Chicken 'Saltimbocca' with Emmentaler and Lemon

'Chicken breasts' is one of the most frequent keyword searches that lead to this blog, and I suppose that's because people are always on the lookout for quick, easy recipes using this family staple. Here's a dish I love, similar to saltimbocca (an Italian contraction meaning 'it jumps in one's mouth'), but in place of veal I use deboned chicken breasts, and I deglaze the pan with a little lemon juice instead of the traditional marsala.

The idea for sticking some cheese between the Parma ham and the chicken comes from one of Jamie Oliver's programmes (one of his Food Revolution series, I think), and what a good idea it is, although you can leave out if you're counting calories (not that this will make much difference: this is a dish laden with butter).

The lemon slice, as it caramelises in the pan, imparts a lovely zesty perfume to the dish.  I always tie the lemon slice and sage leaves on with raffia or string, because the thought of a sharp toothpick in a meal a child's going to be eating gives me the creeps.

Don't let the butter get too brown in the pan, or the sauce will have a burned taste. Serve with a pile of fluffy parsleyed mash.

(By the way, chicken breasts on the bone are considerably cheaper than ready-prepared ones. Skinning them and whipping out the bone takes seconds, and saves you a lot of money.)

Chicken 'Saltimbocca' with Emmentaler and Lemon
4 skinned, deboned chicken breasts
eight thin slices of Emmentaler, or similar
4 slices of Parma ham
two thin slices of lemon, halved
16 small fresh sage leaves
1 T (15 ml) olive oil
3 T (45 ml) butter
the juice of small lemon
milled black pepper

Put the chicken breasts between two sheets of clingfilm or baking paper and, using a rolling pin, gently flatten them so that they're of an even thickness. Cover each breast with two slices of cheese, and then a slice of ham. Place the lemon slices and sage leaves, as shown above, on the top, and secure with a piece of kitchen string or a strand of raffia.  Press down firmly on the top of the breast with the palm of your hand.

Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Add the breasts, lemon-slice down, and fry over a brisk heat for two minutes. Flip the breasts over, and fry the other side for another two to three minutes, or until the breast is cooked right through. Add the butter to the pan a minute before the breasts are ready, and use it to baste the tops of the breasts. Season with black pepper (you shouldn't need to add any extra salt). Remove the breasts and place on a warm platter.  Turn up the heat slightly and add the lemon juice, swirling to release any bits of golden sediment. Allow to bubble for a minute, and then pour the sauce over the breasts.

Serve immediately, with mashed potato.

Serves 4

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Chicken, Rice, Egg and Lemon: My Flop-Proof Avgolemono Soup

A delicate, nourishing and deliciously creamy elixir containing not a drop of cream, avgolemono soup is one of my all-time favourites.  This traditional Greek soup is often eaten at Easter; 'avgolemono' means, literally, 'egg-lemon', and is one of a family of similar sauces eaten throughout the eastern Mediterranean region. Because it's thickened and enriched with eggs and fresh lemon juice, it has a tendency to curdle in an instant, but I have found that adding a little cornflour to the mix helps to stabilise the soup and create a beautiful silken texture.

Purists may well throw up their hands in horror, but purists would serve this right away, without reheating it. I need a soup that can be made in bulk and reheated for family meals, however, and have settled on a version that - thanks to the cornflour -  reheats very well on both stovetop and in the microwave oven. If you follow the proportions below exactly, always reheat it exceedingly slowly, and never let it boil, you are assured of a perfect result every time. (When I told my friend Michael, a Greek himself and a purist of note, that I add cornflour to my avgolemono, he barely batted an eyelid, and told me that many a Greek housewife does the same.)

If you're sick, or feeling out of sorts, or just a little downhearted, this is the soup for you. It's like a ray of sunshine in your belly.

I am rather sentimental about this dish, because it's the very first soup I ever made. My mother had a wonderful book called Soup Beautiful Soup by Ursel Norman (published in 1976 and now, sadly, out of print) and its vibrant recipe illustrations (by her husband Derek) really fired my imagination as a young cook.

I like this soup with chopped fresh parsley, but you could add dill, chives, chervil, or any other delicate herb. It's not strictly necessary to add vegetables to the broth - a chicken simmered in water will do - but I think a good stock adds a great depth of flavour.

Chicken, Rice, Egg and Lemon: My Flop-Proof Avgolemono Soup

For the stock and soup:
one whole free-range chicken, trimmed of excess fat
two and a half litres of cold water
a few fresh parsley stalks
an onion, peeled and halved
2 carrots, scraped and roughly chopped
a bay leaf
a large sprig of thyme
six peppercorns
a thin slice of lemon, peel on
a big pinch of salt

3/4 cup (190 ml) plain Tastic rice

For the egg sauce:
3 large free-range eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons (30 ml) cornflour [cornstarch]
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
the juice of a large lemon

To finish:
finely chopped fresh parsley

Cover the chicken with the cold water, add the remaining stock ingredients (excluding the rice) and bring to the boil. Simmer for an hour and ten minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the stock and chicken to cool slightly. (Or you can cool them overnight.)

