A discovery: how to cook beef topside & fillet in a wonderful Wonderbag

It's taken several months of experimentation to write this blogpost, because I wanted to test the method over and again so it works perfectly for you every time. In a nutshell: you can use the Wonderbag, a brilliant energy-saving South African innovation, to produce tender beef topside (and fillet) that's uniformly pink within, dark and caramelised on the outside, and filled with flavoursome juiciness.

 How to cook perfect rare & juicy beef topside in a Wonderbag. The 18th-century
silver mustard pot in this pic was a gift from my husband on our 25th anniversary.

Wine recommendation from Michael Oliver. He says: "Zonnebloem Cabernet 2012."
Go to the end of the page for more detail about this wine pairing.

There are several photographs in this blogpost showing my various recipe trials. I hope this post will encourage you to buy or donate a Wonderbag (which you can do here, or at YuppieChef. If you're not in South Africa, click here).  

My hard-working Wonderbag.

If you're a chef in a busy restaurant kitchen, I'd like to suggest that you supplant some of your sous-vide baths with a few of these versatile gadgets.

Let me go back a little. I've owned a Wonderbag since 2009.  It's a bit raggy and saggy and stained after so many years at the coalface, but I still use it several times a week for making slow-cooked family dishes and my foolproof Greek yoghurt. 

It's also brilliant for holding delicate sauces - such as hollandaise and béarnaise - at a constant gentle temperature for many hours.

I take it along to the supermarket when I'm buying ice cream on hot days, and to the local pizza place when I'm collecting take-outs.

My interest in the Wonderbag was rekindled  a few months ago when I met the ebullient Italian chef Luigi Carola, Global Lead Innovation Chef for Unilever, and best known in South Africa as a star of Knorr's cooking adverts*.

Edge-to-edge pinkness, a lovely caramelised crust, and very tender meat

I don't know how Luigi and I got on to the subject of the Wonderbag, but once we did, over a few glasses of wine, there was much high-fiving.  He told me he'd been experimenting with cooking a variety of dishes in his Wonderbag, and that he was so enthused by this cooking method that he'd written a cookbook on the subject.

What interested me most was his claim that the best fillet steak he'd ever eaten came out of a Wonderbag. Also, said Luigi, many other slow-cooked dishes can be incubated with great success using this method. He told me about Italian relatives who create gorgeous stews, pack them in a Wonderbag, then drive for many hours across Europe to deliver piping-hot meals to homesick children in other countries.

Here's how a Wonderbag works: it has extraordinary insulating properties that prevent heat from escaping from a very hot pot. If you closely follow the steps I've detailed below, the bag will 'hold' your food at a notch below boiling point for several hours.

After that, the temperature inside the bag (and pot) will drop in grudging increments over many long hours. I can't give you exact temperatures using my cheffy temperature probe, because a big no-no of cooking in a Wonderbag is opening it up, but my experience is that when I open my bag after 3 hours, the lid and handles of the pot are still too hot to touch with bare hands.

I've cut off the top of this piece of beef topside to show you what
you can expect when you when you cook it in a Wonderbag.

This slow, even cooking is what makes this technique so effective.

So I set about experimenting with beef roasts.

I adore topside, because my mum has always had a knack of roasting this temperamental cut to rosy-pink perfection.  Perfect fillet steak was my next challenge.

The biggest benefit of cooking beef this way is that you cannot over-cook it.  I can't emphasise enough this huge advantage of using a Wonderbag - you can leave topside or fillet in the bag for two or three hours, or longer, and when you open it up it will be beautifully warm, brown on the outside, and an edge-to-edge blushing pink on the inside.

It will also be well rested, tender and juicy.

There are two more reasons I love this technique.  One, it's so convenient: pop your roast in the Wonderbag and go forth to enjoy your Sunday morning.  Two, it's a huge energy saver. Sure, you'll use up a bit of power as you do the initial browning of the meat, but after that you can tuck the meat in its bag and let its residual heat do the rest of the work.

A whole fillet steak beautifully tender and rosy after two hours in my Wonderbag. 

How to cook topside & fillet in a Wonderbag - two recipes

1. Topside in a Wonderbag

1 x 1.8 kg mature good-quality topside, at room temperature
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
milled black pepper
a pinch of flaky sea salt
a small sprig of fresh rosemary
1 cup (250 ml) red or white wine
1 cup (250 ml) water or stock
3 cloves garlic, unpeeled and lightly squashed
milled black pepper
a pinch of flaky sea salt

Select a piece of well-matured beef topside. 

Trim any big blobs of fat from your topside. Heat 30 ml oil in a large pot that has a tight-fitting lid, and which will fit neatly into your Wonderbag. Pat the meat dry with kitchen paper and season to taste with salt and pepper. When the oil is very hot - almost on the point of smoking - add the topside and brown it well on all sides, starting with the fattiest side.  This should take about 8 minutes in total.  Turn the topside over with a pair of tongs once each side is beautifully browned and caramelised.

Brown your topside well before you add the liquid. In this experiment
I added finely chopped onions, garlic and crisp bacon bits. Other times,
I've added sliced mushrooms and a pinch of chilli flakes.

Halfway through the browning process, add the rosemary sprig.

Now remove the meat from the pot and set aside on a plate. Drain any excess fat from the pan, then put it back on the heat and deglaze with a cup of wine, scraping and stirring to dislodge any golden residue. Bubble over a furiously high heat for 2 minutes, then add the squashed garlic cloves and water (or stock).

Return the topside to pan, fatty side up, and cover with a tight-fitting lid.  The liquid in the pot should come to about 2 centimetres up the sides of the meat.

Turn down the heat to medium and cook at a fairly brisk bubble for 12 minutes.  If you have a topside smaller than the 1.8kg I've specified in the ingredient list, cook it for 8-10 minutes (you'll have to use your instinct here). Don't take the lid off the pot to check the meat, or the temperature inside will drop.

After 12 minutes, the lid of the pot will be too hot for you to touch with your bare fingers, and you will see little puffs of steam escaping around the rim.

Without opening the pot, place it in the Wonderbag, cover quickly with the cushion, then tightly draw up the strings.  Set aside, undisturbed, for at least 3 hours, or until you're ready to serve it.

If, when you open the bag, you find the beef is too rare - and I've only had this happen once, when I couldn't contain my excitement - you can reheat the pot over a brisk heat until you once again see billows of steam (see above) then place it back in the Wonderbag for another 30 - 60 minutes.

