Roasted Grapes with Blue Brie, and frozen grapes as a snack

Grapes are in high season here in South Africa, and for the past two weeks I've experimented with different ways of serving this glorious fruit.  Sure, the best way to demolish a bunch of grapes is to eat them very cold and fresh on a sweltering summer's day, but still I'd like to draw your attention to two lovely alternative ways of using grapes: slow-roasting them to a gentle collapse to draw out their perfumed juices, and freezing them to create crunchy little flavour bombs.

Roasted Grapes with gorgeous Blue Brie from Dalewood Fromage. 

The recipe in the picture above - roasted grapes with blue brie - is inspired by a sublime dish of gently stewed sweet grapes with thick Greek yoghurt. My friends Michael and Michelle Karamanof, who own a house in Kythera, Greece, made this for me a few years back, and it's a dish that has stood out in my memory.

I've served this version with both the roasted grapes and cold fresh ones, for a pleasing contrast.

Pressed Cheese with Roasted Grapes and Caramel-Dipped Fresh Grapes.
Plate by David Walters. 

In this second picture, above, I've whipped together crumbled blue cheese, mascarpone and chopped-up blue camembert, then pressed this sinful mixture over a layer of stewed grapes in a clingfilm-lined dish.The first time I made this, it was very tasty, but lacked texture, so in the second version I served it with fresh grapes dipped in a thin, brittle caramel. If I make this again, I will probably add some toasted macadamia nuts to either the cheese mixture or the caramel-dipped grapes.

Frozen grapes: crunchy little flavour bombs. 

Finally, the frozen grapes. These have a wonderful, refreshing, sorbet-like texture, especially if you leave them to stand for five minutes after you take them out of the freezer. They are very good served piled on a platter alongside thin shavings of good Parmesan, or - if you are feeding children - with chips of dark chocolate.  This is an excellent way to preserve grapes for future fruit smoothies, and you can also use them instead of ice cubes to chill a glass of white wine in a hurry, without diluting the wine. In this picture I've rolled the grapes in sugar, because they were rather acidic, but this isn't necessary if you've chosen a nice sweet grape.

To roast grapes:

Heat the oven to 160 ºC. Place a few bunches of sweet seedless black or red table grapes on a sheet lined with two sheets of baking paper. Roast for 30-40 minutes, depending on the size of the grapes, or until they have just collapsed, are slightly shrunken, and the juices are running. Pick up the edges of the baking paper and tip the grapes and their juices onto a platter. Serve with cheese.

To freeze grapes:

Wash a few whole bunches of seedless grapes and set them aside until they're dry. Put them in a freezer bag or lidded plastic container and freeze for 3 hours, or until solid. Take them out of the freezer 5 minutes before you serve them, or they'll crack someone's teeth, but don't leave them on the counter for too long as they defrost and soften quickly. These keep well in the freezer for up to a month.

For the pressed cheese: 

Wet a small mould and line it with a sheet of clingfilm, letting the edges drape down over the sides. Line the bottom of the mould with a single layer of roast grapes, and a little of their juice.  In a separate bowl, beat together equal quantities of mascarpone, crumbled blue cheese and finely chopped brie or camembert.

Season generously with black pepper and pack the mixture into the mould on top of the grapes. Flip the clingfilm edges over the top of the cheese and press down firmly to level the surface. Chill for an hour or two, or until firm.  If you'd like a (marginally) lighter mixture, use fat-free cream cheese instead of mascarpone.

For the caramel grapes:

Set a piece of baking paper on a board. Put a cup (250 ml) of caster sugar and a third of cup (80 ml) of water into a small, deep saucepan. If you have a saucepan with a white lining, use it, as this will allow you accurately to judge the colour. Bring gently to the boil, then turn the heat up a little and let the syrup bubble vigorously until it turns pale gold. At this point, watch it like a hawk, as caramel burns in an instant. Don't be tempted to stir - rather give the saucepan a gentle swirl. When the caramel is a beautiful rich golden colour, remove it from the heat. Don't wait too long: it will continue to darken by several shades after you take it off the heat, especially if you are using a thick-based saucepan that retains heat.

