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. 

Baked chicken liver pate

I recently had a lovely dinner at the Savoy Cabbage in Cape Town - the starter being particularly extraordinary - Chicken Liver Parfait with Port Soaked Figs and Currant Toast.  The parfait was creamy, but light and the combination with the toast and figs really worked well.  So, I had to try my hand at making chicken liver pate at home and found an old recipe from notes from my course years ago at Elsa van der Nest's Culinary academy.  I served it with the Grape Schiacciata, and the combination worked very well. (Note - you will need a food processor and the pate must be made one day in advance)

5 shallots, finely chopped

240g fresh chicken livers

1 sprig of thyme

150ml dry Madeira, Port or brandy or a mixture of all

240g butter + 1 teaspoon

3 eggs

Start by washing the chicken livers, drain and then pat dry.  Sweat the shallots in the teaspoon of butter without colouring.  Add the alcohol and thyme, bring to the boil and reduce by four-fifths.  Set aside.  Melt the butter slowly.

Puree the livers in a food processor for 1 minute, then add the cooked shallot and alcohol mixture and pulse.  Add the eggs, and a pinch of salt and pepper and lastly the melted butter.  Blend for a few seconds until the mixture is thoroughly amalgamated.  Now strain the mixture through a sieve.

Pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin, then cover with a piece of greased greaseproof paper.  Place the loaf tin into a baking tray and fill the baking tray with boiling water to come two thirds up the sides of the loaf tin.  Bake at 150 degrees for 40 minutes.  Test with a knife, it should come out clean.  Cool and then refrigerate over night.

If you are not going to eat it all in one go, rather seal the top by pouring over some melted butter to preserve it.

Smoked chicken salad with peppers and sweet chilli

I had dinner last week at the Shelly Point Hotel and part of the starter buffet was a lovely smoked chicken salad.  I tried to recreate it at home and this is what I came up with.  This is an ideal summer holiday recipe and  I reckon this could also work well in a tortilla wrap for a more substantial lunch.

2 smoked chicken breasts

3 peppers, one red, one yellow and one green

1 onion

a handful of fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1/2 a cup of sweet chilli sauce

juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

Half each chicken breast horizontally and then slice into thin strips.  Thinly slice the peppers and onion.  Combine the sauces and juice.  Combine the chicken, peppers, onion and parsley in a glass bowl and pour over the dressing.  Cover and leave to marinate overnight.

Grape Schiacciata

I am considering not buying bread in future and only make it myself.  It is an extremely satisfying experience to bake your own bread and more often than not, it tastes far better than store bought bread.  That said, I still need lots more practice!

Schiacciata is an Italian flat bread and is prepared as a thin sheet of dough with a dimple-surfaced crust and is really quite easy to make for novice bread bakers. 

For a savoury version the dough can be topped with cheese, tomatoes or herbs, but this sweeter version uses black seedless grapes, traditionally made to celebrate harvest season in Tuscany.  It makes a great centre piece on a table. 

For one large flat bread, enough to fill an oven tray, you will need the following:

10g instant yeast

1 tablespoon caster sugar

300ml lukewarm water

125ml olive oil

1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh rosemary

400g stone ground flour
(If you live in South Africa, try and find Eureka flour)

1 teaspoon salt

250g seedless grapes

Maldon salt

Stir the yeast and sugar into the water and set aside.  Heat the olive oil with the rosemary over low heat, remove from the heat and cool.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, water and half the oil and mix and then knead for at least 10 minutes.  Place the dough into a clean, oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in volume.  Now add the grapes and knead through.  This is a bit tricky, seeing that the grapes seem as though they don't want to stay inside the dough.  Don't worry, just try to get most of them inside the dough.  Turn the dough onto an oiled oven tray and push into a rectangular shape.Drizzle with the remaining oil and leave to rise another 30 minutes.  Carefully push the grapes into the dough here and there, trying not to disturb the risen dough.  Sprinkle with Maldon salt and bake for 30 - 40 minutes.  Serve luke warm.  YUM!!

My mince pie experiments

I love the flavours of Christmas and I especially love the fruitcake my mother makes.  But seeing that she has long perfected the art of fruitcake baking, I had to try something different to get in the mood for Christmas. 

