Turkey Steaks & Creamed Chicory

Creamed chicory goes so well with lighter meats like pork and chicken; tonight, with turkey ...

Chicory? You might know it as endive, but I know it as chicory, so ... it's creamed chicory. We're having it over turkey steaks on a bed of rice pasta combined with mushrooms and spinach.

Let's go!

Griddle pan on ...

Two small skillets out ...

Milk pan out ...

Turkey steaks on the griddle pan for maybe four or five minutes on one side, then flipped over.

Meanwhile, in one skillet soften your spinach with a little butter, sea salt and white pepper. Once wilted and reduced, remove to a chopping board and really smash it up! In the other skillet, soften some sliced mushrooms in a little butter.

Once the steaks are turned over ...

Combine the two into one skillet (the one that had the spinach in) and keep the other skillet (the one that had the mushrooms in) for the creamed endive, which is a simple case of removing the leaves from the core and pouring cream over ... low heat, sea salt, white pepper and perhaps some powdered garlic, certainly some herbs: chopped parsley. Control the heat to just wilt the chicory and slightly reduce the cream.

Ready to eat?

The rice pasta that I like cooks simply with boiling water poured over for 60 seconds. Let's do that and then retrieve the now cooked pasta into the skillet with the spinach and mushrooms, splash of olive oil and combine together.

Plate up with the pasta down, the turkey steaks sliced on a Chef's angle and crowned with the creamed chicory sauce.

Super!

Rice & Peas, Jerk Chicken ... and Breakfast

I'm experimenting with occasional meals that include legumes, just a small, select few: so, Puy lentils, green lentils, red lentils, black beans and gungo beans.

Tonight, it's that Jamaican classic: Rice & Peas with Jerk Chicken ...

Jerk Chicken

My jerk sauce is simple: crushed up Scotch Bonnet peppers, spring onions, sea salt, fresh thyme and olive oil. Massage into the chicken (I went with some drumsticks), slashed ... and commit to the oven for about an hour at 200C (400F?), turning over once during the cooking.

... which leaves us perfectly sufficient time to cook the Rice & Peas.

Rice & Peas

Rice & Peas should not be rushed. Personally, I think of it like a Pilaf but with coconut milk in place of the stock, and if you keep that in mind your Rice & Peas will come out perfect!

Take a large skillet and soften some finely chopped onion in butter.

Add the rice (remember, rice will swell up during cooking, so have a sufficient sized skillet) for which I go with a ramekin amount per person, which will make plenty for a dinner and plenty left over. Just allow the rice to get coated in the remaining butter.

Add a pint of chicken stock and boil hard and fast for about five minutes after which the liquid will be slightly reduced and the rice well on its way.

Add in a 400g can of coconut milk and a 400g can of gungo beans. That's the peas.

Low heat and very gently simmer for the remainder of the time it takes to cook the chicken through. If your rice is fully cooked, just add as splash of water to keep it going until you're ready.

Serve

Serve out a mound of Rice & Peas and lay the chicken alongside.

Drink? Guinness, of course, in my case a pack of Foreign Extra from the Nigerian brewery. Awesome!

Anyone else experimenting with legumes in their primal paradigm?

Breakfast

Leftovers. Breakfast is leftovers ... and something easy enough to come by, say some eggs or a fish.

Sprats for me! I love 'em! Whole, heads, guts in, the lot ... so does my mog, especially the crunchy heads.

Alternative Spag Bol!

Spag Bol is not Spaghetti Bolognaise. Spag Bol is a British institution, a dish done quite wrong what with the sauce not being incorporated into the pasta, but so what? It's Spag Bol and the sauce on top of the pasta is how it's done. Deal with it ...

Spag Bol is: beef mince, onion, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, carrots, mushrooms and stock.

Carrots and mushrooms, neither of which I have in so I went with butternut squash and courgette, both of which I did have in.

It worked out well ...

