Scrumptious South Africa

Seared Tuna with a Niçoise-Style Green-Olive, Caper & Tomato Salsa

2012-01-27T00:25:00.000+02:00

I'm in the mood for turning recipes inside out and upside down this year, so I've dressed this platter of seared tuna strips with a twanging sauce containing most of the ingredients you'd expect to find in a Salad Niçoise: olives, tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, lemon juice, capers, chopped boiled eggs and excellent olive oil. Granted, fresh tuna is very expensive, but this dish is so intensely flavoured that a little goes a long way, especially if you serve it as a starter, with some sliced fresh bread for dipping.

Porcelain platter by David Walters

I wouldn't dream of pairing such a punchy salsa with top-notch sashimi-grade tuna (as if - please allow me a hollow laugh here - I could afford such a thing) but this peppy dressing is great for perking up slices cut from a slab of commonplace fresh tuna.

You may notice a conspicuous lack of chopped boiled eggs in the picture above. This is because my younger basset hound, a thieving little miss, stole my just-boiled wedges of egg off the table while I was getting ready to take the photograph. At first, I couldn't understand where my eggs had gone, and it was only when I saw her guilty expression and the tell-tale crumbs of yolk clinging to her whiskers that the penny dropped. I considered boiling another batch of eggs, but I was pressed for time, and the tuna slices were in danger of drying out, so I snapped the dish and then gave the little brat a desultory scolding. (Any tongue-whipping delivered to a basset hound has to be half-hearted, because they pay no attention at all.)

No one in my family would taste this, let alone eat it, because it contained two tiny fillets of anchovy. If you're also a loather of anchovies, you may leave them out, but consider yourself struck off my Christmas-card list forever.

(Oh, do please give them a try. Pounded to a paste and well blended with the other ingredients, they add a lovely savoury note to the sauce, and don't taste at all fishy.)

Seared Tuna with a Caper, Green Olive and Tomato Salsa
350 g fresh tuna (ask your fishmonger for a nice thick steak)

salt and milled black pepper

1 T (15 ml) sunflower oil, or similar light vegetable oil
2 extra-large free-range eggs
2 ripe tomatoes
8 green olives, pitted
1 T (15 ml) brined capers, drained
4 sprigs fresh parsley
2 slim anchovy fillets
1 clove of garlic, peeled
the juice of a small lemon
4 T (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil

First sear the tuna. Pat the fish dry using kitchen paper and season lightly with salt and milled black pepper. Heat a frying pan over a very high flame for two or so minutes, then add the vegetable oil. Wait for 15 seconds, or until the oil begins to shimmer and the pan is blazing hot (but not yet smoking). Lay the steak in the hot oil and sear it for 45-60 seconds on one side, or until the band of opaque, cooked fish on the underside of the steak is about 3 mm thick. Flip the steak over with a pair of tongs or a fork and sear its underside for another minute or so. Now turn the steak so it's standing vertically and very quickly sear the thinner edges, on all sides, for 30 seconds. The tuna should be raw and still cold on the inside when you're done searing it. Put the steak on a plate, let it cool for 10 minutes, then cover with clingfilm and set aside.

Fill a saucepan with water and bring it to a gentle boil. Slide the eggs into the simmering water and set a timer for 9 minutes. Cut a shallow cross through the skins of the tomatoes and add them to the water in which the eggs are boiling. Leave the tomatoes in the boiling water for 2 minutes, then lift them out of the water and set them to cool on your kitchen counter. When the timer goes off, fill the pan with cold water and set it in the sink under a dribbling tap for 5 minutes, or until the eggs are cold.

Now make the salsa. Finely chop the green olives and capers and set them to one side. Pound the garlic and anchovies to a smooth paste using a mortar and pestle or the blade of a heavy knife. Scrape the paste into a mixing bowl and stir in the lemon juice, olive oil, parsley and the reserved chopped olives and capers. Strip the skin off the blanched tomatoes (it should come away easily), halve them, and use a teaspoon to scoop their seeds - these are packed with umami - into the mixing bowl. Cut the fleshy bits out of the centres of the tomatoes and discard. Cut the remaining tomato flesh into small, neat cubes and add these to the mixing bowl. Stir the salsa gently and season to taste with black pepper (you shouldn't need to add any salt, as the anchovies are quite salty).

Using a very sharp knife, cut the cooled tuna into strips, and arrange these on a platter. Spoon the salsa over the tuna and garnish with a few little sprigs of flat-leave parsley. Peel the eggs, chop them fairly finely, and scatter them over the tuna (that is, if your dog hasn't scoffed them). Serve immediately (or keep tightly covered with clingfilm, adding the parsley garnish at the last minute) in the fridge for up to 3 hours.

Serves 4, as a starter.

Salad of Prickly Pears, Feta and Watercress

2012-01-22T20:56:00.001+02:00

The sweetly perfumed flesh of a chilled prickly pear is something I really look forward in midsummer, and I buy them whenever I see them to use in fruit salads. They are not everyone's cup of tea because they're crammed with nubbly, crunchy seeds, but I can't resist them because they remind me of my childhood. I was interested to see, when I tweeted the picture below earlier today, that other people of a Certain Age also fondly remembered eating cold prickly pears as children. Food and wine pundit Michael Olivier, who grew up on a farm near Cape Town, recalled how his family's housekeeper picked the pears using an empty Lucky Star pilchard tin, and then swept them across the lawn to remove the prickles. Another of my friends, Cape Town writer Penny Haw, tweeted: 'You gave me a happy reminder of my dear Dad, who'd risk all manner of perforation to get his paws on prickly pears.'

Bowl by David Walters, Master Potter of Franschhoek. See my note about the damask napkin at end of this page.

I thought I'd try prickly pears in a salad, for a change, and I hope you'll enjoy this unusual combination of green prickly pears, creamy feta and watercress, sparked with a little dried chilli. The first time I made this, I whisked up a fairly complex vinaigrette flavoured with mint, ginger and garlic, but it stomped rudely all over the simple, clean tastes of the key ingredients. On my second try, I sprinkled the salad with just a little olive oil and lemon juice, and a pinch of salt, and this more restrained dressing brought all the flavours together nicely.

This recipe is partly inspired by Nigella Lawson's Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive Salad, an intriguing combination of salty and sweet (with a punch of red onion and mint) that has spread like a rash across the Internet and, in the process, become a bit of a cliché. I don't know for sure that Nigella was the first to write this recipe down, but if she was, she deserves all credit for it. (And I think a few crescents of very finely sliced red onion would add some real zip to my recipe.)

Please don't be put off by the idea of peeling prickly pears. The skin comes away very easily and neatly, and you won't be pricked if you use a fork and a very sharp paring knife. I've used green-fleshed prickly pears here, but this is just as good with pink ones.

If this recipe convinces you that prickly pears are worth buying, try my Prickly Pear Granita, or my Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar.

Salad of Prickly Pears, Feta and Watercress

6 large, ripe prickly pears, chilled overnight

2 'wheels' (about 140 g) creamy feta cheese, cubed

a small bunch of fresh watercress, leaves picked

1 tsp (5 ml) dried red chilli flakes, or more, to taste

salt and milled black pepper

a little extra-virgin olive oil

fresh lemon juice

First peel the cold pears. Cut about 5 mm off the top and bottom of each pear, using a kitchen cloth or a rubber glove to grasp the pear while you do so. Place a pear, upright, on a chopping board. Push the tines of a fork into the top of the pear to hold it fast. Now, using the tip of a sharp paring knife, make four vertical cuts, about 3mm deep, into the skin of the pear, scoring from top to bottom. Use the fork to peel away the skin in sections; it will come away easily if the pears are ripe. Cut the pear in half vertically and slice into thick half-moons. Repeat with the remaining pears.

Put the pears in a bowl and add the feta, watercress and chilli flakes. Season with salt and pepper (but go easy on the salt, as the feta is already quite salty). Toss all the ingredients gently together. Pile the mixture onto a platter (or onto individual plates) and drizzle with a little olive oil and a generous spritz of lemon juice. Serve immediately.

Serves 6 as a starter.

Note about the damask napkin in the picture: I'm a sucker for heavy damask napkins, and treasure the old ones I have, but they're looking more pink than white these days (having done heavy duty mopping up red wine puddles over the years). I was very pleased to find a bolt of prettily patterned damask at Fabric World in Main Road, Wynberg, and astonished when they charged me - last year's price, so don't quote me - only R13 per napkin to stitch the edges, which was very neatly done. I spent about R330 for 12 napkins, and I think they're worth every cent.

Sandwich-Press Chicken, Potato and Green Bean Salad

2012-01-18T13:51:00.000+02:00

A quick sizzle between the plates of a sandwich press produces the most soft and succulent chicken strips imaginable, probably because they're very quickly cooked on both sides at the same time, and thus have no chance to stiffen or toughen, as they tend to do in a pan. Tossed with some hot spuds, snappy green beans and a garlicky lemon dressing, they make a most delicious warm salad. Of course you can make this using an ordinary frying pan, but if you do have a sandwich press, give this method a try. You'll never again cook chicken strips any other way.

This does work with deboned chicken breasts that have been flattened between two sheets of clingfilm (see Quick, Easy Sandwich-Press Chicken Breasts for Kids), but for best results, use a pack or two of slim chicken fillets, namely, the little 'extra' strip of chicken found on the underside of the breast. I used some lovely pink fir potatoes, but any type of new potato will do. I've also added finely chopped rocket to this salad. Rocket is almost always served as a whole salad leaf (because it's so pretty, I imagine) but it's also very good treated as you would a herb leaf: try slicing or chopping it very finely and adding it to omelettes, mayonnaises, dressings, and so on.

Sandwich-Press Chicken, Potato and Green Bean Salad
400 g new potatoes
2 x 400 g packs chicken fillets
salt and milled black pepper
1 T (15 ml) olive oil
300 g fine green beans, stalk ends trimmed
a small bunch of rocket, finely chopped

For the dressing:
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) Dijon mustard, or similar prepared mustard
4 T (60 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
a pinch of white sugar
200 ml extra-virgin olive oil

Cook the potatoes in plenty of boiling, salted water for 20-25 minutes, or until just tender. Fish them out of the pan and drain them in a colander, but leave the water behind in the pot.

In the meantime, make the dressing. Put the crushed garlic, salt, mustard, lemon juice and sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir the mixture until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Whisk in the olive oil to make a smooth emulsion. Set aside.

Heat the sandwich press for 5 minutes. Peel the plastic off the first pack of chicken strips and season them - without removing them from the pack - with salt and milled black pepper (or a seasoning salt of your choice). Open the sandwich press and pour the oil over the base. Close it briefly (stand well back) so the upper surface is coated with oil. Tip the chicken strips, salted side down, onto the base plate, quickly push them apart with a fork and close the press. Cook for a minute and a half to two minutes, or until there is no trace of pinkness when you cut through a strip. Tip the chicken strips into the bowl containing the dressing, and cook the second batch in the same way. Halve the warm potatoes (or leave them whole, if they're tiny), add them to the bowl containing the chicken and toss gently to coat.

Fill a bowl with iced water, add a handful of ice cubes and set to one side. Bring the water on the stove back up to the boil and throw in the beans. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until just tender, but with a slight bite. Drain the beans, plunge them into the iced water and let them sit there for 5 minutes, or until they're quite cold. Pat the beans dry with kitchen paper and add them to the mixing bowl along with the chopped rocket. Toss well, season to taste with salt and milled black pepper, tip onto a platter and serve immediately.

If you're making this in advance, cook the beans no less than 30 minutes before you serve the salad, as they will turn a muddy khaki if left to stand for too long.

Serves 6 as a main course; 8 as a side salad.

Panfried Linefish with a Light Chive, Garlic & Yoghurt Sauce

2012-01-10T23:49:00.001+02:00

Delicate, whisker-thin French chives are a most underrated ingredient, I think, and mostly because they're not always easy to find on supermarket shelves. I love the mild green onioniness of fine chives, and they look so pretty finely snipped and strewn all over salads, omelettes, chicken and fish. Here's a very light 'n lean, herby sauce made with thick natural yoghurt, lemon and a nice jab of fresh garlic. This is a variation of a garlicky low-fat concoction I make in buckets whenever I'm trying to stick to a ~~nasty diet~~ healthy eating plan (and, yes, it's that time of year again).

The hardest thing, I find, when trying to eat with some restraint, is foregoing butter. I can do without chocolate, cakes and biscuits, I can resist biltong and bacon and crisps if I have to, but I get very long teeth when I have to face a baked potato without a big sunshiny dollop of salty, melty butter. The same goes for toast, and many other lovely foodstuffs. I have discovered, though, that the stinging garlickiness of a lavishly herbal yoghurt sauce (plus a few dabs of Tabasco) goes a long way towards making up for severe butter deprivation. Mashed with the back of a fork into a big, floury baked potato, this sauce is quite addictive, and sends up wonderful vapours as the heat of the spud releases the aromatic oils in the garlic and herbs.

You can add anything you like to this basic yoghurt mix: chopped capers, gherkins, chopped fresh green chillies, crushed brined peppercorns, grated fresh ginger, mashed anchovies, minced olives, and so on - whatever sets your tastebuds a-tingle.

A dollop of good home-made mayonnaise - or Hellmann's Original - will improve this sauce, nicely rounding out its flavours, but you can leave the mayo out if you're on the strictest of diets. (I don't. What harm can such a small quantity of mayo do?)

In the picture above, I've served the fish with crushed baby potatoes lightly slicked with olive oil. You can boil the spuds in salted water if you have the time, but I just prick them and sling them in the microwave.

Panfried Linefish with a Light Chive, Garlic & Yoghurt Sauce
4 thick pieces of firm-textured white linefish
salt and milled black pepper
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil

For the sauce:
2 cloves garlic, peeled
a pinch of flaky sea salt
2 tsp (10 ml) Dijon mustard
the finely grated zest and juice of a small lemon
a fistful (about half a cup; 125 ml) of fresh parsley, stems removed
a fistful (about half a cup; 125 ml) of fresh basil, stems removed
a thumb-thick bundle of French chives
1 cup (250 ml) thick natural yoghurt; use full-fat Greek yoghurt if calories aren't an issue
3 Tbsp (45 ml) good-quality mayonnaise, such as Hellmann's [optional]
salt and milled black pepper
a little olive oil, for drizzling

First make the sauce. Pound the garlic cloves and sea salt to a fine paste, using a mortar and pestle. Stir in the mustard, lemon zest and lemon juice. Scrape the paste into a small mixing bowl. Very finely chop the parsley, basil and three quarters of the chives, and add them to the bowl. Set the remaining chives to one side. Stir in the yoghurt and mayonnaise [optional] and season to taste with salt and milled black pepper. Alternatively, and if you'd like a smooth, pale green mixture, blitz all the ingredients (except the yoghurt) together using the jug attachment on a hand-blender. Stir in the yoghurt and season to taste.

You can use the sauce right away, but I've found it improves and thickens on standing in the fridge for a few hours.

Now, the fish. Remove the skin and bones and season the fish lightly on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a non-stick frying pan until it's very hot, then add the olive oil. Wait until the oil is shimmering (but nowhere near smoking) and place the fish fillets, a few at a time, in the pan. Press down lightly on the fish with a spatula or the back of a fork. After two minutes (depending on the thickness of your fish) take a peek underneath. If the fish has a nice golden finish, flip it over and cook it for another minute or two, or until just cooked through. I can't give you precise times - cooking times differ according to the type and size of the fish fillets - but you will know when your fish is ready when you press a fork through the thickest part of the fillet and find a tender, moist, gently flaking interior, with no sign of glassiness. If you're not counting calories, add a big knob of butter to the pan and use a teaspoon to baste the fish with the butter during the last minute of cooking.

At this point, immediately lift the fish pieces from the pan and lay them to drain for a minute on a double piece of kitchen paper. While they're draining, very finely snip the remaining chives.

Pile the crushed baby potatoes - if you've made them - on warmed plates and place the fish fillets on top. Spoon a few dollops of cold yoghurt sauce on top of each piece of fish and sprinkle with the reserved chopped chives and a decent drizzle of olive oil.

Serves 4.

Shredded Duck With Crisp Skin and Dried-Pear Sauce

2011-12-26T11:05:00.000+02:00

Cooking a duck may seem daunting, but this dish - a starter or snack - is so easy and has such a delicious, lip-smacking depth of flavour that I eagerly encourage you to give it a go. My sweet, spicy relish is made with dried pears, an excellent South African ingredient (and rather neglected in this country, I reckon).

There are many schools of thought when it comes to achieving very crisp skin on a duck. Some recommend that you pour boiling water over it or blast it with a hair dryer, or prick the skin a million times, or separate the skin from the fat with a blast of compressed air, or let the skin air-dry for 24 hours, or all of the above. I have tried some of these methods (the boiling water, the hair dryer and the pricking) but I really haven't noticed an appreciable difference in the end result. So these days I skip the duck-torturing steps and slow-roast the bird, with an initial blast of heat at the beginning and end of the cooking time. This creates a skin of acceptable crispness. I'm not saying it's the most brittle duck skin on earth, but it's satisfyingly crunchy, and absolutely achievable in a domestic oven. You will need to cook this in a fan-assisted oven, however, because the circulating heat helps to dry out the skin. The duck is roasted for a long time, but you need have no fear of it drying out, provided that you use a duck of excellent quality.

Supermarket ducks are cheap, but they're not very good, consisting largely of bone and fat (and each one feeds only two to three hungry people). A plump free-range duck from a good butcher or food market will cost you more, but you won't be disappointed by its flavour and succulence.

Shredded Duck With Crisp Skin and Dried-Pear Sauce
1 large free-range duck
1 T (15 ml) flaky sea salt or coarse salt
1 T (15 ml) Schezuan peppercorns
1 T (15 ml) black peppercorns
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, sliced
half a lemon
3 spring onions, whiter parts only, finely sliced

For the sauce:
10 dried pear halves (about 100 g)
¾ cup (180 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) white sugar
2 whole star anise
a stick of cinnamon
a thumb-length strip of orange zest

Heat the oven to 200ºC. Dry the duck with kitchen paper, inside and out. Grind the salt and peppercorns together with a mortar and pestle to make a coarse powder, then pat the mixture all over the duck breast, sprinkling a little into the cavity. Tuck the ginger and half lemon into the cavity and roast the duck, breast-side up and uncovered, at 200ºC for 15 minutes. Now turn the heat down to 160ºC and roast the duck for one and three-quarter hours, with the oven fan on. Every half hour, slide out the roasting dish and use a ladle to scoop out the rendered fat (keep it for roasting potatoes). Now turn the oven heat back up to 200ºC and roast the duck for a further 20 minutes, or until the skin is dark golden and crisp.

In the meantime, bring the sauce ingredients to the boil in a saucepan, stirring occasionally. Turn down the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until the pears are soft but not collapsed. Allow to cool and discard the anise, cinnamon and peel. Fish out the pears using a slotted spoon and place in a blender. Press the pulse button a few times to create a chunky sauce, adding just enough of the cooking syrup to allow the blades to turn freely.

When the duck is done, allow it to cool for 10 minutes. Scoop all the remaining fat from the pan, but leave any juices. Prepare the duck as follows: peel the crisp skin off the top, pull the breast and leg meat away from the bone, and using two forks, pull it into shreds and flakes. Tip the meat back into the roasting dish and toss it in the remaining pan juices. Cut the crisp skin into very thin slices. Tip the duck into a warm serving platter (or divide it among ramekin-sized bowls, or ceramic Chinese spoons, or ‘cups’ of crisp lettuce). Sprinkle the crisp skin and the spring onions over the duck and serve immediately with the pear sauce.

Serves 8 as a snack or starter

Like this recipe? Try my Easy Duck Rillettes

Jellied Turkey Terrine with Parsley and Capers

2011-12-24T13:23:00.000+02:00

Here's an unusual way to use up left-over roast turkey: a delicate terrine set with naturally jellied stock and flavoured with a zingy mixture of fresh parsley, capers and gherkins. I made this with the leftovers of two chickens (not having a spare gobbler to hand) but it will work just as well with turkey, provided that you boil the stock long enough for it to form a gentle jelly.

If you have any left-over gammon, cut it into cubes and add it to the terrine to create a beautiful white, green and pink mosaic. Speaking of gammon, the inspiration for this recipe comes from the memory of a glorious ham terrine I tasted in France more than 20 years ago. My husband and I had (foolishly, in retrospect, considering we had a nine-month-old baby at the time) spent a few weeks driving around France, and while we were in Burgundy we bought a thick slice of jambon persillé - a classic of French charcuterie - from the local shop. I can honestly say it was one of the most delicous things I've ever tasted, with its cubes of rosy ham encased in a sparkling, flavoursome jelly and layered with plenty of finely chopped parsley.

This is easy to make, but you will need to simmer the entire turkey carcass (or two chicken carcasses) for at least two hours in order to extract enough collagen from the bones to achieve a set. If you're not confident that your stock will set, add 6 to 8 whole raw chicken wings to the pot.

I've added chopped cocktail gherkins and capers to the terrine because I love their spiky flavours, but you can use a mixture of chopped fresh herbs of your choice, and add anything else you fancy.

Jellied Turkey Terrine with Parsley and Capers

2-3 cups leftover roast turkey, pulled into large shreds

1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley

7 T (105 ml) capers, rinsed and chopped

7 T (105 ml) finely chopped cocktail gherkins
the juice of half a lemon

salt and milled black pepper

For the stock:
a turkey carcass, or two chicken carcasses
3 litres water (or enough to cover the bones)
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) sea salt
1 onion, halved and studded with 3 whole cloves
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
a stick of celery
a few stalks of parsley
a sprig of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tsp (5 ml) black peppercorns

First make the stock. Place the turkey bones in a large stock pot and add the wine, water and salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, skimming off any foam as it rises. Now add all the remaining stock ingredients and cook, covered with a tilted lid, at a gentle simmer for two hours, topping up with a little more water if necessary.

Strain the stock through a sieve lined with a laundered napkin (or a new kitchen cloth) and pour it back into the rinsed-out pan. Bring to the boil again and simmer briskly for another 30 minutes, or until the stock has reduced by about a third. Strain the stock again and allow it to cool to lukewarm. Skim off any fat and set aside.

Line a wet metal loaf tin with clingfilm. If you have a silicone loaf tin, there's no need to line it. Combine the parsley, capers and gherkins in a bowl, stir in the lemon juice and season well with salt and pepper. Scatter quarter of the parsley mixture on the bottom of the tin and arrange a third of the chicken strips on top. Sprinkle more of the parsley mixture over the chicken, and carry on layering until you have used up all the chicken and parsley. Season each layer with a little salt and pepper. Press down firmly on the mixture with the flat of your hand. Now gently trickle the cooled turkey stock into the terrine; the stock should cover the top layer to a depth of about 3 mm. Cover the tin with clingfilm and chill for 3 hours, or until the jelly has set.

Serve cold, with crusty bread, or with boiled new potatoes and salad.

Serves 6-8, depending on the size of your loaf tin.

Feeding a crowd: Roast Butternut and Baby Corn Salad

2011-12-22T16:43:00.000+02:00

Lovely nutty flavours and sunset colours make this bountiful salad a real crowd pleaser. Roasting the vegetables takes a little time, but you can do this well in advance and let them steep in their own toasty juices for a few hours before you assemble the salad. And making stuff ahead is the key to success when you're tackling a big festive feast, isn't it?

I'm a fan of big composite salads like this one because they go a long way and don't cost very much to make. I served this with my Christmas Gammon with a Sticky Orange and Ginger Glaze and a platter of crunchy potato wedges, and it easily fed ten very hungry people.

I'm not crazy about butternut - sweet vegetables aren't my cup of tea - but I don't mind it at all plainly roasted with tender ears of corn and baby carrots, then combined with feta, watercress, spinach and peppery rocket. Lemon juice in the dressing adds necessary acidity, while soy-sauce-coated sunflower seeds provide a bit of crunch and texture.

Roast Butternut and Baby Corn Salad with Feta and Sunflower Seeds

1 large butternut, peeled, deseeded and cubed
2 cups (500 ml) tiny little carrots (or big carrots, peeled and cut into cubes)
1 large punnet baby sweetcorn
7 T (105 ml) olive oil
salt and milled black pepper
2 large packets mixed rocket, watercress and baby spinach, or similar dark leaves
1 stick celery (no leaves), finely sliced
140 g (about two 'wheels') peppered feta cheese
½ cup (125 ml) sunflower seeds
2 T (30 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce

For the dressing:
reserved juices from the roast vegetables
a pinch of Hot English Mustard powder, or ½ tsp (2.5 ml) prepared Dijon mustard
a pinch of caster sugar
the juice of a small lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
2 T (30 ml) white wine vinegar
3/4 cup (180 ml) olive oil, or a mixture of sunflower and olive oil
salt and milled black pepper

Heat the oven to 190ºC. Put the butternut cubes on a roasting tray and drizzle them with half the olive oil. Season generously with salt and black pepper and, using your hands, toss well to coat. Roast the butternut, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges are nicely freckled with brown. Push the cubes to one side of the tray and arrange the baby sweetcorn and carrots on the other side. Drizzle the remaining oil over them, season, toss well and return the tray to the oven. After 15 minutes, remove the butternut cubes, place them in a large bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave the sweetcorn and carrots in the oven for another 15 minutes, or until they are toasty and just tender. Add them to the cooked butternut cubes and set aside at room temperature until you're ready to use them.

To make the dressing, tip any juices that have accumulated under the roast vegetables into a small mixing bowl. Add the mustard powder, caster sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce and vinegar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Now whisk in the olive oil to make a smooth emulsion. Season with salt and pepper. If you'd like a tangier dressing, add more lemon juice or vinegar to taste.

Put the sunflower seeds in a large frying pan and toss them gently over a medium-low flame until lightly toasted. Turn the heat up to medium, add the soy sauce and stir well so all the seeds are coated. Leave over the heat for 30 seconds, or until the pan is dry, then set aside to cool slightly.

Lay the leaves on a big serving platter and arrange the roast vegetables, chopped celery and feta - broken into chunks - on top. Immediately before you serve the salad, pour over just enough dressing to coat the leaves lightly, and sprinkle with sunflower seeds.

Serves 10 as a side salad, or 6 as a main course.

Christmas Gammon with a Sticky Orange and Ginger Glaze

2011-12-21T11:45:00.002+02:00

I'm a bit bored with honey-and-mustard glazes, so this year I thought I'd try burnishing a Christmas gammon with a sticky Asian-style glaze flavoured with ginger, soy sauce and fresh orange juice. The combination of smoky gammon and sweet, spicy citrus was delicious, and I'm going to use the same glaze for the ham I'm planning for Christmas Eve. What a pity that the gammon itself was neither succulent nor tender. Although the flavour was good, it was thoroughly overcooked, and I'm still fuming about this.

A long way off tender and juicy.

I don't usually moan on this blog about products that disappoint me (do you find whining blog posts as boring as I do?) but I'm annoyed enough to make an exception here. I decided to bake rather than boil my gammon this year, because the giant bone-in gammon I bought last year collapsed into sodden shreds in the pot. (We had to rush out and buy an emergency gammon because all that was left was a pile of grey mush. The same thing happened to a reader of this blog, who had bought the same joint from Woolworths.)

Baking the gammon in liquid would, I figured, prevent any chance of collapse, and I was also interested to see if baking would produce a texture superior to that of a boiled gammon. I bought a boneless gammon (again from Woolworths), and carefully read the cooking guidelines on the packaging, which gave instructions for both boiling and baking. I thought it odd that the cooking time for both methods was identical (namely, 30 minutes per 500 g, plus 25 minutes extra), given that the recommended temperature for baking the meat was 160ºC. How could a gammon baked at this temperature require the same cooking time as one simmered on the stovetop at 100ºC, the boiling point of water? Still, I decided to cast my doubts aside and follow the instructions to the letter. After all, I'm always telling people to follow the damned recipe.)

The gammon after 3 hours in the oven: rather shrunken.

