Healthy bites

Impress your guests this Hari Raya with home-cooked food. Tan Bee Hong borrows ideas from a celebrity chef and a nutritionist

HARI Raya is around the corner and there’s no time like the present to start planning what to cook for the festive open house. For a small gathering, your relatives and friends will appreciate most the dishes you make yourself.

A word of warning. Traditional foods tend to be laden with oil and can be unhealthy. But if you have their wellbeing at heart, you can use palm oil to cook their favourite dishes.

Palm oil is an edible oil that comes from the mesocarp or pulpy outer layer of the oil palm fruit. It contains a variety of fats, vitamins and nutrients, but no unhealthy trans-fatty acids that is mainly found in hydrogenated oils.

The oil is free of artery-clogging trans-fats as it is made up of a mixture of fatty acids and contains valuable vitamins and nutrition that our bodies need. It is rich in phytonutrients such as natural carotenes, tocotrienols and tocopherols (Vitamin E) and co-enzyme Q10.

In a study comparing palm, soya bean, peanut oils and lard, researchers in China found that palm oil actually increased the levels of good cholesterol and reduced the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.

Still undecided on the menu? Here are some recipes, courtesy of Carotino, an oil that’s rich in natural carotenes and tocotrienols.

SPICY BEEF STIR-FRY with Spring Onion

By nutritionist Celina Lim

You’ll need:
650g beef strips

Ingredient A                                   
6 red chillies, seeds removed, chopped
1 tbsp ginger, roughly chopped
1 onion, sliced
3 tsp belacan (shrimp paste)
⅓ cup brown sugar
2 tbsp Carotino oil
3 onions, sliced
Garnishing:
Spring onion, cut into 3cm lengths
Fresh coriander

Method:
1. Place Ingredient A (chilli, ginger, onion, belacan, sugar and Carotino oil) in a food processor and blend.
2. Heat Carotino oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and add the chili paste.
3. Cook, stirring for 5-7 minutes or until the mixture is thick and fragrant.
4. Add the beef to the pan and stir fry for three minutes. Add onions, cover and cook for a further 3 minutes.
5. Garnish with spring onion and coriander. Serve with rice.

QUASHRY RICE

By chef Florence Tan

You’ll need:
1kg basmati rice
150g green beans, skinned and soaked for 4 hours, optional
60ml Carotino oil                 
2 tbsp ghee
1,631 ml water
125 ml evaporated milk
Salt to taste

Ingredient A                    
3 cloves
5 cardamoms
1 star anise
2cm cinnamon stick
Pinch of pepper

Ingredient B
10 shallots
3 garlic, julienne or sliced thinly
3cm ginger, julienne or sliced thinly
For curry paste
2 tbsp curry powder
2½ tbsp water

Garnishing
Spring onion
Chilli
Fried onions

Method:
1.Heat Carotino oil and ghee. Fry Ingredients A for 2 mins. Add Ingredients B and fry till fragrant. Add curry paste.
2.Add rice to rice cooker and bring to boil. Add in fried ingredients and milk.
3.Add green beans and season to taste. Cover and cook till rice is ready. Garnish and serve.

MYSORE CHICKEN

By chef Florence Tan

You’ll need:
5 tbsp Carotino cooking oil
500g chicken, cut into
pieces
1 tsp mustard seeds
2½ cm cinnamon stick
3 cloves
4 cardamom
1 star anise
2 sprigs curry leaves
1½ tsp garlic, pounded
2 big onions, sliced
2 tbsp curry powder, mix with 3 tbsp water
125 ml water
1 red chilli, deseed and cut into squares
1 green chilli, deseed and cut
into squares
Mix together:
6 tbsp tomato sauce
½ tsp salt
2 tsp light soya sauce
A pinch of pepper

Method:
1. Heat oil and fry mustard seeds, cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise and curry leaves.
2. Add garlic, fry till fragrant and add onions and curry paste.
3. When fragrant, add chicken. Fry for a few minutes. Mix tomato sauce with salt, soya sauce and pepper. Pour inside pot and add 125ml water.
4. Cook till chicken is tender and sauce thick. Add chillies. Leave for two minutes. Dish out, garnish with coriander leaves and serve with rice or bread.

MANGO CHUTNEY

By chef Florence Tan

You’ll need:
1kg unripe mango
600-700g granulated sugar
200ml vinegar
30g garlic
30g ginger  
2 tbsp salt
2 tsp chilli powder
½ tsp pepper
1½ tsp garam masala
100g raisins (optional)

Spices:
2½ cm cinnamon stick
12 cloves
10 cardamom

Method:
1. Pound together garlic and ginger. Pound cardamom coarsely. Grate mango coarsely and drain well.
2. Dissolve sugar and salt in vinegar till it becomes syrupy.
3. Add ginger, garlic, spices, garam masala, chilli powder and pepper. Cook till aromatic.
4. Add raisins and fry for a while before adding grated mango.
5. Blend well, bring to a boil and simmer till mango becomes transparent (thick and syrupy, like jam).

QUASHRY RICE

SPICY BEEF STIR-FRY with Spring Onion

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