Food, the cooking of it and sharing it with others has always been at the heart of Fig1 because we love to eat and we do what we love.
Skip on to our favourite versatile miso, orange and ginger marinade or dressing, perfect to keep in the fridge for spicing up your veg
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, I believe in celebrating and building on last year’s successes. Resolutions start with asking us to analyse our failures – with the question “what should I do better”. I’d prefer to start with the question “what did I do well at?”
One personal win this year was that during our crazy manic work period, the Christmas build up, Luke and I managed to eat really healthily and keep up on regular exercise. If you’d seen the piles of takeaway cartons in our recycling bin and the dust on the running shoes in previous Januarys you’d understand why we think of this as a big win. I’m sure everyone has been there at some point where work becomes too pervasive to allow for self-care.
Luke – my husband and the Face of Fig1: it’s usually him you’ll find behind the counter while I’m busy in the background – is vegan and I’m super interested in reducing my impact on the planet by eating plant based foods, however at times this has meant a lot of fake versions of meat which are still processed foods, so we’re working hard this year to avoid those. That means we’re really concentrating on foods that celebrate vegetables and natural sources of protein such as pulses and beans.
For us, succeeding in this has really been learning about food prep and keeping good healthy home-cooked options in the fridge and freezer ready for lunch boxes and reheating after a long day. We have days at Christmas when we open until 8pm, but having prep done has been the perfect way of still having healthy food. In the run-up to Christmas we took on Black+Blum who do some brilliant products to help with this, partly so we could road test them on ourselves. They had bought out some stainless steel food preparation boxes that go in the freezer, the oven (or air-fryer) and even the microwave. That really was a revelation that we had to road test to believe. Because they’re stainless steel (except for the lids) then there’s also no plastic in contact with your food.
Food, the cooking of it and sharing it with others has always been at the heart of Fig1 because we love to eat and we do what we love. One of my favourite things to prepare for the fridge is a miso, orange and ginger dressing. It’s a classic flavour combination and it’s really versatile for then marinating up vegetables or adding to salad and stir-fries. Once it’s in the fridge it keeps well. I love scoring vegetables in a crisscross pattern – you can keep marinating as they cook and the flavour soaks in – or steamed vegetables are perfect dressed hot when they’ll soak up the flavour.
Miso, Orange and Ginger Dressing Ingredients
- 30g White Miso
- 10g peeled root ginger
- 1 tsp mustard
- Zest and juice of 1 Orange
- 1 tsp chilli oil
- 2 dessert spoons rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
- 2 dessert spoons of mirin (or a tsp of sugar with 2 dessert spoons of water)
- 1 clove of garlic
I throw all these ingredients in a blender and blend then simply store in a jar in the fridge. It’s great as the dressing on a crunchy salad especially if the vegetables are finely sliced so the salt and acidity in the dressing can soften them a little. It’s also perfect on baked aubergines or on tofu either of which are perfect for soaking up flavour. Finally, one of my favourite uses is on purple sprouting broccoli, which is in season at the moment. I like that with toasted almonds on top. Add some tofu and rice for a meal in itself or serve it as a side salad.
