Spicy Shredded Duck with Crackling

Here's my latest MasterChef recipe, the fourth and last in a series of recipes I've written for Woolworths, food sponsors of the latest South African series.

Tender shredded duck with cucumber, spring onions and a
super-crispy topping of duck crackling.

[Click here to go straight to the recipe >>]

This is a sneaky way to make 24 or more delicious canapés using just two duck breasts: first confit the breasts in their own fat, then toss the tender shredded meat with cucumber, spring onions and some sexy Asian flavours, and finally top each portion with golden shards of crunchy duck skin.

This dish is ideal for starting the day before, as the flavour of the duck breasts will improve overnight. I’ve used the five-spice powder sparingly, but feel free to add more if you’d like more perfume in the dish.

This is a great snack for a cocktail party, because you can prepare the duck
a day or two ahead, and put everything together at the last minute. 

For more details about how to confit duck at home, have a look at my recipe for Easy Duck Rillettes.

Finally, this year, it’s not just bloggers getting the chance to get creative in the kitchen along with MasterChef and Woolies. Create a recipe with the same ingredients used each week by the Woolworths Masterchef Competition bloggers and you could win one of fourteen R1000 Woolies gift cards, or the (very!) grand prize of a R10 000 gift card. Head over to the Woolworths Masterchef Hub for more info and T&Cs.

• My first recipe for Woolies/Masterchef:  Slow-Roasted Leg of Lamb with a Basil Walnut Sauce
• My second recipe:  Peppercorn Chicken with Chilli and Mint 
• My third recipe:  Billowing Meringues with a Sunset Berry Coulis

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Spicy Shredded Duck with Crackling

2 boneless duck breasts, skin on
80g spring onions
half a large cucumber
1 tsp (5 ml) Chinese five-spice powder
1 Tbsp (15 ml) Hoisin sauce
4 tsp (20 ml) rice vinegar, to taste
milled black pepper
Maldon sea salt

Heat the oven to 160 ºC. Place the duck breasts, skin side down, in a cold frying pan. Turn on the heat under the pan to its lowest setting, and heat the breasts very slowly and gently for 10 minutes, without disturbing them. This long heating process will help to render the fat.

Turn up the heat in the pan to medium high. Fry the duck breasts in their fat for another 4 minutes, or until the skin is a rich golden colour.  Place the breasts, skin-side up, in a small, shallow ceramic oven dish and pour over all the juices and fat from the frying pan. Sprinkle half a teaspoon (2.5ml) of five-spice powder into the juices, cover with a piece of foil or kitchen paper and bake in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes at 160 ºC.

Now turn down the heat to 120 ºC and roast for 1½ to 2 hours, or until the duck is very soft and succulent.  At this point, you can refrigerate the duck overnight (see Cook’s Notes).

Half an hour before the duck is ready, cut the cucumber in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon. Cut into neat, small cubes.  Finely slice the spring onion (you’ll use only the purple, white and pale-green parts).

Remove the duck breasts from their cooking dish, peel off their skins and set both aside.  Skim the fat off the top of the remaining juices and reserve – you’ll use this to fry the crackling.

Pull the duck flesh into shreds and place these back into the dish in which you cooked them, tossing well so every shred is coated in juices.  Keep this mixture warm in the oven while you make the crackling.

Sprinkle the remaining half-teaspoon of five-spice powder over the duck skins, then slice them into very fine strips.  Heat the reserved duck fat in a small frying pan and fry the strips over a medium-high heat for a minute or two, or until they are golden brown and crisp. Drain well on kitchen paper and season generously with salt.

Remove the warm shredded duck from the oven and mix in the cucumber cubes and spring onion.  Stir in the hoisin sauce and rice vinegar – to taste - and season with salt and milled black pepper.

Divide this mixture between 24 or more small warmed spoons – or little bowls – and top with the crisp duck crackling. Serve immediately, garnished with baby leaves.

8 as a canapé

Cook's Notes

• If you’d like to prepare the duck the day before, follow the recipe until step 4, then tightly cover the dish containing the cooked breasts with foil and refrigerate it overnight. Gently warm the dish through in the oven before carrying on with the recipe.
• The duck crackling carries on browning for a while when it comes out of the pan, so don’t let it get too dark when you’re frying it.

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Billowing Meringues with a Sunset Berry Coulis

Here's my latest MasterChef recipe, the third in a series of four recipes I've written for Woolworths, food sponsors of the latest South African series.

Crackly, billowing, snow-white meringues in a sunset raspberry
and Cape gooseberry sauce.

I adore big, brittle meringues, but it has taken me years to figure out how to produce a crisp, delicate, snow-white result every time. The secret, apart from very long and patient whisking, is to dry the meringues out overnight in very low oven. This may seem like a long time to wait for dessert, but the end result will not disappoint you. If you'd like a slightly squishy centre to your meringues, take them out of the oven as soon as you're happy with their internal texture (to test, turn one over and poke the end of a pencil into it).

The first time I made this, I strained both the sauces. 

I've used both raspberries and Cape gooseberries for this sharp-sweet coulis. The sunset effect was a happy discovery: this first time I tested the recipe, I covered the plate I'd photographed (see picture above) and put it on the countertop to see if the meringue would still be crisp the next morning. It wasn't, but the sauces had merged to create a very pretty puddle.

So the next time I made it (this time without straining sauces; see first picture) I plated the coulis in the morning, then popped the meringues and berries on top at the last minute.

