Cook sister!

Individual apricot upside-down cakes

What is it with South Africans and apricots?

The jam you are most likely to find in a South African's pantry is apricot jam.  In fact, I think until I was about ten years old, I wasn't sure that there was anonther type of jam!  And you know you are in a South African supermarket when there are more makes and variations of apricot jam than any other flavour.  Chunky, smooth, with booze, whole fruit - it's all there.  As I have said before, my father does not believe it is proper to have a braai without serving triangles of white bread spread thickly with butter and apricot jam. And we do love to melt our smooth apricot jam and use it in marinades and basting sauces, much to the bemused stares of foreigners.

As a kid, I recall that the fruity treats most likely to find their way into my lunchbox were dried apricots (or sometimes apple rings), or dried apricot fruit dainties (minced dried fruit shaped into flattish squares and dusted with sugar) or apricot fruit roll (minced fruit spread out into a wafer-thin paste and dried and rolled up).  And let's not forget our cullinary tradition of cooking dried fruit with meat (lamb sosaties with apricots, for example), inherited from the Middle-Eastern political prisoners banished to South Africa by the Dutch East-India Company during the 1700s. 

I suppose that dried apricots (and fruit in  general) was a logical step in a country where deciduous fruit grows easily and the climate is dry enough to dry things easily.  In the days before refrigeration, it was necessary to preserve the bounty of summer fruit for the winter months, and as a provision station for ships rounding the tip of Africa, it was not surprising that South Africa has a long tradition of drying fruit.  It is said that the drying and preserving of fruit at the Cape received a skills boost when the French Huguenots arrived in the late 1600s, and dried fruit was to be ource of nourishment when the Great Trek departed into the largely barren and unknown interior in the 1830s.

So coming from this context, you could almost say that this month's Waiter, There's Something in My... event, hosted by Andrew and focusing on dried fruit and nuts, was tailor-made for this South African girl!  My first thought was to make one of our wonderful traditional fruit/meat dishes, but I have already blogged my three favourites (bobotie with sultanas, lamb sosaties with dried apricots, and venison pie with dried peaches).  And so my thoughts turned to something sweet that I could make with dried fruit for WTSIM and that would also serve as dessert for a Bank Holiday braai for friends.  I have been somewhat obsessed with upside-down desserts lately - after the glorious pear and cranberry upside down cake I made earlier this year, I was keen to try another take on this idea.  I did consider just using the same batter recipe again and just changing the fruit topping, but in the end the batter I made for these little cakes was far lighter and fluffier, and its sweetness worked beautifully with the tart apricots and pineapple juice.  The original recipe on Myrecipes.com was for a single cake, so I made some tweaks in order to convert it to individual cakes, and also found a use for the pineapple juice that you use to soak the apricots.  I was very, very happy with the end result and will definitely be making these.  They taste lovely, they look lovely - and they will certainly impress your guests! 

We had fewer than six people round the table, so I used the extra ingredients after all the ramekins were full to make one slightly larger square cake, which is what is pictured below - and which was as delightful served cold the following day.

 

INDIVIDUAL DRIED APRICOT UPSIDE-DOWN CAKES (serves 6)

Ingredients

1¼  cups pineapple juice
¾  cup dried apricots, quartered
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp chopped almonds
¾ cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ + ¼  cup granulated sugar, divided
1/3 cup of milk
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large egg whites at room temperature

Method

Lightly butter the inside of six oven-proof ramekins and then line with baking paper (I found it was easiest to cut circles for the bases and strips for the sides, rather than to try and use a single piece).  Preheat oven to 180C.

Combine the pineapple juice and apricots in a small saucepan.  Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 8 minutes or until plump. Drain the apricots in a colander over a bowl, reserving the pineapple juice.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Set aside 1 Tbsp in a small bowl for later.  Add 1/3 cup of the reserved pineapple juice and brown sugar to the butter in the saucepan and bring to the boil.  Cook for about 1 minute or until the mixture thickens slightly. 

Carefully divide the caramel sauce between the six ramekins.  Pour the sauce into the base of the ramekin and gently swirl to get an even layer.  Sprinkle the apricots and almonds over the caramel sauce and set aside.

Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar, milk, egg yolk, and vanilla to the melted butter and stir well. Add to flour mixture, stirring well; set aside.

Beat the egg whites at high speed of a mixer until foamy. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks almost form. Gently stir one-fourth of egg white mixture into batter; gently fold in remaining egg white mixture.

Carefully pour batter over the caramel apricot mixture in the ramekins.  Bake at 180°C for about 30 minutes or until a wooden tooth pick inserted in center comes out clean.  In the meanwhile, return the saucepan with the reserved pineapple juice to the stove on medium heat and reduce to a syrupy consistency.

After removing the cakes from the oven, allow to stand for 5 minutes on a wire rack, then carefully invert each ramekin onto an individual serving plate.  Lift the ramekin carefully - it should come away from the cake easily - and peel off the baking paper.  Pour a little of the pineapple juice syrup over each pudding and serve with a blob of double cream (I also scattered some crushed pistachio nuts over mine, but this is optional).

If you hadn't guessed yet, this is my entry for Waiter, There's Something in my... Dried Fruit and Nuts, hosted by Andrew.