Skim off any fat, strain the stock into a big bowl and discard the flavourings. Take the flesh off the chicken,  pull it into flakes and shreds with your fingers and set aside.

Measure out exactly two litres of the stock, strain it again back into the pot and add the uncooked rice. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes, or until rice is cooked.

In the meantime, beat together in a large bowl the whole eggs, yolks, cornflour, lemon zest and lemon juice. Beat until well combined and slightly frothy. Set aside.

Tip the reserved chicken pieces into the simmering broth and allow to heat through for five minutes. Turn the heat under the soup to its very lowest setting. To the bowl containing the eggs, add four to five ladles of hot chicken broth - one at a time, and gradually -  whisking gently all the time. Now pour the egg mixture back into the broth and stir well over an exceedingly gentle heat. Don't allow to boil, or the soup may curdle. Season generously with salt and pepper (a pinch of white pepper is very nice) and stir in a handful of freshly chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

Serves 6  Print Friendly

Lemon and Pepper Mini Meat Loaves with a Cool Yoghurt, Cream and Dill Sauce

On the subject of pepper (and I promise I'm nearly done with it, Tellicherry or not), I'm mightily fond of recipes combining good quantities of both pepper and lemon zest. These oven-baked mini-meatloaves are topped with a generous teaspoonful of each, and both ingredients feature in the meat loaf mix.

The inspiration for this recipe comes from my love of  fresh dill, gherkins and anchovies, and I put this down to my Norwegian ancestry. My grandmother was Norwegian, and I'm convinced that a love of these very Scandinavian ingredients is carved into my DNA.

Also, many years ago, I saw a recipe for a moulded meat loaf in an issue of Fairlady, and it contained, I think, dill and capers. I've long since lost the recipe, but it was probably the work of Annette Kesler, long-time food editor of one of South Africa's best-loved women's magazines. Many women of my generation grew up with Annette's recipes, and I bet she's taught several other generations to cook too.

There is one important ingredients in this recipe that shouldn't be omitted, and that is anchovies. My family loathes them with a passion, and they make all sorts of off-colour jokes about my little bottles of anchovy fillets in the fridge. Little do they know that I sneak a finely pounded anchovy fillet into many of the winter stews I make, and several other dishes besides. One of the magic properties of anchovies is that they inject a subtle but lovely rich, round, savouriness into food, without adding a hint of fishiness.

I used beautiful silken white Italian anchovies in this recipe, but as these aren't easy to find, you can use two tinned or bottled anchovy fillets. Be sure to grind them finely to a smooth paste with the garlic, though, or your family will encounter a fishy flake and never eat meat loaf again.

Lemon and Pepper Mini Meat Loaves with a Cool Yoghurt, Cream and Dill Sauce

For the mini meat-loaves:
a small clove of garlic, peeled and finely grated
4 white anchovy fillets [see note above] or 2 bottled or tinned anchovy fillets
a pinch of salt
600 g lean beef mince [ground beef]
600 g pork mince [ground pork]
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ cup (125 ml) thick natural white yoghurt
2 T (30 ml) green peppercorns, drained of their brine and crushed
2 T (30 ml) finely grated lemon zest (loosely packed)
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped fresh dill
3 T (45 ml) finely chopped fresh parsley
3 T (45 ml) chopped capers
4 T (60 ml) chopped cocktail gherkins [small dill pickles]
4 slices brown bread, whizzed in a food processer (or grated) to fine breadcrumbs
milled black pepper

For the sauce:
½ cup (125 ml) thick natural yoghurt
½ cup (125 ml) thick cream, or sour cream
the finely grated zest of a small lemon
the juice of half a lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) finely chopped fresh dill
a pinch of white pepper
salt, to taste

To top:
cracked black pepper
finely grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Put the garlic, anchovy fillets and salt into a mortar and grind to a paste. Scrape the paste into a large mixing bowl and add all the remaining meat loaf ingredients. Using your fingers, lightly knead and squish the mixture until well combined. Tip in the breadcrumbs, and mix lightly again until every thing is almalgamated.

At this point, it's a good idea to test the mixture to make sure the seasoning is right. Pinch off a marble-sized piece and flatten it into a little disk. Fry in hot oil until browned on both sides. Taste it, and add more salt and pepper to the raw mixture if necessary.

