66 Square Feet (The Food)

Herb roasted summer chickens

2012-01-30T15:50:00.001-05:00

(For Peter, who asked.)

For a party Cornish hens or baby chickens are a treat. Sorry, chickens. It's no treat for you, I know.

Here, they have been cut down the middle before roasting. One chicken is usually too much for one person, when a lot of other dishes have already been eaten and will follow. Cutting them before roasting also browns the cut side nicely, and avoids last-minute butchering at table. These were our Tweede Nuwe Jaar chickens.

There are a milllion simple ways to make a chicken delicious. This is just one. No quantities, but heavy on the herbs, steady on the preserved lemon.

Figure on half a chicken per person, unless that is all you're eating. Then you're allowed a whole one each.
Herbs: parsley, summer savory, rosemary, thyme, chives - all finely chopped and mixed.
Preserved lemon, rind only, after rinsing the salt off (substitute lemon zest, but it's a whole other animal). Cut the rind into very small pieces.
Mascarpone cream cheese
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice
Verjus/verjuice (subs. fruity white wine)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl so that you have a thick paste, full of herbs.

After rinsing and patting the chickens dry, cut them in half lengthways. Loosen the skin and stuff about a tablespoonful of the herb mixture under the breast skin and spread evenly with your fingers. Spread some extra herb mixture over the top of the birds, as well as underneath.

Once all the chickens have been massaged thus, lay them in a roasting dish on some rosemary branches. Squeeze the juice of a lemon over them. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over about a cup of verjus.

Roast in a hot oven (200'C/400'F) until thoroughly delicious-smelling and brown: About an hour. Add verjus if the pan threatens to dry. If you listen to it the sound will tell you when that happens.

Remove birds to a serving plate. Deglaze the roasting pan with enough verjus to make good pan gravy. Add a slosh of cream or stir in the extra herb mixture if you have any left over. Reduce by about a third to concentrate the flavour, and pour over the chickens on the plate that will go to the table. I usually serve them at room temperature after roasting.

Some bread is nice to mop up the juice.

Chocolate roll with fresh cherries

2012-01-14T06:41:00.003-05:00

Ever since I saw a luscious photograph of a chocolate roulade in the Halfaampieskraal cookbook, given to me for Christmas by Guy and Jay, and published by Human and Rousseau, my mouth has watered.

I made it to take to my cousin's for dessert after a braai, and have subsequently tweaked quantities, taken out an egg yolk, added milk and a little flour: The original, while deliciously chocolatey and easily rollable, was too eggy for my taste. Like a rolled chocolate omelette. I also chopped the suggested baking time by almost half, or it would have turned to cinders. But that may be the oven's fault.

I added cherries, for a fresh red counterpoint to the whipped cream and a Black Forest feel. Oh, the memory of that cake on Leisure Island long, long ago, that little hibiscus-hedged garden restaurant now under a block of flats. The death of Knysna.

This is surprisingly easy and low-stress to make, though they should perhaps also have explained better how to roll it. If you've never made one before, their directions are a little scant. It remains a beautiful book, though, and inspiring, which is what the best cookbooks should be.

6 eggs
4 Tbsp castor sugar, plus 2 Tbsp
5 Tbsp cocoa powder
1Tbsp flour
3 Tbsp milk
1 cup stoned and halved fresh cherries (raspberries would be good, too)
250 ml whipping cream
1 Tbsp castor sugar

Heat oven to 180'C/350F.

Butter baking tray (Swiss roll tray, jelly roll tray - with low sides) and line with parchment paper, also lightly buttered. The paper must come up the sides.

Separate the eggs. Whip 5 of the yolks with 4 Tbsp of castor sugar till pale. Give the 6th yolk to the dog or put it on your steak tartare. Add the cocoa powder, flour and milk.

Whip the whites till softly fluffy and add the 2 Tbsp sugar; whip some more till mounded.

Take 1/4 of the whipped whites and cut them into the cocoa mixture with a spatula, folding and turning to break up the more solid mixture. Add the rest in 1/4 increments, blending well but gently. You need those bubbles.

Pour into the baking tray, spreading to touch all sides, and pop in the oven. Bake for 11 minutes and then check on it. If the middle has ceased to jiggle and a soft prod finds firm cake, remove. If the centre is still tender, give it another 3 minutes.

Remove, and cool in tray.

Whip the cream with 1 Tbsp castor sugar, till stiff.

Take a clean dishcloth and dampen it slightly. Loosen the edges of the parchment from the tray with a blunt knife. Cover the tray with the dishcloth, and flip over to tip out the cake. Remove the tray. The cake is now on the dishcloth. Peel the parchment paper carefully from the cake. Spread cream and scatter the cherries. From one end, use the dishcloth to lift and start rolling the cake. Once it is in a log shape transfer to a flat dish and keep cool till you need it.

Yes you can!

Braaied lamb chops with verjus

2012-01-04T05:38:00.001-05:00

Everyone makes a braai their own way. Usually there is lamb, and boerewors, or ribs, or toasted sandwiches (braaibroodjies). There may be steak, or thick rashers of pork belly. But one thing is sacred and not to be messed with: no gas allowed. It's real fire, made with real wood or real charcoal.

Here at No. 9 we used to braai in a built-in braavleis place, made from bricks and mortar, with a grid that could be lowered or raised on three different levels. But that area now houses my mother's extensive succulent collection and a tickey creeper (Ficus pumila) grows over the braai itself. While there is a big ugly Weber braai on wheels, it is seldom used, unless there are hordes which need feeding. Braaing mostly happens on this little braai (you see how many ways you can use the word "braai"?). We call it the Mickey Mouse braai, because of its diminutive size. But it packs a punch.

Rib chops are the kind with the long stem, or rib bone. Loin chops have tender lamb loin on side, like a T-bone. We had loin chops for this. I eat very little lamb in the States because it is so very expensive. So South African time is lamb chop time. You can't shop in any supermarket without finding heaps of them.

Variations are endless - lemon juice instead of verjus. Branches of rosemary or thick lemon slices under the chops as you cook them. Oregano chopped into the marinade. Yogurt painted onto each chop. A marinade of onion, chutney, lime leaf, curry powder and milk, all whizzed up together and slathered over the meat for 24 hours.

But this is a simple version:

Enough lamb chops (at least 3 per person)
1/4 cup verjus
Red Turkish pepper
Salt and pepper

An hour before cooking them, season your chops and sprinkle them with verjus.

Make a fire: newspaper balls and dry wood. When the flames leap, cover them with natural charcoal. Stand back, or close your eyes, close the house's windows, go inside - this gets smoky. When the coals have started to glow after about 15 minutes you can come back out again and look at them for a long time. It's nice if you have a drink while you do this. You may adjust a coal now and then. But wait for a layer of fine grey ash to form over them and only then even your coal pile out. Put the wire grid over them, about 4" above the top layer. Add your chops.

If the chops are fatty there will be a conflagration. Don't panic. Allow the flames to burn for a few seconds before removing the affected chops - in danger of incineration - to a cooler spot. Put them back once the fat on the grid has burned off. You may have to keep moving the meat from spot to spot if the flames continue - it could be a sign that your fire was still too hot, at least it is with me. Impatient. But bargain on about four minutes to a side.

When each chop is brown on both sides it's ready to come off. We are not looking for rare chops, as we are usually not dealing, in South Africa, at least, with lamb that has been aged - so it is tougher. The best chop is a tiny notch below medium. I know this sounds wrong, but trust me. If you are braaing well-aged chops, give them the finger poke to assess doneness, and do not over cook them.

When cooked, put your chops in dishes with lids and let them rest for five minutes to relax a little. They exude delicious juice which is best mopped up with some garlic bread, or, if you must, simply boiled and sliced open potatoes.

Pizza at home

2011-12-29T02:47:00.002-05:00

I now like this pizza about as much as I do a pie baked in a professional oven anywhere in Brooklyn. So there.

For us, pizza at home tends to be a cold weather thing. While every variation is possible in summer, with fresh herbs and just-picked tomatoes featuring, our apartment is tiny, and hot. And in summer, it is tinier, and hotter. Crank an oven up to 500'F and we begin to have dark, murderous thoughts of an August evening. So when the afternoons darken and the air nips, pies are made.

Pizza Dough - this is based on Patricia Wells' all purpose dough and bread recipe in Bistro Cooking. A book I would save in a flood (not so her Salad as a Meal, which is a case of false advertising...).

1 cup warm water
1 Tbsp instant yeast
2 tsp sugar
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt

Stir the sugar and yeast into the warm water and stand until the yeast has frothed into bubbles. A few minutes.

In a large bowl mix the yeasty water, flour and salt with a wooden spoon until amalgamated but no longer wet. Add a little more flour if it is too sticky. More warm water if too dry. All flours are different. Turn the mass of dough onto a floured board and knead it, folding the edge farthest from you over onto itself towards you, giving it a quarter clockwise turn every time. Knead until the dough turns silky-soft and elastic. At least five minutes. Turn it into a lightly greased bowl, cover with a damp, clean kitchen towel, and let it rise until doubled in size. It will take between 45 minutes and an hour-and-a-half.

I do not have a pizza stone, so I press the dough directly onto a perforated circular baking tray.

Remove dough from bowl. Punch it down to deflate, always keeping a roughly uniform circle. Lay it on the baking tray and with your knuckles press it outwards from the center, radiating towards the edges, turning the tray as you go. I do this methodically until the dough has reached the edge of the tray, with enough left for a slightly raised crust - this keeps sauce and melted cheese from escaping. The pressed dough base can rest like this for a good fifteen minutes.

Basic Pie:

Tomato sauce.

Generally I prefer canned or bottled tomatoes for a red sauce base. Their flavour is more intense.

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced
1 can of organic, skinned tomatoes. I have sometimes even used pureed tomatoes.

In a saucepan saute the garlic till translucent. On no account allow it to brown, as it turns bitter.

Add the tomatoes, which you have chopped finely, or the puree. Cook gently, with a small bubble, until reduced by a third, taste for acidity, and perhaps add a teaspoon of sugar. I rarely add salt.

Cheese.

I have used every kind of cheese for pizza and return always to buffalo mozzarella. It dissolves into a beautiful creaminess with no hint of rubber when it cools a little. Slice it, not too thinly, not to thickly, and let it drain for a minute or two.

Topping. Up to you. But resist the urge to overdo it.

My standard topping after the sauce and cheese is little pieces of anchovy, cured in oil and salt. If I use sausage I slice and pan-cook it a little first, or turn it out of its casings and make little meatballs (above), cooking them just till they take some colour, before adding them.

So. Once your dough is pressed out and your oven is BLAZING hot. I can't stress that enough - as high as it can go: spread your sauce evenly and judiciously across the pizza base. You don't want Lake Tomato. You want a wash. It's OK if pale parts of the dough show through in places. Too much sauce = soggy base. Once the sauce is spread, lay slices of mozzarella evenly across the top, avoiding any mozzarella deserts. You want an even melting.

Now scatter the anchovies. 5 fillets cut into small pieces are about perfect.

Put it in the hot oven, and bake until the dough at the edges is risen and is browning. The baking time varies but the rule of thumb is about 12 minutes in my oven.

Slide it out, loosen with a long spatula between crust and tray, and if you can, slide the pie onto a big cutting board. Cut into wedges and eat, and don't burn your tongue.

So that is standard pizza. Variations on the theme for me, include a mushroom pizza, which I make with a white sauce base, and the now ubiquitous but no less delicous fresh salad leaf and prosciutto/spek topping (above).

Stay tuned for those.

Groenboonbredie

2011-12-05T18:21:00.001-05:00

Bredie - South Africa's slow-simmered stew, featuring lamb and a seasonal vegetable.

You'll find variations on the theme in the sidebar: spinach bredie, tomato bredie, pigweed bredie...each defined by its vegetable and some minimalist spice-pairings. Ginger, sometimes, a chile. A clove of garlic...

Although it's hard to choose a favourite, I love green bean bredie. But you mustn't picture al dente beans, grass-grean and barely pliable. Here, the beans have fallen apart in a khaki tangle by the time they touch your lips. And they are luscious, melted, lemony, succulent with lamb fat.

For Two, with leftovers

1.5 lbs lamb shoulder chop, or ribs
1 onion, finely sliced
1 bunch scallions (spring onions), thinly sliced
Half a cup cilantro stems, chopped finely
5 juniper berries
1 lb green beans
4 small hot chiles, intact (or 1 Tbsp dried chile flakes)
Water, or white wine
3 medium potatoes, quartered
1 lemon's juice
Salt, pepper

Brown the lamb in its own fat. That is, heat a pan till smoky, add the salt-sprinkled chops, turn after a minute. Add the onions and the juniper, stir a little to coat with fat, and add the beans, chiles, water or wine. Cover and cook at a steady but gentle simmer for 45 minutes. Add the potatoes, cover again and shove into a 400' oven (this is not typical - but I like to do it for browning purposes).

Cook another half hour, remove lid, taste, and cook farther 15 minutes. You still want the liquid as a sauce to coat your side of rice, barley or...polenta (why not?). I vote for barley.

A good, bright salad with this would be grated carrot dressed with orange and lemon juice juice and spiked with raisins. Or flatleaf parsley and finely-sliced onions sprinkled with salt and sumac.

Apple and cranberry pies

2011-11-27T11:15:00.001-05:00

This makes eight little pies, with some leftover pastry. Fuji apples hold together well after steaming or stewing.

Pastry

175 gr/6 oz butter
75 gr/2.5 oz sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
300 grams/ 10.5 oz flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the egg. Beat again. Gradually beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. Pat into a fat disk and chill for 20 minutes.

The Filling:

4-5 Fuji apples, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks
3 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
pinch of powdered cinnamon

If you have a steamer, steam the apples till barely tender. Otherwise cook them very gently in a quarter inch of water. Remove from pot to a bowl, add cranberries and sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over them.

Butter a muffin pan.

Roll 2/3's of the pastry out quite thinly and cut out a pastry disk to fit each 8 slots (I use a wine glass that makes the perfect-sized disk). Line each muffin slot with pastry. Fill with apples and top with some cranberries. Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut out smaller lids for the pies. Cover the filling and crimp the edges in the way you know best, make several slits for steam. Bake in a 350'F/180'C oven till pale golden and crisp. About 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, run a butter knife along the edges of each pie and leave to cool in pan for about five minutes before easing each pie out onto a cooling rack.

Variations:

Use quince instead of apples: steam or stew a little longer till tender and 2 additional Tbsp of sugar
Use raisins instead of cranberries

Anchovied broccoli

2011-11-26T15:07:00.001-05:00

Slice a peeled head of garlic, every clove, very thinly.
Heat a quarter cup of good olive oil.
Cook the garlic very gently for at least 10 minutes.
Add six anchovy fillets.
Add a teaspoon of hot pepper flakes.

Meanwhile steam three stems of broccoli. Cut the hard stem into batons, peel, and use those, too. When barely tender transfer to a warmed bowl, and pour the garlic-anchovy mixture over. Toss. You could add this to pasta, but I see no reason to - it is very good on its own.

Or make the bruschetta I wrote about before.

To go in an Asian direction, subtract three anchovies and add two Tbsp of soy sauce. Also add a Tbsp of chopped fresh ginger and squeeze of fresh lime juice. That version is very good in a bowl, on brown rice, eaten with chopsticks.

Sunday suppers

2011-11-20T13:10:00.001-05:00

Cold weather, premature darkness, a looming week. The antidote: potato gratin.

There are a million ways to go about this. The only essential ingredient is the potato, any potato, I don't care what the experts say. The only essential technique, slicing them thinly and layering them. After that, wing it.

For this version I buttered a pan very lightly, layered the potatoes, sprinkling a little salt and pepper all the way. I sliced a garlic clove very thinly, too, and flecked the pieces through the potato layers, leaving no garlic on top (it would burn and turn bitter). I had some leftover sour cream, I had milk. I mixed the cream in the milk and poured it over the potatoes to reach the top layer. I cut up half a tablespoon of butter and dotted this over the top. Into the oven for an hour at 425'F. It's ready when brown and crackly on top.

That's all.

You could also:

- Substitute yams, using orange and lime juice with a dribble of maple syrup as the cooking liquid.
- Use just water as the cooking liquid, for more austere version. Don't leave out the butter, though.
- Use chicken or beef stock as the cooking liquid (cut back on the salt you add)
- Add 3 bay leaves under the next to last layer of potatoes.
- Infuse boiled milk with bay and garlic for 10 minutes before straining them out and using the milk only.
- Grate some very good cheddar and sprinkle it between layers.
- Strew thyme leaves upon every layer.
- Add cubes of pancetta.
- Alternate slices of late season tomatoes with potato layers.
- Make a nest in the potatoes towards the end and add an egg or two, and cook for another 5 minutes.

It's the perfect time of year for chewy salad greens, juicy apples and creamy feta. Use them together. Add a dollop of yogurt and a whisper of mustard to your vinaigrette.

Pour a glass of wine. Dare the week ahead to do its damnedest.

Broccoli leaf bruschetta

2011-11-12T21:35:00.001-05:00

How often do you see a broccoli leaf?

In my shopping life?

Once.

Last week, on Court Street, at the sister greengrocer to our usual joint on Atlantic, I saw a box of broccoli: long stems and beautifully dark green leaves intact. Lots of leaves. A vegetable in their own right, and I realized suddenly how much is being trimmed and wasted to be bring us 'neat' heads of the super-vegetable (it's one of the best things we can eat).

Perhaps broccoli leaves and their midribs can become the new garlic scape? Those used to be thrown away, too! Now they're Special.

The box said, New York State broccoli. So I loaded up.

Because the leaves looked so delicious and were such a novelty, I decided to cook consider them in their own right. I cut them from the main stalks. They looked like miniature collard greens, with a serious, thick midrib.

And so the bruschetta was born. I had a fresh wholewheat baguette from Sahadi's. I bought a jar of anchovies. I had garlic, I had olive oil.

So. Makes 4 pieces:

Warm the oil, about 4 Tbps, add 3 cloves of thinly sliced garlic to it, 6 anchovy fillets, and cook the mixture gently until the fillets have dissolved.

In a a large pan, cook the broccoli. Over high heat, add a quarter inch of water to the pan before adding the leaves. After the ribs can be pierced easily with a knife-tip, remove the lid and allow the water to evaporate. Lower the heat. Pour the anchovy mixture over, toss it all very well, still over hear. Do not burn the garlic! Add a squeeze of lemon juice. And red pepper flakes if you have them.