Garlicky (and very easy!) roasted aubergine dip

There are few things that please me more than making something that sounds tricky, but actually isn't.  A nice example of this is roasted bell peppers.  You read the instructions about "char them till the skin blackens, then pop them in a Ziploc plastic bag to cool and the skin will come away easily". 

You catch yourself thinking yeah, right.  Has this person actually tried pulling the skin off a bell pepper?  Shucking an oyster springs to mind, in other words, trying to persuade something to do the one thing it really does not want to do.  And this is very much the same train of thought that I follow when I read recipes for aubergine dips where you are told just to roast the aubergine and then the skin will practically fall off by itself.  Hmmm.  We're talking aubergines here, not clementines! 

But then one day you find yourself with one aubergine in your fridge, still good but no longer in the first blush of youth.  It had been bought a week earlier at the Queen's Market - and please allow me to digress here for a minute to share a mystery with you.  Queen's Market is a Newham treasure.  Yes, it's a little shabby and neither the stalls, merchandise nor shoppers are as chi-chi as Borough Market.  But you can buy an excellent selection of fresh vegetables at rock-bottom prices, including a fantastic selection of Asian and Oriental vegetables.  The back end of the market feels so exotic, you'd never guess you were still on English soil! 

A couple of years ago, plans were announced to sell off the site to a developer who planned to demolish the quirky shops around the perimeter of the market (selling all manner of Caribbean and Asian products) and build apartments and a supermarket. Of course the stallholders could still trade... but how is a produce market going to survive in the forecourt of a national supermarket chain?  And so the traders and locals mobilised and in 2006, the planned supermarket tenant (ASDA) pulled out.  Hurrah!  Battle won!  Only... the developer has still not pulled out of the plan and no doubt if another supermarket were to step into the breach,  plans would proceed apace.  You'd think this is the sort of place where anything to do with a supermarket chain would be unwelcome.  So then can somebody please explain to me: a) why Tesco appears to be sponsoring the carrier bags (most of the stalls had a wad of virgin Tesco bags in which they packed the produce after sale); and b) why I discovered Tesco stickers on all the beef tomatoes we boughtthem?!  Answers on the back of a postcard, please...

But I digress.  So there I was with a lonely aubergine (its partner already having made a delicious ratatouille-style dish earlier in the week) in my fridge and guests expected for a lunchtime BBQ.  Using the aubergine would serve the dual purpose of creating some pre-lunch snacks and clearing enough space in the fridge for another bottle of wine - bonus.  So I decided to try out the crazy idea of roasting an aubergine, and whaddaya know - it's just as easy as the description woud have you believe.  Once the aubergine is cooked, the flesh pretty much peels away from the flesh like a roasted pepper, and after that, the recipe is easy enough for a child to make.  One taste of this and believe me, you won't give prepackaged dips another glance!

GARLICKY ROASTED AUBERGINE DIP

Ingredients

1 large aubergine
2 or 3 shallots, depending on size
1 or 2 large cloves of garlic
a handful of flat-leaf parsley
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
2-3 Tbsp plain yoghurt
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.  Cut the aubergine in half lengthways, brush the cut sides with olive oil and place skin-side down on a baking sheet.  Roast for about 15 minutes or until the cut flesh starts to turn brown.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

While the aubergine is cooling, chop up the shallots finely and crush the garlic.  Heat about 2 Tbsp of olive oil in a spall saucepan over medium heat and sautee the onions and garlic together with the paprika.  When the onions are soft (but not browned), remove from the heat.

When the aubergines are cool enough to touch, either scoop the flesh out of the skins with a spoon or peel the skin away from the flesh with your fingers.  Place the aubergine flesh, cooled onion mix and flat-leaf parsley in a food processor and pulse briefly until a chunky paste forms.  Don't over-process - you want some texture!

Spoon the mixture into a bowl, add the yoghurt and mix well.  Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.  I served my dip with toasted slices of baguette, but warm pita bread would also be delicious. 

Apart from being super-easy and delicious, this dip is also low fat and healthy for your heart.  In addition, if you make it really garlicky, you get the added heart-healthy antioxidant benefirts of garlic, which is why I'm submitting it to this month's Heart of the Matter event where the theme is herbs. The host this month is Michelle from The Accidental Scientist - do go and check her site for the roundup on Monday or Tuesday!

Hot chocolate weather - and something for my South African readers

OK, so what is it with this country? From the end of August right through to Christmas you get no public holidays.  Zip. Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  But based (presumably) on the premise that the weather is lovely in spring and early summer, you get not only Easter but also two public holidays in May.

Which would be perfectly lovely.

If the assumption about the weather were remotely true.

It started off well - rather like last year.  The early May bank holiday was lovely - we braaied, we ate summery salads, and all was well with the world.  So you'd think if early May was that good, surely late May will be even better?  Hah.  Spoken like somebody who does not live in England.  On Sunday morning, I was woken up by the sound of the torrential rain on our roof - perhaps not unusual, until you discover that I wear earplugs in bed!  And some places in England had a month's worth of rain in a single day on Monday.