Take the meat out of its pot and set it on a board to cool for a few minutes. Carve into slices and serve immediately.  Or let it cool, then refrigerate and carve it the next day.

If you'd like to make a gravy, strain the pan juices through a fine sieve into a clean saucepan, pressing down with the back of a spoon to extract the the garlic & rosemary flavours.  Boil briskly to reduce to a rich glaze, or thicken with a little flour slaked in water.

2. Fillet Steak in a Wonderbag

1 large whole fillet steak (about 1.5 kg)
a large sprig fresh thyme
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
3/4 cup (180 ml) red or white wine
3/4 cup (180 ml) water or stock
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled and lightly squashed
milled black pepper
a pinch of flaky sea salt

Two hours before cooking, take the fillet out of the fridge so it can come up to room temperature. Using a sharp knife, trim away any visible fat, then cut away the 'silver skin' (membrane) on the outside of the meat.

Double the thin end over and tie it to the main fillet with kitchen string. Don't worry if one end is much thicker than the other (the thick end will cater for those who like their fillet rare, and the thin, doubled-over end will do for those who like brown beef).

Brown the meat all over as described above - this must take no longer than 5 minutes, in a blistering hot pan. If there is no smoke in your kitchen, your pan is not hot enough!

Halfway through the browning process, add the thyme sprig.  Set the fillet aside on a plate and deglaze the pan with the wine, as detailed above.

Now follow the same steps: cook the wine over a high heat for 2 minutes, then add the squashed garlic cloves and water (or stock). Return the fillet to pan and cover with a tight-fitting lid.  The liquid in the pot should come to about 1½ centimetres up the sides of the fillet.

Turn down the heat to medium and cook for 6 minutes. Don't take the lid off the pot to check the meat, or the temperature inside will drop.

After 6 minutes, the lid of the pot will be too hot for you to touch with your bare fingers, and you will see little puffs of steam escaping around the rim.

Without opening the pot, place it in the Wonderbag, cover quickly with the cushion, then tightly draw up the strings.  Set aside, undisturbed, for at least 2 hours, or longer (see my notes above).

Let the fillet cool on a plate, then slice and serve.

Wine pairing by Michael Olivier: 

Zonnebloem Cabernet 2012

It looks like: A brilliant gem-like deep ruby with an enchanting purple garnet at the edges.  This will change to a more brick red as the wine matures.

It smells like: Blackcurrants, hedgerow berries, spice and cedar from the oak and a whiff of dark chocolate.

It tastes like: Classical Cabernet red and black berries and cassis.  Soft tannins. Fabulous long aftertaste. A truly underrated wine.


* Note:  I have a professional association with Knorr South Africa.

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Chicken with Bacon, Leeks and Cider, & how I met Gordon Ramsay, and found him polite

A luxurious dish with a silken sauce.

This is the one of the recipes I demonstrated at the Good Food and Wine Show last week.  I was pleased to receive an invitation to cook at the show, but gnawed my nails to the quick when I learned, rather late in the day, that 24 people from the audience would be cooking along with me in the Woolworths Real Food Theatre.  The dishes I'd chosen to demonstrate were too fiddly for a cook-along, so I abandoned them and instead selected three favourite recipes I knew could easily be done and dusted in 45 minutes.

As the main attraction, I settled on this easy crowd-pleaser, a recipe I developed for my cookbook Scrumptious: Food For Family and Friends. 

Before give you the recipe, I must tell you how star-struck I felt to meet Gordon Ramsay at the show, after watching his hugely entertaining demo, to which I was invited (by his sponsor, Checkers) as part of a media contingent.

I mention this because I complained bitterly on this blog three years ago when the 'VIP' ticket my husband bought me as a birthday present turned out to be a proper turkey.  It wasn't a good experience, and left such a sour taste that for several years I couldn't face going back.

So when I finally met the man, after a short wait in an over-excited book-signing queue, I was determined to get in my ten cents' worth. While he signed my copy of his new book Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course, I told him I was a food blogger, and his famous furrowed brow creased like an accordion. But I followed that up smartly by telling him I'd recently had my first cookbook published, and was thunderstruck when he leaned forward across the counter to grasp my hand in both of his, warmly congratulating me, as if I had recently won a Nobel Prize. Seizing the opportunity, I slapped a dog-eared copy of his autobiography Humble Pie on the counter and asked him if he'd be so kind as to write a message to my sons across the cover.  "Neither of my teenage sons was interested in cooking until they read this," I told him. "But now they are very interested. Can you please write something rude on the cover for them?"

He looked pleased, and asked, "What do you want me to write?"

"You f..king donkeys!" I replied, knowing my sons would be genuinely thrilled to be called such a thing (a famous line from certain Ramsay reality shows).

"I can't write that!" he said, clearly appalled by my suggestion. "Not for teenagers, I can't!"

"Oh, go on," I urged him.  "They will love it!"

With a bashful look - I can't think of any other word to describe his expression -  he scrawled a message across the book cover, but he censored his beloved F-word with an ellipsis.

This impressed me.

Anyway, moving on to my recipe. I love this luxurious coq-au-vin-style dish and make it quite often for friends when I'm looking for a comforting recipe with a complex flavour, but don't have time to fiddle around with a lot of chopping or stock-boiling or slow cooking. You can made this dish in half the time by chucking everything together in a pan and hoping for the best, but I've designed the recipe so that it creates its own deep-flavoured stock and sauce as it cooks, drawing wonderful earthy flavours from the bacon, mushrooms, leeks and chicken.

Any dry cider will do for this recipe, but you will get a superior result from a carefully brewed craft cider. I've used, on various occasions, two excellent South African ciders -  Everson's and Terre Madre - and was interested to note the subtle differences in the final result.

There is not a speck of flour in this recipe, yet the sauce reduces quite quickly to just the right state of silken thickness. You can't achieve this in a small, crowded pot, however, because there isn't enough surface area for the sauce to reduce in a hurry.  Make it in a large, shallow pan, such as an electric frying pan, or a paella pan if you have one.

If you can find fresh tarragon, use it by all means, but I find that good quality dried tarragon is just as pungent.  You can find good-quality freeze-dried tarragon at Woolies and in better supermarkets.

If you don't use alcohol in your cooking, use a not-too-sweet apple juice (such as Appletiser) instead of cider.