Same drill, beef mince, onion, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, butternut squash, courgette and stock. Serve over pasta - in my case, a rice noodle which is a bit like tagliatelle. Fresh basil to garnish.

Grilled Jerk Mackerel & Vegetable Rice

Leftover are great! Instant dinner ...

I have some pre-cooked rice in the fridge (resistant starch, and all that) and some leftover cubed vegetables from some meal, or other. Protein? I have a fish! It's a mackerel ... lovely soft, fatty flesh.

What to do, then?

Well, I could spice up the vegetable rice with some chilli, or do it the other way around and jerk my fish. Let's do that ...

Jerk Seasoning

Simple stuff, this, and good to make in a batch.

You need Scotch Bonnet peppers, fresh thyme, spring onions, sunflower oil, black pepper and sea salt.

Blend the lot together. The bulk comes from the spring onions and the Scotch Bonnet pepper, fragrance from the thyme and a good saltiness, so over-salt, from the sea salt, wetness from the oil and the black pepper adds another depth of hotness (hotness, not heat) to it.

But, sunflower oil? Well, yes. I know, there's the omega-6 thing what with all that linoleic acid but as Mark points out in his Is it Primal? post, not all sunflower oil is bad. Grab yourself a cold-pressed example "which preserves vitamin E and reduces oxidation" that is a "high-oleic/high-stearic oil".

... and relax.

The quantities are up to you, but I would advise you start out just blending the Scotch Bonnet pepper together with some spring onions and then start to add the oil, then the thyme, then salt and pepper. You'll build up a sense of how YOU want your jerk seasoning as you go.

Fish

Take your fish, gut is and lay it flat on a board.

Slash the skin both sides, gently so as not to go through the bone and massage some jerk seasoning into the slashes.

Under the grill for 5-7 minutes each side, just to make the skin bubble and you're done.

Vegetable Rice

Combine your pre-cooked rice and leftover vegetables, chopped up, in a skillet with a little (that is a little, since our fish is fatty) of your favourite paleo fat. All together now, "goose fat, for me" ... and cook through.

Serve

Serve out, vegetable rice down, fish on top ... perhaps with a little soured cream alongside.

Breakfast

I still had some rice and vegetables left, so did much the same for breakfast but served with a pickled herring ...

Dead simple! Two great meals for the price of one concept.

Fast & Furious! Turkey & Mushroom Stroganoff

I've shown you this a good number of times in various guises, but it's worth showing again ...

... and to emphasise just how fast a good meal can be made using this recipe.

Turkey & Mushroom Stroganoff

Clock is ticking ...

Skillet on, coconut oil in, sliced turkey meat in.

Maybe a minute or so later, shredded onion in, sliced mushrooms in, garlic powder, black pepper and a little sea salt.

Rice noodles in boiled water ... 60 seconds. Retrieve and add to the skillet.

Cream and chopped herbs, dill in this case for a nice Russo-Scandic feel, toss together and turn out into a bowl.

Shredded spring onions to garnish.

Done! Four minutes? How quickly can you make it?

Mayaj - Sheep Brain Curry

... something interesting for lunch.

I popped out with a pal of mine for a spot of lunch at Akbar's Café in Bradford, an excellent lunchtime venue with a really interesting menu.

For starters, we had Liver Tikka and Panner Tikka; mains, curried Lamb Shank and Mayaj - a sheep brain curry.

Nutritionally, brain is phenomenal giving something like 4000% RDA of cholesterol, massively protein-rich and full of good saturated fats. The only thing that could make it any better would be to curry it, a popular dish in Pakistan.

I think the curry was very simple, just the brains, onion and spice base and some fresh coriander. Served with steamed rice, lovely!

Spicy Grilled Fish

Inspired by a Mexican dish of food I saw on the internet, I made my own grilled fish, black beans and rice with a little salad underneath and boiled egg with guacamole alongside.

It's all fairy self-explanatory ...

