Hot & Cold Winter Salad Niçoise (and a photo-bombing basset)

My uncle, master potter David Walters, gave me this beautiful hand-thrown celadon platter last year, and I immediately made it the official family fruit bowl, perching it in a convenient spot at the end of a kitchen counter for all to admire.

Hot & Cold Salad Niçoise, and a very naughty boy.

Apricots, peaches, litchis, nectarines, plums, grapes, figs, pomegranates, quinces, kumquats and naartjies have filled it to overflowing as the seasons have passed, but I never thought until last weekend of using it for its intended purpose: a platter for presenting a bright and plentiful salad.

I feature many of these versatile crowd-pleasers on this blog because I'm a huge fan of complex salads with all the bells and whistles, but I've never posted a recipe for one of my favourite family dishes: Salad Niçoise.

This salmagundi of glistening Mediterranean ingredients is one of the world's greatest salads, in my opinion, and I could happily eat it every day.

It's the epitome of summer food, but in this recipe - because it is winter here in the Cape - I've adapted it so that it contains four piping-hot ingredients: steaming little potatoes, perfectly boiled eggs, blanched baby beans and hot blistered vine tomatoes. (I am most intrigued by cold and hot salads - my version of Gado-Gado, for instance.)

I have left anchovies out of my salad, as everyone in my family loathes them, but I can highly recommend that you drape a few of these over the tops of the eggs.

Do take the time to parboil the beans properly, because this will ensure that they do not fade to a muddy olive-green. (See caption below).

I took this picture of my salad the day after I made it, to show you how correctly
 blanched green beans will retain their lovely colour for many hours. For this pic,
I changed only the leaves (which wilted overnight in their dressing) and I
 added a freshly boiled half-egg (because my teens had gobbled the lot).

I like this dressed with a generous spritz of fresh lemon juice, and just enough olive oil lightly to coat the leaves, but you can serve it with a classic vinaigrette made with mustard, garlic, salt, and the like. If you want something really extravagant, take your Niçoise to the table with a big bowl of basil mayonnaise or aïoli.  Both are heavenly dobbled all over the boiled eggs.

Every now and then, I make this with fresh seared tuna, but I don't think this is necessarily an improvement on tinned tuna, which is a superb store-cupboard ingredient with a character that is quite distinct.

And the photo-bombing basset? Our pup, Harley, is just over a year old, and he's a velvety-eared, thieving menace. All he can think about is food. He is obsessed with eating to the point of mild mania. (Not unlike, come to think of it, his adoring owner.)

A very naughty pup.

Harley spends much of his day plotting ways to nick food from plates, cupboards, counter-tops and dustbins. If I stagger through the gate tugging packets of groceries, he launches himself from a good two metres away, glides through the air (ears flaring, Dumbo-style, in order to achieve extra lift) and swipes the bags straight out of my fists.

Not once, but twice, while I was standing on an outside table photographing this salad, he sailed from floor to chair to table, as silent as an owl at midnight, and appeared in my frame at the same instant I clicked the shutter.

A swift clip to the chops (okay, I will admit I used my foot) disabused him of any idea that he could sneak off with a boiled egg.

This is very easy to make, but it does require some careful timing.  I've given you quite detailed instructions, in a numbered timeline, so you can nail that perfect balance of cold and crisp / warm and steamy.

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 Hot and Cold Winter Salad Niçoise

350 g cherry tomatoes
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil, for sprinkling
4 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and milled black pepper
350 g new potatoes
a large cucumber
a small bunch of spring onions
2 tins of tuna in oil
350 g slim green beans
6 extra-large free-range eggs
2 packets of mixed salad leaves: watercress, rocket and baby spinach
½ cup pimento-stuffed green olives, or pitted Calamata olives
6 anchovy fillets [optional, and to taste]
a small bunch of fresh basil

For the dressing: 
the juice of a large lemon
5 Tbsp (75 ml) olive oil, or more, to taste

1. First roast the tomatoes.  Heat the oven to 210 ºC.  Put the tomatoes onto a roasting sheet covered with a piece of kitchen paper. Sprinkle with olive oil and scatter with thyme sprigs.  Season with salt and plenty of milled black pepper. Place the sheet in the heated oven and roast for 20-25 minutes, or until the tomatoes are just collapsing.

2. In the meantime, put the new potatoes into a pan, cover them with cold water and set over a medium-high flame.  Set a timer to 15 minutes.

3. Cut the cucumber in half lengthways and run a spoon down the middle to remove the seeds. Slice into neat 5 mm crescents and set aside.

