Feta and Baby marrow tart

Please don't be afraid to work with phylo pastry, it is really quite simple.  Also, don't worry too much if the pastry tears, just make sure you cover the hole with the next sheet of pastry.  You can transform this pie  into something special by adding sun-dried tomatoes, peppadews or olives.

4 – 6 baby marrows

6 sheets of phyllo pastry

100g melted butter

4 eggs, seperated

250g feta cheese

250ml cream

100ml milk

Salt and freshly ground pepper

 

Wash, dry and top and tail the baby marrows. Using a potato peeler, slice ribbons form each baby marrow, discarding the first slice that is mainly the skin. Heat a griddle pan over high heat. Place a single layer of baby marrows onto the griddle and leave until lines start to form. Because the ribbons are so thin, this is enough to partly cook them, so no need to turn them around. Remove the ribbons from the pan, set aside and continue to cook all the baby marrows.

Next, brush one sheet of phyllo pastry with melted butter and line a 22cm pie dish (if you have one, using a loose bottom pie tin), carefully pushing the pastry into the corners and tucking the ends in. Repeat with the remainder of the pastry.

Place the egg yolks, feta, cream and milk into a food processor and process until smooth. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the feta mixture. Season lightly – keep in mind that the feta is already quite salty.

Place about two thirds of the baby marrows into the phyllo pastry shell then pour the filling over. Place the remaining baby marrows onto the filling.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees until set. Allow to cool to room temperature. Remove from tin if using a loose bottom tin, and serve.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Smoked Snoek soup with a hint of apricot

I love soup and I love traditional South African food.  The combination of snoek and patats  is one of my favourites.  I think the roasting of the sweet potatoes makes a huge difference, as does the addition of the little bit of apricot jam.  I used my mom’s home-made jam.  I recently entered this recipe in a soup competition, and although I did not win, the making and fine tuning of the recipe gave me great pleasure.  I hope you find this a winner!

3 medium sweet potatoes +/- 700g (I use the white skin variety)

2 Leeks (120g)

2 Onions (160g)

3 Celery stalks (160g)

30g Butter

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

1.25 litres vegetable stock (I use 1.25 litres water plus 30 ml NoMU Vegetable fond)

200g Smoked Snoek

125ml fresh cream

2 tablespoons good quality / home-made Apricot jam

Juice of half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Wrap each sweet potato in foil, shiny side inside, place on a baking tray and bake until completely soft, around 50 minutes. In the meantime, half each leek lengthwise and wash under running water to remove any sand. Half each half again and then finely slice. Thinly slice the celery and finely chop the onion.

Heat the butter in a large saucepan and add the leeks, onion and celery. Sauté slowly over medium heat until all the veggies are soft, but not coloured. Season with salt and white pepper.

Now add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and simmer for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the snoek, by removing the skin and breaking the flesh into flakes, removing all the bones. Set aside.

When the sweet potatoes are cooked, remove from the oven, unwrap the foil and leave for a few minutes until cool enough to handle. Half each sweet potato and scoop the flesh from the skin with a spoon, into the soup.

Liquidise two thirds of the soup and then bring the soup back to the boil. (I prefer the soup slightly chunky, so I only liquidise two thirds.) Add the snoek. Mix the apricot jam with the cream and then add to the soup and simmer for a minute or two. Season again with salt and freshly ground pepper and some lemon juice to taste.

Serve with toasted ciabatta, butter and apricot jam.

(Serves 4 – 6)

Chowder

A  creamy fish soup with an abundance of vegetables and with a subtle hint of bay leaf - perfect for a cold winter's evening.  You will be ready to sit down to a hearty meal in under 45 minutes!

2 tablespoon butter

1 onion, chopped

2 leeks, sliced

2 celery stalks, sliced

salt and pepper

150g mushrooms, sliced

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups full cream milk

2 carrots, diced

2 potatoes, diced

1 1/2 cup water or stock

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup frozen sweetcorn

salt and pepper 2 tablespoons flour\2 smoked haddock fillets, skinned (about 400g)

Heat the butter in a large saucepan.  Add the onion, cook for 2-3 mins, without browning, then add the leeks, celery and mushrooms and saute until soft. Season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle over the flour and mix through. Cook for 1 minute or so.

Pour over the milk bit by bit, stirring all the time. Add the water, carrots, potatoes and bay leaf. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 mins stirring regularly to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Add the sweetcorn and cook for 2-3 minutes, bringing back up to heat.

