Description: This can be served as an appetiser or a side dish and can be served hot or cold. Crunchy delectable lotus root perfectly matches with a little bit of chili flavour with a scent of sesame oil. It goes well with rice and can be a nice snack with beer or bubbly wine too! You may cook a large amount and save it for following days as well.
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• Lotus roots – cut into half moon slices 2-3mm width, 160g
• Pork mince (10%) – 30g
• Dry chili – chopped, 1 piece
• Soy sauce – 1 teaspoon
• Sake cooking wine- 1 teaspoon
• Sesame oil – 1 teaspoon
• Garlic – chopped, 1 clove
• Ginger – cut in small pieces, 5g
• Sesame seeds – ½ teaspoon
• Spring onion – chopped, 1 teaspoon
• Black Pepper – according to personal taste

Method

1. Remove the skin of the Lotus roots and soak in vinegar water for 5 to 10 minutes (1 teaspoon of vinegar for 200ml water). Alternatively, you may just use simple water.
2. Heat up a small non-stick frying pan. Add garlic, and dry chili and mince meat over medium heat, stirring regularly.
3. Stir in ginger and lotus roots with soy sauce, sake, and black pepper.
4. Add 100 mL water and cook over strong heat until most of the water evaporates.
5. Add sesame seeds and spring onions.

To serve: Sprinkle additional ground black pepper

Nutritional Values Per Serving

Kcal	Protein	Fat	Carbs	Fibre	Sugars	Salt	Saturated Fat	Vitamin C	Potassium
116.3	6.1g	4.1g	15.3g	4.2g	0.3g	0.5g	0.9g	36mg	518.2mg
5.8%	12.3%	5.9%	5.9%	13.9%	0.3%	8.4%	4.3%	90%	14.8%

Nutritional Tips

This dish is one of your 5-A-Day. Lotus roots contain essential vitamins and minerals. They are especially rich in potassium, vitamin C, and are a good source of fibre. They are also low in sugar, and fat and moderately low in calories for vegetables (74 kcal per 100g). Fibre is one of the widely known nutrients which helps digestion, weight loss, or preventing bowel cancer while potassium helps to absorb the excess sodium and increases urine production. Therefore, it helps in preventing excess water retention and contributes to preventing high blood pressure as well.

Vitamin C is one of the important vitamins to our body. Nowadays, it is unlikely for one to lack vitamin C, however, it is a water-soluble antioxidant and the human body needs it to synthesise collagen (Boyera et al, International Journal of Cosmetic Science, 1998 Jun;20(3):151-8). Our body consists of over 60% water, and 30% protein, most of which is made of collagen. So it is required to maintain the integrity of blood vessels, skin, organs, and bones. Vitamin C also protects us from scurvy, maintains resistance against viral infections, strengthens immunity helps healing wounds, and scavenges free radicals.

Lotus roots can be steamed, deep-fried, braised, or stir-fried. I will introduce more recipes in the future.