4. Finely chop the spring onions and set aside.

5. Open both the tins of tuna and drain off any oil.  Set aside.

6.  Fill a bowl with cold water and add a few generous handfuls of ice cubes. Set to one side.

7. Heat a pot of salted water in a large pot.  Top and tail the beans, throw them into the rapidly boiling water and cook for 6-7 minutes, or until they are just tender crisp.  Fish them out with a pair of tongs (leave the water on the boil) and plunge them into your bowl of iced water.

8. Slip the eggs gently into the simmering water and set a timer for 9 minutes.  To prevent the eggs from cracking, put a teaspoon into the water, or wrap each one in tin foil.

9. Check that that baby spuds are tender by poking them with the tip of a sharp knife. Drain them, then return them to the pot in which you boiled them. Cover and keep warm.

10. Remove the roast tomatoes from the oven.

11. Arrange the salad greens, cucumber and olives on your platter, and scatter with chopped spring onions.  Now tip the tuna tins over to invert their contents, as shown in the picture.

12. Just before you serve the salad, arrange all the warm and cold ingredients over the leaves, tucking in sprigs of basil here and there.

13. Squeeze the lemon over the salad and sprinkle with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and take the salad straight to the table, with a warm baguette.

Serves 6 - 8. 

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Dave's Roast Pork Belly, a favourite dish of the dashing dog detective Napoleon Bones

Napoleon Bones (published by
 Random House Struik).

Napoleon Bones is a noble police dog, a crime fighter, a gourmand, and the star of a recent novel by my mother, South African writer Jenny Hobbs.

One of Napoleon's favourite dishes is a succulent belly of roast pork topped with extra-crackly crackling of great crackliness.

I know for a fact that the recipe my mum had in mind when she wrote her book is the one perfected by my uncle, master potter David Walters. 

It's also one of the recipes featured in my cookbook.  Is this book a family affair? Damned right it is! But then food is all about familie, isn't it? (There's a note about this word at the bottom of the page.)

Here's a paragraph from the book mentioning roast pork belly:

We were patrolling in Woodstock on the dog watch, eight to midnight. Spike was off-duty. A sudden gorgeous waft of aromas had my tongue lolling. Roast potatoes and parsnips. Fennel. Halved heads of garlic browning in the juices dripping from a racked pork belly with the crackling just starting to crisp.

Doesn't that sound toothsome?

I've referred a number of times to Dave's beautiful hand-thrown dinnerware on this blog, because I often photograph my food on plates, platters and bowls he's lent or given me.  But I haven't spoken much about my mum, apart from mentioning that I learned to cook at her elbow.

Because her new novel has much to do with food and eating (or wolfing down, arf arf,  in the case of Napoleon Bones), I thought I'd tell you more about it, and about her.

Jenny Hobbs, novelist, and director of
the Franschhoek Literary Festival.

I read my mother's novels with joy and appreciation, but there's often a level of trepidation because I know that at a certain point something from my childhood will leap off the page and seize me by the heartstrings.

This might be a character I recognise, or a favourite expression, or a line from a poem, or a whiff of something strange and beautiful and half-forgotten.

 In the case of her latest novel, I enjoyed juddering belly-laughs reading the droll observations of the dog Napoleon Bones.

Napoleon, a keen-nosed connoisseur and relentless chaser of frisky bitches is, you see, something of a composite of all the dogs I've ever known. Jenny has dedicated the book to all the stinky mutts of my childhood, including my beloved Mugsy, a bulldog of distinction.

Also, the text is scattered with family jokes and sly verbal references that cannot be appreciated unless you were actually there (the Strategic Fart is one example).

And then there's the language. A little-known fact about my mum is that she wrote, as Blossom Broadbeam, a popular column for Darling magazine in the early Seventies.

Her column became famous as a rich source of 'Seffrican', and many of the slang words she observed and used for the first time in print have been preserved in several dictionaries of South African English. I'm proud to tell you that some of these words were harvested from the mouths of her four daughters. (Okay, they're expressions not used much these days, but there was a time around 1975 when it was extremely cool to say 'tit', 'China', 'boney' and so on.)

She's put her keen ear for South African slang to good use in the new book, and I found myself performing the famous coffee-nose-spurt reaction several times as I raced through its chapters.

Really crackly crackling, all brown and blistered. 

But back to the food.  My uncle Dave and his family live right next door to my mum in Franschhoek, so there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the houses, and much merrymaking and feasting when my extended family swarms into Franschhoek.

Whenever an extra-special feast is called for, Dave makes his Famous Pork Belly, usually preceded by his equally famous Smoked Franschhoek Trout with Hot Sesame Oil.

