Going grain-free in Asia

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Carpe Diem

Since my 50 Shades of Paleo article, I’ve had friends who are interested in trying out the diet ask me for meal ideas, in particular Asian paleo-friendly meals. Most of the paleo recipes I’ve seen out there tend to be western-style meals, although I have come across a few resources with Asian recipes as well.

It can be a little challenging to enjoy a typical Asian meal on a paleo diet, mainly because rice and noodles make up a large proportion of our staples in Asia. However, if you understand the underlying principles of a paleo diet, you can make simple adjustments to your meal that will allow you to “have your cake and eat it too”. So, to help you out, I’m going to outline a few substitutes you can use on a paleo diet to replace the grains in your meals.

How to break our deeply engrained rice culture

Grown in Asia for at least 10,000 years, rice has richly influenced the cultures and lives of billions of people. Over 90 percent of the world’s rice is produced and consumed in the Asia-Pacific Region. That means that almost all the meals we eat in Asia ask for some form of rice or its product. And since the paleo diet avoids the consumption of grain, rice is not on its recommended food list. What then?

Enters the cauliflower–a well-documented paleo-friendly substitute for rice. To use it as a rice substitute, you need to cut your raw cauliflower into pieces, then pulse it gradually in your food processor until it resembles rice grain. Once you have your cauliflower ‘grains”, you can make steamed “rice” to eat with your dishes or use it as a base for fried rice (here’s an easy receipe for fried rice on the Paleo Magazine).

The art of noodle making, paleo-style

It is widely believed that the noodles were first invented in China, slowly spreading to other parts of Asia like Japan and Korea because of travel and trade. After thousands of years of evolution, each country in Asia has developed their own recipes for noodles. But, as you know, most noodles are made from either wheat flour, rice flour, mung bean starch, big no nos while on the paleo diet. Does that mean that our noodle eating days are over?

Not quite because there are a number of substitutes for noodles on the paleo diet. This includes the use of vegetable noodles, which you can create using a spiralizer or a julienne peeler. Common vegetable noodles include zucchini, carrot, parsnip, turnip, sweet potatoe, squash, and broccoli. The list goes on depending on how creative you want to be with your vegetable selection.

Other options include this paleo-friendly pasta recipe which I found on the Paleo Cupboard. Instead of wheat flour, they use tapioca flour and almond meal as the base. I’ve found that it produces noodles that are very close to the original.

Alternatively, if you are familiar with how to make traditional Hakka Yam abacus seed, this is actually a paleo-friendly recipe which you can utilise for noodles. I’ve also used the same recipe with sweet potato instead of yam to create sweet potato noodles.

Kelp is also commonly used to make kelp noodles or you can also purchase kelp noodles online at iHerb. And, I’ve recently found a Korean sweet potato noodles at NTUC Fairprice, with the texture of glass noodles, which you can also use in your noodle dishes.

So as you can see, going grain-free in Asia isn’t really as hard as you think. You can still cook most of your usually Asian recipes by using rice or noodle substitutes that are grain-free and paleo-friendly. It doesn’t require a total revamp, just a little creative adjustment. So, why don’t you unleash a little creativity in your own kitchen and make your own grain-free meal today?

50 shades of Paleo

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Carpe Diem

Paleo

For those following the Paleo lifestyle, it can be a little frustrating trying to explain what it is to our friends and family. Sometimes, it almost feels like a deviant lifestyle pretty much the same way people view BDSM — alternately fascinated by it and yet without much understanding. So let me attempt to explain what this Paleo version of “50 shades” really is and how it is not on an alternate universe from what is considered “mainstream” food.

If you google “What is Paleo”, you’ll probably turn up a definition much like the above. So really, if you are on the Paleo diet, you eat fruits, vegetables, meat , fish…oh wait a minute…that sounds pretty much like what everyone else eats. It excludes dairy grain & processed food, which isn’t that much different as when someone says they don’t eat seafood because they have an allergy or they just don’t like to eat it. There, so now that I’ve clarified that we eat pretty much what is considered “mainstream” food, we can stop acting as if the cavemen diet came from Mars. For those who want a more detailed list of foods on the Paleo diet, there are a number of online resources like this one – What to eat on the Paleo diet.

But what is the rationale behind the caveman diet? Why exclude grains, dairy or processed food? The belief is that genetically, humans were not designed by nature to eat grains, dairy or processed food. Historically, as hunter-gathers, the main source of food was fruits, vegetable, meat, fish. Grains and dairy is a product of agriculture and farming, while processed food is a product of industrialization, all man-made inventions, rather than creations of nature. And it is believed that this reliance on grains, dairy & processed food has led to many of today’s health problems. The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To me, the key difference is the cutting of sugar and processed food from your diet. If you have read the articles detailing the adverse effects of sugar on health, versus the benefits of cutting sugar from your diet—lose weight, healthier heart, reduce risk of diabetics—it seems like a pretty good reason to do so. And processed food, where shall I even start? Read the labels and if you can’t recognize more than half the chemicals in there, should we be putting that in our bodies? In fact, even if you can recognize the chemicals, do we really want to put chemicals in our body?

