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.