I found a recipe for mince tartlets in Maggie Beer's book - Maggie's Table, where you actually have to make the fruit mince yourself, instead of using the ready made mincemeat - so it was an obvious choice.  What I like about the recipe is that it needs no cooking and that it does not use suet.  Way back when, fruit mince also contained meat and most recipes still calls for suet, but this one only uses melted butter.  In the recipe she mentions that she normally makes 36 mini muffin-sized tartlets, but it turns out that the quantity fruit mince is way more than that.  I ended up with around 2 kg of fruit mince! That's when I decided to experiment with a few different recipes.

Although Maggie Beer calls her pastry "to die for and perfect", Nigella Lawson's Frangipane Mince Pies, won hands down!  Her pastry includes ground almonds and the fruit mince filling is topped with frangipane.  They look lovely and tastes wonderful, and is actually quite straight forward to make.
 (I also tried shortbread pillows and a tray bake crumble for an Australian Woman's Weekly Cookbook)

So, first Nigella's recipe, and then my version of Maggie's fruit mince (reduced...)

For the pastry:

175 g flour

30 g ground almonds

65 g icing sugar

pinch of salt

125 g cold butter, diced

1 egg, whisked with 2 T of ice cold water

Place the flour, almonds and icing sugar in a food processor and pulse to combine.  Add the butter and process to a crumbly mix.  Now add the egg/water in a drizzle, down the funnel pulsing as you do so, until the pastry comes together.  Press to form a cohesive dough, divide into two flat discs, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

In  the meantime make the frangipane topping:

2 large eggs

90 g caster sugar

90 g butter, melted

90 g ground almonds

Whisk the eggs and sugar, then stir int he butter and almonds.  Set aside.

To assemble you also need 200 g fruit mince and 4 tablespoons of flaked almonds.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Roll out the first pastry disc, to a thickness of 3mm and stamp out 12 circles slightly larger than the tart indentations.  Press gently into the tin, and return to the fridge for 15 minutes.  Repeat with the other half of the pastry.

Put a teaspoon of fruit mince into each and top with a tablespoonful of frangipane.  Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.  Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes. 

If you're in the mood for some chopping then try your hand at making your own fruit mince.

400 g dried fruit selection (try to use equal quantities of the following: seedless raisins, Turkish apricots, dried figs, sultanas, currants, cranberries, cherries, mixed peel - maybe less figs, because they are expensive and also less peel, seeing that it might be to bitter)

1 Granny Smith apple

juice and zest of one orange and one lemon

120g soft brown sugar

1 T honey

1 t mixed spice

40 ml brandy

60 g butter

Finely chop all the fruit and peel and grate the apple.  Blend together the fruit and all the other ingredients, except the butter and leave at room temperature for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.  Next day, melt the butter and stir it through the fruit mince.  Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Hake in Beer Batter

One of my favourite food writers is Maggie Beer.  In Maggie's Table, she gives her mother-in-laws recipe for beer batter.  I am all for healthy grilled fish instead of deep-fried, but seeing that it was weekend and that the batter needs only 3 ingredients, I had to try this.  She mentions that the lightness is due to the resting of the batter for 24 hours, so that's what I did, and it was amazingly crispy and light.

If you are in Cape Town, head down to Fish 4 Africa, the hake is as fresh as it gets and really affordable compared to other stores.

6 fresh hake fillets (if using previously frozen fish, make sure that you dry it well on paper towel)

pure sunflower oil

250g self raising flour

125ml light beer

250ml cold water

Whisk the flour, beer and water together until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

When you are ready to cook, pour the oil into a heavy based frying pan, 2 cm deep, and heat until hot.  Dip the fish fillets into the batter to coat, then gently lower them into the hot oil.  Fry until crisp and golden brown, then turn to cook the other side.  Remove and drain on crumpled paper towel.  Serve with salt, pepper and lemon wedges.

Perfect Roast Chicken and Haricot Bean salad

Although I am usually the one to cook in our household, there is one thing that I always entrust to my husband - Weber roast peri-peri chicken.  The whole family agrees that he does the best roast chicken and even put in their requests, as soon as they are planning a visit. 

I do not know the exact quantities for the basting sauce, but from watching I reckon the following will do: start with about 1/3 a cup of olive oil, to which you add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon per-peri (or more to taste) and season with salt and pepper.  Brush one large free range chicken liberally with the basting sauce and set aside.