My gammon weighed 3.4 kg, so the cooking time added up to just under 4 hours (an hour per kilogram, plus an extra 25 minutes). I baked the gammon in a deep roasting pan, half submerged in a mixture of stock and beer. The instructions advised covering it tightly with foil, which I did, and I added an inner layer of wet baking paper secured with string, because I was worried about the meat drying out. After it had been in the oven for 3 hours, I did a finger-poke test. The meat felt hard, and I could see through the foil that it had shrunk to about two thirds of its original size. At this point I whipped it out of the oven, but it was too late. The meat was flavoursome enough, I suppose, but had lost all its juiciness, and was a long way off tender. I served it to my guests (it was too late to make anything else) but I wasn't happy about it, and I gave myself a good kick in the pants for not trusting my instincts and cooking it at a much lower temperature. (I have pointed out, on Woolworths' Facebook page, that their instructions are incorrect, but have received no response.)

I am going to try the baking method again with the next gammon, but this time will set the oven to 100ºC. I'll let you know how it turns out.

In this recipe, because I don't want your gammon ruined too, I've given you instructions for simmering the meat on the stovetop in a beery broth (this is the same liquid and method I use for cooking my Christmas Gammon Glazed with Brandy and Coke).

Christmas Gammon with a Sticky Orange and Ginger Glaze

For the gammon:
a large gammon, weighing 2.5 to 3 kg, bone in or out
one can (330 ml) ginger ale
one bottle (330 ml) of your favourite beer
2 whole star anise
3 bay leaves
3 whole cloves
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, scraped and roughly chopped
a small stick of celery
a few parsley stalks
1 tsp (5 ml) whole black peppercorns
water, to cover
whole cloves, to stud

For the glaze:
finely grated zest of a large orange
juice of two oranges
3 T (45 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
3 T (45 ml) rice vinegar
3 T (45 ml) soft dark sugar
2 T (30 ml) honey
2 T (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
the juice of half a lemon

Make a note of the weight of the gammon before you discard the packaging. Put the gammon, ginger ale, beer, star anise, bay leaves, cloves, onion, carrots, celery, parsley stalks and peppercorns into a deep pot. Add enough water just to cover the gammon to a depth of 1 cm. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat so that the gammon cooks at a simmer. Partially cover the pot with a tilted lid. If you’re using a boneless gammon, cook the meat for 30 minutes per kilogram. If you’re using a gammon with a large bone, cook it for 45-55 minutes per kilogram, or according to the instructions on the wrapping. Check the pot now and then, and top up with more water if necessary. Turn off the heat and leave the gammon in the liquid to cool completely.

Put all the ingredients for the glaze, except the lemon juice, into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Bubble the the glaze for about 10 minutes, or until it has reduced by about half, is slightly syrupy and is forming big, slow-popping bubbles. Remove it from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.

Lift the gammon out of the cooking broth, pat it dry on kitchen paper and place in a roasting pan. (Strain the stock and freeze it for future use in stews and soups). Peel away the rind and discard it. If there is a very thick layer of fat below the rind, scrape most of it away, leaving behind a thin layer. Using a sharp knife, score the top of the gammon in a diamond pattern. Stud the gammon with whole cloves.

Pour the glaze over the gammon and place the pan under the hot grill, on the middle shelf of the oven. Every two minutes or so, baste the meat by scooping the glaze off the bottom of the pan and trickling it all over the top and sides. Leave the oven door slightly open and watch it like a hawk: the glaze burns easily. When the gammon has a rich, sticky crust, and there is just a little glaze left in the bottom of the pan, remove it from the oven. Let the pan cool for 10 minutes then, using a pastry brush, paint any remaining glaze over the top and sides of the gammon (or dribble it on with a teaspoon). Serve hot or cold, with a green salad and potatoes.

Serves 8-10 as part of a festive feast

Warm Marinated Olives with Lime, Thyme and Chilli

2011-12-18T21:26:00.000+02:00

Fresh limes and olives are unlikely bedfellows, I know, but I was fresh out of lemons when I made this yesterday, so slices of lime it had to be. And, my goodness, the lime tasted good! (Although there's no startling difference in the final taste, a green and perky note of lime adds special zip to the olive-oil marinade.) I often make this dish in summer as a snack to go with drinks: it's so quick and easy to prepare in advance, it tastes gorgeous, and it goes a long way if you serve it with a big platter of sliced crusty bread for dipping.

It's not essential to warm the flavouring ingredients in the olive oil (if you're in a hurry, pack everything into a jar and leave it to steep for three days) but I've found that heating the marinade helps to release the lovely aromatic oils in the thyme, citrus zest, chilli, garlic and pepper. It takes less than a minute gently to reheat the olives before you take them to the table, and it's well worth the effort, because the aromas that drift from the warm oil are quite irresistible.

You can stone the olives if you like, but I think half the fun of eating an olive is rolling its pip around your mouth (and then ~~seeing how far you can spit it~~ placing it daintily on the side of your plate). I alway use Calamata olives because they're so big and glossy and delicious, but you can use any sort of black brined olive, or a mixture of green and black olives.

Warm Marinated Olives with Lime, Thyme and Chilli
1 large jar Calamata olives, drained (or olives of your choice)
enough extra-virgin olive oil to cover the olives (about a cup and half; 375 ml)
2 slices of fresh lime or lemon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
1 large fresh red chilli, split in half lengthways (or more, to taste)
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and sliced in half lengthways
2 large sprigs of fresh thyme
2 fresh lemon leaves, if you can find them
milled black pepper
flaky sea salt
the juice of half a lemon

If you have time, cut a slit in the side of each olive. Pour the olive oil into a saucepan and stir in the olives, lime slices, chilli flakes, fresh chilli, garlic, thyme and lemon leaves. Add plenty of freshly ground black pepper (eight to ten twists of the mill). Very gently heat the olive oil over a low flame, until it's quite hot and beginning to seethe, but not yet bubbling; this will take 3-4 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and, using the back of a fork, squash and squish the garlic cloves to release more of their flavour. Tip the mixture into a lidded plastic container (or a very large glass jar) and set aside at room temperature to steep for at least six hours - preferably overnight.

If you'd like to make this a few days in advance, you can refrigerate the mixture. Don't worry if the oil solidifies in patches: it will melt down again when you rewarm the mixture.

When you're ready to serve the olives, tip the mixture back into the saucepan and reheat it gently over a medium flame for one minute, or until very warm, but nowhere near piping hot.

Remove the pan from the heat and squeeze in the fresh lemon juice. Season with flaky sea salt, add a few more grinds of black pepper and stir well. Tip the mixture into a shallow serving dish and take it straight to the table with some sliced fresh bread.

Serves 6-8 as a snack

Tower of Christmas Ice Cream with Berries and Meringues

2011-12-18T16:12:00.000+02:00

I think a Christmas dessert should draw gasps of delight and excitement when it arrives at the table, because that's what feasts are all about, aren't they? My attempt to make a splendid tower of ice cream certainly drew some gasps when my family saw me making it, although whether these were of delight I can't say. Bafflement, more like. "Are you sure that's not going to topple over?" my daughter asked. Well, I wasn't sure, but it turned out all right in the end. Okay, the tower had a rakish tilt to it, but once I'd festooned it with meringues and poured summer berries all over it, it looked pretty spectacular (although it was another matter fitting it back into the freezer, and I think I'll draw a veil over that episode).

I used three plastic flower pots of diminishing size to mould the ice cream, first plugging the holes with a blob of Prestik and lining the bottom of each pot with with a circle of baking paper. The tower used exactly five litres of just-softened vanilla ice cream (proper dairy ice cream, that is) and each layer contained a different filling. To the base layer, I added a jar of fruit mincemeat, chopped hazelnuts, chocolate chips and crumbled Amaretti biscuits. The second layer contained coffee, whiskey and more chopped up chocolate, and the third layer was plain ice cream (a special concession to picky eaters). You can add anything you fancy to the ice cream - have a look at my Layered Christmas Ice Cream Cake with White Chocolate and Berries for more ideas.

When the layers were frozen, I pulled out the blobs of Prestik to release the vacuum and then wrapped heated cloths around each pot to loosen the ice cream. Once the layers were stacked, the tower went back into the freezer for half an hour to firm up (oh, okay, I had to take out two of the drawers to fit it in) and then I poured the berries all over it.

You can make the individual layers a few days ahead of Christmas, but cover each one tightly with clingfilm so that the ice cream doesn't pick up an unpleasant whiff of freezer.

The quickest way to heat a cloth is to wet it and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds. You'll need to reheat the cloth a few times for each mould.

More of my Christmas recipes:

Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas

Layered Christmas Ice Cream Cake with White Chocolate and Berries

Christmas Gammon Glazed with Brandy and Coke

Butterflied Turkey with a Ricotta, Nut and Apricot Stuffing

Mango and Macadamia Turkey Stuffing with Sage and Sausage Meat

Festive Turkey Stuffing with Green Peppercorns, Pork Sausage, Apple and Thyme

Festive Phyllo Crackers with a Spicy Plum and Almond Filling

Roasted Pressed Beetroot with Sour Cream, for a Christmas buffet

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas

2011-12-08T22:35:00.001+02:00

I couldn't decide between a chocolate-nutty cake or a boozy-fruity one for this, my second Christmas recipe for 2011, so I asked my Facebook friends which one they'd most fancy on the table this year. Although a few were doggedly in the chocolate camp, most voted for a boozy/fruity pudding. My friend Fiona Snyckers summed it up very well: "When Pooh Bear was asked to choose between honey or condensed milk, he got over-excited and said 'both!'. But if I have to pick one, I'd say boozy-fruity because it's a once-a-year thing. You can have choc-nutty every other day of the year. Christmas is all about the brandy-soaked cherries."

My sentiments exactly. I'm not sure what to call my new Christmas confection, because it's something of a hybrid: part trifle and part cheesecake, with a nod to a classic Italian zuccotto. With a creamy, fruity filling and a lining of booze-soaked Madeira cake, it's sure to appeal to guests who are expecting a wickedly rich, Christmassy-tasting dessert at the end of a festive meal.

This is easy to make and can be prepared a day (or even two) in advance, although the whipped-cream icing should be made and spread over the cake not more than two hours before you serve it.

I used a delicious Klein Constantia sweet dessert wine for soaking the Madeira cake, but you could use sherry, hanepoot, port or any similar fortified wine.

You can add anything you like to this filling. I used toasted slivered almonds for crunch, and crushed Amaretti biscuits for their lovely bitter almondiness, but I think what would make this pud perfect is some sour-sweet brandied cherries (thanks for the suggestion, Fiona). I didn't have any of these to hand when I made this, but I'm soaking fresh cherries in brandy as we speak for use on the big day.

Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas
2 small Madeira-cake loaves (trifle sponges)
1 cup (250 ml) sweet dessert wine, or similar
3 T (45 ml) tepid water

4 tsp (20 ml) gelatine powder

400 g cream cheese (I use full-fat cream cheese, but you could use a half-half mixture of full-fat and low fat)

2/3 cup (160 ml) icing sugar
1 cup (250 ml) fruit mincemeat, from a jar
2/3 cup (160 ml) slivered almonds, lightly toasted
16 Amaretti biscuits, lightly crushed
3 T (45 ml) brandy or whiskey
250 ml cream

For the icing:
350 ml cream
3 T (45 ml) icing sugar
a few drops of vanilla extract

Grease a 24-cm spring-form cake tin and line it with baking paper. (Cut out a circle for the base, and a long strip of paper that's the same width as the height of the cake ring. Alternatively, you can line the tin with several sheets of clingfilm.)

Cut the Madeira loaves horizontally (that is, with your bread knife held parallel to the chopping board) into long, 1-cm thick slices. Each slice will be about as wide as the cake tin is high. Pour the dessert wine into a shallow dish. Quickly dip each slice into the wine and then press the slices one by one around the edges of the tin. Use more dipped slices to line the bottom of the tin, pulling them into pieces if necessary and fitting them together like a jigsaw. Don't worry if the sponge lining looks uneven and messy: the whole cake will be covered with whipped cream. Reserve any left-over slices of cake for the topping. Put the lined tin in the fridge while you make the filling.

Put the tepid water in a teacup-sized bowl, sprinkle over the gelatine powder and set aside to 'sponge' for a few minutes. Place the bowl in a pot of simmering water (the water should come half-way up the sides) and stir occasionally as the gelatine melts. When the liquid is clear, remove the bowl and set aside to cool for a few minutes. (Alternatively, you can melt the gelatine very gently in a microwave oven.)

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese and icing sugar, until smooth. Stir in the mincemeat, almonds, crushed Amaretti biscuits and brandy (or whiskey). Stir in the melted gelatine. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream to a soft, thick peak. Gently fold the cream into the cream-cheese filling mixture. Pour the mixture into the cake-lined tin and smooth the top. Dip the remaining slices of Maedira cake in the leftover wine and press them lightly over the top surface of the cake. Cover the tin with clingfilm and refrigerate.

An hour or two before you're ready to serve the cake, make the icing. Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract to a firm and voluptuous (but not stiff) peak. Take the cake out of the fridge and gently loosen it from its mould. Invert the cake on a serving platter and gently peel away the baking paper or clingfilm. Spread the whipped cream evenly in a fairly thin layer all over the cake and decorate with silver balls, or chocolate shavings, or brandied cherries, or any other festoonments of your choice.

Serve cold.

Makes one cake; serves 8-10

Christmas: Butterflied Turkey with a Ricotta, Nut and Apricot Stuffing

2011-12-03T19:59:00.001+02:00

Cooking a whole turkey is a pain in the neck, isn't it? I can't think of any other component of a Christmas feast that causes more anxiety to home cooks than the confounded, damned, blasted (and sometimes bloody) turkey. In this dish, my first Christmas recipe for 2011, I've tried to solve the twin and contradictory problems of turkey dryness and turkey undercookedness in one go by butterflying the bird and pushing a tenderising stuffing directly under its skin.

I would happily ban turkey from my extended family's Christmas feast if I could. Over the past few years, I've tried. 'How about a leg of lamb?', I ask. 'Or a lovely slow-roasted shoulder of pork?'. Turkeys, after all, have nothing at all to do with South Africa and are spectacularly inappropriate for a festive meal on a sweltering December day. But my husband and two of my three brothers-in-law were born in Britain, and they need a turkey on the table on Christmas Eve in the same way they need apple crumbles, custard, mashed potatoes, and packets of choccie biscuits in the cupboard at all times. (And, okay, I was firmly in the turkey camp for many years. This backfired on me because my kids quickly acquired a taste for Christmas turkey - and especially for the gravy and bacon-wrapped pork chipolatas and crunchy roast potatoes that accompanied it - and now they eagerly look forward to the moment an enormous, golden, crisp-skinned gobbler appears on the table. They don't care if the breasts are a bit dry, and the wings so tough you could use them to crowbar open a car door: the Christmas turkey is all about ceremony.)

I've figured out, after cooking many whole turkeys with varying degrees of success, that the most you can expect is succulent dark meat and lovely crisp skin. The breasts will always be slightly dry and chalky, no matter how carefully and slowly you cook and baste the bird. This has everything to do with the anatomy of a turkey and nothing to do with your turkey-roasting skills. Breast meat on turkeys (and all other birds, for that matter) doesn't need to be cooked for long to achieve perfect tenderness and succulence, but dark, dense thigh and leg meat needs plenty of time.

I often butterfly roasting chickens when I'm in a hurry to get a meal on the table. There are two advantages to removing the backbone of a chicken and flattening it out. One, it cooks in just under an hour. Two, the breasts (wedged as they are in the middle) stay moist and tender while the legs (splayed on the outside of the bird) cook to perfection. I thought I'd try the same method with a small turkey, and it worked beautifully. The breasts were soft and juicy, and the thigh meat succulent. And, as a bonus, the bird was cooked through in an hour and fifty minutes. I left it to rest in its pan for 25 minutes, under a bonnet of foil, and I found it very easy to carve. (Have you noticed how people who fancy themselves expert carvers vanish when it's time to cut up the turkey? It's a thankless task. Even if you're an experienced carver, the bird always ends up looking as though a hand grenade detonated in its cavity. You only need to look at the photograph above for proof of this.)

Butterflying a whole turkey is not at all difficult, but you will need a pair of heavy kitchen scissors, or a heavy knife with a very sharp blade. Pushing the stuffing under the skin and deep into the thighs and drumsticks is also easy to do, although this is, I admit, not a job for the fainthearted. The turkey, when butterflied, looks faintly ridiculous, very like a fat, bossy school mommy with her hands on her hips (see picture below). I ended up with my arm shoved almost elbow-deep under the stretchy skin of the turkey, and couldn't stop laughing because I was irresistibly reminded of the scene in which Mr Bean climbs so far into a turkey that he gets it stuck on his head.

This is a long recipe - I thought it important to give you detailed instructions so there are no disappointments on the big day - but rest assured that this is really quite easy to make, provided that you take a little time with the stuffing and stock. You can prepare both of these well in advance.

The stuffing in this recipe contains fresh ricotta cheese which, I have found, has an almost magical tenderising effect on poultry breasts; I can only imagine it is the lactic acid in the cheese that (like yoghurt) helps soften the flesh. You can, however, use any poultry stuffing of your choice. Try my 2010 Turkey Stuffing with Green Peppercorns, Pork Sausage, Apple and Thyme, or my 2009 recipe Mango and Macadamia Turkey Stuffing with Sage and Sausage Meat.

The cooking time of a butterflied turkey will depend on its size and the ferocity your oven; see recipe and Cook's Notes (at the bottom of this page) for more information.

Roast Butterflied Turkey with a Ricotta, Almond and Apricot Stuffing
one turkey (about 3.5-4 kg is ideal), thawed
a large onion, roughly sliced, skin and all
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
a little olive oil
salt and milled black pepper

For the stuffing:
3 T (45 ml) olive oil
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
6 rashers streaky bacon, finely diced
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
finely grated zest and juice of an orange

1/3 cup (60 ml) chopped dried apricots (or fresh ones)

1/3 cup (60 ml) chopped dried cranberries (optional; I used dried pomegranate arils)
1/3 cup (60 ml) flaked almonds (toast them if you have time)
3 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped
1 cup (250 ml) breadcrumbs, fresh or dried
1 cup (250 ml) ricotta cheese
3 T (45 ml) softened butter
1 extra-large free-range egg, lightly beaten
salt and milled pepper

For the stock and gravy:
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter or vegetable oil
trimmings from the turkey (see recipe)
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
1 stick celery, finely sliced
1 large carrot
a few parsley stalks
4 cups (1 litre) water
3 T (45 ml) cake flour
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
1 T (15 ml) redcurrant jelly or smooth apricot jam

If you're going to cook the turkey right away, heat the oven to 170 ºC. Alternatively, you can butterfly and stuff the turkey and place it in the fridge for up to 8 hours before roasting it.

First make the stuffing. Heat the olive oil in a pan and fry the onions and bacon over a medium heat for 4-6 minutes, or until the onions are soft and golden. Stir in the garlic, orange zest and juice and let the mixture bubble for one minute. Tip the contents of the pan into a large mixing bowl and add all the remaining stuffing ingredients. Using your fingers, gently combine the mixture. Don't overwork it, or it will turn mushy. At this point, it's a good idea to test the stuffing for seasoning. Press a small ball of stuffing into a little patty and fry it in hot oil until lightly browned. Taste the mixture and add more salt, pepper and other seasonings of your choice if necessary. Cover the stuffing and set aside.

Now butterfly the turkey. Unwrap the bird and remove the plastic packet of giblets. (You can use these for the stock if you like but because I'm not a fan of gizzardy-looking or offally bits, I always fish out the neck of the bird and give the rest to the dogs.) Rinse the turkey with cold water, inside and out, and pat it dry using kitchen paper. Remove the pop-up plastic device (that is, the cooking indicator) stuck into the breast. Place the turkey, breast side down and with the ends of the drumsticks facing you, on a big chopping board. Cut off the pope's nose and set it aside for the gravy. Using a pair of heavy kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, cut out the backbone by making a long incision on either side of the spinal column, crunching right through any small ribs you encounter. This is a bit of a grisly task, but be bold, and don't worry if your cuts are ragged. Set the backbone aside for the stock. Turn the turkey around so the ends of the drumsticks are facing away from you and snip through the small, tough band of cartilage that connects the two breasts at the neck end. Now turn the bird over so it’s skin side up and bring your fist down smartly between the breasts to break the breast bone. Flatten out the turkey with the heel of your hand. Tuck the wing tips under and behind the bird. You'll end up with what looks like a buxom and knock-kneed person lying on her back with her hands on her hips (very comical, a butterflied turkey looks!).

Starting a the neck end, slip your hand under the skin over the breast and gently loosen it to form a pocket (use a hooked finger to break through the membrane connecting the breast to the skin). Now push your hand deeper under the turkey skin and separate the skin over the thighs and thicker parts of the drumsticks in the same way (turkey skin is elastic and quite tough, so have no fear about fearlessly plunging in, Mr Bean style). Pack half the stuffing into the pockets over the thighs and drumsticks, and the remaining half over the breasts. Gently pat the skin to smooth and even out the stuffing. Pull the neck skin down and under the turkey and secure it with toothpicks.

Put the onion slices, bay leaves and thyme in a large roasting pan and place the turkey, skin-side up, on top. Drizzle a little olive oil over the skin and season generously with salt and pepper. Cover the turkey loosely with a large piece of tin foil and roast at 170 ºC for an hour. Now remove the foil and roast for another 40-60 minutes (see Cook's Notes, below), or until the skin is crisp and golden, and the bird is cooked through to the bone. Baste the bird with a little melted butter now and then, and watch the breast portion like a hawk, because it will brown quickly. If the skin over the breasts looks as if it's darkening too quickly, tightly cover it with a triple layer of tin foil.

In the meantime, make a quick stock. Brown the turkey neck, the backbone, the pope's nose and the sliced onion in the olive oil or butter for a five minutes, or until golden. Add the celery, carrots, parsley stalks and water and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer very gently for an hour. Strain into a clean jug, cover and set aside.

Remove the turkey from the oven, lift it from the pan using two spatulas, place it on a platter and allow it to rest, lightly covered with foil, for up to 25 minutes while you make the gravy and get a any vegetable accompaniments ready.

Put the roasting pan - don't remove the onions or herbs - over a medium heat and, when the fat begins to sizzle, stir in the flour. Cook, stirring constantly, for a minute or two, then whisk in the white wine and two cups of turkey stock, scraping to dislodge any sediment on the bottom of the pan. Turn down the heat and let the gravy bubble very gently for 8 minutes. If it seems too thick, add more stock or water. If you'd like a thicker, gloopier gravy, thicken it with a little slaked cornflour.

Serve the turkey with gravy, peas, roast potatoes and (essential, in my opinion) bacon-wrapped pork cocktail sausages.

Serves 8, depending on the size of your turkey

Cook's Notes

I can't give you an exact time for cooking a butterflied turkey because this will depend on the size of the turkey and on your oven. It will certainly take a shorter time to cook than the time specified on its plastic wrapping. As a general rule of thumb, a spatchcocked turkey will cook through in well under two-thirds of the cooking time recommended on the packet. I suggest that you roast the a medium turkey for 90 minutes (see recipe, above) and then test it for 'done-ness'. Use a sharp knife to make a deep cut, right to the bone, in the thickest part of the thigh. If there is any trace of pinkness, or if the flesh and bone are lukewarm to the touch, roast the turkey for a little longer. The turkey is done when the biggest, deepest thigh bone is very hot to the touch and the juices run quite clear.

Flowers, Christmas and Pinterest

2011-11-29T19:28:00.001+02:00

Can you believe it's already December? I feel as though the end of the year has crept up and pounced on me like a hungry bear. I've had a furiously busy few months, and haven't had any time to think about my Christmas feast, or to do any proper Christmassy planning and plotting, or to send out my regular newsletter (apologies for that). Please watch this space, though, because I'm busy developing and testing some interesting new festive recipes that I think you'll really enjoy (for links to my Christmas recipes from last year, scroll to the end of the page).

One thing I have been thinking about is festive table settings, partly because I'm working on an assignment that involves styling tables, but also because I've recently developed a night-time addiction to Pinterest. I don't sleep very well when I'm feeling tired or pressurised, and over the last few weeks I've whiled away many hours scouring this interesting site and creating my own visual 'stories'. (Here are my boards on Pinterest). This site (which is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and exciting start-ups of the last year or so, with massive potential) allows you to create virtual notice-boards, or 'mood boards' of pictures that inspire and excite you.

I lurked, with some interest, on Pinterest for several months after the clever Paige Nick showed me the site (and this only minutes after we'd met in real life at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, following a Twitter acquaintance) but it was only when I created my own 'boards' that I began to appreciate how clever this site's concept is, and how useful it is for finding inspiration, focusing your creativity and - most important of all - distilling your ideas into a coherent 'story'.

Pinterest is a really, really useful tool for anyone who has a strong visual sense, and who is feeling a bit flattened, creatively speaking. By diligently collecting images that strongly appeal to you - whether you harvest them yourself from the Net, or 're-pin' them from other boards collated by Pinterest users - you can gain very (and I mean very) interesting insights into what your subconscious creative self really likes, and what fires up the cobbywebby pathways in the old grey matter. For example, I didn't appreciate (until I set up some Pinterest boards) that I have a real fascination with - among other things - antiques, antiquities, African design and fresh flowers.

Flowers, in particular. Before I moved to Cape Town two years ago, tomorrow, I was a passionate gardener, with a particular interest in old-fangled flowers and herbs. I shed a few tears leaving behind in Johannesburg a herb garden I'd slaved over, and a treasured collection of blowsy old English roses, but I didn't fret for long, because it was such a pleasure to move into a house with a garden filled with indigenous Cape flora. A pleasure, until I needed something to pluck in order to fill a few vases. Slim pickings indeed - a few proteas and pincushions left, and some wind-whipped lavender flowers and bruised arum lilies - and so I had to raid my friends' gardens, and my local supermarket, for gorgeous blooms. My mum, when she came to visit, lent me this beautiful fat-bellied silver jug (see picture above), which I filled with proteas, white gerberas and a few branches of exquisite indigenous silver leaves.

She also bought me several armfuls of old English roses from Ludwig's Roses, but because it was a very hot day, most of them had blown by the time I had a chance to take a photograph. Here's a surviving bloom, in a very pretty slim single-bloom vase, also lent to me by my mum.

I recently borrowed some very beautiful napery from Cape Town designer Emma Wyngaard. I'm very taken by Emma's beautifully printed and carefully stitched linen runners, napkins and aprons, some featuring prints of old silver cutlery, and this one (below) with recipes. I've given Emma my phone number and address, so she can track me down to get her samples back, but little does she know that I have gave her fake details, because I intend to sneak away in the dead of the night, with every single item in my knapsack. Aren't her linens gorgeous?

Christmas recipes from this blog:

Tweeting Christmas recipes: the fun, the festivities, and the failure

Christmas Gammon Glazed with Brandy and Coke

Layered Christmas Ice-Cream Cake with White Chocolate and Berries

Festive Phyllo Crackers with a Spicy Plum and Almond Filling

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

Festive Turkey Stuffing with Green Peppercorns, Pork Sausage, Apple and Thyme

Mango and Macadamia Turkey Stuffing with Sage and Sausage Meat

Scotch Quails' Eggs in Straw-Potato Nests: A Salad

2011-11-26T20:34:00.001+02:00

I had never tasted a proper home-made Scotch egg until I married an Englishman*, and his mother made a whole clutch of them for a picnic. They were the shape of small rugby balls, crisp and golden, and inside the firm shells of spicy pork-sausage meat were whole eggs cooked to perfection, their yolks as yellow and fluffy as the centre of a daisy.

I was instantly smitten by this classic English picnic food and I ate three of them, with dabs of Mrs Balls Chutney, as I sat on on a tartan blanket on the slopes of Table Mountain, swigging warm tea from a (tartan-patterned) thermos flask. My late mother-in-law Audrey was probably a bit dismayed at how many of the Scotch eggs I wolfed that day, but I couldn't help myself. They were very, very good, like all the proper English food that flowed from Audrey's kitchen, and I'm really sorry I didn't plague her for her secret formula before she passed away a few years ago. She would willingly have given me the recipe - really good and accomplished home cooks never mind sharing - but somehow I never got around to asking her.

