After the success of her first book, Whole – Bowl Food for Balance, which shares the journey of moving away from fad dieting and healing our relationship with food through mindful eating, Melissa Delport decided to dive deeper into health and look at why we make the food choices we do. 

Heal – begin with food aims to share information on how to eat healthier, support the body’s various systems, heal ailments, and live a life of energy and abundance through beautiful whole food cooking.

There are close to 100 recipes in the book, either vegetarian or vegan. For those who enjoy meat, it can simply be added to the dish as and how you like.

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Healing Broth, Turmeric and Ginger

Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour

Taking time to explore somewhere new can feed the soul and teach us about new cultures and give us profound perspective on our own lives. You don’t have to go far, but you do need to disconnect. Good health is not only in the tactile form but also in the energetic space of experiences, laughter, sharing an ice cream with a loved one or exploring a new city by foot. This soup is light and easy on the digestive system. The turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory and the range of raw toppings makes it light and energising. I encourage you to play around with different toppings and use this base as inspiration to get creative.

Broth

• 4 cups vegetable stock
• 2 large leeks, sliced
• 1 brown onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 fresh red chillies, roughly chopped
• 2 large carrots, scrubbed and roughly chopped
• 1 cup shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
• ½ head green cabbage, roughly chopped
• 4 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 2 thumb-size piece fresh ginger, peeled
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated turmeric or 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
• 2 handfuls fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil
• 2 limes

Suggested toppings

• ¼ bunch kale, stalks removed and leaves finely sliced
• 1 small handful fresh mixed sprouts
• ¼ cup shredded red cabbage
• 20 grams fresh basil leaves, finely sliced
• 100 grams broccoli, blanched
• 1 shallot, finely sliced
• Crunchy chickpeas
• 1 cup cooked brown rice

Method

For the broth, pour the stock plus 2 cups water into a large saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.

Add all the vegetables, ginger, turmeric and parsley leaves to the saucepan and simmer for 1 hour. If you’re really pushed for time, 45 minutes will do but you really want to cook it for longer if possible. If the liquid gets too low, top it up with hot water.

Once ready, strain the broth, keeping the liquid and discarding the vegetables. You can save your vegetables and add them to a compost heap or feed them to your chickens if you have. Season the broth with salt and pepper.

While the broth is simmering, prepare the toppings. You can serve the kale, sprouts, cabbage and basil raw, but you’ll need to cook the broccoli and shallot.

Heat 1 teaspoon coconut oil in a small frying pan over medium heat and lightly sauté the broccoli for 5 minutes. Set aside.

Heat ½ cup sunflower oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the shallot and deep-fry for 8-10 minutes until crispy. Once ready, remove from the oil using a slotted spoon and pop onto some paper towel to remove the excess oil.

Once your broth is ready, set out all the toppings in separate bowls and combine as you wish. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lime. DM/ML

Heal – begin with food is published by Penguin Random House SA (R400). Visit The Reading List for South African book news – including recipes! – daily.