Meanwhile you have been toasting bread. A peeled garlic clove lies ready to be rubbed over the hot bread as soon as it emerges.

Whip the bread out, rub the garlic over its surface, back and forth, pile on the broccoli, and eat at once.

This broccoli had a sweetness to it which proved its provenance: it had known some cold nights.

Fingerlicking good.

Yes, of course you can substitute the other part of the broccoli, and I would suggest the stems. They taste very good and are good for you. Cut them lengthways into batons, first, then proceed as above.

Homemade yogurt

2011-11-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

The first spoonful in my mouth and my eyes opened wide. The creamiest yogurt I have ever eaten.* Really. And it's mine! Mine, mine, all mine.

I've been wanting to make yogurt for a while, now, so I read up about it. But I don't have a yogurt maker. I don't have a slow cooker. I wasn't going to put it in the oven with the pilot light on. I don't have a thermometer.

But this is not a new food. How has yogurt been made without electricity through the ages?

What about the hotbox method, I wondered, the way I make the Thanksgiving ginger ale pig. Sealing in the heat...

So, this is what I did.

I bought a quart of Ronniebrook Farm milk. It is whole milk, and I chose the full cream kind. The milk itself is wonderful. And I think the quality of the yogurt must depend on the milk.

For my starter I used Fage yogurt.

1 Quart of whole milk (regular milk will work, too)
1. 5 Tbsp plain yogurt
1 sterilised mason jar with lid

Heat the milk on the stove to the point where minute bubbles have begun to form at the edges. Turn off at once. If you blow on the surface a skin will form. That means it's hot enough. Allow to cool for five minutes - too hot and it will kill the culture. Remove the skin.

In a very clean bowl whisk the yogurt into the milk. Pour the milk into the sterilised glass jar (I sterilise it in the oven at 300'F for ten minutes, then cool). Screw the lid on, keep at a steady temperature for eight hours, like this (for example):

Two feather cushions. One cashmere blanket. One wool blanket. Another for luck. Place the jar on the first cushion Wrap the two blankets around the jar and place the second pillow on top. Cover with another blanket.

In Cape Town my mother's hotbox is a cardboard box with two bean bags inside. The bean bags insulate whatever pot is sandwiched between them.

After eight hours the yogurt should be set.

Now I strain it to make it very thick. Line a sieve with muslin, double thick, or a very clean cloth, and place the sieve over a bowl. Put the yogurt into the sieve, cover with a damp cloth, and put in the fridge till much of the whey has dripped through. It forms a pale yellow pool in the white bowl. Why do I think that George Elliott heroes liked a draft of cool whey on a hot day?

I left mine overnight, which yielded an intensely creamy Greek-style yogurt. Use a low fat milk if the cream is off-putting, or strain for less time.

When it's done, store in covered bowl. Now bring on the chestnut honey. Bring on the last of the wine-poached plums. Bring on the garlic, for that matter. And the crunchy, omega-3 purslane leaves, the diced cucumber and the lamb curry.

I am ready.

Malva Pudding

2011-10-24T16:46:00.001-04:00

The concensus seems to be that the malva (mahl-fah) in malva pudding comes from Malvasia dessert wine, which may or may not have been used in a sauce for this moist South African pudding. No matter how much I would like it to, it does not come from the Afrikaans word malva (from Malvaceae) referring to the rose scented Pelargonium capitatum, native to the the Western Cape. But that won't stop me from lining a baking pan with the leaves in Cape Town and baking the pudding on top of them...

Incidentally, when I bake, I use old fashioned elbow grease. I do not own an electric mixer, food processor or even hand-cranked beater. It's a wooden spoon or a whisk. So no excuses.

So here, as promised, is the recipe I finally tweaked to our taste.

Pudding:

2 Tbps butter at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp apricot jam
1 cup flour
1 tsp bicarb (baking soda)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (white wine vinegar won't kill you)
3/4 cup milk

Heat oven to 350'F/180'C.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg, beat well, and add the jam. Slowly add the dry ingredients, mixing very well. Add the vinegar (there will be an exciting fizzing sound as it hits the batter) and then stir in the milk. Mix until smooth and pour into buttered 9" baking dish. It will not rise much more than 1 1/2 inches.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until springy to the touch. Remove from oven and turn out of its pan onto a plate.

Sauce:

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt 1 Tbsp butter and add to it 2 Tbsp sugar. Stir to dissolve and cook over medium heat until slightly syrupy. Keeping your eyebrows well away from the pan, add 3 Tbsp of brandy, bourbon, Grand Marnier or - Malvasia wine if you can find it! It will probably not catch alight but bear the possibility in mind.

Cook until nicely saucy and then pour at once over the still-warm pudding. Eat now or when cool. And it's best with some whipped cream or custard.

Fried Chicken

2011-10-08T19:24:00.000-04:00

So...I had yearning, a hankering, a need for crispy, fatty fried chicken. Something about preparing fried chicken makes me feel like I'm mainlining America (this kind of language always unnerves my husband, who thinks I've had a more colourful past than the one I own up to). It makes me wish I were Southern.

The Dixie Chicken we found at the side of the road in the Catskills was welcome, warm, and just what we needed that cold day, but I wanted to see if I could erase the memory of the pale chicken skin we found beneath the thick batter. Pale chicken skin - it has no place in our lives.

I am not a master fryer, so was still feeling my way around, alarmed at how much oil I had to buy. Was it corn or vegetable? I forget.

So, I took apart an organic chicken, with wings, legs, thighs, breasts (cut in two), and a piece of the back, too.

Marinade:

1 quart buttermilk
1 Tbsp paprika
1-1 1/2 tsp salt (taste before you put the chicken in, for seasoning, and adjust)
1 Tbsp cracked pepper (this will give your pepper grinding wrist a workout)
2 tsps powdered coriander

Taste for balance, and add chicken pieces. Refrigerate and keep as long as you can, up to a day. I managed 6 hours.

Flour coating:

About 2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
Lots of black pepper
2 tsps paprika
2 tsps powdered coriander

Dip finger into flour mixture to taste. Maybe add more salt.

In a cast iron skillet or Other, heat enough oil to almost cover chicken - about 2" deep.

Meanwhile take chicken out of buttermilk, piece by piece, and dip and roll each piece in the flour mixture, pressing onto the skin if it threatens to fall off. Lower into oil once a test piece sizzles. Add about half the chicken pieces - more and you will lower the heat too much. Cook about 8 minutes per side, turn carefully when deep golden. Don't have the heat as far as it can go, or the crust will cook faster than the meat inside and you'll get burned, underdone chicken and an oil fire at once. (Remember not to put water on the fire. First turn off heat, then cover with a lid! Walk, do not run.)

Do not overcook the breast pieces: they cook faster.

As pieces are cooked, transfer to wire rack placed over kitchen paper or something else to sop up dripping oil. I read Alton Brown's advice for fried chicken and he said for some reason not to put it right on the paper. Reasons? Steam?

It was pretty good. The best, crispiest crust I've had so far. No pale skin.

I'd like to experiment more with seasonings. I'm wondering about lemon zest in the buttermilk.

I had a Scrumpy's Cider with my chicken. Vince was dealing with the leftovers of his Chivas, lemon and Cointreau cocktail.

We both had an early night...

Clam Chowder

2011-10-04T14:00:00.000-04:00

I did not grow up with or on chowder but I love it. The best clam chowder I have tasted is at Pearl Oyster Bar on Cornelia Street in the West Village - and I used that as my taste-reference to make my own chowder for the first time. I used fresh clams. It seemed the right thing to do. And we are lucky enough to have access to the fresh shellfish as well as to fishmongers who are willing to shuck them, carefully saving all their juice.

The result was wonderful. Creamy, but not cloying, very briny, with a hint of carroty sweetness rising through the smoky bacon. No doubt I commited various heresies along the way but here it is. I would also serve creamy hot milk on the side in case it is too salty for some...

Four Four, one bowl each. No seconds. Or you know, two pigs.

1 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup carrot, mire poix-style (tiny cubes)
1/4 cup onion, ditto
2 rashers bacon - the best you can get your hands on - cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 Tbsp flour plus 1 tsp
1 1/4 cups shucked clams (about 2lbs, in shell), strained
Clam juices reserved (about 2 cups)
1 1/2 cups milk, plus extra
1/4 cup cream
4 small potatoes - about 1 cup, peeled and cubed
Half a lemon

Melt the butter and cook the carrots and onion till they caramelize a little, about 5 gentle minutes. Add the pieces of bacon. Cook until the fat runs. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the bacon and vegetables and stir well with wooden spoon. Allow to cook gently for a minute or two. This is the beginning of a quick roux. Now add the clam juice, stirring furiously to prevent any sticking. Add the milk and the cream. Stir. Once the liquid reaches a boil (stir all the time), lower heat to a bare simmer. Add the cubed potato. Cook until just tender, about 6-8 minutes. Taste. The clam juices can very, very salty and if the soup is too salty, add a little more milk or a milk-cream mixture. Bring back to a simmer and add the clams. The instant they cook and become firm, in under a minute, be ready serve the chowder, in warmed bowls. But taste one last time, and add a conservative squeeze of lemon juice.

I served this with still-warm crusty wholegrain bread from Sahadi, and a salad of roof greens that had a peppery kick.

No reason this would not work with mussels, but they'd have to be added after a gentle steaming to open them; and add the liquid they exude in the steaming pot (after straining it for grit). Maybe I'll try that in Cape Town after some mussel-scrounging on the rocks.

Basic Biscuits

2011-10-02T22:29:00.001-04:00

Or if you were brought up in the Commonwealth: scones.

4 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

6 oz cold butter, cut up

1 1/2 cups milk

Sieve the dry ingredients together and then add the cold butter, cut into pieces. Rub the butter and flour between thumb and forefingers the flour until all the butter is broken down and the texture is that of coarse, even sand. Be patient, this is where the good texture starts.

Add the milk. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon and until the dough just sticks together. Pat out lightly into a circle of dough about 1 1/2 inches thick. Use a biscuit cutter or a glass tp press out biscuits.

Bake in a 350''F/180'C oven until golden, about 12 minutes.

Beautyberry - Callicarpa americana

Four variations:

1/2 cup currants, added before the milk
Sour cream or buttermilk substituted for milk
Grated orange zest
1/4 tsp powdered beautyberry seeds (Callicarpa americana) added to dry ingredients
1/4 tsp mahlab (powdered cherry kernels) added to dry ingredients

Abbacchio alla Romana

2011-09-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

This delicious thing is based on a recipe that Bevan sent me. The two main differences in our versions are that, instead of cooking till just done on top of the stove, for about 20 minutes, I slow-cook the lamb in the oven. Try both ways. And in his version, the anchovies are crushed to a paste and stirred in at the end; in mine - and I double the quantity - they are added at the beginning.

Should you be nervous about the salted fishes, don't be. They simply melt and blend seamlessly into the overall, complex flavour. Divine.

For Four

2 lbs lamb, cut in bite size pieces
3 Tbsp butter
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch of rosemary
1 bunch of sage
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 -1 cup water
8 anchovies
Pepper

In a heavy pot with a lid, brown the meat well all over in the butter, in batches. You know not to over crowd the pan, or all you will get is steamed, grey meat.

When it is all browned, return the meat to the pan and deglaze with the vinegar and water, stirring to scrape up the nice bits. Add the garlic, rosemary, anchovies and pepper...Put the lid on the pot, and pop into a low oven (250-'F/ 100'C) for four hours, minimum. Towards the end check the liquid level, and reduce if necessary, but it will probably be a nice juice by then and need to interference. I could see braising a leg of lamb like this, slow, slow, slowly...

I serve this with warm, crusty bread and a side of garlicky yogurt and mint. Fried bread would be good too, with the lamb piled on top!

Tagliatelle with August sauce

2011-08-27T18:27:00.004-04:00

What is August sauce? Well, I had all those tomatoes, and the leftovers of a plump bunch of purslane (the rest went into purslane curry). And I wanted something fast that didn't cook too long, because the pre-hurricane atmosphere is warm and soggy and needs no encouragement from blazing stove.

From my collection, I chose the big Green Cherokee tomato, which weighed in at just under a pound. It was very juicy, quietly sweet, and low on acidity. And green. Very green. A long, flat pasta is good for this - small and rounded and shellish and the bits of tomato and purslane would get lost inside and hide out in clumps. With ribbon pasta the sauce just slides along each strand.

I don't often cook with butter but in this case it adds a velvety background for the fruitiness of the very ripe tomato. And a hurricane is coming. I mean, you gotta live. The sauce is in two parts...

Serves Two.

Lemon Sauce:

1/3 cup cream
2 Tbsp butter
Half a lemon's zest
Half a lemon's juice
Salt and pepper

In a small saucepan scald the cream and cook it at a simmer for about 4 minutes. It will reduce slightly. Add the butter and let it melt, while stirring. Off the heat, grate in the lemon zest, and squeeze in the lemon juice. Another stir. Season this with salt and pepper. Taste. Set aside.

Meanwhile get your pasta water boiling. Submerge your tagliatelle.

Tomato and Purslane Sauce:

1 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 cups chopped up, non-acidic tomato such as Brandywine, or another similar heirloom
1/2 cup loosely packed purslane leaves (and seed capsules if late in the season)

1/2 cup parmesan, finely grated

In a second small saucepan, melt the butter and add the tomato when it is foamy. Cook over medium heat until the fruit exudes its juice, stirring to prevent sticking. Add the purslane, stir, season with salt and pepper. After a minute or two turn off the heat. This is a barely-cooked sauce.

Drain the just-cooked pasta, return to its still-hot pot. Pour over the cream sauce, toss, and add the tomato and purslane sauce. As you toss, gradually add the 1/2 cup of finely grated parmesan.

Serve at once, in warmed bowls.

Stuffed tomatoes

2011-08-22T18:22:00.008-04:00

(Based on a recipe from Bevan Christie, with some tweaks).

4 large “beefsteak” tomatoes
1 medium onion
3/4 cup of basmati rice*
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup olive oil
3 allspice berries
8 black pepper corns
2 Tbsp pine nuts (not Chinese)
2 Tbsp currants
2 Tbsp freshly chopped mint
1 Tablespoon chopped dill ( I used 3 Tbps)
1 tsp brown sugar
1 generous pinch of salt

Bevan says: "Cut the tomato tops to form a flap lid. Scoop out the flesh and lightly salt the insides. Set aside. Chop the onion and in half the olive oil fry with the pine kernels till golden. Add the rice and stir till the rice takes on a transparent look. Squeeze the flesh of the tomatoes to get the maximum amount of juice out and make this up to 1 cup with water. Add this to the rice, along with the currants, salt and the peppercorns, allspice and mint."

* He also says, of my tweaks: "You CAN’T use Basmati rice for those tomatoes! It tastes like old burlap bags. It must be round grained rice like Baldo or some other Italian rice! And dried mint is better."

Now you know! It seems I like old burlap sacks.

Cover and cook slowly. Add the chopped dill and mix well. Stuff the tomatoes, not too tightly. Place in a baking dish and pour the remaining olive oil over so that some of it goes into the tomatoes. Put the chopped flesh of the tomatoes in the spaces between the tomatoes (sprinkle over salt and sugar), close their lids, and cook in a 400' oven till the tops begin to brown. Let them cool before eating.

And: "This to be followed by a dish of fat black figs."

This is fragrant, filling, quite addictive.

Lamb and summer savoury meatballs

2011-08-14T22:00:00.007-04:00

Good picnic food.

For four (-ish):

1 1/2 lbs ground lamb
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 a cup milk
1 tsp salt
1 cup scallion (spring onion) greens, chopped
2 cloves garlic, grated (wait till the last minute to do this)
2 Tbsp chopped fresh summer savoury
2 Tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 egg
1/3 cup of pine nuts - not Chinese: some people have an allergic reaction to them, myself included (pine nut mouth!)

Pour the milk onto the breadcrumbs and let them absorb the liquid.

In a large bowl combine all the ingredients and mix very well with your hands (grate the garlic over the meat just before mixing). Heat up a heavy bottomed pan, and start forming the mixture into small ping pong balls. Fry in olive oil until brown on one side, flip, brown and remove to a plate when cooked.

Cook in three or four batches and don't overcrowd the pan or it will lose heat and you'll get grey, steamed meatballs. Br.

Serve the irresistably brown meatballs at room temperature with a garlicky yogurt or with a walnut paste.

Summer savoury is hard to find at nurseries, but once you have just one plant, you're set. They self seed at the flutter of an eyelash. Here's an online source for the seed, if you'd like to grow your own. And no, this is not a sponsored post!

Red currant jam

2011-08-07T09:13:00.001-04:00

2 1/4 lbs/1 kg red currants, rinsed and stripped from stalks
1lb/500gr sugar
(In other words...half as much sugar as fruit)
Juice of one lemon

Cover the fruit with the sugar and stir gently until mixed in. Set over low at heat at first, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking. As liquid starts to form, turn heat high. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Keep at a gentle roil and skim off all the foam that rises. Add lemon juice after about 15 minutes.

To test for set: hold a large silver or metal spoon sideways, scoop up liquid and allow to drip back into pot off the long side of the spoon. When two slower drips form, from both sides of the spoon, running towards the middle, it has reached setting point.

Take off heat and cool enough to pour into sterilized jars.

Cherry Pie

2011-08-03T11:32:00.007-04:00

This must be my summer of pie. I have always made apple pie, but other fruit pies never appealed, perhaps because I have eaten one too many that is gloopy, starchy and oversweet.

I love fruit, though, and have now discovered - perhaps addictively - the unctuous, deeply compelling flavour of warm cherries...And it is really only cherries, with some sugar. There is no thickening, and no overcooking. I think the result is simple, and fresh.

Cherry pie filling

2 1/2 pounds of sweet, firm black cherries
1/3 cup of brown sugar

Rinse and de-stem the cherries, and pit. Add them to a saucepan with the sugar and heat very slowly, covered. As juice starts to be released from the cherries, increase the heat. Simmer until the cherries are just cooked - about 8 minutes. Pour off and keep the juice. When it is cool, bottle and refrigerate it for using in drinks, and pouring over ice cream. Let the cherries cool a little.

Make the pastry.

I stick to my favourite pastry recipe, known as "Molly Bolt's" in my house. It has homely feel that feels right for all pie.