Stick a thin skewer deep into a grape, tilt the saucepan and dip the grape into the caramel. Now lift the grape high above the saucepan, allowing the caramel to run off and form a fine strand. Hold it there until the strand has hardened a little, then snip through it with a pair of kitchen scissors.  Place the grape on its side on the baking paper and repeat the process with the rest of the grapes.

If the caramel runs too reluctantly off the grape, you will need gently to rewarm it over a low flame. If it refuses to coat the grape or form a strand, you will need to cook the caramel for longer.

Serves 4-6 as a snack, with crackers

Roasted Grapes with Pressed Cheese. 

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My Hot Caprese Tart, and the agony of revisiting older blog posts

This beautiful picture is the work of Michael Le Grange, who is responsible for the images in my cookbook.  I'm in awe of his skills as a specialist food photographer, especially as I've recently spent many hours sifting through the older posts on my blog in a frenzied outburst of housekeepery.

Hot Caprese Tart on Phyllo Pastry. Image by Michael Le Grange,
© Random House Struik 

This hasn't been a pleasant exercise: I've cringed seeing the amateurish quality of the fuzzy photographs I posted when I started this blog six years ago. At the time, I could afford only the cheapest little point-and-click, and I really didn't appreciate the importance of a good image when it comes to food bloggery.  In fact, I was so wet behind the ears in 2007, when I started this blog, that I posted many recipes without any photographs at all. A good example is the recipe for my mum's legendary Asparagus Tart.

My first impulse, as I started my clean-up, was to delete all my earlier blogposts on the grounds that they are severely embarrassing. (This humiliation is amplified when someone finds a recipe and eagerly staples a dreadful photograph of mine to their 'Favourite Recipes' board on Pinterest.)

However, as I worked through the posts, I discovered many favourite recipes I'd entirely forgotten about: my late mother-in-law's lovely Almond Tart, for instance, and my mum's gorgeous Ginger-Glazed Shortbread.  Then there are those older recipes written in great detail that I'd never attempt these days because I don't have the time: Old-Fashioned Quince Paste is one example.

After some hand-wringing, I decided to let the older blogposts stand. Not only have I rediscovered recipes that gave me enormous pleasure at the time I wrote about them, but I've also revisited happy times in my life.

I've never kept a written diary (mostly because my handwriting as a left-hander is so appalling that I can't decipher a word) but I'm an ardent fan of diaries, coming as I do from a long line of South African women diarists.

My great-great grandmother, Charlotte
Moor (née Moodie), was a prolific diarist

My ancestor Sophia Pigot, for example, wrote a famous diary when she arrived in South Africa as a wide-eyed girl in a family party of 1820 settlers.  Charlotte Mary St. Clair Moodie, my great-great grandmother (left), was a poet and novelist whose extensive journals about the Boer War and her travails as a mother and farmer were privately published by my family a few years ago  Her daughter, my great-aunt Shirley Moor, kept a wonderfully fierce and endearing diary (now in the Campbell Collections), which I spent many months transcribing and annotating in the mid-Nineties.

My mum, novelist Jenny Hobbs, also has a stash of hand-written diaries from her teen years, written in exercise books stuffed with tickets, postcards, ribbons and similar 1950s ephemera.

As the daughter of these indefatigable women, I'm a bit ashamed that I've never kept a pen-and-paper diary to pass on.  All I can offer is this food blog, warts and all.


Perhaps some time in the future - in 30 years' time, for example, when I'm sitting drooling in a wheelchair and sucking cauliflower cheese through a tube  - I'll read fondly through my blogposts, marvelling at a time when my children still wanted to live at home, and I had the time and inclination to make Half-Candied Kumquats Dipped in Dark Chocolate.

If you've read this far down, you surely must want the recipe.

This is an effortless and delicious dish for brunch or lunch, and one of my favourite recipes for feeding a crowd. You can read more about this dish here, if you can bear the embarrassing photographs.