I can heartily recommend both recipes to you.

Dave's Pork Belly

1 large pork belly, bone in (about 2 kg, or enough for 8; see Cook’s Notes)

¾ cup (180 ml) olive oil

10 bay leaves, dried or fresh

8 cloves garlic, peeled

milled black pepper

1 Tbsp (15 ml) salt

Score the skin of the belly, not too deeply, into a narrow diamond pattern using a very sharp knife or the blade of a sturdy craft knife. If you’re not confident about this, ask your butcher to do it. A few hours before you cook the belly, put the olive oil, bay leaves and garlic into a food processor and whizz to a fairly coarse paste (don’t add any salt). Brush the mixture all over the scored skin, pressing it well into the cuts. Grind over plenty of black pepper. Cover with clingfilm and let it stand for 2–3 hours.

Heat the oven to 170 °C. Place the belly, skin side up, directly onto the middle rack of the oven, and put a roasting pan underneath it to collect the fat. Roast for 3 hours with the oven fan off, and without letting the temperature go above 170 °C (or the skin will crackle prematurely).

After 3 hours the belly will be soft, juicy and well cooked. Fifteen minutes before you want to eat, take the joint out of the oven and use kitchen paper to wipe any oily puddles and bay-leaf paste off the top of the skin. Sprinkle the skin liberally with flaky sea salt.

Turn the top grill of the oven to its highest setting and wait until it is glowing red. Adjust the rack on which you cooked the pork so the skin is about 15 cm below the grill. Within a minute or two the skin will begin to spit and sputter as it forms crackling: watch it like a hawk to make sure it is not burning.

If it shows any signs of catching, turn the grill down a little, or move the rack down a notch, but don’t remove the pork from the oven. When the crackling is a deep golden-brown and crunchy all over (this will take 8–10 minutes), take the belly out of the oven, put it on a carving board and take it to the table. Serve with apple sauce, a light potato salad and green salad.

Serves 8.

Recipe courtesy of Random House Struik

Cook’s Notes

Order, well in advance, a large slab of top-quality pork belly from your butcher; supermarket pork bellies are of indifferent quality and always too small. If you’re throwing caution to the winds, put some parboiled potatoes in the dish underneath the belly an hour or so before you serve it, where they will roast to golden and fatty perfection

Note:

'Familie' is an Afrikaans word that means, literally, 'family'. But it also has several other untranslatable layers of meaning, among them clan, tribe, loyalty, friendship, closeness, familiarity, and so on. Someone who is familie need not be a blood relative - this could be an old friend, or a neighbour, or someone who has been kind and generous to you over many years. A mensch, in other words.

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A Scrumptious Pop-Up Dinner with David Walters & Christopher Duigan

It's been an exhilarating and interesting twelve months for me since my first cookbook was published, but none of these thrills and spills can match my excitement about this event.  On Thursday 7 March, I'll be collaborating in a once-off pop-up event in Pietermaritzburg with two inspiring people: my uncle David Walters, pre-eminent master potter, and my friend Christopher Duigan, South Africa's most popular concert pianist.  We're calling this event 'The Table', and we're doing it for the sheer fun of it.  Here are my co-conspirators:

Concert pianist Christopher Duigan (left) and master potter David Walters.

The Table is an idea dreamed up a while ago by Dave and Christopher, and they generously roped me in as the third wheel on their merry tricycle.  The idea is that everyone who has been invited to the jollifications (I was going to call it a soirée, but risk being smacked by Dave and Chris for such pretentiousness) will bring something to the table: Dave will be showcasing his beautiful plates, platters and bespoke dinnerware; Christopher and the acclaimed saxophonist Maxine Matthews will be performing works by composer Richard Guinness; and the food served on the evening will come from my cookbook, Scrumptious.

The event will take place at Christopher's home in Pietermaritzburg, Casa Mexicano, which I am told is  a villa of some splendour.  And it had better be, because I am spending a night there, and I will not be satisfied with anything less than fluffy white gowns, scented bath salts and hopefully a few oiled young men on stand-by should I require anyone to drop frozen grapes into my mouth.

Our VIP guests (including wine-makers, farmers, artisans, artists and some of KZN's top restaurateurs) will also be bringing their special gifts, goods and talents to the table, and I look forward to sharing all these contributions with you on Thursday night as I live-tweet the event (hashtag: #TheTable; follow me on https://twitter.com/Jane_Anne62).

I'd hoped to offer readers of this blog a pair of tickets, but the event was so popular when Christopher announced it that it was sold out before I had a chance to put finger to keyboard.

