One of the dishes that first got me hooked on Indonesian cuisine was satay. These marinated and grilled skewers served with a spicy peanut sauce are indescribably good, and not surprisingly have become the national dish of Indonesia (and they’ve also become popular in other southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia). The version I first enjoyed was made with chicken, but satay can also be made with fish, beef, pork, mutton or tofu.

These grilled skewers are similar to satay, but with the addition of some colorful and healthful vegetables. You can serve them with peanut sauce if you like, but they’re actually so full-flavored that they can easily serve them by themselves. Here’s the recipe.

By the way, there’s more to Indonesian cuisine than just satay…a lot more. For a good general overview of Indonesian cuisine, and its range of absolutely mouthwatering dishes, check out our Indonesian Cuisine Guide that also includes nine Indonesian recipes, info on how to stock your own Indonesian pantry shelf, and an illustrated step-by-step guide to making authentic satay.

Both the Mediterranean and Asian diet pyramids include only a small area at the top for red meat, which reflects the fact that red meat has never featured prominently in the traditional diets of Asia and the Mediterranean. The main sources of protein in these regions has traditionally come from fish, legumes (beans, peas and lentils), poultry, nuts and shellfish. Red meat was typically reserved for special occasions, or eaten in smaller amounts instead of being the centerpiece of the meal.

A large-scale study just published in Circulation by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health shows just how heart-healthy this pattern of eating can be.

The study analyzed the eating habits of 84,136 women aged 30-55 years with no known cancer, diabetes, stroke, angina or other cardiovascular disease for a period of 26 years. Over that time there were 2,210 documented cases of non-fatal heart attacks and 952 deaths from coronary heart disease.

After adjusting for age, smoking and other factors, researchers found that a high consumption of both processed red meat (such as bacon) and unprocessed red meat (such as steak) was associated with a significantly elevated risk of heart disease. However, it was found that eating more fish, nuts and poultry was associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease.

The study found that those who had two servings a day of red meat had a 30 percent greater risk of developing heart disease compared to those who had half a serving daily. Researchers also found that those who reported eating one serving of nuts per day were 30 percent less likely to develop heart disease, those who said they ate fish on a daily basis had a 24 percent lower risk, and those who said they ate one serving of poultry per day had a 19 percent lower risk of heart disease.

“Our findings show clearly that source of protein in our diet has an important impact on our health, and we can’t consider red meat, chicken, fish, beans, and nuts to be interchangeable,” said Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and senior author of the study. “This should not be surprising because when we eat red meat we get a large dose of saturated fat, cholesterol, and a form of iron that can override our control mechanisms. If instead we eat nuts as a protein source, for example, we get unsaturated fats that reduce our blood cholesterol, no cholesterol itself, and lots of fiber, minerals, and vitamins.”

For lots of info and tips on how to easily eat more fish, nuts and poultry and less red meat, check out the MediterrAsian Living section of our site.

Green beans are something I was never very fond of when I was growing up. Actually, I went out of my way to avoid them if I could. In typical Western fashion they were usually served unseasoned in a pile on the side of my plate.

But my relationship with green beans has certainly changed for the better over the years. In fact many vegetables I used to avoid as a kid — from carrots and cauliflower to bell peppers and broccoli — now make a regular and very welcome appearance on my plate.

So, what brought about this big change of heart? Discovering authentic Mediterranean and Asian cooking, of course! In these cultures vegetables aren’t merely seen as an afterthought, they’re an integral part of the meal and are usually cut up and mixed in and cooked with the rest of the meal (some good examples include stir-fries, pasta dishes, curries, pizza, sushi, risottos, pilafs and paellas). And if vegetables are used in a salad or side dish they’re typically combined with wonderfully flavored dressings and seasonings.

This recipe is a great example of how, with a bit of Mediterranean flair, boring old green beans can be turned from simple to sublime. The fresh basil and garlic bring out their natural sweetness, the extra virgin olive oil adds a rich fruity flavor and a delightful mouth-feel, the lemon juice adds a hint of tanginess, and the pine nuts add a lovely contrasting crunch.

Here’s the recipe.

We adore hummus (a creamy purée made with chickpeas, sesame seed paste, lemon juice and garlic) and we eat it on a very regular basis. But I think it would even take us a lifetime to eat our way through this much hummus!

