One tray, four serves, and about a serve and a bit of calcium on every plate, without a glass of milk in sight. The bones in the salmon carry it, the chickpeas bring protein, and the whole thing reheats into lunch.
What you need
Serves 4.
Two large red capsicums. Around 600g of small potatoes. Two tins of chickpeas, drained. Two tins of wild red salmon, the kind with bones in. Olive oil, smoked paprika, a lemon, a bunch of parsley. A cup of greek yoghurt for the dressing.
How to make it
Heat the oven to 200C. Halve the potatoes and cut the capsicums into thick strips.
Toss both with olive oil, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, spread across a large tray and roast for 25 minutes.
Add the drained chickpeas, shake the tray about, and roast for another 15 minutes until the potatoes are done and the chickpeas have started to crisp at the edges.
Drain the salmon and break it into large pieces, bones and all. Fold it through the hot tray so it warms without drying out.
Loosen the yoghurt with a squeeze of lemon and a splash of water. Spoon it over, then plenty of parsley and the rest of the lemon.
The bones are the point
Tinned salmon is one of the few foods where you eat the bones, and that is where nearly all of its calcium is. They are soft enough to crush between your fingers, and once they are broken up through the dish you will not find them.
It is also wild caught. Red and pink tinned salmon are Pacific species, and the farmed Atlantic salmon sold fresh and smoked does not generally end up in a tin. So a pantry staple turns out to be the better choice on that front too.
Draining the salmon and picking the bones out, which is what a lot of people do, removes most of the reason it is here.
Each plate gets about 100g of salmon, which is one of your four daily serves on its own. The yoghurt dressing adds a bit more.
Swaps
- Tinned sardines work and carry more calcium again, though they are a stronger flavour.
- For a plant version, use calcium-set firm tofu, cubed and roasted with the potatoes from the start. Check the label says calcium sulphate or calcium chloride, since not all tofu is set with calcium.
- Sweet potato instead of potato, if that is what is in the cupboard.
- Butter beans in place of the chickpeas.
The takeaway: Roast potatoes and capsicum, add chickpeas, fold through wild tinned salmon with the bones broken up, and finish with lemon yoghurt and parsley. A serve and a bit of calcium per plate, and it reheats into lunch.
Part of Is This Just Getting Older?
This post is part of a month-long collaboration with seven other women working in midlife health, and there is a prize pack to enter. Everything you need to enter is on one page. Entries close 18 October.
The science behind this post:
- The serve sizes and calcium figures in this recipe come from the Australian Dietary Guidelines. They are set out, with sources, in Four serves of calcium, and four ways to get there.