Add the haddock, then leave to gently cook for another 5-10 mins. As it cooks, break it into large chunks.   Season.

Serve with a grinding of black pepper and crusty white bread.

The perfect pork belly

Over the past year or so, since I "discovered" pork belly, I've been trying various recipes in search of the one I can call perfect.  Perfect meaning easy to prepare using only six ingredients, with the crispiest skin and meltingly tender meat.  I think I've found it, except maybe for the fact that it needs 8 ingredients, if I count the salt and pepper! 

To serve 8 hungry people a piece of pork belly weighing 3 kg, should be enough.  (The meat might be to big for an oven tray, in which case you can slice of a few ribs and place it next to the larger piece.)  No need to score the skin.

1 handful of rosemary, chopped

1 handful of thyme, chopped

6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1/2 a cup of pure sunflower or olive oil

1 pork belly (2.5 - 3kg)

1 bottle of white wine

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to its highest setting (on my oven that is 230 degrees)

Blend the herbs, garlic and oil.  Place the pork belly skin-side down and season with salt and pepper and then rub the herb mixture evenly all over the meat, avoiding the skin.  Place the meat skin-side up into an oventray.  Wipe the skin dry with paper towel, then season lightly with salt.

Put the tray in the oven for 1 hour, turning the tray around 3 - 4 times during this hour.  Now turn the oven down to 170 degrees and pour the wine into the tray, avoiding the skin and then roast for another hour.  Lastly turn the oven down to 110 degrees and roast for another hour. 

Remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes.  The bones can easily be removed,  then  slice into thick slices.  (It might be easier to cut the crackling using kitchen scissors.)

Serve with onion marmelade and roast quinces, pears or apples on the side.

Simplicity

I always get a nostalgic feeling when I see quinces and always end up buying a couple.  So last week, I bought 4 and I baked them in the oven that same night.  I couldn't really decide what to do with them, although I can eat them all with a little bit of custard all by myself, but when I heard that some old friends were coming to dinner on Friday, I decided to make a quince tart tatin.  I already mentioned in another post that I really love apple pie, but my ultimate favourite is a tart tatin.  My brother introduced me to it years ago, when he made it and served it with a caramel ice cream.  I really appreciate food or a recipe where there is "beauty in simplicity", and this is a perfect example: only four ingredients, easy to prepare, beautiful to look at and extremely delicious.

Serves 4 - 6.

4 quinces

150g castor sugar

75g butter

1 packet frozen puff pastry, defrosted

Bake the quinces, leaving the skin on, for 45 minutes at 180 degrees, until completely soft.  Cool.  Peel, quarter and core the quinces and then slice each quarter into three.

Place the sugar and butter in a pan over low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Increase heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes until the sugar caramelises and is a light-golden brown.  Pour the caramel into a cake tin, +/- 25 cm in diameter.  Neatly arrange the quince slices in concentric circles on the caramel.  You can now leave this until later.

While enjoying your main course, preheat the oven to 200 degrees.  If necessary, roll out the puff pastry so that it is large enough to cover the cake tin.  Place the puff pastry over the quinces and tuck in on the sides.  Make two or three holes in the pastry with the tip of a sharp knife.  Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and golden.  Remove the pan from the oven to cool down, but make sure that you turn the tatin out while it is still warm, otherwise it will stick to the pan. To turn it out, cover the top of the pan with an upturned plate large enough to hold the tart. Quickly and carefully, tip the pan upside down and shake gently if necessary.  Serve with either cream or ice cream.

All in one fish pie

This is a real comforting winter supper.  It might look like a bit of work, but if you follow the order and hints below, it will be ready in under an hour.  You do not need anything with it, maybe just a few slices of fresh tomatoes, if you really have to add something.  (Try to use fresh fish.  If you only have frozen fish, make sure it is completely defrosted and pat it dry with paper towel to remove any excess water.)

4 potatoes

1 sweet potato

1 onion, finely sliced

2 carrots, diced

150g white mushrooms, diced

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 heaped tablespoon flour

300ml full cream milk or half milk and half cream

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

juice of one lemon

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

salt and black pepper

nutmeg

3/4 cup frozen peas (deforsted by pouring over some boiling water) 

500g smoked haddock, skin removed and sliced into 2 cm strips

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.  Firstly, prepare the fish, then peel and thinly slice the potatoes and sweet potato (by slicing them thinly the cooking time is reduced).  While doing that, bring a saucepan of water to the boil.  Put the potatoes and sweet potatoes with a pinch of salt  into the boiling water and cook for 8 - 10 minutes, until soft. 