I've done my best to recreate that delicious porky casing in this recipe. It's a daintier version of Audrey's one, using quails' eggs, newfangled salad greens and a nest of straw potatoes, and while it may not have the retrolicious appeal of cold Scotch eggs swaddled in tin foil and eaten while ants crawl over your legs, I promise there will be a few squeals of delight - from children, at least - when you bring the dish to the table.

I am interested to learn that the English department store Fortnum and Mason takes credit for inventing the Scotch egg in 1738. I can't find any evidence online to back up this claim, nor any reference explaining why they are called 'Scotch' eggs. Wikipedia claims that the first printed recipe for Scotch eggs appeared in Maria Rundell's 1807 book A New System of Domestic Cookery, and here it is. Mrs Rundell's recipe is just five lines long, and uses anchovies or 'scraped ham' to flavour the forcemeat casing for the eggs, although it makes no mention of a breadcrumb coating. 'Fry of a beautiful yellow brown,' she says, 'and serve with good gravy in the dish.'

Quail's eggs, being so small, need to be cooked with some care so you don't end up with yolks like yellow bullets. For eggs with perfect centres, and no nasty green rings, exactly follow the cooking time I've given below. I have specified more eggs than you need to allow for breakages and other mishaps.

Salad of Scotch Quail's Eggs in Straw Potato Nests
20 quails’ eggs
12 good-quality pork sausages
6 fresh sage leaves, very finely minced
the finely grated zest of a lemon
a pinch of cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
a pinch of allspice (optional)
a quarter of a whole nutmeg, very finely grated
salt and milled black pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup (125 ml) flour
1 cup fine dry breadcrumbs (Panko crumbs are ideal)
6 potatoes
sunflower oil for deep frying
2 bags of mixed green salad leaves, or enough for 8 people
a vinaigrette or salad dressing of your choice

Bring a large, deep pot of water to a gentle rolling boil. Put all the eggs in a large metal sieve, immerse it very slowly in the boiling water, then very gently tilt the sieve so all the eggs roll out into the boiling water. (If you do this too quickly, the water will come off the boil and your timing will be ruined.) Boil the eggs for exactly two minutes and 20 seconds (set a timer!). Pour off the boiling water and fill the pot to the brim with cold water from the tap. Leave the pot under a trickling cold tap for 7 minutes, allowing the water to spill over the edges.

Drain the eggs, gently crack the shells and peel them. The shells should come away easily, but if they do not, peel them under cold running water. Pat the eggs dry and set aside.

Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins and place in a mixing bowl. Add the sage, lemon zest, cayenne pepper, allspice and nutmeg, mix well, and season with salt and black pepper. Before you enclose the eggs, check the seasoning of the sausage meat by pinching off a marble-sized piece, flattening it into a patty and frying it in hot oil. Add more salt, pepper and spice, if necessary, and to taste.

Divide the sausage meat into 16 equal portions. Roll a portion into a ball, flatten it in the palm of your hand to make a patty and put a cooked quail’s egg on top. Gently wrap the the meat around the egg to enclose it completely, pinching the mixture to close any gaps. Now roll the ball delicately between your palms to create a pleasing egg shape. Repeat with the remaining eggs. Put the eggs on a plate, cover with clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes to firm up.

Place the flour on one large plate, the beaten eggs on another, and the breadcrumbs on the third plate. Roll the Scotch eggs in the flour and shake to remove the excess. Dip the eggs in the beaten egg yolk, then roll them gently in the breadcrumbs, patting down gently so that the crumbs stick. Half fill a narrow-sided pot with sunflower oil and heat it to 165ºC. (If you don’t have a cooking thermometer, click here for deep-frying tips). Fry the eggs, four or five at a time, for four and a half minutes, or until crisp and golden brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Next make the straw potatoes. Using a mandolin or a very sharp knife, cut the potatoes – no need to peel them – into slices 3 mm thick. Place the slices in stacks and cut them vertically into very slim 'matchsticks'. Dry the matchsticks by squeezing them gently in a clean tea towel. Heat the oil again and fry the matchstick potatoes, in three or four batches, for 2-3 minutes, or until they are golden and crisp. Drain well on several layers of kitchen paper and season generously with salt and pepper (or any highly seasoned salt you have in your cupboard).

To assemble the salad, arrange the leaves on a large salad platter. Pile the matchstick potatoes in a ring in the centre of the platter, and heap the warm Scotch eggs in the middle. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the leaves and serve immediately.

Serves 8.

* My husband may have been born an Englishman, but actually he only lived in England for 8 years, and has been a South African for 43 years. The only trace of English about him these days is his ridiculous passion for Manchester United, and his fondness for steamed puddings and blackcurrants. Oh, and he also says 'yoggit' and 'tea towel' not 'yo-gert' and 'dish cloth'.

Pork-Shoulder Casserole, and the patient cook

2011-11-15T21:50:00.001+02:00

I was smitten by the slow-cooked goulash-style pork casserole my friend Tracey Hawthorne made for me when I visited her for an evening of wine-quaffery last Friday. I was filled with appreciation not only because she'd made it with her usual love and gusto, but also because this dish - and the two other courses Tracey made - had all the hallmarks of an accomplished cook who has spent many, many years in the kitchen making good food for family and friends.

Producing a heartwarming dish of excellent simplicity and deep, lip-smacking flavour isn't something you can learn to do overnight. Making food like this - and, even more important, serving it piping hot, perfectly cooked and on time, with minimal kitchen-faffing - requires planning, technique and a lot of experience, not to mention a knowledge of food and flavour and a deft touch with spicing and seasoning. (It certainly can't be learned from watching TV chefs perform their 30-minute, 6-ingredient 'miracles'. This is a cherished hobbyhorse that I will climb on to another time; suffice to say that I think it's a crying, sobbing shame that so many young people are learning to cook by watching reality television. These skills have to be learned at the elbow of an expert - preferably your grandmother or mother, although an esteemed cookery school, a mountain of good cookbooks or many years of slogging in the kitchen will suffice.)

Anyhow, back to Tracey. My talented friend (who now is the sole writer on Salmagundi, my first blog, which we co-wrote for several years before I decided to focus on food) has lived in a lovely old house in the Swartland village of Riebeek Kasteel for many years. This year, in between working flat-out as a freelance writer and editor and keeping readers of her blog in stitches, Tracey revamped both her house and her garden (read about the renovations here and here).

I was very taken by the magnificent mosaics on the new fish pond and fire pit in her Zen-Karoo garden, the work of Cape artist Jill Gordon-Turner (click on the link to have a look at more of her beautiful work). The pond mosaic includes indigenous plants (a protea, disa and gasteria), a Swartland scene, a favourite motto contibuted by Tracey's daughter Isabella, and a binding rune selected by her son Daniel. The circular firepit, with its licking blue flames, carries Tracey's word-contribution to the garden project: 'geselligheid' (meaning, loosely, conviviality).

Tracey is famous for her brilliant (okay, legendary) parties - at least, among those who can remember a thing the next morning - and these always start off with excellent food. When you arrive at her house, there is no inkling, apart from some lovely drifting aromas, that a feast is on its way. The massive old-wood kitchen counter is wiped clean, the dishwasher is humming and Tracey is sitting calmly on the veranda surrounded by numerous cats and dogs and getting started on a bottle of wine. Then, as if by magic, the food arrives at the table, delicious mountains of it, and every dish perfect. Again, this is a sure sign of an experienced cook and entertainer: clever planning and hours of hard work in advance. Apart from the pork-shoulder casserole (recipe below) Tracey made an entire tray of nutmeggy spinach cannelloni cloaked in mozzarella and Parmesan (her idea of a starter for four people) and a most luscious, boozy chocolate mousse in a bowl the size of a swimming pool.

I don't want to go on and on blowing Tracey's trumpet (we don't want her getting a big head, now) but there really are very few home cooks I know who can turn out a feast of this sort without spending half the meal fiddling around in the kitchen and entirely neglecting their guests in the process. Among these kitchen champions are my mother Jenny Hobbs, my aunt Gilly Walters, and my talented friends Judy Levy and Mike and Michele Karamanof.

Knowing how to cook food slowly and patiently, and taking great care over it, is in danger of becoming a dying art, in my opinion. But more about that - and the curse of reality TV cooking - in another post.

Here's Tracey's dish, which she has adapted from a recipe by Jamie Oliver. Normally I can't resist formatting and tweaking a recipe, but I give it to you as she gave it to me, because it can't be improved.

Goulash-style Pork Shoulder

'You need about a 2 kg pork shoulder, deboned, rind removed but fat left on. Score the fat in a diamond pattern, rub it generously with olive oil, salt and pepper, and place it fat side down in a big deep preheated ovenproof casserole, over a medium-high flame, for about 15 mins, to render the fat.

'Remove the pork. In the same ovenproof casserole, fry up (you can add some more olive oil if necessary): a couple of red onions, sliced; 2 red chillies, seeds removed and chopped; smoked paprika (be careful – it’s easy to overdo it and you don’t want the smoked paprika taste to completely overwhelm the dish; I use about 2 heaped teaspoons); some caraway seeds; a nice handful of fresh oregano or marjoram; a mix of peppers (2 red, 2 yellow, 1 green); either a jar of grilled peppers or a jar of marinated peppers (depending on what you can get), chopped; and a tin of plum tomatoes. Once this has become nice and sticky, replace the pork, fat side down. Add a very generous splash of red wine vinegar (about 1/3 cup) and enough water just to cover the pork. Stir everything around so the pork is immersed in the veggies.

'Cook at 180ºC for at least 2½ hours. Test the pork with a fork – it should fall apart. Cook it for a bit longer if it doesn’t.

'I serve this with creamy mashed potatoes and a chickpea/cucumber/yoghurt/garlic salad.'

Serves 6.

Chakalaka Soup with Little Boerewors Balls

2011-11-04T15:54:00.000+02:00

My upside-down, inside-out version of a much-loved traditional dish. Chakalaka is a highly spiced African vegetable relish usually eaten cold as an accompaniment to braaied [barbecued] meat, but here I’ve transformed it into a chunky soup brimming with punchy flavours. Topped with juicy mini-meatballs made from boerewors filling, this is a dish that will bring tears to the eyes of chakalaka devotees (especially if you increase the quantity of fresh chillies in the recipe).

Chakalaka, said to have been invented by Johannesburg's migrant mine-workers (although I can't confirm this) usually includes chillies, peppers and curry spices, plus - depending on who's making it - carrots, beans, cabbage, and so on.

You may be wondering why I've turned a relish into a soup. Well, because I love soup, I really do - to distraction. (And I'm a little annoyed that winter is over in the Southern Hemisphere, because it means the end of soups - at least hot, rib-sticking ones - until next year.) Also, I like turning recipes around to see what happens. This soup is good on its own, but the little meatballs make it really special. (And I'm grateful to my friend Nina Timm of My Easy Cooking for showing me how to make instant boerie balls.)

You can leave the baked beans out of the soup, if you like (as I did in the photographs, because I wasn't in the mood for beans today) but I recommend including them because they help thicken the soup. If you can't find authentic South African boerewors, use a raw, loose-textured sausage and, before you roll it into balls, mix in a teaspoon or so of toasted, ground coriander, plus some of the spices listed in this recipe.

Although it's best on the day you make it, you can prepare soup a day in advance. For best results, though, fry the meatballs just before you serve the dish. This is also very good with chopped green beans and cauliflower florets. If you don't have tomato juice, use a tin or two of chopped Italian tomatoes and a little tomato paste instead.

The chickpea flour and spices are used to give the meatballs a nice, toasty crust. Chickpea flour, also known as channa flour, is available from spice shops.

Chakalaka Soup with Little Boerewors Balls
3 T (45 ml) sunflower oil
4 carrots, peeled
3 small green peppers, finely sliced lengthways
4 onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 green or red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (or more, to taste)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 T (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
6 large, ripe tomatoes
4 cups (1 litre) tomato juice (the sort you’d use for a tomato cocktail)
3 cups (750 ml) water or vegetable stock
2 tins baked beans in tomato sauce
2 tsp (10 ml) medium-strength curry powder
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
salt and milled black pepper
½ cup (125 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley or coriander

For the boerewors balls:
500 g slim boerewors, or similar sausage
½ cup (125 ml) channa [chickpea] flour
1 tsp (5 ml) paprika
½ tsp (2.5 ml) turmeric

Heat the oil in a large pot. Dice two of the carrots and set the others aside. Fry the diced carrots, pepper slices, onions, celery, chilli, ginger and garlic over a medium-high heat for 8-10 minutes, or until softened but not brown.Roughly chop the tomatoes, place in a blender and pulse to form a rough purée. Pour the purée, the tomato juice and the stock into the pot and cook at a brisk bubble for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam as it rises. Stir in the baked beans, curry powder and cumin, season to taste with salt and pepper and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

For the meatballs, squeeze the boerewors filling from its casing and roll into balls the size of a marble. Combine the channa flour, paprika and turmeric on a plate and lightly roll the balls in the mixture. Fry in hot oil over a medium heat for 4 minutes, or until cooked through. Drain on kitchen paper.Coarsely grate the remaining two carrots. Serve the soup piping hot, topped with hot frikkadels, grated carrot and a shower of parsley.

Serves 8.

Perfect Padkos: Spicy Frikkadels with a Surprise

2011-10-28T15:35:00.004+02:00

Everyone loves a frikkie, or a kofta, or whatever name you give to this delicious, much-loved South African snack. A hot nugget of feta cheese wrapped in fresh mint is the surprise inside these lightly spiced meatballs.

Frikkies are a very important component of padkos. This is an Afrikaans word that is impossible to translate, although its literal meaning is 'road food'. But padkos is so much more than just food for the road. Most often, you'll take padkos in the car with you on a long trip, but you can also use the word to describe any food you'd take to eat on the hoof. Or on a plane, or a train.

I have fond memories of the long train trips I used to take when I was a student at Rhodes University in the early 1980s. The final leg of the journey involved changing trains at Alicedale, a small railway town in the Eastern Cape. The train that used to run between Alicedale and Grahamstown was pulled by an ancient Puffing Billy that toiled so slowly up the hills that you could hop off and jog alongside the train without any fear of being left behind. On one occasion, half starved, having spent all my pocket money the previous day, I was delighted to see the auntie sitting in the seat opposite me hauling out a big, battered polystyrene cooler box. She and her daughter, who both looked like overstuffed sofas in their floral crimplene dresses, carefully unpacked a wonderful assortment of padkos, including chilled grapes, sandwiches, vetkoek, lemonade and big plastic blikkie [box] lined with foil and filled to the brim with juicy-looking frikkadels. Then, without so much as offering me a taste, they methodically demolished the lot, dolefully chewing on their meatballs all the way to Grahamstown, their bovine eyes fixed on a point six inches above my head.

I asked my friends on Twitter to help me define #padkos. The best suggestion, from @NixDodd, was, 'The refreshing victuals packed to sustain travellers on the long South African roads." Spot on: 'victuals' is an excellent word for describing this sort of food.

And what, I asked Twitter, constitutes proper padkos? There are too many victuals to list here, but the most popular items included hard-boiled eggs (with salt in a twist of foil), egg- or chicken-mayonnaise sandwiches, frikkadels, biltong, cold boerewors, pork sausages, crisps, rusks, samoosas, naartjies, moerkoffie in a flask (preferably sweetened with condensed milk), toffees, sweets and cold chicken drumsticks. All these suggestions were tweeted with great fondness and nostalgia, revealing just how important a part padkos plays in South Africa's culinary heritage.

If you're still not convinced by the idea of cold meatballs, try my special formula (although you may want to leave out the cheese if they're going to be eaten on the road). You can make these with minced lamb, beef, or pork or – best of all – a combination of beef and pork.

Prepare the raw frikkadels up to 12 hours ahead and keep them covered in the fridge. These need to be fried and then finished off in the oven, or they will darken in the pan before they’re cooked right through. The chickpea and spice dusting helps to create a rich golden crust. Chickpea flour is available from health shops and spice shops.

Spicy Frikkadels with a Surprise
1 large egg
5 T (75 ml) natural yoghurt
1 cup (250 ml) fresh white breadcrumbs
750 g minced beef, lamb or pork
1 small onion, peeled and finely grated
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ cup (125 ml) very finely chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) ground coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) chilli powder, or more, to taste
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) salt
milled black pepper
100 g feta cheese, cut into 1-cm cubes
a small bunch of fresh mint
½ cup (125 ml) chickpea (channa) flour
1 tsp (5 ml) turmeric
1 tsp (5 ml) paprika
sunflower oil

Whisk the egg and yoghurt in a large mixing bowl, stir in the breadcrumbs and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Now add the mince, onion, garlic, coriander, lemon zest, spices, salt and black pepper to taste. Using your hands, squish everything together to make a fairly firm paste.

To form the meatballs, pinch off a ball the size of a large litchi. Slightly flatten it in the palm of your hand, place a mint leaf on top, and on top of that a cube of feta. Gently squeeze and pinch the mixture to fully enclose the filling then roll it, very gently, between your palms to form a ball. Put them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.

Heat the oven to 180º C. Mix the chickpea flour, turmeric and paprika on a plate and mix well. Roll the meatballs, 8 at a time, in the seasoned flour and dust off the excess. Fry in hot oil, in batches, for 3-4 minutes, or until crusty and golden brown all over, draining on kitchen paper. Place them all on a baking sheet and roast in the hot oven for 5-7 minutes, or until cooked right through.

Stick a toothpick into each one and serve hot or cold, with Lemon-Yoghurt Dipping Sauce.

Serves 8 as a snack.

Thief-proof Nachos Towers with Avocado and Mint

2011-10-14T11:26:00.000+02:00

There’s a crucial design fault to one of the best snack dishes invented: the person who pulls off the first tortilla chip usually snaffles half the melted cheese. I'm always reminded of Linus dolefully dragging his blanket behind him when I see a great sheet of Cheddar vanishing from the top of the nachos pile into one lucky person's mouth.

Arguments break out in our house for this reason whenever I make stacked nachos for my sons and their friends (which I do quite often, because this dish could have been designed with famished teens in mind).

I've solved the problem by making vertically stacked nachos towers which guarantee that each person gets all the molten cheese she or he deserves. This is a somewhat fiddly recipe because you need to line the muffin tins with paper strips to make them easy to lift out, and so they won't stick, but it's well worth the effort. These also make a good snack to go with drinks because you can assemble them an hour or two ahead and sling them in the oven when your guests arrive. Make the avocado topping no less than an hour before you're going to serve it, and feel free to brighten it up with interesting ingredients of your choice - bottled chillies, fresh coriander, crumbled bacon, and so on.

Thief-proof Nachos Towers with Avocado

500 g packet plain tortilla chips
480 g Cheddar

For the topping:
2 T (30 ml) lemon juice
2 large, ripe avocados
2 ripe tomatoes
1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 T (30 ml) finely chopped fresh coriander
salt and milled black pepper
100 ml sour cream
24 small mint leaves

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Lightly oil a large sheet of greaseproof baking paper on one side and cut it into 24 strips each 25 cm long and 3 cm wide. Now lightly oil two 12-serving muffin pans. Line each pan with a strip of paper, oiled side up, by pressing the centre of strip across the base and sides, allowing the two ends to poke up out of the pan. These strips will let you lift out the nachos, and prevent them from sticking.

Coarsely grate the cheese on big board and divide it into 24 equal little piles. Press down lightly on each pile. Each stack will use 3 servings of cheese. To make a stack, put a chip on the board and top it with a pile of cheese. Add another chip, and another pile of cheese. Add a third chip, and top off the stack with a third serving of cheese. Press down very lightly. Drop the stack into a lined muffin pan and repeated with the remaining chips. Bake at 180ºC for 7-10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.Put the lemon juice in a bowl.

Remove the flesh from the avocados, cut into neat 5 mm cubes and toss them in the lemon juice. Cut a cross in the tops of the tomatoes and put them in a bowl of boiling water for 3 minutes. Slip off the skins and dice neatly. Add to the bowl along with the chopped chilli and coriander, mix gently together and season with salt and pepper.Remove the stacks from the muffin pans and gently peel away the paper. Arrange the stacks on a platter and top each one with a tablespoon of the avocado mix, a blob of sour cream, and a small mint leaf. Serve immediately.

Serves 8 as a snack.

Cream of Watercress Soup with Wobbly Eggs

2011-10-05T23:30:00.000+02:00

Liquid-centred 'poached' eggs add a touch of drama to this clean-flavoured watercress soup. This isn't a complicated recipe, but it does require some attention to detail. The trick is to get the eggs just right, because most of the fun in eating it comes from puncturing the egg with your spoon and swirling the golden yolk around the bowl.

I am a great fan of watercress, and think it's a most under-appreciated ingredient.

Rocket is partially to blame for this, because this ubiquitous leaf, with its delicious, peppery twanginess, has a habit of hogging all the limelight, especially in salads.

Watercress - now abundant on local supermarket shelves - is often considered a second choice to rocket, and I can't understand why. Watercress has a fresh bite and a lovely clean metallic taste, and is as good raw as it is lightly cooked.

This is a good light soup to serve, sequinned with olive oil and generously doused in cream, to friends on a cool spring evening (and there seem too many of those in Cape Town these days). However, since neither the most experienced cook nor the most foolhardy one should consider dangling over a hot stove poaching eggs the old-fashioned way when there are guests to greet and wine to quaff, I recommend that you use a clever restaurant trick: partially cook the eggs in clingfilm ‘purses’ well ahead of time and then quickly reheat them minutes before serving.

Cream of Watercress Soup with Wobbly Eggs
2 packets of watercress, about 80 g each
1¾ litres (7 cups) chicken or vegetable stock
3 medium potatoes, peeled and finely sliced
6 T (90 g / 90 ml) butter
6 medium leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced
5 T (75 ml) cake flour
the juice of half a lemon
200 ml cream
salt and milled black pepper
8 large, very fresh free-range eggs
a little olive oil
a few extra watercress or parsley leaves

Rinse the watercress, pick off the leaves and set them aside. Heat the chicken stock in a large pot, add the watercress stalks and potato slices and cook at a brisk simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the potato is very tender. Melt the butter in a separate large pot, add the leeks, cover the vegetables with a circle of baking paper (or the wrapper from a block of butter) and cook over a low heat for 7-9 minutes, or until very soft. Remove the paper, stir in the flour and cook for another minute. Turn up the heat slightly, add the reserved watercress leaves and cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, or until the leaves have wilted but are still a fresh green colour. Now add the hot stock and potatoes, stir well, bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 3 minutes. Squeeze in the lemon juice, then blend to a smooth purée (but not too fine; the soup should be flecked with green). Reheat the soup, mix in the cream and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Make the eggs in advance. Line a teacup with a large square of clingfilm and generously brush the inner surface with sunflower oil. Break an egg into the cup, bring up the edges of the plastic, twist them together to make a ‘purse’ and then tie into a knot, as if you are knotting a balloon. Make sure there is not too much air between the egg and the knot. Repeat with the remaining 7 eggs. Fill a big bowl with iced water and 10 ice cubes. Bring a pan of water to a very gentle rolling boil, add 4 of the egg purses and poach for exactly 3 minutes. Plunge the purses into the iced water and chill for 5 minutes. Cut through the knots with scissors, gently peel away the plastic and place the eggs on a plate. Repeat with the remaining eggs. Cover the plate with clingfilm.

When you’re ready to serve the soup, slip the eggs back into a pan of gently boiling water and reheat for exactly 1 minute (set your oven timer to remind you!). Fish the eggs from the water with a slotted spoon and drain quickly on kitchen paper. Ladle the hot soup into bowls and top each one with a puddle of cream, a poached egg, dots of of olive oil and a few leaves of watercress or flat-leaf parsley.

Serves 8.

Cook’s Notes

This soup can be made up to 4 hours in advance, but no longer, or it may lose its colour.

Poach the eggs up to 4 hours ahead, and keep them in the fridge. It’s a good idea to poach a few extra eggs, just in case the yolks break or the whites refuse to come away from the plastic. Practise poaching an egg the day before if you’re not feeling confident.

Try this soup with other tender fresh leaves, such as sorrel, rocket or baby spinach.

Individual Beef Wellingtons with Crisp Bottoms

2011-10-03T14:14:00.000+02:00

No one - apart from babies, I suppose - appreciates a soggy bottom, and that's the problem with most of the Beef Wellingtons I've ever eaten. I'm not a fan of greasy puff pastry to begin with (whoever invented the sausage roll has a lot to answer for) and an undercarriage of sodden pastry soaked with meaty juices really ruins a Wellie for me.

I do love Beef Wellington, though, so I've spent some time figuring out a method that results in a perfectly crisp pastry base. This recipe takes time and some attention to detail (not to mention requiring two and a half rolls of pastry), but I reckon that if you're going to spend a small fortune on a fine fillet of beef, it's worth putting in the extra effort to produce a faultless end-result.

This is a good choice for an extravagant dinner party or a very special occasion, not only because the individual Wellingtons are tall and majestic-looking in their rustling golden cloaks of pastry, but also because they can be prepared a full 24 hours ahead, and then popped into a hot oven half an hour before you serve them. The second time I tested this recipe, I left one portion in the fridge, unbaked, for 36 hours, and it was perfect when it came out of the oven.

Because oven temperatures vary, the cooking times I have given in the recipe are a guide. I suggest that you cook the Wellingtons for the recommended time, and then test one (the one you're going to eat, of course) by cutting a deep slit into its side to check whether it's perfectly done. If it's too rare, return all the parcels to the oven for a few more minutes.

I've left the classic filling of chicken-liver pâté out of this recipe because I don't fancy it with beef and mushrooms, but if you'd like to include it, stir 6 tablespoons of good pâté into the mushrooms when they've finished cooking.

I think Beef Wellington does need some kind of sauce, so serve this with a home-made gravy, or a creamy mushroom sauce or - best of all - a lovely Béarnaise.

Individual Beef Wellingtons with Crisp Bottoms
1 large (about 1.9 kg) fillet of beef (see Cook's Notes, below)
3 rolls ready-rolled puff pastry, thawed (again, see Cook's Notes)
1 egg, lightly beaten with a teaspoon of water
4 tsp (20 ml) Dijon mustard
milled black pepper
1 T (30 ml) olive oil
2 T (30 ml) butter
2 packs (about 500 g) portabellini or button mushrooms, finely chopped
a clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
2 T (30 ml) dry white wine
a large sprig of fresh rosemary

At least 8 hours before you start the recipe (preferably a day in advance), prepare the fillet. Trim off any sinew or silvery membrane. Using a ruler, measure out 30 cm of the thicker end of the fillet, and cut off the remaining thin end (save for a stir-fry or steak sandwich.)

Put a 60-cm long sheet of clingfilm lengthways on your counter, place the fillet on top and wrap the plastic tightly around the meat, twisting the ends in opposite directions, as if you are making a Christmas cracker. Continue twisting until you have a neat, tight, evenly thick roll, like a giant salami. Tuck the twisted ends under the roll, place on a plate and refrigerate.

Heat the oven to 220ºC. Cut the fillet, straight through the clingfilm, into 6 medallions each 5 cm thick (again, measure them with a ruler). Peel off the plastic and tie a piece of kitchen string around the 'waist' of each one. This will help the meat hold its shape during the initial browning. Set aside.

Put a new sheet of clingfilm on your counter and unroll the puff pastry onto it. Gently roll out the pastry using a lightly floured rolling pin so it's 1-2 cm bigger on all four sides. Now mark out 6 circles that are 1 cm (10 mm) bigger in diameter than the medallions of fillet steak you've just cut. You can do this by placing a medallion on the pastry and cutting round it with a sharp knife, or using a suitably sized bowl to mark a circle before cutting it out. Prick the circles all over with a fork and place them on a baking sheet lined with a piece of greaseproof baking paper. Put them in the hot oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until they are risen and a light golden colour. Remove from the oven, brush the tops with beaten egg, then return them to the oven for 4-5 minutes, or until golden brown and completely dry to the touch. Lift the circles from the paper and place them on a wire rack to cool.