Gut and scale a fish, any fish - it was a sea bass for me, slash it and rub some paste in. My paste is a jerk seasoning of thyme, spring onions and Scotch Bonnet pepper with a little salt. Grill for 15 minutes each side.

Meanwhile cook your rice, your beans - the adventurous might want to combine these with some coconut milk for a Jamaican-style Rice & Peas; make a little salad, boil your eggs and make up a Holy Guacamole by blending avocado with lime juice and salt.

Plate up!

Mrs didn't like hers, which was great for me since leftovers make fantastic breakfasts ... just bung the lot into a skillet with some good fat: goose fat, for me.

I've said it before, but this is living proof that good, real food is simply a case of putting good ingredients together. No recipe, no method, just cook some real food and put it on a plate ... re-cook it and put it on a plate.

Rice Pudding [Impromptu ... from leftovers]

Rice Pudding? Is it paleo? Is it primal? Is it ancestral?

Nah! But ...

You cook a great stew, cook up some starch to go with it - rice for me, mashed potato for Mrs and you end up with some rice left over.

Well, you could chill it, which I gather increases the resistant starch element ... best hop over to Free the Animal for the skinny on that one; or, you could make up a quick pudding.

You're supposed to use pudding rice for rice pudding, or you could use tapioca, but we're making this on the fly, remember ...

Simply pour in some double cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon and reduce to a thick, sticky pudding. If you really can't eat this without sweetener, add whatever it is you do - palm sugar ain't so bad.

Thoughts?

Lightly Smoked Salmon & Stir Fried Vegetables

Lightly smoked salmon fillets are absolutely gorgeous and can work so well with a simple dill sauce and vegetables, or take on stronger, spicier flavours.

Tonight was a bit of a use whatever there is to hand kind of dish but hopefully you'll take the idea and make it your own ...

I made up a stir-fry of asparagus, tenderstem broccoli, leek, garlic, ginger and a slice of pork I had left, to go with some rice noodles and an impromptu sauce from Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, yuzu, rice wine vinegar and mirin. Yes, one of those pour everything in and stir kind of sauces.

I don't think there's a whole heap more to write about this ...

Make up a sauce, stir-fry some veg, pan-fry your salmon and pour boiling water over some noodles. Put it all together and sprinkle some seeds over. Eat and enjoy.

Smoked Mackerel Savoury Rice

Breakfast ...

What a fantastic day! Mid-winter, the sun is shining, it's bright, great visibility and a crisp in the air. What a day to get out there and enjoy sun, views and a damn good walk in the hills.

Best get prepared, eh?

I love smoked mackerel. I love mackerel, but smoked, it's cheap, smells great, tastes great and is one hell of a good punch of protein and fat dropped into any lunchtime salad. Today, I'm going to warm it up and enjoy it for my breakfast.

I've also had some bags of par-boiled rice in the freezer for some time, intended for taking to work and nuking at lunchtime. I gather from our man at Free the Animal that this method increases the resistant starch within rice - a good thing, apparently.

Let's put the two together ...

So, in a large skillet, I melted some goat butter, softened some chopped onion, celery and garlic, added in some ginger and chilli, then some turmeric, ground coriander and asafoetida, next some chopped bell peppers, some sweetcorn and peas.

Water, finish off the cooking process and drop in flaked smoked mackerel at the end, folding in.

Serve with some leaves and a boiled egg ... not pictured, since I forgot it, so ate it afterwards. I guess I made a kind of Kedgeree.

Now, to the hills!

Cod Roe Kedgeree

Happy New Year!

Another year ... another year of living in the ice age, eating ancestrally, engaging in useful and positive activity, and generally just messing about ... it's called life.

So, first meal ...

After the celebrations last night, I'm in need of something good to kickstart the day, get out there and enjoy a day off work out in the hills.

Kedgeree

Faux-Indian, from the days of the Raj, Kedgeree is a rice dish, spiced up and served with smoked haddock and boiled eggs.

I don't have any smoked haddock today, but I do have cod roes ... so, why not?