In the meantime prepare the onion, carrots and mushrooms.  Heat the butter and oil and saute the onion and carrot for about 5 minutes, then add the mushrooms and saute for another minute.  Sprinkle with flour and stir through.  Slowly add the milk/cream and bring to the boil and boil for a minute to thicken.  Remove from the heat and add the mustard, lemon juice and cheese.  Season with salt and pepper.

When the potatoes are cooked, drain and mash and add a knob of butter and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Mix the fish, sauce and peas and spoon into an ovenproof dish.  Top with mash and bake for 30 minutes until golden.

Braised oxtail with sweet potato mash

When it starts raining in Cape Town, I start craving some of my favourite winter dishes, one of which is braised oxtail.  Make sure you are not in a hurry when you make this and also make sure you make more than enough, because it is actually better the next day. 

1.5 kg oxtail, in chunks

2 tablespoons butter

2 onions, sliced

6 carrots, peeled and sliced

4 celery sticks, sliced

4 leeks, trimmed and sliced

100g brown mushrooms

4 tablespoons sherry vinegar

1 bottle red wine

500ml beef stock

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 cup medium sherry

1 strip of orange zest

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 stalk of rosemary

3 bay leaves

salt and black pepper

3 tablespoon Worcester sauce

12 baby onions, peeled

6 carrots, peeled and halved

8 tablespoons Brandy

Season the  and  brown the oxtail, a few pieces at a time, in the butter in a large saucepan.  In the meantime, prepare and slice all the vegetables.  Once the meat is nicely browned, remove from the pan and set aside.  Add a little more butter, if needed and add the onions, celery, carrots, leeks and mushrooms and saute for 15 minutes until soft and slightly browned.  Deglaze the pan with the vinegar, then add the red wine.  Cook for 10 minutes, until slightly reduced, then add the tomatoes, sherry, zest, garlic, herbs and Worcester sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.  Return the meat to the pan, cover and  gently simmer for 3 1/2 hours.

Now remove the meat and set aside.  Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve, pressing down on the vegetables.  Return the meat and the strained liquid to the pan and bring to the boil.  Add the Brandy and then the carrots and baby onions.  Reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for at least another hour, or until the meat is tender and the onions and carrots cooked.  Bring to the boil again and reduce the liquid to a shiny sauce-like consistency. Season again.

I love to serve oxtail with mash rather than rice and last weekend I made a potato and sweet potato mash that really made the dish complete. 

Peel and slice 2 of each: potatoes, white skin sweet potatoes and yellow fleshed sweet potatoes.  Boil in salted water until soft.  Drain and return the potatoes to the pot.  Put back onto the heat, and mash with a potato masher.  Add 100g cream cheese and season with salt, white pepper and a few grinds of nutmeg.

Quick and Easy Chocolate Cake

I wanted to make a chocolate cake tonight, but ran into a serious shortage of ingredients: firstly, no eggs, seeing that my son eats two eggs on average a day! Secondly, no butter, no cream and also no chocolate.  So I had to turn to an old trusted recipe, maybe not the best chocolate cake ever, but dead easy and quick to make, and it has a lovely, moist texture.  Because of said shortages, ganache was not an option, nor the classic butter icing, so I used some Philadelphia cream cheese instead of butter plus some icing sugar, cocoa, vanilla and plain yogurt and made quite a nice icing.  Unfortunately I won't be able to share that recipe, seeing that I just followed my taste buds!

But, here is the eggless chocolate cake recipe, so easy, a child can make it.  It will fill one oven tray or two 25cm round cake tins.

Sift together:

3 cups of flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/3 a cup of cocoa

a pinch of salt

Whisk together:

2 cups boiling water

1 cup oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/5 cup of vinegar

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined.  Pour into a oven tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.  Cool and top with your favorite icing.

Apple crumble

When going to a coffee shop I will always check out the apple crumble.  It is one of my favourite teatime treats, but most of the times I am really disappointed when I order it, especially when it was reheated in a microwave oven.  I am still trying to find the perfect recipe, but in the meantime this is the one I make regularly.

