Invent a Simba crisp flavour and get rich

As this blog has grown, so I've started to receive a steady trickle of press releases imploring me to feature various foodstuffs.  I scan these emails eagerly, hoping to find an attachment containing a bribe coupon to the value of at least R5000.  When no such inducement is offered, I delete the email with a hollow laugh.

But this particular press release caught my attention, and I share it with you here for two reasons: one, I think this competiton - What's Your Lekker Flavour? -  is a clever, original campaign (I love the funky artwork; see left). Two, I want to return a favour.

Let me start with the brand. I have a soft spot for Simba chips (crisps, actually: South Africans call potato crisps 'chips', and call French fries 'chips' too) because they were part of my childhood, along with all those other iconic South African brands: Mrs Ball's Chutney, Ideal Milk, Ouma's Buttermilk Rusks, Zoo Biscuits, and so on.  As a child, the trip from our smallholding in Muldersdrift to what was then Jan Smuts Airport (now O.R. Tambo Airport) seemed to drag on for hours, and I remember eagerly looking out for the huge Simba lion which stood (and still does) outside the Simba factory near the airport, because this was a sign that we were almost there.

I am also grateful to Simba for a special childhood memory. When I was ten or so, I sat down and wrote a letter to the company asking them how they made their chips. I have no idea what prompted me to do so (genuine curiosity, I like to think, but more likely opportunistic nosiness). Very soon I received a polite letter thanking me for my interest and inviting me - oh, joy of joys! - to visit the factory for a tour, and to bring along some friends.  This, to me, was akin to being given a golden ticket to Mr Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  A few weeks later, a gang of us piled into the back of my mom's station-wagon and headed off to the factory, where we spent a happy hour being led, open-jawed, around the factory, with its hissing cauldrons, its clanking conveyer belts and the heady aroma of salt and vinegar.  At the end of the tour, we were taken to the dispatch area, where - double joy! - our arms were filled with as many packets as we could carry.

Anyway, the idea behind the What's Your Lekker Flavour? compeition is that you come up with an original new flavour that is distinctively South African.  If you're the winner, you'll walk away with R200 000, plus 1 per cent of the future sales of your chips. This, says the company, could add up to a cool half a million rands a year.  So, what will it be?  Bobotie and Lemon Leaf?  Snoek Pâté and Chilli?  Waterblommetjie Bredie?  If you're going to enter the competition, you'll need to come up with something staggeringly original, as the campaign has already attracted over 78 000 entries. The panel of judges - which includes one of my favourite South African chefs, Reuben Riffel - is certainly going to have its work cut out.

You can enter online, by MMS, or by snail mail: www.lekkerflavour.co.za

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Chilli Snoek Pâté: a taste of Hout Bay

Please admire the little double-walled amuse-bouche dish,
 from a bespoke set of dinnerware made for a famous Franschhoek
 restaurant by my uncle, master potter David Walters.

Few tastes capture Cape Town as delightfully as smoked snoek pâté.  When you visit Cape Town you will find this noble fish - an honoured staple for centuries - virtually everywhere you go along the coast.

You'll see fishing boats avalanching their silvery cargos of fresh snoek onto the quayside at little working harbours, you'll see it it vlekked (gutted and splayed) on drying frames, you'll see it sold in oaked-smoked fillets, you'll see smoorsnoek, and you'll see it sizzling over braai fires.   You're most likely, though, if you're a casual visitor to the city, to encounter it in the form of a salty, smoky pâté.

Today I spent a happy hour in the kitchen with my darling friend Claire (here from Jo'burg for the weekend), concocting our visisticated version of this dish. Claire was driven in a taxi from the airport to her brother's fabulous flat in Kalk Bay, and was inspired by a discussion she had with the driver and his wife. Just outside Muizenberg, they passed racks of golden snoek drying in the sun, and the conversation turned to recipes for preparing the fish.  The driver and his wife told Claire stories of  being put to work as children by their grandmothers: their task was to pound fresh red chillies and deboned salted snoek together in a mortar; the resulting paste was spread on bread.

After a walk on the beach this morning, and a sinful bockwurst roll at Muriel's Munchies, we  picked up a package of  oak-smoked snoek at Hout Bay harbour, gathered chillies, coriander and lemons on the way home and set to work producing snoek pâté, only better - with pounded chillies.

 Please do not be put off by the fact that this recipe contains a whole red chilli.  When you first taste it, you may be alarmed and think your mouth has caught fire.  But, given four hours in the fridge, this pâté mellows  and the chilli fades, leaving just a tingle.

You can pound these ingredients together with a mortar and pestle in the old-fashioned way, or use a food processor fitted with a metal blade. The important thing here is not to over-process the pâté: it should not be whizzed to a silken paste, but retain some texture.

Chilli Snoek Pâté: a Taste of Hout Bay

250 g oak-smoked snoek [or any similar smoked white fish]
1 red chilli, halved and deseeded
a big pinch of coarse salt
half a clove of fresh peeled garlic
½  tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
2 Tbsp (30 ml) soft butter
3 Tbsp (45 ml) crème fraîche
milled black pepper
1 Tbsp (15 ml) finely chopped fresh coriander [cilantro]

Flake the fish into a small bowl and remove all bones. Put the chilli into a small mortar with the salt and garlic; pound to paste. If you don't have a mortar, finely chop the chilli and garlic and mash into a paste with the salt using the back of a spoon or a knife. Set aside.

Scrape the chilli and garlic paste into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the flaked fish and all remaining ingredients. Pulse lightly to combine without pulverising the fish. Tip the mixture into a little bowl and refrigerate for three to four hours.

Serve with sliced wholewheat seed loaf or crackers.

Serves 6 as an appetiser or dip.


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