Diet and fitness guru Rosemary Conley shares an extract from her new book and offers some quick tips for frying food without the fat

Meat and poultry
The secret of dry-frying meat is to have your non-stick pan over the correct heat. If it's too hot, the pan will dry out the food too soon and the contents will burn. If the heat is too low, you lose the crispness recommended for a stir-fry. Practice makes perfect and a simple rule is to preheat the pan until it is quite hot (but not too hot!) before adding any of the ingredients.

Test if the pan is hot enough by adding a piece of meat or poultry. The pan is at the right temperature if the meat sizzles on contact. Add the rest of the meat or poultry and toss it around. Once it is sealed on all sides (when it changes colour) you can reduce the heat a little as you add your seasonings.

Cooking meat and poultry is simple as the natural fat and juices run out almost immediately, providing plenty of moisture to prevent burning.

When cooking mince, I dry-fry it first and place it in a colander to drain away any fat that has emerged. I wipe out the pan with kitchen paper to remove any fatty residue and then return the meat to the pan to continue cooking my shepherd's pie or bolognese sauce.

Vegetables
Vegetables contain their own juices and soon release them when they become hot, so dry-frying works just as well for vegetables as it does for meat and poultry. When dry-frying vegetables, it's important not to overcook them. They should be crisp and colourful so that they retain their flavour and most of their nutrients.

Perhaps the most impressive results are with onions. When they are dry-fried, after a few minutes they go from being raw to translucent and soft and then on to become brown and caramelised. They taste superb and look for all the world like fried onions but taste so much better without all that fat.

Good results are also obtained when dry-frying large quantities of mushrooms, as they 'sweat' and make lots of liquid. Using just a few mushrooms produces a less satisfactory result unless you are stir-frying them with lots of other vegetables. If you are using a small quantity, therefore, you may find it preferable to cook them in vegetable stock.

Alternatives to frying with fat
Wine, water, soy sauce, wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, and even fresh lemon juice all provide liquid in which food can be cooked. Some thicker types of sauces can dry out too fast if added early on in cooking, but these can be added later when there is more moisture in the pan.

When using wine or water, make sure the pan is hot before adding the other ingredients so that they sizzle in the hot pan.

Recipes
Try some of Rosemary's new Eat Yourself Slim recipes:

• Roasted Pepper Tarts
• Salmon and Broccoli Lasagne
• Thai Chicken Curry
• Valrhona Chocolate Mousse
• Lime Cheesecake Ice-cream

Extracted from Rosemary Conley's Eat Yourself Slim (Century, £17.99)