175 gr/6 oz butter
75 gr/2.5 oz sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
300 grams/ 10.5 oz flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the egg. Beat again, adding a little flour if it separates. Gradually beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. It does not need to chill! Roll out thinly.

Line the bottom and sides of a greased, spring form cake tin add cooled filling, cut out a pastry disk to cover, crimp the edges in the way you know best, make two slits for steam, and bake in a 350'F/180'C oven till pale golden and crisp. Baking time varies, but it is in the realm of 30-35 minutes.

Morog

2011-07-28T14:21:00.007-04:00

I have written more about eating Amaranthus retroflexus over at edible Manhattan - it's a mouseclick away.

But here is the recipe for morog. It is a wonderful pick-me-up.

In South Africa, morog refers to edible greens, usually gathered in the wild, and cooked either into a green herb stew, or mixed with mealie meal (what we call polenta flour or fine grits, in South Africa, and a staple foodstuff). Selina Titoti makes this every now and then as comfort food, after wandering around my mother's garden looking for weeds such as thistles, pigweed, and other amaranth species, some of which are now cultivated in the herb garden for this purpose. Lamb's quarters are also good. Purslane is also considered morog, but turns rather mucilagenous when cooked, so I only eat it raw.

In Brooklyn, morog tastes of home, with terrace-grown pigweed.

This is a curiously addictive dish, and highly nutritious, if not cooked to death. Adding interest to the comfort food idea, is pigweed and lamb's quarters' reputation as natural anti depressants. Feeling blue? Eat a bowl of this stuff.

For a serving for two.

Splash of olive oil
4 loosely packed cups of pigweed, lamb's quarters, tender young thistle leaves (sparingly, as they are bitter)
1/2 a cup of scallion-greens, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 medium potato, sliced
1 cup water or broth
Lemon juice

Wilt the greens in the oil, add the garlic and scallions, pour in the broth. Add the potato. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down and cook till the potato is just done, about 10 minutes. Season to your liking and add a little lemon juice. Eat from a bowl, with a spoon.

Feel better.

Purslane and yogurt

2011-07-27T21:14:00.005-04:00

Too simple to call a recipe. But the most simple meals are sometimes the best.

I bought a fat bunch of purslane for $2.50 at the Borough Hall Farmers' market. Mostly, I like it for its crunch. Its mind-boggling nutritional value is a secondary consideration. More omega 3 than anything else, for a start, so put away your fish oil capsules. And: "Purslane in particular is an anti-depressant food. According to James A. Duke, PhD, purslane has up to 16 antidepressant compounds; among them are magnesium, potassium, calcium, folate, and lithium. Purslane also contains essential fatty acids." James A. Duke.

At home I plunged it into a deep bath of cool water so that it could revive. It wilts fast in the sun. After a few hours it had plumped back up again.

My lunch:

Half a cup of Greek yogurt
Pinch of salt
1 small garlic cove, mashed to a pulp
About 10 mint leaves, chopped

Mix this all together and keep cold. Pick half a cupful of purlsane leaves, stir half of these into the yogurt, and arrange the rest on top. Eat with pita wedges or crackers or good bread.

Artichokes Barigoule and Some Men

2011-07-24T12:46:00.005-04:00

I adore artichokes. Curiously, most men I know do not. The same men don't like eating quail, or crabs. They say they are 'work'. I don't get it. Where they see work I see fun. Hm. Perhaps the men who don't like them are also men who don't cook? Weigh in if you have thoughts about this.

On the subject of which. Digression: for a month in August my 76-year-old mom has to get up at sparrow fart to...cook my dad breakfast before he goes to work. Really. Why? Because Selina, their housekeeper, whose usual wonderful duty this is, is on holiday. The little table in the kitchen is laid, and he gets fruit - peeled and chopped in a bowl (when his white cat Spook was in the land of the living she would share his papaya or melon, which she loved), tea, toast and...I think oats. I still hate oats (from silent early morning breakfasts at the same table when I was at school!). He sits there in the window seat in his suit, polished shoes, and carefully combed hair, and has breakfast. It's another world. I would have a word with him but I value my head.

Back to artichokes. I was inspired by the picture of Thomas Generazio's beautiful artichokes in Massachusetts.

Here is a recipe where the cook does all the work, so I don't make this very often. It is time consuming, but the effort is rewarded by the creamy, tangy combination of soft artichokes and herby, herb-perfumed sauce. The quantities are guidelines only. Figure on two to three artichoke hearts per person if this is one of many dishes served at long summer lunch (bump the other ingredient volumes accordingly). Or share this amount with one special friend, as a main course with crusty bread and sweet butter.

If you want to be meaty, no harm in adding a few slices of pancetta to this.

10 medium artichokes
1 lemon's juice
1 big sweet carrot, sliced thiny
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
6 garlic cloves, peeled
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 bayleaves
4 sprigs thyme
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
Squeeze of lemon.

Cut the stems of the artichokes to about 1 1/2 inches. Cut off the artichoke tops, then break off three pr four rows of leaves from the base. Peel all the green from the artichoke bottoms and stems, and sprinkle each with lemon as you finish trimming it. Place them in cold water acidulated with the juice. Your fingers will become stained from peeleing, so consider gloves.

Gently spread the leaves of each artichoke, and use a small spoon or melon baller to remove the choke.

Peel the carrot and the onion, and cut them into thin slices. . Chop three cloves of garlic, keeping the others whole.

To a heavy, non-reactive pan or heat-proof dish, add the onion, carrot and all the garlic to the olive oil. Slowly cook until the onion begins to turn golden, and the carrots caramelize slightly. This adds dimension to the dish, mm hm? Then add the artichokes, stem side up. Add the herbs.

Pour the wine over the lot, and add enough water to barely cover the artichoke bottoms. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 30-40 minutes, or until the hearts are tender when pierced, then remove the lid and reduce the cooking liquid over high heat to thicken the sauce. Taste - very important. Correct seasoning and add a splash of lemon juice.

Serve warm or at room temperature. I prefer the latter in summer, of course.

Cherry clafoutis

2011-07-16T09:36:00.004-04:00

A very simple, homely dessert...

Though my mother's recipe calls for it, I had no almond essence, but did use a tablespoon of calvados into which juneberries had infused their own typically marzipanny essence. Kirsch would be quite usual, too.

Butter to grease baking dish
2 1/2 cups stoned ripe cherries (enough to cover the bottom of the dish)
2 eggs
40 grams/1.5oz sugar
25 grams/1 oz flour
pinch of salt
300 ml/10 fl oz milk
a few drops of almond essence or 1 Tbsp of Kirsch

Lightly butter a round, shallow baking or quiche dish, pour in the cherries and scatter evenly. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, flour and salt and the milk till smooth. Add almond essence and pour over the cherries. Bake in a 350'/180'C oven till just set (when the middle no longer quivers) - about 35 minutes.

For a more indulgent batter, add some cream to the milk mixture...

Chilled melon and jalapeño soup

2011-07-11T14:48:00.009-04:00

Not the best picture, but very good soup!

A couple of Cape Town summers ago, Vince and I were invited to lunch at Ilse Nieman's house in Tamboerskloof, a beautiful, sheltered and heat-trapping neighbourhood on a steep slope against Signal Hill above what is known as the City Bowl. It is a bowl of dry heat.

It was a memorbaly good meal, and we ate our first course standing and lounging in the swimming pool, which was remarkably cold. And that first course was a watermelon soup, pale pink, sweet, and cold with an edge of peppery heat. So that was my inspiration for this version, sucked up on a recent hot, humid Brooklyn summer's day.

The success of the soup rather depends on how good the melon is, and there is never any way of telling until you have cut it open.

I used an entire Hami melon, peeled it, chunked it. About 5-6 cups.
1 jalapeño pepper, seeds removed, unless you are feeling frisky
1/4 tsp of salt
Juice of a lime (or more, to taste)
15 mint leaves

That's it. Whizz it all around in a blender until very, very smooth, and chill until deeply cold. Stir before serving as the juice settles. I keep my cold soups in a pretty jug for easy pouring.

There is no reason why this could not be frozen and scratched with a fork as it freezes into a granita, or poured into lollypop moulds for sorbert with a kick.

Northern bayberry

2011-07-10T14:33:00.002-04:00

Welcome to my new favourite spice. Or herb. Herb is fresh, spice is dried, I suppose. So let's called it a herb, since I have been using the new green leaves for a couple of months, now, and have just turned to the small green fruit (they turn purple as they ripen) for inspiration. I imagine that their flavour intensifies as they become older, and perhaps becomes tarry or resinous - we will see. They are very hard and are best used whole, as peppercorns would be, and then discarded. Dried and ground? Talk to me in few weeks.

The ripe fruit are what the Old People used to make soap, and that does not sound particularly appetizing. Then again, juniper is used ripe and is far mellower when purple (and sweet when fresh, incidentally). More tests are necessary.

I have found many references to the use of dried bayberry leaves, adding them to stews as one would normal bay leaf. But the young leaves smell so good when crushed that I have been chopping cupfuls up very finely and using them to season pork and chicken. I can see them as a good match for mushrooms, too, especially if prepared a la Grecque.

For now: we have ribs.

For a large rack of baby back ribs I use:

One cup loose-packed, fresh bayberry leaves
1 lemon's zest
salt, pepper

In early garlic season I also grated young, dewy garlic into the rub.

Chop the leaves very finely. They disappear in no time. Mix the chopped leaves with the grated lemon zest, salt and pepper and rub over the ribs, leaving to rest in the fridge for an hour or more.

Cook under flaming hot broiler until each side is dark brown, adding a splash of water if you'd like to rescue any of the pan scrapings afterwards (the best part).

Or, barbecue/braai 4" above grey-ashed red coals, or as you know best.

Remember to let them rest. After ten minutes of nap time I slice the ribs apart, stack them high in a bowl and serve with a fingerbowl on the side.

Green garlic soup

2011-06-27T13:03:00.003-04:00

( I am reposting this recipe as this is what I have on the stove right now.)

When the green garlic scapes arrive at markets I make this cold summer soup, but not until I have eaten them as a vegetable in their own right, first. Mildly garlicky after being cooked at a boil for about 5 minutes, they have the unexpected texture of artichoke hearts...

Here's the soup:

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 bunches garlic scapes (about 4 cups), chopped
1 bunch spring onions/scallions (about 2 cups), chopped
1 large potato sliced

4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup natural, preferably Greek yogurt
Squeeze of lemon juice

Sweat spring onions in olive oil. Add chopped up garlic scapes, saute another 4 minutes or so. Add warm stock and potatoes. Simmer until all vegetables are tender. Add salt and black pepper to taste, and add the yogurt, stirring it in. Transfer to blender in batches and puree. If you are a patient person, or simply driven, with a fanatical streak of perfectionism, press through a sieve to make extra smooth. It should be easily pourable. Add more stock if not. Chill. Taste. Now add the spritz of lemon if it needs a little brightening. Serve with a little dollop of yogurt and snipped chives.

If you'd like it hot, I'd grate some parmesan over the top or float a toast boat with some melted cheese-of-choice on it...

(The picture below shows the first incarnation of the soup, with onion, too, but I find this is too much, so I no longer add it.)

Pokeweed scramble

2011-06-22T20:59:00.007-04:00

Pokeweed at Dead Horse Bay

It just kills me to cook a green three times. The death of a vegetable. But I obeyed all the admonitions about pokeweed, later learning that many Southerners won't go overboard with the flash boiling. Next time. Also I could have kept some of the young greens.

I stuck to basics and tradition, employing pig and eggs in the skillet, and turned this onto pillowy slices of Wonderbread once the eggs were barely cooked. In my defense, I had bought the chemical loaf to satisfy an earlier craving for toasted cheese sandwiches...

After stripping the thin membrane from the young, all-green stalks I chopped them into two inch pieces, blanched them three times in changes of water, and cooked them about three minutes on the last boil. I nibbled some pieces, waiting for my throat to seize up and the death rattle to develop as I gasped instructions to Vince about feeding the cat. Nothing happened. So I cooked some pancetta, about four strips each, added two cups of pokeweed, stirred, squeezed a little lemon over, grated on some parmesan and cracked in an egg each. Stir, done, eat.

Not the prettiest food I ever cooked, but it tasted good, hm hm hm. Even the Frenchie approved, wolfing his, while trying hard not to think that I had foraged it from an old garbage dump.

Prettiest dump I ever saw.

Amelanchier Pie

2011-06-15T12:35:00.021-04:00

Brooklyn pie

Rooftop pie of an evening...

The Amelanchier (juneberry, serviceberry, shadblow) berries were gathered from the fully loaded mature trees at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier One. Rebecca McMackin, the head horticulturist there, is quoted as saying that it suprises her that no one knows about the edible berries: "I guess they're not on the general populace's radar," she said. "I'd be excited to see anyone eating them at this point," she added, popping a berry into her mouth.

I hope she reads this!

Pastry for your Pie:

This is the go-to pie pastry dating back from my childhood. Easy, no resting required.

175 gr/6 oz butter

75 gr/2.5 oz sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

300 grams/ 10.5 oz flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the egg. Beat again. Gradually beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. Roll out thinly. Line the bottom and sides of a greased, spring form cake tin [or individual slots in a muffin pan in the case of small pies], and add cooled filling. Roll and cut out a pastry disk to cover, crimp the edges in the way you know best, make several slits for steam, and bake in a 350'F/180'C oven till pale golden and crisp. Baking time varies. For a large tart, about 30 minutes.

Make sure you have some local berries, to wit:

Cover photo: Vincent Mounier

Amelanchier Filling:

5 cups Amelanchier berries, rinsed and destalked

1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar

In a deep pan heat the berries and all the sugar slowly, covered. Take care not to scorch. Once they start to exhude juice cook them gently for another another five minutes and then drain, reserving the syrup. Once the berries have cooled fill the pie with them, drizzle 2 Tbsp of syrup over them, cover and bake as above.

Serve with vanilla ice cream. Haagen Dazs or nothing.

Bottle the rest of syrup (you'll have about a cupful) and keep refrigerated for adding to drinks and cocktails.

You will also find New York City juneberrries in Battery Park beside the South Cove inlet, in the Hudson River Park, on the Highline, in Dumbo - near the water between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, and on your neighourhood sidewalks. Eat them while you can.

Braaibroodjies

2011-06-13T13:37:00.006-04:00

Hm, let's see now. BRAA-ee-broo-ee-keys.

In short, barbecued sandwiches.

This is not a recipe as much as it is a prescription. In this ole' US of A we do not have white 'government' loaf, that rectangular brick of solid white bread sold in South Africa in whisperthin plastic bags. Bought by the half loaf by bergies (mountain people - actually city homeless, who may retire to the slopes of Table Mountain to sleep) in the form of a bloutrein (blue train) - that is, soaked in methylated spirits.

But I digress.

Here, you need Wonderbread. Yup, I said it. Wonderbread. This is not a platform for good sourdough or chewy baguette. I like Wonderbread (the wonder is at the ingredient list and remarkable, consequent, pillowy softness) and I will eat it once or twice a year in an emergency. Toasted cheese on the braai is the response to an emergency of homesickness. It is like taking a pill to stop the jitters. I imagine.

So. For one broodjie, you need two slices of bread. Butter one side of each. Slice some cheddar cheese, lay that on an unbuttered side. Slice very thin slivers of onion, lay those on top of the cheese. Crack some pepper over. Cover with the other slice, keeping the buttered side on the outside. When you have four sandwiches you put them in wire grid, clamp it shut and toast over well-ashed coals until golden on the outside and molten on the inside.

That's it...

Boerewors recipe

2011-06-09T22:34:00.024-04:00

For our taste, this recipe made excellent boerewors (South African farmers' sausage). After our first experiment I upped the coriander and salt, and used a lot more pepper (most recipes say 1tsp). Allspice, garam masala and cloves are also new additions.

The Meat:

2lbs beef
2 lbs mutton or lamb
2 lbs pork belly (or fatty pork)

Spice Mix:

2 Tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons coriander, toasted and ground
2 Tablespoons salt

1 Tablespoon ground black pepper

2 teaspoons ground allspice

2 teaspoons garam masala
2 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup Malt vinegar

In a hot pan singe the coriander very lightly and then grind into powder. Add the other dry spices, mix, and bag.

Hand this spice mixture to your butcher, ask him (or her?) to use lamb casings, and to make into continuous coils, not links. No string.

Los Paisanos, via our butcher Pedro, has made fine boerewors for us. They are expecting you. Take the spice mix and vinegar with you.

Indian Roast Chicken

2011-05-27T13:44:00.001-04:00

Something - a feeling in the air, a mood, too many condoms, a sore back - made me want the gentle heat and penetrating spice of curry the other day, but I also had a conflicting desire for simple, comforting roast chicken with potatoes underneath it. What to do?

Then I remembered Charmaine Solomon's recipe for "Chicken Everest". The name is not explained, but she does say that her husband developed the recipe. I follow her method but do not use her rice flour, as much salt, curry leaves or oil. And I add (a lot) more ginger...and potatoes!

1 chicken
2 medium potatoes for each person

Spice mix:

2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 tablespoons curry
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsps soy sauce
2 tbsp spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
2 tbsp cilantro leaves and stems, chopped
2-3 tbsp warm water

Slice the potatoes. No need to peel. Combine all the ingredients (except the chicken!) in a bowl and mix well into a sludgy paste. Spread this over and inside the chicken. Push some of the rub between the skin and the breast meat and massage down to cover the breast (later scrub your finger nails or they will stay yellow...).

Place the chicken on top of the bed of the potato slices in a cast iron skillet or roasting dish and roast at 400'F(200'C) for about an hour and a quarter. Allow to rest for 10 minutes on top of the stove, still in its dish. Carve the bird, plate the pieces on a big dish or platter, and snuggle the potatoes in a heap beside the meat. Drizzle the pan juices over it all. Serve with fresh cilantro, and perhaps yogurt thinned with a little water and perked up with fresh mint, salt and cucumber slices.

The potatoes are creamy, soft and richly spiced. The chicken brown-skinned and complex. The yogurt soothing. Yummy.

Fava beans

2011-05-05T11:09:00.003-04:00

The broad beans on the roof are still only eight inches high, but I am growing them for their shoots, anyway. So I must cheat and buy a bagful from Pacific Gourmet or Atlantic Fruit and Veg (aka Mr Lee's) to satisfy my spring-time cravings for beans cooked simply with dill and terrace mint.

