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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Leaf-Wrapped Wine-Soused Camembert, over the coals

Soaked in wine overnight, then flavoured with herbs and garlic, these little cheeses are wrapped in green leaves, tied with string and grilled over hot coals until the cheese has liquefied. This is a great warm-up snack for a braai [barbeque]: put them on at the same time as the meat (they take only a few minutes to cook) and then pass them around with a pile of crisps or salty crackers while you finish cooking the steaks.

You can flavour these cheeses with anything you like - I used thyme and garlic - and any large, fresh, flexible leaf will do as a wrapping: fig leaves, spinach leaves, banana leaves, beetroot greens, or even a robust lettuce leaf. (Here I used mustard greens, which grow like weeds in containers in my garden). Don't worry about the leaves catching fire: their moisture prevents them from charring too quickly.  By the time they've blackened at the edges, the cheese will have collapsed into a herby goo.

 

This, I might add, is the only dish that I've so far managed to cook successfully on my brand-new, super-duper, Taj Mahal of a braai-and-pizza oven.  I fired up the new braai on Sunday for the first time, partly because I'd laid my hands on a beautiful slab of fresh tuna, straight off a fishing boat, but also because I wanted to road-test my new grid. This grid, which I asked a local ironsmith to make, has a cunning feature: a third of the total space is covered by a removable double-decker section. This is designed, first, to keep food hot, and second to allow slow-cooking meat (such as chicken) to finish off at its own pace. The grid and its upper storey worked very well; the tuna steaks, on the other hand, were... um.... well,  they were deliciously, spankingly fresh, but they overcooked in a matter of minutes, welding themselves so resolutely to the new and shining grid that I started hunting for a crowbar.

Clearly, there is a long way to go before I get this outdoor cooking arena working perfectly.  (And the pizza oven?  Oh, please don't mention the bloody pizza oven.  I fired it up once, and the results were dismal.  The wood burned out too quickly, the oven didn't get hot enough, and the pizzas were floppy, stodgy and riddled with concrete dust. Certain members of my family were so disgusted with their 'pizzas' that they dumped them in the bin. Some gave scornful snorts at my bourgeois efforts to own a pizza oven. But that's another story.)

Thank goodness for the cheese.

Leaf-Wrapped Wine-Soused Camembert, Cooked over the Coals
4 small, just-ripe Camembert cheeses
250 ml (1 cup) white wine
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
12 large, fresh green leaves (see notes above)
a few sprigs of fresh thyme, or herbs of your choice
salt and milled black pepper

The day before you want to braai the cheeses (or at least six hours in advance), use a sharp knife to slice off the top layer of rind, removing about 2mm.  Put the cheeses, and the sliced-off rinds, into a shallow dish. Prick holes, using a fork, all over the soft upper surfaces of the cheeses. Mix together the wine, olive oil and crushed garlic, and pour the mixture over the cheeses.  Cover with cling film and set aside in a cool place.  Turn the cheeses once or twice while they marinate.

Soak 1.5 metres of string in cold water ten minutes.  Remove any large, stiff stalks from the leaves.  Place two leaves, crosswise, on your counter top.  Place a wheel of cheese on top.  Drizzle some of the marinade over the cheese, top with a few sprigs of thyme, season with salt and pepper, and cover with the sliced-off 'lid' of rind.

 

Place another leaf on top. Cut off a 40-cm length of wet string and slide it under the bottom-most leaf.  Gather the edges of the leaves up into a parcel, pleating and tucking as you go, and secure it by knotting the string around it in six 'spokes'  (see picture, left.) Don't worry if the parcel is scruffy: as long as there are no gaping holes, your cheese is safe. Repeat the process with the remaining cheeses.

Place the parcels over hot coals, face down, for about three minutes, or until the top of the parcel is browned. Before the cheese melts completely, flip over the parcel, using a spatula, and allow the underside to cook for another three to five minutes  (depending on the heat of your coals). The very instant you see cheese seeping from the parcel, it's ready. Serve immediately.

