Scorching Chilli, Garlic and Cumin Paste

This aromatic paste of dried red chillies, cumin, fresh garlic and preserved lemons is similar to Tunisian harissa, but has only four main ingredients. It keeps for months, out of the fridge, in a sealed jar, and is made in minutes in a blender or small grinder.

It's delicious added in (small!) dabs to yoghurt- or oil-based marinades, stirred into tomato-based sauces, or with pasta, couscous or rice. Flicked over a fried egg, it's eye-wateringly good.

You can add any spices you like - coriander, cinnamon, black pepper, and so on - to this paste, but I like it just as it is. If you don't have preserved lemons to hand (do you know they keep beautifully in the freezer?), use finely grated lemon zest.

This looks like an enormous quantity of chillies, but the mixture makes just one jar.

Scorching Chilli, Garlic and Cumin Paste

45 dried red chillies
2 heads of fresh garlic
a preserved lemon
4 T (60 ml) fresh powdered cumin
salt
enough olive or sunflower oil to make a wet paste

Soak the dried chillies in a bowl of water overnight, weighing them down with a plate so that they are totally submerged. Put on a pair of gloves and, using the sharp pair of scissors, snip off the stalks, slit the chillies lengthways and scrape out most of the seeds. It doesn't matter if you leave a few behind. Put them into the goblet of a blender fitted with a metal blade. Peel the garlic and add the whole cloves to the blender. Scrape the pulpy flesh away from the quarters preserved lemon, chop roughly, and add to the mixture, along with a good pinch of salt. Now half-cover the ingredients with olive oil, cover the blender and blitz to a fine paste. If the blades clog, add more oil. Tip into a glass or plastic jar, cover with a little more olive oil and seal tightly.

Makes 1 jar.

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The world's rudest lemon

Never let it be said that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humour. This set of tackle has been ripening on the lemon tree outside my study window for the past month or so, making it hard for me to concentrate on my work.

The lemon tree in question is a Cape rough-skin (snigger).

I consider myself lucky to have this variety in my garden, because, once mature, the tree produces enormous crops of very fragrant, thick-skinned, sweet-tasting lemons. I believe that this variety of lemon tree came originally from St. Helena, and that they were first planted in the Company's garden by Jan van Riebeeck.



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Roast Beef Fillet with Creamy Celeriac-and-Horseradish-Cream Salad

I do love celeriac, and this combination of slivers of snappy celeriac tossed in a remoulade-style dressing of yoghurt, cream and horseradish, and served over rosy slices of roast beef, is my idea of heaven.

For this recipe I used fresh, grated horseradish steeped in olive oil (recipe here) but you could use creamed horseradish. How much you add is up to you, but the horseradish shouldn't overpower the delicate taste of the celeriac and its creamy dressing.

This is also lovely with pork fillet: try adding a grated apple to the mixture.

If you are also a fan of celeriac, try my Salad of Warm New Potatoes, Smoked Trout, Celeriac and Watercress

Roast Beef Fillet with Creamy Celeriac and Horseradish 

For the fillet:
1 large fillet of beef
3 Tbsp (45 ml) Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
millled black pepper
salt

For the salad:
2 young celeriac, each about the size of an orange
½ cup (125 ml) thick plain yoghurt
½ cup (125 ml) pouring cream
1 Tbsp (15 ml) creamed horseradish, or freshly grated horseradish, to taste
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt
a pinch of white pepper
alfalfa sprouts or micro greens, to top

Heat the oven to 190°C, and place a metal roasting pan in the oven.

Put a dollop of mustard in the palm of your hand and smooth it all over the fillet. Sprinkle with olive oil and grind over plenty of fresh black pepper. Season with salt. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a high flame. The fat should be very hot, but not yet smoking. Brown the fillet on all sides; this shouldn't take longer than five or six minutes.

Now put the fillet onto the heated roasting pan and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-20 minutes, depending on the degree of pinkness you want. (A slim fillet takes about 10 minutes; a full-size one 15-20. If you're not sure, cut a deep slit in the thickest part of the fillet to check for doneness). You'll find more detailed instructions for cooking fillet here.

Now make the salad.  Whisk together the yoghurt and cream, and add enough horseradish to give the dressing a nice bite. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice - the sauce should be pleasantly sharp - and season with salt and a little white pepper. Peel the celeriac with a sharp knife and cut into very thin slices (you could use a mandolin). Stack the slices vertically, cut them into strips or matchsticks, and place in a mixing bowl. Pour just enough dressing over the celeriac strips lightly to coat each piece: the salad should not be swimming in dressing. Do so immediately, or the celeriac will go brown.

Remove the fillet from the oven and set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Carve the warm fillet into slices and arrange them on a platter (or on individual plates).  Pile the celeriac in the middle, and top with tangle of crunchy alfalfa sprouts, or micro greens of your choice.

Serves 8-10 as a starter; 6 as a main course. Print Friendly

Preserving Fresh Horseradish: freezer or olive oil but please, not vinegar

Fresh horseradish root

Can you think of any two more disparate words than 'horse' and 'radish'? These are not words that - outside the English language at least - have a natural affinity. After all, a horse is a useful, flicky-tailed, muscular beast of considerable majesty, who has endured all manner of abuse over the centuries that it has been bred, tamed and enslaved by humans, while the humble radish is a stinging little red fart bomb with has few redeeming qualities apart from its ability to grow really quickly, and its habit of sending a blast of hot peppery air through your sinus cavities.

 I love horseradish in all its forms, and a few weeks ago I dug up the stupendously enormous and gnarled roots of a horseradish plant that's been hogging my small vegetable patch for years.

This great big brooding tangle of root was far too woody and leathery to use, but alongside it were several slim, crunchy parsnip-like offshoot roots that were perfectly ready to be preserved.

Last year, I followed the advice of fellow food bloggers and preserved my horseradish roots by grating them and pickling them in vinegar. But the results weren't great: the mixture was far too vinegary and acidic, and lacked the fresh zinging taste I like so much about horseradish.

So this is what I did with this year's crop: first, I washed them to remove all caked dirt. Then I timmed off the brown bits, and scrubbed them clean, in a sinkful of cold water, using an abrasive pot scourer to scour away the skin.

Use a micro-plane to grate the fresh root

Half of the scrubbed roots I wrapped tightly in cling-film, and packed straight into an arctic freezer (I have treated them like whole, fresh ginger root, which freezes beautifully, grates like a dream, and loses virtually no flavour in the freezing process).

Postscript: The roots retained their good flavour for six months in the freezer.

The other half I grated finely, using a microplane grater. I packed the gratings into a sterilised jar with a pinch of salt, and then filled the jar to its brim with olive oil.  The jar steeped on a warm windowsill for three days, and then went into the fridge.

The result is a fragrant, zingy, nose-tingling oil that is just lovely in a salad dressing, or drizzled over rare roast beef, or dabbed alongside a piece of panfried tuna.

Please note that this oil should be kept in the fridge and used within 3-4 weeks. It should not be bottled and shelved, because the gratings are raw, and without any acidity in the form of vinegar, the mixture may ferment.  If the oil solidifies in the fridge, place it on a sunny windowsill,  or warm a few tablespoons over a gentle heat.



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