Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium brown onion, chopped coarsely
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 600g sweet potato, chopped coarsely
• 400g potato, chopped coarsely
• 2 cups (500 ml) water
• 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) cream

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
2. Cook onion and garlic, stirring until onion softens.
3. Add spices and cook stirring for 1 minute.
4. Add sweet potato, potato, water and stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for about 20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
5. Cool soup for 10 minutes, then process in batches until smooth.
6. Return soup to the pan and add cream. Reheat without boiling.

Lamb Salad with Yoghurt Dressing

Ingredients:

• 350g Lamb Back Strap

      Marinate:

• 1 Tsp Olive Oil
• 1 Garlic Clove, crushed
• 1 Lemon Zest / Juice
• 1 Tsp Fresh Mint, chopped

      Salad:

• 200g Red Capsicum, sliced
• 1 Lebanese Cucumber, sliced
• 1 Red Onion, sliced
• 150g Feta, crumbled
• 1 bag of mixed lettuce, rocket and spinach

      Yoghurt Dressing:

• 150g Low Fat Greek Yoghurt
• 2 Tsp Lemon Juice
• 1 Tsp Olive Oil
• 1 Garlic Clove, crushed

Directions:

1. Marinate lamb, cover and refrigerate overnight
2. Drain lamb and cook until brown all over. Allow meat to rest for 5 min. Thinly slice the lamb across the grain.
3. Place the lettuce mix, capsicum, red onion, cucumber, feta and lamb in a large bowl and toss to combine.
4. To make the dressing, gradually combine the yoghurt with the olive oil, lemon juice and garlic in a bowl. Drizzle the yoghurt dressing over the lamb salad to serve.

Fish curry

I used to make this dish with Garnisha Masala Paste which is a low-sodium mild curry paste. Garnisha looks like it has gone out of business, so I just tried making my own curry-paste from the recipe here. I duplicate it here so I can add adjustments and in case the original goes away.

Ingredients:

Curry Paste:

• 2 red chillies - sliced (recipe says birds-eye - I just got small hot red chillies)
• Approx 1 inch piece of fresh ginger - peeled and finely grated
• 5 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 lemongrass stalk - finely chopped
• 4 shallots (recipe says 4 - mine were large bulbs with two "body" sections - think garlic cloves - I used 4 of those sections instead of 4 whole bulbs)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tablespoon paprika

Fish Curry:

• 2 medium sweet-potatoes (kumara) - peeled and sliced
• 1 eggplant - 1-2cm cubes
• Plain flour or cornflour
• 2 blue grenadier fillets - cubed
• 1 red capsicum - sliced
• 2 440ml cans coconut milk
• Oil

Directions:

Make the curry paste:

1. Chop all ingredients and combine. My kaffir lime leaves were dried, so I soaked them in water first.
2. Put into food-processor/barrel blender. Blend into a paste.
3. I refrigerated the result overnight - I don't know if this helps develop flavours, it did firm the texture a little

Make the fish curry:

1. Slice the peeled sweet potatoes into "discs". Heat a sauce-pan and fry about a table-spoon of curry-paste until fragrant. Add the sweet-potato and enough water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer until just about tender.
2. Meanwhile, shake the eggplant cubes in a bag with the plain-flour. In a large frypan or wok, fry the eggplant in oil until browned. Remove from pan.
3. Fry the remaining curry-paste until fragrant. Add the red-capsicum and stir-fry.
4. Pour the sauce-pan of sweet-potato and water/curry into the frying-pan, add the eggplant and coconut milk.
5. Bring the liquid to a simmer and add the fish
6. Allow to simmer for 2-3 minutes until the fish is cooked
7. Serve over instant noodles or rice.

This is a variation on an old recipe we used before going low-sodium from a pack of Ayam instant noodles. Although their sodium content has increased a little in recent years we still quite like it served on instant noodles.

You can probably skip the simmering of the sweet-potatoes if you don't mind them being a little undercooked.

You can adjust the heat by adding or removing chillies. This two chilli recipe was fine for my 10 year old who is being introduced to spice.