Toppings that keep the calories down

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 8

Toppings that keep the calories down

FOOD ALERT

JANICE BREMER DIETITIAN

“Variety is the spice of life” goes the saying. Kiwi food is often chided as bland

... boring ... and the average Kiwi male criticised for liking his food “plain.” But spices are increasingly contributing to the variety in our diets. Foods that were once rejected may be readily accepted when spiced up the Indian, Mexican, Lebanese, or Chinese way. This is relatively new to the New Zealand palate, but commercial enterprise is making it more familiar.

Restaurants featuring international cuisine, and fast food outlets adopting a single meat-style line are frequented by the average Kiwi and roast lamb and Cavlova are not found in a ikeaway place dubbed Kiwi Takeaways. What is interesting about this move towards more highly flavoured food is that some people will now only eat food this way.

Like the tomato sauce put on everything to get the childhood “nasties” down, salt or spice can drown out the fresh and natural taste of food.

Smothering on pickles, sauces, chutneys, dressings, and spreads can add also hundreds of calories to the value of a meal.

A two-tablespoon serving of sour cream, mayonnaise, hollandaise, mornay or tartare sauces, chocolate or fudge sauce all contain 100 to 200 calories.

The highest calorie dressing for salad is French dressing made in the traditional proportions — one third vinegar: two-thirds oil. Most soysauce and Worcester sauce have less than 25 calories for the two tablespoon serving, but the soy is highly salted. Tomato sauce, sweet pickles and gravy have about thirty calories for the same serving size; sour pickles about ten calories. Whilst spices give negligible calories, the sauces can contribute considerably to a weight problem. Compounding this problem is that our greater sophistication in eating creates greater variety, and with it a greater stimulus to eat. The culinary arts using a high percentage of spice were, after all, developed either to increase the palatability of a bland, monotonous diet, or to preserve food.

Spices are an essential ingredient of some preserved foods traditional to our true Kiwi foodstyle — such as the chutneys and pickles made to preserve the perishable bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables when in over-supply.

Basic “cream” sauce This can be used sweet or savoury, thin or thick. Do not dilute more than one to one with liquid for a sauce — the best consistency is two to one. (1) In a food processor blend together: % cup ricotta cheese Vs cup cottage cheese % cup non-fat plain yoghurt

Omit the yoghurt for a firmer, whipped cream substitute. Thin with milk or the following flavouring liquids. (2) Add flavourings to suit the dish being prepared and adjust to your own flavour sense:

® Add mustard and a little vinegar and other spices for a dressing. To sweeten add a little pineapple juice. @ Add chopped parsley and mustard for a “butter” on steak 9 Add tomato juice, vinegar, chopped capers and gherkins for a tartare substitute, serve over marinated cold fish • Add lemon juice or blend in a 2.5 centimetre cube of blue vein cheese for a dip for fresh vegetables. • Add red wine and herbs for dressing meat ® Add white wine and/or lemon juice for fresh fruit salad or seafood cocktail • Add vanilla for a whipped cream substitute One tablespoon of thinned sauce will have 8 to 12 calories, depending on the dilution and the other ingredients. The basic sauce, without additions, has 15 calories per tablespoon, and the thicker cream-18 calories/tbsp. Carob sauce For “dunking” fresh fruit To the basic sauce, add

1% tablespoons of dark carob powder and 2 to 3 tablespoons of orange juice; blend until smooth. Sour pickle Mushroom and pepper (1) Wash and chop roughly 700 grams mushrooms (2) Wash and remove cores of 5 red peppers Peel and chop 2 onions Peel core and chop 2 apples (3) Simmer all these ingredients for 15 minutes with 150 mis vinegar (4) .Add 1 clove garlic crushed, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons celery seed (5) Simmer another 15 minutes and add 150 ml vinegar (6) Continue simmering another 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Bottle and seal as for regular relish methods. Best if kept two months before eating. One tablespoon equals less than 3 calories Sweet pineapple pickle (1) Peel and slice 10 cloves of garlic (2) Break up a piece of root ginger (3) Put the ginger and garlic in a pan with 10 whole cloves, 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds, */« teaspoon salt, % bottle (550m1) cider vinegar

(4) Boil five minutes, remove from heat and cover with a towel; stand j. for two hours. (5) Drain and reserve juice of 2 cans pineapple in natural juice for other purposes (6) Pack the pineapple cubes into small clean preserving jars and strain the vinegar mixture over it. Seal as for usual methods. Eat after six weeks. Alternative spreads The calorie value of jam or honey is about 50 calories per tablespoon; peanut butter has 90 calories for the same amount. Try any of the following for a low-fat, low-sugar spread on toast: pureed apple; mashed banana with lemon juice; cottage cheese with strawberries; drained, crushed pineapple; cooked mushrooms; sour pickle, or use sliced gherkins or tomato in place of a spread. A dash of orange juice, mint and lemon juice or parsley and lemon rind or favourite spices flavour apple well. Drained, cooked spinach spreads well — add cottage cheese and nutmeg. As an alternative to peanut butter try this re-’ cipe: — Cashew butter This “butter” has a sweet taste, but less than half the calories of butter (15 calories/tsp). Keep it covered in the refrigerator. (1) Set the food processor or blender going on high speed. (2) Pour Vt cup (a 70g packet) of cashews,

toasted if desired, onto the rotating blades. When finely ground, gradually pour in 2 to 3 tablespoons of orange juice, just enough until the nuts become a thick paste; add more juice if necessary.

Food alert Spice and sauce your food to increase the ap-

peal of healthy foods, but don’t forget fresh and natural tastes as well. Leave some foods plain, some as mixtures, some just subtlely flavoured. We are moving away from the idea that food should not be “messed around with,” but the fresh food fortune of this country means that we do not need, to disguise the basic, natural ingredients.