Hot Caprese Tart

A classic Italian salad transformed into a ‘pizza’, albeit one with a base of crisp phyllo pastry. Children who might turn up their noses at a Caprese salad, that sublime combination of ripe tomatoes, milky mozzarella and peppery fresh basil, are surprisingly enthusiastic when they see it presented in a form they know and love. Double this recipe if there are children at the table.

6 sheets phyllo pastry
8 Tbsp (120 ml/120 g) butter
5 Tbsp (75 ml) finely grated Parmesan cheese
8 ripe tomatoes
600 g mozzarella
flaky sea salt and milled black pepper
a small bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil

Heat the oven to 170°C. Unroll the phyllo pastry on a board and keep covered with a damp cloth. Melt the butter in a saucepan or the microwave. Start by brushing the bottom and sides of a non-stick baking sheet, then line it with a sheet of phyllo pastry, allowing the edges to drape over the rim. Brush the phyllo layer generously with butter and sprinkle with a tablespoon of Parmesan. Add another sheet of phyllo and continue layering, brushing and sprinkling until you have used up all 6 sheets. Trim any ragged edges and round off the corners with a pair of scissors.

Thinly slice the tomatoes and the mozzarella and arrange the slices, alternately, in overlapping rows on the pastry. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 170° C for 10-15 minutes, or until the pastry is crisp and golden, and the cheese melted. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with basil leaves and drizzle with the olive oil. Cut into eight squares and serve immediately.

Serves 8 as a starter or side dish.

Cook’s Notes: Make the phyllo pastry base up to 6 hours in advance, but cover it tightly with several sheets of clingfilm so it doesn’t dry out. Slice the cheese and keep covered. The tomatoes should be sliced at the last minute.

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Low-Carb Bacon-Wrapped Chipolatas with Whipped Mustard Sauce

I took this snap of Happy Piglets (with mustard sauce in the background)
while my book's  photographer Michael Le Grange was setting up the shot.
Bowl and plate by my uncle David Walters.

Flops and failures are part of the process of developing new recipes from scratch, and often I have to remake a dish several times before I'm satisfied with it. Sometimes, though, a recipe falls into place in one go, and this whipped mustard sauce - which I dreamed up for my cookbook - is one of of those.

This is a light, silken, creamy sauce with a good zip of mustard and a lovely mild aniseedy note of tarragon;  it stiffens a little when chilled, and keeps beautifully in the fridge for up to 5 days without any loss of taste or texture.

As I've mentioned about a thousand times elsewhere on this blog, bacon-wrapped chipolatas (which I call 'Happy Piglets') are the highlight of our festive feast, to the point that mild panic sets in a few days before the big day, with various sisters surging from supermarket to butcher in order to hunt them down and corral them into freezers and fridges.

We usually dish them up with the turkey, but they also make excellent festive snacks. I served them with this sauce at both my 50th birthday party and my book launch, and they were gone in a flash; I recommend that you double the recipe if you are expecting a crowd.

Half-cook the piglets to save oven space.

This Christmas we partly cooked the happy piglets ahead of time because we had limited oven space.

To do the same, place them in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until they are half cooked, then set aside, covered with foil. Then put them in a blazing-hot oven for 10 minutes to crisp up just before you serve them.

This sauce is a little fiddly to make because it's egg based, but if you follow my directions to the letter you cannot go wrong.

If your eggs curdle because you've over-heated them, you'll have to throw them out and start again.

Fresh tarragon isn't easy to come by, so I use dried tarragon, which is beautifully pungent.  If possible, use Maille Dijon mustard, and not some over-yellowy substitute.

This recipe is low in carbohydrates, and suitable for anyone on a #LCHF or diabetic regime.

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Low-Carb Bacon-Wrapped Chipolatas with Whipped Mustard Sauce

16 rashers streaky bacon, halved crossways
32 pork chipolatas
fresh rosemary sprigs

For the sauce:
5 Tbsp (75 ml) white wine vinegar
half an onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp (5 ml) dried tarragon
3 free-range egg yolks
2 Tbsp (30 ml) water
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) hot English mustard powder
4 Tbsp (60 ml) Maille Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp (15 ml) butter
salt and milled black pepper
175 ml cream, whipped to a soft peak

You can prepare the Happy Piglets well
 in advance and keep them in the fridge.