Build an indirect fire in a Weber and allow it to burn down for approximately 20 minutes until there is a layer of grey ash on the coal.  Place a drip tray under the grill and place the chicken on the grill.  Close the lid and cook for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes.  Remove and cover with foil (shiny side inside) and rest the chicken for 10 minutes before carving. 

Haricot Bean salad.

I wanted a "deli look" in my kitchen and bought quite a lot of beautiful tins of Haricot Beans to display on one of the shelves.  Seeing that I also love all kinds of beans I started experimenting with the beans, and at the moment this salad is one of my favorites.  My cider vinegar salad dressing is an essential ingredient - so make sure you have some stock in the fridge!

1 tin white haricot beans

1 large red onion - finely diced

1 yellow pepper - finely diced

a handful of Calamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped

250g Baby Rosa tomatoes

lots of freshly chopped Italian Parsley

Combine the beans, onion, peppers and olives in a bowl and drizzle liberally with salad dressing.  Leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or even overnight.  Just before serving, half the tomatoes and add with the parsley to the beans.  Season with lots of black pepper.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Once you have children there is one recipe that you have to add to your repertoire.  Kids and adults alike love cupcakes.  This is a basic sponge cake recipe, so you can also bake it in a oven pan.  I always use this recipe when baking cakes for kiddies birthday parties.  So especially for those of you with little ones, try this recipe this weekend! Makes 36.

6 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup warm water

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups self raising flour

3 tablespoons cornflour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 egg whites

Whisk together the first 5 ingredients until all the sugar is dissolved, approximately 8 minutes.  Sift the dry ingredients together three times and then gentle stir into the egg mixture.  Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks from and fold gently into the batter.  Fill cupcakes 3/4 full and bake at 180 degrees until well risen, approximately 20 minutes. 

Basic vanilla icing:

125g butter at room temperature

500g icing sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

milk

Beat the butter until soft then add the icing sugar gradually.  Add vanilla and lemon juice and thin down with a little bit of milk if necessary.

Variations:

For chocolate cake, use 3 tablespoons of cocoa instead of cornflour

For coffee cake, use strong black coffee instead of water

Gooey chocolate stack

I heard a story that not all Nigella Lawson's recipes are really tested and that some of them do not even work.  I only own one of her books - How to be a domestic goddess.  I've only made a handful of her recipes, but so far, they all came out pretty good.

One that I found quite impressive is her Gooey Chocolate Stack.  It is a bit of work, but not complicated. 

The recipe will be enough for 8 - 10 people.

Meringue:

6 egg whites (I always use extra large eggs)

300g caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vinegar

Filling:

6 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons flour

350ml  full cream milk

250ml cream

100g good quality dark chocolate, chopped (try NoMU Chocolate Chunks)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Line three baking sheets with greaseproof paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. Mark a circle with diameter 20cm on each.  Prepare the meringue mixture (see Pavlova recipe), replacing the cornflour with the cocoa.  When adding the cocoa the mixture will become a little bit  more runny.  Divide equally between the three sheets and spread evenly.  Bake for 1 hour at 140 degrees.  Switch off the oven and leave to dry out and cool completely.  Keep in an airtight container  until ready to assemble.

There is one thing that I always use my microwave oven for and that is any kind of custard.  Heat the cream and milk until nearly boiling.  Blend the sugar, egg yolks, cocoa and flour until smooth.  Now add the heated milk/cream a little bit at a time, stirring continuously.  Return to the microwave and heat until the mixture starts to thinken from the sides, stir and repeat once more.  Add the chocolate and leave to melt for a few minutes, then stir through and add the vanilla.  Place into a sinkful of ice cold water and stir until cooled.  When completely cooled down, assemble the cake.  If you are making it in advance, refrigerate the filling, but remove from the fridge well in advance because it will become too thick when refrigerated.

Place one meringue disk on a serving platter, spread with a third of the filling.  Then carry on layering.  Decorate with chopped nuts or berries.

Cheese and garlic bread

I hate processed things. You will never find any ready made sauces or packets of just add boiling water in my cupboard, but there is one recipe which uses processed cheese spread, that I do make.  Since I can remember my mom makes this garlic bread and people always enjoy it when I make it.  Since certain people in my household despises garlic, I am not allowed to add it, but even without the garlic it is still very moorish.

