A new twist on meat and three veg (+recipes)

Herald on Sunday·

28 Mar, 2015 06:00 PM3 mins to read

Mediterranean roast veges with spiced lamb. Photo / Michael Craig

A new twist on the Kiwi staple of meat and three vege.

Although I'm firmly in the camp that says we should eat less meat, I know many people still base their meal planning around meat and three vegetables. When I think of this Kiwi staple, I think peas and carrots boiled to within an inch of their lives, overcooked potatoes and a hunk of meat.

That's definitely no longer the case, and it can still be a great way to create a balanced meal.

Two of these recipes - edamame, kale and pea salad, and the Mediterranean roast vegetables - can be enjoyed without meat or with fish instead. They're also great as leftovers for lunch the next day.

I decided to use venison this time for a number of reasons. It's now more readily available and is surprisingly easy to cook. It tastes slightly gamier than beef but the farmed venison we now get in stores has a much mellower flavour than the wild venison my friends sometimes give me after hunting trips.

I used to think you had to slow cook most cuts - and that's definitely the case for tougher cuts like the shoulder. It makes a great hot-pot or pie but we'll wait until winter for that. But with steaks, medallions and pre-diced stir-fry widely available, it can make a quick and easy dinner.

It's an incredibly lean red meat, so I've been having fun playing around with it at meal times. The chard and onions go beautifully - I have rainbow chard in my garden so I simply picked a few leaves to add to the sweet onions.

I hadn't cooked edamame beans before but had eaten them at Japanese restaurants. They're available frozen at the supermarket, and can be simply cooked in their shells in the microwave.

You then just pop the beans out of the shell and straight into whatever you're making. In this salad, I used orecchiette, small thumb-print pasta shells. You could use your favourite grain or just have a big pile of greens instead. I'm obsessed with black sesame seeds at present because they look so good in salads.

I was slightly dubious about the Mediterranean roast vegetables - they kind of remind me of a dish that might be served in a 90s cafe.

But this slightly Italian combination is do good it is hard to go past, especially since there are still plenty of tomatoes on Mum's plants that I've been stealing by the bucketful.

So if it's your night on dinner duty, maybe try something new, or pick an ingredient you haven't used for a while. I hope some of the ideas here will get you eating something delicious for dinner and leave you plenty of leftovers for lunch.