Shell them into a pan, add some water, a bunch of mint, another of dill, a squeeze a lime over and clap a lid on. Bring them to the boil, lower the heat and simmer till tender. Then add salt and pepper to taste. And a slosh of olive oil to emulsify with the lemon. I take the beans out, and reduce the liquid that is left until is quite creamy, then pour over. My idea of green heaven. And I LIKE the skins. When I was little, and my mother grew rows of them in Bloemfontein, I would eat them with my fingers at table and pop them out of their skins into my mouth, then eat the skins separately. I was not a well child.

Life is too short to shell individual fava beans. And I prefer a fruity white wine with these, rather than the Chianti. Hold the liver.

Hot cross buns

2011-04-22T23:06:00.011-04:00

I loved these buns.

The recipe's method is (almost) entirely Felicity Cloake's from her recipe in The Guardian. She used cardamom, saffron, and ginger, but the buns I love have cloves, allspice and cinnamon in them so I changed that. My first batch has rather too crisp a bottom because they baked on a lower rack in the oven while a lamb shank potroast was happening above. Mistake. The baking tray got too hot. I'll bake them higher tomorrow, because I have to try this again, and see what happens. Also, I need to practise my cross-making technique. Of course you can leave the crosses off altogether, or make flowers or hammer and sickles...

Otherwise the buns are what buns should be: dense, but pillowy inside, softly spiced, tenderly chewy on the outside, and delicately sticky.

This may be a dangerous discovery. My bunless days in America are at an end.

Milk infusion

200ml milk, plus a little more for glazing
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cloves

1 tsp sugar
1Tbsp instant yeast

Flour Mixture

450 gr/1 lb white flour
100g /4 oz butter
½ tsp salt
50g/2 oz caster sugar (superfine sugar)
2 eggs

Fruit

150g/ 5 1/2 oz currants
50g/ 2 oz mixed peel (candied citrus peel)

Egg glaze

1 egg
3 Tbsp milk

Cross

3 tbsp plain flour
Enough water to make a thickly runny paste

Sugar Glaze

1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tsp water

Heat the 200ml milk in a pan with the spices until just boiling, whisking every now and then to prevent the spices from clumping. Turn off the heat and leave to cool until lukewarm. Stir in the yeast and 1 tsp sugar.

Put the flour in a large mixing bowl and grate over the butter. Rub in with your fingertips, until well mixed and looking like rough sand, and then add the sugar and the salt.

Whisk the two eggs and add them, stirring briskly to spread them evenly. Now stir in the milk/yeast. This will make a loose dough. Turn out onto a board and knead for 10 minutes (do not skimp on this, it turns the dough silky), adding a dusting of flour when necessary, until smooth and elastic, then lightly grease another bowl, and put the dough into it, covered.

Leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size – this will take 1-2 hours.

Remove dough to a board, flatten it out gently and scatter over the fruit and peel. Knead again to spread the fruit around evenly. I do this in batches adding a little fruit every time, folding the dough over and kneading, then adding some more. Divide the dough into 12 - 16 equal pieces and roll these into bun shapes. Put on a greased baking tray leaving an inch or so for rising, and score a cross into the top of each. Cover and put in a warm place to prove until doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 400’F/200’C .

Beat together the single egg with a little milk.

Mix the 3 Tbsp of flour with a pinch of salt and enough cold water to make a slightly runny paste. Paint the top of each bun with egg wash, and then, using a piping bag or teaspoon, draw a thick cross on the top of each.

Put into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes until golden.

When the buns come out of the oven, brush them with a sugar glaze while piping hot this before transferring to a rack to cool.

The best banana bread

2011-04-11T15:15:00.003-04:00

Well. It is!

I hated banana bread when I was little. I don't know why. My mother made it for my brother Francois, who loved it. Then Alice Wooledge Salmon (only the English...)'s House and Garden Cooking with Style arrived in our house in the late 80's, and I saw the light.

If you are like me, and I must assume that you are, this will arrive and remain in your repertoire until you are no longer able to bend to shove the bread pan into the hot oven. One can only hope that, when the day arrives, someone else will make it for us. Huh. THAT's why one has children. Oops. Oh well.

This is more cake than bread, if we're being honest, and is divine. I sometimes put lingonberry jam (not too sweet) on it. Just to make a point.

I often don't have wholewheat flour in the house, though at the moment I am overflowing with it, and have then used all-white flour. I have substituted pecans for macadamians, and sometimes I have added cranberries (fresh). I use more sour cream or yogurt than AWS stipulates and the splash of milk is all mine. Otherwise this is the impossibly named lady's recipe. If you can find a copy of the out-of-print book, get it. It's wonderful. Near the top of my list for the sod house on the wastes of the tundra...for instance.

Banana Macadamia Nut Bread:

100 gr/3.5 oz macadamia nuts, roasted
100 gr/3.5 oz unsalted butter
100 gr/3.5 oz brown sugar
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed or sliced thinly(I slice)
4 Tbsp sour cream or Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp lemon juice
150 gr/ 5 oz unbleached white flour
150 gr/5 oz wholewheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarb)
pinch of slat
1 tsp toasted and crushed coriander
Splash of milk (about 1/4 cup or less)

Heat oven to 350'F/180'C

Slice or roughly chop nuts. Roast them if they are raw.

Butter a loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar in large bowl until pale and fluffy. Beat eggs into butter and sugar and add a little flour if (when!) the mixture separates. Add the bananas, cream/yogurt and lemon juice, mix well. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt, and mix thoroughly. The dough will be quite stiff. If it is too thick and dry, add the milk (the variable flour one uses makes a big difference). Finally, add the nuts, stir again, and transfer to the loaf pan, smoothing a slight hollow down the length of the dough.

Baking times vary, but it will be risen, brown and done in about 40-50 minutes. Use a sharp skewer to test the interior, if uncertain. If it comes out sticky, not done. Pulling away from the sides of the pan - another good sign that it is ready. Turn out of the pan and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Try not to eat it all at once. Fantastic for breakfast with strong coffee.

Guacamole

2011-03-23T16:13:00.004-04:00

A discussion about how to make guacamole usually ends in tears. Everyone knows how it should be made, but no one can agree on just how. It depends on what you like. And while I like garlic, I don't like it in guacamole, where it tends to turn bitter after a while. I use a lot of spring onions (scallions), a lot of lemon or lime juice, and then all bets are off, depending on the hormones coursing through my system that day. I love cilantro, so in that goes, a few tomatoes, a lot of black pepper, and more or less fresh or dried chile.

This is a recipe for four people, sort of.

3 ripe avocados, in rough cubes
1/4 red onion, very finely chopped
1/2 a bunch scallions, green and white parts finely sliced
1/2 a cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
juice of 3 lemons
2 tsp finely chopped fresh jalapeno chile
salt and lots of pepper
1/2 bunch (about 1 loosely packed cup) cilantro, leaves picked from stems

I do not have a big mortar so I mix this in large bowl, using two wooden spoons to stamp my avocados. Stamp with respect. You could use two forks, for that matter. Do not even think about using a food processor if you are trigger happy: two pulses and you're done. That's it. Good guacamole is not a paste, it is rough around the edges.

In your bowl put the avocados, the sliced scallions and onion. Add the tomatoes, juice and chile pepper and stamp and turn (it's like country and western dancing). The goal is to crush all the ingredients slightly, turning the avocado creamy, while preserving chunks of it. Now taste, and add salt and pepper to your liking.

Chill and serve with crackers, crispy pita or with tortilla chips. It makes killer sandwich with leftover chicken.

All you need now are some real Margaritas and slow-cooked ancho-redolent pig; Cinco de Mayo is only six weeks away.

Vietnamese meatballs

2011-03-04T07:36:00.013-05:00

Meatballs with a difference...

I often crave the sparkling flavours - ginger, garlic and chile-rich - of Southeast Asia. I have never set foot there, but I have visited the region via New York restaurants, in books and by proxy. My favourite restaurants have closed, but the books live on: good and gorgeous books - Hot Sour Salty Sweet, with its wonderful stories and excellent photographs, and the exquisitely bound Thai Food by David Thompson. And good friends: at Mimi and Eric's I learned about bowls of fresh herbs on the table - mint, cilantro, basil, and to wrap them into leafy bites, or to top Mimi's mother, Mrs Hoang's, pho or bits of grilled fish with them.

So when I wanted those hot and bright flavours, I also wanted meatballs. What to do? These are the result: highly fragrant, very tender meatballs, and can be eaten:

1. Warm, with a dipping sauce - serve in a bowl topped with fresh mint, cilantro and basil leaves
2. Cool in banh mi, with pickled carrots and herbs, or at a picnic
3. Cool, wrapped in soft lettuce leaves with herbs
4. Added to a broth, eaten as a comforting soup

I added breadcrumbs to lighten their texture; French bread is a part of Vietnamese culture...

If you can't find tamarind, substitute lemon juice thinned with a little water. I have made the meatballs successfully with pork and with veal, though the former would be closer to home. I see no reason why beef would not work.

This makes about 16 medium-sized meatballs, enough for two very hungry persons, or enough for four banh mi. The key to the flavouring is to chop everything exceptionally finely.

Meatballs

1 lb ground pork
1 1/4 tsp lemon grass (the end of 1 stalk, outer leaves peeled off), very finely chopped
1 tsp garlic (1 medium clove), very finely chopped
1 1/4 tsp hot red chile, very finely chopped
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp tamarind juice or syrup
1 Tbsp ginger, very finely chopped
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1/3 of cup of breadcrumbs
4 Tbsp milk

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients thoroughly and let the mixture rest, covered, in the fridge for an hour or more.

Make the dipping sauce and broth (see below).

Shape the meat mixture into golf balls. Heat a good, heavy pan (I don't trust light pans) with a little oil, and add the meatballs. Cook once on each side till caramelly brown.

Serve in a bowl with fresh mint, cilantro and/or basil, with the dipping sauce.

Dipping Sauce

A taste that makes you ready to live again. It will also be extremely salty. Go easy, unless you want caviar feet. If you don't know what those are you're going to have to read MFK Fisher. She got caviar feet on a trans-Atlantic crossing. I have never had caviar feet. I came close, perhaps, once, at The Breakers, in Palm Beach, where I ate brunch with an ex-boyfriend and his family. While they returned to the buffet tables for waffles, and bespoke eggs and omelettes and muffins, I visited, perhaps five, six times, the caviar table. Still, not enough for caviar feet. They must still refer to me as That Girl Who...

2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp soy
2 Tbsp lime or lemon juice
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp chopped ginger
1 thumb-sized stick lemongrass, halved
Slices of hot red chile

Mix all the ingredients and stir to dissolve the sugar. Taste. Adjust the balance with more lemon or sugar.

Optional broth

I tend to serve this on the side in small bowls, for sipping between bites of the meatballs.

2 cups of vegetable stock
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp soy
1 Tbsp lime or lemon juice
2 tsp sugar
1 thumb sized piece of lemongrass, halved
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
Slices of hot red chile

Heat the broth and add the other ingredients, cooking at a low simmer for about 10 minutes. Keep hot to serve on the side, or else float the meatballs in the broth and serve in deep bowls. This makes for an altogether different sort of meal, of introspection, and some self pity, and hint of self congratulation at having caught it in time.

A foil for the spice? A salad of thinly sliced unripe mango dressed with fresh lime juice, grated ginger and a handful of cilantro leaves.

Oh. And the peanuts in the picture above? I ate them while I was cooking, so they never ended up as the garnish I intended.

Apple soup

2011-02-21T22:33:00.004-05:00

I wanted to make something with the ubiquitous apples that still dominate every Northern farmers' market. Even in the middle of February we have hopes of spring, so it was not to be a heavy, apple-tarty kind of dessert, but something refreshing and optimistic.

The Sylvaner we drank recently, and the apples, made me think of soup. A memory perhaps from an illustrated Bocuse recipe book.

And then I found an extraordinary vinegar: ice cider vinegar made by Fabrice Lafon [the English version of the website is fairly hysterical - do not be put off] in Quebec from apples that have frozen on the tree. It is expensive and rich and is to be eked out by the teaspoonful. It was a perfect foil for the warmly sweet broth that the apples and wine made...

This headily perfumed vinegar is not widely available so a substitute of cider vinegar should be made, with the addition to each tablespoon of a pinch of brown sugar.

Finally, another layer of flavour - a vanilla bean from a fragrant bunch given to me by Marijke, bought from a back street vanilla trader in Madagascar. If I made this soup in fall I think I would use a stick of cinnamon as the spice, rather than vanilla, for its cold weather connotations, and promise of winter to come.

The result is a cool soup at the end of a winter dinner: surprising, delicate and light, and entirely seasonal.

For two

1 1/2 cups (approx. 400ml) of fruity, dry, unwooded white wine - I used a Sylvaner made by Schloss Mühlenhoff
1 apple, peeled and sliced thinly
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon ice cider vinegar
1 vanilla bean, slit

Warm the wine with the vanilla bean in a nonreactive pan, and add the apples when tiny bubbles start to appear in the liquid. Add the sugar, stir to dissolve. Cook gently at a simmer, for 5 minutes. Add the vinegar. Taste. The result should be lightly sweet and fragrant with tart balance. Do not overdo the sugar. When the apples are barely tender remove from the heat and cool. Chill in the fridge and serve in shallow soup bowls.

Although we loved this as a dessert, I can imagine it as an unorthodox starter, too, like the cold cherry soup of Hungary...

Pork loin with paprika over coals

2011-02-08T15:54:00.008-05:00

Pork loin is lean and relatively inexpensive and is a good vehicle for strong flavour as it has little of its own. I like to poach it for a porcine version of Vitello tonnato...but that's another story.

The Voer bloggers left behind a little care package after they came to lunch all those far flung weeks ago. And in it was a pretty little cloth bag of smoked paprika, from Hungary, of course. I looked at it. I looked at the pork loin. I walked to the herb garden and picked a handful of summer savoury, the borsikafű of Hungary.

I chopped the fresh herbs, about a cupful, and mixed with them a tablespoon of the paprika and half a teaspoon of salt. I patted this all over the pork loin and let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. I lit the braai fire outside in the Mickey Mouse grill, so named because my father thought it puny. But it makes the hottest fires of all.

About 8-10 minutes to a side, and then a tricky balancing act to cook each end.

I let it ressssssst, covered with tented foil. We ate it with a mayonnaise thinned with a little lemon juice and to which another teaspoon of paprika had been added.

Pigweed and chicken bredie

2011-01-20T16:29:00.005-05:00

This was divine, the addition of a dairy product to a bredie is not traditional at all. But something about this vetetable (when cooked) makes me think of eastern Europe, and somehow the yogurt crept in...

For four:

2 Tbsp olive oil
8 pieces of chicken (not breasts, they dry out when cooked long and slow)
1 cup chopped leeks
1 large lemon's juice (in this case about a 1/4 cup)
2 cups of lightly packed pigweed
2 cups chicken stock
1 Tbsp flour
1 cup Greek or natural yogurt

In a large pan or casserole, heat the oil over medium-high heat and brown the chicken briefly. Lower the heat to medium, add the leeks, and cook, stirring now and then for a couple of minutes. Add the lemon juice. Add the amaranth. Pour in the chicken stock. Make a slurry of the flour with a little water, and add this smooth mixture to the pot, stirring evenly. The flour will prevent the yogurt from separating over heat. Now add the yogurt, stirring to incorporate it. Put a lid on the pot, lower the heat to medium-low, so that it just simmers for an hour-and-a-half, till the chicken is break-apart tender.

For the last half hour you could take the lid off to reduce the sauce a little. Serve with brown rice or barley.

'Course, if you don't have the weed, try spinach, though I would blanch it first and squeeze out the excess moisture. Spinach has a more slippery texture, but the flavour is similar.

Roast leg of lamb

2010-12-29T08:21:00.004-05:00

I made this for dinner on Christmas day...

A lot depends on the quality of the lamb...this one was beautiful, quite small, and cooked until pink.

Reckon on 15 minutes for each 500gr of lamb, or for each 1lb, depending on where you are.

For 6

A splash of olive oil

6 large potatoes, cut very thinly, skin on
1 leg of lamb, approx. 2kg/4lbs, bone in
2 cloves of garlic, cut into matchsticks
4 sprigs of rosemary, needles pulled off in tufts of 3-4
6 branches oregano
4 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 1/2 lemons)
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 230'C/ 440'F.

In a large roasting pan spread the olive oil and then add the thinly sliced potatoes, in layers. Season each layer.

Stab the top of the lamb in about 10 places with a thin, sharp knife. Into each slit stuff 2 matchsticks of garlic, 3-4 needles of rosemary and a few leaves of oregano. Use the point of the knife to work them until they hardly show. Yes you can. Season the lamb with salt and pepper.

I put the potato pan on a lower rack in the oven, placed the leftover herb branches directly on an oven rack right above them, and put the lamb straight on top of those, so that the drips would fall into the potatoes, which still have a lot of hot air circulating above them (this makes them deliciously crisp). You could just raise the lamb off the roasting pan if you have a wire roasting grid that fits your pan, but I think the potatoes would end up softer, as they would steam a little.

After 1/2 an hour, lower the oven to 200'C/400'F. Drizzle the lemon over the meat and let it drip down. Roast another half hour (for this weight of lamb).

Now, REST. This lamb can rest, on a warm plate*, covered with foil, for up to a happy half hour (and not less than 15 minutes) in a warming drawer, or warm place. Just make sure it is covered. It will make all the difference when it comes to carving and eating.

A rested lamb is a tender lamb. Remember to carve against the grain.

Serve the potatoes on the side, of course. We ate the lamb with my mom's crab apple jelly. I had made salsa verde but forgot it in the fridge...

*I have a thing about warm plates.Warm food belongs on warm plates. It's all about pleasure, and the extension thereof.

Swedish meatballs - winter food

2010-12-16T00:03:00.013-05:00

How brown is thy meatball?

I love meatballs. And hardly ever eat them. One forgets that they are good...

My mom's meatballs were very brown and crispy on the outside. Bevan's meatballs were large and lightly flattened and bright with goats cheese and spring onions. Inoteca's polpette are fat and tender and flavoured with orange. The meatballs at Frankie's Spuntino are soft and splintered with pine nuts. That was the day I fell in love with edible Brooklyn: on the cover was a picture of the Frankie's meatball mixing bowl. And I used to make delicate beef meatballs cooked in a spicy broth, from the pages of Hot Sour Salty Sweet.