Serve it at your next braai, as a pre-dinner snack or even with soup.

125g butter, at room temperature

1 jar cheddar cheese spread (225g)

50ml dry sherry

25ml fresh parsley, chopped

fresh garlic, finely chopped, to taste

1 baguette or ciabatta

Blend all the ingredients (except the bread).  Slice the bread into 2 - 3 cm thick slices.  Spread each slice with the cheese mixture and form into a loaf again.  Wrap tightly in foil, shiny side inside.   Bake at 150 degrees for 30 minutes.

Tomato Tarte Tatin

This lovely tart tastes as good as it looks.  Again, as I like all my recipes, this is very easy and impressive!  Make sure you use very red, ripe tomatoes.  I always make my tarte tatins in a normal rectangular oven pan, that way there is no need to cut the pastry and none of it goes to waste.  You can do most of the work before hand and only bake the tart once your guests arrive.

8 -10 very ripe tomatoes, cut into quarters

4 red peppers, pips removed and cut into sixths

olive oil and butter

6 red onions, sliced

3/4 cup sugar

1 roll puff pastry (If you live in South Africa, buy the Woolworths puff pastry, it might be a bit more expenssive, but tastes much better and always rises beautifully)

Toss the tomatoes and red peppers in olive oil and arrange in a baking tray, skin side down.  Bake for 30 - 45 minutes at 220 degrees until golden.  Leave to cool.  I am not very fond of the skins of the tomatoes and peppers.  When cooked they can easily be removed.  If you don't mind the skins, by all means, leave them on.

In the meantime, saute the onions in some olive oil and a big knob of butter slowly over low heat. Take your time, the onions shouldn't be brown but soft and sweet.  Season and cool.

Make a caramel as described, using the sugar.  When ready pour into an oven pan.  Arrange the tomatoes and peppers in a neat pattern on the caramel. Then spoon over the  onions.  You can now leave it as is until ready to be baked.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.  Roll out the puff pastry to the same size as the oven pan.  Place on top off the onions, tucking in the sides and bake until puffed and golden, approximately 30 minutes.  Invert onto a large platter (be careful not to burn) and garnish with fresh rocket if preferred.

Banana bread

We all end up with over ripe bananas in the fruit basket sometimes and this is surely the best way to use them.  The bananas should be soft enough to be easily mashed up with a fork.  If the bananas are still fairly firm, rather process with a food processor until smooth.  The same batter can be used to make muffins, the quantity below will make one loaf or approximately 14 muffins.

125g butter at room temperature
250g castor sugar
2 eggs
60 ml plain yogurt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
250g flour
a pinch of salt
cinnamon sugar.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, while still creaming.  Blend the bicarb with a little bit of water and add with the yogurt to the creamed mixture.  Fold in the bananas.  Sift the flour and salt and fold into the banana mixture. 

Spoon into a well greased loaf tin and dust with cinnamon sugar.  Bake at 180 degrees for 50 minutes.  Cover the top with a piece of foil if it darkens too much.  Let it cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out.

Sticky honey and soy chicken

I friend of mine keeps asking for more savoury recipes, seeing that he does not have sweet tooth.  So here is my current favourite barbeque recipe.  Next time you have a barbecue, you have to try this 6 ingredient marinade recipe.  The original recipe is from Cook with Ina Paarman, the first cookbook she published.  The first time I made it was years ago when I catered for a matric farewell, it is an easy recipe if you are cooking for a crowd.  Since then I have simplified it slightly.  I normally use the marinade on chicken wings, but this weekend I tried it on deboned chicken thighs, the result was truly outstanding!  Don't be lazy and buy deboned chicken.  It is really expensive and normally without the delicious skin.  It is actually quite easy to debone chicken thighs.  Don't worry if you end up with a few bits and pieces, you can always skewer it all together and make lovely kebabs!  And remember to keep the bones.  You can use it to make stock or chicken soup.  Also try the recipe on spare ribs or grilled pork chops.

The quantity below will be enough for 24 chicken wings or deboned thighs.