I will be putting hand to whisk on Thursday afternoon, however, as I prepare the main course for the event: my fillet-steak and hot-potato-nugget salad with a Green Goddess dressing.  Here's a picture of this dish (I'll post the recipe next week, when I'm back):

My beef fillet salad with hot potato nuggets and a Green Goddess dressing.
Photograph by Michael Le Grange, courtesy of Random House Struik. 

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

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.

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

Cut the pastry into a fish shape!

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).

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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 Tbsp (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. 

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Easy Duck Rillettes: a real quacker of a recipe

I like duck very much, but I don't buy or cook it often because it's shriekingly expensive, and also because (look, I know this is heresy, coming from a cook) I have a soft spot for ducks. But there's no denying that duck has a deep savouriness that just cannot be found in a supermarket chicken or turkey. And sometimes my craving for that wonderful unctuous duckiness overcomes any sentimental feelings I may have about little fluffy yellow ducklings.

Succulent Duck Rillettes with my sister's Beetroot & Cranberry Preserve.
Plate by David Walters, my uncle, who made us each a name-stamped
side plate as a Christmas present. 

One of the best ways to appreciate the special deliciousness of duck is try confit duck leg. I always order this when I see it on restaurant menus, even though I know that this sublime dish - slow-seethed in its own fat until it melts into heart-stopping tenderness - will most likely shorten my life by several years.

Just before Christmas, I was pleased to find a fine locally produced duck (from Joostenbergvlakte) at a Chinese supermarket in Ottery for a paltry R80 (my local Spar sells them for around R125), so I seized it and took it home to cook.

A duck, even a good-sized one, doesn't have enough meat on it to give more than three or four people a square meal, so I decided to try to take off the legs (and the breasts, for good measure) and confit them, something I've never tried before. I scoured my cookbooks for an easy home recipe, and finally, after much page-flipping and head-scratching, followed the instructions given by Rick Stein in his recipe for Duck Confit with Braised Red Cabbage (from Rick Stein's French Odyssey; BBC Books, 2006)

The duck legs and breasts, post-confit, turned out beautifully, but were so modestly sized (puny, to be exact) that I decided to strip the flesh from the bones and turn them into rillettes.

'Rillettes' is a French word describing any fatty meat (usually pork and duck) that is slow-cooked to a tender shreddiness and packed, with a few judicious flavourings such as mace, pepper and thyme, into small dishes.  This may sound very Frenchified, but the method of packing meat into dishes is a very old English tradition: read more about this in my post about Potted Pork Belly with Mace and Pepper.

Now, you may be shaking your head and thinking: 'Duck confit? Not for me.'  Well, I concede that confit duck rillettes sounds like the sort of dish that only the ponciest and cheffiest chef would make, but I an assure you that this dish is not poncy at all. It may appear to be expensive too, considering that you don't get much more than two ramekins-full of rillettes from a whole duck, but - if you follow my instructions - you will end up with two fantastic by-products: a  delicious rich duck stock that you can freeze for future use in sauces and stews, and  lots of duck fat, which you can use to make excellent roast potatoes.

Most recipes for confit duck ask you for additional duck or goose fat, but as these aren't readily available in Cape Town, I've tailored this recipe to use the fat that comes out of your duck.

These duck rillettes are best served slightly cold (and by that, I mean that you take them out of the fridge half an hour before you serve them) with hot, crisp triangles of toast. A sharp, fruity preserve perfectly offsets the fattiness of the duck: I served these on Christmas Eve with a bottle of my sister Sophie's Beetroot and Cranberry Preserve (a Nigella recipe that she's promised to email me).

Easy Duck Rillettes
1 large duck, with plenty of fat, thawed
1 cup coarse (Kosher) salt
one large onion, quartered, skin and all
1 stick celery
1 large carrot, peeled and roughly sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled
a few large sprigs of fresh thyme
a few peppercorns
a little powdered mace, or finely grated nutmeg
milled black pepper

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Wipe the duck with a damp cloth and remove the giblets, if there are any (set these aside in the fridge to use in your stock). Cut the legs and the breasts off the duck as follows: place the duck, breast-side up, on a chopping board. With a very sharp knife, held parallel to the breastbone, slice off the breasts, skin and all, on both sides. Use long, sweeping strokes, and don't worry if you need to hack a little - you'd going to shred them after cooking anyway.  Turn the duck over, pull out the legs, and cut them off at the point where the thigh meets the backbone.  Here are some good instructions, with pictures, for cutting up a duck.

