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)

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.