Recipe from Scrumptious: Food for Family and Friends (Random House Struik)

Chicken with Bacon, Leeks and Cider

two free-range chickens, or chicken pieces of your choice
3 large leeks
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter
1 Tbsp (15 ml) olive oil
250 g back bacon
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
500 g tiny button mushrooms
3 cups (750 ml) dry cider
2½ tsp dried tarragon
a 10-cm  sprig of fresh thyme
1½ (375 ml) cups cream
salt and pepper
4 Tbsp (60 ml) finely chopped curly parsley

Remove any visible fat from the chickens and cut them into 16 portions (or ask your butcher to do this for you). Cut a lengthways slice halfway through the leeks and rinse, fanning out the leaves, under cold water. Finely slice the leeks (you’ll use the white and pale green parts only). Heat the butter and olive oil in a very large, shallow pan, add the leeks and bacon and fry over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes, without allowing the leeks to brown. Add the garlic and fry gently for another minute. Remove the leeks, bacon and garlic using a slotted spoon and set aside on a plate. Be sure to remove every trace of leek and garlic, as these will blacken during the next step and make the sauce bitter.

Brown the chicken pieces on both sides, over a high heat, and in batches, for 3-4 minutes, or until the skin is crisp and golden (add a little more butter or oil to the pan if necessary). Set aside on a plate. Drain off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat, add the mushrooms and fry over a high heat for 2-3 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden. Pour in the cider and bubble briskly for 3 minutes, stirring and scraping to dislodge the sediment on the bottom of the pan. Return the chicken (skin side up), leeks and bacon to the pan and add the tarragon, thyme sprig and a big pinch of salt. Reduce heat and bubble, uncovered for 25-35 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked right through. Turn the chicken pieces over three or four times while they cook. Remove the thyme sprig, stir in the cream, season to taste with salt and pepper and cook gently for a few more minutes, or until the sauce has slightly reduced and thickened.

Scatter with parsley and serve hot with mashed or crushed potatoes and a green salad or vegetables.

Serves 6-7. 

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Potted Pork Shoulder with Green Peppercorns, from the leftovers of a roast

A generous handful of green peppercorns adds bite.

Every now and then I slow-roast a hefty shoulder of pork, because this is a joint that's still relatively affordable, and because brittle golden crackling is such an old-fashioned treat.  Mostly, though, it's because I crave the toothsome stickiness of tender, fall-apart pork.

There are usually plenty of leftovers the next morning: my kids aren't enthusiastic about pork, although they will politely eat it if there are also roast potatoes and gravy on offer.  I slice up the cold wodges and slap them between slices of fluffy white bread, with plenty of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard and shredded iceberg lettuce, or I heat them up in the microwave with leftover roast potatoes to guzzle on my own when I need to grab a quick lunch.  But my favourite use for the remainders of a pork shoulder is this  indulgent dish of potted, shredded pork with green peppercorns.

The best potted pork, in my opinion, is made with good pork belly - here's my recipe - but this is also a fine way to use up the leftovers of a roast shoulder.  It keeps well in the fridge for up to a week, and is heavenly spread on hot toast or toasted ciabatta slices.

For instructions on how to slow-roast a shoulder of pork and make crackling, please see my Cook's Notes at the end of this blogpost.

It may seem laborious to make a stock for this dish, but I don't find it much of a hassle, as stocks tend to look after themselves once you've flung them together, and this flinging-together really need take no longer than the time it takes for the kettle to boil.

I can't give exact quantities here, because this will depend on how much left-over meat you have.  This is a recipe that involves a lot of tasting, and not much measuring.

Serve the potted pork with hot toast or ciabatta bread, and some capers, caperberries or gherkins.

Potted Pork Shoulder with Green Peppercorns, from the leftovers of a roast

leftover roast pork shoulder, still on the bone (see Cook's Notes, below)
4 Tbsp (60 ml) butter
a large sprig of fresh thyme
a few tablespoons of green peppercorns, drained, and to taste
a pinch or two of freshly grated nutmeg
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

For the stock: 
one large onion, skin on, quartered
2 carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
1 cup (250 ml) dry white wine
2 cups (500 ml) water
2 bay leaves
a big sprig of thyme
10 peppercorns
a few stalks of parsley

Heat the oven to 200 ºC. Strip most of the meat off the joint, leaving behind the fatty bits and any pockets of meat close to the bone. Put the stripped-off bits on a plate, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate.

Place the bones in a roasting pan and add the onion and carrots, along with any left-over crackling.  Roast the bones and vegetables for 20 minutes, or until they have a nice golden colour. Put the roasting pan onto the hob, turn on the heat and add the wine, water, bay leaves, thyme, peppercorns and parsley.  Bring to the boil, stirring well to dislodge any residue on the bottom of the pan. Now tip the contents of the roasting pan into a stock pot, place over a low heat and simmer, uncovered, at a gentle burble, for 2 hours, turning the bone over now and then. Strain the stock into a bowl and discard all the solid bits. Return the strained stock to the rinsed-out pot, cool to room temperature and refrigerate overnight.

Lift off all the solidified fat from the surface of the stock - which with any luck will have jellied by now -  and place the pot back on the hob. Cook over a lively heat, uncovered, until the stock has reduced to about a cup of liquid.  Strain this through a fine sieve and set aside to cool slightly.

Tear the reserved stripped-off meat from the joint into shreds and place it in a bowl.  Strip the leaves off the thyme sprig and add these to the bowl along with the green peppercorns (again, I can't give you quantities here, but be generous, and reserve a few for scattering on top).  Season with nutmeg - just a whisper -  and with salt and plenty of black pepper.  Mix everything together and pack the meat into a pâté or terrine dish, or into several small ramekins.

Press down firmly on the surface of the meat to level the surface, but don't pack it in too tightly, or the stock will not seep between the shreds of pork. Trickle some of the still-warm stock over the meat so that it is well moistened, but not drowned in stock (the liquid should be just level with the surface of the meat).  Refrigerate until the stock has jellied.

To seal the potted meat - which will make it last longer in the fridge - melt the butter in a saucepan and skim all the white foam off the top. Remove from the heat, allow to cool for a few minutes, and then strain through cheesecloth or a fine sieve onto the top of the potted belly. Press a bay leaf or a sprig of thyme on top, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate.

