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Steamed Sweet Chilli Chicken with Carrot, Squash and Coconut Mash paleo recipe dinner-min

Recipe: Steamed Sweet Chilli Chicken with Carrot, Squash and Coconut Mash

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Who doesn’t love the taste of Sweet Chilli Chicken? Unfortunately, the majority of sweet chilli sauces on the market are either laden with sugar, artificial flavourings, or in most cases, both. Thankfully, it’s remarkably easy to make your own sweet chilli glaze that is just perfect for basting chicken with. The bold flavours of sweet chilli pair beautifully in this recipe with the creamy carrot, squash and coconut mash.

Recipe: Steamed Sweet Chilli Chicken with Carrot, Squash and Coconut Mash
 
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Recipe type: Dinner
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
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Ingredients
  • For the chicken
  • 2 Chicken breasts
  • ⅔ red chillies, finely chopped and deseeded
  • A chunk fresh ginger, grated
  • 1 tbsp coconut aminos
  • 1 tsp honey
  • Juice 1 lime
  • For the mash
  • 2 cups butternut squash, diced
  • 6 – 8 medium sized carrots, chopped
  • ½ can full fat coconut milk
  • Handful desiccated coconut (optional)
  • Salt and pepper
Instructions
  1. Heat water in the base of a two tiered steamer. Line one of the steamer baskets with a little parchment paper, and lie the chicken breasts flat. Add the diced squash and carrots to the other basket. Place the vegetables on the first tier of the steamer, and the chicken on the second. Cover and steam for 10 minutes. Place the coconut milk in a saucepan on a separate hob, and heat gently.
  2. Meanwhile, make the sweet chilli glaze by mashing together the chilli and ginger in a mortar and pestle. Muddle in the coconut aminos, honey and lime. Taste, and adjust to make sweeter / spicier depending on your preference.
  3. When the 10 minutes are up, remove the vegetable basket from the steamer, whilst leaving the chicken on (now on the lower tier) for a further 3 or 4 minutes. Tip the carrots and squash into a large bowl, and mash well before adding the coconut milk. Keep mashing to make a creamy consistency, before seasoning and adding the desiccated coconut (if using)
  4. Check the chicken breasts are fully cooked through before removing from the steamer. Glaze with the sweet chilli, before serving in two separate bowls over the mash.

Steamed Sweet Chilli Chicken with Carrot, Squash and Coconut Mash paleo recipe dinner-min

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings paleo diet primal recipe barbecue-min

Recipe: Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings

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What more is there to say!? Hands down the perfect Friday night treat, these chicken wings are brilliant with a healthy green salad.

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings Ingredients:

  • 16 free range chicken wings
  • 2 tbsp coconut aminos
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • ½ tsp mustard powder
  • ½ tsp cayenne pepper
  • Salt and pepper

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings How To:

1)     Preheat an oven to 200C / 400F / Gas mark 5. Place the chicken wings in a roasting dish, season with salt and pepper, then bake for 15 minutes.

2)     Meanwhile, combine all the sauce ingredients in a bowl, mixing really well.

3)     Remove the chicken wings from the oven. Lower the heat to 180 / 350F / Gas mark 4. Baste the wings in the sauce mixture before returning to the oven. Bake for a further 25 minutes, turning every so often and coating them in the juices.

Sticky BBQ Chicken Wings paleo diet primal recipe barbecue-min

Ginger Sesame Chicken Wings paleo recipe dinner primal-min

Recipe: Ginger Sesame Chicken Wings

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Another wonderful way with chicken wings, this recipe is fiery and crispy, and great as a snack or as a main meal with some fresh vegetables. The key here is the ginger, and the amount of it! Requires overnight marinating.

Ginger Sesame Chicken Wings Ingredients:

  • 500g free range chicken wings
  • 1 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 5 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • 50g fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped
  • 2 tbsp coconut aminos
  • 2 anchovies (optional)

Ginger Sesame Chicken Wings How To:

In a food processor, mix together the garlic, ginger, coconut aminos and anchovies (if using) to form a paste. Mix well with the sesame oil and sesame seeds in a bowl, then pour oven the chicken wings and leave to marinate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas mark 4. Lay the wings on a foil covered baking tray and cook for 40 minutes or until crisp and golden brown.