Trim every bit of visible cream-coloured fat off the legs and breasts, leaving the skin (and the fat under it) on, and set the pieces of fat aside. Sprinkle a little of the coarse salt in the bottom of a shallow dish that's just big enough to hold the two breasts and two legs in one tightly packed layer. Place the breasts and legs on the salt layer, skin-side up, and cover with the remaining salt, pressing it lightly into the skin. Put a saucer and a small weight on top and place in the fridge for six hours (but no longer, says Rick Stein, or the duck will be too salty).

In the meantime, roast the duck carcass to render its fat.  Arrange the onion, celery, carrot, one of the cloves of garlic and the sprigs of thyme in a bed on the bottom of a roasting pan. Place the duck carcass on top, and to the pan add the pieces of duck fat you trimmed from the legs and breast. Cover the pan tightly with tin foil and bake at 160ºC for an hour and ten minutes. Now remove the tin foil and roast, uncovered, for another twenty minutes. Remove from the oven. Tilt the pan and, using a deep spoon or soup ladle, scoop the clear fat into a bowl: you should have between one and one-and-a-half cups of fat. Reserve a few tablespoons of the pan juices. (Don't throw out the duck carcass and vegetables: cover them with water, add all the usual stock ingredients, plus the reserved giblets, and simmer for an hour and a half. Strain, then refrigerate or freeze.)

Wipe the salt off the duck legs and breasts and rinse them quickly under cold running water to remove all the salt. Pat them dry and put them back into the dish. Pour the warm duck fat over them, pressing down so that they are completely submerged. Tuck another sprig of thyme, the remaining clove of garlic and the peppercorns inbetween the pieces.

Cover the dish with foil and bake at 160ºC for an hour and a half. Remove from the oven and chill for 24 hours. Remove the duck legs and breasts from their fat. If the fat has started to solidify in the fridge, heat the dish gently in the microwave (or over a low flame) until it is just liquid.  Remove the duck pieces, and strain the fat in to a clean bowl. Keep the fat in a jar, in the fridge, for making roast potatoes.

Tear the skin off the duck pieces and discard. Pull the meat off the bones and place it in a heap on a chopping board. Using a sharp knife, chop it into small pieces (or shred it, if you like). Season with milled black pepper, a little mace or nutmeg and, if you like, some fresh thyme leaves.  How highly, and with what, you flavour your rillettes is up to you: I think a whisper of mace and a bit of pepper is enough. You shouldn't need to add any salt.  Pack the duck into two ramekin dishes, and moisten with a few teaspoons of the pan juices you set aside earlier. Now spoon a little warm duck fat over each dish, so that the duck is just submerged. Press a sprig of thyme onto the top of the dish (I added some pretty fresh-sage flowers), cover with clingfilm and refrigerate.

Makes 2 ramekins; serves 4-6 as a snack.  Print Friendly

My uncle's Smoked Franschhoek Trout with Hot Sesame Oil

I enjoyed many scrumptious feasts over the festive season, but none so splendid as this dish of smoked trout with hot sesame oil. It's not often you taste something so delicious that you feel giddy after the first bite, but here's a dish that made my mouth (and my knees) water. If you like sushi, you'll luurrve this.

My uncle David Walters insisted, on Christmas Eve, that I nip into his kitchen and watch him making what has become his signature dish, and I'm glad I did, because this is a real smasher of a recipe. I begged him to let me share it with you, and he kindly obliged.

Actually, it's such a simple idea that it can hardly be called a recipe. David, who is a master potter, and whose beautiful dinnerware I often feature on this blog, says he got the idea of pouring very hot sesame oil over smoked trout from his friend, chef Reuben Riffel, whose award-winning restaurant is a stone's throw from Dave's house and gallery in Franschhoek. The picture on the left shows Reuben with some of David's bespoke dinnerware.

(Note: Reuben's original recipe for Sesame and Olive Oil Seared Salmon appears in his book Reuben Cooks; Quivertree Press, 2008.)

David borrowed Reuben's idea and added his own clever embellishments, which you'll find listed below.

For this dish, David uses superb locally smoked trout - sometimes called 'salmon trout', and with the texture of excellent smoked salmon - but you could easily use any similar good quality smoked salmon.

This recipe contains a large amount of red and black 'caviar', or lumpfish roe. Please don't be put off by either the ingredient or the quantity you see in the picture. Two members of my family who've never tried roe - and who swore they never would -  ate it with relish, and enjoyed the lovely popping of the little fish eggs so much that they're already demanding more. (You can, of course, leave it out if you face a family mutiny. But please trust me on this!)

I can't give you exact quantities, as I haven't made the dish myself, but here's how David did it.