This world record serving of hummus — all 23,000 pounds of it — was made recently by a team of 300 cooks in Lebanon. It was just the latest round in what has become known as “The Hummus Wars” between Lebanon and Israel. Lebanon had set a record last year with the world’s biggest dish of hummus, but that record fell in January when a team of 50 cooks in Israel made a massive batch of hummus weighing nearly 9000 pounds. But it’s hard to imagine this new record being beaten anytime soon — although I wouldn’t want to put money on it. So why so much rivalry over hummus? This is how CNN explains it:

… in spite of their shared appreciation, the origin of the dish is a source of heated debate with the Lebanese claiming ownership and Israelis denying that they have exclusive rights to the name.

Not content to simply have the world record for the largest dish of hummus, Lebanon followed up by making the world’s biggest falafel dish, weighing over 11,000 pounds.

If all of this friendly rivalry has put you in the mood for making your own hummus and falafel, why not try our recipe for hummus here and our recipe for falafel here.

I spent over 10 years living in Australia, and there were two things I really fell in love with when I was there. The first, of course, was Trudy (who I eventually kidnapped and took back to New Zealand), and the other was the mouthwatering wild-caught shrimp (or prawns, as they’re called Down Under).

Since moving back to New Zealand I’ve still been a regular shrimp eater, but unfortunately shrimp doesn’t do well in the waters around here so most of the shrimp that’s available is the farmed variety imported from China or India. Although it tastes okay, it really lacks the firmness and “sweetness” of wild Australian shrimp.

So when we were at the supermarket the other day and I saw they had started stocking wild Australian banana shrimp, I could feel my mouth instantly start to water. Then I saw the price tag and my eyes started to water: $45 a kilo!

But I’m not one to let my taste buds miss out on a flavor sensation, and neither is Trudy for that matter, so as a treat we decided to buy a dozen. After debating how we should best put these large juicy shrimp to use, we decided to use them in a way that wouldn’t mask their wonderful flavor.

This Sizzling Shrimp with Feta is the result of that decision. It’s a ridiculously easy dish to make and it accents the flavor of the shrimp perfectly. If you make this dish yourself at home I highly recommend you use the best quality raw shrimp you can get your hands on — it really does make all the difference.

You can serve this dish by itself as a mezethes (Greek appetizer), or you can serve it as a complete meal with a side salad and some crusty bread to mop up the juices. It also tastes great tossed with freshly cooked pasta.

Click here for the recipe.

Looking for ways to get a meal on the table super quickly and with no hassles? Here’s a list of the quickest and easiest recipes from our website and from our cookbook. Most of these dishes can be prepared and cooked in only 15-25 minutes.

From our website:

• White bean pesto pasta with fast roasted tomatoes and zucchini
• Pasta puttanesca
• Simple shrimp and asparagus pasta
• Ham, mushroom and tomato pizza
• Simple fried rice
• Teriyaki chicken noodles
• Soba noodle scallops
• Tofu and cashew chow mein
• Dashi shrimp noodles
• Vietnamese baked fish
• Thai fish curry
• Shrimp, bok choy and snow pea stir-fry
• Wok-fried tempeh and vegetables
• Tuna and chickpea salad
• Avocado, tomato and basil salad
• Tuscan peasant salad
• Vietnamese green salad
• Japanese-style noodle salad with smoked salmon and avocado
• Bruschetta with tomato, mozzarella and anchovy
• Hummus and salad wraps
• Chicken and avocado salad wraps
• Italian-style pan-fried sandwich
• Tuscan white bean and garlic soup
• Spanish broccoli and almond soup
• Gazpacho soup
• Miso soup with tofu and mushroom
• Sardine toast topper
• Italian-style scrambled eggs
• Thai fish cakes with sweet chili sauce
• Spanish garlic mushrooms
• Mediterranean tuna and vegetable skewers
• Fava beans with marinated artichoke hearts and olives

From our cookbook:

