Cape Pickled Fish with Lime, Thyme & White Pepper, and a Pickled-Fish Paté, from the left-overs

I suppose one shouldn't tinker with a traditional South African recipe that has such a long and noble pedigree, but I thought I'd introduce some zing and freshness to my pickled fish this Easter.  I've given my 2010 recipe for Extra-Lemony Cape-Malay-Style Pickled Fish a kick in the pants with fresh lime juice, lemon thyme and plenty of white pepper, and I'm pleased with the result.

Thickly sliced onions add punch and crunch to my lighter version of pickled fish.

Pickled fish is lovely with buttered brown bread.

The next time I make this (this week, hopefully, in time for the Easter weekend) I'm going to try using only Thai flavours for the marinade, because I think a sweet-sour-salty-hot pickle with plenty of fresh coriander, lemon grass and green chilli may be an irresistible combination. Further down in this post, you'll also find a recipe for a deliciously buttery, mildly spiced dip using pickled-fish left-overs: I made a few pots of this paté this week, using the leftovers no-one in my family wanted, and it was eagerly devoured by my guests on Saturday night.

Some of the ingredients for my pickled fish. Limes, fresh lemon leaves and lemon thyme add a
lovely citrussy flavour, and I've added mustard seeds for extra bite.

I still can't figure out, three years after I wrote about South African pickled fish on this blog, how this old recipe has come to be associated with Easter in Cape Town. One of my Facebook friends, Helen Brain, advanced her theory:  'I suspect that it has to do with Good Friday church services, which take three hours. You don't have time to cook after that, so pickling the fish means that when you come home from church at 12, lunch is ready.'  That seems plausible, but it still doesn't explain how this dish, indisputably a classic of Cape-Malay cuisine, is so eagerly looked forward to by Islamic families in the Cape during the Christian holidays of Eastertide.  If you have any insights or inklings about this, please post them in a comment below!

 Don't slice the onions too finely, or fry them too long - they should retain a good crunch.

In this recipe, the ginger and garlic are very briefly cooked, as are the other spices, so that the pickling liquid is fresh and zesty. If you can't find lemon thyme, use some roughly chopped lemon grass instead.

Cape Pickled Fish with Lime, Thyme & White Pepper

For the fish:
1 kg firm-fleshed white fish, such as yellowtail or snoek, skin on
½ cup (125 ml) cornflour, for dusting
salt and white pepper
3 Tbsp (45 ml) sunflower or canola oil

For the pickle:
3 Tbsp (45 ml) sunflower or canola oil
3 onions, peeled and sliced into rings (not too finely)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
a thumb-size piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
4 tsp (20 ml) black mustard seeds
12 black peppercorns
3 whole white cardamom pods
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped [optional]
3 bay leaves
2 Tbsp (30 ml) sugar
4 Tbsp (60 ml) rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 tsp (10 ml)  turmeric
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) white pepper
2 tsp (10 ml) cumin
2 tsp (10 ml) mild curry powder
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
the juice of 4 limes (or 3 lemons, if you can't find limes)
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lime (or lemon) zest
a few large sprigs of lemon thyme
1 cup (250 ml ml) water

To top:
extra sprigs of fresh lemon thyme, and fresh lemon leaves

Cut the fish into portions each about the size of a deck of cards. Put the cornflour on a plate and season with salt and a little white pepper. Press the fish pieces into the cornflour, top and bottom, then shake them energetically to remove the excess. Heat the 3 Tbsp of oil in a pan over a medium-high heat, and when it is good and hot, fry the fish pieces, in batches, for 2-3 minutes on each side (depending on how thick the pieces are) or until golden brown and just cooked through. Take care not to over-cook the fish, or it will dry out. Remove from the heat and set aside on a plate.

Now make the pickling mixture. Wipe the pan clean of oil and residue using a piece of kitchen paper.  Heat 2 Tbsp of sunflower or canola oil in the pan, over a medium-high flame. When the oil's hot, add the onion rings, and fry, stirring now and then, for 2 minutes, but no longer (it's important that the onions retain their crunch). Stir in the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute, without letting the garlic brown. Scrape the onions, garlic and ginger into a bowl and set aside.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over a medium-high heat in the same pan and add the mustard seeds, peppercorns, cardamom pods and red chilli [optional]. When the mustard seeds begin to crackle, add the bay leaves, sugar and vinegar. Bring to the boil, then stir in the turmeric, white pepper, cumin, curry powder, salt and half a cup (125 ml) water. Cook the mixture for 2-3 minutes at an energetic bubble, or it has thickened slightly and the strong vinegar flavour has dissipated. Stir in the lime juice and zest, the lemon thyme sprigs, the remaining half-cup (125 ml) of water and the reserved onion/garlic/ginger mixture.