I have eaten Swedish meatballs only twice: once at the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC, where they were kept warm in heavy silver chafing dish, and once at Ikea in Red Hook. There was no silver chafing dish there. The other night I craved the former. They had a sauce I never forgot - tangy, rich, creamy.

After a lot of canvassing on the Web to find out what Swedish meatballs are about, and being startled by the nutmeg and allspice, this is what I came up with. The versions I liked online were for Norwegian Meatballs (Food 52) and Alton Brown's recipe.

Meatballs:

3/4 cup breadcrumbs (I used Panko)
3/4 cup milk
1 1/4 lbs ground beef
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp butter

Sauce:

1 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp flour
1/4 cup red wine

1 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk. In a bowl combine the meat and all the spices, including salt, and work together well with your hands until thoroughly combined. Squeeze the breadcrumbs dry and add to the meat mixture, along with the egg. Mix with your hands again.

Rinse off. Now roll the meat into little balls between your palms (...). Mine were about an inch in diameter.

In a heavy pan,, melt the butter* and brown the meatballs over medium-high heat, but do not cook through. Once browned, keep aside in a bowl.

* if your beef is on the fatty side, no butter is necessary - it will brown in its own fat.

On to the sauce:

In the same pan, melt some more butter and gently cook the onion until pale brown. This will take some time, upwards of 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir thoroughly. Cook another minute. Turn up the heat, add the wine and stir furiously to scrape up the fond stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the stock, while stirring. Keep stirring and cook for about a minute, bubbling. Add the cream and stir to blend. Lower the heat to a simmer.

Now return the meatballs - which will be sitting in a bloody pool of juice - to the pan, into the sauce, along with that juice. Cover and cook gently for about 10 minutes. Halfway through, add the lemon juice.

Taste, and adjust seasoning if you like.

And that's it. Those are your Swedish meatballs.

Eat them just like that, in a bowl, with a side dish of something green and crunchy with a mustardy vinaigrette, to offset their warm, soft decadence.

Grand Marnier souffle - frrrrozen

2010-12-09T21:14:00.030-05:00

Made from cognac and bitter orange zest Grand Marnier is a beautiful liqueur with a stunningly ugly website. But before I had seen the website I wanted to make these souffles after finding a recipe in a book I had not opened for close on ten years: Georges Perrier's Le Bec-Fin, named after his velvet-carpeted Philadelphia restaurant. I have not eaten there. But I see that they have a $35 three course lunch, which would have to be the way to go. Also a happy hour between 5 and 7!

So his was the inspiration, or perhaps the weather was, but I changed the recipe to include whipped egg whites, to lighten it a little, orange zest, to brighten, and chocolate to undo everything that I just tried to achieve.

And if I make it again I will do worse: I will omit the egg yolks altogether and add some fresh orange juice, reduced to syrup. Why? Although pretty frothy, this was too heavy for my tongue and taste: The Frenchie loved the souffles, though, so if you adore egg creams, egg nog and anything triple cream (XXX) this may be for you.

Oh. And it's easy to make!

The dishes:

So, you need 6 little ramekins. And foil. Fold the foil three times so that it is three times thick, then curl it around each ramekin to make a raised collar. I secured each end with Scotch tape. The foil should make a collar about 2" taller than the top of the ramekin, as the souffle mixture will be piled up above the lip. Wax paper might work, too, but not I'm sure if the tape will stick to it. Perhaps elastic bands?

Now lightly coat the inside of the foil with vegetable oil.

The souffle as I made it:

You will need three large bowls.

8 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
5 Tablespoons Grand Marnier (you could substitute Triple Sec, which is similar but very different)
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
8 egg whites
1 cup cream

For finishing:

3 Tablespoons finely grated dark chocolate, orange-flavoured (I used Lindt).

Whip the egg yolks and the sugar until the mixture is very pale yellow and fluffy - about five minutes if you're whisking it by hand. By all means use a machine if you have one. Add the orange zest and the Grand Marnier and stir well.

Whip the cream till light and fluffy and able to hold a wave shape.

Whip the egg whites (with a very clean,dry whisk) until they can hold soft peaks. If they are too stiff and dry they break apart and cannot bland well into the other ingredients.

Spoon the cream into the egg yolk mixture, stirring and turning gently to incorporate it smoothly. Now add 1/3 of the egg whites, stir and turn, and add the rest. A spatula works well, here. Slice through the mixture, lift and turn it back into itself. This way you don't squash the important bubbles.

Lick the spatula.

Spoon the mixture gently into the ramekins, bringing it well above the ceramic lips. Freeze for at least three hours. If you are keeping them until the next day you should also cover them gently with plastic to prevent freezer burn and drying out.

Just before serving, pull off the foil gently, and dust the top of each souffle with the finely grated chocolate. You could also sift over high quality cocoa or hot chocolate powder.

I only photographed my souffle, which was the lowest of the bunch - the others were more impressive...

Cornbread - light and fluffy

2010-11-27T15:17:00.004-05:00

The addition of fluffy egg whites makes this very light and soft, and nothing like the cornbread bricks I have known...

1 stick of butter

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, separated

1 cup flour

1 cup cornflour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter a bread pan. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar and add the egg yolks. Stir well. Add a little flour if the mixture separates and beat again. In another bowl, beat the egg whites till gentle peaks form, set aside. To the creamed butter add the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the milk and add the cornmeal. Fold in half the egg whites, incorporating them gently, and then add the second half.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake in the preheated oven for 25 - 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

It is best served with nothing but sweet butter. But it loves a side of thinly sliced ham.

Make two. This goes fast.

Finger-lickin' ribs

2010-11-24T13:44:00.005-05:00

Ribs - I love them. It must be the gnawing. I am an expert gnawer, leaving bones worthy of an archaeological dig. Clean. I irritate fellow rib eaters by starting off with a knife and fork. I get as much meat off the bones as I can and then save the best for last, picking up every single one and pretending to be a cleaner shrimp. Nibble, nibble nibble.

My mom made these ribs when we were growing up, and this is based on her recipe. Given a proper rest, post cooking, these ribs are very tender.

You can play pick-up-sticks with the bare bones afterwards.

Mama's Finger Lickin' Ribs for Two

Two racks pork ribs

¼ cup vinegar, preferably red wine

¼ cup tomato sauce

1 Tbsp wholegrain mustard

1 Tbsp brown sugar

5 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp apricot jam

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Chile flakes to taste

12 twists of the black pepper mill

Mix marinade ingredients and pour over ribs. Leave overnight or for many, chilled, hours.

Place about 4" above hot, grey coals and cook till they start to char a little. Roughly 10 - 12 minutes. Turn once and cook another ten minutes or so. I leave them to rest under foil for ten minutes, then slice them and stack them.

If you are brave, eat them on a salad of: very thinly sliced red onion sprinkled with salt, a little sugar and lemon juice; or - thinly sliced red cabbage, marinated for ten minutes in red wine vinegar, sugar, salt, then drained.

My pork rib source was Los Paisanos, on Smith Street.

Old fashioned raisin squares

2010-11-23T15:48:00.002-05:00

These cookies were my favourites when I was a little girl in Bloemfontein, when two big glass cookie jars stood near the back door in the kitchen, every now and then going ke-chink, as a lid was lifted and replaced, very quietly and sneakily, triggering my mother to yell from the other end of the house, down the passage, "Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeil!!!" as our swift-footed, chubby young neighbour made off with his haul...The back door was always open. And Neil always came back. Can't blame him.

You need:

160 gr/ 5 1/2 oz raisins (or currants)
1 cup water
1/2 a cup sunflower oil
200 gr/ 7 oz sugar
1 lightly beaten egg
220 gr / 8 oz cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarb (baking soda)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 a teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
70 gr/ 2 1/2 oz chopped pecans

Heat oven to 375'F (190'C). Heat raisins/currants and water in a saucepan to boiling point. Remove from heat and stir in the oil. Cool to lukewarm. Stir in the sugar and the egg (if it is still too hot the egg will scramble).

Sift dry ingredients(I never do, lazy) into a bowl and pour in wet ingredients. Stir. Stir in the nuts.

Now, "Pour into a greased Swiss roll tin," says my mother's recipe. This is sweet. I don't know if people would know them as Swiss roll tins anymore. Except perhaps in the Midwest, or Martha-world? We knew them, because we were fed freshly-made Swiss rolls stuffed with apricot jam and sugary on the outside, then, for special dessert. Those were in the days of sit-down lunches. Father in suit, home from chambers, children in school uniforms, home from school. Doris Day singing in the kitchen. Milk to drink, from a jug on the table. MILK!!!

Back to the cookies. Now, a rectangular cookie tin with sides about half an inch high will do, greased. Bake for 12-16 minutes until a skewer comes out clean, or a finger pressed leaves no dent (that's my instruction. Scientific, hey?).

When cool, ice with water icing (powdered sugar and water) made with lemon juice instead of water. This is key. It is delicious. After the icing has set, slice into squares in pan, I don't know why I turned mine out to cool. They are easy to lift out square by square.

Try not to eat them all at once. They are good for everything. Stress, sadness, an excess of anything.

And brilliant for breakfast with cup of strong coffee.

Pork rillettes

2010-11-12T00:42:00.015-05:00

Pork belly is a versatile, economically friendly thing, and rillettes are what I usually make from leftover roast pork belly. Little pots of pork are useful things for picnics, appetizers for a faraway supper party or light (as if) suppers at the last minute. They keep forever in the freezer, quietly getting better all the time. They should be eaten at room temperature.

This time I roasted a piece of pork specifically for rillettes. I like the caramelized flavour that roasting gives to the shredded meat. It is unorthodox - most recipes would have you poach the meat in fat or wine to begin with. I do that in the second phase. I've tried both ways and prefer the roasting method.

Herbs are really up to what you feel like, the season and what you have, but in general this can take a lot of seasoning and flavouring. The lemon helps cut through the fattiness.

For the roasting phase, you need:

1 slab of pork belly, with skin, about 3lbs
2 cups fruity white wine
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cups of water plus extra
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
pepper
6 branches of thyme
2 bay leaves
6 sage leaves
5 juniper berries

Oven at a low 250'F. Season the meaty sides of the pig with the salt and pepper. In a roasting pan, place the belly on top of the herbs. Pour the wine and lemon juice around the meat, avoiding the skin (which you may like as much as I do, as crispy crackling). Add the juniper berries to the pan, and cook in the oven for four to five hours. Check periodically to make sure that the liquid does not dry up. Add a little water if it gets low.

When the meat is very tender when prodded suggestively with a fork, remove from the oven and cool a little.

Once you can handle it without pain, slide a knife between the crackling and the top layer of fat and remove. What you do with that is up to you. I know what I do. It's an excellent bar snack, broken up and sprinkled with salt.

The meat and fat are in layers. Cut out the fat layers and reserve. Take all the meat and chop it finely. You could also shred it so that the long muscle fibers are preserved intact. It's a matter of texture, and I have no preference. Which might make this situation unique in my life. Ha.

Phase Two:

Making the confit -

Slow-roasted pork belly meat, shredded finely
Pork belly fat
3 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed but intact
1 cup fruity white wine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
6 branches thyme
2 bay leaves
6 sage leaves
3 juniper berries
salt and pepper to taste
3/4's of a stick of butter

In saucepan, put all the fat you have reserved and melt over medium heat until more fat runs from it. Add the garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, quite gently, not letting the garlic brown. Add the chopped meat and stir.Add everything else except the butter. Turn the heat up briefly to allow the wine to bubble and cook off, and then lower the heat again and cook for a slow hour. Taste, and add more salt and pepper - you should season quite heavily, as it will be eaten cool, which mutes flavour.

Melt your stick of butter in separate saucepan. Remove the garlic cloves from the meat and discard. Pack your pork, with its fat, into jars or small bowls and tamp down gently. Top with melted butter. You may only need a tablespoon for each bowl. When it has cooled, wrap and freeze or refrigerate.

If we eat these at home I sometimes make a jolting little flatleaf parsley and raw onion salad with lemon juice and salt tossed over. The shock of ascorbic acid and the cut of the lemon and onion are a perfect foil for the fatty, rich pork.

Oyster mushroom steaks

2010-11-06T17:30:00.002-04:00

We have found some very big oyster mushrooms of late, and the largest of these I seared as I would a steak.

This works best for the biggest mushrooms as they are meaty and chewy and can take some punishment.

If you clean oyster mushrooms in water bear in mind: the cap itself absorbs water like a sponge. Water is the enemy of searing! You don't want soup, you want brown, crispy-chewy edges. So I press it all out as I would from a sponge - they are quite resilient - and then I mop them dry with kitchen paper

With beefsteak I use no oil or fat, as the poor beefs come ready-marbled. But with the mushrooms I throw caution to the wind and employ a tablespoon of olive oil and another of butter. Plus some more for good luck. It's that sort of dish.

As with steak I heat the cast iron pan till it's smokin'. You want high heat to minimize any steaming/stewing, later.

Then I add the oil and butter, and the mushrooms as soon as the butter has melted. Season with salt and pepper. Flip when when they are starting to smell very good, maybe four minutes later. This should coincide with their browning and caramelization. Squeeze some lemon juice over the mushrooms, about half a lemonsworth.

Flip again and if they are brown, they are ready.

Parmesan cheese. Why not?

Tomato bredie cooked on the coals

2010-10-28T14:02:00.007-04:00

My first night of camp cooking, and my first night camping, ever, was a fiasco.

That was in 2009, on the Orange River, at the grassy and well run Abiqua River Camp on the Namibian side of the water. I started too late, only then realizing that darkness is...dark. I was still rattled by the bribe we had to pay at the border, but honestly I don't remember what else drove me to the state of near hysterics. Just the otherness of it all, I think. A complete lack of routine and familiarity with our mounds of supplies. The wind. A rickety, borrowed, camping kitchen table (subsequently abandoned for something smaller and sturdier, and cheaper).

I don't think I realized, then, how much camp cooking would grow on me. I love it.

So this delicious, rich bredie, made at the Mountain Zebra National Park, outside Cradock in the Eastern Cape, was my first employing fire. We had a sturdy cast iron pot (purchased obscurely at a mega store in Cape Town, the Ottery Hypermarket) which we'd used for making potbrood. But now I had some lamb knuckles (shank) purchased far north, in Aliwal North, and was determined to make potjiekos (paw-ee-kee-kaws - littlepotfood, the potjie or little pot refers to a cast iron pot, usually on three legs, for standing in coals).

We had onions and garlic - excellent camping staples, cans of tomatoes, peri peri rub, which I think was just the chile...and lemons. I always have lemons.

I made the fire early, as I reckoned it would take about three hours for the stew to cook, starting off on top of the coals, for browning and bringing the liquid to a boil, then later in the coals, as they cooled a little, to get the oven effect.

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 lbs lamb knuckle/shank, sawn into pieces across the bone. You could use shoulder chops or stewing lamb
2 Tbsps flour
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, sliced
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and flattened
1 can tomatoes
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp peri peri or hot red chile
4 small potatoes, quartered
1 lemon
8 -12 stems of thyme (or 3 of rosemary)

Over a large bed of red coals, heat the pot and add the oil.

While that's happening dust your shanks with flour, and season with salt and pepper. Add them to the hot pot and brown, turning once.

Add the onion and garlic, stir, let them colour a little, the peri peri or chile, and add the tomatoes, crushing with a spoon. Add the sugar, stirring well. Then add water to cover the meat. Let it come to a simmer. Stir again to catch the bits of flour sticking to the bottom. You may have to adjust the distance of the grid from the coals, depending on how hot they are.

Leave uncovered if the simmer is actually a boil, but if it is tame enough cover the pot, or compromise and leave the lid ajar. Leave it for about 40 minutes up here. Come back and taste the liquid, adding salt if you like.

At this stage add the lemon juice and the potatoes...

Then carefully transfer the pot into the coals themselves, arranging the hot coals around it, but not under it (it will get too hot). Put about 6 coals on the lid, too.

Go away.

Come back after another hour, and carefully brush off the coals (you don't want ash in your stew). Check the liquid level. If it is still good, cover and go away again for 40 minutes. But if the liquid looks like it's dropped a lot and the lamb is bleating for water, add a cup. Cover, leave.

After a total of 2 1/2 hours it may be ready: the lamb must be fork-tender, the juice thickened and rich.Cooking longer won't hurt it, 3 hours, tops.

Red wine, candlelight, the odd bark of a jackal, and starlight.

Roast quinces with juniper

2010-10-15T14:26:00.006-04:00

The Afrikaans word for quince is kweper. Pronounced 'queer-purr', so to speak. Or, more properly ˈkviə̯pər.

Quinces in South Africa belong to the sides of dirt roads, old towns, dry farms, their leaves powdered with fine summer dust, their fruit hanging low as summer progresses.

I love quinces. The good ones are perfumed. The huge ones shipped from California and costing a dollar or more each seem to have lost all trace of that scent.

So I took my farmers' market quinces, four small yellow ones, peeled, halved and cored them, and put them in a saucepan with a cup of water, a quarter cup of raw sugar, and six juniper berries. Then roasted them while I was cooking our potroast, for an hour and a half at 350'F.

I know that it sounds suspiciously simple. But that's all they needed. The fruit is still a little tart, but very soft inside, the skins are pleasurably chewy with caramelized edges. The water reduces to a syrup, which sweetens each mouthful. And nibbling the juniper berry is a contemplative little hit of a gin flavoured Fall.

Apple pie

2010-10-12T13:31:00.002-04:00

Here in the Northeast, it is time for apple picking and apple chewing and the smell of baking apples and warm pastry and a hint of cinnamon.

How blogs connect people: a few days ago I received an email from Lily, a Cape Town blogger, apropos of a comment I left on her blog about the bread at the Matjiesfontein Hotel. In her email were scans of clippings of recipes she had saved from the late 90's, from a House and Leisure magazine. She said: I've had this recipe clipping from a House and Leisure since 1996....it has three of my favourite recipes.

The recipes she sent were for Lamb with a Spoon, Molly Bolt's apple pie, and Phillida's bread, from the Matjiesfontein Hotel.

All three recipes are Maureen Viljoen's, published when she was the food editor of House and Leisure. And she is my mother. Lily, my emailer, had no idea.

Click on the recipe to enlarge.

I grew up with Molly Bolt's apple pie. Its pastry is delicious, soft yet crunchy, and its apples simply allowed to be apples, with none of the sticky goop that one so often finds beneath an apple pie's crust. So there it is, fresh from its 1996 clipping. I remember my mother adding raisins to it, and, independently of each other, Lily and I add raisins, and cinnamon, too.