Serve with hot toast.

Cook's Notes

To slow-roast a shoulder of pork: 

1. Ask your butcher for a whole, untrimmed pork shoulder, on the bone. This is important, because butchers sometimes 'neaten' the shoulder and remove some bones, but what you want is the Full Monty. Ask him to score the skin into 1-cm-wide strips, or do this yourself at home using an extremely sharp craft knife.

2. Heat the oven to 130 ºC.  Place a layer of thickly sliced carrots, onions, celery, lightly crushed unpeeled garlic cloves, and herbs of your choice on the bottom of a heavy roasting pan. Perch the pork, skin-side up, on top.  Pour 250 ml wine (or cider, or apple juice) into the roasting pan, cover it with two layers of heavy-duty tin foil, and bake undisturbed for 3-4 hours (depending on the size of the shoulder) or until the meat is so soft and tender can be pulled apart with a fork.  Alternatively, you can set the oven to a very low temperature - 100 ºC - and bake the pork overnight.

3. To make crackling: Take off the tin foil and turn the top grill on to its highest setting. Peel the skin off the shoulder in one piece and place it, fatty side down, on a baking sheet. Sprinkle the skin generously with salt.  When the grill is glowing red, put the baking sheet into the oven, 15-20 cm below the grill.  Leave for 8-10 minutes, or until the crackling is golden, crunchy and blistered.  Watch the crackling like a hawk: it burns in an instant. If it shows any signs of catching or charring, turn the grill down a little, or move the rack down a notch, but don’t remove the skin from the oven.


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Glazed Roast Pork Neck with a Gingery Fresh-Prune Relish

All week long I've been feasting on ripe plums, which are in high season in South Africa. Plums are among my favourite fruits, so I was ridiculously pleased to find a gleaming pile of prune plums in my local supermarket. They reminded me of this pork-neck dish, which I haven't made in a while, and I galloped home with pockets bulging, all eager to sling the roast in the oven and hover excitedly over a saucepan of simmering prunes.  I was dismayed, then infuriated, when I couldn't find my recipe on this blog - it had vanished into the void where lost blogposts go, and I'd long since thrown away my scribbled testing notes.

Luscious, dense-textured prune plums.

To my relief, I eventually found a copy of my recipe at Food24, together with some of the toe-curlingly amateurish photographs I made do with in my earlier days as a food-snapper.

 (I find it funny, in hindsight, that I'd branded one of the images with a copyright symbol and the name of my blog - as if anyone would want to nick a picture of such spectacular fuzziness. I've cropped that out to spare myself any further embarrassment,  and I suggest you do the same if you're in the habit of scrawling your name all over your images. Even top-notch professional photographers who have a great deal to lose if their online works are stolen have stopped doing this and  - let's face it - anyone who knows how to crop an image will hardly be deterred by that distracting little line of text in the bottom right-hand corner of your food snap.)

Anyway, here's the original post and recipe, with the toe-curling pictures. I hope they don't put you off making this unusual dish - it's delicious hot or cold, and makes the very best of that most succulent of cuts, pork neck. I have tweaked this recipe a little, the chief changes being shortening the cooking time of the pork and slightly reducing the oven temperature.

At the end of this post you'll find more of my seasonal plum recipes.

---

Have you ever tasted a fresh prune? That is, a prune plum before it’s dehydrated and turned into a soft and wrinkly ink-black sac? My local veggie shop is full of these little jewels, which are sweet, with a dense yellow flesh and a slight muskiness. I bought a big box of them, hoping they’d be devoured by the kids, but this variety of plum doesn’t have the eating appeal of the peach-sized, ruby-juice-running-down-your-chin, late-season plums on the market now.

At the same time, I was pondering how to cook yet another lovely pork neck. Remembering that prunes and pork are a wonderful combination, I turned the prune plums into a sharp-sweet relish flavoured with preserved stem ginger, and then I slow-roasted the neck in a spicy oriental glaze. A delicious combination, equally good hot or cold.

You can use pork fillet for this recipe, but you will need significantly to reduce the cooking time because pork fillet will dry out if it's cooked for too long. Similarly, ordinary plums will do for this recipe, although they won’t hold their shape the way muscular prune plums do, so you might want to reduce the amount of liquid and, again, shorten the cooking time.

You will need to make the prune relish an hour or so ahead of roasting the pork.

Glazed Roast Pork Neck with a Gingery Fresh-Prune Relish

For the prune-plum relish:
2 cups (500 ml) prune plums, washed
½ cup (125 ml) dark sugar (muscovado or treacle sugar)
½ cup (125 ml) white-wine vinegar
½ cup (125 ml) water
one 2cm x 2cm piece of preserved stem ginger, finely diced or squashed (I pushed it through my garlic crusher!)
1 Tbsp (15 ml) ginger syrup, from the jar of preserved ginger
1 tsp (5 ml) powdered ginger

For the pork and glaze:
1 whole pork neck, trimmed of excess fat
a little olive oil
½ cup (125 ml) of the cooked prune-plum relish and syrup (see above)
4 Tbsp (60 ml) rice wine vinegar (ordinary white-wine vinegar will do)
2 Tbsp (30 ml) honey
1 Tbsp (15 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
½ cup (125 ml) mirin (or you can use sweetish white wine)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
 freshly milled black pepper

First make the relish. Halve the prunes and remove the stones. Set aside. Put the sugar, vinegar, water, stem ginger, ginger syrup and powdered ginger in a saucepan, set over a medium heat and bring gently to the boil, stirring now and then. Tip in the halved, pitted plums  and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes, skimming off any foam as it rises. Watch the pan carefully, because a sugary syrup like this burns quickly. When the juice has reduced to about half a cup of thickish syrup, turn off the heat and set the pan aside to cool.

To roast the pork, heat the oven to 200°C. Put the pork neck  in a small roasting tray, brush with a little olive oil and season well with milled black pepper (but no salt). Roast the pork for 30 minutes at 200° C, or until it is beginning to brown at the edges.

In the meantime, make the glaze. Take a half a cup (125 ml) of the plum relish you’ve just made and place it in a food processor or liquidiser, along with all the remaining glaze ingredients. Whizz to a paste (not too fine: a few little flecks of prune are nice). Add more pepper, if necessary, but don’t add any more salt: the soy sauce is salty enough on its own.

