Luxurious Broccoli and Cheese with Gammon, and a Parmesan Crust

This is a green and decadent version of cauliflower cheese, consisting of just-tender broccoli florets in a creamy, mustardy, nutmeggy white sauce. With cubes of smoky gammon. And a crunchy breadcrumb-and-Parmesan topping. And lots of Cheddar. And fairies skipping around in glittery frocks all over the top of the dish.

Luxurious Broccoli 'n Cheese with Gammon, and a Parmesan Crust

I realise this dish is crammed with calories, but I maintain that the abundance of broccoli it contains cancels out the cream, milk, cheese and gammon, especially if you're trying to convince your kids to appreciate this king among vegetables.

All three of my children love broccoli, and are happy to eat a lot of it. This may be because the stuff is intrinsically delicious (really, it is) but I suspect it's because I've fed them broccoli since they were tots. I love the stuff, especially when it's a very vivid green and still squeaking as it comes out of the pot, to be dressed with a lick of olive oil and Kikkoman soy sauce.

But for most kids, broccoli is an acquired taste, and I hope this recipe will help them aquire it, because its luxurious cheesy-bacony sauce is so good.

Don't discard the broccoli 'tree trunks'. 

I cook broccoli in plenty of rapidly boiling, salted water when I need a great quantity of it, but if I am making a small quantity, I use a microwave oven. (I don't care what food purists say about microwave ovens: they are excellent when it comes to cooking peas, broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts and similar green veggies to al dente perfection, provided that you get the timing just right.)

When boiling broccoli, remember that the stalks  ('tree trunks' my kids used to call them) take longer to cook than the outer dark-green bits.  People often discard the tree trunks, but these are very good, so I suggest you slice them about 1 cm thick, and put them in the boiling water for two minutes before you add the top bits.

Don't omit the step of plunging the broccoli into a bowl of iced water: this will set the colour, and prevent it from turning a muddy khaki in the final dish.  Drain them thoroughly too, or residual water will seep out as the dish bakes and thin the cheese sauce.

Leave the gammon out if you're a vegetarian.

Luxurious Broccoli 'n Cheese with Gammon

900 g (about three whole heads) fresh broccoli
400 g smoked gammon steaks
2 Tbsp (30 ml) sunflower oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) fresh lemon juice
½ cup (125 ml) breadcrumbs
60 g Parmesan, finely grated
a little paprika or cayenne pepper, for dusting

For the cheese sauce:
90 g butter
6 Tbsp (90 ml) flour
1 litre cold milk
2 cups (500 ml) grated Cheddar
2 Tbsp (30 ml) Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp (30 ml) fresh lemon juice
½ cup (125 ml) cream
a quarter of a nutmeg, finely grated
a handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped
salt and milled black pepper

Fill a large bowl with cold water and add a handful of ice cubes. Cut the broccoli 'trunks' into 1-cm-thick slices. Throw these into a pot of rapidly boiling salted water, and two minutes later add the remaining broccoli, broken into florets.

Cook for exactly 7 minutes, then drain in a colander under plenty of cold running water. Plunge all the broccoli into the bowl of iced water and leave it there for 10 minutes.

Cut the gammon steaks into small cubes. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the cubes for 3-4 minutes, or until they are nicely browned.  Drain off any fat, add the lemon juice and toss the cubes over the heat until all the juice has evaporated. Set aside.

To make the cheese sauce,  melt the butter in a medium saucepan and tip in the flour. Cook over a medium-high heat, stirring constantly, for a minute, without allowing the flour to brown.

Pour in the milk, all in one go, and beat energetically with a wire whisk to disperse any lumps. Bring the mixture to the boil, stirring constantly. When it is bubbling, thick and smooth, turn down the heat and let it burble  gently for 3 minutes.

Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the grated Cheddar, mustard and  just enough lemon juice to give it a pleasant zing. Don't add any salt or pepper yet. Cover the surface with a piece of clingfilm and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, drain the broccoli, pat it dry on a clean tea towel and arrange the pieces in a large baking dish (or in individual dishes).

Stir the gammon cubes, cream, nutmeg and parsley into the sauce and season to taste with salt and pepper. You won't need much salt as the gammon and Cheddar are quite salty in their own right.

Pour the sauce all over the top of the broccoli and gently prod the pieces so each one is evenly coated.

Sprinkle the breadcrumbs and Parmesan over the top, and dust with a little paprika or cayenne pepper.


At this point, you can set the dish aside for up to 6 hours. When you're ready to cook it, bake at 180 ºC for about 25 minutes, or until the inside is very hot and the topping is golden and crunchy.

Serves 6. 

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Nasturtium & Macadamia Nut Pesto

One of the things I most look forward to about spring is picking fresh nasturtium leaves and flowers to use in salads, sandwiches, stir-fries and egg salads. These lovely fresh peppery leaves grow in great profusion on banks and sidewalks here in Hout Bay, and I have no compunction about leaping out of my car and picking big bunches to take home.  (No one else seems to want them, and as they are not native to South Africa I feel no guilt at all in harvesting this free crop!)