125ml honey

62.5 ml light soy sauce

1 mild fresh chilli, sliced

a chunk of fresh ginger, around the size of your thumb, grated

10ml NoMU chicken fond (or else 10ml good quality powdered stock)

30ml sunflower oil

Heat all the ingredients, until the honey is melted.  Add to the chicken and refrigerate overnight.  See hints below. Bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes, turning once or twice or alternatively, cook on the bbq over hot coals for 20 - 30 minutes.

HINTS

Place the chicken and marinade in a zip lock bag and shake until all the chicken are well covered.  Refrigerate overnight, shaking once or twice.  It is much easier to use a plastic bag instead of a container!  

If you skewer a few pieces of chicken together, it is much easier to turn on the grid. 

Aroz de Galinha

There was a time when I was so hooked on this one dish Portuguese chicken recipe, that we ate it each week.  It is dead easy and very quick, but still very hearty.  I'm sure you can add mushrooms or green peas, but I like it as is, with only a green salad on the side.

8 chicken thighs or 10 drumsticks

salt, black pepper and smoked paprika

1 large onion, sliced
1 cup rice

2 1/2 cups chicken stock

juice and zest of 1 lemon

handful of olives, pitted and halved and Italian parsley, to serve

Season the chicken generously with salt, pepper and smoked paprika.  Heat some oil in a deep frying pan or shallow casserole and saute the onions until soft.  Add the chicken, skin side down, and fry until nicely browned; turn.  Add the rice and stir to coat in the fragrant oil.  Add the stock, juice and zest.  Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Switch of the heat and let it stand, covered, for 10 minutes.  Garnish with olives and chopped parsley.  Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

Pears in red wine

I just love fruit for dessert, and in winter this is one of my favourites.  It always looks impressive and is so easy to make.  Even though my husband hates cooked fruit, he loves the syrup over ice cream.  You can also try using white wine or even muscadel or port, but then reduce the sugar quantity, else it will be too sweet. 

6 firm pears

1 bottle fruity red wine

100 ml honey

100 g brown sugar

half a vanilla pod, split open

3 pieces of cassia

1 star anise

Peal the pears, leaving the stalks intact. Slice a thin piece from the bottom of each pear to make them stand up. Combine all the ingredients in a large pot and heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Add the pears and simmer until tender. They do not need to stand up while cooking and do not need to be completely covered, rather make sure that you turn then once in a while so that all the sides obtain the same colour.  It will take around 20 - 30 minutes, depending on the ripeness of the pears.  Remove the pears.  Now, turn up the heat and cook the sauce until syrupy.  Add syrup to the pears and cool.  Serve with ice cream or cream.

Biltong Pate

My dad was first to discover this amazing recipe from Kerneels Breytenbach's Die Lekkerste Lekker.  As I mentioned before this is one of my favourite recipe books.  You might be a purist and prefer to eat biltong as is, but, please try this recipe, you'll be surprised. It does not make the best photo, I know, but it is really delicious!

Finely chop:

4 rashers streaky bacon

1 small onion

1 punnet mushrooms

Fry the bacon, remove and then saute the onion and mushrooms until soft and slightly browned.  Add to the bacon and cool.

Now add all of the following:

200ml good quality mayonnaise

250g creamed cottage cheese

200g biltong (see note below)

Fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped

Season with:

2 cloves

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

black pepper

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Grind all the spices together in a coffee grinder or pestle and mortar or a normal pepper grinder.

As with the snoek pate, I like this pate with some texture, so I do not process the pate in a food processor as described in the original recipe, I  rather use a wooden spoon to blend it.  I also use a mixture of very finely sliced biltong and powdered biltong to make up the 200g.

If making it in advance, remember to remove it from the fridge and let it come to room temperature, to bring out the flavour and to make it easier to spread.

Pavlova

Anybody can make a pavlova, it is dead simple.  It will be easier if you have a Kitchen Aid or Kenwood chef, or at least a hand held blender, but I have made it once using a balloon whisk and although it took forever, it still worked.

The whisking does take long and it takes a while to bake, but it is still a very useful recipe when entertaining and will always be a winner at a party.  It always looks impressive. This recipe will give a crispy shell with marshmellowy inside.

To make one large pavlova, enough to serve 8 - 10 people generously, you will need:

6 egg whites

270g castor sugar

3 teaspoons cornflour

1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.  Start whisking the egg whites, add the vinegar and continue to whisk until soft peaks form.

