Eat fat, get slim: recipes for Atkins dieters

(Filed: 10/09/2003)

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In the third part of his four-week series Henry Harris, chef at Racine and an Atkins dieter himself, champions cheese

I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered that cheese was permissible for those on the Atkins diet. I had never been able to give up cheese in my previous attempts to assert control over my ample form. And now, two stone lighter, I am pleased to report I didn't have to. The cheese recipes below, which I devised to fit in with the diet, have helped. Cheese has long been the enemy of the dieter. More specifically, there have been health scares about Dr Atkins's high-fat, high-protein regime. They say I may risk kidney failure, brain disease and general malnutrition. But the truth is I now eat a much better diet than in my pre-Atkins days. A quick supper used to be high-carbohydrate risotto or pasta. Now I know that proteins are good and carbohydrates bad for weight loss, I look for better balance on the plate. However, as with all things, show a little common sense. If you eat cheese for one meal, then don't eat it for the next few. Certainly don't do as I did while testing these recipes and eat nothing but cheese-based meals for 24 hours.

Real farmhouse-made cheese is carefully nurtured and matured; it improves with age and exhibits the dedication of the cheesemaker. And it's delicious. It seems a shame not to use our great native and Irish cheeses, particularly when many of them are now stocked by supermarkets.

Of the recipes this week, the endive salad is an old favourite and the lightest. The lamb kofte and goat's cheese salad is a filling, one-plate meal. Self-indulgence is at times necessary and the baked cooleeney hits the spot perfectly - though sadly a pint of Guinness, its ideal companion, should, with its hefty carbohydrate content, be left alone.

Baked cheese with savoy cabbage (serves two)

Though you may be unfamiliar with cooleeney, a delicious Irish soft cheese, it is widely available - both Waitrose and Sainsbury's sell it. The wrapping of the cheese in foil is all-important; the smallest hole and your cheese sauce will leak out and disappear in a cloud of smoke.

half a savoy cabbage
50g (13/4oz) butter
1 small clove of garlic, peeled
1 mini cooleeney (200g/7oz); or a miniature brie or camembert
1 tsp Dijon mustard
6 slices of green streaky bacon
butter for greasing
3 tbsp white wine
Finely shred the cabbage. Melt the butter in a pan and add the cabbage. Season with salt and pepper, place the lid on the pan and cook over a gentle heat until softened and the excess liquid has evaporated (about 20 minutes).

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/ gas mark 4. Quarter the garlic lengthways and stud the cheese with the four pieces. Spread the mustard over the top of the cheese and then wrap the cheese in the bacon. Take a square of tin foil and smear it with butter. Place the cheese in the middle, season with pepper and scrunch up the tin foil around it, leaving a hole at the top so you can spoon in the wine.

Do so. Then pinch the top together, put the cheese in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. To serve, put the cooked cabbage in a hot serving dish and then carefully open the foil parcel. Lift out the bacon-wrapped cheese and place it in the middle of the cabbage. There will be a lot of runny cheese at the bottom of the foil; carefully pour this over the assembly, mill over some black pepper and serve piping hot.

Endive, walnut and cashel blue salad (serves four as a starter, two as a main course)

Skinning walnuts is a real pain but well worth it, for the delicacy of the resulting pure flesh.

300ml (10fl oz) milk
75g (23/4oz) walnut pieces
150g (51/2oz) cashel blue
half a clove of garlic, crushed
5 tbsp red wine vinegar
a dash of Tabasco
1 tsp Dijon mustard
200ml (7fl oz) whipping cream
4 large heads of Belgian endive
2 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Bring the milk to scalding point and pour it over the walnuts. Set to one side and leave for an hour to go cold.

In a large bowl and using your fingers, break the cheese into small pieces. Add to it the garlic, vinegar, Tabasco, mustard and cream and, still using your fingers, gently mix together into a lumpy liquid mass. Season with Tabasco or salt if required. It should be the consistency of thick pouring cream. Store in the fridge until required. If the vinegar has made the dressing too thick by the time you want to use it, add a splash of hot water from the kettle.

Using a small fine-pointed knife gently lift the skin from the walnuts. Break the white flesh into smaller pieces. Break the endive into spears and place in a bowl. Add the shallots, parsley, walnuts and the dressing.

Mix well and serve

Lamb kofte and goat's cheese salad (serves four)

Big salads are an important way of bringing variety to this type of diet and the warming Moroccan flavours are a great comfort as summer slips away.

For the koftes

1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
500g (1lb 2oz) lamb mince
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
zest and juice of 1 lemon
zest of a quarter of an orange
2 tsp harissa
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 scant tsp sea salt
For the salad



2 medium red onions, peeled
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp harissa
30ml (1fl oz) red wine vinegar
2 tbsp Greek yogurt
50-75ml (2-21/2fl oz) milk
50ml (2fl oz) good olive oil
1 large cos lettuce
half a cucumber
a bunch of parsley, picked
half a bunch of mint, picked
a handful of cherry tomatoes
200g (7oz) aged goat's cheese (that is to say, moist yet crumbly)
2 preserved lemons, pulp discarded and rind cut into strips
Toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a dry pan. Grind them to a powder in a pestle and mortar or spice mill. Place them in a bowl along with the remaining kofte ingredients and mix together very well.

Shape them into 16 small oval patties, cover and refrigerate for an hour. Cut the onions in half, remove the root base and cut them into the thinnest of slices from tip to root (ie the 'wrong' way).

Place them in a bowl of iced water and leave them for an hour. They will become crisper and their flavour milder. Combine the garlic, harissa and vinegar along with a good seasoning of salt. Mix well then stir in the yogurt, followed by enough milk to render it the consistency of single cream. Stir in the olive oil and set to one side.

Trim off the outer leaves of the lettuce and cut into 2cm (2/3in) wide strips, starting at the top of the lettuce and cutting parallel to the base. Wash and dry the salad and place it in a large bowl. Heat up a large cast-iron pan or griddle and start to cook the koftes in batches. They will take about three minutes each side; keep them warm while you finish the salad. Cut the cucumber into 4cm (11/2in) matchsticks.

Add them to the salad bowl along with the herbs and tomatoes, then crumble in the goat's cheese. Pour in three-quarters of the dressing and mix with a light hand. To serve, divide the salad between four plates. Arrange four koftes over each, scatter with preserved lemon strips and add a final drizzle of the dressing.