Finally, this year, it’s not just bloggers getting the chance to get creative in the kitchen along with MasterChef and Woolies. Create a recipe with the same ingredients used each week by the Woolworths Masterchef Competition bloggers and you could win one of fourteen R1000 Woolies gift cards, or the (very!) grand prize of a R10 000 gift card. Head over to the Woolworths Masterchef Hub for more info and T&Cs.

• My first recipe for Woolies/Masterchef:  Slow-Roasted Leg of Lamb with a Basil Walnut Sauce
• My second recipe for Woolies/Masterchef:  Peppercorn Chicken with Chilli and Mint 

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Billowing meringues with a Sunset Berry Coulis

5 extra-large free-range eggs
a pinch of cream of tartar
250g caster sugar
250g Cape gooseberries
250g raspberries
150g strawberries, hulled and halved
icing sugar, for sweetening and dusting

Heat the oven to 55 ºC and turn the fan off.

Separate the eggs, placing the egg whites in a spotlessly clean metal bowl. Add a pinch of cream of tartar. (Keep the yolks for making mayonnaise!)

Using an electric whisk or a food processor fitted with a balloon whisk, beat the egg whites for at least 7 minutes, or until they are standing up in very stiff, dry peaks.

Trickle the caster sugar into the egg whites, a few tablespoons at a time, beating well between every addition. Continue beating for another 5 minutes, or until the meringue is very thick and glossy, and easily holds its shape. (See Cook’s Notes)

Line a baking sheet with baking paper (put a little blob of meringue on all four corners of the sheet so the paper sticks to it).

Using two large spoons, scoop out an apple-sized ball of meringue and carefully place it on the baking paper, pulling the meringue upwards to form it into a billowing cloud. Repeat until you’ve used up all the meringue, spacing the balls well apart.

Place the baking sheet in the middle of the oven and leave the meringues to dry out overnight, or for at least 10 hours, without disturbing them. The longer you leave them, the dryer their centres will be.

Take half of the gooseberries and whizz them to a fine purée. Taste the purée, and stir in a little icing sugar if you’d like it sweeter. Chill.

Purée half the raspberries in the same way, then strain the mixture through a sieve, pressing down well with the back of a spoon. Taste the coulis and sweeten, if necessary, with a little icing sugar. Discard the pulp and chill.

To plate the dessert, decant the two purées into two little jugs. Holding a jug in each hand, simultaneously pour two puddles on to a dessert plate, gently flooding it so the different-coloured purées meet in the middle. Leave the plates to stand for an hour or two, if you’d like a graduated sunset effect – the line between the two colours will gradually blur.

Top each lake of purée with a crisp meringue, and decorate with the remaining gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries.

Sieve a little icing sugar over each plate and serve immediately, with lashings of thick Jersey cream.

Serves 4.

Cook's Notes

• You will know the meringue is ready when you place a big blob on a plate and it does not flop over or subside – it should perfectly hold its shape. 
• Before you make the meringue, wipe the inside of the metal bowl with a slice of lemon to remove any grease spots, then dry thoroughly using a clean kitchen towel. 
• To avoid a speck of egg yolk ruining all the egg whites, separate the eggs one by one into two small bowls, then add the whites one by one to the big metal bowl. 
• Store the meringues, once cool, in an air-tight container. 

Serves 6.

Here is the list of ingredients I was given to work with:

Egg whites
Castor sugar
Cream of tartar
Icing sugar
Corn flour
Raspberries
Fruit selection

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Peppercorn Chicken with Chilli & Mint

Here's my latest MasterChef recipe, the second in a series of four recipes I've developed for Woolworths, food sponsors of the latest South African series.

Tender, mint-infused chicken breasts with a sticky-sweet honey and soy glaze

I was stumped by this week’s mystery-box ingredients (see the list at the bottom of this page). The spices in the list hinted loudly at a home-made Chinese five-spice powder, while coconut and soy sauce confirmed the Asian theme. But, oddly, there was no acidifying agent (such as lime or rice vinegar) in the ingredients list, and my first three recipe attempts were disappointing flops.

These are some of the ingredients I had to work with.
Picture courtesy of Woolworths.

In the end, I decided to focus on my favourite flavours in the list, and to combine them in a simple dish of succulent chicken breasts infused with fresh mint and chilli, and coated with rainbow peppercorns and a honey/soy sauce glaze.  Mint, peppercorns and chicken are an unusual combination – but why not?

The only tricky part about this recipe is making sure the chicken is perfectly cooked. This is not as easy as it sounds, because the one end of a bone-in chicken breast is considerably thicker than the other. How long your chicken will take to cook depends, of course, on the size of the pieces.  I always cut a deep slit into the thickest part of the breast, then prise it open to check that it's cooked to the bone.  Any sign of pinkness in the juices, and I put it back in the oven for another few minutes.

Finally, this year, it’s not just bloggers getting the chance to get creative in the kitchen along with MasterChef and Woolies. Create a recipe with the same ingredients used each week by the Woolworths Masterchef Competition bloggers and you could win one of fourteen R1000 Woolies gift cards, or the (very!) grand prize of a R10 000 gift card. Head over to the Woolworths Masterchef Hub for more info and T&Cs.

My first recipe for Woolies/Masterchef:  Slow-Roasted Leg of Lamb with a Basil Walnut Sauce 

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Peppercorn Chicken with Chilli & Mint

4 large free-range chicken breasts, on the bone
flaky sea salt
20g (half a cup, closely packed) fresh mint leaves
2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil
4 Tbsp  (60 ml) honey
2 Tbsp (30 ml) light soy sauce
2 tsp (10 ml) rainbow peppercorns, coarsely crushed


Heat the oven to 180 ºC. Put the mint leaves, chillies and olive oil in the jug attachment of a stick blender and whizz to a fairly fine pesto.