Remove the pork neck from the oven and drain off any excess fat by tilting the roasting dish over the sink. Turn the oven down to 170° C. Pour the glaze over the pork, and cover the dish with foil or a tight-fitting lid. Roast the neck for a further 45 minutes, turning it over once during that time.

Now take the foil or lid off the dish, turn the heat up to 190 °C, and roast for another 35-45 minutes, basting frequently, or until the pork is cooked right through and the glaze is dark and glossy. Remove from the oven and allow to rest, lightly covered with a piece of foil, for 20 minutes.

Cut into thin slices and serve with the prune-plum relish.  This is good hot with a slightly bitter green salad and boiled new potatoes.  If you're serving it cold, take it to the table with the relish and some warm, crusty bread.

 Serves 6-8.



More of my Scrumptious plum recipes:

Cheesecake with a Fresh Plum Topping

Fresh plum jelly with a Lemon Panna Cotta Topping

Fresh-Plum and Almond Cake

Spiced Plums with Tamarind

Christmassy Plum and Tamarind Sauce

Festive Phyllo Crackers with a Spicy Plum and Almond Filling



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Moroccan-Spiced Carrot and Chickpea Salad with Mint & Almonds

I think carrots are both underrated and neglected.  How many classic dishes of world cuisine feature carrots as the starring ingredient? You can count them on one hand: Carrots Vichy, Moroccan carrot salads, spicy Indian carrot pickles, carrot cake and... um... that's four fingers... can someone help me out here?

A flavour-packed vegetarian salad featuring carrots
 in a starring role. 

Truth is, the humble carrot is not a particularly versatile veggie.

Sure, when small and snappy and sweet, it's lovely raw, or lightly cooked in plenty of salty butter. But the minute a carrot reaches the length of a pencil, it tends to be booted like an elderly aunt into stocks, stews and soups, or julienned into coleslaws, or grated and mixed with fresh orange juice and raisins to create the vilest salad known to mankind.

Well, I think we all ought to eat more carrots. They're inexpensive, they're packed with healthy nutrients and fibre, and they have a lovely subtle flavour.

The trick to getting the best out of a carrot is figuring out how to achieve a Goldilocks texture: not too crisp,  not too mushy, but somewhere in between.

Part of the attraction of a good young carrot is its texture (most kids, for example, love slim sticks of raw carrot) but the truth is that you can only eat so many uncooked carrots without feeling as though you're munching  your way through a plateful of twigs.

In the same way, a  bowl of cooked-to-mush carrots can quickly bring on a case of the dry-heaves in children, possibly putting them off this nourishing vegetable for life.

This salad keeps very well in the fridge.

How do you avoid this 'yuck' factor? Here is my solution: cook them to a perfect state of tender-crispness, lightly season them with some North African-inspired spices, and combine them with toasted almonds, chickpeas, parsley, mint, garlic and olive oil.

This salad's dressing may seem pungently flavoured, but when everything has had a chance to mingle over an hour or two, its flavours are quite delicate, and you can still taste earthy carrots below the spices.

This dish improves with keeping, and the carrots will retain their tender-crisp bite for several days in the fridge. It's good on its own, and excellent with hot spicy roast chicken, or shredded chicken from the left-overs of a roast.

Please see my Cook's Notes at the end of the recipe for some variations on this salad.









Moroccan-Spiced Carrot and Chickpea Salad with Mint & Almonds 

For the salad:

1.2 kg carrots (about 14 medium-sized carrots)
salt
1 tin (410 g) chickpeas, well drained
4 Tbsp (60 ml) sultanas
150 g (about two 'wheels') feta cheese
½ cup (125 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley
6 Tbsp (90 ml) finely chopped fresh mint
2 tsp (10 ml) poppy seeds [optional]
6 Tbsp (90 ml) flaked almonds, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan (see Cook's Notes)
extra small fresh mint leaves, for garnish
salt and milled black pepper

For the dressing:

2 tsp (10 ml) finely grated fresh ginger
2 fat cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) good fresh paprika (see Cook's Notes)
½ tsp (2.5 ml) powdered ginger
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cinnamon
the juice of a large juicy orange
the juice of two big lemons
½ cup (125 ml) olive oil
salt and milled black pepper

First make the dressing. Whisk together all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and set to one side.

Top and tail the carrots and lightly peel them using a sharp potato peeler. Slice the carrots into discs about 3 mm thick. The quickest way to do this is to use a food processor fitted with a metal slicing disc, or a stout-bladed mandolin. If you have neither of these, sit down at a table, turn up the music and patiently slice the carrots by hand.

Bring a pot of salted water to a rapid rolling boil.  Drop in the carrot slices, cover the pot and immediately set a timer to 5 minutes.  When the timer goes, fish out a carrot disc and bite into it. It should be just tender, but with some resistance and snap.  If it feels feels hard and crisp between your teeth, give the slices another minute or two.  Drain the carrots in a colander and then put them in a mixing bowl. Immediately pour the prepared dressing over the hot carrots - their residual heat will take the bite out of the raw garlic and ginger.  Mix in the sultanas and chickpeas, cover with clingfilm and set aside at room temperature for an hour or two, or in the fridge if you are planning to serve this the next day.

Just before you serve the salad, stir in the chopped parsley, mint and (optional) poppy seeds. Pile the salad onto a large pretty platter and crumble the feta cheese on top.  Drizzle over a little more olive oil and scatter the flaked toasted almonds on top. Garnish the salad with some small fresh mint leaves, and season to taste with salt and milled black pepper.

Serves 6 as a main course salad; 8-10 as a side salad. 

Cook's Notes

• Chopped fresh coriander is a lovely accompaniment to carrots, but it does have a domineering flavour which stomps all over the delicate spicing of this dish.
• In place of the flaked toasted almonds, you can use toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds. 
• If you have a jar of preserved lemons to hand, add some of them, finely chopped, to the salad for a wonderful salty zing. 

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Announcing my Scrumptious new cook book!

I'm excited and proud to announce that Cape Town publishers Random House Struik will be publishing my first cook book at the beginning of July 2012.

I styled the photographs myself because I wanted
complete creative control over the look of the book.

Although I can't yet tell you what the title of the book is, it has (of course!) the word 'Scrumptious' in it. What I can reveal is that it's a beautiful, full-colour dustjacketed hardback, filled with superlative photographs, and that it contains 90 of my original, triple-tested recipes, most of them entirely new.

