. Roasting vegetables with olive oil until softened, or stir frying rapidly in a little cold-pressed sunflower oil, are both healthy choices.

Eat plenty of crunchy raw green leaves as salad, dressed with lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic if you like it. As well as vitamins C and B-complex, plus iron and potassium, tomatoes contain carotene which converts in the body to Vitamin A and the star of the show, lycopene, a plant (phyto) chemical that makes them red . Lycopene is easier to absorb from cooked tomatoes, as cell walls are broken down releasing it. There is five times more lycopene in tomato sauce than tomato salad. It is a potent antioxidant thought to neutralize harmful substances in the body called free radicals. These molecules, the result of normal cell metabolism as well as other causes, have been implicated in cancer and cardiovascular disease. Recent research involving thousands of men suggested that those gorging on tomatoes and getting the most lycopene had about half the risk of heart attack as men who eschewed the tomato. Ten helpings of tomato a week ward off prostate cancer too. Lycopene seems to be effective in reducing the risk of other cancers, such as colon, rectal and breast.

Other pink produce such as watermelon and pink grapefruit contain some lycopene, but nothing like as much. Like all fresh food, the range of nutrients tomatoes contain is complex and interacts in unknown ways. It is no good just isolating lycopene and taking it as a supplement, the best place to get your goodness is by going back to basics and consuming the source, in combination with plenty of different kinds of fruits and vegetables.

Key Organic Vegetable Recipes

A key component of good nutrition, which cannot be emphasised enough, is the need to enjoy what you eat before you can benefit from it. Below is a selection of recipes that combine nutrient preserving cooking techniques, with high fibre ingredients, plenty of vitamins, essential fatty acids, minerals etc.

It is up to you how much fat you use in each recipe. They are all delicious, and should give you the idea that devoting 60% of your diet to vegetables, fruit, pulses and grains is no kind of hardship at all. It was carrots that revealed to me the true difference between organic and conventional produce, it is not always so obvious with other fruit and vegetables. Organic carrots are an almost fluorescent orange, they smell strong and sweet and the juice stains your hands. Conventional carrots, grown in vast chemically-fertilised monocultures, sprayed with pesticides to deter the carrot fly, which then persist in the vegetable, are pale and flavourless in comparison.

Along with an explosion of art and culture in the West, the Renaissance also brought us delicious carrots suitable for the table. Before that, carrots were coarse yellow roots with woody middles  usually fed to animals. Try not to peel organic carrots, the vitamins (particularly A) being concentrated just under the skin; you can scrub or scrape them lightly if you must.

Organic carrots are particularly rewarding when eaten raw. Grate them, and season with lemon juice, a little onion, salt and pepper. You can add a handful of raisins, grated onion, or in the Gujerati manner, a spoonful of black mustard seeds which you have fried briefly until fragrant in  sunflower oil.

Raw cauliflower also makes a refreshing change. Break it into small florets, and then dress with vinaigrette and dust with chopped parsley.

Beetroot too is very rewarding peeled, grated, and dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette to which you have added some grated onion.

To create an organic hors d’oeuvre on a large platter, arrange the above, add celery heart finely sliced, some steamed leeks (they can be a bit overwhelming raw) dressed while hot with vinaigrette, some sliced mushrooms marinated in lemon vinaigrette flavoured with a little tomato paste and finely chopped onion and some hard boiled eggs. Serve with good organic wholemeal or sour dough bread.

Roasted Carrots (or other roots)

If it is mid-winter, and your roots are stored in their protective coating of earth, they might need peeling as thinly as possible, and are very good roasted. Scrape and trim carrots, and cut into sticks. Put the carrots or other roots such as parsnips, potatoes, celeriac, beetroot into a roasting tin all cut into the same size pieces. Sprinkle with olive oil, and toss to cover. Sprinkle with salt and a little vegetable or other stock and a good squeeze of lemon (orange is good with carrots too). Roast at 200C/Gas 6 until the veg has begun to colour, stirring them around from time to time. The liquid should cook off.