• Pasta with shrimp and chile (page 147)
• Sicilian pasta with broccoli, raisins and pine nuts (page 148)
• Pesto pasta with salmon, broccoli and roasted red pepper (page 149)
• Pasta with salsa verde and smoked salmon (page 152)
• Stir-fried tofu, vegetables and water chestnuts in oyster sauce (page 157)
• Greek pizza with chicken, artichokes and feta (page 170)
• Provencal baked fish with vegetables (page 184)
• Bulgur pilaf with fava beans (page 191)
• Ham and egg fried rice (page 194)
• Japanese Tuna and vegetable udon noodle pot (page 201)
• Asian cilantro-peanut pesto noodles with chicken, broccoli and red pepper (page 202)
• Japanese-style marinated grilled tuna (page 216)
• Grilled Tuscan chicken with asparagus and red pepper (page 216)
• Grilled sweet chili scallops (page 218)
• Mediterranean-style grilled marinated salmon (page 218)
• Thai fish parcels (page 221)
• Mediterranean-style grilled vegetables (page 222)
• Fish burgers with roasted red pepper and wasabi mayonnaise (226)
• Italian-style chicken sandwich with pesto mayonnaise (page 232)
• Focaccia with smoked salmon and avocado (page 232)
• Tuna and sweet chili wraps (page 234)
• Turkish chickpea salad wrap (page 235)
• Southeast Asian hot and sour shrimp soup (page 250)
• Japanese soba noodle salad (page 252)
• Pesto pasta salad with white beans, cherry tomatoes and artichoke hearts (page 256)
• Turkish tomato cucumber and olive salad (page 256)
• Panzanella (page 258)
• Asian-style corn fritters (page 275)

Olive oil is an absolutely indispensable ingredient in our household. We sauté food in it, use it in sauces, salad dressings, marinades, drizzled over bruschetta, and to dip freshly baked crusty bread in — to name just a few uses.

Extra virgin olive oil isn’t just a rich source of monounsaturated fat (a good fat that lowers “bad” LDL cholesterol levels), it’s also very rich in health-giving antioxidants.

Previous studies have found that olive oil can also protect against certain types of cancer, and Spanish scientists from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona set out to discover why.

What they discovered in lab experiments with rats who had carcinogen-stimulated breast cancer was that olive oil mounts a multi-pronged attack on the tumors. Firstly olive oil switches off proteins that cancer cells rely on to stay alive. Olive oil also thwarts a gene that drives the growth of breast tumors. On top of that olive oil even protects DNA from damage that can lead to cancer.

The researchers concluded that only continuous daily ingestion of olive oil will provide these types of results, and Dr. Eduard Escrich recommends consuming around 10 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil a day. Luckily it’s very easy to consume this amount of olive oil daily when you follow a MediterrAsian way of eating.

This post was originally written for MediterrAsian Cooking.

Ric and I have been on a bit of an economy drive lately. Like most countries, New Zealand has been hit hard by rising food and petrol prices. We live in the countryside, which is great for the fresh air and scenery (see the photo of our neighborhood below), but it also means a lot of driving each week. And with the price of petrol at around eight dollars a gallon here, it really tugs at the purse strings!

However, we’ve found that one of the best ways to save money is by inventively reducing our food costs. Over the last couple of months one of our biggest cost cutters has been to eat less fresh fish and seafood and more beans. If that sounds like a sacrifice, believe me, it’s not. Jazzing up beans is easy when you use them in traditional ethnic ways, such as added to a fragrant Indian curry, a robust Italian pasta dish, or a hearty Greek stew – or turned into delicate falafel, or creamy hummus.

Beans also make a great addition to salads. Chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) are a particularly welcome addition to salads because their taste and texture is like a cross between a bean and a nut. Chickpeas not only add a wonderful flavor and texture to this Moroccan salad, they’re a good source of vegetable protein and a number of important vitamins and minerals including calcium and folate. They’re also a great source of dietary fiber, which helps lower cholesterol levels and regulate blood sugar levels.

You can use canned chickpeas for this recipe, like I’ve done here, or dried chickpeas (which need to be soaked and cooked first). I often choose the canned alternative for the sake of convenience, although I prefer the flavor, texture and price of dried chickpeas that I’ve cooked myself.

Moroccan Chickpea & Couscous Salad

An exotic Moroccan couscous salad with chickpeas, raisins and colorful vegetables coated in a delicately spiced olive oil and lemon dressing.

Serves 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main meal

1 cup quick-cooking couscous
1/4 cup raisins
1 1/4 cups boiling chicken or vegetable stock
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic – minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 carrot – grated
1/2 red pepper – finely diced
1/4 red onion – finely diced
1 cup canned chickpeas – rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

MIX the couscous with the raisins in a bowl and pour over the boiling stock. COVER with a dish towel, plate or plastic wrap to seal in the steam and let sit for 5 minutes. PLACE the oil, lemon juice, garlic, spices, and salt in a jar with a screw-top lid and shake to mix. FLUFF the couscous with a fork to separate the grains and stir through the carrot, red pepper, onion, chickpeas and parsley. POUR over the dressing and toss together until well combined.

