Getting the tastiest dish from the most nutritious of basic foods is a knack master chef Simon Gault has perfected over the years. His tips for making a delicious brunch draw from that.
He tells Jim Mora foods like mushrooms, eggs and tomatoes can make up a bland dish or be served up with a spectacular flavour, while giving you just as impressive health benefits. Garlic and seasoning with other herbs are magic ingredients helping you do so.
Tomatoes are packed with the antioxidant lycopene, linked to many health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. But served without thought, tomatoes can be insipid, he says.
Simon Gault Photo: Vanessa Lewis
“How often do you go to a cafe or somewhere and they serve your grilled tomato, and it's got no salt, pepper, it's got no flavour. It's watery and pretty terrible,” Gault says.
“We can get around that quickly by cutting a tomato in half and the first thing we need to do is drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on there. And by doing that, we're a giving it a beautiful flavour. Then we need some salt and pepper.
“The great thing about putting the extra virgin olive oil in there by adding oil to a tomato, you're helping the body absorb the lycopene from the tomato.”
Gault recommends adding seasoning, like Italian, Mexican or Moroccan, as well as a drop of balsamic vinegar, before baking the tomatoes in the oven at 185C until wilted and soft. Finally season it with salt and pepper.
“It's easy to do - you don't have to muck around with a pan much, much easier,” he says.
The secret to poached eggs is keeping it fresh. He says use a tall pot of water to cook the eggs, which form a classic teardrop shape as they tumble to the bottom and solidify.
That’s a harder task at home, but he says the key is using fresh eggs, otherwise the whites disintegrate easily and you’re left with a terrible-looking egg yoke.
“The way to see if your egg is fresh is to get a tall glass of cold water and place your egg in. It should sink to the bottom and rest on the bottom of the glass of water. If it remotely floats, then you've got a problem.”
If it floats just slightly above the egg can still be used, a splash of apple cider vinegar or malt vinegar into the water helping the whites remain intact, but that’s not his preferred taste.
The water should be just ticking over not rapidly boiling. He also recommends not putting salt in the water because it changes the temperature of the boiling water.
When it comes to mushrooms Gault doesn’t remove the skins as they’re flavoursome, but washing these are recommended for hygiene sake.
He cautions about the way to wash. “The key when washing them is to remember mushroom is like a sponge, it will soak up oil or water up in a heartbeat. So I only wash the top of the mushroom, so that the water cascades over the top of the mushroom whilst I give it a little gentle rub to clean them and the underside, otherwise it'll soak it up and you'll just have a wet horrible mushroom.”
Mushrooms, like tomatoes, have impressive health benefits, being a rich, low-calorie source of fibre, protein, and antioxidants.
"Put some extra virgin olive oil in there and slice the mushrooms up and use maybe a knob of butter as well for some extra flavour. But before you put the mushrooms and maybe chop that garlic and just let it sizzle away for about 30 seconds on the hot oil and garlic. Then add your mushrooms. Then, let's not forget, let's get some herbs, an Italian seasoning or Mexican, or whatever you like, get some herbs in there. And then slowly cook them. At the end some salt and pepper. Don't add any liquid to the mushrooms because there's so much water in mushrooms that comes out a little bit different if you've cooking shitai mushrooms or oyster mushrooms you probably want to add a little bit more extra virgin olive oil.
Extra virgin olive oil is so good for us - it’s the first press and the olive, so it's the best oil and has the most antioxidants and the most flavour.
Gault points out that cutting the garlic releases sulphurs, and an enzyme known as alliinase is released.
“That is the bit that is so good for our health and it's what we smell in a garlic right when you get a garlic clove out of the skin. It doesn't really have much of a smell it's when you cut it that suddenly your kitchen smells like garlic…
“That's the bit that is so incredible to help lower blood pressure. It's full of antioxidants and you know it can help lower cholesterol and you know if you lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure then you reduce the risk of brain diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia.
Raw garlic is healthier as cooking kills some of the alliinase. Gault has a novel way of eating garlic raw.
“I get a kilo of garlic, peel them all and then I put them into a jar and I top it with raw honey. I put the lid on and it starts bubbling away. So, you got to the jar every day, until finally it stops bubbling and then I'll put a splash of apple cider vinegar. And if you have one of the garlic cloves in the morning on an empty stomach… the health benefits are just incredible.”
You can swallow bits of the garlic like a tablet, so your breath doesn’t smell, he adds.
Other great ways of using it include using raw grated garlic or chopped garlic with olive oil with a vinegar or lemon juice, adding it to chop tomatoes and onions and some basil.
“Suddenly you got a salsa that you can put over fish, you can put it over a piece of chicken you can put it over a piece of steak.”
Bacon, can also have good nutritional value, depending on how it’s cook and the type of bacon it is.
“Take a minute and see how much sugar is added to it, because you want to steer away from the bacons that have a whole heap of sugar,” Gault says.
Look for the amount of preservatives used in bacon too, he says.
“These extend shelf life, so that it doesn't go off on the shelf or on the fridge, so it can last longer… But when you eat that bacon or whatever it is, if it's got these preservatives, and they keep working inside you, and they start killing all your good gut bacteria. So that's why I say look at labels and see how many e numbers and preservatives on there.”
If cooking a brunch for people he recommends cooking the bacon rolled up on the oven, separate from the mushrooms and tomatoes. It’s much easier, and healthier.
Cooking bacon in the oven allows you to more easily render out the fat content, perhaps turning them halfway, he says.