So much for Spring weather.  But on the bright side, it was certainly a good day for hot chocolate!  This Ibarra hot chocolate is from Mexico and consists of chunky discs of dark chocolate to which sugar and spices have already been added - all you have to to is heat the milk, add the chocolate and whisk, whisk, whisk.  The result is good - a strong chocolate flavour with wafts of cinnamon (although no taste of slightly spicy chile).  I tend not to mind some sweetness in my hot chocolate, but I had to agree with Nick that this was too sweet - you can see the sugar crystals in the chcolate discs when you break them into pieces!  So all in all, not a bad chocolate drink, but probably not one I'd go to great lengths to buy again.  Next time, I'll infuse the milk with cinnamon and chile and then just whisk plain dark chocolate into it.  Instant Mexican brew! 

For all my South African readers, I have two chances for you to win stuff, without having to try too hard.

Firstly, remember the 2007 South African Produce Awards?  Well they're back!  The awards started in 2006 and are a partnership between the annual food directory Eat In and RMB Private Bank and are unique in their nature and scope in South Africa, in that they aim to celebrate our outstanding local produce and to support the people who create and market it.

And now is your chance to nominate independent producers and shops for this year's awards.  All you need to do is go to the nomination form on the Eat In website, fill in a few personal details and then nominate your favourite new products, fabulous producers, shops and interesting foodies (or even yourself ) for the Awards. You have 3 choices in each category and you can vote as many times as you like - just remember that the deadline is 2 June 2008.

By voting (and living in South Africa) you stand a chance of winning a Le Creuset Pasta Pot (with sieve). Not only is it convenient for pasta cooking, serving and straining but it’s also handy as a deep casserole or a steamer for veggies and fish. So please take a few minutes to recognise our excellent local artisinal producers and retailers!

Secondly, Getclosure!, the South African free online consumer complaints management portal, has recently relaunched its site and wants to give you a chance to wine a buffet lunch for four at the Rhebokskloof wine estate - all you have to do is rate the new site. 

Increasingly, South African consumers are opting to use online services in lieu of (and as a complement to) established corporate feedback channels. Very few of us enjoy spending time in a queue for the customer service desk or listening to annoying phone jingles when calling the customer care department and with an increase in Internet usage, it’s about time that consumers had the opportunity to submit their valid complaints online - which is where Getclosure! comes in.

You log on and detail your complaint, then Getclosure! submits your complaint to the most appropriate person in the organisation you are lodging a complaint against, and tracks the complaint on your behalf. Not only are companies requested to acknowledge receipt of your complaint, but they are also given a time limit in which to respond. Best of all, the service is FREE for consumers.

Having just re-launched their new and improved website, getclosure! has partnered with Rhebokskloof Estate to bring you a fantastic prize. Simply rate the new getclosure! website and submit your suggestion on how they can improve their website and / or extend their service and stand a chance of winning a scrumptious Sunday buffet lunch for four at Rhebokskloof Estate valued at R1 000.

So there you have it, fellow South Africans - two chances to win, purely by giving your opinion.  I know just how opinionated my countrymen can be - so put it to good work :)

Spicy lentil, radish and parsley salad

Oh, I had such good intentions.

I came home on Friday afternoon and the three-day weekend stretched ahead of me as if it would never end.  Surely I would have time to do absolutely everything on my blog to do list?  I mean, how long can it take to post a couple of recipes, recategorise over 500 posts, do housekeeping on all my blogrolls and spend some time editing photos of the things I've cooked recently, restaurants I've visited, and the rather excellent London International Wine Fair that I attended last week?  And surely there would be time left over to work on my newly-created South African Food and Wine Blogger Directory and catch up on other blogs in my Google Reader?

Hah. 

If I then add that we had invited friends over for a braai (BBQ) on Saturday afternoon and some other friends for a fondue on Sunday night... you can see where this is heading!

I am known by my friends and family to be chronically late for things - a characteristic that I share with both my parents.  I remember mentioning this in one of the many "random thing" memes that I have filled in over the past few years, and within hours I had a commenter berating me saying that this was pure arrogance and a clear indication that I thought my time was more valuable that other people's time!  I was a little taken aback as nothing could be further from the truth - I have never made a conscius decision to be late and though "what the hell, let them wait at the rainy bus stop, I'll make myself a coffee before I go".  No, my problem is that I always optimistically overestimate how much I can do in the allotted time, which leads to my overcommitting myself.  And by the time I figure out I'm overcommitted, I feel too guilty to pull out of things and let people down, so I end up pushing on through the night to finish stuff - or I end up being late, stressed and unhappy for social engagements. And when you look at what I thought I could accomplish this weekend, it will be imediately apparent to anybody but me that this is not going to happen.  Any advice whatsoever in this regard will be gratefully received!

But to cut a long story short, I ended up having two very successful social events, editing quite a few photos, collecting a number of blogger profiles for the Directory... but ultimately not getting round to either the recategorisation or making a dent in my Google Reader - or that much by way of new postings, come to think of it!  And so we stagger into a new week, two steps behind and running to catch up. Clearly , this is my destiny!!

C'est la vie.  At least we did eat well over the weekend, despite my slow progress on the blogging front and the traditional Bank Holiday Downpour.  After a glorious start to summer, we seem to have taken 10 steps back, so all my plans for lots of light and summery salads have had to be temporarily shelved.  Instead, I bring you this far heartier number, featuring delicious spicy lentils for body and light, crispy radishes and fresh parsley to lift the mood with their crunch.  I can't pretend that it is related to any particular country's cuisine - I simply added herbs and seasonings that I felt like at the time. 