Nasturtium leaves can be used to make a bright, peppery pesto. Spread your pesto
 on slicesof toasted bread, or toss it through hot pasta. 

I often use them to flavour home-made mayonnaise for my egg and fennel salad, but I've never made any other sort of sauce with them. The idea of a pesto occurred to me in the middle of the night (I often think about recipes in the wee hours) but I wasn't convinced it would work.  

Although nasturtium leaves have a powerful flavour - at least as pungent as that of basil -  I didn't know how they'd taste with garlic, and the idea of combining them with resiny pine nuts didn't appeal at all.  

So, when formulating the recipe, I used buttery, meek-flavoured macadamia nuts to tone down the pepperiness, and a modest single clove of garlic.  The result was a thick pesto of a glorious pistachio green, with an intriguing flavour and a satisfying zing.  I did find, however, that much of the pepperiness had faded by this morning, and that the olive oil, garlic and Parmesan flavours had pushed their way to the front. So this is a pesto for making in smallish quantities and serving immediately.

All the ingredients you need for a nasturtium pesto.

I slathered the pesto onto hot bruschetta, and served these with little fresh leaves, but I'm looking forward to trying it on a tangle of hot spaghetti, and with some pan-fried fish fillets.

I almost always make pestos in the old chemists' mortar that once belonged to my grandfather, but you can whizz this all up in a food processor or the jug attachment to a stick blender. Take care not to over-process it, however, or the nuts will become greasy and the pesto will lose its interesting texture.

This is a good choice of canapé for surprising friends and family, who will probably not be able to guess the ingredients.  I made this for one of the courses I served at my 'Secret Supper' at the recent Spier Festival, and it was received with delight.  And if you leave out the toast and spread use this as a dip for veggie sticks, it's low-carb and suitable for diabetics.

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Nasturtium & Macadamia Nut Pesto

1 cup (250 ml) whole unsalted macadamia nuts
1 clove garlic, peeled
a small pinch of flaky sea salt
2 cups (500 ml), fairly closely packed, fresh young nasturtium leaves and their stalks
8 Tbsp (120 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
30 g Parmesan, finely grated
the juice of half a lemon, or more, to taste
3 nasturtium flowers (for colour)

Put the nuts, garlic and salt into a mortar and pound until you have a coarse paste. Add the nasturtium leaves and continue pounding until you have a thick, slightly gritty paste. Add the olive oil tablespoon by tablespoon - you may not need to use it all - until the pesto is the desired consistency.  Stir in the Parmesan and lemon juice (to taste) and season with salt. As the Parmesan is already salty, go easy! You won't need to add any pepper.

Finely chop the nasturtium flowers and stir them into the pesto. Use within 8 hours for best results. It will still taste good the next day, but the peppery flavour will have receded somewhat (see my notes above).

Makes about 1½  cups.

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Sausage, Pumpkin, Potato and Halloumi Tray-Bake

A garlicky tray-bake in jewel colours that doesn't take long to put together and tastes gorgeous, especially if you finish it off - wickedly - with halloumi cheese and a handful of fresh basil leaves.

I often make all-in-one tray-bakes for family dinners - usually with chicken and veggies - because they're easy, and involve so little washing up. This is a good recipe for feeding a stampede of teens, because it stretches 12 sausages into a filling meal for six people (oh, okay, four, if you have very voracious teens).

The pork sausages add a lovely meaty flavour to the dish, but it's a good idea to drain the excess fat away half-way through baking, or you'll end up with veggies up to their waists in a golden puddle.

You can use either pumpkin or butternut here; I prefer pumpkin cubes (ready-cut ones, of course) because they have a denser texture. The halloumi at the end is an indulgence: use feta if you'd like something a little lighter, or leave the cheese out.

A handful of fresh herbs added at the end of cooking freshens up the whole dish.  I like basil because it adds a faint but intriguing aniseed note, but you could use rocket or flat-leaf parsley, or even some peppery watercress.

It isn't strictly necessary to parboil the potatoes before you start, but I recommend it, because it prevents the potatoes from turning leathery as they roast, and they will also be crisper.

To cut down on time and dishes, I parboil them in the roasting tin before adding the other ingredients and slinging the dish in the oven.

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Sausage, Pumpkin, Potato and Halloumi Tray-Bake

6 medium-large potatoes
boiling water
1 tsp (5 ml) salt, for parboiling
½ cup (125 ml) good olive oil
juice of a small lemon
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely grated
12 pork sausages
500 g romanita tomatoes, or similar large cherry tomatoes
500 g pumpkin or butternut cubes 
a small bunch of fresh thyme (rosemary is also lovely)
salt and milled black pepper
250 g halloumi cheese, or feta cheese
a handful of fresh basil leaves

Heat the oven to 190 ºC. If you have an oven fan, heat it to 180 ºC.  Boil the kettle. Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, and then slice them into thick chunks. Place in a large, deep roasting tray and cover them to three-quarters of their depth with boiling water. Turn on a fierce heat under the pan, add the salt and cover loosely with a large sheet of tin foil. Set the timer for exactly 7 minutes. In the meantime, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice and garlic, and set aside. Twist each sausage half-way along its length to make two smaller ones, and cut through the new link with a pair of scissors. Cut the tomatoes in half crossways.