To be realistic, I think different people follow the lifestyle with varying degrees of compliance. There are the purists who follow it to the T—grassfeed meat, sustainably caught seafood, raw organic produce—then there are the many other shades of grey in between, who follow the broad principles and adapt depending on the food sources available.

So, what does this all mean in a typical day? Here’s a peep at some of the paleo-friendly meals I’ve had. Seems pretty “mainstream” and just “plain vanilla” right?

Prosciutto Cauliflower Risotto

Bacon-wrapped Asparagus

Cauliflower Soup

Steamed Mussels

Chicken Zucchini Noodle Soup

Breakfast Frittata

Jerk Chicken & Cauliflower Mash

Breakfast-to-go

Prawn Curry

Beef Straganoff with Zucchini Pasta

Breakfast-to-go

Ceviche Salad

So the next time someone you know tells you that they are following the Paleo lifestyle, no need to look at them like they just told you that they practice bondage. All they said was “I prefer to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, sourced and grown as naturally as possible.” And for the adventurous, why not give it a try too? I promise you that it’s all pleasure, pain is optional and only if it is safe, sane and consensual.

If you’ll like to join our Paleo-friendly cooking classes or to include some Paleo-friendly treats for your next party, drop us an email at info@cookin-lab.com or message us on our Cook In:Lab Facebook page.

Keeping it simple

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Carpe Diem

I’m sure many of you have seen a number of food hacks, 2 or 3 or 4-ingredient recipes that have been circulating around the Internet. Personally, I love reading these as some of them are so amazingly creative. And really, if I can get the same taste in 2 steps rather than 10, why not? Oh, I know what some of you are thinking, good food needs time to develop flavour and kitchen artistry cannot be rushed or shortcut, so how can food hacks or 2-ingredient recipes be any good. Like most things, there is a time and place for everything. Good food does not always mean that you have to spend hours slaving in the kitchen labouring over 100 steps food preparation. Sometimes, the best things are the simplest. (Of course, it doesn’t mean substituting steps with highly processed ingredients like cake mix – what sacrilege!)

Keeping to simple food preparations and using natural, fresh ingredients is the premise of many of today’s health food movements, like Paleo or “caveman” diet, whole food, real food or clean eating diets. And really, with fresh, natural ingredients, you don’t need to over-complicate the cooking process. The aim is to keep as much of the natural flavour as possible and hence, reap the maximum health benefits from consuming those food. So, what better reason to support a few food hacks or 2, 3, or 4-ingredient recipes than that? So, instead of breaking out your bag of chips or cookies or sweets, here are 5 healthy food hacks to try for the new year:

Portobello Baked Eggs
[Gluten-free, Paleo-friendly]

Clean the portobello mushroom caps, remove the stem and scrape out the gills so you have a pocket for the egg.
Brush a little olive oil on the outside of the mushroom. Arrange the caps on a baking sheet.
Crack each egg into a small bowl and carefully slide it onto the mushroom cap.
Season to taste with salt, pepper & herbs.
Carefully place the baking pan into the pre-heated 180 degree celsius oven and bake for 10-20 minutes. The amount of time required depends on how thick your mushrooms are and how you like your eggs.

Coconut Date Cookies
[Gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, No refined sugar, Dairy-free]

Combine 2/3 cups of pitted organic dates with 1.5 tablespoons of organic coconut butter and a pinch of salt in a blender.
Blend till the ingredients are well combined but still slightly chunky.
Make into small balls or cut into bars.
For extra texture, you can coat it in toasted organic coconut flakes.

Chocolate Mousse
[Gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, No refined sugar, Dairy-free]

Cut 2 ripe avocados in half and remove the stone. Scoop the flesh into the large bowl of a food processor.
Add 1/4 cup of organic raw cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon of raw organic honey.
Blend till well combined and creamy. Spoon into serving glasses or dishes. Serve with fresh fruit.

Flaxseed Banana Crackers
[Gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, No refined sugar, Dairy-free]

Mash 1 extra ripe banana with a spoon until its creamy with few lumps. Add the 1/2 cup flax seeds and mix well.
Grease a baking sheet with olive oil, drop 1 tablespoon size mix onto the tray and press it flat.
Bake for 20 minutes on 150 degrees celsius or until the edges are brown and the tops are hard.

Almond Banana Ice Cream
[Gluten-free, Paleo-friendly, No refined sugar, Dairy-free]

Peel 4 ripe bananas and slice into 1/2 inch discs. Arrange banana slices in a single layer on a large plate or baking sheet. Freeze for 1-2 hours.
Place the frozen banana slices in a food processor. Puree banana slices, scraping down the bowl as needed. Puree until the mixture is creamy and smooth.
Combine 2 tablespoons of organic almond butter to the puree. Serve immediately for soft-serve ice cream consistency. If you prefer harder ice cream, place in the freezer for a few hours and then serve.

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