I can't emphasise enough just how delicious the end result was though - hearty and filling, spicy and warming, but at the same time seemingly fresh and crunchy.  It would be great with a BBQ, but equally great with a quiche. 

SPICY LENTIL, RADISH AND PARSLEY SALAD (serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

1 cup of green lentils
a pinch of ground cumin
a pinch of Thai 7 spice mix
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
20g pickled ginger, finely chopped
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 Tbsp sweet chile sauce
a squeeze of lemon juice
about 12 small radishes
a large handful of flat-leaf parsley

Method:

Soak the lentils overnight before cooking. Cover the lentils with fresh boiling salted water and boil for 30 minutes or until tender (I sometimes add a vegetable stock cube to the boiling water instead of salting it).  Drain and leave to cool. 

Warm the cumin and Thai 7 spice mix in a dry saucepan - but watch that it does not burn.  When the fragrance of the spices is released, add the vinegar and garlic.  Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients plus the cooked lentils and stir well.  Adjust the seasoning to taste with lemon juice.  Remove from the heat and cool completely.

While it is cooling, wash and thinly slice the radishes.  Wash and roughly shop the parsley.  Mix the radishes and parsley into the cooled lentils and serve.

I was so taken with the photographs of this tasty salad that I am submitting the first photo in this post as my entry for this month's Click event, hosted by my talented friends Jai and Bee at Jugalbandi. The theme is beans and lentils - check out their announcement post for details, the deadline and their dedicated entry form.

Spinach & feta fish fillets for building beautiful bones

I have told you about the first meal that Nick cooked me – stuffed gem squash. But I don’t believe I have told you about the first meal I cooked him.

It was 10 years ago and I was still living at home with my parents, so I was in a quandary. If I invited him home, a quiet dinner a deux was clearly not on the cards as my parents would be all over him like a rash. And if we went out on our own, firstly I would have to nail my colours to the mast and he would know I had the hots for him, and secondly, I wouldn’t be able to show off my skills in the kitchen. What to do, what to do…In the end I decided on staying home and inviting a bunch of other people. That way, I diverted my parents’ attention, diverted Nick’s attention and I got to show off my culinary skills. A win-win-win situation!

As there were eight or so people coming to dinner, I had to be a little creative to stay within my budget. Luckily, there was a great fishmonger (Provincial Fisheries) down the road, so I set off to find some firm white fish for what I had in mind. If you are well-off in South Africa, your firm white fish of choice is likely to be kingklip. A step down from that is hake – a national staple rather like cod is in the UK. But at that time, hake had shot up I price, and I did not feel like spending huge amounts of money on something which I had always thought of as pretty middle-of-the-road. And after all, I was out to impress! So I told the fishmonger what I had I mind and he suggested some beautiful pinksh-white fillets: butter bream, which cost about half the price of hake.  Result!

Of course, 10 years ago you didn't go shopping for fish with a guide to what's about to be made extinct in your pocket - but these days it always pays to check first.  And sadly, it appears that this wonderful fish (Pachymetopon Grande, also known as bronze sea bream), is classified as vulnerable and I would think twice before buying it again.  But the good news is that you can substitute any firm white fish fillets.  If you are buying ethically, in the UK that means no Atlantic cod (although Pacific cod or farmed cod is OK), but my current favourite sustainable white fish is pollock, which is what I used here (haddock is also good).

Not that nutritional concerns were uppermost in my mind, but this is a great low-fat, high calcium meal, with both the spinach and the cheese being good sources of calcium.  Why am I mentioning this?  Because this dish is my submission to the lovely Susan of Foodblogga's Beautiful Bones event running throughout may to raise awareness of osteoporosis, commonly known as brittle bone disease.  If you want to avoid getting up close and personal with splints and crutches, it is essential that you get your daily dose of calcium-rich foods, as bone mass declines with age.  And if your calcium fix also tastes heavenly, more's the better! 

For my cook-to-impress meal, I decided to give my guests a choice between two fish dishes: pizza fish, topped with tomato and cheddar; and spanakopita fish, topped with spinach and feta cheese. Both were really easy and could be left in the oven indefinitely at a low temperature, giving me plenty of opportunity to schmooze Nick. To this day, I don’t know if it was my subtle schmoozing or the delicious fish that hooked Nick, so I don’t want to tell you this will make the love of your life fall instantly in love with you.

But it sure worked for me.

SPINACH AND FETA CHEESE FISH FILLETS (serves 2)

Ingredients

about 500g firm while fish fillet (I bought one large fillet and cut it in half to cook)
1 cup of cooked and drained spinach (I used tinned)
100g feta cheese
half an onion, thinly sliced
1 large clove of garlic, crushed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tsp dried dill

Method

If using cold spinach as I was, heat the spinach over medium heat in a small saucepan together with half the garlic.  Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Rinse and pat the fish dry.  Spray a shallow oven-proof dish with olive oil spray and lay the fish fillets in it.  Brush with olive oil and scatter the onion and remaining garlic over the fish.  Season with salt, pepper and dill.

Spread the spinach evenly over the fish, then crumble the feta cheese over the spinach.  Bae in the oven for 30-45 mins or until you can flake the fish.  Turn on the grill for the final few minutes to brown the feta.  Serve with brown rice and a green salad. 