Serves 8. http://whatsforsupper-juno.blogspot.com/2009/08/spring-salad-of-edamane-beans-fennel.html

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South African Tomato and Onion Soup with Roast-Garlic and Camembert Toast

Spend any time in South Africa, and sooner or later you'll come across the nation's
favourite sauce: chopped onions and tomatoes, slowly cooked to an unctuous rust-coloured gravy. The sauce is served with mieliepap [maize porridge], with samp and with bread; it's dolloped over sizzling boerewors rolls, served alongside curries and stews, and is an essential side-dish with braaied [barbecued] meat.

 There are as many variations of this sauce in South Africa as there are cooks: some purists insist on just tomatoes, onions, oil and salt and pepper; others add garlic, wine, herbs and spices. Chakalaka, said to have been invented by Johannesburg's migrant mine-workers, is a highly spiced African relish that includes chillies, peppers and curry spices, plus - depending on who's making it - carrots, beans, cabbage, and so on.

I can't enjoy bangers and mash (my last-meal-on-earth dish) without a tomato-and-onion gravy, well thickened with Bisto, because this is they way I ate them as a teenager. I'd arrive home at 4 o' clock, bone-tired and cold, on a Highveld winter afternoon, to find a foil-covered dish of hot Eskort pork bangers and golden-crusted mash in the oven, plus - oh joy! - a saucepan of gloopy gravy on the stovetop.

In its most basic form, a tomato-and-onion sauce is just that: you cook the onions to a melting softness in olive oil or butter, tip in the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and cook with a little water or wine until it's ready. I've tried to reproduce the simple, sunny flavours of this sauce in this soup, using only the essential ingredients. The first time I made this soup, frying the ingredients and then diluting them with stock, it was tasty, but lacked body, and had no depth of flavour. The second time round, I lightly caramelised the onions on the stove-top, added the tomatoes and then put the whole lot into the oven to slow-bake for an hour, and this intensifying of the flavours did the trick.

This is a slightly chunky soup, because the tomatoes are not peeled. Peel them if you have to, but it won't taste the same. Please use a good chicken or vegetable stock - see my notes at the end of the recipe - and not a stock cube, which will ruin the clean flavours of this soup .

Tomato and Onion Soup with Roast-Garlic and Camembert Toasts
16 small (plum-sized) onions, or 8 large onions, peeled
3 T (45 ml) olive oil
2 T (30 ml) butter
1 T (15 ml) white sugar
2 T (30 ml) white wine vinegar
16 ripe, juicy tomatoes
salt and milled black pepper
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
100 ml cream
1 T (15 ml) Tabasco sauce (or more, to taste)

For the toasts:
1 full head of garlic
a baguette, or some rolls, sliced
2 tsp (10 ml) olive oil
1 medium-sized ripe camembert cheese

Pre-heat the oven to 170°C. Peel the onions and cut them in half, vertically (if you're using large onions, cut them into quarters). Heat the oil and butter on your stove-top, in a heavy roasting pan. Add the onions and sugar and fry, over a medium heat, tossing frequently, for four to five minutes, or until the onions are a rich golden colour. Don't allow them to catch or burn. Stir in the vinegar and allow to bubble for a minute. Add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and toss well. Place in the oven and bake for an hour and a quarter, or until the tomatoes have collapsed and the onions are very tender.

Half-way through the cooking time, wrap the whole head of garlic in tin foil, and place it in the oven.

Remove the tray, and the head of garlic, from the oven (don't switch off the oven; turn it up to 200 C). Set the garlic packet aside to cool. Pour the stock over the tomatoes and onions, stirring well to release any sediment. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and purée, using a stick blender (or tip the whole lot into a liquidizer). If the mixture seems too chunky, add a little more stock or water. Gently reheat the soup on your stovetop. Stir in the cream and the Tabasco sauce and adjust the seasoning.