In the meantime, prepare the steaks. Rub a little Dijon mustard on the top and bottom of each medallion and grind over plenty of black pepper. Put a large non-stick frying pan on the hob and heat it 4-5 minutes, or until blazing hot. Add the oil, wait for a few seconds until it starts to shimmer, then then put the steaks in. Fry them for exactly one minute (set a timer!) on each side. They should be brown and nicely caramelised but still completely raw in the middle. Remove the steaks from the pan and place them on a plate. Cover and allow to cool.

Melt the butter over a medium-high heat in the same pan in which you fried the steak. Add the mushrooms and rosemary sprig and fry for 4-5 minutes, or until the mushrooms are soft. Add the wine and garlic and cook for a further 4 minutes, or until the liquid in the pan has completely evaporated. If you're using chicken-liver pâté, stir it in now. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove the rosemary sprig and set the mixture aside to cool

To assemble the Wellingtons, divide the mushroom mixture into six portions and pat a generous layer onto the top of each pastry circle. Remove the string from the steak medallions, pat their undersides quite dry on kitchen paper and place them on top of the mushroom layer. Season with salt, to taste.

Unroll the second rectangle of pastry on a sheet of clingfilm. Cut it into four equal rectangles. Put one rectangle onto a board and gently roll it out with a floured rolling pin to form it into piece big enough to cover a fillet stack completely. Put a fillet stack on a plate and drape the pastry over it, as if you're throwing a cloth over a table so its edges drape onto the floor. Trim the bits draping onto the 'floor' into a rough circle, then tuck them neatly under the pastry base. (If you like, you can flip the whole bundle over to do this). If there are any tears, patch them with bits of left-over pastry. Repeat the process for the remaining two stacks, using half of the third roll of pastry. Shape the parcels between your palms to form nice neat towers. Brush the pastry all over with beaten egg, and use the left-over trimmings to add some leaves, roses and similar extravagant flourishes to the top. Brush the trimmings with beaten egg. Now use the tip of a sharp knife to cut a 4-mm slit in the top of each Wellington so steam can escape. Put the parcels in the fridge for 15 minutes to firm up, then brush with another layer of egg.

At this point, you can refrigerate the parcels for up to eight hours (but make sure that the pastry bases, the mushrooms and the steaks have cooled to room temperature before you assemble the parcels, and take the parcels out of the fridge to come to room temperature at least an hour before you bake them).

Bake the Wellingtons on a sheet lined with greaseproof baking paper at 200º C (or 210º C if you don't have a fan-assisted oven). For a steak that is perfect rose-pink inside, baked them for about 20 minutes. If you want a bloody steak, cook them for about 15 minutes, and if it's well done you're after, 25-30 minutes.

Serve piping hot with a sauce of your choice and a green salad.

Serves 6.

Cook's Notes

There will be some wastage if you buy a whole beef fillet, as you will use only the thicker part of the fillet. It might be more economical to ask you butcher for four 5-cm-thick medallions

Use a good-quality butter pastry, preferably Woolworths brand. Avoid the brand called 'Today' which tastes synthetic and always, but always, cracks when you unroll it.

Fresh Asparagus, Peas and Parmesan on Hot Toast

2011-09-29T12:02:00.000+02:00

A light, bright ‘pesto’ of fresh asparagus, peas and feta, zinged with lemon and mint and topped with fine shavings of Parmesan. A perfect spring dish, for when spring arrives in earnest.

Cape Town is making a valiant stabs at spring at the moment, but every time I reach for my bathing suit (with modesty frill), the weather turns again and I have to retrieve my sheepskin slippers, muttering as I do so, from the top of the cupboard, where I flung them at the beginning of September.

Still, all sorts of tender spring ingredients are appearing on the shelves of my local supermarket, and I'm eyeing the asparagus with particular interest, waiting for its price to come down so I can buy it by the bucketload.

Don’t be tempted to spread this on doorstops of ciabatta: this is a delicate, summery topping that deserves hot toasted ovals of fresh baguette. This paste, and the toasts, need to be made immediately before they’re served. Don’t skip the iced water step, or you’ll end up with a sludge-green paste.

Fresh Asparagus, Peas and Parmesan on Hot Toast

30 slim spears fresh asparagus
¾ cup (180 ml) frozen petit pois
a wheel (about 80 g) feta cheese
12 fresh mint leaves
4 T (60 ml) olive oil
4 tsp (20 ml) lemon juice
½ tsp (2.5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
salt and milled black pepper

To serve:
a baguette, cut into 16 thin slices
a small wedge (200 g) Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese
extra olive oil

Fill a bowl with cold water and add a handful of ice cubes. Snap off the woody bases of the asparagus and cook in rapidly boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Using a pair of tongs, remove the spears, place on a board and cut off the asparagus tips. Put the tips in the iced water for 2 minutes, drain well and reserve. Slice the remaining stalks into thirds, return to the boiling water and cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until tender. Plunge into the iced water. Add the frozen peas to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes.

Heat the oven grill, put the bread slices on a baking tray and toast on both sides until golden brown (I cook them in a sandwich press, and they're brilliantly thin and crisp). Drain the peas and asparagus stalks and place in a blender along with the feta, mint, olive oil and lemon zest and juice. Using the pulse button, process to a slightly chunky paste. Season with salt and pepper.

Pile the warm asparagus mixture onto the toasts. Using a potato peeler, finely shave the Parmesan over the toasts. Top with the reserved asparagus tips and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve immediately.

Serves 8 as a snack or starter.

Gin-Cured Salmon Gravadlax, Tartare-Style

2011-09-21T20:45:00.000+02:00

Gravadlax (fresh salmon cured in the fridge with dill, salt and sugar) is usually served in delicate petals, but I’ve struggled to create perfect thin slices at home, no matter how energetically I brandish my rapier of a filleting knife. So now I serve it chopped in the style of a salmon tartare.

This is extremely easy to make and - if you follow my instructions carefully - is foolproof. The only part about the recipe you might find tricky is cutting very even, thin strips of cucumber. You will need a mandolin for this, or a lot of patience. If you have neither, serve the tartare in elegant little heaps piled on a circle of fine cucumber rings.

This dish is ideal for casual entertaining because you can start the gravadlax up to 48 hours ahead, then chop it all up and fill the cucumber rings an hour or two before your guests arrive.

I was given this recipe many years ago by Lorraine Deans, who was co-owner of the Hertford Country Restaurant and Inn, close to where I grew up in Elandsdrift, north of Johannesburg. I went to interview Lorraine for a book I was writing, and she bought out a platter of the most delicious salmon I'd ever tasted. Not that I'd tasted much salmon at that point (you didn't often see fresh salmon in the shops when I was in my twenties), but it make a big impression. I begged her for the recipe, and I've been making it ever since, with a few tweaks of my own. Instead of the traditional vodka, I use gin, for its lovely juniper note. (Oh, and okay, because there's always a bottle of gin in the house.)

This is best with top-grade imported fresh salmon.

Gin-Cured Salmon Gravadlax
two fillets fresh salmon, skin on, weighing 750 g
4 tsp (20 ml) coarse sea salt (Kosher salt)
1 T (15 ml) black peppercorns
4 tsp (20 ml) white sugar
a large bunch of fresh dill
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
4 T (60 ml) dry gin
3 T (45 ml) small capers, coarsely chopped
3 T (45 ml) finely snipped fresh chives
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped fresh dill
milled black pepper

To serve:
2 long, thin English cucumbers
½ cup (125 ml) crème fraîche
lemon wedges

Ask your fishmonger to pin-bone the salmon fillets and cut away the blood line. Place a fillet, skin side down, on a large sheet of clingfilm. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the salt, peppercorns and sugar to a coarse powder and sprinkle it all over the salmon fillet. Cover the fillet with 10-12 big sprigs of dill and sprinkle with lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of gin. Place the other salmon fillet flesh-side down on top. Wrap tightly in clingfilm, place in a big shallow dish and put a weight (a brick is ideal, or use tins from the cupboard) on top. Refrigerate for 12 hours, then turn the parcel over, weigh it down again, and cure for a further 12 hours. Unwrap the parcel, remove the dill and wipe off the curing spices. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of gin over the lower fillet, cover with a new layer of dill sprigs, replace the top fillet, wrap in new clingfilm and refrigerate for up to 36 hours, or until needed.

To serve, remove the dill sprigs and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cut the salmon flesh away from the skin, place on a board and chop into small pieces using a sharp knife or mezzaluna. Place in a bowl and stir in the capers, chives and dill. Season with plenty of black pepper (you shouldn’t need to add more salt). Don't add any lemon juice, as this will 'cook' the fish.

Use a mandolin or a very sharp knife, cut the cucumbers, lengthways, into strips each about millimetre thick. Curl each strip into a neat ring and press the ends to secure. (If the cucumber strips refuse to stay in a ring, fix the ends in place with big paper clips. Or remove the bottoms of tuna tins using a tin opener and use those as rings to form the cucumber circles.) Place the cucumber rings on individual plates or a single large platter. Pile the tartare into the cucumber rings and top each one with a flurry of crème fraîche.

Serve with lemon wedges and melba toast.

Serves 8 as a starter or snack.

More of my recipes using salmon:

Quick Artichoke, Feta and Lemon Bread, and another

2011-09-16T12:36:00.003+02:00

Quick food and - yes - takeouts have been on the menu at Chez Scrumptious over the last month because I've been furiously busy on other work. My nose has worn to pitiful stump, so hard has it been pressed to the grindstone, so I haven't really been in the mood for making nourishing family meals. It's a good thing breakfast cereals are enriched, or all my children would be weak with scurvy.

I can't give guests takeouts or cereal, however, so recently I've been making flavoured breads that look as if I've spent the whole morning slaving over them. Both these loaves can be assembled in under ten minutes, using bags of dough from the supermarket, and I promise your guests will clap their hands in delight when you bring them hot and fragrant to the table.

Industrial dough doesn't have much to recommend it by way of flavour or texture - it's a multi-purpose dough used for all manner of baked goods - but a few interesting fillings or toppings go a long way towards making up for any cotton-wool texture. The first bread is stuffed with a zingy filling of tinned artichokes, creamy feta, lemon zest and parsley, and the second topped with fennel, garlic, olive oil and vine tomatoes. (And here's third idea: my Puffy 'Focaccia' with Baby Sausages, Herbs, Feta, Garlic and Olive Oil.)

Most supermarkets in South Africa that have in-house bakeries (Spar and 7/11 spring to mind) will sell you ready-to-bake dough, for a pittance, but you do need to ask at the counter for it. You can also buy dough from any commercial bakery.

Supermarket dough rises to an impressive height. Because it's got so much va-va-voom, it's not suitable for making pizzas (unless you like a very thick, doughy crust). But it is ideal for all sorts of flat (or flattish) flavoured breads, and is very forgiving. In other words, you can punch and stretch it fairly energetically without worrying about it collapsing into a sad old biscuit. Do take the time to press it out quite thinly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. There is no need to wait for these breads to rise after flavouring them; the dough will be very puffy already when you take it out of its bag. Supermarket dough keeps in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Artichoke and Feta Bread
600 g fresh white-bread dough
three-quarters of a tin of artichokes, drained
2 wheels (about 160 g) feta, crumbled
5 T (75 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
a large bunch of flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
the finely grated zest of a small lemon
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper

Heat the oven to 180º C. Place a piece of greaseproof paper on a baking sheet and press the dough out to a rectangle about a centimetre thick, as shown in the picture above.

Coarsely chop the artichokes, put them in a bowl and add the feta, olive oil, parsley and lemon zest. Season generously with salt and black pepper. Spread the mixture to within three centimetres of the edges of the dough then roll it up, as if you were making a Swiss roll. Stretch the dough slightly as you roll, tucking it firmly to enclose the filling. Turn the bread so the seam is underneath. Use a sharp knife to make diagonal slashes in the top of the loaf. Mix 4 tablespoons (60 ml) of water with a teaspoon of salt, and lightly brush this mixture all over the bread.

Bake at 180º C for 40-50 minutes, or until done. Brush the bread with more salt water half-way through the cooking time. If you're not sure the bread is cooked, turn it over and rap your knuckles on its underside. If you produce a dry, hollow sound, the bread is ready. Slide onto a bread board and serve hot with some olive oil for dipping.

Makes 1 loaf of bread, or enough for 6 people.

Tomato and Fennel Bread
600 g fresh white-bread dough
3 big cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ cup (125 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
a large sprig of fresh rosemary, leaves stripped and coarsley chopped
the finely grated zest of a small lemon
2 bulbs baby fennel, finely sliced
12 ripe cherry tomatoes, on the vine if possible
a few extra small sprigs of rosemary
flaky sea salt, or coarsely ground Kosher salt
milled black pepper

Heat the oven to 170ºC. Lightly grease a large baking tray and dust with a little flour. Press the dough (diagonally across the sheet) into an elongated oval. Take your time about this. You will find that that dough tends to creep back a bit, but persevere with pushing and stretching until the dough is about a centimetre thick all over. Using your bunched fingers, make deep indentations all over the dough.

In a separate bowl, mix together the crushed garlic, olive oil, chopped rosemary and lemon zest. Pour three-quarters of this mixture over the dough surface and use your fingers to poke and prod it into the indentations. Scatter the sliced fennel and the cherry tomatoes over the bread and press them lightly into the dough. Drizzle the remaining quarter of flavoured olive oil all over the bread and tomatoes, and sprinkle the bread with plenty of salt and milled black pepper. Scatter the extra rosemary sprigs on top. Bake at 160ºC for 35-40 minutes, or until puffy, golden and cooked right through.

Makes 1 focaccia, or enough for 6 people.

Chicken Soup with Braaied Mielies, South-African Style

2011-08-08T23:32:00.004+02:00

This homely soup, containing kernels of barbecued sweetcorn, was one of the recipes I entered into a recent soup competition. To my chagrin (well, rage, actually: think Rumpelstiltskin-style gnashing of teeth and stamping of feet) it didn't win the grand prize of fifty thousand rands' worth of luxury-supermarket vouchers. The winning recipe was a mutton curry soup by Kelly Chrystal of Durban. Although I want to bludgeon this Kelly person and steal her prize, I am very much looking forward to tasting her interesting soup when it hits the shelves next year.

This soup recipe is inspired by a quintessential South African dish: fresh ears of sweetcorn (what we call 'mielies') cooked to a nutty goldenness over blazing coals. Sweet, slightly charred mielie kernels chewed straight from the cob. Sprinkled with salt. Eaten in a woodsmoky beam of sunshine. With melted butter trickling down your chin.

Forgive me for coming over all rhapsodic, but I can't help it. I hope you get the picture.

In this recipe, I've combined a thick, creamy homestyle chicken soup with freshly braaied sweetcorn. If you don't have hot coals to hand, you can cook the sweetcorn under a very hot grill (see recipe, below).

This is a long recipe because it requires a good home-made chicken stock. You can cheat by using a stock cube, but I hope you don't. There really isn't any substitute for proper chicken stock.

Braaied-Mielie and Chicken Soup

For the chicken stock:
a large free-range chicken, trimmed of excess fat
2½ litres water
1 cup (250 ml) white wine
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) sea salt
2 large onions, peeled and quartered
2 carrots, peeled and roughly sliced
a thin slice of lemon, peel on
2 bay leaves
1 tsp (5 ml) freshly ground black pepper
a large stalk of celery
6 stalks of fresh parsley
3 sprigs of fresh thyme

For the soup:
3 tablespoons (45 ml) softened butter
8 large ears of fresh sweetcorn, husks and silk removed
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
1 cup (250 ml) milk
1 tsp (5 ml) dried chilli flakes
2 tsp (10 ml) good dried oregano
a quarter of a whole nutmeg, finely grated
a pinch (1 ml) of ground cloves
the juice of a small lemon
6 T (90 ml) cream
3 T (45 ml) chopped fresh parsley
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

To top:
Extra chopped fresh parsley, or snipped chives

Place the chicken, water, wine and salt in a large pot. The chicken should be just submerged in liquid; if it is not, use a smaller pot. Bring gently to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Skim off any foam as it rises.

Add the onions, carrots, lemon slice, bay leaves and pepper. Using kitchen string, tie the celery stalks, parsley stalks and thyme sprigs into a bundle and add to the pot. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Take the whole chicken out of the stock and cut off the breasts and legs. Cover these with clingfilm and set aside. Return the chicken carcass to the stock and simmer very gently for another hour.

While the chicken is simmering, rub the softened butter over the mielies and sprinkle with a little salt. Braai over medium-hot coals until the mielies are brown and toasted, and just cooked through. (But don't overcook: the kernels should retain a good crunch). If you don't have a braai, cook the mielies under a blazing oven grill, turning frequently, until golden and toasty, and charred in little flecks. Remove from the heat and cool slightly. Using a sharp knife, remove all the kernels, cutting close to the cob. Set the kernels aside.

Take the chicken carcass out of the pot and set aside on a plate to cool. Fish the bay leaves, lemon slice and the bundle of celery, parsley and thyme out of the stock and discard. Leave the cooked onions and carrot in the stock. Add the cubed potatoes, milk and half the braaied mielie kernels. Turn up the heat and cook at a lively simmer for 20 minutes, or until the potato cubes are tender and cooked right through.

In the meantime, pull the cooked chicken away from the carcass and from the set-aside breasts and legs, discarding any skin or fat. Tear the chicken into little shreds and flakes, and set to one side.

Liquidise the soup, in batches, until smooth. Pour the soup back into the pot. Add the remaining braaied mielie kernels, along with the reserved chicken pieces, chilli flakes, oregano, nutmeg, ground cloves and lemon juice. Stir well. Turn on the heat and simmer gently for another ten minutes.

Just before serving, stir in the cream and parsley, and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve piping hot, with a shower of finely snipped chives and some crusty bread rolls.

Serves 8

Salad of Shaved Baby Fennel, Apple and Smoked Mackerel. And my Norwegian Ancestry

2011-08-06T22:53:00.169+02:00

Smoked mackerel is one of those love-it-or-hate-it foods, and I fall happily into Camp Love It. My fish-hating children and husband, the philistines they are, make gagging noises and organise protest marches when they see a packet of smoked mackerel fillets in the fridge. I am flummoxed by their attitude.

I love all kinds of fish: smoked, pickled, cured and oily (especially snoek and anchovies) and I reckon this craving has something to do with my Norwegian ancestry.

My Norwegian great-grandmother, Agathe Torstena Olsen, known as Bestemor

I'm a quarter Norwegian, as you might gather from this rather Nordic picture of me as a nine-year-old (below). My grandmother Cecilie Kröger Jacobsen was born in 1911 in Durban, South Africa, and her immigrant parents were both born in Norway.

My great grandfather Bernt Jacobsen came from Arendal and his wife Agathe Olsen from Bergen. Both Bernt and Agathe were dead by the time I was born, and I know very little about them.

One lovely piece of family lore has stuck in my mind, though. Agathe ('Bestemor') used to say that when she was a little girl and saw the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg on the streets of Bergen, she always dropped him a curtsy. I don't know whether this is true, and - like all wonderful old family legends - it doesn't really matter if it isn't. The very idea that Bestemor was born in the same town as Grieg tickles me pink.

I've had Norway in my thoughts recently, after the devastasting massacre of so many young people on Utøya island. My family has virtually no connection at all to Norway these days - though my mum, I think, is still in touch with some distant relatives - but my heart felt curiously broken to hear this news. This tenuous ancestral connection has ignited an interest in Norway and I hope to spend some time in the next few weeks exploring Norwegian food.

Me, aged nine, dressed up in Norwegian traditional costume.

Anyway, back to the salad. I picked up some beautiful baby fennel at my local Woolies in Hout Bay, and it was just too young, fresh and snappy to cook. I shaved it, using a mandolin, and combined it with sweet thin slices of apple, flakes of smoked mackerel, and - for a bit of crunch and vim - a crisp topping of croutons dusted with chilli powder. I used apple-cider vinegar to make the dressing, but you can use any good white-wine vinegar.

Salad of Shaved Baby Fennel, Apple and Smoked Mackerel

For the dressing

3 T (45 ml) apple cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

½ cup (125 ml) good olive oil

1 tsp (5 ml) Dijon mustard

½ tsp (2.5 ml) white granulated sugar

salt and milled black pepper

For the salad:

6 young, crisp fennel bulbs
a lemon
4 small, crunchy apples (I used Golden Delicious)
2 large fillets of smoked mackerel

For the chilli croutons:
4 slices white bread, crusts removed
4 T (60 ml) vegetable oil
a pinch of chilli powder (or more, to taste)

First make the dressing. Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.

Trim the fennel bulbs and cut them in very fine slices lengthways, using a mandolin or sharp knife. Set aside.

Fill a large bowl with cold water and add the juice of half a lemon. Peel the apples using a potato peeler (or this excellent device) and drop them immediately into the lemony water. When all the apples are peeled, use a corer to remove the cores and stalks. Cut the apples horizontally into very fine slices, and put them back into the bowl of acidulated water (this will prevent them from going brown).

Remove any fine bones from the mackerel and pull it into large flakes.

Just before you assemble the salad, make the chilli croutons. Heat the vegetable oil in a small pan. Tear the bread into little tatters and fry in the hot oil, tossing once or twice, until they are a rich golden brown. Drain on a piece of kitchen paper and sprinkle with chilli powder and a little salt.

To serve, arrange the fennel, apple and mackerel on a platter, or on individual plates. Drizzle the dressing over the salad, and top with the croutons. Serve immediately.

Serves 6

Pears en Papillote with Chocolate and Vanilla

2011-08-04T14:07:00.008+02:00

I love food baked in a rustling paper parcel because opening one up is like unwrapping a present. And these paper-wrapped pears certainly smell like Christmas when you unfurl them. This is a dead-easy, quick recipe that can be made well in advance - even the day before. What's more, you can bake them, put them to one side, and then pop them back in the oven - the microwave oven works well too - for a few minutes to heat through just before you serve them.

The idea for this recipe came to me while I was admiring a shining heap of pears at my local supermarket. Even though I love pears, I hardly ever buy them for the family fruit bowl because their ripening process irks me. One minute they're rock hard; a nanosecond later they've turned to gritty brown mush. I thought I might stew the pears and put them under an almond crumble topping, but then my eye fell on a roll of greaseproof baking paper I'd just put in my trolley. (I've recently been baking baby potatoes in paper parcels, with fresh mint, salt and butter; this method produces the most tender and fragrant spuds).

Do use unblemished, crisp, firm (but not rock-hard) pears for this dish. I used forelles, but I think this would work just as well with Packhams, golden pears or bon chretiens.

I know it's an extravagance to use a whole vanilla pod for each pear, but you can recycle the pods by drying them out on a sunny windowsill. Use them for the next batch of pears you make, or to flavour a jar of caster sugar.

If you can't afford a vanilla pod per pear, scrape the seeds out of a single split pod and mix them with the softened butter before you stuff the pears.

Pears en Papillote with Chocolate and Vanilla
a lemon
6 crisp, firm, just-ripe pears
6 vanilla pods (or three pods, split horizontally in two)
a slab of good quality (75%) dark chocolate
3 tsp (15 ml) butter, softened
6 tsp (30 ml) white sugar
extra sugar for dusting

If you're going to bake these right away, preheat the oven to 170 ºC. Cut out six circles of greaseproof baking paper (or parchment paper) each the size of a large dinner plate. The best way to do this is to put a plate face-down on the paper and swiftly cut around it with a sharp craft knife.

Fill a large bowl with cold water and add the juice of half a lemon. Peel the pears using a potato peeler and drop them immediately into the lemony water. When all the pears are peeled, use an apple corer to remove the cores and stalks (take the entire core out, so the chocolate can run out as it melts).. Trim the base of each pear so it stands up upright. Put the pears back into the water to prevent them from browning.

Put a circle of baking paper on the counter and stand a pear on it. Into the cavity place, in this order, two or three squares of chocolate broken into small pieces, half a teaspoon of butter, and a teaspoon of sugar.

Push a vanilla pod into the cavity, allowing its end to protrude like a pear stalk. Sprinkle two more teaspoons of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice over the outside of the pear. Gather up the edges of the circle to form a parcel and secure with a piece of damp raffia (or string) tied just above the top of the pear. Repeat with the remaining pears.

Leave the pears to stand for 45 minutes. This isn't essential, but it will give the sugar time to dissolve on the surface of the pear. (At this point, you can put the parcels in the fridge and leave them there for up to 8 hours.)

Place the pears on a baking sheet and bake at 170ºC for 40-45 minutes, or until they are very soft but not collapsed.

Place each parcel into a shallow bowl and serve immediately, with whipped cream or custard.

Serves 6.

More of my recipes using pears:

Braised Baby Leeks with Halloumi 'Popcorn' and Frizzled Prosciutto

2011-07-31T20:12:00.001+02:00

Dreaming up new recipes, then testing and refining them, is one of the most rewarding and interesting things I've done in my life, and describing these dishes to readers of this blog comes a very close second. I am excited to share this recipe with you: it's the culmination of my recent kitchen experiments involving slow-cooking of leeks (a passionate outburst of leek braisery, in other words).

The leek may be a humble vegetable, but it is capable of great nobility, if it's cooked just right. The French refer to leeks as l'asperges du pauvre, or 'the asparagus of the poor', and it's not difficult to see why. Young, tender leeks very slowly and gently softened in butter, or braised with white wine and herbs, are delicate and delicious. The challenge, though, is to find really good young leeks: most of the elderly specimens sold in South African supermarkets are tough, stringy and suitable only for tossing into a chicken stock, or making humdrum vichyssoise.

If you see baby leeks in your local greengrocer, make a dive for them, and energetically slap anyone who gets in your way.

Braised baby leeks have a lovely melting texture, so they need to be paired with something with crunch, crumble and snap. In this recipe, I've gone for all three: crisp breadcrumbs, puffy deep-fried bits of halloumi cheese, and frizzled proscuitto.

Halloumi is a tricky cheese to fry: if you haven't cooked it before, have a look at my tips for perfect results with halloumi.

Braised Baby Leeks with Halloumi 'Popcorn' and Frizzled Prosciutto

24 baby leeks (or enough for 6 people)
5 T (75 ml / 75 g) butter
a large (15 cm) sprig of fresh rosemary
two cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
5 T (75 ml) white wine
2 T (30 ml) water
the juice of a lemon
5 T (75 ml) good olive oil
salt and milled black pepper

For the toppings
150g halloumi cheese
vegetable oil for frying (I use sunflower oil)
2 slices day-old white bread
6 slices of proscuitto

Rinse the leeks and trim off the roots and the dark green leaves. Heat the butter over a medium-low heat in a large frying pan and add the leeks, rosemary sprig and garlic halves. Cook gently, tossing frequently, for 6-7 minutes, or until the leeks are beginning to take on a little golden colour. Don't allow the garlic to brown. Add the wine and water, and season with a little salt and milled black pepper.

Cover the leeks with a cartouche (a cut-to-size circle of baking paper, or the wrapper from a block of butter). If you don't have baking paper, place a lid, at a slight tilt, over the frying pan. Now turn the heat down to its lowest setting and allow the leeks to braise gently for 15-20 minutes, or until they are very tender and the liquid has reduced to just a few teaspoons. If the pan looks as if it's drying out, add a little more wine. Turn up the heat again and add the lemon juice and olive oil. Allow to bubble for just 30 seconds, then remove the pan from the heat. Check the seasoning.

While the leeks are braising, prepare the toppings. Pour enough oil into a small frying pan to cover its base to a depth of 1 mm, and set over a medium-high flame. Whizz the bread slices in a food processor until you have rough crumbs. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, then drain then on kitchen paper. Now fry the proscuitto slices until they are crisp and golden, with frizzled edges. Drain.

Immediately before you serve the leeks, make the halloumi 'popcorn'. Pat the halloumi quite dry with kitchen paper, slice it thinly, then cut each slice into a very fine dice: each piece should be about the size of a lentil. Add more oil to the pan in which you cooked the breadcrumbs (the oil should cover the bottom of the pan to at least a depth of 2 mm). Turn up the heat, tilt the pan, and add the halloumi bits to the 'deep end', in small batches. As the pieces of cheese puff up and turn a light golden brown, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain them on the kitchen paper.

