Seeing red
Celebrity chef Daniel Green loves working with red palm oil when he’s in Malaysia, infusing it into all his signature healthy dishes.
WHEN Daniel Green walks into the kitchen, the air around him seems to snap and crackle, generating a hot, fiery sizzle. Evidently, the man is rather electrifying.
He has a smile that cleaves deep, attractive hollows in cheekbones and a superfit physique. From model to celebrity chef, Green has carved out a long- term career in the entertainment industry, including appearances on popular Food Food Network television shows like Fortunes Kitchen Inferno.
and Green is also famed for his best- selling, award- winning cookHealthy Eating for Lower books like Cholesterol
which sold 1.4mil copies. But perhaps what Green is most famous for is his clean eating ethos – the self- taught chef is a healthy food proponent who eschews fat and deep- fried food, a formula which has proved effective for him as he was once quite overweight but successfully lost the flab and kept fit with his healthy eating manifesto.
In Green’s universe, butter, cheese and cream are villains that have been banished to a land far, far away. But he does use oil in his cooking, although his cooking methods are slightly unorthodox.
When cooking with oil, for instance, he actually oils vegetables and meat, rather than oiling the pan. This ensures less oil is used in the overall cooking process, he says.
“People think you have to oil the pan, and then you put the food in – but you don’t need to. If you toss the vegetables or the protein in a little bit of oil, you use far less but you don’t actually need any more,” he says, adding that a non- stick pan is ideal for this job.
Green is a fan of palm oil, in particular, which he says fits in with his philosophy of less is more. He especially likes using it when he is in Malaysia, as it is harder to find in the United States, where he is based.
“It seems a little goes a long way when I’m cooking with palm oil, more than olive oil, which dries up a little bit more. Palm oil seems to have more body,” he says.
Unlike most oils, virgin red palm oil has a rich, deep red hue – a result of the carotenoids the oil is suffused with, such as alpha- caro- tene and beta- carotene which are sources of Vitamin A.
Red palm oil also contains other carotenes, like tocopherols and tocotrienols – Vitamin E sources.
All these carotenes make red palm oil the richest source of Vitamins A and E of any plantbased oil in the world.
Green loves palm oil’s naturally red colour and says it marries extremely well with Asian curries, like his Roasted Pumpkin with Thai Red Vegetable Curry.
“Palm oil is great with curries like Thai curries and Malaysian curries; it’s like the perfect marriage,” he says.
Green says he generally tries to pair red palm oil with any dish that has red undertones, like his Modern Korean- style Bibimbap, which has blood- red Gojuchang sauce in it.
Even Western tomato- based dishes have the potential to fuse harmoniously with palm oil. Green experimented with this when he used red palm oil in his Gnocchi with Fresh Basil And Sundried Tomato Sauce.
“In a tomato sauce the red palm oil brightens up the colour and I thought it was an interesting fusion to pair palm oil with a Mediterranean flavour, so that was something I wanted to try, which I think worked well,” he says.
While yellow palm oil doesn’t have as much carotenes as red palm oil, it does have tocotrienols and doesn’t impart any colour on food, making it a good option if you don’t want your food to have a slightly reddish tinge. Green uses it in steps like sautéing onions or roasting pumpkin, or whenever a red tinge is not desired.
For healthy eating enthusiasts like Green, palm oil fits in seamlessly with diet and nutrition plans as the oil has zero cholesterol and is trans- fat free. The tocotrienols in palm oil also have cholesterol- lowering capabilities and may even reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, according to research by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
For all these reasons and so much more, Green says he already has more recipes brewing in his head to go with palm oil.
“I’ve been thinking of mussels in tomato sauce – I can see palm oil going with that. I can see it going with some seafood, maybe a chicken dish – there are lots of possibilities!” he says.
ROASTED PUMPKIN WITH THAI RED VEGETABLE CURRY
Serves 4
For the roasted pumpkins
4 small pumpkins palm oil, for roasting and sautéing salt to taste
For the Thai red curry
1- 2 tbsp red palm oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 eggplant, cubed 3cm ( 1”) piece fresh ginger, grated 1 clove crushed garlic 2 tbsp Thai red curry paste 100ml vegetable stock 50ml low fat coconut milk 2 chillies, finely chopped 200g fresh spinach salt to taste handful coriander leaves, chopped
To cook the pumpkin
220° Pre- heat oven to C. Slice the tops off each pumpkin and remove the seeds carefully. Hollow out the middle of the pumpkin by scooping out flesh. Cube the flesh that has been removed. Lightly brush palm oil all over whole pumpkins and pumpkin cubes. Place on a large baking tray, season lightly with salt and roast for 45 minutes.
To cook the curry
In a large saucepan, heat red palm oil and cook the onions on medium heat for 3- 4 minutes. Add the eggplant and cook for 2- 3 minutes, then add the ginger, garlic, curry paste and stock. Cook for 1 minute, then add the coconut milk. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 12- 15 minutes.
Add the chilli and spinach and cook for an additional 3 minutes, until spinach has wilted. Season with salt to taste. Remove from heat, add the roasted pumpkin cubes and give the curry a stir. Garnish with the coriander leaves.
To serve
Ladle out equal portions of the curry into the roasted, hollowed out whole pumpkins.
GNOCCHI WITH FRESH BASIL AND SUNDRIED TOMATO SAUCE
500g fresh gnocchi ( store- bought) 1 tbsp red palm oil 1 clove crushed garlic 1 tbsp sundried tomato paste 150g tomato sauce 1 small red chilli, finely chopped salt and pepper to taste 6- 8 basil leaves, shredded
Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the gnocchi until they float to the top of the pan ( just a few minutes). Drain and set aside.
In a large non- stick pan, heat the oil, add the garlic and immediately add the paste and sauce.
Next, add the chilli and cook for a few minutes.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, then add the drained gnocchi, cook for just a minute, take off the heat, and garnish with basil.
MODERN KOREAN- STYLE BIBIMBAP For the sauce
2 tbsp Gochujang sauce 2 tsp sesame oil 4 tsp soy sauce 2 tsp mirin 2 tsp brown sugar 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2cm ( 1/ 2”) ginger, grated
For the vegetables, chicken and rice
golden and red palm oil, for sautéing 1 zucchini, sliced 1 1 tsp white sesame onion, seeds finely chopped 200g spinach 2 chicken breasts, slic ced 400g jasmine rice, coo oke d
To cook
Mix sauce ingredients s to gether and set aside. Heat some g gold den palm oil in a pan and fry zu ucch hini slices and sesame seeds unt til s soft. Remove from heat an nd s set aside.
Wipe the pan clean n an nd heat some golden palm oil l to saute the onion until softened. Rem move from heat and set aside.
Wipe the pan clean n an nd saute spinach in a little gold den n palm oil until softened. Remov ve f from heat and set aside.
Heat some red palm m oi il in the pan to cook the chick ken o on medium high heat. When thet chicken is cooked through, add thet sauce and toss to coat evenly. Re emo ove from heat.
To serve Heap
rice in the midd dle o of a large serving platter and po orti ion zucchini, onions, spinach, ch hick ken and sauce around the side es o or on top of the rice and mix to oget ther.