To make the toasts, slice the baguette or rolls and place them, two at a time, in a toaster. Pile the slices on a plate while you prepare the topping. While the bread's toasting, cut off the top of the head of garlic with a pair of sharp scissors or a knife. Squeeze the soft garlic pulp into a little bowl, mash in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cut the Camembert into 5mm slices. Spread each slice with a little mashed garlic, and top with a slice of cheese. Place the slices on a baking sheet and place in the hot oven for a few minutes, or until the cheese has melted and is bubbling.

Serve the soup piping hot, with the cheesy toast.

Serves 6.

Note about stock:  The difference between a nice soup and a truly delicious one is the stock, so here's how to make a quick, easy, inexpensive chicken stock (if you're a vegetarian, here is a recipe for a good vegetable stock).   Buy a packet of chicken wings, which usually come in sixes or eights.  If your supermarket doesn't have them, ask the butcher for a chicken carcass.  Place the wings or carcass in a saucepan and cover with a litre of cold water.  Add any or all of the following flavourings: two carrots, a halved onion, a stick of celery, a few stalks of parsley,  a chopped tomato, a handful of mushrooms, a bay leaf, two whole cloves, a sprig of thyme and six peppercorns.  Bring slowly to the boil.  Turn down the heat and allow to simmer for an hour,  skimming off any grey scum as it rises. Strain through a colander into a bowl, and use, as directed, in the recipe. Print Friendly

Roast Baby Aubergines with Rocket and Peppered Cream Cheese, and a Tahini Dressing

A scattering of toasted pumpkin seeds gives this autumn salad a satisfying crunch and a good nutritional kick in the pants: they, along with the sesame seeds in the tahini dressing, are among the most wholesome plant foods on earth.  Not that I'm counting vitamins here: what I like about the warming middle-eastern flavours in this salad is that they are so well suited to days that are getting shorter and cooler, but aren't quite chilly enough to break out the mulled wine and the woollen vests.

Roast Baby Aubergines with Rocket and Peppered Cream
 Cheese, and a Tahini Dressing

I'm fortunate to live close to a little supermarket (Hout Bay's Oakhurst Spar) that has a very good vegetable section (my previous local Spar was just dismal; not only was it grimy, but I couldn't go near the meat section, with its lavish displays of yellow-toenailed chickens' feet).

My new Spar always has a nice selection of organic veggies, and on Saturday I picked up these plump, litchi-sized eggplants. I haven't had much luck with wee eggplanties in the past - they are sometimes terribly bitter, and no amount of salting and draining will help.

These ones had a slight bitterness, but a good one, which is perfectly offset by the creaminess of the cheese.

I've used a peppered, crumbly Jersey milk cream cheese from Fairview (available at Woolies and supermarkets in South Africa), but you could use any peppered feta or goat's milk cheese in this recipe.

If you can't find baby aubergines, cut some adult ones into cubes.

This is a low-carb salad, suitable for diabetics.

Roast Baby Aubergines with Rocket and Peppered Cream Cheese, and a Tahini Dressing

16 baby aubergines [eggplants or brinjals]
3 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
salt and milled papper
a bag of rocket
100 g peppered cream cheese, or similar
a handful of green pumpkin seeds

For the dressing:
1½ tsp (7.5 ml) tahini
4 Tbsp (60 ml) olive oil
the juice of a lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) cumin
salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C.  Put the aubergines and unpeeled garlic cloves on a baking sheet, pour over the olive oil and toss. Season with salt and pepper. Bake at 180°C  for 25 minutes, or until the aubergines are quite tender, but not charred.  Set aside. Now make the dressing. Squeeze the softened garlic cloves out of their papery cases and place in a small bowl.  Whisk in the tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and cumin, and season with salt.

Put the pumpkin seeds in a dry frying pan and toss over a medium heat for a minute or so, or until they are lightly toasted. To assemble the salad, put the rocket on a platter and arrange the warm roasted aubergines on top. Crumble the cream cheese and scatter it over the salad, along with the toasted pumpkin seeds.   Pour the dressing over and toss gently to combine.

Serves 4. Print Friendly