Fish the braised leeks from the pan and arrange them on a large platter, or on individual plates. Pour the braising liquid over the leeks. Scatter over the breadcrumbs and halloumi bits, and arrange the fried proscuitto rashers on top. Serve immediately with bread.

Serves 6.

Spicy Pizzas made with Naan Bread

2011-07-27T14:16:00.003+02:00

I'm always on the lookout for quick, ribsticking dishes for my growing lads, and these vibrant spiced-up pizzas tick all the boxes in the teen-fodder department. My local Spar sells nice little naan breads, and I've teamed these up with a lightly spiced tomato sauce, some zingy toppings and a handful of fresh leaves.

Look, I know mozzarella isn't an ingredient you're likely to find in an Indian dish, but what's a pizza without cheese? I use the stringy supermarket stuff that passes for mozzarella on these pizzas, and everyone's happy. You can add any topping you like to these, as long as - and this is my personal rule of thumb - it's something you're likely to find in a curry. So olives, salami, strips of ham, anchovies and tinned pineapple chunks are out. In the first picture I've used roasted aubergines and yellow peppers, plus orange chillies, and in the second strips of spiced chicken breast and sliced green chillies.

My sons aren't mad about fresh coriander - which is the obvious choice of leafy topping - so I use little mint leaves instead.

If you don't have time to make a spicy tomato base for these pizzas, use ordinary tomato pizza sauce and add a little garlic and cumin to it.

Spicy Pizzas made with Naan Bread

For the Spicy Tomato Sauce
1 T (15 ml) vegetable oil
1 tsp (5 ml) mustard seeds
a thumb-length quill of cinnamon
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp (10 ml) fresh ginger, finely grated
1 tin tomato-and-onion mix, or tinned tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp (5 ml) medium-strength curry powder
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cumin
½ tsp (2.5 ml) coriander powder
3 T (45 ml) water
2 T (30 ml) natural yoghurt
salt and pepper

For the pizzas:
8 small naan breads
mozzarella cheese
3 cloves garlic, finely crushed
cumin and red chilli powder for dusting
toppings of your choice (see my notes above)
a little olive oil
salt and milled black pepper
fresh coriander or mint

First make the tomato sauce. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the mustard seeds and cinnamon stick. When the mustard seeds start to pop and sputter, turn down the heat and add the garlic and ginger. Allow to sizzle for a minute or two (don't let the garlic brown) and then add the tomatoes, curry powder, cumin and coriander. Let the sauce bubble over a medium heat for five minutes, or until slightly thickened. Stir in the water, and then stir in the yoghurt, a teaspoon at a time. Turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper.

Turn on your grill and place a baking sheet or a pizza stone in the oven to heat through.

Lightly toast one side of the naan breads in a dry frying pan, or under the hot grill. Turn them over and spread a little tomato sauce on them, leaving a little gap around the edges. Cover with a few slices of cheese. Dust the cheese with a little cumin and chilli powder, and dab with crushed garlic. Add the toppings. Cook under a hot grill until the cheese is bubbling.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and top with fresh green leaves.

Serves 8.

Home-made Double-Creamy Garlic, Lemon and Herb Yoghurt Cheese

2011-07-25T15:24:00.009+02:00

Strained yoghurt cheeses (such as labneh) are usually flavoured after the yoghurt's been thoroughly drained in cheesecloth hung over a bowl, but I thought I'd try adding garlic, lemon zest and fresh herbs right at the beginning. I find that fresh garlic tends to trample all over the delicate, milky flavour of soft white cheeses, so I figured that by adding it - and the woodier herbs and lemon - to the yoghurt before I drained it, the tastes would mingle and mellow over a few days. They did.

This is a beautifully silky cheese that's good topped with a generous slosh of grassy olive oil and some fresh thyme and marjoram leaves (I also added a few fresh rosemary flowers). Serve it with hot toast, melba toast, bruschetta or salty crackers, or add large dollops to the top of a quiche or vegetable tart. Alternatively, you can roll it into little balls and coat these with cracked black pepper, herbs, toasted sesame seeds, spices or spice blends (such as za'atar), or whatever takes your fancy.

I added some fresh cream (hence the 'double-creamy' in the title) but this isn't essential. Do use a full-fat, thick, natural Greek yoghurt.

I thought this cheese would be ready in two days, but it was three days before it was firm enough for my liking. If you're going to hang it for longer than two days, or the weather is very hot, put it in the fridge. If your fridge has wire racks, clip the knot of the cloth to the rack with a few clothes pegs and place a bowl underneath. If your fridge has glass shelves, put the cloth in a sieve set over a bowl.

Home-made Double-Creamy Garlic, Lemon and Herb Yoghurt Cheese
1 litre full-cream natural Greek yoghurt
½ cup (125 ml) cream
the finely grated zest and juice of one lemon
3 small cloves of garlic, peeled and finely grated
a small (thumb-length) sprig of rosemary, very finely chopped
few sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped and lightly bruised
1 tsp (5 ml) salt

To serve:
olive oil
salt and milled black pepper
fresh thyme and marjoram leaves, or herbs of your choice

In a large bowl, lightly whisk together the yoghurt, cream, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, fresh herbs and salt. Place a piece of cheesecloth or muslin (or a fine clean tea towel or napkin) in a sieve and place it over a bowl. Tip the yoghurt into the cloth, gather up the corners and tie them into a knot, or secure them tightly with an elastic band.

Hang the cloth over a bowl or a sink (see my notes above) for two to three days, or longer, if you'd like a very firm cheese. The longer you leave it, the stiffer it will be. Gently squeeze and massage the cloth every now and then to encourage the liquid from the inside of the 'ball' to run out.

Tip the cheese onto a board and, using a large spoon or palette knife, mix it well. Season to taste with salt and pepper and tip into a serving bowl. Pour some olive oil over the cheese and scatter with fresh herbs.

Serves 8-10 as a starter or snack

Stripy Jelly Orange Wedges with Raspberry Juice

2011-07-22T12:24:00.002+02:00

No children's party in the Sixties, when I was a child, was complete without a tray of wobbling jelly-filled orange wedges. There had to be blazing red ones (cherry), and lurid green ones (greengage) made from packet-jelly, and there had to be plenty of them.

My mother made these for every single party I can remember, and I always marvelled at them. How did my clever mummy manage to get the jelly to stay in perfect wedge formation? (It didn't occur to me that she filled up the orange-halves, and then cut them into wedges.) Other delicious party treats considered essential for a decent party table were iced Marie biscuits sprinkled with hundreds-and-thousands; marshmallow-filled ice-cream cones sealed with an iced biscuit, turned upside down and dressed up as clowns; and racing-cars made with Boudoir [finger] biscuits and decorated with wheels made of Smarties and drivers made of sawn-off jelly babies.

Me, aged five or six, with my beloved dolly Gloria.

No one in my family will ever forget the day my little sister Sophie, on her fourth birthday, spent a happy half hour picking every single Smartie and jelly-baby amputee off the vast tray of racing cars my mother had set out on the party table. By the time the guests arrived, all that remained was a sad pile of biscuits pocked with cake icing.

I've tried to recreate the memory of those happy birthday parties with these stripy jelly wedges. Several months ago, while flipping through a Victorian cookbook, I came across an engraving of a pile of jelly oranges made with contrasting strata of jellied fruit juice. Frustratingly, I can't remember which book it was, let alone whether it was a real book or one that I found online. Whatever the case, I was interested to see that jelly oranges were a feature of Victorian party buffets.

In the original recipe, the orange was set on its base, then hollowed out via a coin-size hole cut through the pith at the stalk end. The whole orange was then filled with contrasting jelly layers. Once the jelly had set, the orange was cut into eighths vertically, resulting in perfect wedges with neat and identical strips.

I abandoned this idea immediately - hollowing out an entire orange through a tiny hole isn't my idea of pleasurable cooking - and instead I cut the oranges in half. The result, if you take this approach, is a variety of differently patterned wedges: the ones cut from the middle of the half-orange have perfect stripes, and the ones towards the edge of the shell are prettily graduated in sunset colours.

This is a fiddly recipe, I admit. It's not easy getting the stripes even, and it's quite difficult to cut the wedges perfectly. Use the sharpest knife you have, and keep dipping it into boiling water so that it glides easily through the jelly layers. Measure the gelatine exactly for a perfect firm set.

Stripy Jelly Orange Wedges with Raspberry Juice
three perfectly round fresh oranges
about 1½ cups (375 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice (see recipe)
2 cups (500 ml) frozen or fresh raspberries
1½ cups (375 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) caster sugar
8 tsp (40 ml) powdered gelatine

Cut the oranges in half along their 'waists'. Run the tip of a very sharp knife a third of the way round the edge of the flesh, and then use a big spoon to scoop out all the flesh, making sure you remove all the membrane. Do this over a bowl, so that the juice doesn't escape. Trim away any fluffy bits of pith or core and set the orange shells on a plate. If they're not perfectly level, shave a little peel away from the the bottom of each shell, making sure not to pierce any holes. Refrigerate.

Place the orange pulp in a sieve set over a bowl and press out as much juice as you can. Add more fresh orange juice to bring the total amount in the bowl up to two cups (500 ml). Put four tablespoons (60 ml) of this juice into a little bowl and over it sprinkle exactly four teaspoons (20 ml) of the gelatine. Set aside to 'sponge' for a few minutes. Now place the bowl in a saucepan of boiling water (the water should come halfway up the sides) and leave it for a few minutes to melt, without stirring. When the gelatine is clear, remove the bowl from the heat. Stir it into the fresh orange juice, and then strain the mixture into a clean jug. Set aside at room temperature.

Now make the raspberry jelly. Put the raspberries, sugar and water into a saucepan and bring gently to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer very gently for eight minutes, stirring now and then. Tip the mixture into a large sieve set over a big clean jug and allow the juice to drain out, pressing down gently with the back of a soup ladle. Discard the pulp. Sprinkle the remaining four teaspoons (20 ml) of gelatine over the hot juice and stir until it's completely dissolved. Set aside at room temperature.

Pour a layer of the orange jelly about 2 mm deep into the cold orange shells. Refrigerate until set. (You can put the shells in the freezer to speed up the layering process, but don't leave them too long). Now pour a thin layer of raspberry jelly over the top, and allow to set. Carry on layering the jelly until the shells are full. If the jugs of jelly begin to set, place them in a bowl of boiling water to liquefy them.

When the top layers of jelly are properly set, use a very sharp, hot knife to slice each orange-half into four wedges. Refrigerate until needed.

Makes 24 jelly wedges.

Easy Caramelised Onion and Feta Tart - using pickled onions

2011-07-21T15:54:00.004+02:00

Do you have the patience to stand around peeling pearl onions? I certainly don't, so I've come up with an easy, knock-out tart that uses small pickled onions, which are (oh joy!) already peeled. All they need is a thorough rinsing and a 10-minute sizzle in a pan of hot butter, garlic and thyme, and they turn a gorgeous golden brown, with a perfect balance of sweetness and gentle acidic bite.

The first time I made this, I used bog-standard pickled onions, and they were just too aggressively vinegary. The second, I used a better quality German pickled onion (Kühne brand) and they were perfect.

This is a dead-easy recipe that takes about 20 minutes to prepare and the same amount of time to bake. Do use a good quality puff pastry containing butter, and make sure not to overwork the pastry. You could add any cheese of your choice to this tart - it would be good with a creamy Gorgonzola - but I like feta the best, because it has such a mild flavour and agreeable texture.

This tart is at its best warm, but can be made up to five hours in advance.

Easy Caramelised Onion and Feta Tart

one 500 g jar (300 g drained weight) small pickled onions
3 T (45 ml/45 g) salted butter
a few large sprigs of fresh thyme
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
1 roll of good quality puff pastry, thawed
a beaten egg, for brushing
1 wheel (about 150 g) feta cheese
milled black pepper
a little olive oil for drizzling

Heat the oven to 180ºC and place a non-stick baking sheet in it to heat. Pour the pickled onions into a colander and rinse them well under running water. Drain well, and discard any pickling spices. Heat the butter in a saucepan and add the onions, thyme sprigs and garlic. Cook, over a medium flame, tossing often, for 10 minutes, or until the onions are golden brown and nicely caramelised. Don't allow the garlic or onions to scorch. Remove and set aside to cool slightly.

Unroll the puff pastry onto a board covered with a piece of baking paper. Using a rolling pin, lightly roll it out so it's two or so centimetres larger on all sides. Cut the pastry into an exact square (measure and mark it using a ruler, or lift one corner and fold it diagonally upwards to meet the top edge, as you would do if you were doing origami). Prick the pastry all over with a fork. Cut the leftover piece of pastry into four strips a centimetre or so wide (you may need to roll the piece out a little further). Brush the pastry base with beaten egg, then place the strips around the edges to make a border. Mark the border with a decorative chevron pattern.

Arrange the cooled onions in even rows on top of the pastry. Break the feta into pieces and tuck it between the onions. Scatter with a little more fresh thyme and season with milled black pepper. Paint another layer of beaten egg onto the edges of the tart.

Carefully lift the edges of the baking paper (you may need another pair of hands for this) and place it on the preheated baking sheet. Bake at 180ºC for 20 minutes, or until the pastry is crisp and golden brown. Drizzle with a little olive oil, cut into slices and serve warm.

Serves 6 as a starter or side dish.

Dried Naartjie Peel, and a South African Milk Tart to go under it

2011-07-19T20:49:00.002+02:00

During naartjie season, you might be forgiven for thinking my house has been invaded by swarms of starving monkeys, so many blazing-orange peels are draped over cushions and tossed in spirals on the carpets. I exaggerate, of course, but my kids do love naartjies [a South African word for tangerines or clementines] and they eat them by the bucketload in winter.

I've no doubt that a similar surfeit of naartjie peels led early cooks at the Cape to dry these fragrant skins and pound them to a powder to use in both savoury and sweet dishes. References to dried, ground naartjie peel abound in old South African recipes: 'No well-stocked 18th or 19th century kitchen was without a jar of dried naartjie peel,' write Magdaleen Van Wyk and Pat Barton in their book Traditional South African Cooking (2008).

In her esteemed cookbook Traditional Cookery of the Cape Malays (1959) Hilda Gerber gives a recipe for 'koesisters' that contain 'a little stamped dried naartjie peel'. A similar recipe for 'koesisters' appears in the Cape Malay Cookbook by Faldela Williams. ('Koeksisters' are plaits of yeast-leavened dough, deep-fried and drenched in a sugary syrup).

A recipe for 'Krapkoekies' [literally, 'scratch biscuits'] in The Imperial African Cookery Book: Recipes from English-Speaking Africa by Will Sellick contains both dried naartjie peel and cardamom.

Dried naartjie peel was also used in oublietjies (light, crisp wafer-like biscuits bought to South Africa by the French Huguenots; these were cooked in a special waffle iron and rolled to form a cylinder) and in sweets. In his book Tavern of the Seas, famous raconteur Lawrence Green wrote, 'For the children there would always be tameletjies, the sweets made of sugar, water, eggs, naartjie peel and dennebol pits.' What Green calls 'dennebol pits' are denne pitte, or pine nuts. Tameletjies are a type of nutty, sticky toffee, also known as stick-jaw or sticky jaw. According to Van Wyk and Barton, tameletjies have been eaten at the Cape since the early days of the French Huguenots: 'Years ago, these sweets were sold by Malay street vendors but these days they seem to be made only for special private feasts.' Here's their recipe for tameletjies.

Dried naartjie peel - along with fresh - was probably used in early versions of Van Der Hum (a famous South African liqueur made of brandy, spices and naartjie peel) and it's also occasionally used as a flavouring in savoury dishes, including bobotie, spicy dish of custard-topped mince that is regarded by some as South Africa's national dish. Here's a contemporary recipe for a lamb potjiekos (pot-stew) containing dried naartjie peel.

I oven-dried a whole lot of naartjie peel recently and have had great fun experimenting with this unusual ingredient. It has a lovely pungent aroma and is delicious combined with other spices such as nutmeg, mace, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. The ground peel does have a fleeting bitterness (no doubt due to the fact that I dried it without removing its white pithy underside) but it is not at all unpleasant. I suppose you could use a potato peeler to shave off pithless flakes of the peel, but this is a laborious business because naartjie peel is so oily and flexible.

Bowl by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek.

To dry naartjie peel, place the peels - torn into big strips - on a rack in a sunny place and allow to air-dry naturally. Or, if you're in a hurry, put them on a rack set over a baking tray and place them in the oven. Turn the oven to its lowest setting and allow them to dry out overnight, or until they are quite crisp. The peels will dry out faster in a fan-assisted oven. Store the peels in an airtight jar and use a coffee grinder or a mortar and pestle to blitz a few pieces to a powder whenever you need them for a recipe.

By far and away the most famous dish using dried naartjie peel is milk tart, or melktert. Most modern recipes call for a piece of fresh naartjie peel to be placed in the milk to infuse, but older recipes incorporate the dried, ground peel into the mixture.

I like a delicate, wobbly, custardy milk tart, but my kids do not; their tastebuds have been ruined by flabby white supermarket milk tarts containing not a trace of egg and far too much cheap cinnamon. This recipe is a compromise (and I've added some cream and a vanilla pod for extra decadence).

Milk tarts are traditionally made with flaky or puff pastry, but I prefer a shortcrust pastry. You can make your own - recipe here - or use a good frozen pastry of your choice.

South African Milk Tart with Dried Naartjie Peel

a deep 23-cm pie dish lined with shortcrust pastry, and baked blind

For the filling:
1 litre full-cream milk
125 ml (½ cup) pouring cream
a strip of fresh naartjie (tangerine) peel
a vanilla pod, halved lengthways
a 5-cm quill of cinnamon
2 extra-large free-range eggs
6 T (90 ml) cake flour
2 T (30 ml) cornflour [cornstarch]
200 ml caster sugar
1 T (15 ml) dried, ground naartjie peel

To top:
caster sugar
dried, ground naartjie peel

Put the milk, cream, naartjie peel, vanilla pod and cinnamon quill in a large saucepan, place over low flame and bring very slowly to the boil. As soon as the milk begins to seethe and rise in the pan, remove it from the heat, cover and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse. Strain the milk into a jug or bowl and discard the peel, vanilla pod and cinnamon.

Break the eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk them lightly. Add the flour, cornflour, caster sugar and one-third of the warm, strained milk. Beat together, using a wire whisk, until quite smooth. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan and add the remaining two-thirds of milk. Cook, over a low flame, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick and smooth; it should have the consistency of a thick white sauce. Don't allow the mixture to boil. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie dish and bake at 160ºC for 25-35 minutes, or until the filling has set, but is still rather wobbly in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Put the ground naartjie peel and caster sugar into a tea strainer and sift this mixture all over the top of the tart.

Makes one 23-cm tart

Panko-Crumbed Calamari with Black Salt & White Pepper, and Lime Mayonnaise

2011-07-17T22:24:00.016+02:00

Indented sauce bowl by master potter David Walters of Franschhoek.

I've been scratching my head for a few months now wondering what to do with the bottle of Hawaiian black lava salt I bought at a food emporium (Giovanni's Deliworld) in Cape Town, and after some deliberation have come to the conclusion that this is an ingredient that must be used tongue in cheek. As a feeble culinary joke, I mean. I can think of no other use for this salt.

Sure, it's an interesting product, with its large, crunchy, jet-black, rather greasy-looking granules, but when push comes to shove, it's just salt, and it tastes, well, salty. It's no use for dishes containing liquid, because the colour runs from the crystals, making sooty streaks in sauces and dressings.

So I reckon the best way to use black salt is as a cheeky novelty.

In this, my take on that popular dish salt-and-pepper squid, I've reversed the colours of the two starring seasonings, combining the black salt with one of my favourite spices, white pepper. If you can't find black salt, use a good brand of flaky sea salt, such as Maldon.

Japanese panko breadcrumbs aren't essential for this dish - you can use ordinary fresh or dried breadcrumbs - but they are well worth hunting for because they have a feather-light texture that creates a beautifully light, crisp whisper of a crust. They're available at specialist Oriental food shops and some delicatessans; I bought mine at the Spar in the Cape Quarter.

These are good with a salty-sweet Asian dipping sauce of lime juice, soy sauce and chilli but, because I don't often make deep-fried anything, I went the whole hog and served them with a zesty mayonnaise with fresh lime juice and rind. In for a penny, in for a pound, I reckon.

The only tricky aspect of this recipe is getting the oil temperature just right. If it's too cool, the crust will soak up oil and become soggy. If it's too hot, the calamari will overcook. If you have a candy thermometer or digital thermometer, use it to keep the oil at between 160º and 165º C. If you have no such thing, follow these instructions for deep-frying.

Finally, do use small, tender, good-quality calamari tubes for this dish. Fresh calamari is sometimes available at good fishmongers and at Woolworths. If you can't find fresh calamari, look out for packs of frozen Patagonian squid, which is now being sold in South Africa. Avoid, at all costs, the rubbery pre-cut frozen rings you see in the supermarket.

If the calamari you buy comes with tentacles, dust them with a little seasoned cornflour and deep-fry them in the same oil to use as a crisp garnish.

Panko-Crumbed Calamari with Black Salt and White Pepper, and Lime Mayonnaise

700 g clean, small calamari tubes
1 cup (250 ml) flour
1 tsp (5 ml) finely ground white pepper
1 tsp (5 ml) Hawaiian black lava salt (or flaky sea salt)
2 eggs
2 cups Panko breadcrumbs, or ordinary breadcrumbs
2 cups (500 ml) sunflower or similar light vegetable oil, for frying

For the lime mayonnaise:
1 cup (250 ml) home-made mayonnaise, or genuine Hellman's mayonnaise
3 T (45 ml) thick natural Greek yoghurt
the finely grated zest of a lime
the juice of two small limes
a pinch of salt

To serve:
Hawaiian black lava salt (or flaky sea salt)
a little extra white pepper
lime wedges

First make the mayonnaise. Mix the mayonnaise, yoghurt and lime zest together in a small bowl. Add just enough fresh lime juice to give the sauce a good 'bite'. Season with salt and refrigerate.

Turn the oven on to 140º C and place a big platter in it to warm. Rinse the calamari tubes, pat dry with kitchen paper and slice into rings about 7 mm thick. Put three medium-sized bowls on the counter. Put the flour, white pepper and black salt into the first bowl, and mix well. Put the eggs into the second bowl and whisk until combined. Put the panko crumbs in the third bowl.

Pour the oil into a small saucepan or a wok. Heat the oil to 165º C, or until a crumb dropped into it sizzles furiously (see my notes above). Place several layers of newspaper or kitchen paper on your counter.

Prepare the calamari in four batches. Take the first quarter of rings and toss them in the seasoned flour. Shake well to remove any excess. Dip them into the beaten egg, and then place them in the bowl full of crumbs. Using a fork, toss them lightly so that they are just coated with crumbs. Drop the rings into the hot oil and fry for a minute, or until they are a light golden brown. Remove from the hot oil with a slotted spoon and drain on the kitchen paper. (And, once they're well drained, put them in the oven to warm.) Remember that the calamari will carry on browning after you've taken it out of the hot oil, so fish the rings out of the pan long before they begin to darken.

Repeat with the remaining calamari rings.

Pile the hot calamari on a platter and dust with a pinch of white pepper (exercise caution here: it's a very pungent spice) and a scattering of black salt. Serve piping hot with the lime mayonnaise, and a few lime wedges.

Serves 6 as a starter

Double-Craggy Garlic Bread with Herbs, Lemon and Peppered Cream Cheese

2011-07-03T22:00:00.008+02:00

Garlic bread was one of the first eating sensations of my childhood, and I hold it personally responsible for my life-long addiction to both garlic and melted butter. It's not something I make often (I make weak stabs at keeping my family's diet wholesome), but I do think this great classic of the Sixties and Seventies needs to be given the respect it richly deserves. I've called my new version 'double-craggy' because the bread is sliced in a grid formation, and I've done this - licking my lips as I slice this way and that - in order to maximise the surface area to be basted with garlicky, herby butter.

The first time I tasted garlic bread was when I was six or seven, at a birthday party, and I have never forgotten that first heavenly bite. Our friends, the Spences, lived not far from our house, near Swartkop in Muldersdrift, some 30 km north of Johannesburg. Situated close to the famous Sterkfontein Caves and the Cradle of Humankind, Swartkop is a twin-peaked hill that was a distinctive feature in a landscape of rolling golden grassland, or veld. It probably has townhouse developments gnawing at its lower slopes nowadays - I haven't been there for years - but when I was a child, it was the closest thing to a mountain I'd ever seen. In our family, it was always called 'Bosom Mountain'.

Anyway, the Spences lived just under Bosom Mountain, in a big house thatched with shiny grass the colour of a lion's pelt. Malcolm Spence (who died this year, at 73) was an interesting and clever man who - according to his obituary - had the distinction of winning the 400m bronze medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, in what has been billed as 'one of the greatest sprint races of all time'. Malcolm apparently didn't like to talk about his triumph, but on this occasion I remember him showing all the kids a jumpy black-and-white movie of his famous sprint (projected onto a white bedsheet nailed to the wall, which was how we watched movies in those days). After that, we watched an old and terrifying film about a sabre-toothed tiger that lived in a cave. Petrified, I crawled under a blanket and stuck my thumb in my mouth, vowing never to go to a birthday party at the Spences again.

But all was made right when Naomi Spence called us to the table. She'd made three or four loaves of garlic bread, tightly wrapped in foil and packed with garlic, chopped fresh curly parsley and lashings of farm butter. There was a cake too, strewn with little silver balls, and iced Marie biscuits with hundreds-and-thousands, and orange-skin wedges filled with red jelly, but all these delights paled when I tasted the garlic bread. I ate a lot of it, and threw up on the back seat of the car on the way home. This may have been the bumpy farm road, but it was probably the butter.

I can't eat garlic bread without remembering that party, and here's my attempt to recreate a special food memory. I've used a flat-topped, poppyseeded potbrood here, but any big loaf of good, fine-textured white bread will do. Don't worry if stalagmites of bread fall off when you've cut it in a grid pattern: tie everything loosely together with a piece of string or raffia, and remove the string just before you serve the bread.

Double-Craggy Garlic Bread with Herbs, Lemon and Peppered Cream Cheese

a large, circular loaf of bread, a day or two old
1 cup (250 ml/250 g) salted butter
8 large cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
the finely grated zest of a lemon
1 cup (250 ml) chopped fresh herbs (parsley, rosemary, oregano, rosemary, thyme, or whatever you have to hand)
freshly milled black pepper
125 g pepper-crusted cream cheese or goat's milk cheese

Heat the oven to 190ºC. Place the loaf of bread on a board. Using a very sharp serrated knife, cut the bread, to within a centimetre of its base, into thick (2 cm) slices. Now turn the loaf the other way, and cut across the slices to form a grid. Take your time about this, and use quick, light, sawing motions, pressing the slices you've just cut firmly together.

Melt the butter in a pan set over a medium heat (or in your microwave oven) and stir in the garlic, lemon zest, fresh herbs and pepper.

Squeeze the base of the loaf gently to splay out the 'fingers' of bread and, using a pastry brush or a turkey baster, liberally coat each finger of bread with the flavoured butter.

Brush the top and sides of the bread with more melted butter. Tie a piece of string or a strand of raffia firmly around the loaf. Put the bread on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Cover lightly with a sheet of tin foil and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until it's beginning to crisp and turn golden. Take the loaf out of the oven, and crumble the peppered cream cheese over and around the 'fingers' of bread. Bake for a further five minutes, or until the cheese is hot and just beginning to bubble.

Serve immediately.

Serves 6-8 as a side dish.

Chicken 'Saltimbocca' with Emmentaler and Lemon

2011-07-01T14:11:00.002+02:00

'Chicken breasts' is one of the most frequent keyword searches that lead to this blog, and I suppose that's because people are always on the lookout for quick, easy recipes using this family staple.