Cut some good smoked salmon or trout (David used about 500 grams) into strips. David offers some specific instructions: 'You must use lightly smoked Three Streams trout from Franschhoek. Choose thick-cut pieces, without any white fatty streaks. Cut the trout at an angle, so you get long, wide ribbons. Arrange them on a platter made by David Walters. This is not optional!'

If you don't have a plate by David Walters, use a large, flat dish.

Now make your miso mix. Mix a little miso paste or concentrate (available at Oriental shops and at good delicatessans) in about 80 ml water. Consult the package for dilution instructions, or simply mix it to taste. If you can't find miso paste, leave it out.

Fill a metal soup ladle to about three quarters with sesame oil. Place the ladle directly over a gas flame, and heat until the oil is very, very hot, but not yet smoking furiously. (In other words, the oil will be shimmering and swirling, and just about to send up a wisp of smoke.)

If you don't have a gas hob, heat the oil in a small saucepan.

Trickle the hot oil all over the salmon; it will sizzle as it hits the surface of the fish, ever so slightly searing its surface.

Now, artistically please, add the following toppings to the salmon:

• Miso diluted with a little water (see above)
• A few tablespoons of Kikkoman soy sauce
• Some very finely grated fresh ginger (about 4 tsp/20 ml, I would guess)
• A little finely grated fresh garlic (two or three small cloves)
• A little showering of black sesame seeds (use toasted white ones if you can't find black)
• A handful of caperberries, or good capers
• Large dollops of red lumpfish roe
• Large dollops of black lumpfish roe
• A good squeeze of fresh lime or lemon juice
• Salt and freshly milled black pepper, to taste (but go easy on the salt, as there's plenty of it in the miso and the soy sauce)

If you have some home-made mayonnaise (and I hope you do!), put little dabs of it all the way round the edge of the platter. David's home-made mayonnaise is flavoured with paprika.

Serve immediately, or allow to stand for up to an hour, at room temperature. This is lovely with a little side dish of pickled ginger and wasabi paste.  

Serves 6 as a generous starter; 8 as part of a buffet

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Delicate Double-Salmon Fish Cakes

I was going to describe these fish cakes as 'dainty', but it's a word I don't much like, so I've settled for 'delicate'.  The word 'double' in the title of this recipe refers to the fact that these cakes contain fresh salmon and smoked salmon (actually, smoked salmon-trout, but more about that later).

Bowl by David Walters

This recipe is my attempt to reproduce some little fish cakes - not only dainty and delicate, but also quite divine  - that I tasted recently at The Common Room, a newish restaurant in Franschhoek operated by Susan Huxter of Franschhoek's esteemed Le Quartier Francais group, with a menu designed by the talented Margot Janse.

I've seen this restaurant described in reviews as a 'tapas' restaurant, but this term really doesn't do justice to the swooningly delicious dishes on The Common Room's ever-changing menu. Okay, the menu format is similar to that of a tapas bar ( in that the portions are snack-sized appetizers) but the quality of the ingredients, the refined presentation and the deliciousness of the food are several stratospheres above what you might expect in the average tapas bar.

Delicate Double-Salmon Fish Cakes

My mother, who took me out for this meal, warned me that the food was good, but I didn't expect my socks to be thoroughly knocked off (and I'm still hunting for them in the vicinity of the Great Grey-Green Greasy Limpopo, so far were they blasted). Every dish was a little gem; every mouthful a sensation.  As a person who is sent into agonies of indecision when choosing from a menu (I always choose something that isn't as nice as everyone else's, and have severe attacks of menu envy) I loved the fact that I could order a whole range of dishes and taste a bit of everything.

My mum and I shared six dishes, which filled us to the brim. I won't describe them to you - this isn't a restaurant blog - but if you ever go to The Common Room, please try the confit duck (served in a small jar, with apricot mebos 'marmalade').

The food is pleasingly affordable, with the average price of each dish hovering between R20 and R35.

But back to the fish cakes. What I loved about The Common Room's cakes is that they tasted of pure salmon. Not dill, not parsley, not chives, not onion, not potato, nor any of the delicious ingredients you'd commonly expect to find in a good fishcake. I asked the waiter what was in them, and he came back to report that they contained onion, potato, fresh salmon and smoked salmon. I think - although I can't be sure - that the 'smoked salmon' used in the cakes was a superlative locally produced smoked salmon trout from Three Streams Smokehouse.

These fish cakes were served with a 'deconstructed' tartar sauce - all the usual ingredients, but left in bigger pieces and attractively strewn on the plate, with dabs of olive oil and mayo - but I think they're good enough  on their own, perhaps with with a squeeze of lemon juice. And were mine as good as the originals? Of course not. But close.