Ingredients

• Rice
• Eggs
• Coconut Oil
• Leek, Garlic & Chilli
• Ground Coriander, Ground Cumin, Haldi Powder, Paprika, Fenugreek & Asafoetida
• Black Pepper & Indian Black Salt

Boiled Eggs

Boil your eggs.

Ten minutes is fine, cool under running cold water, peel and set aside.

Rice

Boil your rice.

Drain, fluff up and set aside.

Kedgeree

Put it together ...

In a heavy based skillet, melt some coconut oil.

Tip in the rice and just fry it through quickly before adding in your spice mix. Just pour some in. If you really really want to weight and measure and all that yawn, you probably want a teaspoon of each per person portion of rice.

Toss in shredded leek, de-seeded and chopped chillies, chopped garlic, good pinch of Indian Black Salt and some black pepper.

Stir together ...

... and fold in the cod roes, allowing to cook through until warm.

Serve out ...

... scattering quartered boiled eggs over.

Gorgeous! Now, to the hills!!!

White Fish Stew

Caught in that limbo between Christmas and New Year, not too excited about cooking, got a tonne of leftovers, worse, fresh food starting to turn ...

Make a Stew!

... just bung in courgette, aubergine, spinach, onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, sea salt, black pepper and a good blob of Shito (a Ghanaian shrimp and chilli paste) together into a pan with some olive oil. Simmer and drop in chunks of white fish to warm through before serving out with some rice noodles.

Done. It ain't complicated.

Swordfish Stroganoff

Stroganoff is a Russian dish of sautéed meat and soured cream, or smetana.

Popular worldwide, Stroganoff has grown to incorporate many combinations of tastes, flavours and textures, from the inclusion of vegetables, mushrooms, pasta or rice, served inside crepes, as a topping to baked potato and made with almost any cut of meat, even sausage.

I have some swordfish ... so thought, "why not?".

Ingredients

Your set of ingredients might differ wildly, but do take the opportunity to try this with swordfish - it's really good!

Swordfish, bacon, mushroom, onion, garlic, paprika, black pepper, celery salt, dill and parsley. Double Cream. Rice noodles and courgette.

Mise en Place

Mise en Place is a French culinary term "put in place", or prepare; all the chopping cutting and little piles of food ready to drop into pans as you go.

I'm going with swordfish, bacon, mushrooms, onion and garlic as the main part of the dish, so simply chop chop up into strips. Set aside.

For the noodles, I'm using rice noodles which need nothing more than three minutes sitting in boiled water, but I am going to bulk them out with courgette ribbons. Peel a few ribbons from a courgette and cut down to thin long strips. Place this lot into a pan, ready for boiling water.

Cream. I don't have any soured cream, but double cream will do fine. How much? Some! Pour in at the end, sufficient to make a sauce, but not too much to drown the dish.

For flavours, black pepper, paprika and celery salt is all nice, as is some chopped fresh herbs: dill and parsley for me.

Cook

Take a large heavy-based skillet and get the bacon softening, rending out some of the fat.

Toss the chopped onion in and just soften.

Drop in the mushrooms to soak up all the fats.

Now, in with the swordfish and sauté until coloured through.

Chopped dill, parsley, paprika, black pepper and celery salt, reserving some chopped parsley for garnish.

In with some double cream and lower the heat so as to reduce the cream while it melds with all those flavours.

Prepare your noodles. Boiling water over, three minutes - perfect for the cream to have reduced.

Serve

Noodles and courgette down, Stroganoff over and garnish with fresh herbs.

I popped a tomato on top, too, just because ...

Impression

Novel. Very enjoyable. Definitely a "do again" and something I'd encourage all to try.

Coley with Tomato, Smoked Bacon & Mushroom Sauce

Sauces never fail to make any dinner of simple ingredients more flavoursome, be it a gravy, a tomato sauce or one of those posh-sounding French sauces which are actually quite easy, really.