Here's a dish I love, similar to saltimbocca (an Italian contraction meaning 'it jumps in one's mouth'), but in place of veal I use deboned chicken breasts, and I deglaze the pan with a little lemon juice instead of the traditional marsala.

The idea for sticking some cheese between the Parma ham and the chicken comes from one of Jamie Oliver's programmes (one of his Food Revolution series, I think), and what a good idea it is, although you can leave out if you're counting calories (not that this will make much difference: this is a dish laden with butter).

The lemon slice, as it caramelises in the pan, imparts a lovely zesty perfume to the dish. I always tie the lemon slice and sage leaves on with raffia or string, because the thought of a sharp toothpick in a meal a child's going to be eating gives me the creeps.

Don't let the butter get too brown in the pan, or the sauce will have a burned taste. Serve with a pile of fluffy parsleyed mash.

(By the way, chicken breasts on the bone are considerably cheaper than ready-prepared ones. Skinning them and whipping out the bone takes seconds, and saves you a lot of money.)

Chicken 'Saltimbocca' with Emmentaler and Lemon
4 skinned, deboned chicken breasts
eight thin slices of Emmentaler, or similar
4 slices of Parma ham
two thin slices of lemon, halved
16 small fresh sage leaves
1 T (15 ml) olive oil
3 T (45 ml) butter
the juice of small lemon
milled black pepper

Put the chicken breasts between two sheets of clingfilm or baking paper and, using a rolling pin, gently flatten them so that they're of an even thickness. Cover each breast with two slices of cheese, and then a slice of ham. Place the lemon slices and sage leaves, as shown above, on the top, and secure with a piece of kitchen string or a strand of raffia. Press down firmly on the top of the breast with the palm of your hand.

Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the breasts, lemon-slice down, and fry over a brisk heat for two minutes. Flip the breasts over, and fry the other side for another two to three minutes, or until the breast is cooked right through. Add the butter to the pan a minute before the breasts are ready, and use it to baste the tops of the breasts. Season with black pepper (you shouldn't need to add any extra salt). Remove the breasts and place on a warm platter. Turn up the heat slightly and add the lemon juice, swirling to release any bits of golden sediment. Allow to bubble for a minute, and then pour the sauce over the breasts.

Serve immediately, with mashed potato.

Serves 4

Cauliflower Salad with Crisp-Fried Chorizo Sausage and a Warm Lemon Dressing

2011-06-30T19:23:00.005+02:00

An easy, tapas-style dish with sensational flavours and textures: shaved raw cauliflower with crumbled fried chorizo, crisp breadcrumbs, a whisper of garlic and a warm lemony olive-oil dressing.

I really like raw cauliflower when it's young, fresh, snappy and unblemished, and reckon it's an ingredient that deserves to be used more often in salads. This vegetable may have a college education, but it's not naturally gifted in the flavour department, so when you serve it raw it's important to give it a kick in the pants with some bright, zingy ingredients. The inspiration for this recipe comes from my version of Robert Carrier's Cauliflower à la Polonaise (which, gratifyingly, remains among the most-viewed recipes on this blog).

It's not easy making neat, thin through-the-stalk slices of cauliflower - there is only so much 'tree-trunk' available on individual florets. Use a mandolin, or a very sharp paring knife. Chop the pieces that don't have a stalk attached, and hide them under the prettiest looking slices.

An authentic Spanish chorizo or Portuguese chouriço, made with smoked red peppers, will give you the best results. These beauties - available at good delis - are not cheap, but you need only one sausage for four servings, and they're of much better quality than most local versions, which tend to be fatty and somewhat, er, flaccid. If you can't find imported chorizo, add a pinch or two of fresh paprika to colour the dressing.

And if you'd like some heat in this dish, add a pinch or two of red chilli flakes to the pan when you cook the garlic.

Cauliflower Salad with Crisp-Fried Chorizo Sausage and a Warm Lemon Dressing

1 young, perfect cauliflower (or two smaller ones)
1 good chorizo sausage (15-20 cm long)
3 T (45 ml) sunflower oil or similar light vegetable oil
a small clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
the juice of a lemon
2 breadrolls (or slices of bread), a day or two old
6 T (90 ml) good olive oil
a big handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
milled black pepper

Cut the core out of the cauliflower and break off the florets. Using mandolin or sharp knife, cut the florets vertically into thin slices and arrange on a platter. Put a piece of kitchen paper on the counter. Cut off a third of the sausage and set aside. Peel the skin off the rest of the sausage and crumble the flesh (or dice into very small pieces). Heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan, add the sausage bits and fry, over a moderate heat, for a minute or two, until they're beginning to crisp and darken. Crumble the bread into the frying pan - you need some pea-sized nuggets, as well as smaller crumbs - and fry until crisp. (The crumbs tend to carry on browning after you remove them from the heat, so take them off when they're a pale gold, and watch them like a hawk.)

Tip the contents of the pan into a sieve, drain off all the oil and spread them out on the kitchen paper. Return the pan to the heat and add the garlic and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Gently cook the garlic for a minute or two, making sure not to let it brown. Now add the lemon juice, all in one go, and stir briskly to dislodge the sediment on the bottom of the pan. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the remaining olive oil.

Pour the warm dressing over the cauliflower and sprinkle with the fried sausage bits, breadcrumbs and chopped fresh parsley. Finely slice the remaining piece of sausage and arrange the slices on the salad. Grind over plenty of black pepper. You shouldn't need to add any more salt.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4 as a starter or side dish.

Naartjie Mousse in Dark-Chocolate Cups, with Rosemary Flowers

2011-06-28T13:22:00.021+02:00

'Naartjie', if you're not from these parts, is a South Afican word for tangerine. Inextricably associated with rugby matches, this well-loved fruit, with its dizzying citrussy perfume and blazing orange skin, is something eagerly to look forward to in winter. Here's a feather-light mousse served in dark-chocolate cups and garnished with fresh rosemary blossoms (which are there to add an interesting PING!).

You can temper the chocolate (see Cook's notes, below) if you'd like a professional glossy finish and a lovely snap, but you'll need a digital cooking thermometer for this. It's really not necessary, though.

I tried three different methods of making chocolate cups, all of which failed or were very sorry-looking specimens, before someone suggested using balloons. "Duh," said one of my children.

These chocolate cups are quite easy to make if you follow the instructions carefully, but do use a good-quality chocolate, not your run-of-the-mill Cadbury's or Nestlé. Also, don't leave the chocolate cups in the fridge for too long, or you'll find it impossible to peel away the balloons.

If you can't find rosemary flowers growing on a bush somewhere, grind up a few fresh or frozen leaves with some caster sugar, using a pestle and mortar, and sprinkle this green dust (see Frozen Rosemary Sugar) over the top of the mousses.

This mousse is based on my recipe for Gin and Lime Mousse.

Naartjie Mousse in Dark-Chocolate Cups, with Rosemary Flowers

For the chocolate cups:
2 slabs of good-quality dark chocolate
balloons

For the mousse:
5 T (75 ml) tepid water
1 T (15 ml) powdered gelatine
3 large free-range eggs
one cup (250 ml) caster sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) finely grated naartjie zest
½ cup (125 ml) freshly squeezed naartjie juice
2 t (10 ml) fresh lemon juice
1 cup (250 ml) single (whipping) cream
a pinch of salt

To top:
shreds of naartjie zest
fresh rosemary flowers, or rosemary 'dust' (see above)

First make the chocolate cups. Place a metal or glass bowl over a pot of simmering water (making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water). Break up the chocolate and put the pieces in the bowl. Allow to melt gently, stirring occasionally. Don't allow the chocolate to get too hot: remove it from the heat when there are still a few bits left unmelted.

Cover two plates with baking paper. Tip the chocolate into a deep soup bowl and allow to cool for a few minutes. Stir well. Blow up each balloon to about the size of an orange and tie a tight knot. Very lightly spray the outside of each with cooking spray (see Cook's notes, below). Holding a balloon by the knot, dip it up to its 'waist' in the melted chocolate. Lift the balloon out, turn it upside down and quickly and gently swirl the chocolate to spread it evenly around. Now place the balloon, upright, on the baking paper. If the chocolate is very liquid, ask someone to hold it upright while the base sets. Repeat with remaining balloons. I suggest you make at least 12, to allow for breakages. Put the plates into the fridge and chill for 10-15 minutes, or until the chocolate is just hard. Now, using a pair of scissors, snip through the necks of the balloons, allow to deflate and gently peel them away. Refrigerate.

Now make the mousse. Put the water into a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatine on the top and set aside to 'sponge' for five minutes. Place in a pan of simmering water - the water should come half-way up the sides of the bowl - and leave until the liquid is clear (about three minutes). Remove the from the heat and cool for a few minutes.

Separate the eggs into two large bowls. To the egg yolks, add the caster sugar. Using a rotary beater or hand-whisk, beat the mixture for a few minutes, or until thick, pale and fluffy. Don't worry if the mixture seems claggy at first: it will soon loosen up. Whisk the naartjie juice and lemon juice into the egg yolk/sugar mixture, a little at a time. Stir in the zest.

Strain the cooled, melted gelatine into the egg mixture and mix well. Whip the cream to a soft peak and gently fold it into the egg mixture. Place the bowl in the fridge for ten minutes to firm up.

Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and whisk - using clean, dry beaters - to a firm peak. Using a large metal spoon, briskly stir a dollop of egg white into the egg-yolk/sugar mixture (this serves to 'slacken' the mix). Now, very gently, fold in the remaining egg white. Pile the mousse into the chocolate shells and chill for two hours, or until set.

Just before serving, sprinkle with naartjie zest and a few fresh rosemary flowers.

Serves 8.

Cook's Notes:

Don't overbeat the egg whites. If they're too dry, they'll give the mousse a powdery texture.
It's not strictly necessary to spray the balloons with cooking spray, but it will help release them if you've left them in the fridge too long. (Yes, I did!)
If you can't find naartjies, use fresh oranges.
Be sure to measure the quantity of gelatine exactly. If you have sheet gelatine (which produces a very fine texture), use 6 leaves (weighing 10 grams).
There are various ways to temper dark chocolate, but this is the way I've found easiest, using a digital cooking thermometer. Melt two-thirds of the chocolate pieces. Don't allow the chocolate to overheat (it should not go above 45ºC). Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining pieces. Allow to cool, stirring occasionally, until the temperature of the chocolate reaches 28ºC. Now put the bowl back over the pot of simmering water and gently reheat it 31ºC, stirring. (This doesn't take long, so watch the thermometer like a hawk). That's it. More detailed information about tempering chocolate here and here.

More naartjie recipes from this blog:

- Slow-cooked Moroccan-style Beef and Apricot Stew with Naartjie and Chickpea Couscous

- Couscous, Feta & Pea Salad with Naartjie Dressing

- Caramel-Dipped Naartjies, on Kebab Sticks

Herby Rice Salad with Feta, Walnuts and Dried Pomegranate Seeds

2011-06-26T19:37:00.009+02:00

Raw broccoli 'dust' is a feature of this vibrant green rice salad, but I thought I'd leave it out of the title in case it put you off. I admit that this ingredient (which you make by grating the very outer surface of fresh broccoli) does not have a distinctive flavour, but it adds good texture and colour to the salad and is, besides, very good for you.

Rice salads are rather old fashioned, and I can't remember the last time I saw one on a buffet table, let alone on a restaurant menu. I think these easy-on-the-budget salads need to be resurrected as family food, albeit with a fresh, light and healthy twist.

What's nice about rice salads is - like couscous and pasta salads - you can ring the changes and add anything you please. I've packed this salad with some of the delicious flavours of the Levant: plenty of punchy fresh herbs for zing, walnuts for crunch, feta for creaminess and dried pomegranate seeds for that 'ping!' factor.

The dried pomegranate seeds (or arils) I used are produced by local Cape company In Our Green Garden, and are available at good delicatessans and at some health shops. They have a lovely acidic, fruity bite, an interesting chewy-crisp texture and are packed with healthy antioxidants. I'm really intrigued by this ingredient - a first in South Africa - and look forward to experimenting with it in the future.

If you can't find these where you live, use fresh pomegranate seeds, or chopped dried goji berries, or cranberries - anything chewy, with a sweet-sour bite. I've used plain long-grain rice here, but you could use brown rice, steamed barley, quinoa or a wild-rice mixture if you'd prefer an even more wholesome, chewy salad.

Avoid Basmati or jasmine rice, or any other rice with an assertive flavour.

Note: when I refer to 'a cup' of chopped fresh herbs, I mean that you've loosely packed the cup with the chopped leaves.

Herby Rice Salad with Feta, Walnuts and Dried Pomegranate Seeds

2 cups (500 ml) long-grain white rice
5 cups (1.25 litres) cold water
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh mint
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 cup (250 ml) finely chopped fresh rocket
1 cup (250 ml) crumbled feta cheese
½ cup (125 ml) dried pomegranate seeds (see my notes, above)
a large head of fresh broccoli
½ cup (125 ml) walnuts, broken into little pieces

For the dressing:
a small clove of garlic, crushed
¾ cup (190 ml) light olive oil
⅓ cup (80 ml) rice vinegar or white wine vinegar
the juice of a lemon
2 tsp (10 ml) Dijon mustard
a large pinch of caster sugar
salt and milled black pepper

To top
extra olive oil
some extra walnuts and feta

Put the rice, salt and cold water in a pot. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and cook at a lively simmer for 18-20 minutes, or until just cooked through (or follow the packet instructions). Tip the rice into a large colander and rinse under cold water for 30 seconds, to remove excess starch. Allow the rice to cool until lukewarm, fluffing occasionally with a fork to separate the grains.

In the meantime, make the dressing. Put all the ingredients in a jug and whisk together until combined.

Put the rice in a large bowl and add the mint, parsley, rocket, feta and pomegranate seeds. Break the broccoli into large florets and lightly grate the outer surface of each (to a depth of about 2 mm) on the coarse teeth of a cheese grater to create 'dust'. Tip the dust into the salad (keep the rest of the broccoli for another dish).

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss very well to combine. Season generously with salt and milled black pepper. Allow to stand for 30 minutes to an hour to allow the pomegranate seeds to soften slightly, and so the flavours can mingle.

Just before serving, stir in the walnut pieces.

Tip onto a large platter, drizzle with a little more olive oil and scatter over some extra crumbled feta and walnuts.

This salad keeps well in the fridge for up to two days, although the walnuts will soften.

Serves 8 as a side salad.

Baked Aubergines with Tomato, Scorched Red Pepper, Feta and Mint

2011-06-18T20:08:00.008+02:00

A happy marriage between a spicy Turkish Imam Bayildi and a Provençal ratatouille, this deep-flavoured vegetable dish sings with intense, sunny flavours, and is just as good cold as it is pleasantly warm. I meant to add parsley when I made this the first time but, having none to hand, used instead a handful of the fresh mint that flourishes beneath my garden tap. I was instantly smitten by the combination of aubergine [eggplant], feta cheese, tomato and perky little mint leaves. Mint is a such an undervalued herb, I think, especially in savoury dishes.

Serve with plenty of good, fruity olive oil, and tearings of crusty bread for soaking up the tomatoey juices. You can use quartered big tomatoes in this dish - if they are very red, ripe and tasty - but I love the way that intensely flavoured cherry tomatoes stay almost whole in the sauce, and surprise your tongue with little bursts of acidy sweetness.

This dish improves upon standing. Cover it with clingfilm, and leave it at room temperature overnight. If you're serving it right away, allow it to cool for ten to fifteen minutes so that it's pleasantly warm.

If you'd like to turn this into a sustaining meal, add a tin of drained chickpeas to the mixture before you put it in the oven for the second time. And if you'd like a bit of crunch, sprinkle with a few handfuls of toasted pine nuts.

It's not strictly necessary to degorge the brinjals before you bake them (today's modern varieties are not as bitter as the brinjals yesteryear) but I have found that this process helps to prevent the slices from absorbing too much oil. Choose firm, tight-skinned brinjals with a dark glossy skin, and not too big.

Baked Aubergines with Tomato, Scorched Red Pepper, Feta and Fresh Mint
3 large aubergines [eggplants]
2 tsp (10 ml) fine salt
2 large ripe red peppers [capsicums], sliced
4 T (60 ml) olive oil
2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
a large pinch of salt
750 g small, ripe cherry tomatoes (about 5 cups)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped or grated
2 tsp (10 ml) ground cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) red chilli flakes
2 bay leaves
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
1 cup (250 ml) water or stock
2 T (30 ml) tomato paste
salt and freshly milled black pepper

To serve:
a cup (250 ml) of crumbled feta cheese
a handful of chopped fresh mint
an extra dusting of cumin
toasted pine nuts [optional]
olive oil
crusty bread

Heat the oven to 190ºC. Top and tail the aubergines. Cut them in half, lengthways, and then cut each half, lengthways again, into four 'wedges'. Now cut each wedge in half crossways so that you have finger-sized pieces that are roughly equal in size. Place the pieces in a large colander, in layers, and sprinkle with salt. Weigh down with a plate and allow to degorge for 20 minutes.

Start on the tomato sauce in the meantime (see below).

Rinse the aubergine slices under running water to remove excess salt, and pat dry on a tea towel. Arrange the pieces in a deep ceramic dish or roasting tray, drizzle over the remaining olive oil and, using your hands, toss well to coat. Place in the hot oven and bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown and just soft.

Put a large frying pan (a wok is ideal) over a high flame. When the pan is very hot, add the red pepper pieces (but no oil). Cook, tossing all the time, for three to five minutes, or until the pieces are beginning to scorch in places to form small burned 'freckles'. Pour 2 T (30 ml) of the olive oil into the wok, turn down the heat to medium and add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes, or until the onion has slightly softened, then add the whole cherry tomatoes, garlic, cumin, chilli flakes, bay leaves and sugar. Turn down the heat to low and cook gently for ten minutes, stirring occasionally.

Now, using a potato masher, gently squash the cherry tomatoes so that they burst and release their juices. Add the water (or stock) and tomato paste, and season to taste with salt and black pepper. Simmer the sauce for half an hour, or until it has reduced and thickened slightly. Stir the sauce now and then to prevent it sticking on the bottom and add a little extra water or stock if it looks as if it's drying out. Turn the heat off under the sauce while you wait for the aubergines to finish cooking.

Remove the aubergines from the oven after 45 minutes and tip the sauce all over them, shaking gently so that each slice is coated. Return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes, or until the aubergine slices are very soft, but still holding together.

Allow the dish to cool for 10 minutes. Crumble the feta cheese over the top and strew with freshly chopped mint. Drizzle with a little extra olive oil and dust with a little cumin (no more than a teaspoon).

Serve warm, or cold, with crusty bread.

Serves 8 as a starter or side dish.

Chicken, Rice, Egg and Lemon: My Flop-Proof Avgolemono Soup

2011-06-14T07:22:00.005+02:00

A delicate, nourishing and deliciously creamy elixir containing not a drop of cream, avgolemono soup is one of my all-time favourites. This traditional Greek soup is often eaten at Easter; 'avgolemono' means, literally, 'egg-lemon', and is one of a family of similar sauces eaten throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Because it's thickened and enriched with eggs and fresh lemon juice, it has a tendency to curdle in an instant, but I have found that adding a little cornflour to the mix helps to stabilise the soup and create a beautiful silken texture.

Purists may well throw up their hands in horror, but purists would serve this right away, without reheating it. I need a soup that can be made in bulk and reheated for family meals, however, and have settled on a version that - thanks to the cornflour - reheats very well on both stovetop and in the microwave oven. If you follow the proportions below exactly, always reheat it exceedingly slowly, and never let it boil, you are assured of a perfect result every time. (When I told my friend Michael, a Greek himself and a purist of note, that I add cornflour to my avgolemono, he barely batted an eyelid, and told me that many a Greek housewife does the same.)

If you're sick, or feeling out of sorts, or just a little downhearted, this is the soup for you. It's like a ray of sunshine in your belly.

I am rather sentimental about this dish, because it's the very first soup I ever made. My mother had a wonderful book called Soup Beautiful Soup by Ursel Norman (published in 1976 and now, sadly, out of print) and its vibrant recipe illustrations (by her husband Derek) really fired my imagination as a young cook.

I like this soup with chopped fresh parsley, but you could add dill, chives, chervil, or any other delicate herb. It's not strictly necessary to add vegetables to the broth - a chicken simmered in water will do - but I think a good stock adds a great depth of flavour.

Chicken, Rice, Egg and Lemon: My Flop-Proof Avgolemono Soup

For the stock and soup:
one whole free-range chicken, trimmed of excess fat
two and a half litres of cold water
a few fresh parsley stalks
an onion, peeled and halved
2 carrots, scraped and roughly chopped
a bay leaf
a large sprig of thyme
six peppercorns
a thin slice of lemon, peel on
a big pinch of salt

3/4 cup (190 ml) plain Tastic rice

For the egg sauce:
3 large free-range eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons (30 ml) cornflour [cornstarch]
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
the juice of a large lemon

To finish:
finely chopped fresh parsley

Cover the chicken with the cold water, add the remaining stock ingredients (excluding the rice) and bring to the boil. Simmer for an hour and ten minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the stock and chicken to cool slightly. (Or you can cool them overnight.)

Skim off any fat, strain the stock into a big bowl and discard the flavourings. Take the flesh off the chicken, pull it into flakes and shreds with your fingers and set aside.

Measure out exactly two litres of the stock, strain it again back into the pot and add the uncooked rice. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is cooked.

In the meantime, beat together in a large bowl the whole eggs, yolks, cornflour, lemon zest and lemon juice. Beat until well combined and slightly frothy. Set aside.

Tip the reserved chicken pieces into the simmering broth and allow to heat through for five minutes. Turn the heat under the soup to its very lowest setting. To the bowl containing the eggs, add four to five ladles of hot chicken broth - one at a time, and gradually - whisking gently all the time. Now pour the egg mixture back into the broth and stir well over an exceedingly gentle heat. Don't allow to boil, or the soup may curdle. Season generously with salt and pepper (a pinch of white pepper is very nice) and stir in a handful of freshly chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

Serves 6

Old-Fashioned Pinwheel Sandwiches with Smoked Salmon, Crème Fraîche & Horseradish

2011-06-12T21:33:00.000+02:00

A splendid way to stretch a small amount of top-quality smoked salmon or trout between many people. I'm a devoted fan of delicate old-fashioned sandwiches - read my thoughts about the art of making dainty sandwiches here - and I think it's high time we turfed those gut-busting ciabatta extravaganzas, with their marinated peppers and slices of Parma ham, into the bin and turned our attention to the little tongue-whisperers Grandma used to make.

The biggest problem you might encounter when making these sandwiches is finding a whole - that is, unsliced - loaf of bread from which to make them. I visited three large supermarkets and two well-stocked garage convenience stores on the day I wanted to make these, and couldn't find a single whole loaf of anything remotely square on the outside and soft-'n-fluffy within. Every single run-of-the-mill white or brown loaf on every shelf was pre-sliced and swaddled in plastic, and all the other whole breads were either the wrong shape, or stuffed to the gunwhales with sundried tomatoes, onions, olives, artichokes, cheese, small furry kittens, and so on.

Eventually I turned to the all-knowing Twitter, which advised me to try my local 7/11 store. I did, and there I found square loaves of ordinary white and brown bread, unplasticked, unsliced, and emitting innocent little puffs of warm, yeasty steam.

I felt like falling to my knees. (And I had a twinge of sadness that my kids will probably never experience the delight of hollowing out a loaf of warm 'Government' bread. I can still feel the stab of pain in my larynx as I swallowed those giant squished-up nuggets of doughy bread, which we kids rolled in white sugar before we crammed them into our mouths. This was not allowed, of course, but we did it anyway, just as we nicked condensed milk off the pantry shelf and glugged it deliriously, straight from the tin.)

Cutting a good, straight, evenly thick horizontal slice from a loaf takes some practice. If your bread is hot, allow it to cool completely. If possible, use a loaf of day-old bread, which will be easier to slice. Use a very sharp serrated knife, and quick, light sawing motions.

Use horseradish sparingly, as it's a very strong flavour. I love these sandwiches with dill, but you can leave it out if you're not a fan. Parsley or very finely snipped chives are good substitutes.

Old-Fashioned Pinwheel Sandwiches with Smoked Salmon, Crème Fraîche & Horseradish

an unsliced square loaf of fresh white or brown bread
softened butter
a pack of smoked salmon, or Franschhoek trout
a tub of crème fraîche
a little freshly grated horseradish, or some creamed horseradish sauce
the finely grated zest of a lemon
finely chopped fresh dill (or parsley or chives; see my notes above)
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Place the loaf of bread on a board or countertop. Using a very sharp serrated knife, cut off the entire top crust of the loaf. Now cut the bread, horizontally - that is, lengthways - into even slices about 7 mm thick. It's easiest to do this if you place your palm firmly on the top of the loaf of bread and cut from right to left (or the other way, if you're left-handed), using very quick but gentle and incremental sawing motions. Take your time about this, and stop every now and then to inspect the far side of the loaf to make sure you're cutting an even slice. Lay each slice on a chopping board and cover the lot with a clean tea towel.

In a small bowl, beat the crème fraîche until quite smooth. Stir in the horseradish or horseradish cream sauce (to taste), and the lemon zest. Season with a little salt and black pepper.

Put a large piece of clingfilm on your countertop. Take the first slice of bread and place it on top of the clingfilm. Spread lightly with the softened butter and cover with a single layer of smoked salmon. Thinly spread a little of the crème fraîche mixture over the top of the salmon. Sprinkle with the finely chopped dill. Grind over a little more black pepper.

Now turn the bread slice so that its thinnest end is facing you. Pick up the edge of the clingfilm and, holding it firmly with two hands, use it to coax the slice into a roll, as you would if you were rolling sushi. Roll the slice up neatly and firmly (but without squashing the bread). Twist the ends of the clingfilm to make a loose cylindrical 'Christmas cracker' and place the parcel in the fridge. Repeat this process with the remaining slices.

Chill the rolls for 10 minutes (or for up to 25 minutes; any longer than that and they'll stiffen). Now, using an exceedingly sharp knife, cut each roll, straight through the plastic, into five or six thin slices. Peel away the plastic and arrange the sandwiches on plates. If you're aiming for authenticity, put them on a bed of very finely shredded iceberg lettuce.

Serve immediately.

Makes about 30 pinwheel sandwiches.

Salmon, Rice, Egg & Dill Pie with Lemon-Caper Butter

2011-06-10T22:18:00.005+02:00

This homely pie is similar to traditional Russian coulibiac or kulebyáka, but I like to think of it as a kedgeree-in-pastry, as it has all the elements that make that famous Anglo-Indian dish so tempting: soft flakes of fish, hard-boiled eggs, creamy rice and plenty of fresh parsley and dill, with a tingle of black and cayenne pepper.

This dish is quite easy to make using shop-bought puff pastry, although I have to admit that the fish shape is a bit fiddly to make. If you're put off by the idea of such cheffiness and frippery, make the pie in a simple rectangle.

The sauce of melted butter and capers is wickedly indulgent (I am enslaved by melted butter), but you can leave it out if you're watching calories: instead, make a cool sauce of equal parts good mayonnaise and thick Greek yoghurt, plus chopped capers and lemon zest and juice.

I used lightly smoked local trout (see my previous recipe for Potted Trout) but you can use a fresh fillet of salmon, or smoked salmon or trout. Or you could use your favourite smoked fish, such as lovely local smoked snoek, as I do in my favourite version of kedgeree.

Important note: I use still-raw lightly smoked trout that needs three to four minutes' poaching time. If you're using ordinary salmon, you will need to poach it for a little longer; that is, until it's just soft and beginning to flake, but still quite rare within. If you're using thin slices of smoked salmon or proper smoked trout, or smoked snoek, there's no need to poach the fish first.

Shop-bought puff pastry works very well, but do buy the best you can afford (I always use Woolworths pastry, because it's flop-proof, light and flaky, and doesn't taste like margarine, solidified whale fat, or any other such horrors).