Put the mixture in the fridge for thirty minutes to an hour to firm up. (This isn't essential, but it does help develop the flavours.) To mould the mini-meat loaves, generously rub a ramekin dish (or a tea cup) with vegetable oil. Pinch off a large chunk of the meat loaf mixture, and press it firmly into the ramekin, pushing and squishing down well on all sides to force out any air pockets. (There may well be rude noises.) Alternatively, you can roll them into balls, but you will need to reduce the cooking time slightly.

Flatten the top of the mixture, then turn the ramekin dish over in the palm of your hand and smack and shake it smartly to release its contents. If it won't come loose, run a sharp knife round the edges to release any vacuum. Slide the little cake onto the greased baking sheet, and repeat the process until you've used up all the mixture. Using a pastry brush, paint a little olive oil all over the top and sides of the little loaves. Sprinkle the tops generously with cracked black peppercorns and a little grated lemon zest.

Place in an oven preheated to 200ºC for ten minutes. Then turn the heat down to 160ºC and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until cooked right through. You can check this by flipping one of the loaves over, and cutting deep into its centre: if there is any bloodiness within, give them another five to ten minutes.

While the meat loaves are cooking, make the dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk well to combine. Place in the fridge to chill.

To serve, place the meat loaves on hot plates. Decant the cold sauce into a jug, so it can be poured over the hot loaves. Lovely with a green salad, and baked potatoes, mash or rice.

Serves 6. Print Friendly

Calamari Salad with Broad Beans, Lemon and Crushed Tellicherry Pepper

I've mentioned the name of the black pepper I used in the title of this recipe because it's quite simply the best pepper I've ever tasted. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know I have a great love of pepper, so I was delighted when my friend Claire gave me a pouch of Woolworths' excellent crushed Tellicherry peppercorns. With their pungent, warm, nutmeggy, wood-resiny aroma, they're so good that I've been sprinkling them on everything bar the cat.

Wikipedia tells me that Tellicherry pepper is the highest grade of pepper, made from the largest, ripest  of fruits from Malabar plants grown on Mount Tellicherry. This site says that only the largest ten per cent of fruits may bear the name 'Tellicherry'.

In this salad of tender calamari tubes and fresh little broad beans, I've combined the peppercorns with lemon zest and chilli flakes to make a sparky dressing that will definitely give your tastebuds a jolt. If you can't find fresh, small broad beans, use peas, or tinned, drained cannellini beans. I wouldn't bother using older broad beans for this salad, because I'd have to peel them, and that sounds like hard work to me.

Any small green leaves will do in this salad (apart from rocket, perhaps, which may distract from the pepper); it's particularly good with fresh watercress. Here, I've used baby beetroot and young mustard-green leaves, which I grow in pots on my veranda.

The success of this salad depends on the quality of the calamari you use. Fresh calamari tubes are sometimes available from fishmongers and from Woolworths; you can also buy them frozen, but be sure to buy the smallest, most delicate tubes you can find. Don't overcook the calamari, as it turns to rubber in seconds.

I often add a teaspoon or two of Kikkoman soy sauce to salad dressings, as it has an almost magical ability to round out the flavours and prevent dressings from becoming too astringent. If you don't have Kikkoman brand, leave the soy sauce out.

Calamari Salad with Broad Beans, Lemon and Tellicherry Pepper
800 g small calamari tubes, washed
1 tsp (5ml) salt
300 g small, fresh broad beans, or tinned white beans, drained
a large packet of mixed baby salad greens

For the dressing:
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely grated
2 tsp (10 ml) crushed black peppercorns
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) dried red chilli flakes
1 tsp (5 ml) Hot English mustard powder
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
2 tsp (10 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
the finely grated zest of a large lemon
the juice of two large lemons
160 ml olive oil, or a mixture of olive oil and sunflower oil
salt, if necessary

To top:
4 slices white bread, crusts removed
sunflower oil for frying

First make the dressing. Combine all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk well to combine. Season with salt, if necessary (the soy sauce is quite salty, so taste the dressing before you add salt).

Rinse the calamari under cold water. Trim the purplish bits off the narrow ends of the tubes and slice them on the diagonal into 1-cm rings (or leave whole, if they are tiny). Fill a large pot with water, add the salt and bring to a rolling ball. Cook the rings in two batches. Throw the first batch into the water  and cook for exactly a minute and a half. Fish them out with a slotted spoon and place in a colander. Repeat with the second batch (don't throw out the water). Now add the broad beans to the boiling water and cook for a minute. If they are large broad beans, you may need to leave them in a little longer. Drain and rinse under cold running water. Add to the colander containing the calamari and leave to drain for a few minutes.

Put the beans and calamari in a big bowl and pour over the dressing. Toss well, and set aside for an hour or two to marinate (don't leave it too long, or the dressing will lose its sparkle).

Now make the fried bread. Heat the oil, to a depth of a few millimetres, in a small pot. Tear the bread slices into little tatters and fry until golden brown and crunchy. Drain on a paper towel and season with salt.