Taking coley and cabbage, partnered with something starchy alongside (rice, for me; boiled potatoes for the Mrs) I made up a tomato sauce packed with an umami punch.

Ingredients

Fish - Coley

Veggies - Cabbage and optionally, something starchy

Sauce - Chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, chilli, smoked bacon, mushrooms, olive oil, black pepper and celery salt

Fish

Coley is a large, North Atlantic fish which gleans high protein profile fillets.

Technically a white fish, coley actually has a sublime pink hue to its flesh and a structure less flaky than cod, more like pollock or haddock.

I bought a side fillet which just wanted a few bones picking out and skinning. Cut into thick portions and the trimmings for the cat, just place the fish into a steamer and set aside.

We'll steam it later ...

Veggies

Shred the cabbage and place into a steamer and set aside.

Tomato Sauce

Sauces should not be boiled. Sauces like gently reducing to meld the flavours, so give yourself half an hour.

Begin with a generous puddle of olive oil into which shredded smoked bacon can just bathe over a gentle heat before chopped onions, garlic and chilli join it.

Keep the heat gentle.

Toss in some sliced mushrooms, which will soak up the initial fats rendered from the bacon and the olive oil.

Pour in a carton of chopped tomatoes and pulp them down a little further.

As the volume reduces and the flavours come together, add some more olive oil in, along with black pepper and salt to taste. Sea salt is great; I used celery salt.

With the sauce done, just leave it on low and it will continue to improve.

Steam

Steam away ...

Both the cabbage and the coley will take about 10 minutes.

Serve

Cabbage down first, fish over and sauce on top. Optional starch alongside.

Yum! Sauces never fail to MAKE dinner!

Chilli Squid

Just a simple plate of fried squid in chilli sauce with rice alongside. Nothing complex, just a delicious plate of food.

Grab your chopsticks!

Ingredients

Squid - Squid and coconut oil

Chilli Sauce - Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, lemon juice, cider vinegar, sea salt and black pepper

Accompaniment - white rice, bouillon and peas

Squid

Squids need a bit of cleaning up ...

Pull the tentacles and head out of the body sock. Set aside.

Fish about inside to pull out all the sloppy bits and recover the pen. If you've no idea what the pen is, just pull out the plastic feather. That's the pen.

Pick away at the purple membrane that covers the squid sock. One of those blue kitchen towels is good as this job.

Rinse well under running water to clean up.

That's the sock ...

... the tentacles can be chucked, or cut off just below the eyes, the tentacles reserved and the rest discarded. There is an ink sac in that bit you've just thrown away, which is quite fun for colouring up rice and pasta ... just sayin'.

Open the sock up with a knife and score the flesh with a sharp knife - this will stop it curling up when cooked. Cut into pieces just over an inch square.

In a skillet, melt some coconut oil and fry off the squid pieces along with the tentacles for three or four minutes ...

Chilli Sauce

Combine Maggi Chilli Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, lemon juice, cider vinegar, sea salt and black pepper. The consistency should be quite running.

... once the squid is cooked, pour over the chilli sauce and thoroughly combine.

Rice

Cook as appropriate, adding peas in during the cooking. I used some bouillon to give more flavour.

Serve

Plate up ... squid down, rice alongside.

Tenebrio Molitor Noodles

"No way! You dirty git!" ... or words to that effect when a consignment of mealworms arrived in the post this morning.

"Don't you dare! DON'T YOU DARE!" ... as I chased her around the house, mealworms in hand.

These are boiled and dehydrated mealworms. High in protein, fat and little else. Protein. Fat. Simple as ...

No need to be squeamish. It's not like they're wriggling.

Having eaten these, I have to say, I'd be quite happy with live mealworms ... as is ... or flash fried.

These, I simply added as a topping/garnish to some Singapore rice noodles warmed through in goose fat with some chillies on top.

Very nice, indeed!

Again? Definitely.

Nutrition

Mealworms are the pre-pupae of Tenebrio Molito, a species of darkling beetle. Mealworms are perfectly good for human consumption, although typically you'll find them in pet shops as food for reptiles, fish and birds.