I spent the better part of last year toiling night and day to produce a selection of interesting new recipes, and the photographs for the book were shot here, at my home in Hout Bay, over a period of three weeks in November and December 2011.

Although I was given the option by my publishers to shoot the photographs myself, I decided that my food snaps were not of the standard I would like to see in my own cook book, and so Random House Struik commissioned talented Cape Town photographer Michael Le Grange of Flat Art Studios to photograph my food.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the images are breathtaking - and I can't wait to share some of them with you closer to the publication date. I'll also be writing a series of blog posts about the process of writing the book, of developing new recipes, and of shooting and styling the photographs (I did all the food styling myself, because I wanted it to look like my food).  What's more, all the plates, bowls and platters in the photographs were hand-made by my uncle David Walters, master potter of Franschhoek, so this is truly a family affair.

Book designer Bev Dodd and photographer Michael Le Grange
 (endlessly) debating a food shot

A commission from South Africa's leading publisher of top-quality cook books is a dream come true for me. Although this isn't my first published book,  it's the one that I've most wanted to write for almost 40 years, ever since I picked up a knife as a little girl and tearily peeled my first onions.

The tears I shed over those onions were nothing compared to the tears of delight I cried when I signed my book deal last year. Although I've loved writing this blog over the past five years, and learned so much, it has also at times been a frustrating, lonely experience, and one that has consumed many hours of my time.

There were days during the early years when I felt like giving up, not only because my blog wasn't earning me a cent, but also because food blogging has become so unnecessarily competitive and controversial.

Over the past while, however, as my blog has opened a new career for me as a food writer, recipe developer and social media consultant, my enthusiasm has returned, and I've poured all my energy and creativity into writing the very best cook book I can, and one that I hope will be truly useful and inspiring to home cooks.  With Michael le Grange's atmospheric photographs and book designer Bev Dodd's fabulous art direction, I hope I've produced a winner.

Click here to find out where to buy my book > http://whatsforsupper-juno.blogspot.com/p/my-new-cookbook.html

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Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas

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

Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas 

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

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

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

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

Part trifle and part cheesecake, with a nod to a classic Italian zuccotto

Boozy, Fruity Trifle Cake for Christmas

2 Madeira-cake loaves (trifle sponges)
1 cup (250 ml) sweet dessert wine, or similar
3 Tbsp (45 ml) tepid water

4 tsp (20 ml) gelatine powder

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

2/3 cup (160 ml) icing sugar
1 cup (250 ml) fruit mincemeat, from a jar
2/3 cup (160 ml) slivered almonds, lightly toasted
16 Amaretti biscuits, lightly crushed
3 Tbsp (45 ml) brandy or whiskey
1 cup (250 ml0 cream

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

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

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

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

I served this on my Mum's silver tray.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese and icing sugar, until smooth. Stir in the mincemeat, almonds, crushed Amaretti biscuits and brandy (or whiskey). Stir in the melted gelatine.

In a separate bowl, whisk the cream to a soft, thick peak. Gently fold the cream into the cream-cheese filling mixture. Pour the mixture into the cake-lined tin and smooth the top. Dip the remaining slices of Maedira cake in the leftover wine and press them lightly over the top surface of the cake.  Cover the tin with clingfilm and refrigerate.

An hour or two before you're ready to serve the cake, make the icing. Whip the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract to a firm and voluptuous (but not stiff) peak.

Take the cake out of the fridge and gently loosen it from its mould. Invert the cake on a serving platter and gently peel away the baking paper or clingfilm.

Spread the whipped cream evenly in a fairly thin layer all over the cake and decorate with silver balls, or chocolate shavings, or brandied cherries, or other festoonments of your choice.

Serve cold.

Makes one cake; serves 8-10

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Scrumptious Soccer Snacks: Mini Bunny Chow with Butter Chicken

A classic of South African cuisine, the splendidly named bunny chow is a hollowed-out half- or quarter-loaf of white bread, filled to the brim with a hot, spicy curry of mutton, beef, chicken, beans, vegetables, or a combination of the above. Welcome to the second in my series of delicious, easy football snacks with a South African flavour!

Little rolls stuffed with butter chicken.

Durban is the home of bunny chow: a hot 'bunny' is a favourite lunch-time meal for labourers, office workers and surfers, and for late-night revellers.  And tourists too: if you're planning on visiting Durban during the Fifa World Cup, please don't leave without trying this delicious, inexpensive rib-sticker of a meal.  You'll have no problem finding where to buy one: ask any local, and you'll be pointed in the direction of a curry outlet claiming to make 'the best bunny in Durbs'.

There is much debate about the etymology of the name 'bunny chow'; you can learn more about this at Wikipedia, which has an interesting entry on the topic. What is certain is that the dish originated among Indian indentured labours, mostly Hindus, who came to South Africa in the 19th century to work on the sugar-cane fields.

An authentic bunny chow must use a white Government loaf (that is, an inexpensive, fluffy square loaf), and should be filled to the brim with a Durban-style curry which - whether meaty or vegetarian - is generally highly spiced and very hot.

In this recipe, I've taken the idea of a bunny chow and adapted it (or, okay, corrupted it) to create a light, bite-sized snack that I think will blow your socks off.  I've used one of my all-time favourite curries, based on the classic butter chicken formula.  There are many variations of butter chicken (in a nutshell, tandoori chicken tossed in a rich tomato-based sauce, enriched at the last minute with butter), but this formula is one that I've settled on after many attempts at coming up with the perfect taste and texture.

 This recipe is delicately spiced, which is the way I like it, but you are free to add more heat to it - some fresh chopped green chilli, perhaps, or red chilli flakes -  if you prefer a tongue-blisterer of a curry.

I've miniaturized this recipe to make the bunnies easy to pop into your mouth, but there is no reason you should not use normal sized breadrolls or, indeed, cut a loaf of white bread in half and fill it to the brim with the mixture.

 This is a complicated and long recipe, I admit.  The chicken is marinated twice, and the same spices are added at different times. But follow the recipe to the letter, and I promise you won't be disappointed by the succulence and subtle spicing of this lovely dish.

You can make the chicken and its sauce in advance (see recipe) but the cold butter must be added to the hot gravy at the very last moment, and cooked for no longer than three minutes, or it will separate into a greasy muddle.