Just before serving, arrange the leaves on a platter. Tip the calamari and beans, and their dressing, over the leaves, and top with the fried bread.

Serve immediately, with plenty of crusty bread for mopping up the juices.

Serves 8 as a starter or side salad.

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Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot & Glitter

A generous glug of South African Hanepoot adds sweetness and sunshine to this delicate lemony cream. Hanepoot (pronouned 'ha-nah-poort') is a much-loved sweet wine made from the ancient Muscat d'Alexandrie grape, believed by wine experts to be the one of the oldest genetically unmodified vines still in existence.  You can, of course, use any sweet dessert wine in its place, as long as it's not so old and noble that its perfume overpowers the lemon.

Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot and edible glitter.

I came across this recipe while browsing a cookbook that's become one of my favourites in recent years: Robert Carrier's Entertaining, published in 1977. It's not really old enough to be called a vintage cookbook, but enough years have gone by to make the book seem rather quaint, at least in comparison to the lavishly illustrated, self-congratulatory extravaganzas of the Nigella-Nigel-Jamie era (I'm not knocking these icons, but don't you loathe the way they drool, in print, over their own recipes?).

Still, this is a book worth hunting down, as are all of Carrier's books: it's packed with excellent recipes that deserve to be revisited.

'He was as influential as Elizabeth David or Delia Smith, and some argued that he was the link between them,' was what The Times had to say in his obituary. 'He became the leading populariser of the appeal of good cooking and helped to bring about a domestic revolution in imaginative, adventurous cooking.'

Until I saw this recipe, I hadn't heard of  Elizabeth Moxon - and found no trace online of a biography of this English cookery writer.  I was very pleased, then, to find that her 1764 cookbook, English Housewifry: Exemplified in Above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts, has been digitised and is available in plain text format at Project Gutenberg, or in its original form at Google Books.

From English Housewifry by Elizabeth Moxen.

Elizabeth's Georgian recipe (which is not, strictly speaking, a posset; it's more like a syllabub) calls for 'a jack' of white wine, and advises that you sweeten the cream with sugar, 'to your taste'.  Robert Carrier calls for dry white wine, and an unspecified amount of icing sugar. I compromised by using half a cup each of hanepoot and  icing sugar. Feel free to adjust these quantities, but take care not to add too much wine - your dessert will become too runny and won't set to a perfect, fluffy cream.

I have frivolously decorated the tops of these creams with edible pink cake glitter, in keeping with the Elizabethan taste for bedecking food with comfits, fruit-paste shapes, spun sugar and all manner of fancies.

Serve this dessert within an hour of making it, or it will separate.

Please note that this recipe contains raw egg white.

Elizabeth Moxon's Lemon Posset, but with Hanepoot & Glitter

300 ml cream
the finely grated zest of a lemon
the juice of a lemon
½ cup (125 ml) icing sugar
½ cup (125 ml) Hanepoot, or any similar sweet white dessert wine
the white of a large egg
finely grated orange zest
edible glitter

Put the cream and lemon zest into a bowl and, using a whisk or an electric beater, whip until the cream is thick and fluffy. Sift the icing sugar over the top of the cream, and then pour in the dessert wine and lemon juice.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold the mixture until well combined.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white to a soft peak and fold into the lemon cream.

Pile the posset into stemmed glasses (a piping bag is the only way to do this without messing the edges) and top with a little orange zest.  Place in the fridge. Just before serving, sprinkle with glitter. Serve within an hour.

Serves 4


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Triple-Lemony Linefish Baked in a Paper Parcel

If you're nervous about baking a whole fish to perfection, try oven-steaming it in a paper parcel. If you judge the cooking time correctly, you will end up with tender, succulent flesh, delicately scented with your selected stuffing ingredients. In this dish, I've used my five best-beloved ingredients, the heavenly quintet of garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt and butter.

I've stopped buying kabeljou, my favourite fish, since an anonymous commenter on

this blog snippily informed me that although it's rated 'orange' on the SASSI (Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative) database - which means that consumers should use it with caution -  it's not actually a sustainable species. Fair enough. But what was I supposed to do with the three lovely fresh kabeljou presented to me by the builder, let's call him Bob, who's doing alterations on my house?  (Bob, who is reaching retirement age, has a holiday cottage in Struis Bay, and loves nothing more than to head out of town on a Thursday afternoon to spend the whole weekend fishing off the beach.)  Eat them, of course!

Two have gone into the deep freeze, and I intend to bake them this weekend, when Bob has finished building my new braai [barbeque] and pizza oven. I asked him to do this on impulse, seeing as there were left-over piles of bricks and sand lying around, and a bricklayer on hand.