Simmer gently for another minute and then remove from the heat.

Tip half of this mixture into the bottom of a ceramic or plastic dish just big enough to hold all the fish in a single layer. Pour the remaining mixture on top, making sure every piece of fish is well coated with the pickling liquid. Top with a few extra sprigs of lemon thyme, plus some fresh lemon leaves, if you can find these. Cover the dish tightly with clingfilm or a lid, and refrigerate for at least 12 hours - preferably 24 - turning the fish now and then in its pickle.

Serve cold, with buttered brown bread, and perhaps some cold crunchy salads, or warm boiled potatoes.

This mixture keeps well in the fridge for up to a week.

Serves 6-8 as a snack.

And here's what to make with the leftovers. If you don't have a small jug attachment for your stick blender, you can pound everything together to a paste using a mortar and pestle, or use a food processor fitted with a metal blade (although you might need to double the quantities if your food processor is a big one).

Cape Pickled Fish Paté

1 cup (250 ml, fairly tightly packed) flaked pickled fish
4 Tbsp (60 ml) butter, softened
¼ cup (60 ml) roughly chopped onion rings, taken from the pickle
1 Tbsp (15 ml) pickling liquid, from your pickled fish
1 Tbsp (15 ml) olive oil
the juice of a small lemon
½ tsp (2.5 ml) Tabasco sauce, to taste
3 Tbsp (45 ml) fresh coriander leaves
salt and milled black pepper


Make sure you've removed every bone and scrap of skin from the flaked fish.  Put the fish into the jug attachment of a stick blender, or into a liquidiser.  Add the onion rings, pickling liquid, olive oil, lemon juice and Tabasco sauce, and whizz the mixture to a fairly homogenous yet slightly chunky paste. If the mixture is too thick for the blades to turn freely, add a little more of the pickling liquid, or some water.

Now add the coriander leaves and press the pulse button a few times so the leaves are fairly coarsely chopped through the mixture,but not pulverized (which will turn the paste green).  Season to taste with salt and pepper, and add a little more lemon and Tabasco sauce if the mixture needs a little more sparkle.

Scrape into a bowl, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour or two, until just firm. Serve with hot toast or crackers.

Serves 4-6 as a snack

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Hot Ricotta Dip with Thyme, Chilli and Garlic

The word 'dip' implies a cold mixture, but why shouldn't it be piping hot, molten and herby? Because winter's coming roaring towards us in the Cape, my thoughts have turned to comforting food, so here's my first cold-weather recipe of the season.

I'm such a fan of good ricotta cheese. I admit that it doesn't have the sexy, fatty, stringiness of melted hard cheeses, or the creamy crumbliness of a good feta or similar white cheese. But I love the plainness and cleanness of the taste of ricotta, and its wonderful grainy texture.

Here's a basic recipe for a hot ricotta dip that you can gussy up with all sort of interesting ingredients. Here, I've used chopped artichoke hearts, lemon juice, garlic, herbs and dried chilli flakes, but you can really add anything you please, provided that it's an ingredient that tastes good hot. Avocado, for example, is out, and I'd avoid anything with a vaguely bitter taste, such as olives.

Make sure you serve this piping hot, and straight away. The leftovers are lovely on hot toast, for breakfast. This makes quite a large quantity, but the recipe is easily halved.

Hot Ricotta Dip with Herbs, Chilli and Garlic
350 g fresh ricotta cheese
100 g finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
the juice of half a lemon
a clove of garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
2 tsp (10 ml) fresh thyme leaves
2 tsp (10 ml) finely snipped chives
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
a tin of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
salt and milled black pepper, to taste

Heat the oven to 180ºC. Set aside a quarter of the grated Pecorino. Put all the remaining ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir very well to combine. The mixture should form a slightly firm paste. If it looks too dry, add a little milk. Pack the mixture into bowls and top with the remaining grated Pecorino. Bake at 180º C for ten minutes, or until the mixture is bubbling and heated right through. Now turn on the oven grill and grill for a few minutes, or until the topping is golden. Serve very hot, with nachos or crackers.