After seven minutes, drain the water off potatoes - don't worry if they're still a little wet -  and put the pan back on the hob. Turn down the heat and cook for a minute or so, tossing the pan energetically, until all the water has evaporated and the potatoes are a little roughened at the edges. They'll begin to squeak when they're nice and dry.  (Watch the pan like a hawk as the spuds will burn fast through the thin bottom of the pan.)

Take the pan off the heat and pour the olive oil mixture over the hot potatoes. Add the tomatoes, pumpkin and thyme sprigs. Season generously with salt and black pepper and toss everything together so each piece is coated with dressing.  Tuck the sausages into the veggies (try to place them over the tomatoes, so they don't prevent the spuds from browning). Bake at 190 ºC for 40-50 minutes, or until the sausages are nicely browned and the potatoes and pumpkins beginning to turn golden. Turn the sausages over, using a pair of tongs, then tilt the pan over a bowl and drain off all but a few tablespoons of the fat.  If the veggies look a little dry, paint a little of the drained fat over them using a pastry brush.

Return the pan to the oven, turn down the heat to 170 ºC (180 ºC if your oven has no fan) and roast for another 20-25 minutes, or until the pumpkin is very tender. Cut the halloumi cheese into cubes and scatter them over the vegetables. Turn on the oven grill and cook for a further 4-5 minutes, or until the cheese is soft and beginning to turn golden on the corners.  Scatter the basil leaves over the pan and serve immediately.  A spritz of lemon juice just before serving gives this dish a lovely lift.

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Cape Gooseberry Meringue Pie, from my new cookbook

Although I'm not a fan of sweet things, this is a dish I just cannot resist. I adore Cape Gooseberries because they remind me of my childhood. Friends on a farm nearby had an enormous gooseberry bush right next to their front door, and I have lovely memories of sitting on sun-warmed slasto steps, peeling away the crisp papery casings and biting down on hot, sweet berries that exploded in a shower of seeds on my tongue.

Photograph by Michael Le Grange; plate by David Walters. Image © Random House Struik 2012

This pie, my twist on a much-loved family pud, is wonderfully tart and crammed with intense gooseberry flavour. It's an unusual recipe because a gelatine filling is briefly heated in the oven while the meringue is browning.  But if you measure everything exactly and let the pie chill until the filling is completely set, you can’t go wrong.

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Cape Gooseberry Meringue Pie

4 cups (about 650 g) dehusked Cape gooseberries
½ cup (125 ml) caster sugar
½ cup (125 ml) water
2½ tsp (12.5 ml) cornflour
juice of ½ lemon
1 Tbsp (15 ml) powdered gelatine

For the biscuit crust:
1 x 200 g packet Tennis biscuits, or similar crumbly coconut biscuits
(90 ml/90 g) very soft butter

For the topping:
4 extra-large free-range egg whites
a pinch of salt
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar

First make the crust. Break up the biscuits and process them to fine crumbs in a food processor. Place in a bowl with the soft butter and stir well to combine. Lightly press the mixture onto the base of a non-stick 24-cm springform cake pan lined with buttered baking paper (or use your favourite pie dish). Chill while you make the filling.

Put the gooseberries, caster sugar and water into a pan, turn on the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 6–8 minutes, or until the berries are just beginning to collapse. Mix the cornflour and lemon juice until smooth, add this to the gooseberries and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened. Remove from the heat and cool for a few minutes. Now sprinkle the gelatine evenly all over the hot liquid and stir until it has completely dissolved. Cool for 15 minutes, then pour the mixture over the prepared crust. Refrigerate for 1 hour. 

Heat the oven to 190 °C. Beat the egg whites with the salt until very firm, but not dry. Add 1 Tbsp (15 ml) of the caster sugar and beat again until firm. Add the remaining caster sugar gradually, beating all the time until you have a very stiff, glossy meringue. Pile the meringue over the gooseberry filling and, using the back of the spoon, coax it towards the edges of the tin, making sure there is a tight seal. Bake for 5–7 minutes, or until the meringue is a light coffee colour. Cool for 20 minutes, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or until the gooseberry filling has set. Serve cold.

Makes one 24-cm pie; serves 8.

Cook’s Notes

Take your time beating the meringue to a shiny, billowing cloud; this should take you at least 4–5 minutes. Don’t be tempted to run a knife round the edges of the meringue until you are about to release the pie from the cake pan for serving, as it will shrink back from the edges.

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