Sure, said the ever-obliging Bob, and when we'd agreed on a price, I showed him what I wanted: a little brick braai with a small adjacent oven.  What is rising out of my lawn looks more like the Taj Mahal than the modest structure I envisaged, but I don't have the heart to tell him to scale it down. My husband, who is bewildered by my longing for a pizza oven, has suggested we paint it in a camouflage pattern and turn it into a dog kennel.

Anyway, back to the fish: you can stuff whole fish with anything you like, but what I wanted was a powerful lemony flavour, so I used lemon leaves, kafir lime leaves, fresh lemon slices and Vietnamese coriander, which has its own particular lemoniness. During baking, the volatile oils from these lemony things infuse and perfume the flesh of the fish.  Some people believe in slashing the flesh of fresh fish, but  I don't think this is ever necessary, unless you're cooking a large, oily-fleshed fish directly over hot coals, in which case the slashes help the smoky flavour penetrate the fish, and allow it to cook evenly.

The cooking time will depend on the size of your fish.  To test whether the fish is done, stick a sharp knife right through the paper into the thickest part of the fish. If the flesh flakes easily, the fish is done. Remember, though, that the fish will continue to cook for two or three minutes after you take it out of the oven, so it's best to underdo it - you can always pop it back in the oven for another few minutes.

Triple-Lemony Linefish Baked in a Paper Parcel
1 medium whole fish (about 2 kg), cleaned

flaky sea salt

milled black pepper

5 fresh lemon leaves or kafir lime leaves

3 slices of lemon

3 sprigs Vietnamese coriander (or lemon thyme) 

2 cloves garlic, sliced length ways

3 T (45 ml) olive oil
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
2 T butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Place the fish on a large piece of parchment paper or greaseproof paper. Season the inside of the fish with a little salt and pepper. Crumple the lemon leaves to release their oil and stuff them into the cavity along with the lemon slices, Vietnamese coriander and garlic. Pour the olive oil over the top of the fish, scatter over the lemon zest and season with more salt and pepper. Cut up the butter and place on top of the fish. Pick up the long sides of the paper, bring them together, and fold over and over to make a neat pleat.  Fold in the shorter edges of the paper and tie securely with a piece of kitchen string.  Put the parcel on a baking sheet and bake at 180°C for about 25-30 minutes, or until done (see notes above). Using two spatulas, lift the fish onto a warmed platter. Pick up the paper and pour the juices over the fish. Serve with mayonnaise and boiled baby potatoes.

Serves 4. 

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Lemon Butter Cake with Blueberries

Here's a second recipe using the wonderful blueberries I was given last week. This light, moist butter cake, scented with lemon zest and vanilla and topped with a crust of sugar and lemon juice, has been in my recipe file since I was in my early teens.

My mum, whose recipe it is, called it 'Lemon Nut Loaf' because the original contained pecan nuts. This lemon cake - and its variations - was popular during the 60s and 70s, and I am willing to bet that your mum or your grandma has a very similar recipe in her arsenal.

I have a particular nostalgia for this recipe because, on the morning my second son was born, I was seized, like a nesting hen, by a compulsion to clean the house from top to bottom, which involved a lot of waddling and gasping.  Then along came a fierce craving for lemon cake, and this was what I made. The cake had not been out of the oven ten minutes when I sat down on a chair and then leaped up again like a scalded cat, thinking I'd sat on the sharp end of a large carrot. I'll spare you the details of my labour, but my son was born an hour and a half later and I never got a chance to eat the cake.

This is very good served warm with cream, or custard, or both.  The recipe is easily doubled but you may need to add a little more milk to slacken the batter.

Lemon Butter Cake with Blueberries

90 g butter, softened
1 cup (250 ml) white sugar
the zest of 1 lemon
2 large eggs
1½ cups (375 ml) cake flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) baking powder
½ cup (125 ml) milk
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup (250 ml) fresh or frozen blueberries

Topping:
the juice of a lemon
½ cup (125 ml) white granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 160ºC. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one by one and stir in the lemon zest. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the bowl. Add the milk and vanilla essence and stir gently until well combined. This is quite a stiff batter: add a little more milk if it seems too rigid. Butter a 22-cm cake tin or a loaf pan and line its base with greaseproof paper. Pour in the batter and smooth the top. Push any protruding blueberries deep into the batter. Bake at 160ºC for an hour, or until risen, firm, and golden on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Take the cake out of its tin and put it on a plate. Mix together the lemon juice and sugar and, before the sugar has a chance to dissolve, drizzle it over the top of the warm cake.

Makes one 22-cm round cake. Print Friendly

Oven-poached Chicken Breasts with a Cold Lemon-Tarragon Cream

A pale, silken sauce, enriched with cream and eggs yolks and zinged with lemon and tarragon, makes this dish one of my all-time favourites for a cooling lunch on a hot day.

Tender poached chicken breasts in a creamy lemon-tarragon sauce: perfect for very hot weather.