Chicken a la King revisited for CookSister's 4th birthday

Happy blogday to me, happy blogday to me!

Yes, folks, it's four (count 'em!) years to the day since I first took to my keyboard and started CookSister.  At the time, I knew close to nothing about blogs or the blogging community - all I knew was that reading Jeremy's blog had opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me and that I wanted a blog of my own. I had no idea what an addictive, frustrating, rewarding, time-consuming, satisfying, exhausting and inspiring a journey it was going to be.  But clearly the good outweighed the bad, because here I still am.

Highlights over the past year include:

• Being interviewed by the BBC
• Appearing in the BBC's Olive Magazine
• Writing a post a day in November for NaBloPoMo
• Hosting the UK part of the very successful Menu for Hope 2007 
• Being a finalist in the category Best Writing in the Food Blog Awards 2007
• Winning Best South African Food Blog and Best South African Overseas Blog in the 2008 South African Blog Awards

I've also cooked some great stuff over the past twelve months, like trout with almonds and samphire, broad bean crostini, Peppermint Crisp fridge tart, raspberry & white chocolate cheesecake, cheese olives, triple ginger layer cake, South African milk tart, sea bass stuffed with fennel and olives; apple-cranberry bran muffins, harira, cranberry ginger caramel pudding, Mamma's scones, tomato & marmalade soup, cranberry & pear upside down cake, peach and cardamom clafoutis, creamy smoked haddock with flageolet beans, and classic fish pie. Phew!

But the main dish I'm re-posting today is one of the very first things I ever blogged - chicken a la King.  I blogged it at the request of my friend Greg, but I didn't actually cook it at the time.  These days, that would be unthinkable - every recipe I blog has been tried and tested by me!  So maybe that's why I've always intended to go back and revisit this dish.  As you'll see in my original post, it's the dish I loved most as a child and it is still one of my favourite ways of using up leftover cooked chicken.  Although it's properly meant to be made with green pepper, red is what I had and so that's what I used. I hope you enjoy the recipe and I hope that this blog has brought you as much joy as it has brought me over the past four years.

CHICKEN A LA KING (serves 2)

Ingredients

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp plain flour
1 cup milk 
2 Tbsp sunflower oil
1 green (or red, or both) pepper, diced
1 amall onion, diced
1 cup quartered button mushrooms 
1.5-2 cups cooked diced chicken
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

Method

Heat the oil in a large, shallow saucepan.  Add the onion and, when it begins to soften, the red/green pepper.  Allow everything to soften over medium heat but don't caramelise the onions - add a bit more oil to the pan if things start to stick.  Add the chicken and heat through, adding the mushrooms towards the end. 

Melt the butter in a separate pot and when it is completely liquid, stir in the flour.  Allow to cook for a minute or two, then whisk in the milk. Allow the sauce to thicken and season with salt and pepper, then pour over the chicken mixture and mix well.  A splash of cream may also be added for richness.  Serve at once on cooked rice or noodles.

Announcing the South African Food & Wine Blog Directory

Would you believe that tomorrow it will be four years since my first post on this blog?  I know it seems hard to believe, but I've been tending this little patch of the Internet for 48 happy months.  Who would have thought?

When I started, I suspect that I was something of a novelty act - a South African blogging was relatively rare at that stage, let alone a South African blogging about food and wine.  But slowly over the years, others have emerged, writing either about our rich culinary heritage or our world-class wine industry.  Of course, I kept a close eye on these, welcoming each newbie as best I could and offering advice and support where necessary.  Somebody (who knows who they are!) even gave me the moniker of Yoda at one point ;-).  And slowly the number of South African foodie blogs grew in my Google reader.

But it still seemed that nobody really had much of a feeling of connection and community, partly because it's not always easy to track down South African food and wine blogs unless you go on a mission to look for them.  And so to raise our profile as a community I have today launched the official South African Food and Wine Blog Directory on its own shiny new page - please go and take a look.  Would you be surprised if I told you it features 23 food blogs and 13 wine blogs?  Thought you'd be!  Some blog more regularly than others, some do not focus exclusively on recipes or wine, but between them I think you get a lovely cross-section of the food and wine State of the Nation.

Starting next week I plan to feature a little weekly biography of a particular blogger, based on the answers to a questionnaire that I sent everyone on the directory.  So please do subscribe to the blog's feed or check back regularly to learn a little about each of our colourful collection of bloggers.  A little link-love to spread the word woudl not go amiss either :)  And if you know of a blogger that I have missed, or if you have an idea for what you'd like to see featured on this page, please do drop me an e-mail.

Cauliflower steaks - and a call for help

What is it with the world these days?  Everywhere you look there's more disaster, pain, misery and suffering.  And more and more I find that, with the barrage of bad news leaping out at us every day from the media, people suffer from compassion fatigue.  Looking at the figures, there must be many people who donated generously to the Asian tsunami appeal in 2004 who simply turned the page and did not donate following the recent cyclone in Burma. 

Now you can say that these are cold, unfeeling, selfish people, but the truth is more complicated.  Many people truly want to help, but they see their money ending up caght in political no-man's land as politicians argue about who is allowed to help whom; funding the bureaucracy of huge international charitable organisations, rather than reaching the people in need; or at worst, ending up in the pockets of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.  So it always warms my heart when I find a charitable cause where you can see exactly where your donation is going to go, and that is to those who need it.

