January 2008 Archives

I made a pumpkin soup thickened with barley (rather than potatoes) a couple of days ago but haven't yet got the proportions right.  I used too much barley so it was a bit too thick and slimy - more like a soupy risotto than a proper soup.  Barley behaves oddly once cooked too, in that it seems to go on getting more and more glutinous.  When I re-heated the leftovers 24 hours after cooking it, it had gone quite solid.

I'm not posting a recipe yet, but I'll have another shot at a similar soup some time in the next couple of weeks to see if I can make a better version.

Soups can be great for diabetics, but there are potential pitfalls.  Pureed soups can have a much higher glycemic load than chunky ones, especially if they contain potatoes.  I like winter soups to be thickened in some way, so recently I've taken to whizzing just a portion of the soup in the food processor, and adding it back to the main part, leaving mostly chunky vegetables with a thickened matrix.  Generally a happy compromise!

Rather than using potato as a thickening agent I'll be experimenting with pot barley and possibly some pulses such as lentils and split peas - all glycemic goodies as far as I can establish.  Rather than using generic soup mix (still in UK wholefood shops and supermarkets) containing a bit of everything, my plan is to match ingredients in a slightly more bespoke manner, eg.. red lentils to thicken a carrot soup,  yellow split peas with pumpkin, so that the thickening agent takes a decidedly background role...

Another thorny issue is the length of cooking time.  In general it seems the longer you cook things the higher the glycemic load.  I'm not keen on vegetable soups al dente (although with oriental style soups it seems fine) so more experimentation is called for.

Recipes to follow - watch this space.

We used to love creamy risotto made with arborio rice, but after Andrew's diabetes diagnosis we realised it wasn't a great thing for him to eat due to it's relatively high GL.    Casting around for a suitable alternative I started experimenting with pot barley and we both like the results.  When cooked, the barley has a similar texture to a good risotto rice and now, if anything, I think I prefer it to the rice version.  We now use just olive oil (rather than the butter / olive oil mix we previously used) for the initial fry, which is no great hardship.  The Orzotto, as it's technically called when made with barley, is delicious if you use stock alone in the cooking liquid, but it gains an extra something if you throw in a glass of decent white wine in the early stages.  If you don't want to use wine just use extra stock.

Ingredients for 2 servings

• 2 - 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 - 10 leeks, depending on their size and your appetite, cleaned, trimmed and sliced
• 110 g pot barley
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns (optional)
• 1 bay leaf
• a glass of dry white wine (optional), Italian if you want to be authentic
  
• about 400 ml well-flavoured  hot vegetable stock (I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon)
• freshly grated Parmesan cheese, a small quantity

Method

In a wide, heavy frying pan, fry the leeks in a small amount of olive oil for 3 - 4 minutes.  Scoop them out of the pan and on to a plate (they'll finish cooking later).  Add the barley, green peppercorns and bay leaf  to the hot pan and a splash more oil if necessary.   Fry for a few minutes more.

At this point start adding the liquid.  First add the wine if you're using it, stir constantly and let most of the liquid cook down.  When you add the first liquid set a timer for 20 minutes.   Now add enough stock to cover the barley  and stir again.   Purists would have you stir constantly and add hot stock in very small increments quite frequently. 

Rather than leaving a pan of stock simmering on the stove as is often recommended, I usually make make an initial small volume of very concentrated stock which I add in one go at the start.  I then top up the pan with boiling water from the kettle, when necessary.   So long as you stir regularly to stop the barley from catching,  and top up with boiling water if the pan threatens to get dry, you don't have to stir constantly.   

 After 20 minutes add the partly cooked leeks back into the pan and give a good stir.  Cook for a further 15 to 20 minutes, continuing with the stirring and adding of hot liquid as necessary, until the leeks are tender, the barley done to your liking and most of the liquid has evaporated. 

Pass the Parmesan when you serve this out. 

I've not said anything about salt as the bouillon is quite salty and we're trying to cut down.  If you want to add it, many cooks claim you'll need less overall if you add at the start of the cooking process rather than the end.  My jury's out on that one.

The idea of foods having a  high or low glycemic load (or index) is key to healthy eating for diabetics, and is actually useful for everyone, including the rudely healthy.  Unlike the concept of calories, it actually seems a bit complicated and ill-defined  when you first encounter the idea.  It did to me, anyway. Basically it's to do with how fast or slowly your blood glucose levels rise after consuming a portion of a food.