 I can't remember who gave me this recipe, but when I first made it for my mother-in-law (a wonderful cook) some 18 years ago, it was a disaster. The sauce was lovely, but the breasts were rubbery enough to bounce across the kitchen. I was desperate to impress her, and she ate it politely, but I had the sense she went away from our house feeling as if she had elastic bands between her molars.

It's really tricky to poach deboned chicken breasts and keep them succulent and tender (you can try the clingfilm method), and it's only recently that I experimented with poaching them in the oven, with great success. A quick poaching and a long cooling in the cooking liquid is definitely the way to go.

If you're nervous about reheating the sauce (it has a tendency to curdle) once you've added the yolks, skip this reheating step, and add an extra teaspoon (5 ml) of flour when you make the initial roux.

Please note that this sauce contains partially cooked eggs.

This is delicious with salad leaves dressed in lemon juice and olive oil; the ones in my picture are red-vein sorrel, which grows like a weed in my herb patch.

I've used dried tarragon here as fresh leaves are hard to find at the moment; if you can find fresh tarragon leaves, you can afford to be a little more generous with quantities.

Oven-poached Chicken Breasts with a Cold Lemon-Tarragon Cream

8 deboned, skinned free-range chicken breasts
salt and milled black pepper

For poaching:
1 bay leaf
a thick slice of onion
8 peppercorns
a few sprigs of parsley
a slice of lemon, peel and all
the juice of 1 lemon
hot water (about 500 ml)

For the sauce:
2 Tbsp (30 ml) butter
2 Tbsp (30 ml) flour
grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp (15 ml) dried tarragon leaves
2 large free-range egg yolks
300 ml single cream
salt
a pinch of white pepper

To serve:
a little finely grated lemon zest
lemon slices
salad leaves

Heat the oven to 180 °C. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put them in a single layer in a ceramic baking dish (don't pack them too tightly). Add the bay leaf, onion, peppercorns, parsley, lemon slice and lemon juice, and pour over enough very hot water to just cover the breasts (about 500 ml).

Place, uncovered, in the hot oven for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and poke a hole into the thickest end of a breast: it should be just cooked. If there's any trace of pinkness, place the dish back in the oven for another few minutes. Cover with clingfilm and allow the breasts to cool for an hour or so in their cooking liquid. Refrigerate.

Strain off 300 ml of the cooking liquid and set aside. Now make the roux: melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and stir in the flour. Cook, stirring, for a minute or so (don't let the mixture brown). Whisk in the reserved 300 ml of cooking liquid and bring to the boil, stirring constantly, until the mixture is slightly thickened. Cook over a gentle heat for two minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon rind, lemon juice and tarragon. Season with salt and pepper.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat together the cream and egg yolks. Strain the mixture through a sieve into the hot sauce. Now put the pot back on a very gentle heat and cook gently for a minute or so to slightly thicken the sauce, as if you're making a custard. (You can skip this step: see notes above). I find it helps to keep a finger in the sauce as you stir: once it feels very hot (but not unbearably hot), it's ready; cook it any longer and it will curdle.

Remove from the heat and cover the surface of the sauce with a piece of clingfilm to prevent a skin forming. Cool completely, and then place in the fridge for an hour.

Tear the chicken breasts along the grain into strips as big as your pinkie finger, place them in a bowl and cover with the cold sauce. Toss well to coat, and allow to stand for another hour (in the fridge or out, depending on how cold you'd like the dish) so that the breasts absorb some of the flavour.

Arrange on plates and serve with lemon slices, salad leaves and perhaps some boiled baby potatoes.

Serves 6.


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Earl Grey Granita with a shot of gin: good after curry

Atul Kochhar's unctuous and fragrant Almond Lamb Curry (Vadama kari kozhambu) was on the menu on Wednesday night, when my friend Bertrand, a wonderful cook, was up from Cape Town for the night. This Southern Indian recipe comes from Kochhar's brilliant book Simple Indian, which is my all-time favourite Indian cookbook, eclipsing even those of my food heroine Maddhur Jaffrey. I love the contemporary feel of Atul's food, his light and simple approach, and his extraordinary talent with spices.

Atul, the owner of London's Benares restaurant, was the first Indian chef to be awarded a Michelin star, and, Egad, Sire, I can see why.

Anyway, I was so caught up in spicing and dicing and all the whirling-dervishing that goes into making a curry that I did not give a thought to dessert, and there was nothing vaguely pudding-like in the cupboard.

Apart from sugar, tea, lemons and gin. And here was the result: a perfect zingy end to the meal.


Earl Grey Granita with a shot of gin

160 ml [3/4 cup] granulated white sugar
750 ml [three cups] boiling water
three Earl Grey tea bags
juice of one lemon
very finely grated lemon rind
a little gin, very well chilled. Bombay Sapphire is nice but Gordon's will do.