Heat the oven to 180 °C. Wrap the bacon around the sausages and tuck a small rosemary sprig into each. Place on a non-stick baking sheet and bake for 20–30 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked and the bacon crisp.

For the sauce, simmer the vinegar, onion and tarragon in a saucepan for 4–5 minutes, or until reduced by half. Put the egg yolks, water, mustard powder, Dijon mustard and butter into a metal or glass bowl and whisk until creamy.

Strain the warm vinegar onto the eggs and mix well. Put the bowl over a pan of simmering water and cook, whisking constantly, for 4–5 minutes, or until hot and very thick. Do not allow the mixture to come anywhere near boiling point. You'll know it's ready when it suddenly thickens.

Season to taste, cool for 5 minutes, and then fold in the whipped cream. Chill.

 Serve the sausages hot with the cold mustard sauce.

Serves 8 as a snack. 

Cook’s Notes

Although best hot from the oven, the sausages can be baked a few hours in advance and reheated in a moderate oven. You can make the mustard sauce up to 24 hours in advance.

Recipe from Scrumptious Food for Family and Friends by Jane-Anne Hobbs, courtesy of Random House Struik.


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Perfect Padkos: Spicy Frikkadels with a Surprise

Everyone loves a frikkie, or a kofta, or whatever name you give to this delicious, much-loved South African snack. A melting nugget of feta cheese wrapped in fresh mint is the surprise inside these lightly spiced meatballs.

Perfect Padkos: Spicy Frikkadels with a Surprise

Frikkies are a very important component of padkos. This is an Afrikaans word that is impossible to translate, although its literal meaning is 'road food'. But padkos is so much more than just food for the road.  Most often, you'll take padkos in the car with you on a long trip, but you can also use the word to describe any food you'd take to eat on the hoof. Or on a plane, or a train.

I have fond memories of the long train trips I used to take when I was a student at Rhodes University in the early 1980s. The final leg of the journey involved changing trains at Alicedale, a small railway town in the Eastern Cape. The train that used to run between Alicedale and Grahamstown was pulled by an ancient Puffing Billy that toiled so slowly up the hills that you could hop off and jog alongside the train without any fear of being left behind. On one occasion, half starved, having spent all my pocket money the previous day, I was delighted to see the auntie sitting in the seat opposite me hauling out a big, battered polystyrene cooler box. She and her daughter, who both looked like overstuffed sofas in their floral crimplene dresses, carefully unpacked a wonderful assortment of padkos, including chilled grapes, sandwiches, vetkoek, lemonade and big plastic blikkie [box] lined with foil and filled to the brim with juicy-looking frikkadels. Then, without so much as offering me a taste, they methodically demolished the lot, dolefully chewing on their meatballs all the way to Grahamstown, their bovine eyes fixed on a point six inches above my head.

I asked my friends on Twitter to help me define #padkos. The best suggestion, from @NixDodd, was, 'The refreshing victuals packed to sustain travellers on the long South African roads."   Spot on: 'victuals' is an excellent word for describing this sort of food.

And what, I asked Twitter, constitutes proper padkos? There are too many victuals to list here, but the most popular items included hard-boiled eggs (with salt in a twist of foil), egg- or chicken-mayonnaise sandwiches, frikkadels, biltong, cold boerewors, pork sausages, crisps, rusks, samoosas, naartjies, moerkoffie in a flask (preferably sweetened with condensed milk), toffees, sweets and cold chicken drumsticks. All these suggestions were tweeted with great fondness and nostalgia, revealing just how important a part padkos plays in South Africa's culinary heritage.

If you're still not convinced by the idea of cold meatballs, try my special formula (although you may want to leave out the cheese if they're going to be eaten on the road). You can make these with minced lamb, beef, or pork or – best of all – a combination of beef and pork.

Prepare the raw frikkadels up to 12 hours ahead and keep them covered in the fridge. These need to be fried and then finished off in the oven, or they will darken in the pan before they’re cooked right through. The chickpea and spice dusting helps to create a rich golden crust. Chickpea flour is available from health shops and spice shops. But you can, of course, use ordinary flour.