Whole hulled millet with carrots and onion

Sometimes you can get very bored with the conventional grains of the West. So here is an easy introduction to millet, an African staple, and a very ancient food. This recipe makes an excellent hot dish to serve with salad and cheese. Millet must be roasted before cooking, and this is how you do it. Measure your millet in a glass measuring jug to the 12 fl oz level (about 9 oz or 255 g). Heat a cast iron frying pan over a medium flame. Put in the millet and stir to toast. It is done when it smells roasted and some of the seeds turn light brown. Some might even burst open like popcorn. Take off the heat. In a heavy casserole pot melt 3 tbspns butter or oil. Add a couple of large carrots peeled if necessary and julienne (into matchsticks), plus a finely chopped onion, a stick of cinnamon and 5 cloves. Cook for 5 mins, until the onion has browned at the edges. Add your pre-roasted millet, pinch of salt and 22 fl oz or 6 dl water or stock. Bring to the boil. Put the lid on and turn heat low for 30 mins. Then, take the lid off and pour in 2 fl oz (1/2dl) boiling water stirring quickly with a fork. Cover again and cook for another 10 mins. Turn the heat off and let the pot sit, covered and undisturbed for another 15 mins. Remove spices before serving.

Communist Coleslaw

Finely slice red cabbage. Grate a couple of carrots (no need to peel), grate onion to taste. Chop a sprig or two of parsley finely. Add a handful of sultanas if liked. Mix together and dress with half mayonnaise and half low fat plain yoghurt, seasoned to taste with a pinch of cayenne.

Carrot and Cumin Soup

Roughly chop your scrubbed but not peeled carrots. Peel and chop two onions. Cook both gently in butter with garlic, saffron, cumin and salt to taste, until soft and aromatic. Add a glass of white wine and stock to cover, and bring to the boil, cook until all is soft and liquidise. This can be made in advance and reheated. You can serve bits of roasted tomato floating on top, or garlic sippets (the old English word for croutons). Rub some slices of bread with garlic, cut bread into cubes, spread on a baking sheet and sprinkle with a few drops of olive oil and bake. To my taste, doing it like this is more delicious because you don’t get the sensation of the inside of a crouton delivering a great deal of oil when you bite it.

Organic Vegetable Stock

There is nothing like making a good batch of this useful stock, reducing it, and freezing it in old ice cream tubs to make you feel virtuous. In a large pot, put any vegetable trimmings, slightly squashy tomatoes from the bottom of the fridge, a couple of sliced carrots, a couple onions, 3 or 4 cloves, an organic orange cut in half and roughly squeezed (peel and all), mushroom stalks and peels (or a couple of mushrooms if you can spare them), outer celery stalks, parsley stalks, thyme sprig and bay leaf. Cover with water. Bring all to the boil and skim off any scum. Simmer for one hour (not a precise art). Strain, taste for flavour. Reduce by boiling if you like. Cool. Freeze. Or use immediately in risotto, soups or sauces.

Vegetable Stew with Coconut

This can be made with any combination of root vegetables and winter squashes: ie pumpkins, sweet potato, turnip, carrots, swede, parsnip, potato etc. In a large saucepan, heat a little oil, add a chopped onion, and cook gently until soft. Add cubed vegetables and coat them in the oil and onion. Add herbs (marjoram, a touch of rosemary, thyme, coriander etc), plus a pinch of ginger and one of cinnamon, plus seasoning to taste. Cover with vegetable stock, and simmer until tender. Add creamed coconut to taste, and check the seasoning. It can be good to sharpen it with a drop of lemon juice, and a dusting of cayenne. Serve chopped fresh coriander or parsley, and with brown rice.

Minestrone

This is the perfect spring soup. Simply bring a pan of well flavoured vegetable stock to the boil. Use a wide variety of vegetables, clean and prepare them, cubing any that this will suit. ie, carrots, celery, courgettes, cauliflower, potatoes, broad beans, beetroot, garlic, leeks, spinach. Add these to the boiling stock, with a drained can of organic borlotti beans (or beans you have soaked overnight and cooked until soft). Add a couple of skinned and sliced tomatoes. Cook until everything is tender for about ½ hour. Taste before seasoning. A squeeze of lemon juice is good, plus torn basil leaves. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan.

Omi Houriya

Eat this carrot salad with hot bread. Steam scraped and trimmed carrots until soft. Whizz them up in a food processor or mash with a fork. Stir in olive oil, red wine vinegar, 2 crushed garlic cloves, big pinch paprika and another of chilli, 2 tsps ground cumin, salt and pepper. Leave to mellow for an hour or two. Serve with a little more olive oil on top, and scattered with black olives. Fasulya Pilakisi In Turkey everyone eats this delicious staple bean dish all the time. Soak cannelini or other white beans overnight. Bring to the boil in fresh water, and boil hard for at least 10 minutes. Then simmer until soft (about 1 hr). When really tender but not falling apart, drain and set aside. Cook an onion in a little olive oil with garlic and brown slightly. Add chopped celery, carrots, tomatoes, plus 2 tsp sugar and salt to taste. Stir in the drained beans and cook covered for about 1 hour. Check seasoning. Serve lukewarm with a dribble of raw olive oil and plenty of chopped parsley or coriander.