All the spices in this recipe can be bought from an Indian spice shop. Butter chicken is usually made with powdered dried fenugreek leaves (methi), but as these aren't that easy to find, I've used whole fenugreek seeds in this recipe.  If you can lay your hands on ground methi, used 2 tsp (10 ml) in place of the teaspoon of seeds.

For this recipe in Afrikaans, see: Maklik en eg Suid-Afrikaanse 'bunny chow'

Mini Bunny Chow with Butter Chicken

8 deboned, skinned chicken breasts

Marinade 1:
2 fat cloves garlic, peeled
2 T (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
the juice of a large lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) chilli powder
½ tsp (2.5 ml) salt

Marinade 2:
1 cup (250 ml) thick white yoghurt
1 tsp (5 ml) powdered cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) garam masala
½ tsp (2.5 ml) powdered coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) cinnamon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) turmeric
½ tsp (2.5 ml) salt
1 T (30 ml) vegetable oil

Sauce:
750 g ripe, juicy tomatoes
1 tsp (5 ml) fenugreek seeds
2 T (30 ml) vegetable oil
2 T (30 ml) tomato paste
1 tsp (5 ml) ground cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) chilli powder
1 tsp (5 ml) garam masala
½ tsp (2.5 ml) turmeric
1 cup (250 ml) cream
50 g cold butter
salt and milled black pepper

To serve:
30 cocktail rolls
melted butter
sprigs of fresh coriander [cilantro]

Cut three or four deep slashes into the chicken breasts and place in a bowl. Crush the garlic and add it to the bowl along with the ginger, lemon juice and chilli powder. Using your hands, rub the marinade into the chicken, pressing it well into the slashes. Set aside for 20 minutes.

 In a separate bowl, combine all the ingredients for the second marinade. Pour this mixture over the chicken breasts, mix well, cover and place in the fridge for one to two hours. Don't allow it to marinate for more than 3 hours, which will make the chicken mushy.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Remove the breasts from their marinade and, without wiping off the marinade, place in a flat ceramic dish. Discard any marinade left in the bowl. Bake at 200°C for seven minutes, then turn down the heat to 170°C and bake for a further 10-12 minutes, or until there is no trace of pinkness when you cut into the flesh of the chicken. Set aside.

In the meantime, make the gravy. Cut the tomatoes in half and grate by pressing the cut side of the tomato against the coarse teeth of a grater and vigorously grating until the skin flattens out under your palm. Discard the skin. (Alternatively, you can dip the tomatoes in boiling water for a few moments, peel of the skin, and then chop them finely). Coarsely crush the fenugreek seeds using a mortar and pestle. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the tomato pulp, tomato paste, crushed fenugreek seeds, cumin, garam masala, turmeric and salt. Cook over a brisk heat for about seven minutes, or until the pulp has thickened slightly (when you pull a wooden spoon through the pulp, it should leave a gap that closes reluctantly). Stir in the cream, reduce the heat, and simmer for another five minutes. (At this point, the sauce can be set aside for reheating later).

Heat the oven to 200°C. Cut the tops off the rolls and hollow out the insides, leaving a 5mm 'wall'. Brush the cut edges, lids and sides of the rolls with a little melted butter. Place the rolls and their lids on a baking sheet and bake for a few minutes - watch them like a hawk - or until the edges are golden and beginning to crisp. Keep warm.

Cut or pull the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and add to the tomato sauce. Stir well to combine. Heat, over a medium flame, and allow to bubble gently so the chicken is heated right through. Cut the cold butter into little pieces, add it to the sauce and cook, for no more than three minutes, stirring gently. Add the pepper, and more salt, if necessary.

Pile the butter chicken into the warm rolls, top each one with its lid, garnish with a sprig of fresh coriander and serve immediately.

Makes about 30, depending on the size of your cocktail rolls, or 8-10 servings if served in normal bread rolls.

Like this soccer snack? Try my Mini Pita Breads with Spicy Meatballs and Hoummous. Coming soon: mini South African Lamb Sosaties, marinated in a spicy sauce and cooked with apricots and lemon leaves. Print Friendly

Mini Pita Breads with Spicy Meatballs and Hummous

With the kick-off to the 2010 World Cup less than 39 days away, my home town Cape Town is all abuzz, and South Africa is polishing her biggie boots and laying out the welcome mat for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who'll soon be winging our way. 

Mini Pita Breads with Spicy Meatballs and Hummous

My thoughts have naturally turned to soccer food, and so for the next couple of weeks I'll be focusing on fan fodder: delicious snacks with a South African flavour, ideal for stadium food, or for serving to your mates as you gather round the TV set to enjoy the greatest show on earth. ('What do you mean by soccer food?' snorted my husband when I told him about this project. 'The only soccer food you need is beer.' )

South African cuisine is often dubbed 'rainbow food' because of its myriad cultural influences, but I imagine it as a many-textured crazy-patchwork quilt, stitched together with shining thread that is anchored in the soil and unfurls northwards through Africa to Europe, and west to the Middle East and Asia.

There's no space here to give justice to the diversity of dishes you'll find in South Africa: if you're interested, take a look at Wikipedia's entry on the subject, which is a reasonable (though disappointingly incomplete) summing-up of what we 'Saffers' eat, and why.  Suffice to say that you will find delicious indigenous food in South African villages, towns and cities, and that the culinary heritage of various immigrant communities - from Greece to Ghana, from Mozambique to Malaysia, Nigeria to the Netherlands, India to Israel to Italy - bubbles with great vigour in kitchens all over our country.

So, where to start?

Among South Africa's most beloved snack foods are meatballs, also known as frikkadels or - enchantingly -   'frikkies'. These spicy nuggets are quintessential padkos (this means, literally, 'road food', but is so much more than that) and no car, bus, train or taxi journey is the same without them. The best ones are home-made, always to grandma's secret recipe, and are eaten cold out of a lidded plastic container (known, in Afrikaans, as a blikkie), or from a crumpled nest of tin foil. Finding a decent frikkadel in a shop is not easy: I'd rather chew a gallstone than one of the gnarled, over-peppered bullets produced, for example, by our swankiest food retailer, Woolworths.