Season the breasts lightly with salt. Slide your fingertips under the skin on top of the breasts, breaking the fine membrane as you go to create a pouch. Take half the mint paste and spread it evenly under the breast skin (reserve the remaining mixture). Pull the breast skin back into place.

Cut a deep horizontal slash into the fleshiest part of each breast, and rub the remaining paste into the slashes. Set aside for an hour, or until you’re ready to cook the breasts.

Place the breasts skin-side up in a roasting pan, cover them lightly with tin foil or baking paper and roast for 25-30 minutes, or until they are just cooked through. Drain any excess fat from the pan.

Warm the honey until it’s runny, then stir in the soy sauce.  Drizzle this mixture all over the chicken breasts – and don’t worry if it slides off into the pan. Press the crushed peppercorns onto the skin of the breast.

Drizzle the glaze over the partly cooked breasts before  returning them to the oven.

Turn the oven grill on to its highest setting and place the roasting pan on a middle shelf, not too close to the element.  Grill the breasts for 5-8 minutes, basting them every few minutes with the honey-soy glaze.  Watch them like a hawk, as the honey burns quickly.

When the skin is golden and beginning to blister, remove the chicken breasts from oven and let them rest for 5 minutes.

Cut the breasts into pieces and drizzle over any pan juices.

Serve hot, with wedges of lemon.

Serves 4.

Here is the list of ingredients I was given to work with (I was also allowed to add salt, pepper and oil to my 'mystery box'):

Chicken
Honey
Light soy sauce
Star anise
Fennel seeds
Three colour peppercorns
Cloves
Cinnamon
Coconut
Chilli
Mint

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Cinnamon-Stencilled Cheesecake

There are few desserts to rival a cold, creamy cheesecake, but everyone has their own idea of what constitutes a Proper Cheesecake.  I like unbaked cheesecakes to be light and rather airy, but in a cooked cheesecake I want an unctuous, fairly dense filling, not too sweet, and a generous crumb base made of plain-tasting biscuits.  This is the ninth and final recipe in a series  for Woolworths South Africa, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

My rich and luscious cheesecake, with its whimsical cinnamon stencilling, is unusual in that it has a baked filling and a thin sour-cream topping lightly set with gelatine.  You can, of course, make it without the sour cream topping, but this second layer adds an extra dimension of velvety deliciousness, and it’s essential to create a smooth white surface on which to apply the stencils.

A generous dusting of cinnamon applied over a laser-cut stencil gives
 this creamy cheesecake a whimsical touch.

I used laser-cut henna stencils to apply the cinnamon, which you can find in Asian markets, or order online. If you can’t find them, use an old-fashioned doily, or simply dust the cinnamon lightly over the top of the cake.

This is not a complicated recipe but – like all good food – it takes time and patience to make.  It’s very important to allow baked cheesecakes to chill very thoroughly, for at least 6 hours, so that the filling has a chance to settle and firm to just the right texture. Use a very thick, good-quality plain cream cheese – low fat is fine.

If you'd like to try stencilling other dishes, have a look at my Henna-Patterned Spiced Cream Cheese.

My other MasterChef SA recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry:

• Panko-Crumbed Calamari with Black Salt and Lime Mayonnaise
• Pork Steaks with Wine, Tarragon and Mustard
• Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Chops with Citrus Couscous Salad
• Spicy Chicken, Tomato and Sweetcorn Soup
• Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing
• Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
• Champ with Chives and Garlic
• Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

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Cinnamon-Stencilled Cheesecake

2 x 200 g packets shortbread biscuits
180 g unsalted butter, melted
3 x 250 g tubs cream cheese, at room temperature
1½ cups (375 ml) caster sugar
3 extra-large free-range eggs
2 tsp (10 ml) vanilla extract or essence
1 tsp (5 ml) cinnamon
1 Tbsp (15 ml) cornflour

For the topping:
1 Tbsp (15 ml) water
1 tsp (5 ml) gelatine
1 carton (250 ml) sour cream
½ cup (125 ml) caster sugar
½ tsp (2.5 ml) vanilla extract
cinnamon, for stencilling

Heat the oven to 170 ºC, or 160 ºC if you have a fan-assisted oven. Break up the biscuits and whizz them to fine crumbs in a food processor.  Stir in the melted butter. Press half the crumbs evenly over the base of a non-stick 24-cm springform cake tin.

Press the remaining crumbs over the inner sides of the tin, gently easing them upwards. Use the side of a small glass gently to flatten the biscuit base, rolling it around in a circle, then stand the glass upright and roll it around the edges of the tin to form a smooth, even wall. Press a fingertip into the right angle formed where the sides meet the base to thin out this corner.  Refrigerate the crust while you make the filling.

Put the cream cheese and caster sugar into a large bowl and, using a rotary beater, whisk until just smooth and combined. Beat in the eggs one by one, then whisk in the vanilla, cinnamon and sifted cornflour. Take care not to over-beat the mixture. If you're a confident maker of cheesecake, you can add all these ingredients to the bowl in one go, (see picture below) and gradually incorporate them into the mixture.

Pour the filling into the crumb crust. Bake, preferably in a bain-marie (see Cook’s Notes) for an hour to an hour and a quarter (this will depend on the efficiency of your oven. It is done when it is slightly risen, pulling away at the edges, lightly freckled with gold, and wobbles reluctantly when you give it a shake). Turn off the oven, open the door, and let the cheesecake cool completely in the oven.  Refrigerate for at least two hours.

