Currabinny Cooks: Dishes to make you feel good

Kale and sprout salad, lassi and a natural 'detox soup'.

Kale and Brussel Sprout Salad. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan.

We tend to always meet the new year by waking up on the first of January, bleary eyed, head pounding having thoroughly over consumed, not just the night before, but throughout the festive season. The roasts, potatoes, butter, sweets, chocolate and cream have all momentarily lost their appeal.

The first thing to do on day one of January is to drink water, lots of it. The second thing to do is to get a bit of fresh air, few things cure you better than a brisk walk on a cold January. A long hot shower is always a must and of course a cup of coffee to wake you up, just enough to think about making a little food.

There is something cleansing about the process of having it all catch up on you so that you couldn’t bare another biscuit or another glass of Prosecco. You go through it and come out the other side wanting nothing more than the cleanest, simplest and most nourishing of food.

It is important to be proactive in this cleansing experience, drag yourself out of bed sometime after midday and force yourself to begin healing your much-abused body. There is joy to be had in exploring the simpler side of food. Things that are good for you, don’t always make you feel good, at least not at first. Hopefully, these few recipes show how even the most paired back recipes can actually be extremely delicious and comforting.

Kale and sprout salad (pictured above)

This sounds a little like hard work, but trust us, it isn’t. Brussels sprouts are actually, wonderfully delicious when eaten thinly shredded and raw. There is something almost delicate about their flavour. This is great for when you’ve worked yourself up to eating something a little more robust than soup. It requires very little work, other than preparing the ingredients and actually eating it. Kale is full of natural anti-oxidants which your poor body will appreciate I am sure. This recipe is by no means lacking in punchy flavours, but doesn’t have anything too overwhelming.

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the dressing:

Juice of 1 big lemon 

2 tbsp of dijon mustard 

1 shallot, very finely diced 

1 clove of garlic, crushed 

Sea salt & Black pepper 

100ml of olive oil 

For the salad:

2 big bunches of Kale ( preferably Russian or Covolo nero) 

300g Brussels spouts, trimmed 

Handful of almonds, skin on, roughly chopped 

100g Parmesan or pecorino, grated 

Method

Mix together all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl or shake in a glass jar and leave to the side.

Remove any of the larger stalks from the kale and finely shred. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Very finely slice the Brussels sprouts so that they are basically shredded. You can of course use a mandolin or even a grater. Add to the bowl with the kale.

Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat until they are toasted, be very careful not to allow any to burn. Set aside.

Add the dressing to the kale and sprout mixture, mixing everything together so it is all well coated. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

Serve with the toasted almonds sprinkled on top along with some grated pecorino.

Detox soup

Detox Soup. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan.

I can rarely stomach anything too rich or filling in the days after New Year's Eve. The emphasis on festive food is all about decadence and excess. This is great while it lasts, but all good things must end one way or another and for myself, the crescendo ends with a headache and a sore belly. This doesn’t mean that the inescapable joy of eating cannot still be had or felt. The emphasis just has to shift to something leaner, cleaner and simple. This is about as simple as a soup can be, just a couple of good things, thrown into a pot and softly simmered.

Ingredients

4 medium onions, peeled and diced 

3 leeks, white parts only, sliced thinly 

2 sticks of celery, chopped 

2 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cubed 

3 tbsp of good olive oil 

Sea salt and black pepper 

Bunch of chives, chopped 

Method

In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium-high heat. Add the onion first, moving it around in the pan, until it begins to soften and turn translucent about two minutes. Next add the leeks, celery and potato, coating everything in the oil and letting it cook for another five or so minutes, stirring regularly. Make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Season generously with sea salt and plenty of freshly cracked black pepper.

Add 1.5 litres of cold water to the pan, bring slowly to the boil and then turn the heat down and leave to bubble gently for around 45 minutes. Check the seasoning again and then serve with plenty of chopped chives sprinkled over.

Lassi 

Lassi. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan.

This is the perfect drink to have to settle your stomach and restart everything. The probiotics in the yoghurt are extremely beneficial and restorative. We usually make this with very good probiotic greek style yoghurt and some of our homemade oat milk. You can of course use whatever kind of milk you like, you can even use water. The main thing is that the yoghurt is real dairy and full of probiotics. This is a simple paired back version, which we prefer. You can, of course, jazz it up in all manner of ways, like blitzing some mango into it or adding spices like turmeric, cumin, cardamom or cinnamon.

Serves 4

Ingredients

500ml of good probiotic thick yoghurt 

100ml of cold milk (or alternative milk or water) 

2 tbsp honey 

A pinch of ground cardamom (optional) 

Ice to serve 

Method

Place the milk, yoghurt, honey and cardamom (if using) in a blender or else use a stick blender to blitz it all together. Add a few ice cubes and blitz it again until smooth.

Pour into ice-filled glasses, you can garnish with some fruit, cinnamon, brown sugar or anything really you’d like.