What the experts say
The benefits of going Nordic
Move over the Mediterranean diet, says Peta Bee in The Times: there’s mounting evidence that the Nordic diet is just as good, if not better, for your health. One study published this year found it can prevent obesity and cut the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Another, at Umeå University in Sweden, suggested that toddlers who’d been fed home-cooked Nordic dishes as babies ate twice as many vegetables as those who’d been fed standard baby food. Key elements of a Nordic diet include whole grains such as steel-cut oats; gut-friendly fermented foods such as pickled herrings and kefir; nuts and seeds; and berries, pears and plums. Look out also for skyr – an Icelandic cultured dairy product similar to yoghurt, which is rich in calcium and probiotics – and rye bread, which is high in fibre, zinc and magnesium.
Tofu’s moment has finally arrived
Until recently, tofu was considered blandly unappetising by most Westerners, says Fuchsia Dunlop in the Financial Times – “a food suitable only for cranky vegans”. But there are now signs that it’s about to “step out of the shadows”. Tofu is just one of the remarkable range of foodstuffs that the Chinese have fashioned from the humble soya bean (others include fermented black beans, all manner of bean pastes and – of course – soy sauce). It is made by soaking dried soya beans, and then crushing them to produce a “milk”, which is mixed with mineral salts and heated until curds form. The resemblance to cheese-making may not be coincidental: one theory holds that the Chinese were inspired to create tofu by the “cheese-making nomads who lived on the northern fringes of the empire”. In Chinese markets, tofu stalls are ubiquitous, and sell a dazzling number of varieties – including the infamous “hairy tofu” of Anhui, and the Hunan speciality “stinky tofu”, which has an unpleasant smell but a “wonderful” flavour. In Britain, the vogue for the Sichuanese dish Mapo tofu (silken tofu braised with minced beef and fermented chilli bean paste) combined with “growing awareness that we all need to eat less meat” seem finally to be leading more of us to recognise tofu as a food “full of culinary possibilities”.
How to lighten your Sunday roast
A traditional Sunday roast may seem unappealingly heavy on a hot summer’s day, says Anna Berrill in The Guardian. So how can one set about making it lighter? Tom Harris, chef and co-owner of the Marksman pub in east London, recommends, as a starting point, losing the “sauces and gravies”, and replacing them with homemade condiments: a herb aioli, perhaps, or a salsa verde. He also suggests pot-roasting the meat – a technique widely used in Italy, which produces a “slightly lighter” result, while “still getting the roast meat thing”. Sides can also be adapted, says Harris’s business partner, Jon Rotheram. If you’re roasting a chicken (a sensible choice on a summer’s day), he suggests a “bowl of boiled or steamed jersey royals” as a “nice alternative to roast potatoes”. And he’d “accessorise” the chicken further with a roast tomato and anchovy salad. Former MasterChef winner Thomas Frake, meanwhile, would accompany a summer roast with a side of coleslaw (cabbage, fennel, onion) and roast baby potatoes “drowning in roast garlic and parsley butter”.