Dark Chocolate Cheesecakes

This is about as decadent as a dessert can get. It came onto a catering menu at work for a director’s dining room in the city so had to be powerful, no-nonsense and to the point – rather like its customers!! To be honest, I have always thought putting chocolate into a cheesecake was a bad idea, turning something seemingly light into a denser beast. Having said that, by using dark chocolate and added cocoa powder, the bitterness only cuts through the richness. I am just about converted. The berries on top are optional but I love the contrasting textures.

Individual Dark Chocolate Cheesecakes

Serves 6 (and easily doubled/tripled etc.)

• Crush 200g Digestive Biscuits and add 60g Butter, melted. Press into 6 metal ring moulds and chill.
• Melt 190g Dark Chocolate and cool slightly.
• Whip 150ml Cream. Beat together 150g Cream Cheese, 2tbsp sifted Cocoa Powder and 140g sifted Icing Sugar until just combined. Gently fold in the chocolate and then the cream.
• Divide the mixture between the moulds and chill until firm.
• To serve, run a hot knife inside the moulds and remove. Top with a mixture of berries and a sprig of lemon verbena 

Shaking up the salad: Tandoori chicken, spinach, mint and walnut

Yet another salad to add to your repertoire, this one is a slightly unusual take on the classic chicken and walnut combo. A sort of French/Indian mongrel, the iron-rich spinach and walnut goes very well with the spicy yoghurt-coated chicken, fresh mint and creamy avocado. A light cider vinegar and maple dressing brings the whole lot together and it is so delicious that you forget how virtuous it is!

Tandoori Chicken Salad with Spinach, Avocado, Toasted Walnuts and Mint

Serves 2

For the chicken:

Whizz up 3tbsp full-fat Greek Yoghurt with 2tbsp Tandoori Paste and season to taste. Place 1 whole Chicken Breast in a dish and spread the mix thickly over the top. Leave to marinate for a few hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 190C. Drizzle the chicken with oil and cook in the over for 25 minutes until the coating has blackened in places and the chicken has cooked all the way through. Leave to cool.

Dressing:

Mix together 1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1 Tbsp Cider Vinegar, 1 tbsp Maple Syrup, 1 tsp Wholegrain Mustard and season to taste.

To assemble:

Firstly put a handful of Baby Spinach Leaves on each plate. Top each with half the Chicken, sliced,  half an Avocado, sliced, and a handful of Toasted Walnuts, chopped. Julienne a few sprigs of Mint and sprinkle over the top. Dress and enjoy.

Cafe Salads

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned before but everyday at the catering kitchen myself and my co-chef come up with three salads or sides for our café buffet lunch menu.  The scope is enormous but we are often limited by factors such as; what we have in our fridge at the time (depending on events and seasons), cost-effectiveness (a salad bowl is £4), whether it will go well with the main of the day etc etc. However they mainly have to be creative, delicious and full of health.

Friday’s main was our very popular pulled pork, red pepper and orzo bake with a rosemary crumb. With this I did a simple spinach, parmesan and pine nut salad and two others which you see here. One a take on the classic Waldorf: Brown rice, grilled chicken,apple, celery, gorgonzola and toasted hazelnuts with a cider-vinegar dressing. The other, my obsession at the minute, cumin-roasted cauliflower and chickpeas with humous and sumac.

Roasted cauliflower is so delicious, especially when combined with spices and garlic. I blanch the florets plus the chopped stalk and leaves for 2 minutes, drain and the mix with lots of oil, cumin, turmeric, chopped garlic and sea salt. Put this into a hot hot oven for about 20 minutes, turning occasionally until the edges go slightly crispy and golden. I add in cooked chickpeas halfway through which also go wonderfully crispy. On a bed of oozy humus with lemony sumac and plenty of extra virgin olive oil, this combination is so good. 

Asian Broth with Crispy Sea Bass

This is so simple, packed with a punchy heat and flavour, and the perfect antidote to the rich food we'll all be gorging on over Christmas. I often make a spicy broth at the end of a long day in the kitchen as it feels incredibly cleansing, takes minutes to make and can be easily adapted according to what is lingering in the fridge. Tonight I splashed out (excuse the pun!) and picked up some sea bass to make a more substantial but super healthy supper.

Serves 2

For the basic Asian broth:

• Place a casserole dish on a low heat and melt 2 tbsp Coconut Oil. Throw in 1 Shallot, sliced, and gently cook until translucent. Next add in 1inch of sliced Ginger, 1 sliced Chilli (more or less depending how hot you like it), 1 bruised and chopped Lemongrass stalk and 1 large sliced Garlic Clove. Stir for a couple of minutes. Add in the chopped, bulb end of 4 Spring Onions, reserving the tops for later. 
• Pour in 1 lire of Chicken Stock and bring to a simmer. Add 2 Tbsp Soy Sauce, 2 Tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar, 1 Tbsp Fish Stock, 1/2 Lime, juiced, and 1 Tbsp Honey.

And endless additions...

Greens like Pak Choi, Edamame, Spinach or even Sliced Fennel, along with the Spring Onion tops.

Any type of noodle

Strips of Organic Chicken added at the end take minutes to cook.

Crispy Skin Sea Bass or Salmon: Season and cook, skin side down, in a very hot pan with 1 Tbsp Coconut Oil for roughly 4 minutes (until the flesh is almost cooked), pressing it into the pan to get the skin very crisp. Squeeze half a lime onto the fish and then flip over and cook for 1 minute more. 

Mostly eating: A poached egg on avocado toast...with marmite

This is so boring, I know, but a thing of beauty to me and my addiction. I never have much food at home but will always have at hand some nutty bread in the freezer, a box of free-range eggs (clarence court eggs have the goldest, richest yolk you can find outside of a farmyard) and some avocado - usually a quarter wrapped in foil in the fridge which my never ceases to weird-out my housemates! I add a, somewhat controversial, smear of marmite on my toast before the avocado. Trust me, if you love marmite, it is a heavenly combination. 

The Raw Brownie

These beauties are amazing. At this time of year I crave chocolate and can easily eat my way through a dark slab, convincing myself that the high cocoa content will ward off a cold when in fact I just end up feeling lethargic. Not willing to surrender my chocolate habit, a change of tack was needed i.e. raw cocoa or ‘cacao’. Cacao gives you the same chocolate hit but with all the nutrients which haven’t been stripped by the heat in the process of making chocolate. Of course, pure cacoa is bitter like cocoa but when combined with sticky dates and nuts in this recipe it tastes as good (if not better) than a baked brownie: nutty, fudgy and very rich.

My recipe is adapted from Sarah Britton’s fab blog mynewroots,org who explains the health benefits of cacao brilliantly.  I added cashew nuts, almond butter and a slice of avocado for added creaminess to mine, but also toasted the nuts with salt which probably goes against the laws of raw but you get that delicious salted caramel effect. I also served it with yoghurt and then cacao nibs as I found their bitterness was the perfect counteract for the intense sweetness of the brownie.

Makes 12 large squares

• In a food processor blitz 120g Cacao Powder with 200g Ground Almonds. Slowly add in 400g pitted Medjool Dates, 1 tbsp Almond Butter and 1/3 Avocado. The mix should make a course crumb which sticks together easily.
• In a frying pan toast 120g chopped mixed cashews and walnuts with 1 tbsp Coconut Oil and 1 tsp Sea Salt. Cool, and mix into the cacao mixture.
• Press into a rectangular dish lined with cling film. Refrigerate or place in the freezer which will make it easier to cut cleanly. Serve with cacao nibs, yoghurt or crème fraiche and a dusting of cacao powder.