Salmon, Rice, Egg & Dill Pie with Lemon-Caper Butter
¾ cup (190 ml) uncooked rice (plain Tastic, or basmati if you want a bit of perfume)
¾ cup (190 ml) cream
2 T (30 ml) soft butter
4 large free-range eggs (or five; see recipe)
350 g lightly smoked trout, or a fillet of fresh salmon
a thin slice of lemon, peel on
two rolls of good puff pastry, thawed
a handful (about a third of a cup; 80 ml) of chopped fresh dill
a handful of chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tsp (5 ml) cayenne pepper, to taste
the zest and juice of a large lemon
salt and freshly milled black pepper
a beaten egg, for brushing

For the sauce:
¾ cup (190 ml) salted butter
a handful of capers, well drained
the juice of a lemon

To serve:
lemon wedges
sprigs of fresh dill

Put the rice in a pot and cover with cold water to a depth of two fingers (or follow the instructions on the packet). Add a pinch of salt and boil over a moderate heat until just tender. Drain the rice very well, return it to the pot and stir in the cream and butter. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Put the eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring quickly to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for six or seven minutes, or until they are hard enough to peel easily, and the yolks are just set. (It's a good idea to cook an extra egg, so you can open it to check for doneness.) Remove the eggs from the heat, place the pan in the sink and douse in cold water. Let the tap trickle into the pot for a few minutes; this will prevent a dark ring from forming around the yolks. (Thank you Michael Olivier for this tip.)

Put the trout or salmon in a pan, cover with very hot water, add the lemon slice and poach for 3-4 minutes, or longer (see my notes above). Remove the fish with a slotted spoon and allow to cool slightly on a plate.

Heat the oven to 190ºC.

Now prepare the pastry. Place two large sheets of clingfilm, slightly overlapping, on your kitchen counter. Put one sheet of puff pastry on top. Lightly roll out the pastry. Using a sharp knife, cut out a large fish shape (see photograph below), but don't cut too close to the edges of the pastry sheet (this is the base of the pie, and is slightly smaller than the top sheet). Lay out another two sheets of clingfilm and on them roll out the second sheet of pastry. Now place the first, fish-shaped pastry (carefully pick it up by grasping the long edges of the clingfilm) on top of the second sheet. Cut out another fish shape, using the first as a guide, but make this second shape about 10 mm bigger on all sides. (If this doesn't make sense to you, send me an email!). Set both sheets aside.

Stir the dill, parsley, cayenne pepper, lemon zest and lemon juice into the cooled rice and season, if necessary, with more salt and black pepper. Take three-quarters of this mixture and spread it over the smaller sheet of pastry, leaving a gap of 10 mm all around the edges. Remove the skin, if any, from the fish, pull it into large flakes and arrange it on top of the rice. Peel the eggs, cut them into sixths and arrange them neatly in between the fish pieces. Sprinkle with a little extra lemon juice, salt and black pepper, plus more cayenne pepper, to taste. Now lightly pat the remaining quarter portion of rice on top, to fill any gaps between the egg and salmon pieces. Scatter with a little more finely chopped parsley and dill, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Using a pastry brush, brush beaten egg all the way round the edges of the pastry. Lift the bigger piece of pastry and place it carefully on top. You may need to stretch this top layer slightly. Seal the edges, either by pressing them together firmly, or by folding up the lower edge in small pleats. Make a decorative border by pressing the tines of a fork into the pastry's edges. Make a big eye and mouth for your pastry using the off-cuts of pastry, and use the rim of a small shot-glass to create a fish-scale effect. With the edge of a metal spatula, mark the tail of the fish. Poke a few small slits in the pastry, using the tip of a sharp knife, so steam can escape. Brush beaten egg all over the pie.

Using two metal spatulas (you may need an extra pair of hands here) gently slide the pie onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake at 190ºC for 20-30 minutes, or until the pie is puffed, golden brown and flaky.

In the meantime, make the sauce. Melt the butter and stir in the lemon juice and capers.

Serve piping hot, with lemon wedges and sprigs of fresh dill, and pass the lemon-caper butter around in a small jug.

Serves 8.

Old-fashioned Potted Salmon (or Trout) with Mace and Cayenne Pepper

2011-06-08T21:23:00.011+02:00

One of the only disadvantages, I reckon, of living on the southern tip of Africa is that salmon don't live here too. We can buy salmon flown in from northern waters, but it's eye-poppingly expensive and often not that good, unless it's very wild or very fresh.

I'd rather spend my pennies on the high-quality trout that's now quite extensively (and substainably) farmed in South Africa.

I've mentioned Franschhoek company Three Streams's superlative trout before on this blog (here, here and here) and I've used it instead of salmon in this very old recipe. This will, of course, work perfectly well with ordinary salmon.

In this recipe, I've used a whole fillet of still-raw, delicately smoked trout (available, in South Africa, at Woolworths). Because it's already lightly smoked, it takes only five minutes to poach, but if you're using ordinary salmon, you may need to leave it in its cooking liquor a little longer.

This recipe (see original, left) dates from 1795, but is doubtless a lot older, as English cookery has a long tradition of potting meats and fish.

The recipe comes from a book called The New Experienced English Housekeeper by Mrs Sarah Martin, which is available online at Google Books. In her admirably clear and simple instructions, Mrs Martin calls for an ingredient called 'chyan'. This had me scratching my head for many hours, and even a concerted search of Google didn't throw out the answer. After hunting through some other recipe books of the period, I eventually realised that she meant 'cheyenne' pepper: in other words, cayenne pepper.

At the end of this post you will find a slightly more complicated recipe for potted salmon - one I haven't yet tried - which comes from the The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald (1786).

I was a little doubtful at first that smoked fish would taste good without a hint of lemon or any other sort of acidity, but once I'd tried this dish, I was quite smitten by the combination of lightly smoked fish, ground mace and cayenne. This is very good spread on slices of very hot buttered toast. (Have I mentioned that you can make excellent hot, golden toast using a sandwich press and thinly cut day-old baguettes?)

You can clarify the butter, if you have the time and energy, but this really isn't necessary if you're going to serve this within a day or two.

Mace (the hard filigreed case that encloses a whole nutmeg) isn't a spice that's seen in supermarkets these days, but it's well worth hunting down. I buy it whole from Indian spice shops and grind it to a powder using a mortar and pestle. If you can't find mace, very finely grated whole nutmeg will do, but use it sparingly.

I can't give you exact ingredients here: my advice is to add the spices a pinch at a time, and taste the mixture as you go along. You probably won't need to add extra salt to this dish, as I've specified salted butter. If you must use pepper (which I don't think is necessary), use white pepper.

Old-fashioned Potted Salmon (or Trout) with Mace and Cayenne Pepper

To poach the fish:
a large fillet of lightly smoked trout, or a nice fillet of raw salmon
2 bay leaves
a thin slice of lemon, peel on
6 black peppercorns, lightly crushed
a large sprig of fresh thyme
a pinch of salt
hot water to cover

To pot:
salted butter
freshly ground mace
cayenne pepper
bay leaves and sprigs of fresh thyme

Pull the skin off the fish and remove any bones. Put the fish into a large pan and add the bay leaves, lemon slice, peppercorns and thyme. Add just enough hot water to the pan to cover the fish. Turn the heat on under the pan and poach very gently, in barely bubbling water, for 5 to 10 minutes (see my notes above), or until the fish is just cooked through, and beginning to fall into tender flakes on the outside. Don't allow the water to boil vigorously. Remove the fish from the liquid using a slotted spoon, cover and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Don't discard the cooking liquid.

Melt a slab (about 100 g, or one-fifth of a block of butter) in your microwave oven, or in a small pan set over a medium heat.

Using your fingers, pull the warm salmon into big flakes and place on a plate or chopping board. Add the mace and cayenne pepper, one pinch at a time, and mix gently together using your fingertips. Taste as you go along. When the fish is seasoned to your taste, pack it lightly into a flattish dish (or several small ramekins) and moisten with a teaspoon or two of the liquid in which you cooked the fish. Pour the warm melted butter over the fish flakes, prodding the mixture gently with a fork so that the butter fills all the gaps. The butter layer should cover the fish to a depth of one millimetre. Press a fresh thyme sprig and bay leaf onto the top of each dish, and sprinkle with extra cayenne pepper. Refrigerate.

Take the dish out of the fridge an hour or so before you serve it, so the mixture can be easily spread.

Serve with hot buttered toast and a scattering of capers.

Image above from The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald (1786).

Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy Pea and Gammon Soup with a Cool Mint Topping

2011-06-01T13:42:00.003+02:00

This is my lighter, brighter version of classic pea and ham soup, and it's made quickly, with minimal boiling, in order to preserve some of the fresh green colour of the peas. Because I love the contrast of hot and cold, and to add sparkle to the soup, I've topped it with a cool mixture of thick Greek yoghurt, mint, lemon and Tabasco sauce, and a ripple of fruity olive oil. When everything's swirled together in a bowl, the contrasts in flavour and temperature are delicious.

Frozen peas are essential for this dish (in fact, I never use anything other than frozen peas, because their taste and texture is so superior to unfrozen peas that've been sitting on a supermarket shelf for days). Do try to find white pepper to use in this soup: it makes a small but appreciable difference to the flavour of both soup and topping.

If you have chicken or vegetable stock to hand, use that, but plain boiling water will do fine. (And the world won't end if you add a good stock cube to your water. On the subject of which: I don't use stock cubes at all, but I am a great fan of Nomu's Fonds, which I use when I don't have time to make a stock. Have you tried these super-concentrated liquid stocks? They have an excellent and natural taste, without a hint of the salty, dusty packet-taste of stock cubes. Though expensive, a bottle goes a long way.)

The cornflour in the soup is there is help bind everything together. The first time I made this soup, it kept separating, but the addition of cornflour in the next batch sorted out that problem. With peas cooked for such a short time, you won't achieve a perfectly smooth purée, but I like a soup with a bit of texture.

Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy Pea and Gammon Soup with a Cool Mint Topping
1 kg frozen baby peas
1.5 litres (6 cups) boiling water or stock
4 lean gammon steaks (about 400g)
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
a large onion, finely chopped or grated
a clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 T (15 ml) cornflour
an extra squeeze of lemon juice
5 T (75 ml) cream
salt and white pepper

For the topping:
1 cup (250 ml) thick natural Greek yoghurt
2 tsp (10 ml) finely grated lemon zest
the juice of half a lemon
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) Tabasco sauce
a handful of fresh mint leaves, finely shredded
salt and white pepper
fruity olive oil

First make the topping. Put the yoghurt, lemon zest and juice, Tabasco sauce and mint into a bowl and stir well. Season with salt and a little white pepper. Refrigerate.

Put the frozen peas in a large bowl and pour half the boiling water or stock over them. Stir gently to break up any icy lumps and set aside.

Cut the gammon steaks into small cubes. Heat the oil in a large pot and add the gammon. Fry over a high flame, stirring often, until the cubes are nicely browned. Now add the juice of a lemon (stand back, as there will be spitting) and stir vigorously to loosen the brown sediment on the bottom of the pan. Cook for a further 30 seconds. Remove the gammon with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the onion to the pan (you may need to add a little more olive oil) and fry gently for a few minutes, or until soft and translucent. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the now-defrosted peas and water to the pot, along with the remaining boiling water or stock and a big pinch of salt. Bring rapidly to the boil and cook for a few minutes, or until the peas are tender but still bright green. Remove a soup-ladle full of peas, drain and set aside to use as a topping. Tip the soup into a liquidiser or food processor fitted with a metal blade, along with the tablespoon of cornflour, and whizz until smooth. (Or use a stick blender.)

Return the soup to the pot along with the gammon cubes (but set aside a few cubes to use as a topping). Reheat, using a spoon to skim off any foam on the surface. Simmer for four minutes; any longer and the soup will begin to lose its colour. Turn off the heat and stir in the cream and big squeeze of lemon juice. Don't reheat the soup at this point, as it may curdle. Season with more salt, if necessary, and a pinch of white pepper.

Serve piping hot, topped with a big blob of minty yoghurt, the reserved peas and gammon cubes, and a generous swirl of fruity olive oil.

Serves 6.

Oven-Baked Pork, Sage, Cider and Potato Stew

2011-05-29T20:40:00.012+02:00

A tender-flavoured winter stew of pork, sage and apple, a well-loved combination that I like to think of as a polygamous marriage (with pork being the boy, of course, and sage and apple the spirited gals*).

Apple is without a doubt the senior wife in this flavour alliance, because few other ingredients have such an affinity with the juicy sweetness of pork. 'On a plate, these two are made for each other,' writes Niki Segnit in her brilliant book The Flavour Thesaurus. 'With a plate of proper roast pork, by which I mean one with a curly roof of crackling, your apple pulls back the curtains and throws open the window of your plate.'

Sage is an interesting but strident herb that works best when used sparingly. (In other words, an aggressive bitch among herbs; delicious in small doses.)

I almost always bake stews in the oven these days because I find that long slow cooking at a steady temperature produces a better result than a pot put over a flame. Oven-baked stews don't catch on the bottom of the pot, and you can neglect them as they gently burble to perfect tenderness. Do stir the stew now and then, though. Or reach into the oven with gloved hands and give the dish a firm shake.

Ask your butcher for the most suitable cut for this dish. I've made it several times using pork neck (and it's faintingly good) but I think, because this is such a mild-flavoured stew, a leaner cut is better suited.

* Please don't admonish me for this. After all, 'pork' is not a suitable name for a woman.

Oven-cooked Pork, Sage, Cider and Potato Stew

4 T (60 ml) oil (mild olive oil or sunflower oil)
2 T (30 ml) butter
4 leeks, white parts only, rinsed and sliced
two stalks of celery, finely sliced
4 large carrots, peeled and cubed
2 bay leaves
a large sprig of fresh sage (about 6 leaves)
an 8-cm sprig of fresh rosemary
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 kg lean pork (cut from the shoulder or leg), cubed, or in thick strips
3 T (45 ml) flour
2 cups (500 ml) dry cider (such as Strongbow)
2 cups (500 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) clear apple juice (Liquifruit, or similar)
3 T (45 ml) Dijon mustard
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
8 large potatoes, peeled and quartered
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To finish:

½ cup (125 ml) cream
the juice of a small lemon
a handful of chopped fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Heat half (2 tablespoons) of the oil in a large, shallow ovenproof pan or casserole dish. Add the leeks, celery, carrots, bay leaves, sage, rosemary and a pinch of salt. Cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the vegetables have softened slightly. Don't allow the onions to catch or burn. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Remove the vegetables from the pan and set aside.

Put the flour in a deep bowl and season with salt and black pepper. Add the pork and, using your hands, toss well so that every cube or strip is dusted with flour.

Add the remaining oil to the pan and turn up the heat. Brown the pork cubes, in several small batches, for a few minutes, or until they have developed a golden crust. Add more oil, if necessary. Push the browned cubes to one side of the pan while you brown the rest (or set them aside on a plate). If there is a lot of fat in the pan, tip all the cubes into a colander set over a sink and drain off the excess. Now return the vegetables, herb sprigs and set-aside pork to the pot. Mix the cider, water and apple juice in a jug and pour it into the pan, stirring briskly with a spoon or whisk to disperse any lumps. Bring to a gentle boil. Stir in the mustard and lemon zest. Add the peeled potatoes and season with more salt and black pepper, if necessary.

Mix everything together well, cover with a lid or tin foil and place in the oven. Cook for an hour at 170ºC. Open the oven, remove the lid, and give everything a good stir. Turn down the heat to 160ºC and cook for another half hour or so, stirring once or twice, or until the potatoes and meat are very tender, and the gravy has thickened a little. If the gravy seems too thin, put the pan on the hob and allow to bubble gently for ten minutes, or until it has reduced to your liking. Immediately before serving, stir in the lemon juice, cream and chopped parsley. Don't reheat on the stove, as the gravy may curdle. Serve piping hot, with a plain green salad, or some hot buttered peas.

Serves 8

Slow-Cooked Moroccan-Spiced Beef and Apricot Stew with Naartjie Couscous

2011-05-25T23:36:00.002+02:00

This is a deeply savoury, tagine-style stew that needs many hours to cook, but is well worth waiting for. It's a melting, slow-cooked concoction ideal for a frosty winter night, packed with the singing flavours of North Africa.

This is one of the earliest recipes from my blog archive, and one I'd almost forgotten. I've recently resurrected it (the recipe definitely needed some tweaking, showing as it did some signs of an inexperienced hand with spicing) and photographed it, in response to a request from Yuppiechef's Spatula magazine.

The editor of Spatula drew my attention to Eat for the Earth, and asked me to contribute a few of my favourite recipes to this excellent initiative. What's this all about? Please head over to Eat for the Earth to find out more. (Here's a clue: it involves friends and lunch. And possibly a lot of wine.)

Anyway, back to the recipe. Please don't be put off by the prunes in this recipe: they are an essential ingredient, enriching and darkening the sauce as they dissolve. Prunes, like anchovies, are magical ingredients that should never be mentioned when someone says, 'My, this tastes amazing. What did you put in it?'

The couscous: 'naartjie' is the South African word for tangerine. South African naartjies are just delicious, and something of an iconic fruit in our country. You can, of course, use fresh oranges, but tangerines have a special zing and fragrance.

In this recipe, the spicing is done in two stages, for good reason. Because it's a dish that requires long, slow cooking, the spices tend to blur together after a few hours, fading into gentle background music. Half an hour before it's served, the dish is re-spiced and given a smart kick in the pants. Please use really fresh spices.

I've specified shin for this dish - an inexpensive cut that dissolves into the most tender and unctuous meat - but you can use stewing beef of any kind. Ask your butcher. Avoid ordinary chunks of steak ('goulash meat' it's called in South Africa) because it tends to turn stringy and dry after prolonged cooking.You can also make this with a nice cut of pork, such as pork neck, or with cubes of lean lamb.

Slow-Cooked Moroccan-Spiced Beef and Apricot Stew with Naartjie Couscous

For the spicing (added in two stages; please read recipe below)
2 T (30 ml) ground cinnamon
a generous pinch of saffron threads
2 T (30 ml) ground cumin
2 T (30 ml) ground coriander
1 T (15 ml) turmeric
1 T (15 ml) ginger

Combine all the spices, and then divide the mixture in half. Set aside.

For the stew:
4 tsp (20 ml) vegetable oil
4 tsp (20 ml) butter
3 onions, peeled and finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1.5 kg stewing beef (preferably boneless shin, see notes above), fat and sinew removed, and cubed
2½ cups (625 ml) stock (chicken, beef or vegetable)
1 cup freshly squeezed naartjie or orange juice
1 tin of Italian tinned tomatoes, chopped
10 prunes, depipped and chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp (10 ml) honey
¾ cup (190 ml) dried apricots, roughly chopped

For the couscous:
1 packet couscous
boiling water or stock, according to packet instructions
1 tin of chickpeas, drained
1 T (15 ml) finely chopped preserved lemon
the finely grated rind and juice of a naartjie or orange
the juice of a lemon
3 T (45 ml) olive oil
1 T (15 ml) ground cumin
salt and freshly ground pepper

To top:
a handful of flaked, toasted almonds
finely chopped fresh coriander

Put the olive oil and butter into a big pot or pan and place over a high heat. When the oils have just stopped sizzling, turn down the flame a little and add the onions, garlic and ginger, and the set-aside half-quantity of spices (see above). Cook over a moderate heat, stirring often, until the onion softens and begins to turn golden. Don't allow the mixture to burn, which will make it bitter. Using a slotted spoon (so that fat drains back into the pan), remove the onion-spice mixture and set aside. Now turn up the heat and fry the beef, in batches, until it is lightly browned on all sides.

Return the onion mixture to the pan. Pour in the stock and add the naartjie juice, tinned tomatoes and prunes. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, and then immediately turn down the heat. Cover the pot with a tilted lid and turn down the heat to a low setting so that the stew bubbles gently.

Cook for three hours, stirring every now and then. The cooking time depends on the ferocity of your hob, but, as as a general guide: when the sauce is rich and slightly thickened, and the meat is very tender when nudged with a fork, it's time to do the second spicing. Remove the lid, add the remaining spice mix, and stir in the apricots and the honey. Allow the dish to simmer, uncovered, for another thirty minutes.

Twenty minutes before serving, make the couscous: Prepare the couscous according to the packet instructions, using hot water or a good stock. Fluff up the grains with a fork and mix in the remaining couscous ingredients. Toss well to combine.

To serve: tip the couscous into big warmed serving dish. Pile the beef stew on top, and top with toasted flaked almonds and a chopped fresh coriander.

Serves 6-8

Lemony Green Beans with Frizzled Prosciutto, Fried Breadcrumbs and Aïoli

2011-05-23T13:55:00.003+02:00

A pile of squeaky green beans dressed with lemon, olive oil and garlic is my idea of heaven on a plate. In this recipe, I've added a luxurious touch to the beans by topping them off with crunchy fried prosciutto, breadcrumbs and a flurry of pungent, garlicky home-made aïoli.

As I mentioned in my previous post (Dill Baby Potatoes with Smoked-Salmon Mayonnaise) I'm a great fan of dishes that take a small quantity of a luxurious ingredient and spread it between many portions, and this is such a dish. Top-quality Italian prosciutto is very expensive, but you need only six large slices (although of course you are free to add more, if you're throwing caution to the wind).

Here, I've used Richard Bosman's excellent locally cured prosciutto, which is available in selected delis and other outlets in Cape Town. I know it may seem like heresy to fry prosciutto, but it is so splendidly crisp and flavoursome prepared this way that every time I taste it I want to fall into a dead faint.

Although authentic aïoli calls for olive oil only, I use a mixture of good fruity olive oil and sunflower oil for a lighter mayonnaise. Feel free to add more garlic, if you want your mayo to deliver a good punch in the nose.

You can serve these beans piping hot or at room temperature. If you're not serving them hot, don't omit the step of plunging them into iced water to set the colour. And don't leave them to stand for too long once you've drained them, as they will turn a nasty khaki after a while.

Lemony Green Beans with Frizzled Prosciutto, Fried Breadcrumbs and Aïoli

two packs of young green beans (enough for six)
4 T (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil
the juice of a lemon
salt and milled black pepper
six slices of prosciutto
two breadrolls
sunflower oil for frying

For the aïoli:
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) Dijon mustard
150 ml light vegetable oil (such as sunflower or canola oil, or any other flavourless oil)
170 ml good, fruity olive oil
the juice of a lemon
a large clove of fresh garlic, finely grated (or more, to taste)
freshly milled black pepper

First make the aïoli. Put the two egg yolks into a small bowl (a ceramic soup bowl is ideal) and add the salt and mustard. Mix the vegetable oil and olive oil in a small jug with a sharp pouring nozzle. Place a damp cloth underneath the soup bowl so that it doesn't skid around while you're making the mayo. Using a rotary beater (electic whisk) beat the egg yolks and salt for a minute. If you don't have such a gadget, use an ordinary wire whisk, and plenty of elbow power. Now, as you whisk the egg yolks with one hand, pick up the jug of oil with the other, and dribble a little splash of oil onto the yolks. Keep whisking and dribbling, a little splash at a time, with great energy, and within a few minutes you will see the egg mixture begin to thicken rather dramatically. Keep adding the oil, a dribble at a time, until you have a thick yellow ointment. You may not need to add all the oil: stop adding oil once the mayonnaise has thickened to your liking. Stir in the lemon juice, garlic and pepper, and add more salt if necessary. Set aside.

Fill a bowl with cold water and add to it a handful of ice cubes. Top and tail the beans. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and add the beans. Boil rapidly for 2-3 minutes, or until the beans are just tender. (How long you cook them will depend on the size and age of your beans.)

Drain the beans. If you're not serving this piping hot, immediately plunge them into the ice water. Leave in the water for three minutes, then drain and pat dry.

In the meantime, prepare the toppings. Heat sunflower oil, to a depth of a millimetre, in a frying pan. When hot, but not smoking, add the prosciutto slices, a few at a time, and cook for a minute or so, or until frizzled and crisp. Drain on a piece of kitchen paper. Now crumble the breadcrumbs into the hot oil and fry until crisp and golden (remember that they will carry on browning once you remove them from the heat, so don't let them get too dark). Drain on kitchen paper.

To serve, toss the beans in the olive oil and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Pile onto a platter (or onto individual plates) and top with the prosciutto and breadcrumbs. Serve with a large dollop of aïoli.

Serves 6.

Dill Baby Potatoes with Smoked-Salmon Mayonnaise, Deep-Fried Capers and Frizzled Dill

2011-05-21T21:54:00.009+02:00

I'm a great fan of economical dishes that stretch a luxury ingredient between plenty of hungry people. Here's a new recipe I think you'll love: top-quality smoked salmon (or, in this case, local smoked trout) whizzed into an unctuous home-made mayonnaise, poured over hot new potatoes tossed in fresh dill, lemon juice and olive oil, and then topped with frizzled dill and crunchy deep-fried caper 'flowers'. You've never seen a mayo of such a pale and delicate pink!

I can't resist lovely earthy baby potatoes, boiled until just tender, and this is a new variation on one of my all-time favourite recipes, Hot Garlicky New Potatoes with a Cold & Silken Tuna Sauce.

Please don't be put off by the idea of making your own mayonnaise. It's really easy to do, and once you get the hang of it you'll be making your own mayo once a week. (Here's some great advice about making mayonnaise.) I've given instructions for using a blender or food processor here. If you don't have such a gadget, you'll need to make the mayo by hand, and pulverise the salmon with a mortar and pestle.

In this dish, I've used Franschhoek company Three Streams's superb cold-smoked trout (which I think is one of the very best ingredients the Cape has to offer) but you can use any local brand of really good smoked salmon.

To my bafflement and disappointment, no one in my family really appreciates dill. I regard this as one of the Rolls Royces of herbs (along with thyme) and it maddens me that the ungrateful wretches turn their noses up at dishes containing more than a whisper of it. If you're faced with such philistines, used finely chopped fresh parsley or chervil instead. The Greek yoghurt is there to add a slight tang and lightness to the mayo, but you can leave it out if you like.

I love the contrast of hot potatoes and chilled mayonnaise, so I suggest you make the mayo a few hours in advance.

Dill Baby Potatoes with Smoked-Salmon Mayonnaise, Deep-Fried Capers and Frizzled Dill

For the mayonnaise:
2 large free-range egg yolks, at room temperature
a small pinch of sea salt
1 tsp (5 ml) Hot English mustard powder (or Dijon Mustard)
200 ml light vegetable oil (such as sunflower or canola oil, or any other flavourless oil)
100 ml good olive oil
the juice of a large lemon
6 large slices of smoked salmon, chopped
a little hot water (see recipe)
3 T (45 ml) thick Greek yoghurt

For the potatoes:
1.2 kg baby potatoes (or enough for six)
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
5 T (75 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
salt and freshly milled black pepper
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped fresh dill (or parsley/chervil)

To garnish:
4 T (60 ml) light vegetable oil, such as sunflower oil
36 capers, drained of their brine
ten small sprigs of fresh dill
6 thin slices of smoked salmon

First make the mayonnaise. Put the egg yolks, salt and mustard powder into the (small) bowl or jug of a liquidiser, blender or food processor. (Or place them in a beaker, and use a stick blender.) Blend for a minute, until slightly frothy. Mix the vegetable oil and olive oil in a small jug with a pouring nozzle. Now slowly dribble the blended oils, in tiny increments to begin with, into the chute of the blender or food processor. Keep adding the oil, a little splash at a time, and within a few minutes you will see the egg mixture begin to thicken rather dramatically. At this point, add the oils in a slow and steady stream. When the mixture becomes so thick that the blades of the liquidiser refuse to turn, add the lemon juice and smoked salmon pieces, and just enough hot water (add it teaspoon by teaspoon) to blend everything together into a thick, smooth, silky sauce. Season generously with black pepper, and add more salt if necessary. Decant into a mixing bowl, stir in the yoghurt and place in the fridge until you need it.

Put the new potatoes into a large pot, cover with cold water to which you have added the teaspoon of salt, and bring quickly to the boil. Turn down the heat slightly, and boil the potatoes briskly for 10-15 minutes, or until they are tender and cooked right through, but not falling apart.