If you add raisins, it's a quarter cup, sprinkled on the cooked apples before you put the pie crust lid on. And a pinch of cinnamon. You can also substitute self rising flour for the flour plus baking powder mixture. Needless to say, I use butter - this recipe is a child of the 70's. My father still prefers margarine on his toast and bread, convinced by propaganda that it is better for his heart. I wonder when that class action lawsuit will hit.

I made this pie with Spartan apples from the Carroll Gardens Farmers' Market, open on Sundays on Carroll Street between Court and Smith.

Seekh Kebab Kari

2010-10-03T15:50:00.005-04:00

Not getting what you want forces you to consider other options.

When I could not find, for the third year in a row, the best lamb-stuffed-into-a-pita I'd ever eaten, at the Atlantic Antic, I took matters into my own hands. I opened a book: Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook.

Brace yourselves for a decree:

Every home should have one. My mom has cooked from it since I was a little girl, and I have owned a copy since I have lived in New York.

Following a gut feeling, plus a memory of cardamom, cinnamon and a certain creaminess, my eyes fell upon Seekh Kebab Kari, Skewered Lamb in Spices, in the India and Pakistan section of the book

That was it. Made total sense. Stuff it in pita and Bob's your uncle. Or something. It was delicious.

The recipe is 96% Charmaine Solomon, and 4% me in terms of: fresh ginger, a garam masala deconstruction (I didn't have any prepared garam masala but did have all the separate components, so instead of grinding them, I added proportions of the spices to constitute the required teaspoon of garam masala), more water than she stipulates, and the addition during cooking of a chile. I did not thread it onto skewers before cooking the meat in the curry mixture.

I have a pretty well stocked spice collection which serves as a good basis for much Indian, North African and Middle Eastern cooking. It's worth the shopping trip. But I did not have the black cumin that she toasts and sprinkles over the lamb before serving.

Here goes. Serves four.

Seekh Kebab Kari

1 1/2 lbs lamb (I used shoulder chops and cut the meat into cubes)

Marinade:

2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
(or 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander, 1/8 tsp grated nutmeg, 1 stick cinnamon, 1 cardamom pod, 10 twists of the black pepper mill, pinch of cumin, 3 whole cloves)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp fresh chopped ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
4 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Curry:

3 Tbsp ghee or oil (I used butter)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small stick cinnamon
4 cardamom pods, bruised
4 whole cloves
1 tsp chile powder
1/2 cup hot water (I used 2 cups)
1/2 tsp black cumin seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala
(or 1/8 teaspoon ground coriander, pinch of grated nutmeg, 1/2 stick cinnamon, 1 cardamom pod, 5 twists of the black pepper mill, pinch of cumin, 1 whole clove)
1 hot chile

Cut the lamb into cubes. Mix the ingredients for marinade, adding a little water if necessary to make it spreadable. Put the lamb into the marinade and mix very thoroughly: there is not much of it but it is highly flavoured. Leave overnight or for a minimum of two hours.

Ms Solomon now threads her lamb onto skewers, with pieces of fresh ginger between the pieces of meat. I skipped the skewers.

Curry. Heat the ghee or oil (or butter) in large pan and fry the lamb in batches over high heat till browned. Remove from pan, reduce heat and fry onion and garlic gently till golden. Add whole spices and fry a minute longer. Add powdered chile and fry a few seconds. Return meat to the pan. Add the water and stir well to scare up any bits on the bottom. Add the hot chile, sliced down the middle. Cover, bring to a simmer and reduce heat to cook gently until the lamb is very tender, about two hours.

Toast the black cumin seeds for a few seconds and sprinkle over the lamb.

We ate this with hot naan breads from the oven (also her recipe).

Flan

2010-09-25T12:50:00.002-04:00

Coming soon to a blog near you.

Every time we pass a bakery, the Frenchie wanders in and scans the counters wistfully for what he calls flan. You have to say it with a French accent. It seems known to precious few. We found it once at Ceci Cela on Spring, but it has been discontinued due to Lack of Interest. But the baker will custom make them. Not worth the price, I think, unless it is an existential emergency, given the humble ingredients: milk, corn starch (!), eggs, pastry.

So I made one last night, to reward some serious html help yesterday with the other blog's code. I used his flan recipe, derived from many sources on the net as well as his memory of perfect Parisian flan, and tweaked that one, too. Once I've sorted the tweaks, I'll post it. It's a comforting, homely thing. I'm not sure I approve, yet, having believed that the only custard is eggs and cream, no starch whatsoever, but I'm still thinking.

I might try a pure custard version, to show him, but I don't think the texture will be quite right. You can't mess with memory.

Borscht

2010-09-24T18:43:00.001-04:00

Hot borscht.

The beautiful farmers' market beets were turned into borscht...

4 rashers of fatty bacon or pancetta, in 1" ribbons
1 large onion, thinly sliced
6 peeled, grated beets
Chopped up leaves and stems of beets
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 bulb fennel with leaves, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and halved and cut into half moons
5 juniper berries, lightly crushed*
10 peppercorns*
2 tsp sugar plus more to taste if you like
6 cups of chicken stock (or veal, or vegetable...)
2 Tbsp red wine or sherry vinegar (raspberry would be nice) - do not omit the vinegar!

* To make them easy to remove you could tie these spices in a muslin parcel and take that out of the soup at the end.

Saute bacon till fats runs and add onions. Cook gently and long until golden with brown bits, about 10 minutes. Add all vegetables and beet stems, but not beet greens. Stir. Add spices and sugar and then chicken stock. Bring to a boil, lower to simmer and cook till vegetables are tender, about half an hour. Taste for salt and add. Stir in beet leaves and add vinegar, one tablespoon at time and taste again. You're looking for a sweet sour balance and may need a little more sugar. Cook another half hour. Remove peppercorns and juniper berries.

I give a squeeze of lemon just before serving, too.

Greek yogurt with some crushed garlic stirred into it, to top it off.

For a meatier version, sliced, cooked beef short ribs are delicious, added with the vegetables. For cold borscht you could puree the whole lot and push through strainer till very smooth, chill.

And a perfectly ripe persimmon (took about 4 days at home to ripen) for dessert.

Pork ribs with fresh herb rub

2010-09-19T18:15:00.008-04:00

Cat: I have mine. Where are yours?

For Two:

1 rack organic baby back ribs, intact
1/2 cup finely chopped herbs (half parsley, half summer savoury)
1/4 lime, very thinly sliced and then chopped (including zest)
Juice of rest of lime plus 1 additional lime's juice
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
4 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Pepper

Combine herbs with lime, juice, garlic, sugar and pepper. Rub all over ribs and let them marinate for as long as you can stand it.

If you're cooking outside, braai over nicely-ashed coals.

Otherwise turn the broiler to Hellish, and when it is as hot as it can get, pop the ribs beneath (I use my cast iron skillet) till one side is getting yummy-smelling with little black bits, then you flip them. About 10 minutes.

Add a little bit of water to preserve the delicious pan-scrapings when you flip.

It's done when the second side is also looking dark brown, another 10 minutes. Let the ribs rest in the pan, covered, for another 10 minutes at least, covered with foil. Then cut them individually, pile into a bowl and serve with plenty of napkins and bowl of warm water for finger-dipping.

Add Cotes du Rhone and roses.

Pozole

2010-09-12T18:45:00.010-04:00

This is pretty delicious in a warm, gentle way.

I looked at many recipes for pozole, from Diana Kennedy to Interweb riffraff to get an idea of technique and style and came up with my own version, where the pork is slow-roasted, rather than sauteed in the same pot, and where I choose my favourite chiles, and add a splash of vinegar to brighten to broth.

For Four

Part One, The Pork

You can make this the same day that you prepare the hominy. Unless you're opening a can.

1 pork belly, skin on, 2lbs
2 mulatto* peppers (similar to ancho)
3 cups water plus extra
3 branches oregano
salt and pepper

In a roasting dish, place the pork belly and season it. Add two cups of water, the oregano and the two mulatto peppers. Cook slowly at 300'F/ 140'C for about four hours until the pork is fork-tender and the skin crispy. Add more water every now and then to keep the juices in the pan from drying out, and to prevent the peppers from burning.

Remove the meat to a plate and allow it rest and cool. Reserve the peppers if they haven't burned. If they have burned, discard. Pour the fat from the pan into a small bowl and reserve. Save any dark fond that has accumulated in the bottom of the pan, deglazing the pan with some water if necessary. Reserve the resulting juice.

Remove the crispy skin in one piece by sliding a knife between it and the first layer of fat or meat. Cut excess fat from the underside of the skin and cut or break the crackling into pieces about an inch long. Either eat them on the spot, dusted with salt, or reserve to garnish the finished pozole.

When the pork is cool, shred or slice it into bite size pieces. Cover and reserve.

Part Two, The Sauce

2 Tbsp dripping from the pork belly
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
5 scallions, roughly chopped, green parts, too
6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
3 cups rich, dark stock (chicken or veal) - I used demi glace diluted with boiling water
Fond juice from the pork belly - about 1/2 a cup
3 ancho chiles, soaked for 30 minutes in very hot water, de-seeded and cut into strips*
The reserved peppers from the pork-roasting, de-seeded and cut into strips*
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
4 branches oregano, leaves stripped off
2 cups prepared hominy

Melt the drippings in a large, heavy Le Creuset-type pot with lid. Add the onions and garlic and cook gently until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for a minute to caramelize a little. Add the stock and the fond juice. Add the ancho chile strips. Stir and cook until the onion is quite tender, about ten gentle minutes.

Now remove about four ladlesful (1 cup) of the stock with as many bits of onion, garlic and pepper in it as possible, and transfer to a blender. Add the 1 Tbsp of of sugar and the 2 Tbsps of red wine vinegar. Whizz it up until it is dark red and smooth.

To the pot add the shredded pieces of pork, the oregano leaves and the red sauce from the blender, stir well and cook very gently for an hour. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Add the hominy and cook gently again for half an hour. Taste again as the bland hominy might need additional seasoning.

Serve in bowls with thin slices of radish or avocado. Chopped up limes, with skin, are good, too.

* A note about the dried chiles. They are not available everywhere, and have a special, smoky-sweet, not biting-hot taste. In Vancouver I once did something very unorthodox and very clever, and substituted 3 tablespoons of raisins, soaked for an hour in hot water, 1/4 cup of hot sauce (or use 2 Tbps chile flakes), and three slices of orange (with skin and pith!) for 2 ancho peppers. If you do this, cook the raisins, chile and orange in the stock until the orange is quite soft, and then puree with the onions etc.

Hominy with baking soda

2010-09-10T18:12:00.012-04:00

This is Part One of the pozole I am making, using Christina Kelly's native shortnose white corn, raised in Prospect Park last year. Follow her project at her website, Maize Field.

The hunt for cal/pickling lime/lye (calcium hydroxide) - specified in all hominy recipes by dear cooks who NEVER tell you where they purchased their cal - ended with my decision to try an alternative: baking soda/sodium bicarbonate/bicarb. Both chemicals loosen the husks and kernels of the dried corn and allow it to 'bloom' and become soft. Both are a substitute for the wood ash lye used by Native Americans.

I can now attest that baking soda works perfectly. End the tyranny of the lime dictate now!

So, on with the show. I used this method, a hybrid of several with some of my very own fiddling thrown in. It yields tender yet firm hominy.

Two cups of dry, shelled corn (1/2 quart) - yields about five cups, cooked
8 cups of water
3 Tbsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

In a large non-reactive pot (enameled or stainless steel) bring the water to a boil. Add the corn and bicarb.

My white corn turned miraculously yellow.

Keep at a simmer for one hour. Then let the corn stand in the hot water for another two, covered. By now the kernels will have plumped up and the coverings of the germs will be black. Pour the water off, and fill the pot again with cool water and rinse, stirring with your hands. Rub handfuls of corn against one another to loosen the husks. Pour the water off. Fill with water again and repeat. Pour off. Fill it a third time and let it stand for six hours or overnight. I skipped that step and it was a mistake, as the extra soaking makes the germs far easier to remove from the plumped-up corn.

Now sit yourself somewhere very comfortable and prepare to stay there for the next few hours. It took me four, and I was able to watch movies at the same time. Just an idea. Put the pot with the corn in it in front of you, as well as a small bowl to catch the germs as you remove them. A damp cloth is handy for wiping your sticky fingers every now and then.

With your thumbnail, pinch out the germ from each kernel. It is covered by a little black sheath at the tip of the kernel. You will now have gap in the middle of each kernel, where the germ was. I found after cooking the hominy the next day that I had left some kernels in, after removing the black sheath - the germs are harder and nuttier and feel different from the rest of the kernel. True hominy does away with the kernel, hence the effort.

After this painstaking process, rinse the kernels thoroughly several times by filling the pot with water, discarding the soft husks that float up.

Your corn is ready to cook, now. Fill the pot with water again and bring to a simmer. Cook gently for about forty-five minutes, until the kernels are fork tender.

You have made hominy.

My hominy will be part of pozole (orignally made from chopped up sacrificial humans, but then pork after cannibalism was banned after the Spanish started bossing people around). But this lovely stuff can be served as side dish to practically anything, or eaten with maple syrup and milk.

Would I do this for every dish?

Hell, no.

But doing it once taught me what real hominy is and tastes a lot better than what comes out of a can. It also says something about how and why we cook, and what we bother to feed ourselves, and who lived here before most of us did.

- Two of the more interesting and informative websites that served as resources for me were Food Geekery (Jason - a man who started to cook in 2008 after needing to lose weight from 300lbs - used lime, and explained via Ric Bayless why removing the germ is important), and Amokhali Creek: - Wynne Eden, said to use baking soda as an alternative...but he did not remove the germs, just husks.

Chapman's Peak Hotel

2010-09-03T19:13:00.006-04:00

A couple of years ago we rediscovered Hout Bay's Chapman's Peak Hotel, a Cape Town institution which had suffered the affliction of many institutions - banality, conformity, mediocrity.

I think it was a touristic instinct that made me say one day, Let's go to the Chappies Hotel. Doubtful looks.

My mother Vince and I sat on the shaded balcony above the road above the pale sickle of beach and the bay of blue water whose far end is populated by the fishing boats, wharfs, stinky fish factory, and excellent fish and chips joint (Fish on the Rocks) in the harbour which lies at the foot of the abrupt ascent of iconic rock that anchors and defines Hout Bay. Right beneath the white-washed balcony where we sit are the wire sellers with their beatific smiles and ubiquitously pretty beaded creations, whose little animals and ornaments we never buy.

The service that first time was beyond slow, but improved on subsequent visits.

We always order the calamari or the linefish of the day, and both come in sizzling cast iron pans, probably half the reason I like them... How can you not like a cast iron pan? I have no idea of the provenance of the calamari. But its batter is crisp and febrile and the squid's interior tender. The grilled line fish has always been excellent. Both are served with lots of lemon wedges.

And that's all, with bottle of very cold local Sauvignon blanc, and that strange creature, the South African green salad.

Which means iceberg lettuce, pink tomatoes, and cucumber. If there is feta in it is a Greek Salad. And you will find Greek salad on every menu in every dive and and snack and lunch and dinner joint in every single part of the country regardless of how remote.

There are chips, of course, the once-fried kind that never stay crisp longer than the time it takes to carry them to the table.

The last time we were there, a table of four elderly, poised, white-haired men sat near us. The manager brought a bottle to them -it seemed to be their personal bottle, and they all drank nips of witblits (white lighting) from of it, after their lunch. Janice Honeyman (or Honeyperson, as we called her at opera school) was having lunch with her father (we guessed) behind us, and locals, flash Gautengers and stressed waiters (the electricity had gone down during lunch, which meant No Chips - everything else was cooked on gas) shared the wide open bright space

On a clear blue afternoon, or a day when the stormy surf is up and the balcony is open, the Chappies Hotel is one of the laid back, old places where it is pleasure to sit for some hours. I hope it lasts.

info@chapmanspeakhotel.co.za

Bagna cauda

2010-09-01T08:02:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I don't feel like eating leaves. For the most part, in summer, I may as well be a goat, or a guinea pig - any green leaf looks delicious. But sometimes I need something more mineral-rich, especially when the seasons seem to be changing.

Vegetables. Crunchy vegetables.

To make raw vegetables seem like a real meal (i.e., "there's got to be meat in here somewhere?"), there is nothing better than the anchovy-laden bagna cauda.

I have known it since childhood. It entered our home in the 70's inside a Sunset Italian Cookbook, a surprisingly good series of paperback magazine-like books. There we were in the cultural flatlands of South Africa eating something quintessentially Mediterranean.

It can be a celebration of every vegetable in season.

Special equipment: it helps no end if you a mini fondue pot or a burner with ceramic dish above it. When I am eating on my own, watching a movie, say, I use my very small cast iron saucepan which holds about a cup of liquid. It is so heat retentive that the bath stays hot, balanced on a small wooden tray beside me. Or my little terra cotta burner, above.

But a burner is best to keep everything bubbling, and the garlic and anchovies slowly caramelizing in the bottom, to be swept up with piece of bread at the end.

The vegetables:

Beets, carrots, daikon radish, little red radishes, red (orange/yellow/purple) peppers, cauliflower, broccoli or broccolini, scallions (spring onions), young courgettes (zucchini), asparagus, endive...

They are all kept raw, of course. Some would say blanch the vegetables but I don't like this. I like them crunchy. And this way every single vitamin and mineral is preserved.

Figure about a cup of prepared vegetables per person. I could eat more, especially if this is the meal, not an appetizer...

For the larger root vegetables, peel them and slice into batons that are easy to hold, long enough to dip, and wide enough to catch the good bits in the warm bath. Radishes can be halved. Peppers, slice into strips, cauliflower cut into florets (and you can use the stems, too, just peel and cut into more batons), same with broccoli, whose stems are especially good if peeled. Skin the outer layer of the onions and keep the bulb intact, and slit the courgettes lengthways. Wash asparagus thoroughly, keep whole, and separate the endive leaves.

If you prepare the vegetables ahead of time cover with clingfilm or something ecologically more sound, to keep fresh and dewy, and refrigerate

The bread:

Good, crackly baguette or sourdough

This is fun for catching drips that fall between the pot and your mouth. I hold a slice of bread under the vegetables so that by the end it is deliciously soaked. Wiping out the bowl afterwards is also a huge pleasure.