Six or so hours in advance, put a large, flat metal dish [a clean roasting pan is ideal; a ceramic one will do] in your freezer and turn the freezer to its lowest setting. Pour one cup of boiling water over the tea bags and allow to steep for ten minutes. Remove the teabags. Pour the remaining two cups of boiling water into a glass bowl, add the sugar, and stir until completely dissolved. Add the lemon juice and the tea. Allow to cool completely, then refrigerate. Two hours before serving, strain the mixture into the frozen dish, which should be smoking cold by now, and place back in the freezer. After about half an hour, or when the mixture starts to get slushy, scrape and scratch the mixture with a fork to form crystals. Continue scraping and scratching every twenty minutes or so, so you end up with a pile of icy, fluffy, crystalline flakes. Set a timer so ensure that you don't forget to scrape: if you do, the mixture will harden and you will have to start all over again.

Half an hour before serving, put some martini glasses or small dessert bowls in the freezer.

To serve, add a scoop of granita to each glass, top with a pinch of lemon rind, and trickle a tablespoon of ice-cold gin down the side of the glass, so that it pools at the bottom.

Serves 6.

Note: if you'd like a snowy, sorbet-like consistency, whip the slushy mixture with an egg beater two or three times during the freezing process. Print Friendly

Garlicky Lamb Kebabs with Fennel Seeds, on Rosemary Skewers

Do you ever stare glumly into the freezer, wondering what gnarled old thing you can defrost for supper for a grumpy and hungry family? I did the frantic freezer hunt yesterday, and for the first fifteen minutes of ploughing through fields of snow and chipping away glaciers turned up nothing but a few fossilised fishfingers, a powdery packet of celery soup and a puppy who went missing in 2005. And then - aha! - right at the back in the permafrost, a big box of cubed Karoo lamb, cut from the leg. It looked okay after defrosting, and after two hours in a simple marinade, and a quick grilling on my gas braai [barbeque], tasted sensational. Even though it had been frozen for - at a guess - four or five months, the lamb was still juicy, flavoursome and meltingly tender, so there's a smart smack in the broeks for kitchen purists who denounce freezing. If you don't have a rosemary bush in the garden, use ordinary kebab sticks and add fresh or dried rosemary needles to the marinade.

Image above by botanical artist Louise M Smith. See more of her work at Greenstems.com

Garlicky Lamb Kebabs with Fennel Seeds, on Rosemary Skewers

For the marinade:

1 T [10 ml] fennel seeds
1 T [10 ml] coriander seeds
3 cloves fresh garlic, crushed or finely chopped
juice of two fat lemons [save the squeezed-out lemon halves]
1/2 cup [125 ml] olive oil
salt and freshly milled black pepper

For the kebabs:

2 kg lamb, from the leg or shoulder, cut into 2cm x 2cm cubes
6-8 fresh woody rosemary stalks, about 30 cm long

To make the marinade: first dry-roast the seeds. Put the fennel and coriander seeds into a hot, dry frying pan and toss for 30 to 60 seconds, or until they are just beginning to toast and release their scent. Now, using a mortar and pestle [or a flat, heavy knife blade against a chopping board] lightly crush and bash to produce a slightly coarse grind. Put the seeds into a flat shallow dish and add all the remaining marinade ingredients. If you're not using fresh rosemary skewers [see above] , add a tablespoon of fresh or dried rosemary needles. Now tip in the lamb cubes and the squeezed-out lemon halves, toss well to coat, cover with cling film and set aside in a cool place to marinate for two hours, or overnight.

To make the kebabs: strip the leaves off three-quarters of each rosemary stalk, leaving a tuft of leaves at one end. With a good knife, or penknife, strip off the bark of the bare end of each stalk, and sharpen it to a point. Thread the lamb chunks onto the stalks, taking care not to pack them too tightly. Braai, barbecue or grill over a good heat, turning frequently and basting occasionally with the remaining marinade, for about 2o-30 minutes, or until the lamb is browned and sizzling on the outside but ever so faintly pink on the inside. You might be forced to pull off a piece of lamb and taste for yourself.

Excellent with lemon wedges and tzatziki.

Serves 8. Print Friendly

Hot Lemon Pudding

I've been going through my mother's hand-written cookbook (which she started in the early 1970s), giving little cries of joy each time I've come across a recipe for a dish I ate often as a child.

Try this wonderfully easy hot lemon pud. It contains a lot of egg and very little flour, so it puffs up into a light, wobbly, lemon-scented cloud, with a deeply browned top. Excellent with cold whipped cream or hot custard.

My mum always writes down who gave her a recipe , and this one came from her friend and my dear godmother Mari.

