food to glow

This delicious meal is not only easy to prepare but incredibly good for you (see below). Considering I am keen on variety this is one fish dish that I make often, changing out the carbohydrate side dish (sometimes sweet potato, sometimes quinoa), and swapping the steamed greens for crunchy salad as the thermometer rises. The colours, textures and taste will make it one of your favourites too.

75g cooked or raw beetroot (use cooked if you don’t have a good mini food processor or high speed blender)

15 walnut halves (30g), chopped + 6 extra, chopped and set aside

Zest ½ lemon

2 heaped tsp prepared horseradish (not creamed)

Juice ½ lemon

2-3 salmon fillets

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Line two baking trays with baking parchment (you can use foil for the fish but not for the potatoes).

2. Blend the beetroot, walnuts, lemon zest and horseradish until you get a mostly smooth paste.

3. Place the salmon pieces skin-side down on oiled foil (I crinkle it to get air underneath the fish) or parchment paper. Squeeze over the lemon juice, sprinkle with salt and pepper and spread over the beetroot mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until the fish is pale pink and firm to the touch. Lightly cover and set aside while the potatoes bake.

Spiralized Baked Potato Rosti

Use spiralized potato or grated potato for these baked rostis – a spiralizer gives fantastic results. You can either bake these long and slower for a crunchier, almost potato chip texture, or faster and hotter for a softer, cut-able rosti with soft-ish centre. Pop these in the oven while the salmon is cooking, remove the salmon and lower the heat for best results.

1 baking potato (for two people)

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil or cold-pressed rapeseed oil

Salt and pepper

1/8 tsp garlic or onion powder, optional

1. Spiralise or julienne/matchstick the potato. Pop the strands into a colander and rinse well under cold running water. Decant the potato into a tea towel and squeeze. Pop the dried potato into a mixing bowl and mix well with the remaining ingredients. Pick up little handfuls and press lightly onto the second baking tray. Don’t completely mash it down as you want the hot air to circulate through the filaments of potato.

2. Place the tray in the 200C/400F oven with (or without) the fish and bake for 15 minutes. When the fish comes out of the oven, turn the oven down to 180C/350F, flip the potatoes and draw the more cooked edges underneath the centre a bit, teasing out the little frilly mounds of potato with a fork before lightly pressing again. The potatoes will have shrunk a bit as the potato’s water evaporates.

3. Continue baking until the potato is cooked in the middle (it may not brown very much) – about 10 minutes. To get it quite crispy, turn off the heat and leave in the oven until dried out and crisp-like. This is better to do when you don’t have salmon waiting to be eaten, but the salmon is still lovely after a longer wait.

Serve immediately with the beetroot and walnut salmon, with the extra walnuts crumbled on top, and a big pile of steamed seasonal greens on the side.

Leftover Magic: If salmon fillet number three doesn’t get eaten on the day, lightly mix it into cooked grains (or not), some finely chopped raw veggies, a bit of dry or fresh dill, a squoosh of lemon and hey presto, bagged lunch.

Vegan Option: I haven’t tried this but I imagine the beetroot and walnut ‘pesto’ would be great slathered on tofu and baked.