Warm bath:

6 cloves of garlic, quite roughly chopped
8 anchovy fillets
1/2 cup of good EV olive oil

On really low heat, in a small saucepan, cook this all very slowly and gently until the salty fishes disintegrate and the garlic becomes soft. If your garlic becomes brown over too-high heat, start over. It's not worth it to have the bitter garlic taste in the oil. Cook for about 10-15 minutes. Sometimes I add a tablespoon of red wine vinegar. See if you like it.

Then transfer it to the dish with a burner beneath, to keep warm and bubbling. With a bowlful of cleaned, chopped vegetables and some slices of good baguette, a glass of red, this is one of the best things in the world. It's not fishy, it's not garlicky, it is entirely itself.

Keep leftover bagna cauda to make a vinaigrette for chicken paillard (Version Two), or for anything else, for that matter.

Roast chicken

2010-08-31T18:04:00.007-04:00

When the going gets tough, there's nothing better than a roast chicken. It is the ultimate comfort food. Depending on mood and season there are a thousand variations on a classic roast chicken - different herbs in the cavity, a clove of garlic, half a shallot, a whole lemon, wine, or water in the pan...all of these small changes make big, delicious differences.

This version, the one I make most often, has the chicken roasting on bed of red-skinned potatoes, some lemon slices, herbs from the terrace, and is dressed with lemon juice.

You need:

A large, heavy skillet or roasting dish, preferably not with high sides. High sides prevent the chicken from browning, by encouraging it to steam. It needs to be in contact with as much hot, dry air as possible.

5 potatoes with skin, medium slices
3 slices of lemon or lime
a small handful of herbs (thyme, rosemary, summer savory, tarragon - take your seasonal pick)
1 organic chicken, rinsed
1 whole lime or lemon's juice
1-plus cups of water (or white wine, or vermouth)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450'F/220'C.

Arrange the sliced potatoes in concentric circles in your pan. Why? because it looks good. In the very middle put your three lemon slices, and top those with half the herbs.

Season the potatoes with salt and pepper.

Arrange your chicken dead center, on top of the hebs and lemon slices.

Squeeze the lemon's juice over the chicken, and then season the bird's skin generously with salt and pepper. Put a pinch of salt into the cavity as well as the rest of the herbs.

Add a cup of water - this helps cook the potatoes till they are soft and forms the basis of the delicious pan juices.

Pop into the hot oven and do not look at it for another hour. Then check on the liquid and add more water if it is dry. After another 15-20 minutes remove the chicken. It will be very brown. Let it rest for ten minutes, in the pan.

The skin is perfectly crisp, the meat moist, the juices caramelized, sticky and slightly tart. You can deglaze with some water when it's done, or wine, after removing the potatoes, but it's not really necessary: by the time it has rested the cavity and pan juices have mingled and turned the potatoes into syrupy, crackly-at-the- edge sponges for the highly flavoured juice.

The chicken drug.

I recommend it.

Beetroot salad

2010-08-29T00:44:00.005-04:00

I love raw beetroot, it's yummy: very crunchy, sweet, with a hint of a bitter aftertaste, which I like. I use it often for bagna cauda, and also in raw vegetable salads, like this one. It's also incredibly good for you, and with the parsley and shallot, here is an instant tonic.

For one:

1 beet, peeled and sliced into thick matchsticks (you just slice the whole beet, then stack half the slices on top of each other and cut through them, then the other half. Quick)

1/2 an apple, with skin, very thinly sliced

small bunch flatleaf parsley

1 shallot, thinly sliced

EV olive oil
Half lemon
Salt and pepper

Wash and dry the parsley, pick the leaves off and put them in the bottom of a bowl. Add the apple slices, then the beet matchsticks, then the very thinly sliced shallot. Dribble a tablespoon or less of olive oil over, sprinkle some salt, crack some pepper and squeeze half the lemon over everything. That's all.

Walnuts and or goats' cheese would be nice additions.

Braaied lamb with horse radish

2010-08-26T12:43:00.007-04:00

This is a springtime dish, so it's aimed at the southern hemisphere at the moment. I make this in April in New York, when fresh horse radish root is in season. You could use bottled horseradish, of course, though I find the just-grated kind unsurpassed in zing.

It is easier to find already-butterflied legs of lamb now, but otherwise ask your butcher (I have access to one), or do it at home. It's not hard. You need a very sharp knife. This Cook's Illustrated step-by-step series of pictures is helpful. I admit I just cut down to the bone and along the length of it and then remove it more by instinct than by good technique. I always knew I belonged in a cave.

Why butterfly? Because for braaing (barbecuing), it allows the lamb to cook evenly, and it makes for no-nonsense carving afterwards. Butterflying also exposes more meat to the delicious marinade.

1 lamb leg, butterflied
2 cups plain yogurt, Greek-style and thick. If you only have ordinary yogurt drain it through cloth or kitchen paper in a sieve for several hours, over a bowl which catches the liquid.
1 cup freshly grated horseradish
6 crushed and chopped cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper

Combine yogurt, horseradish, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well. Add lamb and massage marinade into lamb with your hands. Yup.

Marinade the lamb for a day in the fridge. It makes a difference. Then remove and scrape off most of the marinade

Braai the lamb over a bed of coals that has turned grey with ash for about 15-20 minute to a side. Remove and cover with foil to rest, at least 10 minutes.

Chicken paillard with salad on top

2010-08-24T12:11:00.006-04:00

Enter the chicken breast.

Now breasts of chicken are not something about which I usually get very worked up. Yes, things can be Done to them: like rolling them in layers of herbs and ricotta and lemon zest and packaging them in netvet (caul fat), or, failing such an esoteric item of anatomy residing in your fridge, stitching them shut with toothpicks or a skewer.

Other parts of that wonderful bird interest me more: more flavourful, juicy, tender: thighs, leg 'n thigh combos...Wings. And breasts are expensive. I guess that depends on the audience. I think they're expensive. Call me a wing woman.

Logically, then, here follows a breast recipe. The one thing they have going for them: Low fat, and texture to work with.

Beat them, I say.

This idea came from the paillard served at Schiller's on the Lower East Side:

The Chicken:

Lay one breast flat on a chopping block. If you want to be very neat and avoid splashes, lay a piece of clingfilm or wax paper under the breast and lay another over it, both at last three times the size of the meat, and wack away with a rolling pin or similar heavy object, working your anger, frustration or sadness out from the middle to the sides. Otherwise just beat it with pleasure. I like to have some texture left at the end so mine are never too thin.

Remove the plastic or paper, transfer the chicken to a shallow bowl and cover in the juice of a lemon or a lime, salt and pepper for about an hour. Some crushed garlic helps.

Heat a pan, wait till it's really hot and the olive oil you've put in it is running races with itself, and add the chicken. Lots of sizzling. Leave for about 1 -2 minutes, depending on thickness, and flip. Cook once on each side. Don't turn over and over. Nothing good comes of it.

Take out of the pan, put on a warm plate and allow to REST for 5 minutes. A rested chicken will be much more tender.

Salad, Version One:

Make a salad of two cupfuls of flatleaf parsley, a quarter of a red onion, thinly sliced, a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil. I added halved cherry tomatoes. Toss. Plate your breast, and put a heap of dressed salad on top. Deglaze the chicken's pan with more lemon or a slosh of white wine, cook off , reduce and pour over the top.

Salad, Version Two:

I made this after making bagna cauda, of which I still had some left.

To approximate leftover bagna cauda, melt in very small pot, 2 Tbsp of olive oil with 2 anchovies and a clove of finely chopped garlic. I say melt because they should cook at a scant heat for about 8 minutes. The garlic becomes soft, not brown, and the salty fish disintegrates when stirred.

Add this to your favourite vinaigrette. No, your favourite vinaigrette does not come ready-made out of a bottle, not even if the bottle has Paul Newman (may-he-live-forever)'s face on it. Use sherry vinegar. It's nice.

4 parts oil (EV olive or walnut)

1 part vinegar

And dissolve your pinches of sugar and salt in the vinegar before adding the oil. They can't dissolve in oil. Cracked pepper can be added any time. It will never dissolve. Ever.

Toss the leaves you have (arugula, flat parsley, frisee) in the anchovied vinaigrette and pile on top of your chicken breast. Which could also be a veal chop.

In my dreams.

Tomato stuffed with chanterelles

2010-08-22T16:44:00.000-04:00

This was the other day's tomato, at Union Square. I bought it. It became my tomato. Last night I sliced its top off and scooped out its insides, which tasted very good. I reserved most of them, and lots of juice for Tomatinis.

I bought a punnet of chanterelles from an uncommunicative dude in black leather and shiny sunglasses who had an ice chest full of them.

When I tipped them out of their brown paper bag, at home, this walked out of their accompanying pine needles:

Spiders for supper. My favourite.

After I'd calmed down I chopped some scallions/green onions, parsley, and cubes of slab bacon I had baked last weekend, Hussar-style (long story), and sauteed that these along with about a quarter of the tomato's insides. In went the sliced chanterelles. Then added some basmati rice cooked in chicken stock with a squeeze of lemon and tiny bit of brown sugar. I stuffed all that, with chopped terrace parsley, into the empty tomato. Baked for about 3/4's of an hour at 350'F adding a little red wine now and then.

Steak

2010-08-21T15:09:00.008-04:00

Porterhouse or T-Bone:

I am something of a steak snob. Which means I don't eat steak very often. At all. When I do buy it, it's usually a porterhouse, well-aged, and cut to order at about 3" (Yess'm, that's three inches) thick. It will cost about the same as a miniature dachshund puppy. No, really, it will be anywhere between $50 and $70 depending on provenance. Which is why I don't eat steak often. It will feed two very easily with leftovers, and three happily and four if you're polite.

And then I will fix it (hey, I'm in America) in the fancy steak house way that spawned my love of sliced-to-order beef with melted butter poured on top (the other reason I don't eat steak often: I will die, fast):

The steak should be at room temperature when you cook it.

First, a liberal salting on each side of the steak for about half an hour before cooking (this may sound like heresy, but because it draws out the juice, said juice forms a crust very quickly when heat is sensed).

Second, a searing, searing, smoking-hot cast iron pan (no oil needed, this mamma is fat-marbled). Do not put the steak in the pan until it is blazing hot, because this needs to happen quickly. A minute on each side. Do not fiddle, just leave it there. Lots of smoke. Get the extractors or a draft going. Switch off the smoke alarm (remember to switch it on again).

Third, into the oven at the highest heat you have persuaded it to reach well in advance, in the 550'F/440'C range for...about 10 minutes.

The pan: it must be heavy, preferably cast iron. A thin pan cannot retain the heat required to do this at home.

And protect your hands. That pan handle, when you remove it from the oven, is going to be the hottest thing you ever laid hands on. I use a dry (damp and you're looking at the emergency room or a shattered pan or a broken floor or foot) dishcloth folded onto itself four times so it's thick. Oven mitts are no good.

To test for doneness: Prod it in the middle, firmly, with your finger. It should be resistant, but slightly yielding for medium rare.

It's best to practise with smaller, cheaper steaks, until you get the feel for it. Or spread your one hand widely, palm up. With the index finger of the other hand prod the meat of your outstretched palm beneath your thumb. Now relax the stretched hand. Prod again. First was firmish, second was soft. You want something inbetween for medium rare. The steak will be dark brown with black bits on the outside.

You can also start a big steak on a well-ashed fire, and finish it in the oven, for that nice primitive taste.

Once rested (this is ESSENTIAL. Do not skip this part: at least 10 minutes, under tented foil, which allows some steam to escape) and the juices are back where they belong, each side is then carved from the bone into thick hunks and everyone gets a piece or pieces of each. And the juice.

I did this with some huge, allegedly aged steaks in Cape Town one year, purchased at the butchery at Pick 'n Pay Constantia, as a ritualistic Introducing-the-Husband-to-be-to-the-Brothers-Over-Charred-Meat. Total flop. The brother that showed up was fine with the husband to be and vice versa, they both fly things, after all, so what's not to like, but the steak?

Tougher'n leather. Not aged. At all. And the other brother? AWOL. (He remedied this six months ago.)

So here's an economical steak to start things off:

Chuck Round:

At Los Paisanos on Smith Street in Brooklyn, looking at the meat counter and deciding that $14.99/lb lamb rib chops were not for me, I see something that looks a little like a good steak. Not on the bone, a bit like a New York Strip. They were marbly, and really thick, about 2". I asked for two and when they had been weighed was asked to pay...$11. For two. Together.

I carried them home feeling as though I was about to be cheated. Maybe they were for stewing.

So, up there is one of my steaks, plus an illustration of what happens to spinach after it has been thoroughly wilted. That bunch made that ball. And below are my mizuna and arugula flowers sauteing with some butter and garlic.

I almost never cook with butter. It's fun. Your life flashes before your eyes.

The steak:

Same treatment, salt on each side, bloody hot pan, but no oven, as this steak was small. I cooked it about 3 minutes to a side. If a lot of fat spatters I tend to put a lid over it, and if you do be aware that it will cook much faster. I let it rest for five minutes then poured over my herbed butter (terrace thyme, parsley, oregano and lemon juice - it cooked a little too long till the herbs were caramelized) and sliced. Medium-rare and tender. I nearly wept.

Muisbosskerm

2010-08-18T18:24:00.001-04:00

This was written originally for 66 Square Feet, but it bears repeating as a food event on this blog:

Muisbos (lit. mouse bush) is a shrub that grows on the West Coast. I think it is Lycium, but what species? Box thorn in English. Muisbosskerm, the West Coast institution, has walls made of dry muisbos, and a great sandy space inside where huge fireplaces cook fish, crayfish, skilpadjies (little tortoises) and pofadders (puffadders). More about those later. Don't worry. It'll be OK.

Muisbosskerm is right on the beach and has no neighbours. It's just the sand and the sea. You are warned in their online literature and publicity leaflets, which blanket Lambert's Bay, to be prepared to spend 3 hours at dinner. But we were actually whizzed through the whole process in just over an hour. Far too fast given the variety of foods we ate. A little contemplation of each plate would have been a good thing, instead of being hustled like a foie gras goose from course to course. All we needed was the funnel down our throats.

We took our last bottle of chilled Prosecco with us. South Africa has a long standing and liberal attitude towards BYOB. Muisbos has cottoned on to corkage though, which is fine, given the wine choices on offer. We sat, a little chilly, at a picnic table outside above the beach, beside two Afrikaans couples tucking into their brandies and cokes, and puffing away on a relay of cigarettes. From the other side of the stoep came American voices. Caught between my worlds.

We popped our cork into the sunset and felt good, drinking the bubbly grape juice, and toasting our escape from the hell of the Lambert's Bay camp site.

This was our only moment of repose.

If things had happened more slowly, I would have tasted everything, but as it was, we were rushed from dish to dish and I could not bear to clutter my plates with too many ill-matching tidbits, so I edited, severely, and came away very happy with what looked like the starring items.

In an old mud oven the most delicious bread is baked. It is, in my life of eating, one of the best things I have ever eaten. I ate it here a long time ago, with my parents, and it was just as good now, eaten West Coast style for supper with konfyt, jam. Green fig preserves, moskonfyt (made from grapes), and apricot jam. The bread is slipped right from its baking tins onto the cutting board and covered with a clean white cloth. It's like something from a nineteenth century novel.

Steam rises as it is sliced. I could have eaten nothing more and been very happy. I think I ate 3 slices. Um...editing, yes.

Back in the day crayfish was part of the menu. This is kreef coast, after all. Now it is an add on. You want crayfish you pay extra. So we shared one. It was good, and about a quarter of the size of the one we would have the next night, at Paternoster, straight off a boat.

A friendly old man was the fish braaier that night, and he had one lady assisting him, though she dealt mainly with the bread and buffet table, and the bredies (which I was too stuffed to look at). I asked him the names of the fish on the braai and should have talked to him more, but felt shy. They must be so tourist-weary. We ate kabeljou, angelfish, snoek and I think he said stumpnose, which is more unusual. The angelfish was basted with apricot jam and lemon juce, another Cape tradition.

We ate with mussel shells as implements.

I was replete, at this point, but Vincent was brave and opted for the unmentionables.

Skilpadjies is netvet (caulfat) wrapped around lambs' liver. Pofadder, as our neighbour tried to explain to us, well into his third brandy and coke (also known as a swartvarkie - little black pig) was meat-stuffed grootderm (large intestine, I maintained), which he translated as "the pipe what goes into the stomach." I still say it's the pipe what leaves the stomach, but you get the drift...I had a bite of each and they were not bad, but when I start eating offal I need to know a lot about it, and I felt we had not been properly introduced.

Dessert was koeksisters, predictably, and indifferent coffee. Also sliced watermelon, which was rather nice.

What really bothered me at the end of the evening were the four overstuffed trash bags filled with styrofoam plates. Each course warranted a different plate and all these plates are thrown away at the end of each meal! Ours was a modest group that night. I hate to think of how many bags are generated by a full house. Twice a day. It's unnecessary, and almost wanton.

Cheap enamel plates would preserve tradition and atmosphere and create some extra work for someone who could do with the dishwashing money.

It is a tourist mill, to be sure, but it is well done. The fish is beautifully cooked and attention-holding and I would send people there and would go back myself...and the setting is beautiful.

Take your own plates.

Peach and almond cake

2010-08-08T22:19:00.014-04:00

I like baking. Despite a not-very-sweet-tooth, the mixing and pouring and measuring is satisfying, and of course, everyone becomes your best friend when you have fresh, real cake...

Reminds me, Charne (Shar-nay) Human and the chocolate cake. Charne had big blue sad eyes and gold hoop earrings before anyone had pierced ears.We were little together at St Michael's in Bloemfontein. She was really Janine Oberholzer's best friend (the best friend business has always flummoxed me - if you have a best friend, then what are your other friends? Not Quite Good Enough?). So all my friends are best friends. Or perhaps I secretly have best friends, but don't tell them, in case I'm not their best friend...the horror.

Charne came over to play a few times. My mom bought us a boxed cake mix to bake every time. Then one day Charne rang the doorbell, escorted by her mother, as usual. At the door I confessed, We don't have cake today! And Charne turned on her heel and marched back up the the garden path and through the big doors in the high white wall, and out of my playing life.

Maybe Janine Oberholzer had more consistent cake. She and Charne remained inseparable.

