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.