Delicate Double-Salmon Fish Cakes

300 g fillet of fresh salmon, skinned and boned
½ cup (125 ml) white wine
two small sprigs of thyme
a bay leaf
a thumb-length strip of lemon peel
flaky sea salt
milled black pepper
water to cover
200 g smoked salmon or salmon trout
1 cup (250 ml) very finely chopped fresh leeks, white parts only (about three medium leeks)
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated fresh lemon zest
one large free-range egg, lightly beaten
flaky sea salt and milled black pepper
sunflower oil for frying

For the mashed potatoes:
3 large potatoes (enough to make a cup and a half of mash)
salt
2 Tbsp (30 ml) butter
a little hot milk

To coat:
½ cup (125 ml) flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (250 ml) fresh breadcrumbs

First make the mashed potatoes. Halve the potatoes and put them in a pot of cold water, with a big pinch of salt. Turn on the heat, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes, or until they are quite tender. Drain in a colander until cool enough to handle. Slip the peels off the potatoes and place them back in the pan. Add the butter and hot milk and mash until smooth and fluffy. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and set aside.

Put the salmon in a pan just wide enough to contain the whole piece. Add the white wine, one thyme sprig, the bay leaf, lemon peel and a generous pinch of sea salt. Now add just enough water to cover the salmon. Set the timer on your stove to 9 minutes, turn the heat on under the pan and bring gently up to just below boiling point. Now cover the pot and simmer for 9 minutes.  Remove the lid and, using the tip of a knife, poke a small hole through the salmon. If it's still raw on the inside, poach it for another few minutes, or until it is just done.   (How long this takes will depend on the thickness of your salmon piece; the important thing is that you don't allow the water to boil.)

Form the fish mixture into little cakes.

While the salmon is poaching, cut the smoked salmon crossways into shreds about 3 mm wide, and set aside. Remove the fish from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool slightly. Discard the cooking liquor (or save for a fish stock).

Rinse and dry the pan in which you cooked the salmon. Turn on the heat and add the butter. When the butter has stopped foaming, tip in the chopped leeks and the remaining thyme sprig. Turn the heat right down to its lowest setting and cover the leeks with a circle of greaseproof paper (or cover with the lid of the pot). Gently stew the leeks and butter, without allowing the leeks to brown, for about 10 minutes, or until the leeks are soft. Discard the thyme sprig.

Pull the cooked salmon into flakes the size of your thumbnail and place in a large mixing bowl. Measure out a cup and a half of mashed potato, and add this to the mixing bowl, along with the smoked salmon shreds, the leek/butter mixture, the lemon zest and the beaten egg. Stir thoroughly to combine. Season the mixture with more salt and pepper, if necessary. Place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour, so it can firm up.

Now prepare the coating. Place the flour on one large plate, the beaten eggs on another, and the breadcrumbs on the third plate. Remove the fish mixture from the fridge. Pinch off pieces of the mixture (each about the size of a large litchi) and roll them between your palms to create little balls. Flatten each ball into a disk about 10 mm thick. Coat each disk in the flour and shake to remove the excess. Dip the disks in egg yolk, then in the bread crumbs, patting down gently so that the breadcrumbs stick. Arrange the fish cakes on a large platter or tray.

At this point, you can put the fishcakes aside, or refrigerate them for up to 8 hours. (If you are going to put them in the fridge, keep them uncovered, as this will allow the crumbs to dry out).

To cook the fish cakes, pour enough sunflower oil into a large non-stick frying pan to coat it to a depth of 1 mm. Heat the oil over a medium flame. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add the fishcakes and fry them on both sides until golden brown and crispy. These cakes brown very quickly, so don't allow the oil to overheat: if the oil is too hot, you'll end up with a dark-brown crumb coating and a cold centre.

Drain the fishcakes on a paper towel. Serve immediatley, with lemon wedges and salt.


Serves 4-6 as a snack

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Pretty Little Individual Tuna Salads for Children

I'm trying to convince my daughter that a fresh, crunchy salad can be a meal on its own, and that crisp things are exceedingly delicious and well worth eating. It's not that Elinor is averse to salady stuff: like many kids, she happily eats lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks. But she pales at the sight of a huge platter of salad, and grudgingly eats just a little. Perhaps the problem is that an overflowing bowl of salad is just too intimidating for a 10-year-old child.

