Continuing with our series on healthy eating, Weekender takes a look at two delicious and nutritionally packed dishes that are so tasty you will want to incorporate them into your weekly menu.
Icoa Fine Foods produces some of Cayman’s most delectable desserts, cakes, pastries, breads and chocolates, but they also have some fantastic healthy dishes on their café menu that will also set your taste buds alight just as much as the tempting desserts.
Chef Jurgen Wevers is originally from Holland, and he has been creating Icoa’s popular cuisine since the café and patisserie first opened. In particular, Chef Jurgen says his food is influenced by the work of David Chang, a young Korean chef who is founder of the Momofuku restaurant group and currently taking New York’s culinary scene by storm. Chef David is making Korean food mainstream by taking traditional dishes and preparing them using modern and trendy food concepts.
Chef Jurgen has created two modern and fresh dishes that zing with Asian flavor but won’t pile on the inches. The first is miso salmon filet, served with Japanese eggplant and burnt miso. Studies have shown that the Asian diet can be one of the healthiest in the world, as reflected by the low occurrence of cancers among Asian countries relative to populations in the Western world. Two factors that appear to have contributed to the healthy nature of the Asian diet are the high occurrence of oily fish, as well as a high consumption of fermented soy products, such as soy sauce and miso. (Fermented soy is quite different from unfermented soy found in soy milk.) This first recipe ticks the box on both counts.
Note: You need to begin this recipe a few days ahead of actually serving the dish.
Miso salmon filet
Ingredients: (serves two people)
Two salmon fillets
For the marinade:
5 oz mirin
16 oz gram white miso
8 oz sugar
3.5 oz sake
Begin by placing all the marinade ingredients into a sauce pan and then boiling all ingredients together. Let them cool down. When cooled, use the mixture to marinate the salmon. Leave it to marinate in the refrigerator for two days. When you are ready to eat the salmon, take it out of the marinade and bake in the oven at 350F until your preferred temperature is reached.
Ingredients:
For the burnt miso sauce:
11 oz white miso (a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting rice, barley, and soybeans with salt and the fungus kojikin)
7 oz mirin (Japanese rice wine)
7 oz brown sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
6 oz soft butter
Begin by boiling the miso, mirin, brown sugar and rice vinegar together in a small sauce pan. When the mixture comes to a boil, take it off the heat and whisk in the soft butter until the butter is emulsified.
Ingredients
For the Japanese eggplant:
6 Japanese (small) eggplant, cut into small cubes and sprinkled with salt and left to stand for 30 minutes to allow the bitter juices to be released
Splash of oil
For the fish sauce dressing:
4.5 oz fish sauce
2.5 oz gram yuzu juice (Japanese lemon)
2 oz sugar
2 oz water
1 oz rice vinegar
One garlic clove, crushed
Splash sriracha sauce to taste
Pinch Xantham Gum
0.5 gram soy sauce
To make the fish sauce dressing, simply mix all the ingredients together.
To finish:
2 tablespoons Gomaiso (a mix of toasted sesame seeds, sea salt, seaweed powder otherwise known as nori)
1 tablespoon Japanese chili flakes
4 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finally chopped
4 tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped
Seasoning: salt and Szechuan pepper
Garnish: a few thinly sliced radishes and baby basil leaves
Sauté the Japanese eggplant in a pan with a splash of oil until cooked. Add the fish sauce dressing, the gomaiso, chili flakes, cilantro and mint and mix it all together. Season with salt and Szechuan pepper to taste.
Now your dish is ready to be plated. Drizzle your plate with the burnt miso sauce, then lay your salmon on top. Pile the eggplant up high onto the salmon and spoon over some of the fish sauce dressing. Garnish with a sprinkling of finely sliced radishes and baby basil leaves attractively arranged over the salmon. A delicious and healthy supper dish that is bursting with Asian flavor.
The second Asian-inspired dish that chef Jurgen is sharing with Weekender readers is a fresh and zingy Thai mango, papaya and shrimp salad, served with a cilantro, basil, mint peanut dressing. This recipe is simplicity itself as most of the time is taken in the preparation of the fruit.
Thai mango, papaya and shrimp salad
Ingredients: (serves one)
For the peanut dressing recipe:
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
¼ tablespoon sesame oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons peanut butter
2 tablespoons sriracha sauce
5.5 ounces oil
Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl.
For the salad:
1 shredded green papaya
1 shredded mango
5 poached shrimps cut in half
8 basil leaves
8 mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon peanut dressing (see above)
1 tablespoon jalapeno pepper finely sliced (without seeds)
Seasoning: salt and Szechuan pepper
Place all the ingredients, apart from the peanut dressing, into a serving bowl; gently drizzle the salad dressing over the ingredients and toss the salad gently to cover. Then simply add salt and Szechuan pepper to taste. It’s as easy as that! A wonderful healthy bowl of goodness with a delicious Thai flavor that will really get your taste buds going!
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