This recipe is the main course of my Delhaize Luxembourg sponsored healthy 2-course menu on a tight budget for two people. As the main course I created a delicious surf and turf dish with a sweet potato purée and a guacamole. Here you’ll find the links to the main article and the starter.
Surf and Turf
Delhaize
Delhaize is collaborating with people food bloggers. I managed to become one of the people in Luxembourg who can participate in this project. Therefore I am very happy to present to you articles and recipes that are sponsored by Delhaize Luxembourg.
On a monthly basis, Delhaize hands out a food challenge, specifying the general outline of what has to be done this particular month. This could be the ingredients, a theme or similar things. But also the budget or which brand to use (e.g. the house brand).
Delhaize Food Challenge
For the January/February 2017 challenge, the given theme was “New Year’s Resolution“, i.e. creating a healthy recipe for all you food enthusiasts who fancy getting in shape after the holiday season. Furthermore, they ask to mainly use products of their home brand and set a budget and I’m free to use this amount within the guidelines.
Delhaize “Extra” Products
This time they added another layer to the rules, asking to use also products with their special “extra” label. Products with the “extra” label are considered especially healthy compared to a traditional alternative. Depending on the product they might be:
- Rich in vitamin C
- Low in sugar
- Rich in minerals such as iron, magnesium or calcium
- Low in fat
- Rich in fiber
- Low salt
This isn’t a new strategy. Delhaize adopted it a few years ago and put the health topic at the core of their strategy. With constant improvements of their products, both in general quality and ingredients used, they try to encourage their customers to live a healthier life by eating better.
While this sounds like a lot of corporate marketing, in my personal opinion I have always been satisfied with the products of the Delhaize brand. And because I am a big proponent of eating healthy and well balanced I wouldn’t participate in those sponsored challenges anymore if I’d didn’t enjoy their products.
Here is the product I used in this recipe containing the special label (which is my favourite soya drink out there):
Healthy 2-course menu EXTRA
That being said, it’s always up to you to eat healthy, clean and well balanced! The best product isn’t worth much if you neglect other areas (i.e. not enough physical activity, smoking, too much alcohol or other drugs) or overeat on a single product. For instance, a well-balanced granola might be considered healthy, but if you eat a kilo a day then you should reconsider your eating habits (unless you’re hiking 30km every day 😉 )
Surf and Turf with Purée and Guacamole
The general idea of a surf and turf dish is to combine meat and seafood on a dish. In most cases that would be steak and shellfish. I wanted to create a leaner dish, thus I picked chicken and salmon. The main reason I wanted salmon is simply because I really love cooking and eating it. On top of that they go well together, in taste, texture and colour.
Surf and Turf
The guacamole cream is in it’s core the sauce or the dip for the protein. Avocados are a really healthy source of fats and rich in plenty of vitamins. On top of that, they are visually appealing and added another layer of colour, macro nutrient content to my recipe.
Surf and Turf
The vegetables aim to make this recipe versatile. You can basically pick whatever type of vegetables you want to have, like to have or simply currently is available. The proteins and the guacamole aren’t very picky and go well with almost everything. You could also simply cut out the vegetables, make less of my accompanying starter and serve it on the side. This would also be a full meal and definitely very satisfying.
The purée is really what elevates this dish and gives the recipe a twist. The sweetness of the sweet potatoes goes very well with the chicken. By adding some topinambour you add a very nutty flavour to the purée, making it taste completely different to what you are used to. Sweet potatoes are already a good source of carbohydrates for people suffering of type 2 diabetes but topinambour is even greater source of carbohydrates in that sense. The main reason being that the carbohydrates in topinambour are in fact inulin. This means that the sugar molecules of the root basically not digested from our bodies and act as a source of fibre. We are not able to digest inulin for the simple reason that we don’t have the necessary enzyme for it. Another good source of inulin would be artichokes.
Surf and Turf
I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I did. Try it out and share your experience in the comments section. I am definitely going to look forward to your feedback!
Surf and Turf
- 100 g topinambour also known as Jerusalem artichoke
- 500 g sweet potato
- 1 small onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper, freshly ground
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/4 tsp turmeric, ground
- 1/2 avocado ca. 125g
- 1 Tsp soya milk unflavored
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp lemon zestes from an organic lemon
- salt
- chili flakes
- Heat up water in a saucepan.
- Peel the onion, garlic, sweet potatoes and the topinambour and cut into small pieces. Add them to the saucepan and boil for 15 to 20 minutes.
- In the meantime pre-heat your oven to 190°C.
- Cut the eggplant and the zucchini into 1/2 cm thick slices and put them on a baking sheet. Drizzle them with some salt, pepper and olive oil and bake fore ca. 20 minutes.
- With the organic lemon cut some zestes, squeeze some juice and mash it with the avocado in a bowl. Season it further with some salt and chili flakes. To give it a creamier texture and a little sweetnes to the fatty and acidic taste of the mix, add a little soya drink to the guacamole.
- Drain the water from the purée mix, add the seasoning mix and mash it with a fork or with a blender.
- Pre-heat a pan on medium to high heat. Add some olive oil and fry the cleaned chicken breast. Depending on the thickness this takes 3-5 minutes each side. The salmon takes, depending on the thickness again, 1,5 - 2 minutes of frying on medium to high heat on each side. You want the salmon meat to be lightly shiny in the middle to be perfect. Season the surf and the turf with salt and pepper.
- Put some purée on a plate and place the chicken on it. You can pre-slice the chicken in tranches if you want to. Put the salmon on top of a few slices of eggplant. Place the remaining vegetables on one side of the plate. On the other side you add the guacamole cream.
- Serve and enjoy!