Serves 6 to 8 as a starter Print Friendly

Chilli Snoek Pâté: a taste of Hout Bay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chilli Snoek Pâté: a Taste of Hout Bay

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

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

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

Serve with sliced wholewheat seed loaf or crackers.

Serves 6 as an appetiser or dip.


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A wild craving finds its cure: Beetroot, Cumin and Garlic Dip

I don't often feel like plunging my face into a bowl of food and inhaling it like a starving piglet, but when I tasted the glorious scarletness of this beetroot dip for the first time, the taste pathways in my brain went beserk. There were sighs, there were low moans of pleasure, and there were showers of cortical sparks.

I don't know why my tastebuds (and my brain) were so excited and astonished by this addictive combination of earthy blood-red baby beetroot, warming ground cumin, crème fraîche and garlic, but what I can say is that this is the best dip I've tasted in many years, and that I intend to eat it every day - spread on toast, or over a baked potato, dobbled over a soup, or spooned directly from the bowl - until my body says it's had enough, and it's time to turn to horseradish or bitter chocolate or orange peel, or whatever my brain's flavour-du-jour is.

I first tasted this dip in Hout Bay, Cape Town, last week, when my sister Sophie casually whipped it up as a starter to be served before a delicious Cape-Malay style chicken curry made in advance by her nanny/au pair.

Sophie gave me the basic ingredients, although she couldn't, off-hand, remember the quantities.

So here is my version. If you don't feel like buying and baking fresh beetroot, use pre-prepared cooked fresh beetroot chunks, available in South Africa from Woolworths. But please, don't use pickled or canned beetroot, which tends to be so vinegary. This dish is best with freshly ground, toasted cumin seeds, but you can use pre-powdered cumin if it is very fresh.

Beetroot, Cumin and Garlic Dip

4 small fresh beetroot [or a pack of Woolworths beetroots chunks]
1 t (5 ml) cumin seeds
1 fat clove garlic, peeled and finely crushed
4 T (60 ml) crème fraîche, or sour cream or Greek yoghurt, or a combination
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Trim the leafy tops off the beetroot (but don't peel, or cut into, the bulbs), wrap tightly into a parcel of tin foil (or put in a lidded ceramic dish) place in the oven for an hour, or until completely tender when pierced with the point of a sharp knife. Remove the parcel from the oven and allow to cool for half an hour. In the meantime, put the cumin seeds in a frying pan and set over a medium-high heat. Toss the cumin seeds until they are just warmed through and toasty, and then grind them to a fine powder in a mortar or coffee grinder.

Rub the skin off the beetroot with your fingers, cut off the tops and tails, chop roughly and place in a liquidizer or blender. Add the toasted cumin powder, the garlic, the crème fraîche (or yoghurt) and the olive oil and process to a fine puree (or a chunky one, depending on your preference). Taste the mixture: if it seems bland, add a tiny squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Season well with salt and pepper.

Tip the mixture into a bowl and top with a shower of cumin, a lick of olive oil and perhaps a little yoghurt.

Serves 6, as a snack Print Friendly

Smoky Aubergine and Hummous Dip and other Mediterranean delights

I try not to begin a recipe with an excuse or a complaint, so I won't (although I am sorely tempted. After all, I have a bloody good reason* for having neglected this blog).

Here is a lovely, easy and quite delicious party dip I made last Thursday for an impromptu celebratory party with my dearest friends. The whole arrangement was very last minute (we were celebrating the Bloody Good Reason*) and as I didn't have time to plot, plan or do an in-depth shopping spree , I used what I had in the fridge and cupboard to produce an array of little snacky things and hors d'oeuvres ( or what my sister calls 'Horse der Ervrays').

It took just over two hours to get the Horse der Ervrays ready: a record time for me, although I admit I did get grumpy, and emitteda few rumbling and mewing noises.



