, Step by step
Wild garlic, spring greens, and chilli prawn stir-fry
Serve with coconut rice for Saturday lunch with friends.
Method
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Step 1
To make the marinade, mix the chilli, ginger and garlic into the olive oil.
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Step 2
Add the prawns to the marinade and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.
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Step 3
Cut the broccoli into chunks, cut the pak choi into separate leaves by removing the base, pull the oyster mushrooms into strips and chop the spring onions into long chunks and wash. Keep all the vegetables to one side for when you are ready to serve.
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Step 4
Heat a wok on the stove and add the prawns in the marinade and cook for 1 minute or until turned pink in colour. Remove from the wok and keep warm.
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Step 5
Heat the wok again and add the sesame oil, then the broccoli. Fry for 1 minute and then add the fish sauce and soy sauce and reduce by half.
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Step 6
Add the spring onions, mushrooms and the warm prawns, cook for 30 seconds, then add the pak choi and garlic leaves.
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Step 7
Finish with the chopped coriander and black onion seeds, and serve on a large platter.
Nutrition
If I had my way, everybody would eat at least one serving of leafy dark green vegetables every day! Why? Because they contain so many different minerals and vitamins – folate (a B vitamin), vitamin C, E and K, magnesium, potassium, iron and calcium – as well as fibre.
There are loads of different leafy vegetables. Mark has chosen tenderstem broccoli, pak choi and wild garlic leaves for his recipe, but kale, spinach, swiss chard and bok choi could all work here. Salad vegetables, such as rocket, watercress and the darker green lettuces, are packed full of nutrients too.
Stir-frying is a great way to cook vegetables, as they will retain most of their nutrients. Steaming is another good way of preserving the nutrients in leafy greens and other types of vegetables.
I’m often asked whether it’s best to eat vegetables raw or cooked. Actually the answer is to make sure you have some of each. Cooking releases some nutrients, for example carotenoids from carrots, but raw vegetables will contain more vitamin C than cooked ones.
Really though, it’s just about eating more vegetables every day – aim for at least three portions and try to eat as many types of vegetables as possible over the course of a week. One portion is about three heaped tablespoons.
DR JULIET GRAY, COMPANY NUTRITIONIST