To make the topping, put the water in a little heat-proof bowl and sprinkle the gelatine over it. Set aside for a minute to sponge. 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 from the water and set aside to cool slightly. Whisk the sour cream, caster sugar and vanilla together and stir in the melted gelatine. Pour the mixture over the top of the chilled cheesecake and smooth the top.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

To decorate, place your stencils in a pattern of your choice over the top of the cake. If they are self-adhesive stencils, place them on the surface of the cake sticky-side up.  Put the cinnamon in a tea-strainer and dust it evenly all over the top of the cake. Gently blow away any excess cinnamon. Slowly peel off the stencils, using a pair of tweezers to lift each one.  Cut into slices using a very sharp knife dipped in hot water.

Makes one 23-cm cheesecake; serves 8.

Cook’s Notes

• Cooking the cheesecake in a bath of hot water helps ensure a good smooth texture. However, as springform pans have a tendency to leak, make sure to wrap the outside of the tin in several large sheets of tin foil before you place it in a roasting tin half-filled with hot water. Alternatively, bake the cheesecake in a deep glass or ceramic flan dish.
• This basic cheesecake recipe can easily be adapted.  For a lemony cheesecake, add the finely grated zest of a lemon to the filling.
• Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature when you make the filling. Cold cream cheese is difficult to whisk until quite smooth, and you may end up over-beating the batter.
• If you’d like a crust on only the base of the cheesecake, use 200 g of biscuits, and 90 g melted butter, and line the inner edge of the cake tin with a strip of oiled baking paper.

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Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Chops with Citrus Couscous Salad

This dish of spicy lamb chops and citrussy couscous salad is one of my favourite happy-hybrid inventions. It’s largely Moroccan in its spicing, but it also contains a popular and versatile Middle Eastern ingredient: pomegranate concentrate. This delicious elixir (also known in its many forms as pomegranate syrup, reduction and molasses) is made by simmering fresh pomegranate juice down to a tart-sweet syrup filled with fruity flavours. This is the sixth in a series of recipes for Woolworths South Africa, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Chops with Citrus Couscous salad. Plate by David Walters

Cooks are often told on MasterChef and other reality shows to exercise caution when mixing ingredients from different regions, or indeed from diverse flavour ‘families’. I think this is advice worth following. Honey doesn’t go with mashed potatoes or fresh linefish, for example, and nutmeg and rocket are sworn enemies.

But, if you’re an adventurous cook, it’s worth keeping your mind open and trying out interesting flavour combinations. If you want to experiment, the best advice I can give you is to choose ingredients from regions that are geographically adjacent.  For example, because of the influence of the Moors, the cuisines of the Iberian Peninsula are compatible with the cooking of North Africa. Israeli cooking has much in common with Lebanese, Greek and Turkish food, and so on.

And all of the above are compatible with pomegranate, that most lovely and ancient fruit. (Although I do think that the seeds must be used judiciously. I see these "rubies", as magazines like to call them, scattered over everything but the cat these days. Pomegranate seeds strewn prettily across a salad  or dessert may improve the look of the dish, but - like the ubiquitous micro herbs so loved by chefs - they don't necessarily add much to its taste.)

My other recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry:

• Spicy Chicken, Tomato and Sweetcorn Soup
• Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing
• Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
• Champ with Chives and Garlic
• Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

Moroccan-Spiced Lamb Chops with Citrus Couscous Salad

12 small lamb chops
4 Tbsp (60 ml) lemon juice
4 Tbsp (60 ml) pomegranate concentrate
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cinnamon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cayenne pepper, or more, to taste
1 tsp (5 ml) dried mint
black pepper
1½ cups (375 ml) couscous
2 cups (500 ml) very hot water
a tin of chickpeas, drained
salt
100 g slivered almonds, toasted
½ cup (125 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup (80 ml) finely chopped fresh mint
the seeds of a pomegranate [optional]

For the dressing:
finely grated zest of a large orange
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
6 Tbsp (90 ml) fresh lemon juice
5 Tbsp (75 ml) fresh orange juice
1 tsp (5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) dried coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cinnamon
½ cup (125 ml) olive oil
salt and pepper

Place the lamb chops in a non-metallic dish. Whisk together the lemon juice, pomegranate reduction, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and mint. Pour the marinade over the chops and toss, using your hands, so that each chop is coated. Season with black pepper, cover and set aside for two or three hours.

In the meantime, start the couscous salad. Put the couscous in a deep bowl and pour in the hot (not boiling; see Cook’s Notes) water. Immediately cover the bowl with clingfilm and set aside to steam, undisturbed, for 15 minutes. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk well.

Uncover the couscous and, using a fork, gently scratch at the surface, lightly fluffing the grains so they separate. Add the chickpeas and dressing to the still-warm couscous and toss to coat. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Cover and set aside at room temperature while the chops are marinating.

Heat your oven’s grill.  Season the chops with salt and place in a roasting pan. Grill the chops, not too close to the heat, for about 4-5 minutes on either side (or until done to your liking), basting with the pan juices and leftover marinade now and then. Watch them closely, as the sugar in the pomegranate syrup may cause them to scorch.

Stir the toasted almonds, parsley, mint and pomegranate seeds into the couscous and add more salt and pepper, if necessary. Serve the chops piping hot with the couscous on the side.

Serves 4. 

• Try this couscous salad with other ingredients from the Mediterranean region: crumbled feta, green olives, chopped preserved lemon, pistachios, and so on.

• Leave the dried mint out of the marinade if you can’t find it. It’s easy to make your own dried mint – place a bunch of leaves in a very low oven, with the fan on, and leave them until they’re completely dry.  Crumble and store in a sealed jar.