The middles of these frikkies contain a nugget of feta and a mint leaf

Spicy Frikkadels with a Surprise

1 large egg
5 Tbsp (75 ml) natural yoghurt
1 cup (250 ml) fresh white breadcrumbs
750 g minced beef, lamb or pork
1 small onion, peeled and finely grated
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ cup (125 ml) finely chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp (5 ml) finely grated lemon zest
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) cumin
1 tsp (5 ml) ground coriander
½ tsp (2.5 ml) chilli powder, or more, to taste
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) salt
milled black pepper
100 g feta cheese, cut into 1-cm cubes
a small bunch of fresh mint
sunflower oil, for frying

For the 'crust':
½ cup (125 ml) chickpea (channa) flour
1 tsp (5 ml) turmeric
1 tsp (5 ml) paprika


Whisk the egg and yoghurt in a large mixing bowl, stir in the breadcrumbs and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Now add the mince, onion, garlic, coriander, lemon zest, spices, salt and black pepper to taste. Using your hands, squish everything together to make a fairly firm paste.

To form the meatballs, pinch off a ball the size of a large litchi. Slightly flatten it in the palm of your hand, place a mint leaf on top, and on top of that a cube of feta. Gently squeeze and pinch the mixture to fully enclose the filling then roll it, very gently, between your palms to form a ball. Put them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.

Heat the oven to 180º C. Mix the chickpea flour, turmeric and paprika together a plate and season to taste with salt and pepper. Roll the meatballs, eight at a time, in the seasoned flour and dust off the excess. Fry in hot oil, in batches, for 3-4 minutes, or until crusty and golden brown all over, draining on kitchen paper. Place the meatballs on a baking sheet and roast in the hot oven for 5-7 minutes, or until cooked right through.

Stick a toothpick into each one and serve hot or cold, with Lemon-Yoghurt Dipping Sauce. 

Serves 8 as a snack.

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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

Chickpea and Feta Fritters with a Mint &Paprika Dressing

Chickpea Fritters with a perky mint & paprika dressing 

A chewable form of hummous is how I'd describe these little fritters, because they contain all the ingredients (and flavours) of that heavenly Middle Eastern dip, with the bonus of a little crunch when you bite into them.

I am mad about hummous, and could eat it every day (in fact, I usually do). It's extraordinary that chickpeas - which, face it, taste as dull as ditch water, especially if they've been been boiled to buggery and then tinned - can be transformed, with the addition of just a few sparky ingredients, into a paste that is so zingingly delicious. But it's their very blandness and flouriness that makes these little legumes such good carriers of flavour, and they really come into their own when paired with pungent spices and fresh herbs.

These aren't really fritters, because they're not deep-fried: they're more like griddle cakes. Whatever you want to call them, they're very quick and easy to make if you have food processor fitted with a metal blade. Watch them closely as they fry, as they turn from golden brown to charcoal in a matter of seconds.

When I was imagining this recipe (it's usually when I'm lying awake and fidgeting in the middle of the night that my thoughts turn to food) I thought it would be interesting with grated halloumi cheese, for extra texture, but my local shop doesn't stock it, so feta had to do, and it did well.

Feel free to use dried chickpeas, if you have the patience to soak and boil them. I don't.

Chickpea and Feta Fritters, with a Mint and Paprika Dressing

2 x 250g tins chickpeas, drained
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
half a white onion, peeled and sliced
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce
1 Tbsp (15 ml) tahini
finely grated zest of half a lemon
the juice of a lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
3 eggs
½ cup (125 ml) chopped flat-leaf parsley
½ cup (125 ml) chopped fresh coriander [cilantro]
3/4 cup (180 ml) white flour
2 tsp (10 ml) powdered cumin
milled black pepper
100 g feta cheese
vegetable oil for frying

For the dressing:
5 Tbsp (75 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
a pinch of salt
1 tsp (5 ml) smoked paprika
3 sprigs fresh mint

Put the chickpeas, garlic, onion, Tabasco, tahini, lemon zest, lemon juice and salt into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, and whizz to a paste. If the mixture is too stiff for the blades to turn, break an egg into the chute of the food processor. Now add the parsley and coriander and press the pulse button a few times so that the herbs are finely chopped but not puréed.  When the mixture looks smooth, tip it into a mixing bowl and add the remaining two eggs, the flour and the cumin. Mix very well. Crumble the feta cheese into the batter and season with black pepper and more salt, if necessary.  Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to firm up.

