Chicken Kofta

Ingredients

500g chicken breast

two onions

a small bunch coriander

knob ginger

3 cloves garlic

salt

black pepper

1 or 2 chillis

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

 half teaspoon ground cloves

Peel and grate the ginger. Crush and finely chop the garlic.

Finally dice the onions.

Chop half the breast into small pieces and liquidize the rest with the chillis.

Chop up the coriander.

 Mix all the ingredients together and form into balls and fry or into rugby ball shapes and form on to skewers and barbecue.

Serve in a spicy sauce, such as spicy-lentil-broth..

Blackberry Fool

One of the things I found hardest when I started the low GI eating style was desserts. I adore tiramisus and tarts, mousses and panna cottas. Once I'd stopped eating so much sugar though, everything started to taste sweeter than before, so desserts sweetened with fruit, or using vanilla essence tasted so much better than very sweet creations. Berries are one of the best low GI fruits around, so desserts crammed with berries, like this one, really help. You can, of course, add some sugar if you prefer - a little brown sugar, maybe.

The first time I made this, I didn't use yoghurt or lime juice and the result was a little dull. The sharpness it adds is wonderful.

Ingredients

2 cups frozen blackberries (or any other berries you fancy - but if they are sharp, don't use lime)

2 cups cream

1 cup greek yoghurt - or labneh (recipe for labneh)

juice of one small lime

1 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

Put aside 4 berries.

Strain the rest through a sieve till you have a seedless pulp.

Add the lime juice.

Whip the cream with the vanilla essence.

Fold in the yoghurt.

Slowly stir through the fruit and spoon into bowls. 

It's good to eat immediately but keeps well for a day or two.

Dips and crudites

Make the tzatziki, guacamole, baba ganoush and houmous and serve with crudites.

Tzatziki

Two cucumbers, peeled, cored and grated
3 tablespoons thick yoghurt
Juice one lime
Small handful of dill, stalks removed
A generous handful of salt

Put a sieve over a bowl and add the grated cucumber.
Toss in the salt and leave to drain for 30 minutes. Rinse and squeeze to remove the liquid.
Stir the lime juice with the cucumber. Add the other ingredients and serve immediately.

Guacamole

1 avocado, cut into chunks
juice from one lime
Half chilli, seeds removed
Quarter of tomato, chopped into centimetre squares
1 garlic clove
Generous splash olive oil
Leaves from a few sprigs coriander

Pound the garlic, chilli and lime together. Gently stir in the avocado, tomato and coriander. Add the olive oil and eat within a few hours.

Baba ganoush

Ingredients

3 aubergines
3 cloves garlic
Half cup olive oil
1 spoon tahini
Juice one lime

Roast the aubergines on a barbecue till blackened.
Bash the garlic in a pestle and mortar.
Add the oil, tahini and lime juice.
Remove the flesh from the blackened skins and add this to the pestle and mortar. Pound once more and serve.

Tamarind creme brulee

This is tamarind creme brulee, but play around with flavours - ginger, coffee, chocolate, vanilla all work well.

It is much easier to make than most people realise - and if you don't have a grill, or blow torch, then a little brown sugar, sprinkled on top works wonderfully.

You will need some ramekin dishes that can go in the oven, under the grill and in the fridge without cracking.
You can make it in a large dish if making for a family, but you'd have to watch carefully to ensure you got the correct balance of wobbliness to firmness when cooking.
Start by preheating the oven to a medium temperature - around 180c and boiling a kettle.
Put your ramekin dishes in a high sided baking tray and set aside.

Ingredients
250 grams tamarind
500 millilitres cream
6 egg yolks
One lime
A little sugar for sprinkling on top


Take the fruit out of the shells, and boil with enough water to make 100 ml tamarind flavoured water. Strain and allow to cool. Add the lime juice.
Whisk the egg yolks. Add the tamarind mixture to the eggs.
Pour the cream into a pan and heat till just before boiling point. Whisk into the eggs.
Pour some hot water into the roasting tray, to half way up the sides of the ramekin dishes and put in the oven.
Cook for about half an hour - the top will turn golden and the mixture will be wobbly like a jelly. Remove from the oven, and put the ramekins on a wire tray. Sprinkle with sugar. Once cool, put in the fridge for at least four hours, but preferably overnight. About thirty minutes (to ninety minutes) before serving, put under a hot grill (or use a cooks blow torch if you have one) until the sugar is liquid. Leave to cool. If you don't have a grill or blow torch, you can skip this stage, it's nearly as good. Once cool, serve immediately.