A year of healthy eating: the magic of marination

There’s a perception out there that healthy eating is, well, a bit too much like hard work sometimes. I prefer to think of it as simpler eating, that’s all.

Leaving something – often meat – for a while to absorb the flavours of certain spices, sauces, oils, juices, herbs and seasonings is the ultimate culinary clever clogs. Not only does it tenderise, it also sets off a chemical reaction that marries those flavours and carries them deep into the flesh/pulp of whatever you’ve chosen to marinate, ramping things up in the taste stakes.

No mean feat really, when you consider all it takes to succeed is to throw some liquid and a few bits and bobs into a bowl, toss them together and then leave the whole thing aside for a fixed period of time, anywhere from 15 minutes to as long as 24 hours.

Just as time works its magic on a rich stew or slow roast, marinating does all the hard work for you. And marinating, for just a half hour or so, is all it takes to turn the chicken in my first recipe into a tender, flavoursome, healthy supper. Oh, there’s a few moments’ steaming too, but again, this will hardly strain the muscles. And the accompanying broccoli ‘rice’, made by blitzing a head of broccoli and cooking the resulting fragrant crumbs for three minutes, is so easy even a child could do it (if you let them near the stove of course).

Working well with curries, stir fries and anything saucy, the ‘rice’ is a versatile option, and can also be made with cauliflower. In the last few years, an exciting movement has emerged that is doing all kinds of new and tempting things with vegetables, and this dish is just one example of it.