Summer Linguine with a Cold Sauce of Poached Chicken, Tomatoes and Basil

A perfect lunch for a hot day: a chilled sauce of tender oven-poached chicken, cherry tomatoes, garlic and summer herbs poured over hot linguine. This is an easy dish, quickly put together, and more so if you poach the breasts in the morning and leave them to cool in their liquid until you're ready to use them.

Photograph by Michael Le Grange, from my book Scrumptious. Bowl by David Walters.
 Image © Random House Struik 2012

I have tried many methods of cooking chicken breasts, but this is the only one than results in perfectly tender and succulent flesh without a hint of rubberiness or stringiness. You could poach them in a saucepan, but this method guarantees perfect results and I can heartily recommend it.

This salad is lovely topped with a shower of crumbled peppered Feta cheese.

Summer Linguine with a Cold Sauce of Poached Chicken, Tomatoes and Basil

To poach the chicken:
6 large deboned, skinned chicken breasts
enough hot water to cover them
2 bay leaves
half an onion, thickly sliced
3 whole cloves
a carrot, roughly chopped
a few stalks of parsley
a slice of lemon

For the sauce:
a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley (or rocket, or both)
a small bunch of fresh basil
600 g ripe cherry tomatoes, halved, or sliced if they are big
4 spring onions, finely sliced
2-4 fat cloves garlic, peeled and crushed (to taste: I like it very garlicky)
80 ml fruity olive oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce (or a teaspoon of red chilli flakes)
1 tsp (5ml) salt
1 tsp (5 ml) white sugar
plenty of milled black pepper

To serve:
a packet of linguine or spaghetti
extra olive oil
crumbled peppered feta cheese [optional]

Heat the oven to 180 ºC. Season the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and put them in a single layer in a ceramic baking dish (don't pack them tightly). Add the bay leaves, onion, cloves, carrot, parsley and lemon slice, and pour over enough boiling 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 completely. (They should be refrigerated if they're not going to be used immediately).

Now make the sauce. Strip the leaves from half the parsley and basil sprigs and chop roughly (reserve the remaining sprigs).  Place in a mixing bowl and add the tomatoes, spring onions, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, Tabasco, salt, pepper and sugar. Toss well to combine.  Remove the chicken from its poaching liquid and, using your fingers, tear into pieces. Add the chicken to the bowl.  Now measure out 80 ml of the cool poaching liquid and add it to the bowl. Season generously with black pepper and toss again to combine. Cover the bowl and set aside in a cool place, or in the fridge, for 30 minutes to allow the dressing to soak into the chicken.

Cook the linguine in plenty of salted boiling water until just al dente.  Drain the pasta quickly and tip it into a large platter. Chop the remaining basil and parsley and add it to the sauce. Toss again, then pile the cold sauce on top of the hot pasta. Crumble the feta over the pasta, and drizzle with more olive oil. Serve immediately.

Serves 6

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Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

I don't know why prickly pears aren't more popular in this country. With their sweet perfumed taste, an elusive mixture of kiwi fruit and watermelon, and their gorgeous nubbly seeds, they are a rare treat in midsummer.

Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

My childhood friend Margaret, who lived on a smallholding near ours, introduced me to prickly pears, which grew on a towering cactus behind the barn.  I didn't believe her when she said you could eat the fruit from this plant, with its huge, frightening paddle-shaped leaves, so she put on some gardening gloves and picked a basketful.

She warned me not to touch them:  I did, of course, and later spent hours tweezing the little hairs from my fingertips. The next most important thing, Margaret, aged 8, told me, was that prickly pears should always be served ice-cold, and I have followed this instruction all my life.  I also still use her method of peeling the fruit, using a knife and fork (see recipe, below).

Those pears were a lovely green; these - from my local Pick 'n Pay - are an arresting deep pink that is so intense that my poor cheapie camera broke into a sweat trying to focus on them in poor light (hence the crappy picture).

In this recipe I have combined the pears with with tart, sweet, snappy seedless grapes - coming into high season in the Cape - and a dusting of sugar whizzed up with frozen rosemary needles.  I spied the frozen rosemary while I was rummaging in the freezer for the prickly pears, which I'd put there to cool off, and the combination of sweet pear with a hint of resiny rosemary is just delicious.

Prickly Pear and Grape Salad with Frozen Rosemary Sugar

10 ripe prickly pears [cactus pears]
a big bunch of crisp seedless red grapes
1/2 cup (125 ml) granulated white sugar
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, frozen overnight
the juice of half a lemon

Chill the pears by placing them in the freezer for 45 minutes (or overnight in the fridge). Push a fork into the flesh of each pear to secure it and cut off the top and bottom. Now, using a sharp knife, divide the skin of each pear into four quarters lengthways, cutting about 1 mm deep.

Using another fork, peel away each section of skin, which will come away easily if the pears are fully ripe.  Slice into discs. Halve the grapes and place all the fruit on a chilled platter. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and toss gently.

To make the rosemary sugar, strip the rosemary needles quickly from their stalks (they thaw fast) and place them with the sugar into the small chopping/coffee-grinding attachment on a blender (or use a mortar and pestle). Quickly blitz or pound to a fine dust. Don't worry if a few stray needles remain intact.  Take the dish to the table and serve the 'dust' separately: if you put it on beforehand, it will dissolve into the salad.

Serves 6 as a dessert.

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Crispy Courgette 'Fritters' with a Gingery Lemon Dressing

Crispy Courgette 'Fritters' with a Gingery Lemon Dressing

I picked up a punnet of big, perfect courgettes yesterday and, seduced by their bright, tight, blemish-free skins, bought them with the intention of using them in a stir-fry. 

