Minced Pork with Green Beans

Back on my health kick, but have decided that it will be healthy dieting rather than extreme dieting a la VLC diet (Hussyband wont let me do it again anyway - I keep getting cold I cant shake, and bruises take FOREVER to heal when you are consuming less than 600 calories a day!)

Considering I love Asian flavors  and never want anything sweet after I have had them, I am aiming at more of an asian-style diet. Most of the time anyway! This little gem is from 'Everyday Harumi - Simple Japanese Food for Family and Friends'  by Harumi Kurihara (£14.00 on Amazon.co.uk).

500g green beans, sliced on the diagonal into 4cm piecces
40g leek, white part only
15g ginger, freshly grated
3 large garlic cloves, minced
Vegetable oil (I used a vegetable oil spray and just gave a few spritzes)
400g pork, lean minced
30-45ml soy sauce (I used salt reduced)
Chilies, dried or freshly sliced, to taste
Sesame oil, just a drizzle to taste

1. Blanch the beans in boiling water, drain and set aside.
2. Stirfry the leek, ginger and garlic in a wok or frypan over high heat with a few spritzes of vegetable oil (or a quick splash). Cook stirring for about a minute then add the pork stirring to break the meat up.
3. Add the green beans, soy and chilies to taste and continue to stirfry until the beans are heated through. 
4. Add a little sesame oil to taste, and serve with rice and a bowl.

This recipe serves 4 people.

We also had a bowl of miso with this, and I didn't have any rice. The calorie content per serve for this is: Calories: 226, Carbs: 12, Fat: 10, Protein: 23 and Calcium: 5. Nutritional info was calculated using www.myfitnesspal.com.

Hussyband hoovers this up, and I like the bite I get without the fat content. Hint: eating it with chopsticks makes it feel like you are having a lot more to eat than using a fork!

Seared Tuna with Wasabi Mash and Salsa Verde

This is a super easy recipe, inspired by a dish I had at Asia de Cuba in London earlier this week with my gorgeous cousin LeeLee and the Hussyband.

Ingredients:

Tuna: Tuna steak and freshly cracked black pepper

Mash: Maris Piper Tatties (or whatever tatties you like to mash), Butter, Milk and Wasabi Powder

Salsa Verde

2-3 cloves of garlic (peeled and roughly chopped)

1 small handful of capers (roughly chopped)

1 small handful of gherkins pickled in sweet vinegar (roughly chopped)

6 anchovy fillets

2 large handfuls of flat-leaf parsley (leaved picked off - you dont want the stems!)

1 bunch of fresh basil (leaved picked off - see above)

1 handful of fresh mint (leaved picked off - see above)

1.5 tablespoons Dijon mustard

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

About 6 good glugs of really good extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

(1) Boil and mash your tatties as your normally would, then gradually add the wasabi powder until you get the strength that you like. For 5 large tatties you would be looking at about 1 tablespoon of powder - this will feed about 4 people.

(2) Once the tatties are going, put all the salsa ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until you get a nice fine slightly runny sauce, add extra olive oil if needed.

(3) Once the salsa is made and resting, season the tuna steaks liberally with the pepper and sear in a hot pan or bbq that has been very lightly oiled - about 45seconds each side for medium rare depending on thickness.

To plate, put a dollop of the mash in the centre of a warmed plate, top with the tuna steak and drizzle the edges of the plate with the salsa verde, and add a dollop to the top of the steak. For a bit of textural crunch, sprinkle a few wasabi peas around and you will be in a very happy place!

Nobu - A Birthdaversary Extravaganza

So last month I hit the big 4-0, forty, or XL. I find the roman numeral for 40 the funniest as the past few months I have been on a diet that is making me less XL every week! 18kgs down in 3 months, although to be honest, October while I still had a loss, it was only a small loss of 3 kgs as I had lots of fun with people I love eating and drinking things I have missed.

One thing about this diet, is when I do treat myself, I dont want junk food (most of the time) I crave  clean simple flavours and the best produce I can get my hands on.

Since we got married on my birthday, we were also celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary. Traditionally, the 4th anniversary is celebrated with fruit and flowers - thinking outside the box, I gave Hussyband a box of 24 mixed bitters (beers), as hops are a fruit and therefore meet the criteria for the year.

My actual birthday started brunch in Blackheath with 4 gorgeous women and a sexy little man, Ruth (and Pickle), Caroline (and Livsie), and Nicole and I took over a corner of cafe and scoffed eggs royale, litres of tea, and a slice of birthday brownie to share between 5 (Ethan isnt allowed any yet!)