Add the castor sugar, teaspoon by teaspoon, whisking continuously.  Don't hurry the process.

Blend the cornflour with the last bit of castor sugar and add, still whisking.  The meringue should be thick and glossy.

Spoon onto a greased baking tray, dusted with cornflour.  Make the sides a bit higher than the middle.  Bake for 5 minutes at 180 degrees, then reduce the heat and bake for a further 55 minutes at 130 degrees.  Let it cool in the oven with the door ajar.

I like to fill the pavlova with whipped cream blended with plain yogurt:

500 ml cream

250 ml plain yogurt

2 tablespoons castor sugar

vanilla extract

Whip the cream until soft peaks form, add the sugar and vanilla and whip until sugar dissolves.  Fold in the yogurt and use to fill the pavlova.

Decorate with your favourite fruits - berries, mango or passion fruit work well.  Serve with ice cream.

Smoked Snoek Pate

This recipe is one of my favourites and fall into the easy entertaining category - only six ingredients, easy to make and very moreish.  It can be dressed up for fancy dinner and can be made well in advanced, seeing that it can be kept for 2 weeks, not that it will be necessary!

For those of you who do not know snoek, it can be substituted with smoked mackerel.

You will need:

250g smoked snoek, bones and skin removed and flaked

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 an onion, very finely chopped

freshly ground pepper

lots of freshly chopped Italian parsley

250g creamed cottage cheese

125ml fresh cream - optional

Mix all the ingredients together, excluding the cream if using, taking care not to break up all the fish flakes - I like it if it still has some texture.

That's it - as easy as that!

If you want to make the luxury version, whip the cream until stiff and fold in.  This will make it lighter and obviously richer, more mousse-like.

For a low fat version, use fat free cottage cheese.

You might want to add a bit of salt, but first taste, because sometimes the snoek is already very salty.

If using the peppered mackerel fillet, remove the skin and do not add the pepper.

By the way, I learned this trick from my mother: to chop fresh parsley, put it into a cup and snip it with a pair of scissors until finely chopped - very easy!

Serve the pate with home made melba toast - slice baguette or ciabatta as thinly as you can, arrange on a baking tray in a single layer and dry out in the oven at 180 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, turn half way.

Quiche basics

Quiche can be a real life saver - it is quick to make, especially if you have some pastry ready in the freezer and you can use whatever you have in your cupboard or fridge. 

I love this crust - no need to blind bake or pre bake, it cooks with the filling and is light and crispy. 

For the filling all you need to remember is one egg per 100ml liquid and you can make a quiche! 

For the crust:

220 g flour

1 t baking powder

a pinch of salt

140g butter, cubed

1 egg whisked with 2 tablespoons cold water

Heat the oven to 180 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients and rub in the butter.  Alternatively, process in a food processor until the mixture resembles mealie meal.  Slowly add  the egg and process until the mixture forms a ball.  Press the dough into a pie dish and put into the freezer while you prepare the filling. This quantity will be enough for one large quiche.  (The dough can also be frozen for later.  Shape into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.)

Filling:

200ml cream

200ml milk

4 eggs

salt and pepper

This is the basic recipe.  Whisk all the ingredients together.  You can also use plain yogurt or cottage cheese, instead of the cream or a mixture of them all.

You can add anything you like - e.g roast veggies, finely chopped spinach, sun dried tomatoes, blanched asparagus, fried bacon, biltong or cheese.

This week we had a leek and butternut quiche, because that happened to be all I had in the fridge. 

I fried the leeks in a knob of butter until soft and roasted the cubed butternut, drizzled with a bit of olive oil, for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees.
By the way, if you roast veggies on a sheet of baking paper, they won't get stuck and you will save yourself some washing up time!

I always put the filling ingredients into the crust and then only add the egg mixture, instead of blending all the ingredients into the egg mixture, that way the filling is more equally distributed.

So, place the leeks, butternut cubes and and some cubed Danish feta into the crust, slowly pour over the egg mixture and bake for 30 - 40 minutes, until the quiche is well risen and cooked through.