We’re certainly traditionalists when it comes to Mediterranean and Asian cooking. But convenience is also a big consideration for us. If we’ve got plenty of time on our hands, we don’t mind making our own stocks from scratch, or even making our own curry pastes with a mortar and pestle.

But often time isn’t on our side, so we use stock powder, or a pre-made curry paste. I’ll be the first to admit that the end result isn’t as good, but the flavors are close, and the time and energy saved makes the compromise worthwhile.

Polenta is a case in point. Polenta is an Italian cornmeal made from dried, ground corn. When you simmer it with water while stirring it thickens and becomes a thick porridge. Sometimes this can take over an hour (if you’re cooking up a big batch) and involves lots and lots of stirring. Occasionally we’ll make polenta this way, but more often we’ll use instant polenta, a much finer grade of cornmeal that’s been precooked and dried and only takes minutes to cook. All you have to do is slowly pour the polenta into boiling water, in a steady gradual stream, stirring as you go to keep it from developing any lumps.

We like to keep our polenta pretty basic and just add salt and extra virgin olive oil, saving more flavorsome ingredients for the stews and sauces that are typically served with it. You can, if you wish, use stock instead of water, or substitute some milk for extra creaminess. For added taste you can also stir in some grated Parmesan cheese (or gorgonzola), fresh or dried herbs, garlic, chili flakes, or sun-dried tomatoes.

Traditionally, soft cooked polenta is spread on a wooden board, and set in the middle of the table to be served with accompaniments such as a rich sauce or stew — a charming custom evocative of the Italian way of life. We like to serve soft polenta in a steaming hot mound on a plate as a delicious base for, in this instance, a hearty Italian tuna stew.

Soft polenta can also be spread in a baking dish or packed into a loaf tin and left to cool and set, then cut into slices and fried, baked or grilled. You can serve cooked firm polenta with various sauces and side dishes, or topped with vegetables, like sauteed mushrooms, and cheese and olives, similar to a pizza. Polenta can also be layered, like a lasagne, with a rich tomato sauce and cheese, and baked.

Click here for the recipe.

Eating the right food is important. But how fast you eat that food is also very important. If you wolf it down you’ll not only enjoy your food less, you’ll also end up eating more. A study published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association, for example, found that people who ate their food quickly consumed around 10 percent more calories and felt less satisfied than when they ate their food slowly.

It’s easy to consume more food when you eat quickly simply because it takes time for certain hormones to signal your brain that you feel full. In fact, as people who enter food eating competitions show us, you can fit an amazing amount of food very quickly into your stomach before your natural sense of fullness kicks in. One competitor, Joey Chestnut, even ate 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes at a hot dog eating contest in 2009!

It’s actually easy to slow down the pace at which you eat. The key is being mindful of what you’re eating and savoring every mouthful.

Eating is such a sensory experience. It not only involves tasting the food, but also feeling the textures of the food in your mouth, smelling the aromas, and admiring it visually. Being fully aware of all these senses working in unison when you’re eating not only helps slow down your eating, but also makes your eating experience far more enjoyable. (The best environment for doing this is, of course, at the dining table. If you’re in front of the TV or doing some other activity while you’re eating you’ll be easily distracted from the food, which makes it very hard to be a mindful eater.)

To show you how much more satisfaction you can derive from food by being a mindful eater why not try this experiment. Get two small squares of chocolate. Eat the first square as you normally would. Then, before you eat the next square of chocolate take a moment to appreciate it visually and take in its aroma. When you put the chocolate in your mouth, feel the texture against your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Then eat the chocolate and take time to savor the taste as if you were a wine taster sampling a fine wine.

Now compare your two chocolate eating experiences. It’s easy to see that without being mindful you could easily gobble down a lot of chocolate without truly being satisfied. Yet mindfully eating a small amount of chocolate can give you just as much satisfaction (if not more) than eating a large quantity of chocolate mindlessly.

Eating your meals mindfully and luxuriating over them is something that people from Mediterranean and Asian cultures have been doing for centuries, which I believe is one of the reasons obesity has never been prevalent in this regions. And by adopting these same mindful eating practices in your own life you’ll not only enjoy your food more fully, you’ll also feel more full on less food.