Tag: quick keto meal

keto tandoori chicken, prawn & courgette skillet

Published on by PaulaLeave a comment

Another quick and easy recipe from the chicken series, you’ll prepare in less than 30 minutes. That’s another one, that my partner keep asking about, even though he doesn’t like courgette.

In this simple, one skillet option all you need is just toss each ingredient one by one, fry for a while a here you have – full of flavour keto tandoori chicken and prawn, courgette skillet. I love one pot meals – easy to make and there’s not many dishes you need to wash afterwards.

I like using already cooked and peeled prawns. I’m not the best with seafood, we mainly eat only small prawns (sometimes I buy frozen seafood cocktail). But if you’re good with it, you can easily take some fancy king prawns and arrange them nicely on top of the meal.

Also tandoori is one of my favourite spice blends: paprika, coriander, garlic, chilli, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cumin – this mix gives a strong, rich flavour enhancing the taste of each ingredient in the same time. These spices warm your body and improve digestion. If you don’t have tandoori seasoning, but your spice cupboard is full of different spices, you can try make your own tandoori blend.

If you’d like to buy a ready made tandoori seasoning, always have a look at the ingredients list. Tandoori is known from it’s beautiful red colour, originally red chilli peppers provided this colour. While modern blends sometimes use red dye (E129) to enhance the red colour. Synthetic Red no. 40 is derived from either coal or petroleum byproducts. Natural food dye is made from cochineal, specifically the female, a species of insect (the insects are sun-dried, crushed, and dunked in an acidic alcohol solution to produce carminic acid, the pigment that eventually becomes carmine or cochineal extract, depending on processing). Synthetic Red No. 40 contain benzidene, a human and animal carcinogen permitted in low, presumably safe levels in dyes. If you’re interested in more informations about this subject, take a look on two articles I’ve linked below.

Anyway, whatever you buy, it’s always good to check the label and see what the manufacturer decided to add to a product, that potentially does not arouse suspicion and supposed to be natural. Sometimes you can be surprised what’s inside. I don’t want you to be paranoid though, but it’s good to know what you decide to put in your mouth. I’m afraid that if we would like to buy only 100% natural products, we would die starving. So lets keep the common sense, guys!

keto tandoori chicken, prawn & courgette skillet

INGREDIENTS:

  • 350g chicken thighs
  • 300g cooked and peeled prawns
  • pinch of natural rock salt
  • 3 tsp medium tandoori spice blend
  • 2 medium courgettes
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 2 large garlic cloves

DIRECTIONS

Dice chicken in smaller pieces. Rinse courgettes and dice them in half slices. Slice onion lengthwise and slice 2 large garlic cloves.

Heat the large skillet, adding 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Toss the chicken, sprinkle with some salt and fry until golden. Add prawns and tandoori spice blend, fry for 2-3 minutes. Next add sliced onion, courgettes and garlic, sprinkle with some more salt. Fry until courgettes will be ready.

Serve hot with side salad (in my case easy white cabbage salad) or other depending of your choice.

Enjoy!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957945/

https://www.livescience.com/36292-red-food-dye-bugs-cochineal-carmine.html

paneer jalfrezi (keto)

Published on by Paula2 Comments

Paneer is a popular cheese (made with milk) from India, white, firm, cohesive and spongy with a close-knit texture and kind of sweet, sour, nutty flavour. Slightly bland, but maybe that’s why it’s usually used for stir fry, curry or other meals that are made with lots of spices. Paneer doesn’t melt when heated and stays firm and spongy. So it’s perfect if you wont to grill it, fry it or add to a hot meals. And because of its neutral taste, it gets all the flavour from spices. It will go great with hot and aromatic spices like curry, paprika, garam masala or tikka masala, cumin and chilli, in other words with all Indian spices, so if you like this type of cuisine, you should definitely try paneer if you didn’t.

According to this article published by Journal of Food Science and Technology: “Paneer is of great value in diet, especially in the Indian vegetarian context, because it contains a fairly high level of fat and proteins as well as some minerals, especially calcium and phosphorus. It is also a good source of fat soluble vitamins A and D. So its food and nutritive value is fairly high. Superior nutritive value of paneer is attributed to the presence of whey proteins that are rich source of essential amino acids. Due to its high nutritive value, paneer is an ideal food for the expectant mothers, infants, growing children, adolescents and adults.“

About 120g of paneer contains about 3g of carbohydrates, 22g of proteins and about 29g of fats. In which saturated fats is about 16g, polyunsaturated fats 1.3g and monounsaturated fats 7.3g. Polyunsaturated fats include Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats. Omega 3’s helps to lower inflammation in your body and to keep proper hormone levels. Omega 6 fatty acids are important to support healthy brain and muscle functions but, but on the other hand it can increase inflammation if that’s your issue. Monounsaturated fats (which you have plenty in avocado, macadamia nuts and olives) protect the heart and support insulin sensitivity, fat storage, weight loss, and healthy energy levels. So it makes paneer a great source of healthy fats and proteins, if you’re not very keen on eating meat, or you need some more variety on keto diet.

I will definitely use it more in my keto meals. But today I’ve made paneer jalfrezi. Jalfrezi recipes appeared in cookbooks as meals made with leftovers fried with chilli and onions. I make mine using onions, bunch of bell peppers and tomatoes in different forms (cherry, chopped, chopped and passata) depending of my liking. You can also use variety of spices, in this one I’ve used: chilli flakes, sweet paprika, garlic granules (normally I would use fresh garlic, but I’ve run out of it), cumin and a little bit of coriander I had in my freezer. Today I’ve added only couple of cherry tomatoes, but adding adding can of chopped tomatoes add this dish another, more sour flavour and adds a bit of shakshuka vibe.

You can experiment adding different spices and veggies, depending of what’s in your fridge, as it’s a leftovers meal 🙂

paneer jalfrezi (keto)

INGREDIENTS (for 2 really big portions):

  • 450g of paneer (I’ve used two 225g packs)
  • 3 bell peppers (green, yellow and red)
  • large brown onion
  • 1 tbsp of coconut oil
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1/2 tsp garlic granules
  • 1/3 tsp chilli flakes (and additional teaspoon for my partner)
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • good pinch of natural rock salt
  • couple of cherry tomatoes/can of chopped tomatoes/some passata

DIRECTIONS

Dice paneer in slightly less than 1 inch (2.5cm) cubes. Slice the onion lengthwise and all the bell peppers in stripes. If you use fresh garlic, chop it finely.

Heat a large pan adding 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Toss diced paneer and fry till golden on each side, it will take a while, flip each cube on the other side every couple minutes. When paneer is nicely golden add onion and peppers. Sprinkle with good pinch of salt and the rest of spices and fry for couple of minutes. Stir occasionally, so the cheese won’t burn. At the end add chopped tomatoes or in my case cherry tomatoes and fry for a while. If you add chopped tomatoes it might need couple more minutes, so tomato sauce reduce slightly and gets the flavour from spices. Your paneer jalfrezi is ready 🙂