• Most ‘instant’ couscous recipes specify boiling water, but I’ve found that hot water produces the best result.  If you’re not confident about preparing couscous, follow the instructions on the packet.

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Spicy Chicken, Tomato and Sweetcorn Soup

When I read the theme of this week's Woolies Pantry recipes, I gave a happy little snort. I have teenagers, you see, and feeding them (and the other ravenous students who swarm through my kitchen) is not unlike cooking for an army. If I were a millionaire, I'd give them their favourite food - slabs of steak and triple cheeseburgers - but I'm not, so I have resorted over the years to more economical ways of feeding young people with hollow legs. This is the fifth  in a series of recipes for Woolworths South Africa, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

A big pot of richly flavoured soup, served with a mountain of bread, makes excellent teen fodder, and this recipe is one I make often in winter. It's packed with filling carbs - potatoes and sweetcorn - and really is a square meal in itself. What's more, it stretches one chicken across eight or more mouths, whereas if you had to roast a chicken, it would feed only four (and that's being optimistic).

If you're in a hurry, you can make this with shop-bought liquid stock and a ready-roasted chicken, but a proper home-made chicken broth adds wonderful depth of flavour. This is a mildly spiced soup, so feel free to give it extra heat with chopped fresh chillies, dried chilli flakes or lashings of Tabasco.

My other recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry:

• Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing
• Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
• Champ with Chives and Garlic
• Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

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Spicy Chicken, Tomato and Sweetcorn Soup

For the stock:
1 large free-range chicken
3 litres cold water
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, skin on, quartered
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, thickly sliced
6 stalks flat-leaf parsley
2 bay leaves
1 tsp (5 ml) black peppercorns
2 whole cloves

For the soup:
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely sliced
4 big carrots, peeled and cubed
6 big potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-cm cubes
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 red chilli, seeded and finely minced (optional)
2 tins Italian tomatoes, finely chopped, and their juice
3 Tbsp (45 ml) tomato paste
500 g frozen sweetcorn kernels
1 Tbsp (15 ml) cumin
1 Tbsp (15 ml) dried oregano
1 tsp (5 ml) ground coriander
1 tsp  (5 ml) sweet paprika
1 tsp  (5 ml) chilli powder, to taste
salt and milled black pepper

To serve:
chopped fresh parsley
chopped spring onions
sour cream or natural yoghurt

Place all the ingredients for the stock in a large pot and bring to gently to the boil. Turn down the heat, cover with a tilted lid, and simmer for 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the chicken from the stock, strip the flesh from the bones and set aside, covered. Return the bones and skin to the stock and simmer, partly covered, for another 45 minutes. Strain the stock into a bowl and discard the bones and flavourings. Pull the reserved chicken into strips. At this point, if you are planning ahead, you can put both the stock and the chicken into the fridge for a few hours, or overnight.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add the onion, celery, carrots, potato cubes, garlic and chilli and fry over a medium heat for five minutes. Skim any fat from the top of the stock and pour the stock over the vegetables. Bring to the boil. Add all the remaining soup ingredients, except the reserved chicken, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the potato cubes are tender. Skim off any foam, tip in the chicken strips and cook gently for a further 35-45 minutes, or until the chicken has fallen apart into shreds. Check the seasoning, stir in the chopped parsley and serve at once, topped with spring onions and sour cream.

Cook's notes:

• For an even more substantial soup, add a cup of split orange lentils, and cook the soup for 10-15 minutes longer, before adding the chicken.
• If you’d like a thicker texture, give the soup a quick whiz with a stick blender before you add the chicken.
• You can use tinned sweetcorn in place of frozen sweetcorn.

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Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing

The most important criterion for me when I’m cooking for a small crowd (and I’m talking about 10 people or more) is that every key element of the dish can be prepared many hours in advance, then heated, assembled and dished up with minimum fuss, at the last moment, so it arrives at the table fresh, hot and delicious. This is the fourth in a series of recipes for Woolworths, pantry sponsors of MasterChef South Africa.

An easy way to stretch an expensive leg of lamb between many mouths.

Obviously this is not possible for MasterChef contestants faced with the challenge of catering for a horde (given the tight time-frames of reality TV).  But for home cooks, painstaking planning and preparation are the secrets to success when you’re expecting a flock of hungry guests. A recipe that allows you partly to cook the ingredients well ahead of time, without any significant loss of freshness, flavour or texture, is the best bet, because all you need do is take 20 minutes or so to finish them off in pan or oven, fling the dish together and carry it triumphantly to the table.

This recipe for a warm salad of garlicky, rosemaried lamb, baby potatoes and peas allows you to do just that, and it’s economical in the sense that it stretches a single leg of lamb (which is ruinously expensive these days, for reasons I cannot understand) between many mouths. In the recipe below, I’ve given instructions for preparing the dish well ahead of time and then assembling it at the last minute.

You’ll save a lot of money if you buy a whole leg of lamb and debone it yourself (see Cook’s Notes, below), or ask your butcher to do it for you.

It’s important to serve this warm, as it’s the heat of the potatoes and lamb that releases the minty, mustardy, lemony flavours of the dressing.

