Slowly but surely science will discover what chefs have always known and finally the world will begin to realise that curry is not only delicious but that it’s really very good for you – and that turmeric, especially, has tremendous health giving properties. It never ceases to amaze me how a mother, cigarette in hand, can vehemently condemn the use of spices in food while she blows smoke into the face of her child. We allow our children to drink carbonated drinks, eat oil drenched burgers and chips or batter encrusted, fatty chicken but we protest in horror at potatoes baked in turmeric and coconut milk or steamed Chinese ginger

chicken salad! Scientists are reporting development of a nano-size capsule that boosts the body’s uptake of curcumin, an ingredient in yellow curry now being evaluated in clinical trials for treatment of several diseases. Their study is in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. Koji Wada and colleagues note that curcumin is a potent antioxidant found in the spice, turmeric. Clinical trials are checking its safety and effectiveness for colon cancer, psoriasis, and Alzheimer’s disease. However, digestive juice in the gastrointestinal tract quickly destroys curcumin so that little actually gets into the blood. Scientists have known for years that encapsulating insulin and certain other drugs into structures called liposomes can boost absorption. The scientists prepared the liposomes encapsulating curcumin and fed them to laboratory rats. Encapsulating more than quadrupled absorption of curcumin, and also boosted antioxidant levels in the blood. The encapsulating process could be an answer to the problem of increasing curcumin’s absorption in the digestive environment of the gastrointestinal tract, they suggest.  ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2009)

CHICKEN FILLETS IN CURRY SAUCE

Ingredients

For the curry sauce

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small aubergine, cubed
• ½ onion, chopped
• ½ red chilli, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed and pureed
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds  (the black ones that are removed from the pods)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 generous handful spinach leaves
• 1 tbsp cashew nuts
• ½ lemon, juice and zest
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the chicken

• 2 whole chicken fillets, skinned and split
• 1 tsp plain flour mixed with ¼ tsp turmeric and seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• lemon wedges, to garnish

Method

• Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and add the aubergine, the onion and the chilli and fry until the onion is golden in colour.
• Combine the ginger, the  garlic, the coriander seeds, the cardamom seeds and the cumin seeds in a pestle and mortar and crush to form a thick paste – you could also process it.
• Add this paste to the aubergine mixture  and fry for about minutes – then stir in the spinach, the lemon zest  and the cashew nuts and pour over the lemon juice.
• Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and then set aside to keep warm.
• Shake the chicken breast fillets up with the flour – use a Ziploc bag so that you can be sure that all the areas are covered with flour and the excess remains in the bag – it’s a neat way to do it.
• Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan until hot, pop in the chicken and fry quickly until the skin is crisp and golden and cooked.
• Pour the curry sauce into a serving dish, place the chicken fillets on top of the sauce and garnish with lemon wedges, if you like.

Fresh coconut milk is not unhealthy nor is it bad for our health but it does seem as if negative publicity has created the wrong impression – and just so we’re all on the same page, here’s a brief description of what we’re actually putting in our mouths. The coconut milk we use in cooking is not the juice found inside a coconut but the diluted cream pressed out from the thick, white flesh of a well-matured coconut. To make coconut milk, finely grated coconut flesh is steeped in hot water until it is cool enough to handle after which it’s squeezed until it’s quite dry.  The white liquid is strained to remove the pulp and once it’s allowed to rest for a while, the cream rises to the top – as cream does in milk. Commercially another process is used and the grated coconut flesh is simply pressed through specialised machinery without using any liquid whatsoever. A normal sized mature coconut yields about 250 ml coconut cream and double the amount of coconut milk. The saturated fat of the coconut cream is, according to recent studies, a good saturated fat, easily metabolized to give your body quick energy and doesn’t as popularly believed, transform into bad cholesterol.  If you think about it, those cultures that do depend on coconut as their main source of fat have been found to be free of heart disease. The principle fatty acid found in coconut milk is lauric acid – the same fat found in mother’s milk and which  is essential in promoting normal brain development , creating healthy bones and has vital anti-carcinogenic and anti-pathogenic properties. Southeast Asians  have been leading healthier lives than westerners for centuries. Lastly keep it in the refrigerator once it’s open because it does curdle.

POTATO BAKE IN TURMERIC COCONUT CREAM

Ingredients

• Melted butter, to grease the oven dish
• 1 x 300 ml tin coconut cream (remove it from the container and stir well to combine)
• 125 ml coconut  milk
• 1.25 kg waxy potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
• 2 heaped tsp turmeric
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 60g finely shredded parmesan (optional)

Method

• Preheat oven to 170°C.
• Brush an ovenproof dish with melted butter to grease.
• Combine the coconut cream, the milk and the turmeric in a saucepan over low heat and simmer, stirring occasionally,  until heated through.
• Arrange half the potato slices over the base of the prepared dish, season to taste and pour over half of the cream mixture.
• Continue layering with the remaining potato slices, season to taste and top with the coconut cream and milk mixture – top with parmesan if you are using it now.
• Bake in oven for 1 hour or until potato is tender through and the creamy mixture is bubbling and the top golden.
• Should it get too brown on top, cover lightly but don’t seal – otherwise it will steam and become soggy.
• Set aside for 5 – 10 minutes to cool and serve.