For the crust and the crumble:

125 g butter (don't use margarine), at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups desiccated coconut

50g flaked almonds

Filling:

80g butter

1/2 cup sugar

825g tin tinned apples

or 8 Granny Smith apples

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon cornflour

If using the fresh apples, peel and cut into eighths. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the sugar.  Heat slowly until the sugar is melted, then turn up the heat and leave until the sugar is a golden caramel colour.  Add the apples and turn down the heat to a gentle simmer.  Cook until the apples are soft, around 10 minutes.  If using tinned apples, simmer until heated through.  Mix the cornflour with a little bit of water and add to the apples.  Stir and boil for 1 minute.  Add the cinnamon. Leave to cool while making the crust/crumble.

Cream the butter and sugar.  Add the flour, baking powder and coconut and mix.  The mixture will be fairly crumbly.  Use two thirds and press into a pie dish.  Mix the almonds with the remaining third of the flour mixture.  Fill the crust with the apple mixture then sprinkle the top with the crumble.  Bake at 160 degrees for 30 minutes.

Serve warm with whipped cream.

Marinated Mushrooms

I found yet another reason to always have some of my cider vinegar dressing at hand. These mushrooms are great as an appetiser or served alongside bread and cheese as a ploughman's lunch.

Fill a screw top jar with cleaned mushrooms.  250g of mushrooms will fill a 500ml jar.  If using button mushrooms, leave them whole or if using larger brown or portabellini mushrooms, slice them into quarters.  Add some salad dressing to fill about a third of the jar.  Now marinate the mushrooms for at least 8 hours, turning the jar upside down once in a while.  When ready to serve, add some finely chopped peppers, red chilli, red onion and fresh herbs.

Lemony baby marrow ribbons

I think it is a real shame if you boil baby morrows.  I almost always eat them raw, and actually prefer them above cucumber in a green salad.  But my new best way with them is to marinate them in lemon juice and olive oil - lovely!  You need to make this salad at least 2 hours in advance.

6 - 8 baby marrows, thinly sliced into ribbons  (a peeler works well)

juice and zest of 1 lemon

100ml good quality olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 round of peppered feta cheese

Whisk together the lemon juice, zest and oil and season.  Toss the baby marrow in the dressing and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours.  Add the crumbled feta before serving. 

This salad goes well with grilled chicken or fish.

Next time I make this, I am going to add some chopped green olives, I'm sure that will make it even more delicious!

Breakfast Rusks

It is a bit risky to call rusks, "health" rusks, but I like to think of these rusks as healthy.  It contains lots of seeds, is not very sweet and is made using less butter than most other recipes.  It is standard practise by now that my mom bakes a batch of these when she comes for a visit.  My son finishes three of these easily, for breakfast with a mug of Rooibos tea. 

Makes +/- 48.

First prepare two loaf tins as follows:  Cut two pieces of foil the same size as the bottom of the tin.  Grease the foil and place inside each tin.  By not greasing the sides of the tins, the dough will rise better. 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

500g stone ground wholewheat flour

140g cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

6 teaspoons baking powder

200g demerara sugar

250g butter or baking margarine, at room temperature

100g rolled oats

100g sunflower seeds

100g mixed seeds: lin, sesame and poppy seeds

500ml buttermilk

250ml water

3 extra large eggs

Mix all the dry ingredients.  Rub the butter in with your fingers.  Add the oats and seeds and mix well.  Lightly beat the buttermilk, water and eggs and stir into the flour mixture until just combined.  Do not over mix.  Spoon into the prepared tins.  Flatten the tops and make a slight indent down the middle.  Bake for 30 minutes, covered with foil.  Remove the foil, lower the temperature to 160 and bake for another 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and with a sharp knife, cut the crust down the middle in half and then in slices of +/- 1.5 cm.  Cool completely in the tins.  Run a knife along the sides to loosen and turn out.  Now cut into neat rusks, following the cuts in the crust.  (By cutting the rusks in this way,  you will minimize crumbling.) 

Arrange on oven racks and dry out at 70 degrees for 3 to 4 hours, leaving the oven door slightly opened.  Cool and store in an airtight container.

One minute mustard sauce

There is nothing better with gammon, than home-made mustard sauce.  This is one of those recipes that you should actually know by heart.  It is so quick to make and really delicious.    It will keep for a few days in the fridge, so you can make the full quantity and serve it with any cold meats, or use it on sandwiches.  I also love green beans or tender stem broccoli,cooked  dente, drizzled with a bit of this sauce.

This is one of those recipes that I always make using the microwave and it literally takes only 1 minute. 