My other recipes for Woolworths #wooliespantry: 

Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt
Champ with Chives and Garlic
Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

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Warm Lamb and Potato Salad with a Mint Dressing

1 x 3.5 kg leg of lamb, deboned and butterflied
6 sprigs fresh rosemary
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil, plus extra for frying
a large lemon
milled black pepper
3.5 kg new potatoes
olive or sunflower oil, for frying
4 cups frozen baby peas
baby mint leaves, to garnish

For the dressing:
4 tsp (20 ml) good Dijon mustard
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed
6 Tbsp (90 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ tsp (2.5 ml) white sugar
flaky sea salt
milled pepper
1 cup (250 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
a big handful of fresh mint leaves (about ¾ cup, loosely packed)

Lay the butterflied lamb, skin side down, in a large non-metallic dish. Scatter over the rosemary sprigs and garlic slices and drizzle with 3 Tbsp olive oil. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice over the lamb, then slice the squeezed-out lemon halves and arrange them on top of the lamb. Season well with milled black pepper (but no salt). Fold the lamb ‘butterfly’ in half to enclose the filling and cover the dish with clingfilm. Marinate in the fridge for 24 hours (a minimum of 12), turning the lamb over once or twice during that time.

Now prepare the potatoes. Cook them in plenty of boiling salted water for 10 minutes, or until just tender when pierced with the tip of a sharp knife, but not squashy or falling apart. Drain in a colander for 10 minutes, return them to the empty pot and cover.

To prepare the dressing, put the mustard, garlic, lemon juice, sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper into a bowl and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Whisk in the oil to form a smooth emulsion. Cover and set aside at room temperature.

Now sear the lamb (you can do this up to eight hours ahead and keep it, loosely covered with clingfilm, in the fridge). Heat 3 Tbsp oil in a large frying pan or a heavy-based roasting pan until blazing hot and shimmering, but not yet smoking. Scrape the garlic, rosemary and lemon slices off the lamb (don’t leave a trace of garlic behind, as it will turn bitter in the pan) and season with a little salt on both sides.

Sear the lamb in the hot oil for 4-5 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned and caramelised. Cover and set aside (at room temperature if you’re planning to assemble the dish within two hours, or in the fridge if you’re preparing this well in advance.)

About 45 minutes before you’re ready to serve the dish, heat the oven to 190 ºC. Put the lamb in a roasting pan and roast for 20-25 minutes, or until it’s cooked through, but still a pale rosy pink on the inside (how long this will take depends on your oven and the thickness of the lamb; see Cook’s Notes.) Cover loosely with foil and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, finely chop the mint leaves, stir them into the dressing and check the seasoning. Add a few tablespoons of water to the pot containing the potatoes, set it over a low heat and gently reheat for 7-10 minutes. Put the frozen peas into a pot of rapidly boiling salted water and cook for 3-4 minutes.

Cut the hot potatoes in half and arrange them on a large, warmed platter. Drain the peas and scatter them on top. Pour the pan juices that have accumulated under the lamb into the bowl containing the dressing and whisk well.

Cut the lamb into thin slices and arrange the pieces on top of the potatoes. Pour over just enough of the minty dressing to coat the potatoes and lamb, and garnish with small mint leaves. Check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

Serve immediately with a leafy green salad scattered with crunchy croutons.

With salad, serves  8-10.

Cook's Notes:

• It’s not difficult to debone a leg of lamb: use a very sharp knife to release the flesh from the bones, using long sweeping strokes. Don’t worry if the lamb ‘butterfly’ looks a little ragged: no one will notice once it’s sliced. If you’re not confident about doing this, have a look on the Internet for an instructional video.
• To test whether the lamb is done to perfection, cut a small, deep slit in the thickest part of the meat. If it’s still a bloody pink inside, let it roast for 5-7 more minutes, then check again.
• You can use large potatoes for this dish: boil them in their skins, taking care not to overcook them. Reheat them whole, then cut into thick slices.

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Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt

Slow cooking, and dishes that take a few days to prepare, don’t ever feature on MasterChef because of the obvious time limitations of reality TV. I think this is a pity, because time and patience are often the most delicious aspects of a dish, and this is especially true of meat that is cooked over an open flame.

Curried Lamb Ribs with Mint Yoghurt 

Long marinating and/or many hours of slow cooking can work absolute wonders, especially with tougher cuts of meat. Think, for example, of a whole lamb or pig that is spit-roasted for hours, rotating gently in front of a wood fire until its skin is burnished mahogany and its meat falling from the bone in tender flakes.

A braai is quintessentially South African, so for this week’s Woolies The Pantry recipe I’ve chosen lamb ribbetjies [riblets] because I love them (and their name!), and a Cape-Malay-style marinade based on a traditional curried lamb-sosatie soaking sauce. Drenched in a turmeric-yellow, sharp-sweet marinade, Malay sosaties of this sort have a long and noteworthy history as one of the classics of Cape Malay cooking. The basic recipe has remained largely unchanged over at least two centuries; its pedigree is doubtless older than that, because the dish was bought to the Cape from the East during the earliest days of the slave trade. In my version of the marinade, I’ve used yoghurt in addition to a variety of wonderful spices, because this helps to tenderise the lamb ribbetjies so they are beautifully succulent when they come off the braai.

Click here for my recipe for snack-sized Cape Malay Lamb Sosaties.

