Recipe: Charred squid with a new take on Greek salad

Charred squid with greek salad

Well how about that then? The birthplace of moussaka and mythology has managed to avoid its own ‘Grexit’ (what a horrid term?) and remains, for now, part of the Eurozone. But while I’m hardly an expert in the intricacies of the relationship between the IMF, Brussels, Angela Merkel and our Hellenic friends, I feel like this dish is a suitable way of celebrating the agreement, even if it may be a tad premature to pop the corks just yet.
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Recipe: Harissa chicken with soft herbs and shaved raw asparagus salad

Harissa chicken with soft herb and shaved asparagus salad

OK, I get it. Salads can be dead boring. But this bright and satisfying dish certainly isn’t any ordinary chicken salad. Weirdly I’m really into finely slicing and shaving raw vegetables at the moment – the crunch of the asparagus and sugar snaps here is a great contrast to the supple chicken, but you could also add something like fennel if you wanted extra freshness. Similarly, if chicken’s not your thing, prawns or a griddled fish fillet will work equally well with the harissa, a spicy North African chilli paste.

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Recipe: Garam masala cod with charred green vegetables, watercress and a killer curry sauce

Garam masala cod with charred green vegetables, watercress and a killer curry sauce

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll have seen I dabble in a bit of cooking. A few brave souls have asked me for recipes to some of the dishes I rustle up so here’s the first. Enjoy.

This is one of those cracking low fat, low carb recipes for when you’ve got tickling for a takeaway but want something a little healthier. OK, so it won’t quite hit the same spot as a ghee-laden, mega-madras complete with pillowy naans bigger than your face, but it also won’t leave you groaning on the sofa, calculating how many burpees it’ll take to burn that bad-boy off.

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My problem with carbs: thoughts, fitness, food and my figure

The perfectly hellish combination of terrible frozen pizza and poor quality burger

I had a burger the other night. It was from kinda upmarket fast-food mini-chain Five Guys in Islington. And it was OK. Not good but definitely not bad. The meat was fine enough, the condiments unremarkable but it was the bun that really bugged me. It was the most average sesame seed bun ever to be wrapped around a (pseudo-) snazzy burger. You know, like those ones that come by the dozen in huge plastic bags. And because it wasn’t fantastic I had immediate burger shame, a feeling that has stayed with me for most of the weekend.

Why? As I alluded to in my rant about the gym and the creatures therein, I have been generally off beige carbs of all kinds since June last year. I bloat significantly on anything pale and bulky and have a self-diagnosed wheat intolerance (yeah, I’m that guy) so I embarked on banishing all things beige from my life, as well as making the novel move of actually attending the gym I was paying for every month.

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