Rosemary Conley triumphs with her new low-fat cookery book, finds MAXINE GORDON.

Book: Rosemary Conley's Low Fat Cookbook (Century) £16.99

Chef's CV: This diet and fitness guru surely needs little introduction - particularly to anyone who has ever tried to shed a few pounds. Not content with producing videos, books and magazines on the subject of slimming and running a national network of weekly get-in-shape classes, Rosemary also regularly appears on TV and has also been a consultant to store giant Marks & Spencer on its healthy-eating food ranges.

Presentation: A thick hard-back book, with each recipe on its own page, with a good helping of full-page colour pics too. Very easy to read.

Ingredients: All the components you'd expect to find in a diet cookbook are here. Besides recipe chapters on everything from soups and fish to vegetarian meals and cakes, there are useful advisory sections on successful slimming tips, low-fat cooking techniques and food facts. Each recipe also tells you how many calories and grams of fat it contains.

Recipe: Sweet and sour pork

Ready, steady, cook: There's a lot of chopping for this recipe, but the speed of the cooking still qualifies this dish as a speedy little number.

Taste test: Just great. The pork is melt-in-the-mouth succulent and the veggies still firm enough to give a bit of a bite. I loved the sauce, but my other half found it too sweet. This is definitely for someone with a bit of a sweet tooth, which I think is fabulous as that is something you don't get to indulge very often when you are counting the calories.

Verdict? I've tried several other recipes from the book, all with equal success. It's now the firm favourite in my low-fat cookbook collection. There are recipes for every occasion and to suit all tastes. A real winner.

HHHHH

Recipe

Sweet and sour pork

Serves 4

Per serving: 168 Kcal/3.5g fat

Ingredients:

12 oz (350g) lean pork fillet, thinly sliced into strips.

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, sliced into julienne strips

green pepper, seeded and finely chopped

red pepper, seeded and finely chopped

8 oz (225g) beansprouts

4 oz (100g) mushrooms, sliced or chopped

1 small can pineapple chunks in natural juice

2 tbsp malt vinegar

2 tbsp tomato puree

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon honey

1 tbsp soy sauce

Method:

Dry-fry the pork fillet in a pre-heated wok or large non-stick frying pan for five minutes. Add the vegetables in the order listed in the ingredients, cooking each for 30 seconds before adding the next.

Drain the pineapple, reserving the juice, and stir into the pork mixture. Mix the pineapple juice with the vinegar, tomato puree, salt, honey and soy sauce and add to the pork mixture, continuing to stir for a few more minutes until the pork is well cooked.

Serve on a bed of boiled rice.

PICTURE: Rosemary Conley.