3 eggs

100ml vinegar

1 cup sugar

25ml mustard powder

a pinch of salt

Whisk all the ingredients together in a glass bowl.  Cook in the microwave oven for 1 minute, stirring every 10 seconds.  The mixture will thicken from the sides.  Make sure to stir often, or you will end up with scrambled eggs.  Cool.

To make it on the stove top, cook the egg mixture in a double boiler, stirring until the mixture thickens.

Baklava rolls

I jumped to the opportunity last week, to make some Baklava for a friend of mine. Baklava is one of my ultimate favourite things to eat - layers of flaky phyllo pastry, filled with cinnamon-spiced nuts and sweetened with honey.  Originally it should be made in a large dish and then cut into diamonds or triangles, but I like to make little rolls, seeing that it is easier to eat and I also add a bit of cream the the nuts to make a filling rather than just sprinkling the layers with chopped nuts.  Two key ingredients are pistachios and honey, but it is a bit of a challenge to find unsalted pistachios here, so I use a combination of other nuts.  I also add a few very fragrant spices when making the syrup.  I'm starting to wonder now whether one can still call it Baklava after all my additions, but I'm sure you will love the result!

1 x 500g packet phyllo pastry (try to find pastry that has never been frozen)

250g butter, melted

Filling:

400g nuts, finely chopped (pistachios, almonds, pecan nuts, macadamia nuts)

100g castor sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

75ml cream

Syrup:

2 1/2 cups of sugar

1/4 cup of honey

1 1/2 cup of water

 juice of half a lemon

a 2 cm chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

2 stick of cinnamon

half a vanilla pod

1 whole star anise

2 cloves

Combine all the filling ingredients.  Combine all the ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan and heat slowly until the sugar is completely dissolved, then bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Use one sheet of pastry at a time and keep the remainder covered. Place the sheet of pastry in front of you, shorter side down.  Using a pastry brush, brush the lower half of the sheet with melted butter, then fold the unbuttered half onto the buttered half.  Now cut the pastry into three equal strips from top to bottom.  Place a tablespoon of filling onto each strip, 2cm from the bottom.  Fold the end of the pastry over the filling.  Then make two folds, +/- 1.5 cm wide, on each side of the strips, enclosing the filling at the end.  Now, roll up the length of the roll, pasting the end with a bit of melted butter.  Place the rolls into a greased baking tray, deep enough to later accommodate the syrup.  From one packet of pastry, one normally gets 16 sheets of pastry.  The filling will be enough to make 16 x 3 rolls.

To bake, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Brush each roll with melted butter and bake for 20 minutes, until golden.  Remove from the oven and spoon over half the syrup.  Wait 20 minutes, then turn over each roll and spoon over the remainder of the syrup.  Cool before serving.

Home-made pasta with fresh tomato and trout sauce

I recently received one of the best birthday gifts ever - a pasta machine!  I don't know why I never bought one for myself.  It is very satisfying to make your own pasta and the taste is far more superior to that of dried pasta.  I think with a little bit of elbow grease and a rolling pin or wine bottle, you'll be able to achieve similar results.



The basic recipe is as simple as 100g of flour plus 1 egg plus a bit of kneading .To feed 6 people, you'll need to use at least 400g  of flour plus 4 eggs. 

Keep kneading



Place the flour in a bowl and make a well in the centre.  Add the egg, slightly beaten and mix together using your hands.  Flour each hand and begin to knead.  It will be easier to to this on the counter top. 



Knead until you have a silky elastic dough.  Cover in cling film and leave to rest for half an hour.



There you go - silky!



Divide the dough in half.  Cover one half with clingfilm while rolling out the other half.  Flatten the dough with your hands then run throught he machine ont he thickest setting a few times. 





Keep rolling through the settings, reducing the thiskness each time.  If it gets to long to work with, cut in half.  Dust the working surface and pasta sheet lightly with flour as you work. 

Cut into desired 1 cm strips for tagliatelle, using the pasta machine.  An extra pair of hands will be helpful here.  Hang to dry.



When ready to serve, cook the pasta in a pot of boiling, salted water for 3 - 4 minutes.  Drain in a colander.