Heat the oven to 140°C and put a platter in to warm. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan. Using a spoon, drop blobs of batter (about 20 ml/4 tsp each) into the hot oil. Fry for about a minute, or until golden brown and crusty underneath, then flip over and cook for another minute. Drain on a piece of kitchen towel and place in the oven while you fry the rest of the fritters.

To make the dressing, whisk together all the ingredients, except for the mint, and decant into a little bowl. Just before you serve the fritters, strip the mint leaves from their stalks, slice into fine shreds, and stir into the dressing.

Serve the fritters piping hot, with the dressing as a dipping sauce.

Makes about 30 fritters. Print Friendly

Zaheera's Easy Sweetcorn, Coriander and Chilli Crustless Egg Tart

I am smitten by this most unusual crustless egg tart. Although cheekily spiked with fresh coriander, green peppers and a little green chilli, it is a surprisingly delicate dish, with a lovely trembling texture and a crunchy topping of poppy seeds.  This is, to me, a perfect family recipe: easy to make, economical and just so moreish that I suggest you double the quantities.

Zaheera's Easy Sweetcorn, Coriander and Chilli Crustless Egg Tart

I first tasted this, cold and cut into squares (and it is just as good cold as it is warm) at a school-mommy tea party, and I begged Zaheera, who made the dish, for the recipe.

She sent me her hand-written recipe a few days later, which I promptly lost. While packing my house this weekend (we're moving to Cape Town in three weeks' time), I found her recipe tucked into my diary, and fell on it with joy.

This is the first recipe I've ever come across that contains coarsely grated green (bell) peppers.  It's never occurred to me to grate a green pepper, but what a good idea.

You can omit the minced green chilli if you don't like hot food, but do consider leaving it in: this dish has the mildest bite, which is beautifully balanced out by the sweetness of creamed sweetcorn.

Thanks, Zaheera!

Zaheera's Easy Sweetcorn, Coriander and Chilli Crustless Egg Tart

1 x 410 g tin creamed sweetcorn
1 fresh green chilli, deseeded and finely minced or chopped
½ cup (125 ml) chopped fresh coriander [cilantro]
½ cup (125 ml) coarsely grated green pepper [bell pepper]
60 g (60 ml/4 Tbsp) cold butter, grated on the coarse side of a cheese grater
3 extra-large free-range eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup (125 ml) cake flour
2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
¾ cup (180 ml) grated Cheddar
½ tsp (5 ml) salt, or more, to taste
freshly ground black pepper

Topping: 
1 Tbsp (15 ml) poppy seeds (or toasted sesame seeds)

Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Butter a 20-cm round or square ceramic dish, or a non-stick metal quiche dish.

Put all the ingredients, except the poppy seeds, into large bowl, and mix well. Pour the mixture into the buttered pan and sprinkle the poppy seeds on top.  Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until slightly puffed and golden-brown on top.  Serve warm or - if you're making this as a snack - allow to cool and cut into small squares.

Serves 4 as a main course, or 8 as a snack.

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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

Parsnip, Potato and Cumin Cakes with Crème Fraîche and Chives

I love a parsnip. Partly because 'parsnip' is such a great word (it sounds like the tip of a pair of sharp scissors snicker-snacking a parson's robe) but also because this humble vegetable is so earthily delicious, so cheap, so nourishing and so easy to cook.

Crisp parsnip 'latkes' dolloped with crème fraîche.  

 It might not be the most alluring-looking vegetable, with its whiskers and scrawny legs, but it has a lovely, nutty flavour that I find quite addictive.