Bread and butter pudding

Of my fondest memories are all related to this lovely dessert.  First was way back when our family went to the Cape for this first time and went to The Volkskombuis in Stellenbosch.  There you get to order dessert from the dessert trolley and I remember having bread and butter pudding drizzled with fresh cream, it was the traditional version with raisins.  Next, was a lovely dinner with my dad at the Wild Fig restaurant in Observatory.  The bread and butter pudding there was completely different - decadently sweet with a sugary crust served with apple sauce.  The third memory is a lunch I had with one of my former employers, at the Oude Libertas.  This time it was made with croissants and marmelade - one of the best dessert I've ever had.  Recently my mom tried out the recipe I'm about to share.  I think she saw this caramel bread and butter pudding on the cooking channel and being an excellent cook, she perfected it. 

It works best if you use home made white bread, brioche or challah.  Do not use that sliced, white, long life stuff - it will be a disaster!

You will need only 6 ingredients: butter, sugar, cream, milk, bread and eggs! The quantities below will be enough for a dish of approximately 20cm x 30cm and will serve 6 - 8 people.

For the caramel:

1 1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup cream

75g butter

Caramelize the sugar as described and as soon as the the right colour is reached remove from the heat, add the cream and butter, and stir until the butter is melted.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Remove the crusts of 14 slices of bread (no need if it is a soft crust) and spread lightly with butter. Place half the bread in a single layer in an oven proof dish, pour over half the caramel sauce and repeat. Alternatively, slice the bread into neat triangles and neatly arrange them at an angle in the dish.  Drizzle over the caramel sauce, making sure the bread is well covered.

Now, lightly whisk together:

250 ml cream

750 ml milk and

5 eggs

Pour over the bread and let it stand for at least half an hour for the bread to soak up the milk.  Then, sprinkle the top generously with sugar, you will need approximately 3 - 4 tablespoons.  Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve with ice cream.

Dark and decadent

I love chocolate - the darker, the better.  I had to bake chocolate cupcakes for a friend last week, and immediately turned to one of Elsa van der Nest's recipes.  These cupcakes are in my opnion the best there is.  They are very dark and moist and always turn out perfectly.  

Makes 20.

125 g butter, at room temperature

1 1/3 cup castor sugar

1/3 cup sunflower oil 

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 t baking powder

1 t bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

1/2 cup hot coffee

2 t vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.  Cream the butter and castor sugar.  Add oil and continue whisking until the mixture is light and almost white.  Add the egg yolks one at a time.  Sieve the dry ingredients and combine the yogurt, coffee and vanilla.  Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture, alternating with the  liquid.  Whip the egg whites until stiff, but not dry and fold in.  Fill muffin trays (lined with paper cookie cups) and bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Ice with your favourite chocolate icing, caramel or ganache and whipped cream.

Please pass the salad

I've been eating salad for lunch for the past two years.  The only thing that keeps me going is the challenge to try out new combinations and not to have the same salad too often.  A friend of mine asked me for my salad recipes the other day, but to be honest, I don't think you need a recipe for a salad, just keep it simple, stick to six ingredients!  Remember that you also eat with your eyes - so make it look attractive - play with colours and don't chop up everything into little bits, vary the textures.

Here are some of my ideas - each "recipe" will be enough for 2 - 3 people.

Beetroot and orange salad
Boil or steam 4 beetroot the previous night, quarter and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar.
Peel 2 oranges, including the pith, and cut into neat segments, reserving any juice.
Slice one small red onion into fine rings.
Thinly slice 4 radishes.
Roughly chop 2 celery stalks.
Radiccio leaves
Lightly mix all the ingredients including the juice from the orange and balsamic vinegar.

Apple and smoked chicken salad
1 smoked chicken breast, shredded
1 Granny Smith apple, sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, sliced into long strips
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1/2 a red onion, sliced into rings
a handful of chopped pecan nuts
Mix all the ingredient together and eat with a heaped tablespoon chunky cottage cheese


Tuna salad with pineapple and chilli
1/3 of a cucumber, halved and sliced
4 slices of pineapple, cut into triangles
2 mild red chillies sliced into rings (remove pips if you don't like too much heat)
1/2 green pepper sliced into long strips
1 tin tuna, drained and blended with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise and 1 tablespoon plain yogurt.
butter lettuce
Mix all the vegetables and then dollop with tuna mayonnaise and generously grind over some black pepper.