I recently discovered Mel's wonderful blog.  She is so full of laughter and life and I was instantly taken by her stye of writing.  But what really impressed me was the charity which she runs in Cape Town, called Bosom Buddies.  If you are in the loucky position of being able to afford private healthcare in South Africa, your experience of giving birth will be as first-world as anywhere you care to name, with a private room and your own obstetrician and/or midwife.  However, if (like the majority of South African women) this is not the case, you will find yourself in a state hospital where the care you receive can vary from the good to the okay to the awful.  Many women, sometimes only teenagers, are dropped off at hospital by family and left alone and scared to give birth surrounded by complete strangers.  The process often entails spending hours sitting waiting in a corridor until a bed is available, and the overworked nurses seldom have time for reassurance and soothing words.  Clean linen is at a premium and supplies for the new mum to take home with her are nonexistent. Add to that South Africa's shocking stillbirth figures (and our Minister of Health's even more shocking attempt to conceal them), and you have a situation that would horrify most people - if they took the time out of their safe middle-class lives to pay attention.

Mel is one person who did step out of her comfortable existence and found Bosom Buddies.  The charity collects new and good-quality used clothes and supplies for newborns, as well as having a band of volunteers who knit bootees, sew pretty cloth bags, bake and make cards.  Mel and other women from her church go to the poorest of the state hospitals around Cape Town and spend time with new mums, giving them each a bag containing supplies for them and their baby to take home.  Even more amazingly, they take time to sit with women who have suffered a stillbirth, pray with them, and have special bags for them containing toiletries and a little gift for the bereaved mum.  They distribute about 200 of these bags every month. 

But, as always, funding is a problem and Mel was quite down recently when she found the store where she keeps her supplies almost bare.  The charity only has a bank account in South Africa and therefore needs to use Paypal for international donations, which takes a cut from each donation and decreases the funds that go to Bosom Buddies, and most people are unwilling to spend the money to send baby supplies from overseas.  So what great news that Riki, another South African living here in the UK, has offered to collect any donations of newborn baby clothes/supplies/wool for knitting bootees and blankets from the UK and Europe and add them to her shipping container for free!  According to Mel, she needs:

"*   0-3 month (mostly) and 3-6 month sizes of babygros and vests
*   wool to use for knitted baby cardigans and beanies
*   waterproofs/plastic pants
*   blankies are also a need, but don't buy new, only if you have 2nd hand - rather *   spend those pennies on clothes if you are keen to shop, but gently used is just as good.   

And don't forget your local charity shop, Riki says she has found loads of bargains there too."

The container is being packed on the 9th of June so the clothes need to be sent by the end of May.   You can either e-mail me or e-mail Riki and we will send you the mailing address.  So if you have (or know of anyone who has) old newborn clothes or stuff, or if you feel you can pop some babygros into your grocery basket next time you hit Tesco, please please do so.  The donations will be going directly to those who are the most vulnerable and who need it the most.

Right - on with the food!

Andrea, my oldest and dearest friend back home, is a vegetarian (well, a gluten-free vegan these days!).  After spending time with her recently on a trip home I was constantly amazed at how dismissively vegetarians are still treated in South African restaurants.  You can have, erm, the salad (hold the feta cheese) or the grilled Mediterranean vegetables if you're lucky, or if not, you are stuck with the side order veg of the day (which 6 days out of 7 will be creamed spinach and mashed butternut squash!).  Often, she is also far too accommodating when visiting friends, professing to be happy with just the non-animal parts of whatever the hostess has cooked (usually not much!). 

Andrea is coming to stay with my over the summer (yippeeeeee!) so I am determined not to fall into the same dismissive attitude and have been investigating options for dinners while she is staying with me.  As we have discovered, most vegan meat substitutes contain (surprise, surprise) gluten, so I am trying to find vegetable main courses that can function like their meatier counterparts - I mean, how much fun is a green salad while Nick and I munck on a steak?  Something I read in Manggy's post recently stuck in my mind - cauliflower steaks.  Now there was a thought.  So, having acquired a rather large cauliflower last week, I set about making these steaks a reality.   A word of warning - you do need a big cauliflower for this, and only the slices cut through the stem will hold together, so you probably need a plan for the rest of the cauliflower.  But those niggles aside, this is a fantastic and easy way to make "steaks" for vegan friends, but also a tasty and very attractive way to serve cauliflower.  Next time I might try brushing the slices with curry-infused oil or sprinkling them with cumin, but this time I kept it simple and the result was delicious all the same.

CAULIFLOWER STEAKS

Ingredients

1 large cauliflower
olive oil
fleur de sel or kosher salt

Method

Pre-heat to oven to 190C.

Remove all outer leaves from the cauliflower and rinse it.  With a large, sharp knife, slice vertically through the middle of the head.  Continue to make vertical slices about 0.5cm thick until you get to a point where the slices fall apart (when they are no longer held together by the stem).  Do the same with the other half of the head.  You should get 4-6 slices out of a head.

Spray a rimmed baking sheet with olive oil and lay the slices flat on it in a single layer.  Brush each slice with olive oil and place in the oven.  Turn after about 10 minutes or when the slices start to brown slightly at the edges.  Cook for another 5-7 minutes, then remove from the oven and sprinkle with fleur de sel before serving.