They're protein. Protein and fat ...

From: Mealworm Care

Live Mealworm Nutritional Values

Protein: 20%
Fat: 13%
Fiber: 2%
Water: 62% 

Dried Mealworm Nutritional Values 

Protein: 53%
Fat: 28%
Fiber: 6%
Water: 5%

Boiled and dehydrated, as you'll find in pet shops, they just want a quick flash fry to warm through and kill off any potential nasties. Beyond that, dropped into the human stomach, not much is going to survive that good vat of acid.

To that end, I reckon live mealworms should be my next target. Fishing bait, here I come ...

Ackees, Callaloo & Smoked Haddock

Native to tropical Western Africa consumption of ackee fruit takes place mainly in Jamaica and is a staple of Jamaican cuisine, their national fruit and the key component of their national dish - Ackee & Saltfish.

Notice the order of the words? Ackees are the attraction, saltfish is the sideshow.

Ackee is related to the lychee and produces a pear-shaped fruit. Green unripened fruit can lead to poisoning. When ripe, the fruit bursts open to reveal a bright orange/yellow flesh, perfectly edible with the consistency of lightly scrambled egg.

Callaloo, again Jamaican, traditionally uses amaranth leaves as the main constituent ingredient.

Amaranth is a superb source of vitamins including vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin B6, vitamin C, riboflavin and folate; dietary minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese. Paleo superfood!

I can get both of these ingredients canned and keep them in as store cupboard staples for times just like these - when I want a quick and tasty dinner with minimal fuss and preparation.

Ingredients

Smoked haddock, ackees and callaloo.

Butter, cooking fat, carrot, Scotch Bonnet pepper, garlic, scallions, tomato, egg, rice, black pepper and sea salt.

Lemon and parsley.

Smoked Haddock

Wrap your smoked haddock in kitchen foil with a little butter and commit to the oven set to 180C (350F?) for 20 minutes.

Egg

Boil an egg per person.

Rice

Boil your rice, press into a greased ramekin and place upside down in the corner on a waiting plate. The rice will keep warm while you cook the rest of the dish and once the ramekin is removed will leave a pleasant mound of rice on your plate.

If rice is not within your ancestral template, don't worry ...

Traditionally, Ackee & Saltfish would be eaten with some plantain, breadfruit, yam, fried dumplings or hard dough bread. Plantain, breadfruit or yam would work out really well, as would these bread balls. That, or there's always cauliflower rice.

Callaloo

Meanwhile, warm the callaloo through in a pan and just keep warm while you cook the rest of the dish. Add a generous knob of butter just before serving.

Ackees

Drain the ackees. Slice up some carrot into long matchsticks. Dice tomatoes and shred scallions - that's spring onions. Finely shred a Scotch Bonnet pepper.

Melt your favourite paleo cooking fat in a heavy-based pan. I went with goose fat, but coconut oil would be really good. Toss the carrot through a few times - you want the carrot warm, but not sogged. Just a little cooking is perfect.

Add in the ackees. Toss well and warm through.

Now the Scotch Bonnet pepper, shredded. Use it all if you like it hot, just a bit if you only like a likkle tickle. Garlic, too - skinned and sliced thinly.

Finally, the scallions and tomato just to toss through and serve out. Salt and pepper to taste. Remember, the smoked haddock might be salty, so go easy there.

Serve

Serve this lot in the middle of the plate, pushing a bowl of callaloo onto the plate and lay a couple of egg halves on top. Callaloo and eggs are just lovely together - in fact, a sort of Eggs Florentine could be put together using callaloo.

What a lovely spread of colour! If the callaloo was not alongside, I'd wilt some spinach into the ackees.

Retrieve the haddock from the oven and lay over the ackees, butter poured over and wedge of lemon with a sprig of parsley to garnish. Eat.

Carborama!

