Curried Salt-Sprinkle

A lovely, zingy, all-purpose spicy salt-sprinkle for grilled chicken and meat, rice, stews, soups, dips, curries and popcorn.

I am a great fan of home-made spiced and herbed salt mixtures, and about once a month make two or three small batches - a cup at a time - of flavoured salt, which I use for seasoning our everyday family meals. These mixtures keep well for a month or two in tightly sealed glass or plastic jars, provided that everything is perfectly dry.

For this recipe, curry leaves are an essential ingredient. They are available whole and dried from spice shops, Indian supermarkets and greengrocers. If you can only find fresh ones, you will need to dry them on a windowsill for a few days - or in a barely warm oven for a few hours - before you use them. Or, you can blend the whole fresh leaves into the mixture, and then set the salt outside, thinly spread on a baking tray, in the sun, for a few hours so that all the moisture evaporates. The the same applies to bay leaves.

Whole, fresh spices (or very fresh powdered spices) are essential for this mixture.

Curried Salt Sprinkle

1. 3 T (45 ml) whole coriander seeds
2. 3 T (45 ml)) whole cumin seeds
3. 1 T (15 ml) fenugreek seeds
   
4. 6 whole white cardamom pods
5. 3 whole cloves
6. 1 small stick cinnamon, broken into small pieces
7. 3 T (45 ml) yellow mustard seeds
8. a handful of dry curry leaves (or fresh, see above)
9. 3 dry bay leaves
10. 4 dried red chillies, seeds removed (or 20 ml dried red chilli flakes)
11. 1 T (15 ml) turmeric
12. 1 T (15 ml) black or green dried peppercorns
    
13. 1 and 1/2 cups (375 ml) coarse sea salt

Heat a dry frying pan until moderately hot and add ingredients 1- 7. Toss the ingredients and allow to toast over the heat for a few minutes, or until they begin to release their fragrance. Don't allow them to brown or burn. Tip all these ingredients into a coffee grinder or spice grinder, or one of those little mini-bowls on your food processor, add a few tablespoons of coarse salt, and whizz until well blended. If you don't have an electric grinder, put them in a mortar and bash hard with a pestle. Add all the remaining ingredients and grind to a powder. Tip into a dry jar and seal tightly. You will find that the bigger, dryer particles and husks 'float' to the top of the mixture - which is fine, but do shake well before using. Makes about 2 cups.

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Blend-Ahead, Deeply Delicious Spicy Mince, Bean and Tomato Soup

Blend-Ahead, Deeply Delicious Spicy Mince, Bean and Tomato Soup

This is a great recipe for feeding a hungry horde of teens on a shoestring, because it uses only 500 g of lean mince and is thickened with nutritious (but cunningly concealed) tinned beans, which are the perfect fibre and energy food for teens.

If you're a vegetarian, leave out the mince - it's just as good without it. It's called Blend-Ahead because it's puréed before it's cooked.

There are a lot of ingredients, and a longish cooking time, but the soup takes less than 15 minutes to prepare. Oh, and did I mention that it is delicious and addictive? I've made it three times this week.




Blend-Ahead Spicy Mince, Bean and Tomato Soup

2 Tbsp (30 ml) vegetable oil
3 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
500 g lean minced beef
6 large, ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tin good tinned tomatoes, and their juice
3 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tin butter or kidney beans, and their liquid (see notes)
1 tin baked beans in tomato sauce
2 Tbsp (30 ml) mild curry powder
2 Tbsp (30 ml) powdered cumin
1 Tbsp (15 ml) powdered coriander
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce
1 tsp (5 ml) chilli powder [optional; to taste]
4 Tbsp (60 ml) tomato sauce [ketchup] or 30 ml (2 Tbsp) tomato paste
1.25 litres (5 cups) vegetable stock, chicken stock or water
salt and freshly ground black pepper
200 ml coconut milk

To serve:
a dollop of plain white yoghurt, chopped coriander and a few dabs of olive oil, plus anything else you fancy: grated cheddar, chopped spring onions, fresh green chillies, etc.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Put the onions in the goblet of a liquidizer fitted with a metal blade and whiz until very finely chopped. Fry the onions in the oil until they are softened and beginning to turn golden.