Glycemic load can vary a lot for a food, depending on how the food is cooked, for instance.  Basically, the less cooked or processed the food, the slower it will be to digest, and  thus the lower its glycemic load so, for example,  gram for gram, whole rice in grains would have a lower GL than ground rice, even before you factor in cooking methods.   Raw carrots have a lower GL than cooked carrots, the latter being more easily digested.   I found it worth the bother to try and sort it out in my mind, but I lay no claim to being an expert.

In case anyone needs more information about the concepts of the glycemic index or glycemic load this link to the official GI web site (set up by the people at Sydney University who first popularised the idea) has loads of stuff worth looking at.  There are clear explanations of the various terms in use,  an expanding data base of foods and their Gl values, plus links to appropriate books on amazon , etc. It's probably a good first port of call for anyone wanting to find out what GI is all about. 

Here is a savoury winter gratin inspired by the contents of my garden, fridge and cupboards!  Cold-weather comfort food, but pretty healthy with it. It's quite low in fat but if you're feeling purist you might want to be less generous than I was with the sesame oil. 

The recipe is a bit lengthy but the individual stages aren't complicated.  It makes enough for six servings and re-heats well.  You could probably freeze portions, although I've not tried this, but it will also keep in the fridge for a few days.  It's easy enough to scale up or down as required, and the proportions of each component are not critical so long as you make enough tomato sauce to cover the entire gratin dish.   The longer you marinate the tofu the better, within reason.  I've left it for up to three days in the fridge and it was fine.

Ingredients

• 1 winter squash - about 1 kg in weight, we used Potimarron but Butternut would be just as good
• 1 head Cavolo Nero black kale, or equivalent in other nice wintery greens
  
• about 400 g tofu,  sliced and marinaded in a mix of roughly equal parts shoyu and  the juice of a lemon with a splash of chilli oil,  for at least 2 hours (turn over half way)
• 1 large potato (or more smaller ones), peeled, diced and boiled until just tender
• 2 or 3 onions, peeled and chopped
• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• salt
  
• 1 teaspoon green peppercorns
• olive oil
• sesame oil (the dark, toasted sort)
  
• a sprinkle of sesame seeds

Method

1. Wash your squash, cut in half and de-deed it, then slice into 1cm slices.  There's no need to peel as the skin is pleasantly edible when cooked.  Toss in a little olive oil and roast  uncovered in a large, shallow roasting tray in a hot oven  (anything up to about 230 deg C), until tender and slightly browned.  Start checking for doneness after 15 minutes. 
2. Make the tomato sauce.  Fry the onions in a little olive oil for a few minutes, add the garlic, bay leaves and green peppercorns and fry a moment or two longer.  Add the chopped tomatoes and salt, then simmer gently for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.   If the pan looks to be going a bit dry top up from time to time with a little boiling water from the kettle. 
   
3. When the sauce is cooked you might want to add what's left of the tofu marinade to give it a bit of zing.  Just taste it and see what you think it needs.   At this point I added about 2 tablespoons of sesame oil too - not very orthodox but I wanted something to bring the Italian style of the sauce a bit closer to the oriental-ness of the tofu.  This is fusion food. It worked.
4. Cut out  and discard the thickest bits of the ribs from the Cavolo Nero, shred and wash the greens, then wilt them in the microwave (or a pan), until just tender, using only the water that clings to them after washing.  Drain the hot leaves if necessary and dress them with sesame oil to taste.  Add salt if you want to.
5. Now assemble the gratin.  Arrange the potatoes in amongst the roasted squash (you can do this in the same roasting tray used to cook the squash - save washing up).  Dot piles of Cavolo Nero in amongst, too.  Don't spread the greens out too thinly as you want enough in a mouthful to be able to taste them properly.  The idea is to have all the  vegetable more or less in one layer.
6.  Spoon over the tomato sauce as evenly as possible.  Finally arrange the marinaded tofu slices  on top of the gratin.  If you want to brush them with a little sesame oil that's lovely but you may feel there's enough oil in the dish already.  Sprinkle a few sesame seeds on the tofu slices.
7. Cover the gratin and bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, removing the cover for the last 5 minutes or so to allow the tofu/sesame topping to brown.
   

Variation
Add a tin of drained cooked chick peas at step 5 if your squash is a bit small.  This is good from a glycemic load point of view, and also ups the protein content of the dish.

I recently came across an American book about managing diabetes (a Readers' Digest guide) that recommended (among other things)  eating your last main meal of the day at least four hours before going to bed.  The thinking being that you would then have time to digest your food and use some of the nutrients before your body shuts down for the night.  Andrew's been trying this for about 5 weeks now and it seems to be having a good effect on his morning blood glucose readings.  Any comments from any one else?