I'm submitting this post as my entry to this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, kindly hosted by the talented Gay at A Scientist in the Kitchen.

Fabulous fish pie

Well, it seems I spoke too soon. 

After lying in the sun last Sunday, braaing (BBQing) last Sunday night, and after my lovely summery salad last weekend, the temperatures have plummeted and I'm back to woolly socks and hot chocolate. So it seems that either:

a) summer has been delayed (probably got its luggage lost at Heathrow's Terminal 5!); or

b) last weekend was this year's allocation of summer - hope you enjoyed it!

Nothing for it then but to turn to something warm and comforting to eat.  And I have to say that there are few things as comforting as food in a creamy sauce.  All the ingredients are there for warmth, a little self-indulgence and a deep sense of contentment.  One case in point is the delicious smoked haddock with flageolets and mustard that I often make, and another perfect example of comfort on a plate is traditional fish pie. 

When I first arrived in England, I imagined fish pie to be just like a chicken pie, only fishy - in other words, fish encased in some sort of flaky pastry - and historically, fish pies did indeed have a pastry lid.  The Romans were very fond of fish and on Fridays, fish was eaten in celebration of the goddess Venus.  But even after the departure of the Romans from these shores, fish gained popularity as Christianity grew and adopted numerous fasting days when meat was outlawed but fish was allowed.  Especially during the forty days of Lent, this could be a trial, so a number of special fish dishes and pies were invented by enterprising cooks.  It seems the Medieval palate took a far more relaxed attitude to the mingling of sweet and savoury flavours, because some pies included a mix of seafood cooked with rosewater, spices, wine and sugar.  There are mentions of mackerel and gooseberry pie; a cod pie with pears and crystallised lemon peel in 1649; and Yorkshire herring pies with apples and potatoes.  For special occasions the pastry lid could even be covered in icing and crustallised fruits! 

One suspects that these combinations might not have been altogether succesful as none of them seem to have survived (or at least I haven't encountered any).  What did happen is that in areas where smoked fish was common, potatoes were almost always added to the fish pie to take the edge off the saltiness of the fish and, over time, the pastry lid traded places with a "lid" of mashed poatato to give us the fish pie we know today.  One of the best things about fish pie is that you can make it as posh or as simple as you like.  Keeping it simple, you can limit yourself to two types of fish; but when guests come, you can add all manner of exotic seafood.  It's also possible to add peas or other vegetables to the pie or the potato topping, making this a succesful one-pot dish (although I prefer to serve mine with lemon-thyme peas on the side).  The choice is yours - and I guarantee you will feel better about the lack of summer weather once you've had a taste.

 

FISH PIE (serves 6-8)

Ingredients

2 fillets of salmon (about 400g each)
1 fillet of smoked, undyed haddock (about 400g)
200g cooked, peeled prawns
500ml milk
100ml white wine
300ml double cream
1 bay leaf
3 whole peppercorns
100g butter
50g plain flour
2 Tbsp chopped chives
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill

about 800g floury potatoes
100g grated cheddar cheese

Method

Peel and boil the potatoes.

Remove the skin from the fish (if necessary) and cut into 3cm chunks.  In a large saucepan, mix 350ml of the milk, the cream, wine, bay leaf and peppercorns and bring to the boil.  Simmer gently for 8-10 minutes.  Remove from heat and transfer the fish chunks onto a plate to drain.  Strain and reserve the liquid, and scatter the cooked fish as well as the prawns over the base of a large, shallow oven-proof dish.

In a clean saucepan, melt 50g of the butter, add the flour and mix well.  Cook for 1 minute, then remove from the heat.  Gradually add the cooking liquid from the fish, whisking it in a little at a time and then return to the heat.  Bring gently to the boil and allow to simmer gently for 10 minutes. 

Remove from the heat, season with salt and pepper and stir in the chopped dill and chives.  Pour over the fish in the shallow dish.  Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

Mash the potatoes together with the remaining butter and milk to form a smooth, creamy mash.  Spread over the fish in the oven-proof dish so that it covers the fish completely - you can score patterns in the mash with a fork if you feel so inclined.  Sprinkle the grated cheese over the mash.  Bake uncovered at 200C for about 35 minutes until nicely browned and bubbling.

Serve with steamed green beans or minted peas (or, in my case) lemon thyme peas and a full-bodied white wine.

Salade folle a la Cooksister and a foie gras primer

When I was a teenager, I used to be a veteran shopper for souvenirs and knicknacks.  I remember hours of dragging my mom through curio shops buying salt cellars shaped like Siamese cats, crystals, little ornaments for my printer's tray (remember those?  You will if you grew up in South Africa in the 1980s!!) - you name it.  I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the boxes I have in storage back in South Africa, you will find oversize pencils from our 1983 Paris trip, a minature St Bernard soft toy from the Grand St Bernard Pass, pens with little boats sailing in some viscuous liquid along their length... 

Evidently, I was a magpie in a previous life. Either that or a Womble.