Hot Lemon Pudding

3 large free-range eggs
2 Tbsp (30 ml) soft butter
¾ cup (180 ml) white sugar
juice and zest of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp (30 ml) flour
1 cup (250 ml) milk

Heat the oven to 190 °C. Butter a deep pudding bowl. Separate the eggs and lightly whisk the yolks. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add the lemon juice and zest, and the flour, and stir well. Now add the egg yolks and the milk in the lemon juice and mix until well combined.

Beat the eggs whites to a firm peak (they should not be dry) and fold them carefully into the egg-yolk mixture. Pour the mixture into the pudding bowl and place the bowl in a roasting pan into which you have poured some hot water (the water should come three-quarters of the way up the sides of the pudding dish).

Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until puffed and brown on top. (Watch the pudding like a hawk for the last 10 minutes - you don't want the top to blacken.)

Serves 4


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Lemony Chicken Strips: my family's all-time top-rated supper

It's a nice recipe, I admit, but not so tasty it sends me into raptures. So why do my kids beg me on bended knees to make this week after week? Is it the lemonyness? Is it the chickeniness? You tell me: make it yourself, try it out on the kids, and send me some feedback.

This is a simple recipe with just a few ingredients. It's a bit too much work for my liking - I detest having to stand in front of a stove frying things - but I admit that it's worth the effort. I can't remember where I read this recipe - I seem to remember that it was in an article about the favourite dishes of famous chefs.

Lemony Chicken Strips
8 deboned, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup (125 ml) white flour
salt & freshly milled black pepper
2 T sunflower oil
2 T butter
1 skinny clove garlic, crushed
the juice of 3 lemons
1 cup (250 ml) white wine or stock
a generous handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

Lay the chicken breasts flat on a board. Cut out the fillet and slice vertically into two strips. Now cut horizontally through the breast, to make two thin leaves. Cut the leaves lengthways to make thin strips about 5 cm long.

Put the flour into a plastic bag or bowl and add a few pinches of salt and a generous grinding of black pepper. Now add the chicken strips and toss well to coat.

Heat the oil and butter in a large, flat-bottomed pan or frying pan, over a high flame. When the fats stop foaming, turn the heat down to medium. Remove the chicken strips from the bag or bowl and shake off any excess flour - they should be lightly dusted. Fry the chicken, in batches, until it's golden brown on the outside (don't worry if the strips are not cooked through). Put the cooked chicken strips onto a plate while you fry the rest. Add more oil to the pan if necessary, but don't let any dark, burned bits develop. (If they do, wipe out the pan with some kitchen paper, and start again with fresh oil and butter).

Remove the last pieces of chicken from the pan. Tip the frying pan over the sink to remove any excess fat, then replace on the heat and add the lemon juice, the garlic and and the wine (or stock or water). Using a wooden spoon or spatula, stir and scrape to release the golden-brown residue on the bottom of the pan. Turn down the heat, and allow the mixture to bubble for a minute. Now put the chicken and its leaked juices back into the pan and stir gently. As the flour is released from the chicken strips, the sauce will thicken slightly. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, or until the strips are cooked right through, but still meltingly tender. Turn off the heat, season with salt and black pepper, stir in the chopped parsley and toss well.

Serve with lemon wedges, a green salad and boiled new potatoes.

Serves 5.

Recipe rating:

My rating: 7/10
Teenagers' rating: 10/10. 'Don't finish it all, you pig. I want some in my lunch box tomorrow.'
Small-daughter rating: 10/10. Not one complaint. Print Friendly

Halloumi Salad with Lemon-Caper Dressing

The trouble with being on a diet is that food cravings appear out of nowhere. All I can think about at the moment is hot halloumi cheese, fried to a nice crusty golden colour, with a squeeze of lemon. Luckily there's none in the fridge. This reminded me of a wonderful salad. This is quite delicious and a brilliant dish if you're expecting a crowd. Serves 12 as a starter.

Halloumi salad with Lemon-Caper Dressing

3 blocks halloumi cheese
cornflour
salt and pepper
sunflower oil
rocket, watercress or salad greens

For dressing:
juice of 3 lemons
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ cup olive oil
¼ tsp sugar
1-2 tsp powdered cumin
salt and pepper to taste

To garnish:
a generous handful of capers
fresh coriander, finely chopped (mint and parsley are nice too)
lemon wedges

Cut the cheese into slices about 4 mm thick and pat very dry on a paper towel. Put the cornflour onto a plate and grind over some salt and pepper. Dip each slice into the cornflour and shake off the excess (they should be very lightly dusted). Heat some oil in a frying pan until very hot, but not smoking, and quickly fry the halloumi until it is golden brown and crispy. Drain on a paper towel.

Arrange the greens in a big flat serving dish and top with the fried halloumi. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing and pour it all over the salad. Scatter over the capers and coriander. Garnish with lemon wedges and serve warm.

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