Ginger Sesame Chicken Wings paleo recipe dinner primal-min

13 paleo uses for coconut aminos soy sauce alternative healthy primal diet-min

13 Paleo Uses For Coconut Aminos

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Long before I went Paleo, I used Soy Sauce in almost all of my cooking, thinking that not only did it taste good – but that I was adding a super health food to my diet. Now, I've replaced Soy Sauce with Coconut Aminos in all of my cooking.

Buy Coconut Aminos Soy

What’s So Wrong With Soy?

As I researched I formed the opinion that rather than being healthy, Soy is actually quite the opposite. As a legume, Soy contains Lectins, which turn your Leptin sensitivity haywire, confusing your hunger and energy signals. The high levels of Phytates in soy are also undesirable, since they bind to minerals, ensuring that they are unavailable for your body to absorb.

Soy has a high Goitrogen content. Goitrogen interfers with the Thyroid, so can lead to Hypothyroidism. My biggest concern with Soy however, is the plant estrogens it contains (isoflavones) – which have the effect of raising estrogen and decreasing testosterone. Think man boobs and all sorts of undesirable effects through unbalanced hormone levels.

Avoiding Soy…

Fortunately, it is easy to avoid Soy products. Firstly, I find that by using so many different ingredients in my cooking, it is so much tastier that I don’t need to add any extra flavour. Just by changing the herbs and spices I use, I can completely change the taste of a recipe anyway.

But – for those occasions when nothing else will do, I have found Coconut Aminos to be a great alternative to Soy.

What Is Coconut Aminos?

Coconut Aminos is essentially the sap of a coconut tree, or the juice from coconut blossoms. The tree is tapped to collect the aminos, which is then dried in the sun to evaporate, or can be fermented. The sap from the tapped tree will continue to produce sap for years to come.

The aminos is loaded with amino acids (apparently 14 times more than soy sauce) and packed with minerals and vitamins.

13 paleo uses for coconut aminos soy sauce alternative healthy primal diet-min

 

13 Things You Can Do With Coconut Aminos

  • Marinate a steak in coconut aminos, garlic, coconut oil, salt and pepper for a few hours before cooking
  • Make Paleo Sushi using nori wraps, cauliflower rice and fish, and serve with coconut aminos as a dipping sauce
  • Use for making beef jerky
  • Add to Paleo chilli for a deep flavour
  • In fact, try it in any tomato based dishes to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, make the dish a darker colour and replace the need to add salt
  • Marinate chicken in it before adding to a stir fry
  • Use in fermented foods like Kimchi
  • Perfect for Asian inspired dishes like Nasi Goreng
  • Use in soups and stews instead of adding salt
  • Add to the baking tray when roasting a chicken to brown the skin when basting the bird.
  • Mix coconut aminos, balsamic vinegar, mustard, oive oil and a squeeze of lemon to make a delicious salad dressing
  • Add to sweet potato chips with olive oil and coriander before baking in the oven.
  • Slice and de-seed and avocado, pierce with a fork, then pour on balsamic vinegar and allow to soak in. Then fill the hole up with coconut aminos and eat with a spoon.

Where Can You Get Coconut Aminos?

If you’ve not tried it before, you can often find Coconut Aminos at your local health food shop. Alternatively, a few places online stock it. I get mine from  iherb (who offer $10 discount for first time customers), as I order most of my herbs, spices and supplements from there in bulk.

What do you use Coconut Aminos for? Share your suggestions below.

Paleo iodine wraps nori-min

Paleo Iodine Wraps

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Since my new supply of himalayan salt arrived with a big warning on the outside “this does not contain iodine”, I've been craving salty foods.  I'm sure this is psychosomatic, but it has lead to quite a lot of reading about iodine deficiency in the last week.

Himalayan-Salt-Iodine-paleo iodine wraps-min

It does appear to be quite possible to become deficient in iodine when eliminating regular iodised salt and conventionally raised animal products.  Apparently they started adding iodine to salt many years ago – and to animal feed, as many people were deficient in the mineral.  Iodine plays a crucial role in thyroid function and is an essential mineral.  I had quite extensive blood work a couple of months ago but for some reason, despite my thyroid function being tested, iodine levels were not part of the tests.  I will get my levels checked out, but in the meantime, I need to make sure I get enough iodine, be it from my diet, or supplements.  Kelp Supplements seem to be quite popular, so perhaps they will be a good choice?