Here's what I made:

* Marinated green and Calamata olives (drain the brine off the olives and soak them, in a warm or sunny place, for two hours, in olive oil spiked with crushed fresh garlic, dried red chillies, fresh rosemary, thyme and oregano, grated lemon zest, a few crushed coriander seeds and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice). A similar recipe here.

* Ten-minute phyllo pastry cases with blue cheese, caramelised leeks and cherry tomatoes, topped with fresh rocket and a dash of olive oil and lemon juice. So quick and easy to make: recipe here.

* Oven-baked pork chipolatas with hot English mustard and a creamy wasabi dip (half Hellmann's mayonnaise, half thick Greek yoghurt, a squeeze of lemon juice and wasabi paste to taste).  Or try my Whipped Mustard Sauce

* Spicy, crunchy potato wedges with a roasted red-pepper dip (recipe here)

* Smoked Brinjal and Hoummous Dip (recipe below)

* Shop-bought tubs of pale-pink, creamy taramasolata and a punchy tapenade

* Fresh red and yellow cherry tomatoes with marinated mozzarella, a garlic-basil dressing and fresh basil leaves

* Fresh, shop-bought ciabatta bread, rye bread and little salty crackers (Salticrax, they're known here in South Africa)

* Umami Tomato Soup with croutons, Greek yoghurt, chives and Tabasco sauce. Recipe here.

Smoky Aubergine and Hummous Dip

I used home-made hoummous in this recipe (see notes at end of this post), but a good commercial hoummous will do just as well, provided that it is suitably lemony, zingy and garlicky. If your shop-bought hoummous seems to be punching below its weight stir in some extra fresh lemon juice, cumin and garlic (see Cook's Notes, below).

2 very large, shining aubergines (brinjals or eggplant), or three medium-sized ones
200 ml good hoummous (see note below)
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
2 small cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
the juice of half a lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) powdered cumin
salt and freshly milled black pepper
extra cumin and/or cayenne pepper, to top

Preheat the oven to 200 ºC. Rinse and dry the aubergines and place them, whole, on the hot oven racks (put a baking sheet underneath them to catch any drips). Bake the aubergines for 35-45 minutes, or until they blistered, collapsed, and soft to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes. Put the aubergines on a big chopping board and open them out by slitting their skins. Using the back of knife, scrape out all the pulp (it doesn't matter if a few flecks of black skin remain) ) and put it into a sieve set over a bowl. Allow the pulp to drain for a few minutes, but don't discard the drained liquid.

Put the aubergine pulp into a liquidiser or food processor fitted with a metal blade and add the hoummous, olive oil, garlic, fresh lemon juice and cumin. Process at a medium speed until you have a well amalgamated though slightly rough mixture. If the mixture is too stiff to allow the blades to turn, add a little of the reserved drained liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

Tip the dip into a bowl and top with a generous splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of cumin and/or cayenne pepper.

Makes about 600 ml dip.

* Bloody Good Reason is this: our family is moving back to Cape Town, after 17 years in Johannesburg. My dearly beloved has just started a new job in the fairest Cape of them all, and I - and the three kids - will move down to join him at the end of November. This involves all sorts of time-gobbling administrative tasks - sell house, find new house, pack old house, find schools for kids, get son through Matric, and so on. And we won't mention the extreme annoyance of having to spruce up one's house so it is ready for a show day. How come you never notice the grimy, grungy bits of a house until you see it through the eyes of someone who (you hope) wants to buy it?

Cook's Notes: tips for home-made hoummous

1. Use tinned chickpeas if you're in a hurry. For a smoother result, drain the tinned chickpeas and simmer them in water or stock for 30 minutes.

2. If you're making your hoummous from scratch, I suggest that you use less tahina (sesame paste) than specified in the recipe. I find that too much tahina in a hoummous makes it sticky, bitter and slightly peanut-buttery. And make sure the tahina is fresh: this ingredient doesn't have a good shelf life, once opened. Good tahina has a mild, nutty smell and taste. It should never taste stale or rancid.

3. Add a pinch of citric acid to your hoummous. I don't normally recommend additives, but I think a good hoummous needs to have a really zingy, lemony flavour. You can certainly achieve this by adding a lot of fresh lemon juice, but this will make your hoummous unpleasantly sloppy. A whisper of citric acid (available in the baking section of most supermarkets) really does the trick. Print Friendly