Healthy eating: The Happy Pear’s peanut salad bowl packed with flavour

David and Stephen Flynn of The Happy Pear cafes, cookbooks, courses and food production company, are guest chefs in The Irish Times Health Month kitchen this week, sharing dishes from their newly published book, The Happy Health Plan.

The Flynns have spent the past 15 years introducing people to the benefits of their way of eating, and exercising, and their latest book, their fifth, has 90 new recipes, along with meal plans, lifestyle tips and shopping lists.

Just because we are trying to eat healthily doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice flavour, and plant-based meals can be just as tasty as their vegetarian or animal protein equivalents, as this peanut salad bowl shows.

PEANUT SATAY TOFU POT

These make the perfect snack, or a light lunch on the go, or can be easily fleshed out to make a delicious dinner. Here we use cooked quinoa as the base, due to its higher protein content, and add deliciously salty-sweet tofu on top

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Serves 3 (Takes 15 minutes, longer if cooking your own quinoa)

Ingredients
½ a thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
4 tablespoons peanut butter
200ml warm water
2 tablespoons tamari/soy sauce
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
250g firm tofu
1 x 250g pack of cooked quinoa (or you can cook your own)
1 medium carrot
2 spring onions/scallions
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Juice of ½ a lime
4 tablespoons roasted peanuts
10g fresh coriander or parsley

Method

1 Finely grate the ginger. Mix together the peanut butter, warm water, tamari/soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and maple syrup until it’s nice and smooth. Cut the tofu into squares approx. 4cm x 4cm and 2cm thick.

2 Heat a non-stick pan on a high heat. Once hot, add the tofu squares and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until they start to turn brown or golden. Add half the peanut sauce and move it around the pan quickly to ensure all the tofu is well coated on both sides. Leave to cook for a further minute on each side, then remove the tofu from the pan and set aside.

3 Put the quinoa into a large bowl. Grate the carrot, finely slice the spring onions/scallions, and add these to the cooked quinoa along with the salt, black pepper and lime juice. Mix well.

4 Divide the quinoa between three bowls, pour the remaining sauce on top and mix slightly. Serve with 2 slices of tofu per person, sprinkled with toasted peanuts and fresh coriander. Serve a little of the remaining sauce on the side.

Recipe from The Happy Health Plan, by David and Stephen Flynn, published by Penguin Life. thehappypear.ie