My other recipes for Woolworths The Pantry: 
Champ with Chives and Garlic
Gin-Cured Gravadlax with Crisped Capers

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Curried Lamb Ribbetjies with Mint Yoghurt

1.2 kg lamb ribbetjies [riblets]
salt
lemon wedges, to serve

For the marinade:
4 T (60 ml) sunflower oil
2 onions, peeled and very finely chopped
4 cardamom pods
1 quill of cinnamon
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2 T (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1½ t (7.5 ml) ground cumin
1 t (5 ml) ground coriander
1 t (5 ml) red chilli powder
2 t (10 ml) medium-strength curry powder
1½ t (7.5 ml) turmeric
3 T (45 ml) white wine vinegar
80 ml thick fruity chutney
1 T (15 ml) sugar
3/4 cup (180 ml) water
milled black pepper
80 ml lemon juice (about 3 small lemons)
2 cups (500 ml) natural white yoghurt

For the dip:
1 cup (250 ml) thick white Greek yoghurt
80 ml finely chopped fresh mint
80 ml finely chopped fresh coriander
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
the juice of half a lemon
salt and milled black pepper

Heat the oil in a pan and add the onions, cardamom pods and cinnamon stick. Fry over a medium-high flame for 5 minutes, or until the onions are golden. Add the chilli, ginger and garlic and cook for another minute, without allowing the garlic to burn. Stir in the cumin, coriander, chilli powder, curry powder, turmeric, vinegar and chutney, turn down the heat and cook, stirring, for two minutes. Add the sugar and water, season with pepper and simmer briskly for 8 minutes. Remove from the heat, allow to cool, then stir in the lemon juice and yoghurt.  Tip the marinade into a lidded plastic or ceramic bowl, add the ribbetjies, mix well and refrigerate for 48 hours, stirring once or twice.

To make the dip, combine the yoghurt, mint, coriander, garlic and lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate.

Season the ribbetjies with salt and braai over medium-hot coals for about 8 minutes on all four sides (half an hour in total), basting frequently with the leftover marinade.  The coals should not be too hot, or the ribs will scorch: by the end of the cooking time, they should be a rich yellow gold, flecked here and there with sticky black bits. Serve hot with the yoghurt dip and lemon wedges.

Serves 4. 

• For best results, marinate the ribbetjies for two to three days; 24 hours is the absolute minimum.    
• If you’d like a hotter marinade, add more chilli powder or chopped fresh red chillies to the marinade.
• Don’t rush the cooking time: lamb ribbetjies can be quite fatty, and long cooking over medium coals will help render the fat.
• These can be successfully cooked in an oven under a very hot grill, but make sure the ribbetjies are at least 20 cm below the grill, and turn them frequently.

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Champ with Chives and Garlic

I always watch MasterChef from the comfort of my own squashy couch, safe from the scrutiny of scary judges or ogling cameras, and yet I can’t help feeling a moment of slight panic whenever I consider what I’d make with a particular ingredient. It’s difficult to imagine how nerve-racking it must feel to be an actual contestant, to have to make a choice within minutes, and then to have to cook the dish in a ridiculously short period of time.

[This is the second in a series of recipes I've developed for Woolworths' revamped cookery-inspiration platform The Pantry, which has just been launched to tie in with their food sponsorship of the much-anticipated first series of MasterChef South Africa.]

I felt the same sense of mild alarm when presented with this week’s Woolies Pantry ingredient: potatoes. My first impulse was to come up with a complex dish that would wow the judges of an imaginary tasting panel with its cheeky flavour combinations. This is certainly the path I would have taken when I was an inexperienced cook and eager to impress my friends and family with what I thought was clever, edgy cooking. But then I sat back on my heels, metaphorically speaking, and considered the potato.  Potatoes, to my mind, are the ultimate comfort food.  They are dearly beloved by millions of people the world over, and mostly in their simplest forms: baked, mashed, fried and slow-cooked to fall-aparty goodness in stews, soups and curries. After some thought, I decided that if my imaginary judges really appreciated good ingredients, they’d surely like potatoes plainly presented in all their humble glory. So here, I give you potatoes in the honest form I love the most, and one that has been my favourite comfort food since I was a small girl: smoothly mashed with a scandalous amount of butter and cream, piping hot, and topped with a cold block of salty butter.

This is my version of the classic Irish dish champ (similar to colcannon, but with some refinement), which I’ve given a kick in the pants with garlic and chives.This recipe epitomises how I feel about good, fresh ingredients: do as little at you can to them, and let their essential character sparkle on the plate. Or in the bowl, in this case.

Champ with Chives and Garlic 
6 large floury potatoes
water to cover
a bunch of spring onions [scallions]
200 g salted butter
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
2/3 cup (160 ml) cream
a little hot milk
salt and white pepper
4 T (60 ml) finely snipped French chives
a few extra cubes of cold butter, for topping

Cut the potatoes in half crossways and cook them, in their skins, in plenty of boiling salted water for 25-30 minutes, or until very tender, but not yet falling apart. In the meantime, finely slice the white and pale green parts of the spring onions. Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the spring onions and cook very gently, over a medium-low heat, for 3-4 minutes, or until the onions are just soft. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute or so, without letting the garlic or onions brown.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and leave them to dry out for 3 minutes. Put the potatoes back into the still-hot pot and set over a low heat. Now, using a potato ricer (see Cook’s Notes) or masher, mash them with the cream until very smooth. Add the buttery spring onion mixture and just enough hot milk to form a creamy, fluffy mash.  Season with plenty of salt and a few pinches of white pepper.  Pile the hot mash into a serving dish (or into individual bowls) and scatter over the chopped chives.  Make a few indentations in the mash, add a cube of butter to each, and take to the table piping hot.

Serves 4 as a main dish, 6 as a side serving.

Cook's Notes

• You can get away with preparing a dish of such simplicity as a main course, but it needs to be perfect: absolutely smooth mash, not a speck of burned onion or garlic, and brought to the table fresh and hot.
• The secret to very creamy, fluffy mash is to use the right sort of potato (buy spuds that are specifically labelled as good for mashing) and to use a potato ricer. These are affordable (look for them in kitchen shops) and they remove every little lurking lump from the mash. Alternatively, you can use an old-fashioned mouli, or push the mash (before you add the onions) through a metal sieve, using the back of a spoon.
• Don’t overheat the mash in the pan, or beat it too furiously, or put it in a blender or food processor, as it might become gluey.
• The amount of milk you add to the potatoes will depend on their age and variety. Add the milk a little at a time, until you are satisfied with the consistency of the mash.