These pancakes are similar to latkes, but have a warm hint of cumin. I wouldn't consider making them if I didn't have a food processor, which makes the preparation so quick and easy. If you don't have a food processor, grate the ingredients by hand. If you have the patience.

I can't quantify the size of the potatoes or parsnips in this recipe, because I don't know how big yours are (that sounds rude; parsnippy snicker!). But the ratio of potato to parsnip should be roughly equal.

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Parsnip, Potato and Cumin Pancakes with Crème Fraîche and Chives

For the cakes:

the juice of one lemon
1 onion, peeled and cut into chunks
3 medium-sized, floury potatoes
3 large parsnips
2 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled and crushed
2 tsp (10 ml) ground cumin
salt and freshly milled black pepper
vegetable oil and butter, for frying

For the topping:
crème fraîche
snipped fresh chives

Cut the lemon in half and squeeze its juice into a deep mixing bowl. Put the onion chunks into the goblet of a food processor and blitz until finely chopped, but not a mushy paste. Leave them in the food processor bowl.

Now fit a coarse grating blade to your food processor. Peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks, and feed them quickly through the grater. Peel the parsnips and do the same. Tip the blitzed onions, and the grated potatoes and parsnips into the bowl containing the lemon juice and, using your hands, toss well (this will prevent the gratings from browning). Leave to stand for 15 minutes, and then tip the contents of the bowl into a sieve or colander. Place the sieve over the sink, and, using your hands, press down on the gratings to squeeze out any remaining liquid.

Put the gratings back in the bowl and stir in the crushed garlic and cumin. Season with salt and pepper.

Place a few sheets of absorbent kitchen paper on your counter, next to the stove. Heat equal quantities of vegetable oil and butter in a large, flat frying pan (to a depth of about 2 mm). When the butter has stopped sizzling, take a handful of the grated mixture, squeeze it well to remove any more liquid, and place a mound of it in the hot fat.

Using a spatula, press down hard on the mixture to compress it into a flat pancake. Allow it to brown, pressing down on it once or twice, but not stirring or poking, for three minutes, or until the edges are golden and crispy and the cake is holding together. If the frizzly edges are turning to a dark, dangerous brown, turn down the heat. Flip the pancake over, and fry for another three minutes, or until golden brown and crisp.

Drain on kitchen paper.

To serve, top each pancake with a teaspoon of crème fraîche, and a shower of snipped chives.

Makes about 12 small cakes.

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Quick, Easy Chilli-Bite Chicken Strips

"Just as good as KFC crispy strips," was the verdict of my teens when they tasted these spicy, crunchy chicken fillets, made by coating yoghurt-marinated breasts in dry chilli-bite-mix powder and quickly shallow-frying them. Now, I would have preferred them to say, "'Oh, our Sainted Mother, Giver of Life and Much-Valued Maker of Supper, these are way, way better than KFC!", but, face it: to a 17-year-old, nothing can taste better than a greasy bucket of the Colonel's finest factory-reared poultry product.

I had intended to use ordinary flour to coat the strips of chicken, but I'd run out, so I thought I'd experiment with Pakco Chilli-Bite Mix. This is a well-known and loved South African brand of instant batter, made from gram flour (chana or chickpea flour), spices and a little baking powder. Mixed with water, it makes a thick batter that is combined with chopped onions, chillies, coriander, spices and other flavourings and dropped, in blobs, into hot oil to make puffy 'chilli bites', which are similar to a pakoras, or to Britain's national snack, the ubiquitous onion bhaji. The wet batter can also be used to coat fish, chicken and vegetable chunks.

I'm not a big buyer of instant mixes (okay, I sometimes buy caramel instant-pudding, and and I think felafel-mix is a great stand-by) but these strips were so good - tender and garlicky on the inside; crunchy and spicy without - that from now I will always keep a packet of Pakco powder in my store cupboard.

You can buy this product from online stores peddling South African foods (such as African Hut in the US, and the SA Shop in the UK, or you could make up your own chilli-bite mix, using the dry ingredients in this recipe ( I haven't tried to make my own mix, and don't intend to - the whole point of this recipe is that it's so effortless!)