Wild caught fish is a good source of iodine, but I don't incorporate this in my diet regularly – this is probably something I need to change.  Seaweed is supposed to be an excellent source of iodine, so to that end, I created “Paleo Iodine Wraps” for dinner this evening, using Nori sheets.

The wraps were going to contain beef, but I actually found some fresh turkey today – and it was on sale, so I had to buy it (I've got no idea why it's so hard to find turkey in Australia – it's got such a fantastic nutritional profile!).  As you might have noticed I'm quite keen on putting fruit in with savoury dishes, so thought I'd experiment with some apricot to go with the turkey and seaweed flavours.  I'm really enjoying coconut aminos at the moment, so I used it to marinate the turkey and beef in.

Paleo-Iodine-Wraps-Ingredients-1024x1024-min

Ingredients

Fresh Turkey
Thinly Sliced Beef
Onion
Capsicum (bell pepper)
Zucchini
Mushrooms
Tomato
Lettuce
Avocado
Nori Sheets
Coconut Oil
Coconut Aminos
Coriander (Cilanto)
Himalayan Sea Salt
 

Method

I cut the turkey and beef into thin strips and let them marinate in the coconut aminos for a few minutes, whilst I prepared the rest of the ingredients.

I cut the onion, capsicum, zucchini, mushrooms and apricots into strips and then stir fried the meat in the coconut aminos and a spoonful of coconut oil.

Once the meat browned off I set it aside, and stir fried the vegetables and apricots in the same oil.  I added the salt and some coriander to this and kept the vegetables on the heat for a few minutes.

Whilst the vegetables finished cooking, I cut the lettuce, tomatoes and avocados into strips, since these did not require cooking.

Paleo-Iodine-Wraps-Making-1024x1024-min

When the vegetables were ready, I assembled all of the ingredients on one edge of the nori sheets, and rolled them until they resembled (paleo!) sushi rolls.

I was pleased with this impromptu dinner and will add it to my list of good foods to make for on the go!  I think these would store fine in the fridge overnight, so would be another good option for work lunches – or even as a grab and go breakfast.  I really liked the contrast of the seaweed taste with the sweetness of the apricot.  I think next time I'll use fish instead of turkey and beef to full embrace a sea theme for this dish – and to get in a bit more iodine!

Paleo-Iodine-Wraps-1024x1024-min

I've not checked yet, but hopefully if I incorporate Nori a few times a week, I won't have to worry about iodine deficiency.

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on Iodine intake and deficiency, is this something you actively address in your diet?

Paleo iodine wraps nori-min

Coconut Aminos paleo diet alternative to soy sauce-min

Coconut Aminos

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When adopting a Paleo diet, soy sauce is most definitely not on the menu, but perhaps you’re looking for an occasional substitution?

Soy-Sauce substitute coconut aminos instead-min

Coconut Aminos, the perfect substitute for Soy Sauce?

Coconut Aminos might be just the substitute you’re looking for.  Is less salty than Tamari, but can be used exactly as you would use Soy Sauce, for marinades, dressings sauces and stir-fries – almost anywhere in fact.

Coconut Aminos has got a great amino acid content, considerably higher than that of soy sauces.  The aminos is made from the raw sap of the coconut tree, naturally aged and is blended with sun-dried sea salt.  For occasional use in a recipe calling for soy sauce, this seems like a great alternative.

Buy Coconut Aminos Soy

 

Unfortunately none of the Health food shops I regularly visit in Sydney stock Coconut Aminos.  I’ll be checking out the Brisbane stores  at the weekend, perhaps I’ll have more luck in Queensland.  I've found a couple of online retailers who deliver Coconut Aminos to Australia and New Zealand: – Iherb sell Coconut Aminos for $6 USD, with approx $4 USD shipping to Australia.  Use the code DUV741  for $5 off your first order, making the Aminos very reasonable indeed!  The other supplier, Reflections Health, sells their Aminos at $25, with $13 shipping.

Make sure you’re buying “Coconut Aminos”; remember “Liquid Aminos” will be derived from soy beans.

Have you tried Coconut Aminos?  Did you enjoy it?  Have you found any additional sources in Australia?  I’d love to hear your comments!

Coconut Aminos paleo diet alternative to soy sauce-min