Casserole of Hot Bulgar Wheat or Barley or even Brown Rice

Peel and chop shallots. Wash and slice leeks and mushrooms. Scrub and slice carrots, swede, celeriac or other rooty things you have by you into smallish bits all the same size (this is a pretty adaptable dish). Saute the whole lot in a cast iron casserole dish with lots of garlic in olive oil until everything has turned golden. Add seasonings to taste (which could include a spice or two, such as whole cinnamon sticks, paprika and/or cayenne), then add about 1 lb (450 g) bulgur wheat or pearl barley and stir it with the veg for a few seconds to coat. Then add a combination of stock (vegetable or chicken), wine, and water up to about 1 pints (900ml), plus a handful of sultanas. Put the lid on and cook in the oven Gas 4/180C for 40 minutes. Toast some slivered almonds or pinenuts in the same oven until golden (watch them like a hawk). Check all liquid has been absorbed and the grains are soft (if not return to the oven for a bit) and fluff up with a fork. Sprinkle with nuts and chopped parsley

Black Bean Soup

Soak black beans overnight in cold water. Rinse and boil for 10 minutes, then drain. Heat olive oil in a heavy pan and fry chopped onion, carrots, garlic and a red de seeded chilli for about 10 mins. Extract seeds from 8 green cardamom pods, and crush them in a pestle and mortar. Add with 2 tsps ground cumin, bay leaves, 2 tsps cayenne and fry for a couple more minutes. Add beans, and cover with water or vegetable stock. Bring to the boil. Skim off scum. Add a glass or so of white wine or cider. Simmer for an hour or so, until the beans are soft. Meanwhile, peel (pour over boiling water to the count of 12) and dice tomatoes, and cucumber, and avocado if you have it plus a little finely chopped onion and coriander or chopped parsley. Dress with lemon juice and olive oil salt and pepper. Remove bay leaves. Reserve a cupful of cooked, drained beans and mix with the small salad above. Puree the rest until smooth. Thin with more vegetable stock if necessary. Taste and season. Serve with lemon wedges, tsps of sour cream or Greek yoghurt and the small salad for people to help themselves.

Tarator

This is a nut sauce used to dress vegetables much as aioli or garlic mayonnaise is in France. Steam a selection of vegetables (fennel, cauliflower, beans, potatoes, carrots etc). Place all the vegetables on a platter and pour over the sauce just before serving. To make the sauce: in a food processor blend 4oz (125g) hazelnuts, 2 garlic cloves, 4 tblspns olive oil, 3 tblspns red wine vinegar or lemon juice, ¼ pt (150ml) natural yoghurt and a pinch of chilli powder.

Walnut and Garlic Sauce for Crudites

Cut up a selection of chilled, raw vegetables such as carrots, celery, sweet pepper, fennel and chicory, and serve with this sauce from Toulouse as quick supper when it's to hot to think about cooking. Cover 3 oz (85g) fresh shelled walnuts with boiling water, drain, rinse with cold water and dry on kitchen paper. You can peel them, but it might drive you mad, and if they are not old, they shouldn't be bitter anyway. Chop nuts with 2 or 3 cloves of garlic in the food processor with 3 - 5 fl oz (85 -150ml) good olive oil and 2 - 4 tblspns hot water. Don't let the puree get too smooth - I find using the pulse button gives me more control. Season to taste with salt and a dash of sherry vinegar or lemon juice. Stir in a little walnut oil if you like. Let it sit for an hour or so to allow flavours to blend. Overnight in the fridge would be good - but let it come up to room temperature before serving. This is also good served sparingly with pasta, and dusted with plenty of chopped parsley.

Green Lentils with Vegetables

Soak green lentils over night in cold water, and then drain. Place in a pan with a bay leaf, cover with fresh water and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer until soft. Remove the bay leaf. Heat olive oil in another saucepan and cook in it chopped garlic, sliced onion, leek and celery, or any other vegetables you have about you, like fennel, carrots, mushrooms etc until soft. Add drained lentils with a pinch of ground cloves and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 15 minutes to blend the flavours. If you like, puree the whole lot. For a less monastic dish, stir in a little butter and/or cream at the last minute for flavour. Serve at once.