The first great scaling back of my hoarding tendencies came when I moved out of my parents home and into a 2-bed apartment.  Suddenly the endless cupboard space was severely curtailed and I realised that if I did not stop buying stuff, soon I'd be sleeping on the balcony and my stuff would be sleeping in my bed, eating my food and cuddling up with my soon-to-be husband!!  Moving to England was the second great wake-up call as regards hoarding, and I must say that I have all but dispensed with the urge to acquire anything except books, DVDs, CDs... and food.  You see, these days when we go travelling, the things I am most likely to bring back as souvenirs are edible.  Italian balsamic vinegar and pasta.  German speck and sweet mustard.  Candied violets from Toulouse.  Austrian fresh horseradish. Spanish Jamon Iberico de bellotta.  And French foie gras.  Not the whole thing, vacuum-packed (although that is possible) - no, dainty little tins of it, all prepared, seasoned and ready to serve.  Now THAT'S fast food I could get into! 

Foie gras literally means "fatty liver" and consists of the liver of ducks or geese that have been force-fed to capitalise on their natural tendencies to gorge before migration.  This gorging results in a fatty liver and humans have been practising this feeding technique since 2500BC. It is a speciality of the south-west of France but its production has been banned in some countries.  I am not going to enter the heated debate about foie gras here - I have eaten it, I continue to eat it and I'm not sure that its production is any more cruel than most intensive farming practices.  It certainly affects far fewer animals than ghastly battery chicken farming.  And if you love the taste but hate the idea, is possible to find ethically produced foie gras where there is no force-feeding but instead the geese are slaughtered just before migration season when they have naturally gorged themselves and fattened their livers.

Foie gras comes in various forms, ranging from the labour-intensive to prepare, to the dead easy. Foie gras entier consists of the entire liver (one or two lobes).  It can be sold either cooked (cuit), semi-cooked (mi-cuit) or raw (frais) and is good for preparing either au torchon (moulding the liver by wrapping it in a tea-towel and cooking it in a waterbath), or quickly at high temperatures (pan-searing, grilling).  The liver usually has to be deveined (time consuming and a bit fiddly), but some say that not deveining it helps to keep it together when cooking - a deveined liver can be like tryng to grill a lump of butter! Foie gras can often be bought from speciality shops in glass jars and consists of pieces of cooked liver moulded together (possibly by a method similar to au torchon).  Bloc de foie gras consists of a fully-cooked, molded block of smooth foie gras, usually sold in a tin and containing 98% foie gras (the rest is mainly seasonings like Armagnac).  If the tin states avec morceaux, this means there are pieces of whole liver included.  And at the bottom of the quality scale there are pate, mousse or parfait de foie gras. These must contain at least 50% foie gras, but the rest can be made up of other meats and seasonings.  These are unlikely to give you the full silky, rich flavour of foie gras unless they have a very high percentage of the liver.

When we went to Paris in 2004, one of the first meals we had was in a little cafe near the Pere Lachaise cemetery.  We were planning to go out that night so I opted for a lighter salad while Nick dug into something more carnivorous.  I had never heard of a salade folle ("crazy salad"), but the menu description was so... well, crazy that I had to try it.  I mean foie gras, smoked salmon and cured beef on one salad??  Surely I was reading the menu wrong?  But no - it arrived containing everything the menu had promised.  It was the first time I had tasted foie gras (one of those brave culinary moments!) and I was instantly hooked to those discs of delight with the taste of liver and the consistency of butter.  On subsequent trips to France, I have often come back with tins of bloc de foie gras which litter my shelves, but for some reason I have never tried to recreate the salad that first made me fall in love with the stuff.

This weekend, though, the weather in London was so delightfully summery that it called out for a salad, and I decided that this should be that salad.  It seems that the ingredients are quite flexible but foie gras plus at least one other luxury ingredient are required - could be smoked salmon, could be lobster.  I decided that this would be gilding the lily and opted instead for a salad topped only with slices of the bloc de foie gras and toast points, with some rather good caramelised red onion relish on the side.  I would recommend the carrot curls - their sweetness and crunch make them ideal partners for the foie gras.  And if you are not a fan of foie gras, you can replace it with a slice of any pate or terrine that you like.  Go crazy!

SALADE FOLLE A LA COOKSISTER (serves 2)

Ingredients

About half a head of lettuce leaves
2 vine-ripened tomatoes
About 5cm of a cucumber
2 sliced spring onions
2 medium carrots
2 slices of white bread, crusts cut off
1 small tin of bloc de foie gras (or similar)
a few slices of smoked salmon (optional)

For the dressing:
3 Tbsp very mild olive oil
1 Tbsp raspberry vinegar
1 scant tsp wholegrain mustard
Mixed herbs (whatever you like)
Salt & pepper to taste

Method

Wash and shred the lettuce.  Slice and quarter the cucumber and slice the spring onions.  Peel the carrots, then slice them with a mandolin or vegetable peeler into thin strips. 

Cut the crusts off the bread and place under a medium grill in the lower half of the oven so that they crisp up slowly rather than carbonise. 

Mix the dressing ingredients together, preferably in a small bottle and shake well. 

Carefully remove the foie gras from its tin.  The tins have ring-pull openings at both ends - remove both and allow the foie gras to slide out.  Using a very sharp, unserrated knife, slice the block carefully into 1/2cm slices. 

Toss the salad, dress, and top with the foie gras and toast points (and smoked salmon, if using) to serve.