Plate by David Walters

Recently, having lunch at Café Bon Bon in Franschhoek, I was served a little leafy salad encircled by a cucumber slice, and it looked so pretty that I thought I'd use the same trick with a protein-packed tuna salad. (Look, I normally wouldn't be seen dead stacking food in a tower, but I reckon this presentation might just get Ellie to chow down.)  We'll see when she gets home from school.

You will need one of those cheffy food rings to form this salad: if you don't have one (and why should you, indeed?) take the bottom off the tuna tin you've just opened, and use that as a ring.

Pretty Little Individual Tuna Salads for Children

For four salads: 
2 large free-range eggs
1 English cucumber
iceberg or any other crispy lettuce, torn into small pieces
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
a can of tuna, drained of its oil
8 calamata olives, stoned and halved
75 g feta cheese
chives, finely snipped

For the dressing:
4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) honey

First make the dressing: whisk all the ingredients together and set aside. Slide the eggs into gently boiling water and cook for 9 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and set it under a trickling cold tap for 3 minutes. Rinse the cucumber and cut a 5mm horizontal slice off the long side to expose the flesh. Using a mandolin or sharp knife, cut the cucumber into horizontal slices, each about 1-2 mm thick. Place a metal ring (or similar) on a small plate and firmly press the cucumber slice around the inside to form a circle (you may need to use two overlapping slices, depending on the length of your cucumber). Cut any left-over slices into matchstick-sized pieces. Fill the cucumber ring with a mixture of lettuce, cucumber sticks, tomatoes, tuna, olives and feta. Now gently slide the food ring up and off. Repeat with the other three salads. Peel and quarter the eggs. Top the salads with the warm egg quarters and a scattering of snipped chives. Trickle the dressing over the top of each salad. Serve immediately.

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David Walters, master potter of Franschhoek

I consider myself lucky to be the niece of one of South Africa's preeminent master potters, David Walters. Not only is he a good uncle (and good uncles, like Proper Aunts, are important) but he is also a designer-craftsman of astonishing skill.

In his studio in Franschhoek, Dave produces wheel-thrown porcelain, specialising in smoke-fired ceramics and fine dinnerware.

In recent years, he's become all the rage among local restaurateurs who've commissioned him to make bespoke pieces - designed in consultation with the chefs - to showcase the fine cuisine for which Franschhoek has become so famous.  Among the award-winning restaurants David's designed dinnerware for are Reuben's, Rust en Vrede and Le Quartier Français.

David Walters

Dave invited me to a raku workshop the Sunday before last, and while we were waiting for the kiln to heat, he demonstrated his throwing techniques.

I've watched him do this dozens of times over the years, but once again was entranced watching a lump of characterless porcelain clay beneath the hands of a master craftsman: rippling and swelling like a living substance and then transmuting, in a matter of minutes, into a practical, long-lasting work of art.

Here's a video I took of Dave throwing a beautiful salad bowl > http://youtu.be/3s-7KRgpYVo 

As David pointed out in his speech, the act of making a clay vessel is one of the oldest human technologies, and I was fascinated to think that his extraordinary skills were built upon techniques stretching back in an unbroken line through the millennia.

On the same day, David presented me with the salad platter I commissioned last year (see below). Isn't it beautiful? I had asked him to put the words 'Eat up your greens' on the perimeter of the platter, but he went further and added this delicate leaf detailing, which is achieved by painting on the surface of the clay with wax, and then, when the wax has dried, rubbing away at the unmasked areas.

At the same time, I raided his shelves and borrowed a pile of plates and bowls which I'll be using in the future for the photographs on this blog.

This beautiful salad platter by David Walters.  The salad consists of sliced roasted fillet,
boiled baby potatoes, lettuce and feta, with a light lemon-garlic vinaigrette.

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Beautiful, hand-made porcelain dinnerware

Take a look at this beautiful bespoke dinnerware by master potter David Walters, who has just completed an order for my favourite restaurant, Reuben's, of Franschhoek.

David's reduction-fired porcelain platters, plates and bowls are all the rage among restaurateurs in the Cape, and I'm not surprised, because they're beautiful, elegant and simple. And practical too: dishwasher- and microwave-proof, and as tough as nails.



Dave makes monogrammed sets for individual clients, and will also design your own personal stamp.

David is my uncle (yes, I know I've already featured my aunt Gilly Walters on this site - Gilly is David's sister-in-law - but can I help it if I have so many talented relatives? Am I bovvered?)


I have two beautiful beautiful smoke-fired David Walters platters in my kitchen (see one below) that I use as fruit bowls, and I love them. Next time you're in Franschhoek, pop into Dave's gallery, Roubaix House, to take a look.




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