Carborama! Yes, Carbonara, but not the usual ancestral style seeking a low-carb version – this is the carb version and a direct replacement, if you like, to regular wheat pasta Carbonara.

Paleo is becoming less carb-phobic and a real eye-opener can be had by reading the Jaminet's book 'The Perfect Health Diet'. On active days, energy from carbohydrate is perfectly acceptable.

Excited by finding some good rice noodles in my local supermarket, I had a play with them a few days ago and at the time, we both remarked that it would be fun to try them as a Carbonara.

So, here it is ...

Carbonara is an Italian pasta-based dish with an egg and cheese sauce. The cheese is usually parmesan or pecorino, both hard and give a salty taste to the dish.  The filler often comes in the form of pancetta, lardons, bacon and sometimes veggies. The meat and veggies are cooked in a heavy-based pan while the pasta is boiled alongside. The pasta, once cooked, is added to the meat and veggies, heat switched off and the egg sauce poured over to be cooked through in the residual heat.

The prep is minimal and the cooking time, for this, much shorter than when using wheat pasta. Five minutes of prep and five to cook should be about right. Quick and easy!

Debate

Even with the conventional version, there is some debate around the sauce as to whether whole eggs should be used or just the yolks. Even recipes where all the egg is used, a further yolk is often added for that gorgeous creaminess which brings us to the second debate which is around the inclusion of cream. To cream or not to cream; that is the question ...

Fatty dairy is perfectly acceptable to a Paleo+er and a Perfect Health Dieter, as is cheese. Let’s make the luxury version.

Carbonara Sauce

Grated manchego, a Spanish sheep cheese not dissimilar to pecorino, a couple of eggs, whole and no further yolk since our eggs do have large yolks, and finally, a good splash of double cream, a slightly fattier cream compared to heavy cream which folks from the US might be more used to.

So, that’s your sauce:  cheese, eggs and cream.

How much? Well, I don't weigh or measure, but once stirred together there was probably about half a pint of the raw sauce. Weights and measures really are not essential; grate what you think is a sufficient amount of cheese on a fine grater and then crack in an egg, stir, crack in another until you've got a slurry. Splash of cream if you like and that's your sauce.

Meat & Veg

Your filler can be anything, even seafood - prawns work well. I went with bacon, mushrooms and asparagus for me. In a heavy-based pan just fry off the bacon, add in a little lard, fry off the mushrooms and last, add in the asparagus to warm through. Lower the heat to keep warm.

Tagliatelle

Meanwhile, cook the noodles. Mine need three minutes in boiling water and should then be drained. I simply switched the heat under my pan with the meat and veggies off and lifted the noodles straight out of the water and into the skillet. The small amount of water that the noodles bring is no big deal.

Combine

Pour the sauce in and fold through thoroughly until the cheese has melted and the eggs cooked through in the residual heat. That is important, since direct heat will scramble the eggs. Still edible, but not especially palatable.

Serve

Serve the dish out immediately from the pan and get stuck in!

Resources

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet/

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As an interesting observation, I ate this a good couple of hours prior to an evening of sports fencing after which I noted that I had not drunk as much water as I usually do and did not suffer that transient lag that I usually do after about an hour of activity.

Salmon Tagliatelle

Tagliatelle? Yes, that IS pasta!

There's nothing like a break from the old routine. I have been re-reading the Jaminet's 'Perfect Health Diet', a book I find absolutely inspiring, and was reminded of rice noodles.

Shopping, I found a pack of really good noodles, quite wide and the ingredients simple listed as: rice flour, tapioca flour and water. PHD-friendly, then. Living in the Ice Age-friendly.

If "safe starches" are not within your ancestral template then this is not for you ...

Ingredients

Let's just take a moment to spin round the food we're going to cook: salmon, rice noodles, double cream, watercress, pecorino cheese and broccoli. Sea salt and black pepper, too.

Salmon and broccoli is a no-brainer. Perfect partners. Salmon and watercress is a no-brainer. Perfect partners. This is looking good!