Please Don’t Despise Lentil Soup

Even though I have made this for years, I am still astonished by how such simple ingredients make such a delicious and beautifully textured soup. When we have this at home, we always repeat the line from an ancient etiquette book, which makes us all laugh feebly: ‘Do not crumble your bread or roll in the soup’. This soup is served with buttered brown bread triangles, which the children are encouraged to dip. In a pan soften an onion in a little olive oil until slightly browned around the edges. Scrub and cut up a couple of carrots and add them, plus some chopped celery heart and leaves, a chopped, washed leek; even a parsnip for a slightly sweeter taste. Pour in a few handfuls of ordinary orange lentils and stir around. Then pour over boiling water or stock. Reduce to simmer and put on the lid. Cook over a low heat or in the oven (AGA bottom oven is good) until the lentils have formed a voluptuous puree. Whizz up in a blender or food processor. Season to taste and thin if necessary with more water or stock. Serve with dollops of yoghurt to cool it slightly for young mouths, and snipped chives to make it pretty for grown-ups.

Grilled Summer Vegetables

Make a marinade with olive oil, two crushed garlic cloves, thyme leaves and basil chopped. Slice courgettes lengthways, an aubergine into rounds, red or green pepper in half lengthways with the white bits and seeds removed, tomatoes deseeded and cut in half lengthways. Put the prepared veg in the marinade and stir so they are coated in olive oil. Cover with cling film and marinade overnight. Heat the grill and group the vegetables on the grill tray which you have lined with foil. Cook on both sides, turning once until soft and fragrant. Lift out of the grill pan, and arrange on a dish. Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Serve at room temperature.

Sandwich fillings: Roast vegetables with green garlic sauce Cube aubergine, courgette, pepper and onion. Peel a head of garlic. Pour a little olive oil over the bottom of a roasting pan, and heat in the oven at Gas 4/180C. Add vegetables above, plus cut up or cherry tomatoes, and toss in oil to coat. Season, and roast until soft, fragrant and slightly charred. Break a couple of eggs into a food processor. Add two or three cloves of garlic, fresh deseeded chilli to taste, salt, pepper, mustard and a tsp of runny honey. Whizz up until light yellow. Begin to pour in slowly olive oil and/or sunflower oil until you have a rich, thick and glossy sauce (very Ascot Royal Enclosure!). Taste for seasoning and leave to blend flavours in the fridge overnight.

When you come to make the sandwiches, choose a vigorous bread with substance such as rye bread or wholewheat sourdough, or pain de campagne. Spread each side with a thin layer of the sauce, and add a mound of the vegetables. Press together firmly and wrap in silver paper.

Orange and Olive Salad

Peel oranges, making sure all the pith is removed. Slice them across into rounds and divide between small plates. Slice an onion very thinly and scatter on top. Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and a little finely chopped fresh chilli if you like. Cut best black olives in oil off their stones, and scatter the pieces over the salad. Dress with a little good olive oil, and lemon juice to taste.

Organic Fruit Salad

It is always worth making a big bowl of fruit salad and keeping it in the fridge for a day or two. It gives everyone a lift. Grate off the zest of a lemon and put it in a bowl with the juice. Stir in a tblspn of honey, and a little grated fresh ginger if you like it. Then cut up as much fruit as you like that is in season. It is an excellent way to stretch a luxurious and expensive fruit like organic strawberries. Judge for yourself which fruits need peeling, and remember kiwi fruit contains more Vitamin C than almost any other fruit.

Apples, pears, oranges, strawberries, raspberries, bananas, peaches, nectarines, and on and on. It really doesn’t need cream!

Whole Lemon Lemonade

Lemons arrived here in the Middle Ages, oranges a little later in the 15th century. The entranced people used them first as ornamentals or a spice fruit. There is more Vitamin C in the pith and peel than in the flesh, so take advantage of the lack of pesticides and silicone wax by making fresh lemonade. Roughly chop and remove the pips from your lemons. Put them, flesh, pith, peel and all into a blender or Magimix, add a little water and whizz to a pulp. Drain this through a fine, non-metal sieve or cloth. Sweeten with organic sugar, honey or maple syrup and dilute to taste with still or fizzy water.