Avo and sun dried tomato salad
1 avocado, thickly sliced
2 handfuls rocket leaves
4 sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
a few cubes of danish feta
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
Neatly arrange the avo and rocket onto a large plate. Scatter with feta, tomatoes and sunflower seeds.
...Stole this one with my eyes from a dear friend...

Crunchy salad
1 carrot, julienned or grated
4 radishes, sliced into rounds
2 celery sticks, thinly sliced
2 handfuls of thinly sliced cabbage
2 tablespoons raisins
Toss together with a drizzle of my best salad dressing and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

...can't wait for tomorrow's lunch!

Bluenose

If you are looking for the best shop to buy fish in Cape Town, head down to Fish 4 Africa in Woodstock or Monte Vista.  We recently discovered this gem and at the same time I also discovered a fish I never knew existed, called Bluenose.  The flesh is firm textured, moist and succulent.  It is listed as green on SASSI's list and readily available.

Since my discovery we've had it three times already, I'm really hooked!  So next time you have a braai, try blue nose with this paprika basting sauce, and let me know what you think.

One of the ingredients you will always find in my cupboard, is smoked paprika.  Not readily available in South Africa, so when you find it, buy a few tins. 

You can try this recipe with any firm fleshed fish, e.g Bluenose, Cape Salmon, Kabeljou, Yellow tail or Tuna.  A fish of 2kg will serve 6 people. 

For a braai, it is best to keep the fish whole, skin on and butterflied.  Use warm to hot coals and start grilling the skin side first.  Baste the flesh liberally with basting sauce. Turn once the fish is almost cooked through.  Grill for 10 more minutes, baste again and grill for another 5 minutes.  If making it in the oven, preheat to 200 degrees.  Baste the fish and grill for 30 minutes.  When cooked the flesh will be opaque. 

For the basting sauce - mix together:

50ml olive oil

50g butter, melted

juice and zest of one lemon

30ml grated red onion

3 fresh bay leaves, finely chopped (if you have a bay tree)

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

salt and freshly ground pepper

Serve with lemon wedges, savoury rice and green salad.

Keep any left over fish for the fish cakes which I will share with you soon.

Yummy caramel sauce

I've enjoyed this sauce on so many occasions as a child and always thought that the recipe was a close guarded secret.  Only recently did I discover that its inventor shared it with my mom.  A few weeks ago, good friends came over for supper and I served this sauce with apple crumble and ouma's ice cream, they just couldn't get enough.  You might want to double up on the recipe, because you can also eat it by the spoonful from the fridge after midnight, while everybody else is sleeping!

1/2 cup sugar

100g butter (only use real butter, margarine won't do!)

1/2 cup milk, warmed

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cornflour, blended into a bit of milk

Place the sugar and butter into a saucepan and heat over medium heat, until the butter is melted. Turn up the heat and cook, while stirring, until a rich brown caramel is formed.  Add the milk, but be careful, the mixture will boil profusely. Add the vanilla and cornflour and stir until cooked through.  Serves 4.

Caramel

If you want to make some of my ultimate favourite desserts, including creme caramel, cream cheese flan, caramel bread and butter pudding and tarte tatin, you have to master the art of making the perfect caramel. 

You will need 1 cup of sugar and a heavy based saucepan and also a pastry brush.

Put the sugar in the sauce pan and add water to just cover.  A lot of recipes do not add water, but although it prolongs the process, it does make it easier.  Heat over low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved.  It is very important not to let the sugar syrup boil before it is completely dissolved.

Now you can turn up the heat to bring the syrup to a boil.  Sugar crystals might start forming around the edges.  Dip the pastry brush into water and lightly brush the sides to dissolve the crystals.  Do not stir.

Let the syrup boil until it turns a light caramel colour.  It might feel like a long time before it starts to change colour, but do not take your eye of it, or you might end up with a burned mess.  

Once the right colour is reached immediately remove from the heat and dip the saucepan into a basin filled with cold water to stop the cooking process or if you have a marble counter top, just place it onto that, it will cool it down sufficiently to stop the cooking process.

 

If you get a burned sugar smell or see smoke, it is too late, start over! 

If you want to turn this caramel into a lovely caramel sauce - just stir in 1 cup of cream.  Thicken with a little bit of cornflour if you want and flavour with vanilla extract.