Don’t leave your apples to languish in the fruit bowl! Take them out and use them in easy healthy apple recipes.
Apples are high in Vitamin C, and it’s been shown that eating them regularly can help to reduce levels of harmful cholesterol in the body. Children like them, although they often prefer them cut into pieces, rather than whole. But apples deserve to be used in far more ways, than just as a sweet, juicy snack. If you’ve never tried cooking with them, or using them in salads, start now, with these easy healthy apple recipes. Crisp, juicy apples are available all year round. Although there are thousands of apple varieties, most shops stock only a handful of the possibilities, and many farmers have given up growing the less well-known types, in response to supermarket pressure.
Choosing apples For more unusual and seasonal varieties, try shopping at farmers’ markets or wholefood stores. Organic apples are more likely to have blemishes on the skin than non-organic fruits, but will often have a better flavour. Choose smaller apples, which often have a better, more intense flavour and firmer texture than large ones, and store them somewhere cool, out of direct light. For cooking, you can use Bramleys, which cook down to a fluffy pulp, but have a tart flavour which need sugar, or experiment with eating varieties. Many of them also cook well, so give them a go in these easy healthy apple recipes.
Serves 4 Peel and cube 3 cooking apples. Dissolve 75g (1/3 cup) sugar in 5 fl oz (2/3 cup) water, then poach the apple in the syrup for a minute or two, until the apple starts to swell and soften. Remove the apple pieces with a slotted spoon. Sprinkle 25g (2 tbsp) semolina into the syrup, and simmer gently, stirring to prevent lumps forming. Cook for 5 mins until thickened, remove from heat, and stir in 5 fl oz (2/3 cup) skimmed or semi-skimmed milk and the apple pieces. Separate two eggs, and whisk the whites until stiff. Fold the whites into the semolina mixture, then pour all into a dish. Leave to set if you wish.
Serves 4 Blend together 100g (1 cup) plain flour, 3 eggs, 225ml (1 cup) skimmed or semi-skimmed milk and a pinch of salt until you have a creamy batter. Leave to stand for a few minutes. Remove the cores from 2 medium sized, sweet eating apples. You can do this with a corer, or gouge them out with a small knife. They don’t have to look beautiful. Slice the apples into very thin rings. Wipe a little oil around a non-stick frying pan and heat until a tiny drop of batter sets immediately. Pour in a thin layer of batter, swirling it around. As it starts to set, drop on a few apple slices, then pour over more batter to cover. Flip the pancake over using a fish slice, and cook until the other side is set. Serve immediately. If you’re careful, you can squeeze 8 pancakes out of this quantity, although inevitably the last ones will be smaller than the first.