Frikkies are easy and inexpensive to make, and are great for feeding a crowd. Here, I've made marble-sized frikkadels, and stuffed them into toasted mini-pita breads with lashings of hummous and some fresh coriander. If you like, you can add a lick of garlicky tzatziki to the inside of each pita bread. If you can't find mini pita breads, cut big ones in half.  And if almost-raw onion isn't your thing, you can fry the onion in a little olive oil before you add it to the mixture, but I just love the crunchy onioniness of these frikkies. My instructions presume that you have such a food processor, or a similar appliance: if you don't, you'll need to chop everything finely by hand (or grate the ingredients).

The dusting of chickpea (channa) flour and turmeric gives the meatballs a lovely golden crust, but you can use ordinary flour instead. The yoghurt helps prevent the meatballs from toughening as they cook.

Mini Pita-Breads with Spicy Meatballs and Hummous

For the meatballs:
3 slices fresh bread, white or brown
a large handful of fresh coriander leaves (125 ml, loosely packed)
1 small onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
2 large free-range eggs
4 Tbsp (60 ml) thick natural yoghurt
750 g minced beef (or half-and-half beef and pork)
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) ground coriander
a finely minced green chilli (optional, and to taste)
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) salt
milled black pepper
½ cup (125 ml) chickpea [channa] flour (ordinary flour will do)
1 tsp (5 ml) turmeric
3 Tbsp (45 ml) vegetable oil

To serve:
pita breads (40 mini ones, or 10 big ones)
a tub (about 250 ml) hummous
sprigs of fresh coriander
1 tsp (5 ml) paprika
lemon wedges

Tear up the bread, place the pieces in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and whizz to a fine crumb. Add the fresh coriander and press the pulse button a few times, until the coriander is finely chopped. Tip the mixture into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Now put the chopped onion, garlic, eggs and yoghurt in the food processor and blitz until you have a gritty slush. Tip this mixture into the bowl containing the breadcrumbs and add the minced beef, cumin, coriander, chilli, salt and several generous grinds of the peppermill. Using your hands, squish and squeeze all the ingredients until well combined. Now test the seasoning: take small piece of the mixture, flatten it to a disc and fry it quickly in a lick of oil. Add more salt or spices, if necessary. Once you're satisfied with the taste of your mixture, pinch off pieces the size of a large marble and roll them into balls. Place on plate, cover with clingfilm and put them in the fridge for 30 minutes so they can firm up.

Heat the oven to 100°C. Put the chickpea flour on a plate, season with a little salt and pepper and stir in the turmeric. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high flame. Dust the meatballs, eight or ten at a time, with the seasoned chickpea flour. Fry the meatballs in batches in the hot oil, turning them often, until they are golden brown and crusty on the outside and cooked through inside. Place the cooked meatballs in the warm oven while you fry the rest.

When you've cooked all the meatballs, heat the pita breads on a baking sheet in the oven. Using a pair of scissors or a sharp knife, cut a 5 mm slice off the top edge of each pita bread. Use a knife blade to open a pocket in the bread (this has to be done while they are piping hot: if you allow them to cool off, they will tear). Add a generous dollop of hummous to each pita, then fill the pocket with a hot meatball. Tuck in a sprig of fresh coriander. Pile into a bowl and serve immediately, with lemon wedges.

Serves 10 as a snack. Makes about 40 marble-sized meatballs. Print Friendly

Spiced Plums with Tamarind

The first plums of the season are rolling into Johannesburg's fruit-and-veg shops now and, by Jupiter, I love a ripe plum. I grew up on a smallholding which had a little orchard, and spent many happy hours in the branches of the plum trees, squishing the fruit into my mouth and and inhaling the heavenly scent of hot, dark plums as they plopped into the long grass.

I love plums gently stewed in spicy sugar syrup, too, but only if they are tart enough to wrinkle your eyelids at first bite.

 The early plums I bought today were very sweet, and I didn't have any lemons, so instead I used tamarind to add tartness... and, oh, boy. I can't wait until winter comes and I can crack open these jars.

You can eat these plums as is, or bottle them and stash them; see instructions in my Cook's Notes, below.

Tamarind paste is available at spice shops and in good delis.  If you can't find it, use the same amount of lemon juice to make the plums pleasantly tart.

Spiced Plums with Tamarind

1.5 kg firm, ripe red plums, washed
3 T (45 ml) bottled tamarind paste
a little brandy; optional (if you're bottling the plums)

For the sugar syrup:
3 cups (750 ml) water
2 cups (500 ml) sugar
2 star anise
1 large stick cinnamon
3 peppercorns
5 cloves
1 twist of lemon peel, all white pith removed
a 2-cm-long, thumb-thick knob of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into slim disks

To make the sugar syrup: put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring now and then to dissolve the sugar crystals. Boil for five minutes, then turn down the heat and allow to bubble very gently for ten more minutes until the mixture is clear and starting to get a little syrupy. You can also make this syrup in a microwave; remember to give it a stir every few minutes.

Add the whole, unpeeled plums to the sugar syrup, bring to a gentle boil, then immediately turn down the heat and simmer very gently for about seven minutes, or until the skin on the plums splits and the fruit is just softened. Remove the plums from the syrup with a slotted spoon and place in a serving dish. Stir the tamarind paste or lemon juice into the syrup and allow to bubble gently for a further five minutes. Strain the syrup over the plums.

Serve hot, cold, or - best of all - warm, over vanilla ice cream, or with a blob of whipped cream.

If you're bottling the plums:

Wash and sterilise some big glass jars, and their lids (see Cook's Notes, below). Using a slotted spoon, pack the plums into the jars (discard the spices). Add a disc of ginger to each jar. Stir the brandy into the hot syrup and strain over the plums, filling each jar right to the brim. Screw on the hot lids tightly, and then tighten them again after ten minutes to form a good vacuum.

You might have some syrup left over, and you can make this into a cordial (it's lovely in cocktails). Boil the syrup for another five minutes, or until syrupy, and then turn off the heat. Stir in a few tablespoons of brandy, to taste. Strain the syrup through a fine sieve into a  sterilised bottle, and seal tightly with a cork or lid.  Keep the syrup in the fridge.

Cook's Notes
Jars are easily sterilised in a microwave. Place the jars, mouth upwards, on the turntable of your microwave oven. Using a jug, pour about 1 cm water into each jar. Microwave on High for six minutes. Remove the jars from the microwave using an oven glove. Place open-side down on several layers of newspaper and allow to cool for a few minutes, before adding the plums.

Metal lids should not be microwaved: boil them, in a saucepan, on the stove, for ten minutes.

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