But they were rather lacking in flavour (which just goes to show that, in the world of courgettes, size isn't everything).

So I crumbed and frittered them, in a last burst of deep-frying before the January regime of weak thin gruel begins.

These should be served straight from the pan, hot and rustling, with the gingery vinaigrette as a dipping sauce.

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Crispy Courgette 'Fritters' with a Gingery Lemon Dressing

10 medium-sized courgettes
1 cup (250 ml) very dry breadcrumbs (I used crushed Melba toast)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
a little flour
salt and milled black pepper
oil for deep frying

For the dressing:
2 Tbsp (30 ml) grated fresh ginger
2 Tbsp (30 ml) fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp (15 ml) white wine vinegar
1 tsp (5 ml) Tabasco sauce
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
½ cup (125 ml) fruity olive oil
1 tsp (5 ml) salt

First make the dressing. Put a sieve over a bowl, put the grated ginger in the sieve and with your fingers press down on the ginger to extract all the juice. Discard the pulp. Add all the remaining ingredients to the bowl and whisk well. Set aside.

Using a sharp knife, remove the stalks, and cut each courgette in half lengthways. Place the cut side down on a board and, holding the knife blade parallel to the board, and starting at the bottom, cut each half into neat lengthways slices about 3mm thick.  Or use a mandolin with an adjustable blade.

Get out three plates. Put the flour on one plate, the beaten egg in another, and the breadcrumbs on the third.

Heat the oil in a saucepan until it reaches 160 °C. (If you don't have a thermometer, click here for tips). Dip each slice first into the flour, then into the egg, and finally into the crumbs. Press down hard and then shake off any excess. Fry the slices, three to four at a time, for about a minute, or until the crumbs are crisp and golden. Drain well on kitchen paper and serve piping hot, with lemon wedges and the dressing in a separate bowl.

Serves 4 as a snack.

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Cape-style Crispy Spiced Battered Fish Bites

Rice flour, chickpea flour and beer give this spiced batter a lovely crispiness: as the nuggets hit the hot oil, the batter puffs up into a crunchy golden cage, while the encased cubes of fresh linefish are quickly cooked by the action of steam. It took me four attempts to find the right formula for the batter, and, in true Goldilocks fashion, the last option - namely, to abandon wheat flour and cornflour altogether - was the best.

Crisp battered fish is, to my mind, the food of the gods, but I very rarely make it at home because deep-fried food isn't exactly wholesome family fare, is it? A McRatburger-and-fries now and then is all my teens can expect in the deep-fried department. (Hah! There is no McDonalds in our new home town!)

I have called this 'Cape-style' because the fish comes from my local harbour, and because the batter contains some of the key spices and flavourings of Cape Malay cuisine.

Served with a cool avocado and coriander dip (but use yoghurt in place of the crème fraîche), this is a delectable snack for a festive occasion, and I promise your guests will fall on them like starving puppies. Do use very fresh, firm-fleshed fish, from which you have removed all the bones, and not frozen fish, which will turn to mush.

I find it easiest to deep-fry food (not that I'm the expert, but for what it's worth) in a small, deep saucepan over a gas flame. You can use a pan over an electric plate, or a domestic deep-fat fryer, but a naked flame is better because it allow you to regulate the heat with ease. For perfect results, I can recommend using a thermometer - I use a jam-making/candy thermometer - to keep the oil at a constant temperature of between 160°C and 170°C. If you don't have such a gadget, have a look at these tips for checking whether the oil is hot enough.

You can use ordinary cake flour, with a little cornflour added, for this recipe, but you will get a much crispier result using rice flour (available from health shops) and chickpea [gram/channa] flour (from Indian spice shops).

Cape-style Crispy Spiced Battered Fish Bites

For the fish:
1 kg fresh, firm-fleshed white fish fillets, deboned and skinned
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
2 tsp (10 ml) lemon juice
salt and milled black pepper
a little rice flour
oil for deep-frying

For the batter:
¾  cup (180 ml) rice flour
¾  cup (180 ml) chickpea [channa] flour
2 tsp (10 ml) cumin
2 tsp (10 ml) powdered coriander
1 tsp (5 ml) turmeric
1 tsp (5 ml) red chilli powder (or more, to taste)
1 ½  tsp (7.5 ml) salt
milled black pepper
1 x 330 ml can of ice-cold lager

To serve: 
lemon wedges
flaky sea salt
a dip of your choice (I can recommend my coriander and avocado dip)

First make the batter. Sift the rice flour and chickpea flour into a mixing bowl and add the spices, salt and pepper. Gently pour the beer over the dry ingredients and whisk lightly until you have a smooth, slightly puffy batter about the thickness of cream.  Don’t over-mix the batter. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Cut the fish into 2-cm square cubes. Put the cubes in a bowl and add the garlic, ginger and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and toss well to combine. Set aside for five minutes.

Warm a platter in the oven. Heat the oil in a small, deep saucepan, until it reaches 160°C. Put a little rice flour on a plate. Roll each fish cube in rice flour, dust well to remove the excess and, using a fork or a pair of tongs, dip the fish into the batter so that it is well coated. Gently lower the nuggets into the oil (five at a time is about right) and cook for a minute and a half to two minutes, or until puffy, crisp and golden. Fish the nuggets out of the oil in the order in which you put them in, using a slotted spoon, and drain well on kitchen paper. Place them in the warm oven while you fry the rest.

Serve piping hot with lemon wedges and a dip.

Serves 6-8 as a snack. 

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