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Ten top tips for making memorable soup, and MasterChefSA blogging

My Roast Ratatouille Soup with Basil Mayonnaise

There's an agreeable crispness in the air in the mornings here in Cape Town, a sure sign that autumn's on its way. Never mind Keats's season of mists and mellow fruitfulness; all I'm really looking forward to is making and eating more soup. The older I get, the more I enjoy soup, and during winter often have a bowl of it for breakfast - I think of it as a sort of hot smoothie. But making a really good, well-textured, flavour-packed soup does require some effort, and I hope you'll find my top tips for memorable soup (below) useful.

Before we get to them, though, some news. It's been a very busy six or seven months here at Scrumptious HQ, and with so much freelance work on my plate I've not had the time to compile my usual newsletters (each one takes me up to a week to put together, and I haven't had a single one of those to spare!). I hope to resume sending you them as soon as the dust settles.

I recently joined hopping Cape Town digital agency Liquorice as a social media strategist. In another exciting development, I've been appointed one of four official bloggers for Woolworths, who are a main sponsor of MasterChef South Africa. This action-packed reality show starts in South Africa on 20 March, and I am certain that it's going to cause a sensation when it airs: there's already much talk and speculation in social media circles. You can follow MasterChef on Twitter at @MasterChefSA  (and the hashtag #MasterChefSA), and Woolies at @WOOLWORTHS_SA.  A link to my Twitter profile is on the top right of this page.

Now to the important business of making soup.

1 
It’s an old-fashioned notion that soups need to be boiled for hours. Good stocks certainly require slow simmering, but many soups need less than 25 minutes’ bubbling after the initial softening of aromatics such as onions, leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, and so on. A speedy cooking time helps to preserve the colour and vibrancy of fresh ingredients.

2 
Soups should never cook at a furious boil. A gentle, rolling, burbling boil – a notch above a simmer – is ideal. Take time to skim the foam off soups as it rises.

Cream of Watercress Soup with Wobbly Eggs

3
Some of the heartier soups (as with many stews, casseroles and curries) improve enormously on standing: their flavours mellow and mature as the ingredients have time to mingle. Meaty soups, spicy soups and soups made with pulses are often tastier the next day, so feel confident making them in advance if you're cooking for a crowd. Lively vegetable soups that don't require long simmering should be served on the same day they're made.

4 
Invest in a good-quality stick blender. Stick blenders have a huge advantage over liquidisers and food processors in that you don’t need to remove the soup from the pot when the time comes to purée it, so there are fewer things to wash up and a lot less mess. A powerful modern stick blender can quickly produce a very fine purée – finer, in fact, than one produced by liquidisers and food processors, which can be reluctant and often need stirring or scraping down during the blending process.

5
A soup – or a stock – is only as good as its component parts. Avoid the temptation to use supermarket ‘soup packs’ or ready-chopped bags of vegetables. Soup packs often contain unimpressive specimens of vegetables left over from the supermarket packaging process, while ready-chopped vegetable cubes have such an enormous combined surface area that they quickly turn slimy in the fridge. Take the time to hand-pick the best, freshest, snappiest ingredients.  When it comes to deep flavours, there is nothing quite like a good home-made stock.  Although not every fine soup requires a stock, they do add body and complexity, and it really is worth taking the time to make them -  even a quick stock made with six chicken wings and a few well-chosen aromatics is better than no stock at all (or, worse, a salty stock cube).  Here's my recipe for a chicken stock that's partly made in the oven.

6
When seasoning a soup with salt and pepper, always do so judiciously, adding a pinch at a time. You or your guests can always add more seasoning to a soup, but an over-salted soup cannot be rescued. Not even with slices of raw potato, as many older cookbooks advise.

7
Many soups are improved by a squeeze of lemon juice added just before serving; this little spritz of acid can really lift a soup that’s punching below its weight. The same applies to cream - even a few tablespoons can magically mellow and bring together the flavours of a soup.

My Chakalaka Soup with Little Boerewors Balls

8
If your soup seems too thick, thin it down with a little hot water, stock or (in the case of creamy white soups) milk. If it’s too watery, put a tablespoon or two of cornflour or flour or arrowroot in a jar, add double the amount of water and shake vigorously until the mixture is smooth. Add this, a dribble at a time, to the simmering soup, stirring constantly, until it reaches the desired thickness.

9
Soup must be served either piping hot or ice cold – there really are no half-measures. Heat the bowls in the oven before you ladle hot soup into them or, if you’re making a cold soup, chill the bowls in a freezer an hour before you dish up. When you're serving guests, don't overfill their bowls: soup is very filling and not everyone fancies downing litres of it at a time.

My Iced Beetroot and Gin Shots

10
A lovely way of serving soup at a feast is to treat it as a snack course. Halve the quantities given in the recipe, and pour the soup into small, sturdy glasses (or even teacups) that you’ve heated in a gentle oven. Add the toppings specified in the recipe and serve immediately. I often serve vegetable soups as snacks with toasted-cheese fingers: grate some Cheddar or Gruyère over a few slices of toasted bread, cook under a hot grill until bubbling, then dust with paprika or cayenne pepper and slice into strips. Balance a cheese finger across the top of each glass, and provide a few extra for hungry guests.

For more soup recipes from my blog archive, click here.

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