Fresh tomato and trout sauce

300g salmon trout, sliced into 1 cm thick escalopes

250g baby rosa tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

zest and juice of one lime

50ml brandy

200ml cream

a handful of frech Italian parsley, chopped

Heat the olive oil and butter and fry the trout and garlic for a few minutes, seasoning with the lime zest and juice and some salt and pepper.  Add the tomatoes and fry one minute more.  Add the brandy and allow to cook for a minute.  Lastly add the cream and simmer until slightly thickened.  In the meantime, cook the pasta.  Divide the pasta between serving plates, top with the sauce and spinkle with chopped pasley and a grinding of black pepper.  Serve straight away.

Secrets and chocolate

There is one thing I really hate, and that is if someone tells me they have a secret recipe and are not prepared to share it.  I find it very rude, because I am convinced that these secret recipes were definitely not their own inventions.  If I could have a secret recipe, I think I would have chosen this one. 

A week or so ago I took out one of my first cooking books that I ever bought - Gastronomic adventures of the Two Fat Ladies.  Don't know if you remember them, Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, travelling around the United Kingdom in their motorcycle and sidecar.  Except for the chocolate cake, I haven't tried any of their recipes, but I cannot wait to discover more of their gastronomic adventures!

The recipe is called Adult Chocolate Cake, but seeing that it does not contain any flour, it is not really a cake, but more like a baked mousse and in their words it is outrageously rich and therefore highly recommendable.

I simplified the method slightly and also added blueberries as accompaniment and decoration.  You will find that the cake collapses slightly on cooling - don't be alarmed, it is supposed to happen, the addition of the fresh blueberries takes care of this.

225g good quality dark chocolate

225g butter, cut into small cubes

280g castor sugar

5 eggs

To serve:

1 punnet fresh blueberries

icing sugar for dusting

Grease and line a cake tin of 22 - 24 cm in diameter and 5 cm deep. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Break the chocolate into a glass bowl, add the butter and set over a saucepan of barely simmering water until melted.  Alternatively, melt on "defrost" in your microwave oven, stirring from time to time.  Remove from the heat an cool slightly.

In the meantime, whisk the eggs and sugar until very frothy and foamy.  Gently fold the melted chocolate/butter into the egg mixture. 

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and place it into another oven tin with enough water to come two thirds up the side of the cake tin.

Bake for 1 hour, then let it cool completely in the water filled tin, then refrigerate overnight.

When ready to eat, run a knife around the edge of the tin and with a good thump, turn the cake out.  Pile with blueberries and sieve over some icing sugar.  Serve with cream or ice cream.  It's a killer!

BIL's perfect steak

My brother-in-law makes perfect steak.  Period.  The only thing he does, is to combine equal quantities of Worcestershire sauce, Balsamic vinegar and soy sauce as an easy marinade. And then, obviously, grills the meat to the perfect medium-rare.  

For two thick pieces of rump steak (+/- 200g each), I use 1/3 a cup of each of the sauces.  You only need to leave the meat in the marinade for a short while, 20 minutes to an hour, in order not to overpower the lovely flavour of the meat.  Make sure you braai the meat on hot coals or a hot griddle pan.  You should be able to really  feel the heat  when you hold your hand over it.  Put the meat on the grid or oiled griddle pan  and leave for two minutes; turn and cook for another two minutes.  Repeat, this time for one minute each side.  Test the steak with your finger.  It should have a slight bounce to it.  Remove to a warmed platter and leave to rest for a few minutes.



Our Christmas Turk

I know it is a bit late, but I'm sure you can still make Turkey even though it is already 2011 and way past Christmas.  Turkey is definitely not tradition in South Africa, seeing that Chrismas is in the middle of summer, but luckily this year we had a cool Christmas day and the "Turk" (as my father in law affectionately refers to the turkey) went down well! I tried my hand at making roast turkey for the second time in my life, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprized at the result.  By chance I watched a Gordon Ramsay program a week or two ago and followed his recipe and tips.  I've always liked his recipes - simple and elegant.  I've made minor adjustments to the original version - firstly omitting the garlic, for reasons already mentioned before and secondly not adding the walnuts to the gravy, because I thought that might be too out of the ordinary for some of my family members!  Someone commented on the website that something must have went wrong with their Turkey this Christmas. They did all that was asked, but the turkey reminded them of jerkey more than the mouth watering meat they heard about, but I must disagree strongly.  I found the recipe very easy and the turkey really mouth watering.  (Unfortunately my usual photographer was still enjoying his bike ride when the Turkey was still in one piece and I could only get a picture of the Turk after carving it into portions.)