This recipe is easily halved.


Quick, Easy Chilli-Bite Chicken Strips
10 deboned, skinless chicken breasts
salt and milled black pepper
1 cup (250 ml) plain white yoghurt
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
the juice of one lemon
about a cup (250 ml) of Pakco Chilli Bite Mix (see notes, above)
oil for frying

To serve:
chopped fresh coriander (cilantro or dhania)
lemon wedges

Prepare the chicken and the marinade an hour or two in advance. First, cut the breasts into thin strips of a roughly equal size: Lay the chicken breasts flat on a board. Put one hand on top of the breast and, using a sharp knife, blade held parallel to the chopping board, cut horizontally through the breast to make two 'leaves'. Cut each leaf into two or three strips.

Season the breasts with a little salt and pepper (be sparing with the salt, as the the coating powder is quite salty) and put them in a flat glass or plastic dish. In a separate bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, crushed garlic and lemon juice. Pour the marinade over the chicken strips, and toss well so that every strip is well coated. Set aside in a cool place to for a few hours (no longer than three hours, or the yoghurt will tenderise the chicken to a point of mushiness).

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C. Spread a cup or so of the chilli-bite mix onto a plate or flat dish. Heat a non-stick frying pan and add enough vegetable oil to cover the base of the pan to a depth of about one millimetre. While the oil is heating, remove the chicken strips, in batches of five or six, from the marinade (scrape off any excess marinade, if it's really thick) and roll the strips in the chilli-bite mixture, pressing down so that they are well coated on both sides. Shake off any excess powder, and place the strips in the hot oil. Fry for a minute or so, or until golden brown and crispy, and then turn and fry for another minute. Remove from the pan and drain for a minute on several layers of kitchen paper. Slide the cooked chicken strips onto a dish and place in the oven to finish cooking while you fry the remaining chicken in batches. Don't overcrowd the pan, which may cool the oil, and don't allow the oil to get too hot. If the pan accumulates dark-brown bits, wipe it out with a sheet of kitchen paper and add some fresh oil.

Serve piping hot, with fresh coriander and lemon wedges.

Serves 10 as a starter or snack; 6 as a main dish. Print Friendly

Quick Sweetcorn, Feta and Leek Fritters

These sweetcorn fritters are lovely with a sweet chilli sauce 

Five ears of lovely local sweetcorn have been giving me the yellow tooth from inside my fridge for a week now, but I just didn't feel like eating mielies (which is what we call corn here in South Africa). A fritter was what I felt like, and this is what I made.

Do use a fairly generous amount of oil - say, 2 to 3 tablespoons - when you fry these fritters, so that the little kernels of corn sticking out at the edges go all nutty and juice-poppy as they brown.

My kids really liked these and I'm going to make them again for their lunch boxes.

You could add some Thai flavours - a little chopped coriander, lemon grass and chopped green chilli, perhaps some ginger and garlic, to this mixture, and serve it with a sweet dipping sauce.

Quick Sweetcorn, Feta and Leek Fritters

5 ears of sweetcorn (on the cob)
a large leek, white part only, skinned and very finely chopped
a generous handful of chopped fresh parsley
two wheels of feta cheese (about 140 g), crumbled
2 free-range eggs
½ cup (125 ml) white flour
½ tsp (2.5 ml) baking powder
salt and milled black pepper, to taste
sunflower or olive oil for frying

Hold the corn cob vertically in one hand, its bottom end resting on a chopping board, and slice downwards with a sharp knife to cut off the kernels.

Put the kernels in a bowl, add all the remaining ingredients and stir well with a fork.

Heat the oil in a nonstick frying pan and, when it is nice and hot, use a large spoon to drop dollops of the mixture into the oil. Fry for about two minutes, or until golden brown on underneath, and then flip and fry for another two minutes. Don't let the pan get too hot as these burn quickly. Add more oil, if necessary, to the pan for the next batch.

Drain on kitchen paper and serve hot with lemon wedges.

Makes about 10 fritters. Print Friendly