Now make the fried capers and dill. Using a piece of kitchen paper, pat the capers quite dry. Heat the oil in a small sauce pan until very hot, but not smoking. Drop the dried capers into the oil and fry for a minute or so, or until they open up like flowers, and become very crispy. Remove the capers from the pan with a slotted spoon, drain well on kitchen paper and reserve. Add the dill sprigs to the oil, two at a time (stand back, as they will spit and sputter with great drama as they hit the oil). Fry for 30-40 seconds, or until crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and reserve.

Drain the new potatoes in a colander, and allow to cool for a five minutes. Cut them into thick slices, or halve them if they are very small. Place in a mixing bowl and add the olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter the chopped dill over the potatoes and very gently toss together until each slice is coated with oil and herbs. Strew the fried capers and crisped dill over the top.

Arrange the warm potatoes in a heap on a big platter, arrange a few whole slices of salmon on top, and bring to the table with the bowl of chilled salmon mayonnaise.

Serves 6 to 8.

Quick, Easy Sandwich-Press Chicken Breasts for Kids (and Singletons)

2011-05-19T20:34:00.009+02:00

Oh, how I wish I'd discovered this when my kids were toddlers: here's how to cook a chicken breast, in a flash, between the plates of an ordinary sandwich press. (Not that it's too late: now that I've discovered this method, I'm merrily churning out low-fat, high-protein snacks for the teens in my life.)

If you live on your own, and can't be bothered to cook a proper meal for yourself, give this method a try.

Why, you might ask, cook a chicken breast in a sandwich press? Well, let's talk first about chicken breasts. They are quite expensive, I grant you that, but they are also a fabulous low-fat protein source for children and teenagers. And, besides, kids like them: almost every child I know - bar the very pickiest of eaters - will happily munch on tender, juicy, well-seasoned slices of chicken breast.

My teens are really enjoying these quick-cooked breasts on open sandwiches layered with crunchy ingredients (the picture above includes cucumber, dill, Parma Ham and a lovely mushroom-filled brie), or eaten as-is, in piping-hot strips, with a dollop of home-made mayonnaise.

And here's how to serve chicken-breast strips for toddlers and under-tens: hot, with crunchy fresh vegetables and big dollop of what I call Yoghurnnaise. This is a mixture that I make three or four times a week, and that my kids love: two-thirds natural yoghurt to one-third good mayonnaise (home made, or Hellman's), with a spritz of lemon juice, a whisper of garlic and some salt and pepper.

Cooking chicken breasts this way is also so quick and convenient. First, the breast is done in half the normal time, because it's cooked simultaneously on both sides. Second, there is no tedious washing up of a frying or grill pan involved: all you need do is wipe down the non-stick surfaces of the sandwich press. Third, this is a tummy-filler that even a five-year-old child can make on his or her own, with little risk of burning, or setting clothes on fire, or getting an eyeful of spitting-hot fat. And last, most new sandwich presses heat very quickly, so this is a good way of saving energy.

You can cook these chicken breasts as they are, but they are better when well seasoned. I buy eight or ten chicken breasts at a time, flatten them (see below) and then toss them in a little lemon juice and olive oil, with a few fresh herbs and spices added to the mix. I store them in a lidded plastic container in the fridge, and the kids help themselves - and cook the breasts on their own - whenever they're hungry.

A tablespoon or two of natural yoghurt added to the marinating mixture helps to tenderise the breasts, but don't add too much, or the breasts will turn to mush after a day or two. You can use any of your favourite flavourings for the marinade - basil pesto, some lemon zest, commercial spice rubs, chilli flakes, mustard, and so on - but don't add any extra salt, which will make the breasts 'weep' in the fridge. If you've marinated the breasts, be sure to pat them quite dry with a piece of kitchen paper before you cook them.

Uncooked chicken breasts soaked in a slightly acidic marinade keep well in the fridge for up to four days, but should not be stored for longer than that.

Flattened chicken breasts take exactly two and a half minutes to cook in my sandwich press, but you might need to experiment with yours to find the optimum cooking time.

Quick, Easy Sandwich-Press Chicken Breast for Kids and Singletons
a deboned, skinless chicken breast
salt and pepper
spices and seasonings of your choice
a little butter

Heat your sandwich press for five minutes. In the meantime, place the chicken breast between two sheets of clingfilm or baking paper. Using a rolling pin or a heavy frying pan, gently and evenly 'bash' the thick end of the chicken breast to flatten it to the same thickness as its narrow end. The breast will spread out a bit as you flatten it.

Season the breast with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and any other flavourings you fancy. Rub a small knob of butter or a dash of olive oil on the bottom surface of the hot sandwich press, then close the press briefly to coat its upper side with fat. Place the chicken breast on the lower surface and close the press. Cook for two to three minutes, or until they are just done, and there is no sign of pinkness when you cut a small slash through the breast.

Remove from the heat and allow to rest for a minute. Slice into 'fingers' if you're feeding a child or toddler. If you're feeding yourself, put a thick slice of bread into the hot sandwich press and toast it for a minute or so. Top with some lovely crunchy ingredients, and eat piping hot.

Audrey's Cape Brandy Tart

2011-05-10T13:38:00.002+02:00

A rich, boozy, classic of Cape cookery that will warm the heart of anyone who appreciates warm, cakey puddings. This recipe was given to me by my late mother-in-law (an excellent baker) some twenty years ago, just after I was married, and I've made it countless times since.

It's one of those faultless recipes that should be framed in gold and hung on a wall: it always works, it's fairly easy to make, and everyone loves it - even kids! Look, I'm not advocating that kids binge on the stuff, but don't worry about them eating a small slice. Because the brandy sauce is poured over a very hot cake, much of the alcohol content evaporates.

I think Cape Brandy Tart is best with whipped cream, but like all hot cakey puds is also lovely with custard or ice cream, or both. This recipe serves six hungry people, but is easily doubled (and in fact, I recommend you make more, because it reheats very well). If you like, you can add some chopped pecan nuts to the mix, but I prefer this without nuts.

Audrey's Cape Brandy Tart
one 250 g block of pressed dates
1 tsp (5 ml) bicarbonate of soda [baking soda]
1 cup (250 ml) boiling water
120 g butter, softened
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar
1 extra-large egg
1¼ cups (310 ml) flour
a pinch of salt
½ tsp (2.5 ml) baking powder

For the syrup:
½ cup (125 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) brown sugar
¾ cup (190 ml) brandy
2 T (30 ml) butter
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Chop the dates, quite coarsely, using a heavy knife, and place them in a bowl. Sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda over the dates and pour over the boiling water. Set aside to cool slightly. Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl and, using an electric whisk (or a normal whisk and a lot of elbow power), cream together until pale, light and fluffy. Break the egg into one side of the bowl and gradually incorporate it into the butter/sugar mixture. Beat for another minute. Take your time over getting a really light, fluffy mixture.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the mixture (hold the sieve up high, so the dry ingredients fall from a height; this helps to aerate the flour). Add the warm date/water mixture and very gently fold everything together. Pour the mixture into a deep 22-cm buttered ceramic or glass pie dish. Bake at 180ºC for 30-40 minutes, or until the cake is well risen, dark-brown and cooked right through.

Ten minutes before the cake is ready, make the syrup. Put the water and brown sugar in a saucepan and bring gently to the boil, stirring frequently to dissolve the sugar crystals. When the syrup is clear, remove from the heat and stir in the brandy, butter and vanilla extract.

Remove the cake from the oven. Pour the hot syrup, in batches, over the hot cake, tipping the dish so that it sinks in evenly. The syrup will bubble furiously at the edges of the dish.

Serve warm, with whipped cream.

Serves 6-8.

Home-Made Baked Spring-Roll-Pastry Cones with Delicious Fillings

2011-05-08T21:57:00.009+02:00

I've always loved making interesting little bites for parties and other happy gatherings, and consider this the most exciting and interesting of all cooking challenges.

Smoked-Salmon 'Roses' with Cottage Cheese, Lemon, Capers, Baby Mustard Greens and Chives

Making ten or twelve platters of beautiful, fresh, zingy bites for a party is finicky work and takes many hours and a lot of planning, but there's little to beat the satisfaction you feel when you watch your guests fall like starving puppies on the food, emitting yaps of delight at every mouthful.

For several months now I've been thinking about how to make a small savoury cone. I love the clever and simple design of an ice-cream cone: it's easy to hold, lovely to eat and imbued with all sorts of good seasidey childhood memories. So why not, I thought, serve little 'bouquets' of food in crisp pastry cones? They can't slip out of your fingers, or slither off a plate, and you can grab two or three at a time without having to put down your glass of wine.

Clockwise, from top left: Smoked Salmon Dip with Green Peppercorns; Roast Chicken with Baby Corn, Guacamole and Marjoram; Hot Chicken Curry with Rice, Chutney and Yoghurt; Guacamole with fresh Coriander.

I abandoned ordinary puff pastry and phyllo pastry almost immediately, because the first wasn't firm enough to hold its shape and the second was too delicate and temperamental. Spring-roll pastry, which you can buy in any Chinese food store, was ideal, but I couldn't figure out how to mould it into a perfect cone that could be baked. In the Forties and Fifties, you could buy tin moulds for cream horns in any kitchen shop, but these are a rarity nowadays. After experimenting with cardboard cones of various designs (all of which were failures) I found the solution: commercial ice-cream cones, wrapped in foil.

I expected the cones to collapse in the heat of the oven, but they didn't, and I've found that you can reuse the same foil-wrapped cones up to three times before they disintegrate.

Rolling the pastry around the cones and removing the moulds is, I have to warn you, fiddly, and takes some practice, but once you've got the hang of it, you can easily turn out several dozen in under an hour.

The pastry cones stay perfectly crisp for 24 hours (in fact, some of the left-over cones I made were still crisp after three days). Store them, once they're completely cool, standing up in a bowl, and covered with netting to keep insects away. (If you're living in a humid climate, store them in a cake tin or large lidded container.)

If you're adding a semi-wet or soggy filling to these cones, they should be filled no more than 10 minutes before you serve them. Dryer fillings (for example, smoked salmon or roast chicken) can be added an hour or so before. Fill the bottom part of each cone with torn green leaves (such as rocket, or cos or butter lettuce) that have been thoroughly dried. Don't use a watery lettuce such as iceberg, which will make the cones soggy.

If you're anxious about the cones becoming soggy, take them out of the oven four minutes before the end of the baking time and, using a pastry brush, paint beaten egg all over the inside of each cone. Return them to the oven and bake for a further four minutes. This will 'waterproof' the insides.

You can use either one or two sheets of pastry for each cone. Single-sheet cones are more difficult to make, but are beautifully light and delicate. Double-sheet cones are more robust, and suitable for heavier, wetter fillings. For extra flavour, sprinkle finely grated Parmesan and some salt and pepper between the layers.

As there are bound to be some failures the first time you try this, I suggest you make 16 foil-covered moulds to allow for duds.

To serve the cones, arrange them upright in narrow-sided bowls or vases, or in individual shot glass or (as I've done in these pictures) in tea glasses.

Party food: Home-Made Baked Spring-Roll-Pastry Cones

To make 12 cones, you'll need:
a pack of spring-roll pastry
a large roll of heavy tin foil [aluminium foil]
a box of ice-cream cones
vegetable oil
a little beaten egg

Heat to oven to 180ºC. Take the pastry out of its plastic packaging and wrap it in a slightly damp tea towel.

Place the roll of tin foil on your counter. Using a pair of scissors, cut 12 square pieces of tin foil (to measure out the squares, fold a bottom corner of the foil up to meet the top edge of the foil strip, as you would do if you were making an origami square).

Take the first square of tin foil and lay it on the counter. Place an ice-cream cone on its side, narrow end pointing towards you, on the right-hand edge of the foil square. Pick up the edge of the tin foil and roll the cone in an arc to the left, gently squeezing the foil against the cone to enclose it completely. Twist the top open end, as if you were twisting the end of a Christmas cracker, and then gently prod the twisted end down into the wide end of the cone. You'll use this 'handle' to pull the mould out of the pastry casing; make sure it's a big, sturdy twist of foil, or it will break off. Repeat this process with the remaining eleven cones.

Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Lay a piece of clingfilm or greaseproof paper on the counter and smear it with a light film of vegetable oil. Sprinkle with a little salt (and pepper, if you like). Place a sheet of spring-roll pastry on top, and sprinkle with a little more salt. If you're making double-sheet cones, place another sheet of pastry on top, and brush again with oil. Brush a stripe of beaten egg, using a pastry brush, across the bottom edge of the pastry square (the edge closest to you). Now wrap the mould in the pastry in the same way you wrapped it in foil: place a foil-wrapped cone, narrow end facing you, on the right-hand edge of the pastry sheet, half a centimetre away from the bottom edge. Fold the bottom edge of the pastry over the thin end of the cone, then pick up the right edge and wrap it firmly around the cone as you roll the cone in an arc to the left. Stretch the pastry a little, tucking it under as you go, or you won't get a tight wrap. Press firmly on the the egg-washed edge to seal the cone.

Now trim the top open edge of the pastry with a pair of sharp scissors to that it protrudes 5 mm above the tim of foil-wrapped mould.

This takes some practice to get right, but do persist! Don't worry if there's a little gap at the thin end of the cone.

Place the pastry cone, seam side down, on the lined baking sheet. Repeat this process with the remaining 11 cone moulds.

Bake the cones at 180ºC for 12-15 minutes, or until they are crisp and golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a minute or two. Grasp the twisted end of foil in one hand, and the pastry cone in the other, and gently pull the foil-covered mould out with small yanking movements. If you can't get the mould out, gently snap away any rim of pastry overlapping the mould.

Place the cones on a drying rack and allow to cook completely.

See my notes above for storing and filling filling the cones.

Makes 12.

Hot Ricotta Dip with Thyme, Chilli and Garlic

2011-05-04T13:10:00.000+02:00

The word 'dip' implies a cold mixture, but why shouldn't it be piping hot, molten and herby? Because winter's coming roaring towards us in the Cape, my thoughts have turned to comforting food, so here's my first cold-weather recipe of the season.

I'm such a fan of good ricotta cheese. I admit that it doesn't have the sexy, fatty, stringiness of melted hard cheeses, or the creamy crumbliness of a good feta or similar white cheese. But I love the plainness and cleanness of the taste of ricotta, and its wonderful grainy texture.

Here's a basic recipe for a hot ricotta dip that you can gussy up with all sort of interesting ingredients. Here, I've used chopped artichoke hearts, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and dried chilli flakes, but you can really add anything you please, provided that it's an ingredient that tastes good hot. Avocado, for example, is out, and I'd avoid anything with a vaguely bitter taste, such as olives.

Make sure you serve this piping hot, and straight away. The leftovers are lovely on hot toast, for breakfast. This makes quite a large quantity, but the recipe is easily halved.

Hot Ricotta Dip with Herbs, Chilli and Garlic
350 g fresh ricotta cheese
100 g finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
the juice of half a lemon
a clove of garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
2 tsp (10 ml) fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp (10 ml) finely snipped chives
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
a tin of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Set aside a quarter of the grated Pecorino. Put all the remaining ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir very well to combine. The mixture should form a slightly firm paste. If it looks too dry, add a little milk. Pack the mixture into bowls and top with the remaining grated Pecorino. Bake at 180º C for ten minutes, or until the mixture is bubbling and heated right through. Now turn on the oven grill and grill for a few minutes, or until the topping is golden. Serve very hot, with nachos or crackers.

Serves 6 to 8 as a starter

Spiced Butterflied Chicken with Saffron and Yoghurt

2011-04-25T17:38:00.008+02:00

This is an easy oven-baked dish that adds great flavour and succulence to a whole chicken. It doesn't take long to prepare, but it does need to marinate in its spicy, yoghurty cloak for two to three hours.

I'm a great fan of thick natural white yoghurt, especially in savoury dishes, not only because it has a lovely texture and taste but also because of its amazing tenderising qualities.

It's taken me several tries to get this new recipe right, because yoghurt is a tricky ingredient. It tends to curdle at heat, and even more so when combined with one of the great loves of its life, namely lemon juice. I can't promise you won't have some degree of curdliness (I know that isn't a word, although it should be) but if you roast the chicken in a moderate oven it should turn out perfectly.

This recipe is based on my marinade for butter chicken, described here, although I've added saffron to the mix. The reason some people have an aversion to saffron is, I think, because restaurant chefs have a somewhat heavy hand with it, even though it's such an expensive spice. The trick with saffron is to use just a tiny pinch of threads - and by that I mean a smidgen; perhaps 8 to 10 threads, depending on the quality of the saffron you've bought. Those delicate filaments may look as if they won't add much flavour to your dish, but just a whisper of saffron packs a powerful punch. If you don't like - or don't have, or can't afford - saffron, leave it out, and use one to two teaspoons of turmeric instead.

Don't be tempted to add more than one slice of lemon to the roasting pan, or it will make the pan juices bitter.

If you can't find a butterflied chicken - what is charmingly called a 'flattie' in South Africa - ask your butcher to butterfly it for you. Or buy a whole chicken and do it yourself: it's very easy. Here are some good written instructions.

This is delicious with boiled new potatoes and a simple salad of dark leaves dressed with the hot pan juices (the ones in the picture are red-vein sorrel, which I grow in pots).

Spiced Butterflied Chicken with Saffron and Yoghurt

1 large free-range chicken, fat trimmed, and butterflied
a thin slice of lemon, peel and all
3 bay leaves
a large sprig of fresh thyme
1 cup (250 ml) thick white yoghurt
2 fat cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
2 T (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
the juice of a large lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) chilli powder (or more, to taste)
2 tsp (10 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) garam masala
1 tsp (5 ml) coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cinnamon
a pinch of saffron threads (or 1½ tsp [7.5 ml] turmeric]
salt and freshly milled black pepper
a little melted butter, for basting

To serve:
chopped fresh coriander [cilantro]
lemon wedges

Using a sharp knife, make deep slashes in the thighs, breasts and drumsticks of the butterflied chicken. Lay it in a roasting pan and tuck the lemon slice, bay leaves and fresh thyme sprig underneath. In a bowl, mix together the yoghurt, garlic, ginger, lemon juice and all the spices. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the mixture over the chicken and rub it into the skin, pressing it deeply into the cuts. For even more flavour, gently separate the breast skin from the meat and spread some of the marinade into the 'pocket' you've made. Cover the pan with clingfilm, place it in the fridge and allow to marinate for two hours, or longer (but no more than four).

Sprinkle a few pinches of extra chilli powder, cumin, black pepper and sea salt over the top of the chicken. Roast at 160ºC for an hour and fifteen minutes, or until cooked through. (Check by inserting the point of a sharp knife into the deepest part of the thigh: if the juices run clear and there's no sign of pinkness next to the bone, the chicken is cooked). Every twenty minutes, baste the chicken, using a pastry brush or a big spoon, with the pan juices and a little melted butter.

Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Cut into portions, scatter with some freshly chopped coriander and serve hot, with lemon wedges.

Serves 4

Cook's note: Line the bottom of the dish with good baking paper, which will make it easier to clean.

Hot-Cross-Buns Bread-and-Butter Pudding with Pears

2011-04-18T13:22:00.000+02:00

Here's an excellent way to use up left-over hot cross buns: slice them, butter them, add a tin of pears and cloak them in a custard made with cream and the pears' syrup. I came up with this recipe yesterday as I was on the point of throwing out six hot cross buns I'd hidden in a cupboard last week and forgotten about. The pud has a nice, light texture and is pleasantly spicy. I've added lemon zest to the custard to cut through the richness of the spices, and the pears because I think South African tinned pears are quite delicious. Lovely piping hot, with enormous dollops of cream.

Hot-Cross-Buns Bread-and-Butter Pudding with Pears

6 hot cross buns
75 ml (75 g) softened butter
a tin of pears, cubed (reserve the syrup)
the finely grated zest of a lemon
4 eggs
250 ml single cream
150 ml milk
4 T (60 ml) caster sugar
200 ml reserved pear syrup (see below)

Heat the oven to 160ºC. Cut the rounded ends off the buns and cut into 7-mm-thick slices. Generously butter each slice on one side. Arrange the slices in a 24-cm pie dish or baking dish, in overlapping rings. Tuck the pear cubes in amongst the slices. Sprinkle the lemon zest all over the slices.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, caster sugar and 200 ml of the pear syrup. (If there isn't enough in the tin, make it up to 200 ml with some extra milk). Strain the custard through a sieve over the hot cross bun slices. Cover with clingfilm and allow to stand for half an hour.

Sprinkle a little brown sugar on top of the pudding. Place the pudding in a bain-marie (a roasting dish filled with water; it should come three-quarters of the way up the sides of the dish) and bake at 160ºC for 40 minutes, or until the pudding is set but still has a delicate wobble in the middle.

Serve hot with cream or vanilla ice cream.

Serves 6.

Spiced Baked Aubergines with Yoghurt and Pomegranate Seeds

2011-04-15T17:01:00.000+02:00

Every family has a handful of famous recipes, and a famous recipe in my family is my brother-in-law Freddy's Aubergines with Garlic Yoghurt. (We call them brinjals, as do most people in South Africa.) Freddy, who is of Cypriot descent, always makes this excellent dish for family gatherings, along with his equally famous Smashed Olives (but more about those in a future post).

Freddy's recipe involves salting and rinsing thick slices of brinjal, frying them in hot oil until crispy and golden, and then layering them in a dish with thick, garlicky yoghurt and few secret ingredients. (I assume he has secret ingredients, because when I make this, it doesn't taste half as good as Freddy's.)

This recipe is a variation on the theme, except that I have added lemon thyme, and lightly spiced the slices with some warming flavours of the middle east. The combination of aubergines, cumin, coriander and yoghurt brings to mind Persan cuisine, so I've also added a scattering of fresh pomegranate seeds, which pop gloriously in your mouth and provide a bright crunchy contrast to the silken centres of the brinjal slices.

Also, I've baked these, not fried them, to prevent the spices from turning bitter in the pan.

This is a good party dish because you can prepare the brinjals in advance and keep them, covered, in the fridge until you're ready to bake them. You will find that the slices suck up the oil like blotting paper (especially if you haven't degorged them; see below), but don't be tempted to add more before you bake the dish: I promise they'll be beautifully golden and crispy-edged when they come out of the oven.

It's not strictly necessary to degorge the brinjals before you bake them (today's modern varieties are not as bitter as the brinjals yesteryear) but I have found that this process helps to prevent the slices from absorbing too much oil. Choose firm, tight-skinned brinjals with a dark glossy skin, and not too big.

A very rich, creamy Greek yoghurt is essential. Use ordinary thyme if you can't find lemon thyme.

The sumac sprinkled on the slices at the end of cooking gives them a lovely tang. Sumac is available at good delis and spice shops, but if you can't find it, leave it out. Smoked paprika is now widely available, but you can use ordinary paprika. As always, use very, very fresh cumin and coriander (and by that I mean that you bought them less than a week ago!).

Spiced Baked Aubergines with Yoghurt and Pomegranate Seeds

4 medium aubergines
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
⅓ cup (80 ml) olive oil
1.5 tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) smoked paprika
½ tsp (2.5 ml) chilli powder (or more, if you'd like some real heat)
milled black pepper
8 sprigs of lemon thyme
1 tsp (5 ml) sumac

To serve:
thick natural Greek yoghurt
fresh pomegranate seeds
extra olive oil
lemon wedges

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Remove the tops and tails of the aubergines and cut them into 1-cm thick discs. Sprinkle the slices with the salt, place them in a colander, put a small plate on top and allow to degorge for half an hour. Pat them dry with a piece of kitchen paper (but don't rinse them). In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, chilli powder and pepper. Take a spoonful of the oil and smear it across the bottom of a baking sheet. Rub each slice, top and bottom, with a little of the remaining oil. Arrange the slices on the baking sheet, scatter over the thyme sprigs and season quite generously with black pepper.

Bake the slices at 180ºC for 25 minutes. Now turn the heat down to 160º C and bake for another 20 minutes, or until the slices are golden and rustling on the outside and soft and silky inside. Crumble the now-dry thyme leaves over the slices and discard the stalks. Sprinkle the sumac over the slices and season with salt, if necessary (but remember they may be salty enough after degorging).

Arrange the slices on a plate. Add dollops of yoghurt and drizzle with a little extra olive oil. Scatter with pomegranante seeds and serve piping hot or warm, with lemon wedges.

Serves 6 as a starter or side dish.

Baby Mielies with Smoked Butter, Chillies, Lemon and Garlic

2011-04-13T13:45:00.000+02:00

A flavour-packed cold butter dabbed on hot-off-the-braai baby mielies. Baby mielies are a vegetable I don't often buy because I've found they tend to be somewhat tasteless, even soapy. All that has changed recently, as I discovered when I bought a punnet of dear little ears of corn on impulse. My goodness, they were good: packed with nutty, sunshiney flavour, and so good I ate most of them raw.

Plate and espresso cup by David Walters.

I imagine that this new breed of super-tasty mielie is the product of careful hybridisation. Whatever the case, I'm going to be buying them by the bucketload from now on.

They're lovely with plain butter and plenty of salt, but I'm such a fan of flavoured butters that I thought I'd add some vibrant Mexican flavours. Please try to get hold of some smoked butter, which adds a most delicious tweak to this dish. It's not something that's readily available; enquire at your local deli (or order in from Cape smokehouse Aphrodisiac Shack). If you can't find it, use 200 g salted butter.

This is lovely with boiled mielies, but there's something about the nutty taste of a braaied mielie that just cannot be matched. If you're not in the mood for firing up the braai, cook the mielies on a ridged, oiled griddle pan, over a high heat.

Baby Mielies with Smoked Butter, Chillies, Lemon and Garlic

For the butter:
100 g salted butter, softened
100 g smoked butter, softened
2 red chillies, seeds removed, finely chopped
the finely grated zest of a lemon
a squeeze of lemon juice
a big clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
4 T (60 ml) finely chopped fresh coriander
salt and milled black pepper.

two punnets of baby mielies, or 6 whole mielies cut into thirds

To make the flavoured butter, combine all the ingredients in a bowl. Go easy on the salt, though, as the butter is already salted. Pack the butter into a pretty little bowl and place in the fridge to firm up.

Braai [barbeque] the baby mielies over a medium flame, until just tender, or cook in a ridged griddle pan (see above).

Serve piping hot, with nuggets of cold butter.

Serves 6 as a starter or side dish.

Introducing my sparkly new Scrumptious Newsletter

2011-04-05T22:47:00.000+02:00

If I've seemed rather quiet recently, it's because I've been slaving over Scrumptious News, my new venture.

Scrumptious News is an email newsletter delivered free to your inbox every fortnight or so, containing the freshest food news from South Africa and beyond. I'll be featuring the very best of local food blogs, interesting foodie news, a miscellany of fabulous recipes, and some top kitchen tips and hints. I'll also be offering you an assortment of links to all sorts of worthwhile sites - food competitions and recipe challenges; cooking classes and demos; hot new international trends; inspiring recipes from celebrity chefs, and snippets of fascinating food-related and fine-dining news from all over the Internet.

Interested? I hope so. I'm asking you to support my new endeavour, and hope that you'll send me your comments, suggestions and queries. If you'd like to receive the newsletter free in your inbox, please add your email address to the form at the top left of this page. You can unsubscribe at any time in a single click.

If you'd like a preview of my Scrumptious Newsletter, here are links to two preliminary (and experimental!) newsletters I've sent out recently to food bloggers who requested them.

The latest letter - which you can view here - contains an editorial style sheet for food bloggers, and much more, including: how to spell food words; helpful tips for measuring quantities for recipes; keyboard shortcuts for fractions; and a list of American equivalents for common South African ingredients.

The newsletter before that (and I apologise for the rather chaotic template, which I have since changed to a simpler, cleaner, quick-loading format) can be viewed here. This email contains notes from the speech and the workshop I presented at the recent South African Food Bloggers' Indaba, and features advice about food writing, food blogging and recipe development, plus tips about recipe formatting and style.

I'll be archiving all these newsletters on this blog, so you can browse them at your leisure.