1 turkey (our's was around 3 kg)

salt and pepper

2 onions, halved

1/2 a lemon, plus

juice and zest of another1 lemon

one handful of Italian parsley

250g butter, at room temperature

1 tablespoon olive oil

250g streaky bacon

3 ripe tomatoes, chopped

340ml cider

250ml chicken stock

250ml cream (My addtion!)

3 fresh rosemary stalks

Wash and trim the turkey and dry with kitchen towel.  Season well with salt and pepper and place the onion and lemon half into the cavity.  Blend the soften butter with the olive oil, lemon zest and juice and chopped pasley.  (I added a drizzle of honey as well). 

Now loosen the skin from the breast, making sure you keep the skin whole.  Also loosen the skin on the thighs and legs.  Push spoonfuls of the flavoured butter underneath the skin and then work it from the outside to completely cover the meat.  Rub any left over butter over the outside of the turkey.

Place the turkey, breast side up, in a roasting tray and roast in a preheated oven at 220 degrees for 15 minutes until nicely browned.  Remove from the oven, baste with the pan juices and then cover the bird neatly with the streaky bacon.  Baste again.  Lower the oven temperature to 180 degrees and return the meat to the oven.  Roast for another 1h and 30 minutes. (The basic rule is 30 minutes per kg).  Remove from the oven and remove the turkey and let it rest.  This is Gordon's golden rule - it should rest as long as it was in the oven!  The hot gravy will restore the heat of the cooled meat.  Also, make sure you preheat the serving platter.  Keep al the pan juices for the gravy.

Now for the gravy:

Pour the chicken stock into the roasting tray and loosen all the lovely bits sticking to the pan.  Transfer all to a saucepan.  Remove the onion, lemon and bacon from the turkey and chop it all and then add to the saucepan.  (I used only the flesh of the lemon and about a quarter of the skin).  Also add the tomato and cider.  Lastly, remove the wingtips and also add to the sauce.  Bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes while squashing all the bits with a potato masher.  Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve.  Return to a clean saucepan, add the cream and rosemary and bring to the boil again to reduce it to a saucy consistency.  Remove the rosemary before serving. 

Carve the turkey into portions and slice the breasts into neat slices.  Place onto a warmed serving platter and drizzle with some of the hot gravy.

The best way to start your day

Next time you go shopping, rather than buying those extremely sweet muesli with artificial dried fruit, buy yourself some old fashioned rolled oats and a jar of honey, and make your own muesli, trust me, you will never look back!

If you don't like raisins and normally waste your time picking them all out, you can now add exactly what you like. 

450g Rolled oats (Don't use quick-cook oats, use the old fashioned oats)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

175g apple sauce

140g honey

100g brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons pure sunflower oil

Additions:

240g seeds (sesame, lin, sunflower and/or pumpkin)

250g nuts (almonds, macadamia, cashew, pecan or walnut)

300g dried fruit (apples, raisins, soft apricots, cranberries, banana, etc.)

Combine the first 7 ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Spread onto two baking trays and bake at 170 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time.  Add the nuts and seeds after 15 minutes.  Leave to cool completely (the muesli will become crunchy as it cools down).  Finally add the dried fruit and store in an airtight container. 

You can cut down on the brown sugar if you like it less sweet. 
Try and use some imagination - what about maple syrup (instead of honey), walnut and pear with a pinch of ginger... or banana- choc-chip... or almond, pumpkin seed and cranberries...  Next time I make it, I am going to try and add some good quality cocoa and instead of the cinnamon and then complete it with dark chocolate chips and dried cherries...

Little Fish Cakes

If ever you have some left over fish, be it hake or snoek, or any other fish, make sure you try the following recipe.  It is an easy light meal or can be a lovely pre-dinner snack.  When making snoek fish cakes, make sure you serve them with a little korrelkonfyt  (grape jam) on the side!

500g cooked fish, flaked

1 onion, fine chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes

2 eggs, lightly beaten

salt and pepper

Tabasco sauce, optional

Juice of half a lemon

1 tablespoon chutney

2 cups fresh bread crumbs

oil for frying

Saute the onion in the butter until soft, but not browned; cool.  Lightly mix together the fish, onion, potatoes and eggs and season to taste with salt, pepper, Tabasco, lemon juice and chutney.  Now shape into walnut sized balls or larger fish cakes.  Roll in breadcrumbs to cover.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.  Heat oil in a small saucepan (+/- 2 cm deep) and fry until golden brown; drain on absorbent paper.