Turn up the heat and add the mince, stirring with a fork to break up any lumps. While the mince is browning, put the tomatoes, the tin of tomatoes, the garlic and the tinned beans and their liquid into the liquidiser. Process until fine.

Tip the cooked mince and onions into a metal sieve set over a bowl and press down with a fork to drain off excess fat. Now tip them back into the pot and add the ingredients you've just liquidised. Add all the remaining ingredients, except for the coconut milk, and use a balloon whisk to combine everything and break up any stubborn lumps of beef.

Bring to the boil, and then immediately turn down the heat. Cook over a moderate to low heat for about an hour and a half, stirring now and then to prevent sticking, and skimming off the foam as it rises. If the soup seems too thick, add a little more stock or water to thin it down. It's important not to rush the cooking: the beef should melt into tender granules and the soup needs time to thicken. Stir in the coconut milk and serve very hot, with the cool and crunchy toppings.

Serves eight.

Cook's Notes:

- Any tinned bean and its juice will do, but this is my favourite combination
- Add a tin of sweetcorn kernels or chickpeas, or lentils, if you'd like to add even more bulk.
- You can use an equal quantity of tinned tomatoes instead of fresh ones, but the flavour somehow isn't the same.
- You can also use dried beans in this recipe, but you will need to soak them and boil them in advance. Remember not to add any salt to the boiling water, which will toughen the beans.

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Spiced Plums with Tamarind

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

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

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

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

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

Spiced Plums with Tamarind

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

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

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

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

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

If you're bottling the plums:

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

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

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

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

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Dorado Steaks with a Zingy Sauce of Capers, Herbs, Olives & Anchovies

Woolies branches here in Johannesburg are selling gorgeous fresh dorado steaks: if you love a dense, muscular, oily fish, you'll go mad for these. It's difficult to get good fresh fish here in Johannesburg, land-locked as we are, because all the best fish tends to jet directly into restaurant kitchens, and the pitiful specimens left over end up in fish shops, looking and tasting elderly by the time they hit my frying pan.

This zingy sauce is version of salsa verde. It's lovely whizzed up to a silken green cream in a liquidiser, and equally good served chunky. The choice is yours.

Woolies Dorado Steaks with a Zingy Sauce of Capers, Herbs, Olives and Anchovies

4 x 150 g fresh dorado steaks
salt and freshly milled black pepper
4 tsp (20 ml) butter
2 Tbsp (30 ml) olive oil

For the sauce:
1 Tbsp (15 ml) capers
2-3 anchovy fillets, to taste
3 Tbsp (45 ml) chopped fresh parsley
3 Tbsp (45 ml) chopped fresh mint (or coriander, or rocket, or a combination)
2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and sliced
3 Tbsp (45 ml) green olives, pitted
3 Tbsp (45 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

First make the sauce. If you'd like a silken sauce, put all the ingredients into a liquidizer, or the jug attachment of a stick blender, and whizz to a paste. Add a little olive oil or water if the blades are reluctant to turn. If you'd like a chunkier sauce, finely chop all the ingredients and mix together. Put the sauce in the fridge while you cook the fish.

Pat the steaks quite dry with a paper towel and season on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan until very hot. Place the fish in the hot fat, skin-side down, and fry for 3-4 minutes, or until the skin starts to crisp. Now turn the steaks and fry and until golden brown on all sides, basting frequently with hot fat to prevent the fish from drying out.

 Poke the tip of a sharp knife into the fish to check for doneness: it should be a lovely, white, moist and flaky. If the centre of the steaks is still pink and transparent, cook over a gentle heat for a few more minutes. Peel off the strip of leathery skin before serving.

Arrange the fish on a plate and top with blobs - or lashings, if you've chopped everything - of cool green sauce.

Serve with boiled baby potatoes and dark salad leaves.

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