Later that day I met up with the Hussyband for cocktails on the top floor of the Park Lane Hilton for sunset cocktails overlooking the city that is now our home, because finally I think of London as home (for now). The views from the cocktail bar are lovely and as the sky turned from pale blue to dusky pink we sipped our drinks and reminisced the last 4 years and how far we have traveled.

Walking in to Nobu we mounted the stairs and were immediately seated at a window overlooking the fairy lights outside. The chef came out and when asked what he recommended for the evening asked if we would let him make the choices, so of course we said yes and I got a night without making choices while we dined omakase (chef's choice).

All we had to do was pick our drinks, and being the lushes that we are we went for cold crisp bottles of Kirin Iciban and Ongakashu Sake (10 years old, semi-dry, smooth and delicate and apparently aged to the sound of soothing music!) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, dinner started to arrive!

Salmon Tartar with Caviar, this has a lovely wasabi "soup" and was zingy, fresh and oh so tasty.

Scallop and Ponzu plate

Langoustine with Red Chilli Shiso Salsa - the dipping sauce in the bottom was so good I drank the dregs!

Beef Tenderloin Tataki Onion Ponzu and Garlic Chips - tender lush beef was offset beautifully by the crisp garlic chips

Scallop, Shitake Mushroom and Truffle Sauce - this course was torture for me. Hussyband had gone to the loo and it sat in front of me for 4-5mins until he came back, surrounding me in the deep woody scent of the forest floor.

Black Cod with Miso - a signature dish that no many how many times I have eaten a version of around the world they all pale in comparison. It was dense but light, beautifully crusted on the outside but rare on the inside....a happy place.

Pumpkin Miso Soup - warm, smokey and full of goodness.

Mixed Sushi Plate - we groaned when we saw this, perfect sushi, but oh so full!

Suntory Whiskey Ice Cappucino - smooth and crunchy and boozey all in one little cup!

Chocolate Spring Rolls - these little fellas were not on the menu, but we heard the table next to us request them and of course I had to jump on the bandwagon! Dark chocolate oozing as you crunch through the spring roll, served with a raspberry and passion fruit dipping sauce.

Perfect end to a perfect dinner! OPAI KAMPAI!

We wandered over to Soho for a few final drinks, and as we stumbled towards the station all I could think about was how very lucky I am.

Finding Nemo: Sushi-Hiro

We started the afternoon snuggled into Jonos, an Irish hole-in-the-wall at Ealing Common watching the Irish V French 6 Nations Rugby...suffice to say, we wont discuss the result. After a few beers and ciders with HalfTwinHelen and BeauBrett, we wandered down the block to what Time Out London has nominated as one of the Top 10 sushi bars in London: Sushi-Hiro.

The restaurant is tiny, with just five tables and ten seats at the sushi bar, and is run by a lovelly bunch of Japanese expats (and 1 local born sushi chef!) It is cash only, and apparently normally quite quiet....normally obviously is when we 4 are not around!

The opening hours are distinctly odd, with no orders taken after 1.30pm or 9pm. (We once watched, astounded, as the Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal was refused service at 1.32pm.)

They only serve beer, sake and umeshu (which was plenty fine by us).

We settled into our table, and the urging of HTH and BB I ordered for all of us. Edamame, clam miso (oh god that was good) a round of beers and a flask of hot sake started us off. I also ordered a glass of cold sake - as HTH and BB had never tried it before, but have now been won over to the cause.

Next up was a chefs selection of 4 types of sashimi - mackerel, prawn, otoro-tuna and sea bream. They were all stunning, melt in your mouth goodness. The tuna was just fatty enough that it dissolved in your mouth, whilst the sea bream not only tasted amazing, but was present in a "rose" style. I wasn't overly fussed with the prawn, as coming from Oz...well those little babies we had would have been used as bait. But they still tasted good!

After wading through the sea of happiness that the sashimi had us in, our next round arrived in the form of the Superior Nigiri. Also a side erving of ume-boshi and shiso mini-rolls and crab mini-rolls.

Everything was perfectly prepared, of the utmost freshness and quality. The service was efficient with fresh warm sake coming from glance to the wait-staff, and the chefs were happy to explain what some of the unidentifiable victuals on offer were.

The normally staid chefs were reduced to giggles when I mentioned pie-zuri to them, which leaves me to hope that we will be welcome back there again!

Sushi Hiro

Uxbridge Road, Ealing, W5 3LD

(Opposite Ealing Common Tube)