Cream sauces do need a little salt lest they leave the dish tasting a little flat. I pepped up my cream sauce with cheese - pecorino, an Italian sheep cheese which has a lovely salty tang and less of the pungency of parmesan which I find overpowering.

So, to work ...

Salmon

First, poach your salmon. Place the salmon is a pan and cover with boiling water. Add some sea salt. Leave it there for around 10 minutes, perhaps with a gentle flame underneath.

Watercress Sauce

Meanwhile, the cream sauce. Somewhere around 100ml per person is good. I use double cream which, I believe, is akin to heavy cream that folks in the US will be used to. British double cream is slightly creamier (around 48% fat compared to around 40% fat for heavy cream), but it doesn't matter - we're going to reduce it anyway.

Blend the cream with watercress. How much? However much you like. Use a lot if you want a really vibrant green sauce (like I did), or a little if you just want a hint. Blend a lot or blend a little - your choice.

Pour into another pan and gently reduce by a third. Just a gentle flame is good. If the cream becomes too thick, add a dash of the poaching liquor to let it our again - you really won't need much as a teaspoon will make a thickening cream sauce quite wet again.

Once the fish is poached, retrieve it, set it aside and steam or boil the veggies. You can use more than broccoli if you like, but I kept it quite simple.

After a couple of minutes of steaming, set aside. I like broccoli to retain its firmness and after even only a couple of minutes, the florets will be soft.

Tagliatelle

Drop the noodles into the water and follow the instructions. Mine suggested three minutes.

Meanwhile, grate some cheese into the sauce and add a little black pepper. The heat will melt the cheese, but do assist with with some stirring.

Serve

Noodles ready? Drain and pour them out into a wide-brimmed bowl.

Pour the sauce over, salmon on top and veggies alongside.

I'm sure you've noticed that if an egg was dropped in, this might make an interesting carbonara, of sorts. I still have some noodles, so that will no doubt be my next adventure.

Curried Vegetable Rice

Beyond Paleo folks will certainly appreciate this dish, as will folks who are experimenting with sources of resistant starch.

It's also something for your vegetarian friends, who can enjoy this dish while you put a piece of fish on top or some meat folded through ...

For me, this is breakfast.

My Mrs abhors rice (and curry, for that matter) so I made her a hash with potato and tomato; poached trout on top and a poached egg to crown.

Curried Vegetable Rice is simply a case of boiling up some rice in spices and adding in the vegetables towards the end just to cook through.

I don't weigh or measure, and don't get overly concerned about ratios of rice to water and length of time to cook. I guess I take my cue from Pakistani and North Indian methods that I have grown up with, where the rice in a pan sealed with a wet towel and lid on could be left for quite literally hours.

For one hungry person, I use about half a cup of Basmati Rice over which I sprinkle some spices, add salt and pour over some water. I say, "some" since I've never measured it. I just boil away until the rice is cooked through, puffed up and absorbed most of the water and then lower the heat to allow the remainder of the water to evaporate.

It is at that point that I toss in the veggies.

My spice mix? Equal portions of turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, asafoetida and fenugreek. I also add chilli powder to taste, or whole chillies chopped up and a good pinch of salt.

Veggies? Any will do. Literally, any. Here, I went with celery, carrots, spring onions, red pepper, green pepper, courgette (I think) and some chives. Any will do ... just chop down nice and small, and fold in once the rice has absorbed most of the water.

Let's make it a meal ...

Trout. Poached. Salmon would do well, as would some smoked fish, perhaps poached in milk. Haddock, say.

Let's also poach an egg - all meals are better with an egg on top.

So, that was breakfast ...

I had some leftovers which did for another day, bulked out with some mushrooms and some black pudding.

Black Pudding? Yeah, blood and fat in large rounds.

Just fry off in your favourite paleo fat until cooked through and retrieve, fry off the mushrooms and then toss in the leftover rice. Chop up the black pudding and fold through at the end.

Voilà! Another breakfast ...