This cake is Nigel Slater's. I read about it on a blog last week and for the life of me I cannot remember where. The photograph made me hungry. So if this sounds familiar, please let me know. I followed the link to The Observer where Nigel Slater's recipe appears. He calls it a cake for midsummer.

I used castor (superfine) sugar and a hand whisk, as I have no electric mixer. In Brooklyn you are not allowed to have electric mixers, and in fact a churn is perferred for making your own butter from the cow on your roof.

As I say, I whisked, and everything was fine. I omitted the orange zest.

I folded in the very last handful of terrace blueberries and used dripping sweet yellow peaches from the market.

There is a lot of butter...Stick and a half.

175g/6 oz butter
175g/6 oz sugar
200g/7 oz ripe peaches
2 large eggs
175g/6 oz self-raising flour
100g/4 oz ground almonds
a few drops of vanilla extract
150g/5 oz blueberries

Heat the oven to 160'C/320'F.

Peel, stone and roughly chop the peaches. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs and add, a little at a time, to the creamed butter and sugar. If the mixture separates, stir in a tablespoon of the flour.

Mix the flour and almonds together and fold in, in two or three separate additions. Add the vanilla, and at last, add the chopped peaches and blueberries. The mixture will be quite firm by this time.

Scrape the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Test with a skewer – if it comes out clean, then the cake is done. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the tin then loosen the edges, tip out and cool.

I dare you to wait until it is cool. You won't be able to.

This is divine. Truly. Moist, pillowy, luscious, light (in feel, certainly not in calories), with a slightly, ever so slightly sticky crust. I am smitten.

There will be more.

Muffins

2010-08-02T14:16:00.007-04:00

When I left South Africa my mother gave me a handwritten recipe book containing many of the recipes with which I had grown up. Colonel Bird's beef, lamb a la Adkins, Spicy Lamb Shanks from Ouma, Canary pudding, many more...and basic muffins.

Basic muffins were what I wanted to bake for a Sunday breakfast, but I had no eggs (or so I thought...they were lurking at the back). Nor enough flour. But I had self raising flour and plenty of butter, so basic muffins became more basic, and I am very pleased with the results.

2 cups self raising flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk, plus a little more

Combine dry ingredients and whisk the melted butter and milk into them until all the flour has been incorporated. You may have to add some additional milk to get a loose, but sticky dough consistency.

Grease a muffin tray and fill with mixture to 2/3 of the way up each cup. This made 7 muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes at 350'F/180'C till lightly golden and coming away from the edges of the pan. Remove the tray from oven, loosen each muffin with a blunt knife, and slide out and into a napkin-covered bowl or basket. Eat warm.

One variation is to spoon a little batter into each muffin cup, add a tablespoon or less of jam, cover with more batter, and bake. It will bubble up a little, but is a nice surprise for unsuspecting persons who do not think there will be jam inside their muffins.

Another is to put a spoon of honey into the bottom of each cup, and add a strip of orange zest. Top with muffin batter.

I used to whip up the original basic muffins to take to the beach for afternoon tea with friends when I was at university. The tea came out of pots of course, and we drank it from China cups.

Tomato and bread salad

2010-08-01T18:48:00.000-04:00

You need:

Enough ripe tomato, chunked
Yesterday's baguette, in cubes or torn pieces
Two kinds of basil from your terrace or garden or windowsill or market or CSA box or store or neighbour or...?
Good vinegar
Good olive oil
Salt, sugar, pepper

In the bottom of the bowl, put the bread, then the tomato. Ratio of about one third bread to two thirds tomato. Shake some vinegar (I used sherry) over the top; sprinkle a little sugar, more salt, lots of pepper. Dribble some oil. Set aside, covered, for an hour or so. Then tear up some basil leaves and toss over the top, and drizzle a little more oil.

The bread soaks up the delicious juices. This is a wonderful summer salad. Bizarrely, it works very well with nectarines, too. Picture to follow.

Lamb shoulder chops

2010-07-27T12:25:00.005-04:00

I rarely buy lamb loin chops in the States because they are very expensive, anywhere between $14 and$20/lb. Recently I found good shoulder chops at Union Market, priced at $7/lb. They are cut thick, which I like, and are fattier than I would like (grain fed lambs, if you ask me), but my love of lamb is such that they come home with me in a nice paper bag.

Grilled lamb chops:

As many chops as you and yours would like to eat
A cup of herbs: I used summer savoury in quantity, and added common thyme
A lemons' juice per 4 chops
Salt and pepper
A sprinkle of brown sugar, about 1 teaspoon

An hour before cooking squeeze the lemon juice over the meat and add salt, sugar and pepper. Turn the broiler on full and wait till it is blazing hot.

In a cast iron pan or heavy duty baking tray, lay the chops on top of your herb collection. Put under the broiler until they start to colour black at the edges and flip. It will take about 20 minutes, depending on the heat and thickness of the meat.

An alternate way is to sear them in a smoking skillet (and it must be smoking: heat it for many minutes before adding the chops) for a minute on each side and then to pop them in the oven at 450'-500'F for about 10 minutes.

Then let them rest, covered loosely in tented foil. It must be loose to allow steam to escape or they will sweat in a little lamb sauna. Allow ten minutes of resting and then serve. They will be that much more tender for the wait.

I cut up some baguette and fried the slices in the lamb juices while the meat was resting.

We only live once.

Cold carrot soup

2010-07-24T12:48:00.006-04:00

New York summer. Sticky, clingy, clammy.

This is one of the most refreshing and reassuring soups I have had in a long time. The idea is a memory of a soup from Alice Wooledge-Salmon's out-of-print and wonderful 1987 House and Garden Cookbook, in my mom's bookcase in her Cape Town kitchen. All I remembered was carrots, buttermilk, and a hint of North Africa.

Don't use young carrots. Big, mature carrots are sweeter.

Makes 1 jugful, or 6 helpings.

Olive oil
3 big carrots, peeled and roughly chopped (yield = about 3 cups)
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, squashed
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup (plus) buttermilk
Squeeze of lemon juice

Saute the carrot, onions and garlic gently until the onion is golden. About 5 minutes. Add the powdered spices and stir to toast. Add the stock* and cook until the carrot pieces are just tender. Cool. Whizz till smooth in a blender and then add the buttermilk. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste, about 1 tablespoonful.

Chill thoroughly and serve with an edible garnish of fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves.

This is also wonderful sipped from a glass, at any time of day or night. It also scares the boogie men away. Carrots terrify them.

*Variation: add the juice of large orange - about 150ml, when you add the stock.

Surprisingly, this can be served warm. In which case do not allow it to boil or the buttermilk will separate.

Pigweed crostini

2010-07-17T20:24:00.005-04:00

I've had my eye on a rudely healthy pigweed plant growing with the Abraham Darby rose. I snap its stems off every now and then, and they're back in a week.

Today I cooked them.

1 1/2 cups of leaves, washed, stripped from stems
1/4 of an onion very finely chopped
1 slice of good bread
1 clove of garlic

Saute the onion until darkly golden and add the weed leaves. Put a lid on to help the leaves steam. After a couple of minutes stir the leaves to coat with oil and test for doneness. In other words, eat one. Toast some very good seedy bread, rub it with garlic, and top it with the greens.

Pigweed is Amaranthus retroflexus. I nibbled on the seeds, too, raw, and they were very pleasant.

I would eat more if I had more, and there is no reason why this unwanted plant should not join the recognized ranks of Western vegetables.

Cold cucumber soup

2010-07-06T13:22:00.011-04:00

In the grips of a mega-heatwave with air quality alerts and heat advisories and air conditioners cranked to the max, and ironed-out cats and sweating husbands...

...you make cold cucumber soup to calm everybody down.

As to consistency, your eyes and tongue will tell you when the consistency is the way you like it. A lot depends on the size and juiciness of the cucumbers and the yogurt you use, so you may want to adjust quantities and add more or less stock: This is like vichyssoise, thick, but liquid...

Cold Cucumber soup: Makes one big jugful.

2 Medium cucumbers, about 10" long, peeled, seeded, chopped.
2 cloves of garlic, crushed with salt
3 scallions, white parts chopped
Small handful of fresh mint leaves
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 cup thick plain yogurt
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 cup cool chicken stock

Whizz this all in batches in a blender till smooth then taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Chill it thoroughly in the fridge. I serve it from a thin ceramic jug, into glasses.

I could see substituting the cream and yogurt with buttermilk, too.

And there is another way: Cucumber, yogurt, garlic, whizz. The result is austere but refreshing...

It beats the heat.

Potbrood

2010-06-28T14:57:00.010-04:00

Potbrood at Glen Reenen Rest Camp, 2010.

There is no easier recipe: it comes from the 2009 go! magazine camping booklet.

500 grams self-raising flour
340 ml (1 can) of beer or 340 ml Longlife or ordinary milk (I prefer the milk if the bread is for breakfast!)
pinch of salt

Mix the liquid into the flour and salt until you have firmish dough. Knead it once or twice to form a nice ball. Put it into a greased flat bottomed potjie (cast iron pot with lid) - or similar. Make sure it really is cast iron. I destroyed my mother's pot on my first attempt. It cracked and the lid handle melted!

Potbrood baking at Cape Columbine Nature Reserve, 2009

I surround the potjie with glowing coals (usually after I have cooked the main event), and I put more coals on the lid of the potjie, to mimic an oven's heat. After about 45 minutes I peek inside. The bread should have a golden crust and sound hollow when thumped. It's ready. Remove, wrap in cloth, and when cool you can wrap it in plastic or foil. If you still use such things (I do).

Potbrood in the Kgalagadi, 2009.

Naturally this bread is at its most delicious when warm, though the next day it is good, too, if firm. Any later than that and it could be used as cultural weapon or wheel chock.

Apricot jam - Mrs Robertson's

2010-06-23T13:33:00.002-04:00

I don't like jam that is too sweet. And I do like jam for breakfast, on a piece of toast, or fresh baguette, or soft croissant. With proper coffee, and a Frenchman. Yum.

Mrs Robertson was a very old lady when I knew her, as a little girl, with short, waved white hair, and a noble, hooked nose. She was tall and angular. I think she must have been formidable. My mother took communion to her at the old age home where she lived because she couldn't get to the cathedral, in Bloemfontein. She was one of my mom's "old ladies".

And this is her jam, as written by my mom; it is very good:

First make sure you have slightly under-ripe apricots.
For 1 lb of fruit you need 3/4lb sugar [for 5 lbs of fruit I used 3 3/4lb sugar].
Stone the fruit. Keep some stones to add their kernels later.
Keep in halves or cut in quarters.
Put in bowl [or pot you will cook in] and pour the sugar over. Cover and leave overnight.
Next day, the sugar will have drawn the juice out.
Stir gently. Cook at medium heat until sugar has dissolved [and the jam is lightly bubbling].
[Skim off the scum that will rize to the surface. There may be a lot.]
Add the juice of a lemon [I added two], to help it set.
Crack some of the stones and blanch the kernels.
These "nuts" are added just before the jam is ready.
It is ready when two drops, instead of one, form on the edge of a spoon.
[My 5lbs of fruit made 7 big jars of jam]

Sterilize the jars beforehand by putting them in a 300'F oven for 20 minutes. When the jars and jam are cool pour into the jars and pour a little whiskey or brandy on top [a very little - and I soak my lids in whiskey or brandy or...see below]. Cut out wax paper circles and soak them in the whisky or brandy, too, and close lids with papers between jar and lid.

Taking hot sterilized jar from oven.

So I used Tequila for the lids. It's the 40% proof that matters!

This is how the apricots look after an overnight sugar bath. There is no water. That is just juice.

After coming to the boil a lot of scum rises. Skim it all off. Test the jam often with a spoon dipped in and held sideways. At first the drips will pour off in a single stream. Later they will be a little slower and two drips will form at each side (one drip per side) and travel to the middle. Then it's ready. Whip it off the heat. Overcooked jam has a sweeter, less fruity taste.

Cooling, after the kernels have been added. They add a slightly bitter taste, almost imperceptible. Cyanide, yum.

Bottled.

Bottled...

Mulberry pies

2010-06-13T16:09:00.000-04:00

This pastry was always employed in the making of apple pie in our house. A lady named Molly Bolt gave her recipe to my mother in Bloemfontein, circa 1960's, I think. It employed margarine!

I never met Molly Bolt, but her pastry lives on.

This pastry does not need to rest, and is very forgiving and versatile. I use it for pies small and large, in a spring form cake tin, or individual muffin trays, or simply as a flat disk cooked on a baking sheet. The pastry does not have to be baked blind.

175 gr/6 oz butter
75 gr/2.5 oz sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
300 grams/ 10.5 oz flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt

Beat the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the egg. Beat again. Gradually beat in the flour, baking powder and salt. Roll out thinly. Line the bottom and sides of a greased, spring form cake tin [or individual slots in a muffin pan in the case of the mulberry tarts], add cooled filling, cut out a pastry disk to cover, crimp the edges in the way you know best, make two slits for steam, and bake in a 350'F/180'C oven till pale golden and crisp. Baking time varies. For a large tart, like apple, about forty-five minutes. For small mulberry pies, check after fifteen minutes.

Mulberry filling for small pies - makes about 8 muffin tray-sized pies, or one large pie.

2 cups mulberries, stalks removed
1/4 cup raspberries or Juneberries
2 Tbps sugar

Heat the fruit and sugar in a pan till juice starts to flow, cook till fruit is just soft, then remove from pan with slotted spoon. Cook juice till syrupy (adding collected juice from the bowl where the berries are sitting). Add syrup to berries and cool. Use as filling or topping for closed or open tarts using Molly Bolt's pastry.

Waldorf salad with chicken

2010-06-11T17:58:00.006-04:00

We're just out of Waldorfs...

...says an insouciant Basil Fawlty to the Loud American, who is demanding a Waldorf Salad.

Lest we forget the good things that the US of A has given the world, a small reminder: Waldorf Salad.

It was a main feature of a picnic we would have annually at Dias Beach at Cape Point outside Cape Town. The rest of the menu, for a brunch, featured unvaryingly: small smoked salmon sandwiches on brown bread without crusts, tiny pork sausages, grilled, with grain mustard for dipping; fresh scones with home made strawberry jam inside (! the convenience! - and in January my friend Fran reminded me that I used to whip these scones up so that our pack of friends could enjoy tea, out of teapots and China cups, on Clifton Beach); and the fixings for Buck's Fizz, here known as Mimosas. Champagne (domestic warkling spine, in those days) and orange juice. Plus flutes to drink from. I There was also hot coffee, in flasks.

This was all packed into many baskets and off we would go in the Kombi, with the Collins' in tow, usually, or other good friends. The Corbets, the Van Heerdens. Some of whom are not with us anymore. There had to be many people so that the picnic luggage had a proper train to carry it down the long cliff-top path and the sudden, steep descent to the empty, cormorant-populated beach, white-smooth with the black birds scattering in formation from it as we arrived, and pounded by dangerous blue breakers.

There is a boardwalk above Dias Beach now, and baboon minders with catapults to scare off the marauding primates. But a few years ago we repeated the picnic with the Collins' again, fresh from London; the small girls now grown and beautiful women, me no longer a paralysed teenager. All of us older, the menu the same as ever, the beach as empty.

So, this Waldorf salad is a take on a recipe I read a million years ago in Cape Town, in a moth-eaten Gourmet or Bon Appetit, per the Cafe des Artistes (shuttered after the summer of 2009) on the Upper West Side.

I read it never guessing I would live in this city, or eat at that restaurant. It adds chicken to the original formula. Real Waldorf salad has no chicken in it.

This is mine and it is retrolicious:

One poached chicken breast (I used leftovers from a roast chicken), cut into bite-sized chunks
3 ribs celery, unstrung (...) and sliced thinly
one apple diced
a handful of fresh pecans
two tablespoons mayonnaise
a shake of sherry vinegar
some salt, pepper

Combine everything in a bowl and toss with your lily white or chocolate brown hands. Either lick or wash them clean. That's it.

Snip some chives over the top for green dusting.

Fish cakes

2010-06-07T01:04:00.003-04:00

26 May 2008

I like fish cakes. And I like smoked fish.

For about 6 fishcakes, you'll need:

2 smoked trout fillets (or mackerel, or snoek, or angelfish)

2 slices white bread, no crusts, soaked in milk and squeezed out lightly

2 very small potatoes, cooked and cut into cubish things

2 spring onions (scallions) finely sliced

1 very finely diced shallot

a strip of ancho chile, soaked, about 4" x 1" (yeah, I know) and thinly sliced

juice of a small lime or lemon

1 heaping tablespoon thick plain yogurt, preferably Greek

In a bowl put the trout, which you have removed from the skin and flaked, plus all the other ingredients. Mix with a fork. Because the trout is smoked you will probably not need to add salt, but taste in case ...

Pour some flour onto a plate. Form fish mixture into round cakes, coating each one with flour as you go. Put aside on a clean plate and chill them for a little while to firm up.

To finish the fishcakes, fry them in a little olive oil over medium heat, about 4 minutes to a side till golden and crispy on the outside. Turn once.

I also used Mrs Ball's chutney as a condiment. See if you can find it. It is incomparable.

I like a mango, avocado, cilantro-ish salad to go with this.

Punch

2010-06-02T13:57:00.003-04:00

Warm weather. Long, cool drinks.

A bottle of decent but inexpensive German Riesling, off-dry, chilled.
A cup and a half of Paul Newman's Virgin Lemonade, chilled
A cup of bergamot-scented (I used Ahmad Afternoon, but Earl Grey will do) tea, cooled with ice cubes and sweetened
3 sprigs of mint, lightly bruised
3 slices of lemon
2 slices pineapple
Ice

Stir together and pour.

Vinegary potato salad with dill and scallions

2010-05-30T19:33:00.006-04:00

An English artist once made this for me, and it is now a summer staple. The vinegar works surprisingly well with the strongly flavoured dill and green onions. Add the dressing while the potatoes are still warm, but not hot. Hot makes them mushy.

2 pounds small red-skinned potatoes, halved

1/4 cup good cider vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

copious amounts of black pepper

1/3 cup EV olive oil

1 bunch scallions, cleaned and chopped (greens, too)

1 bunch fresh dill, chopped (yield = 3/4 cup)

Cook the potatoes in boiling water to which you've added some salt. While they are cooking thoroughly whisk together the vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper and oil. Drain potatoes when just-cooked.In a large bowl add the dressing to the hot potatoes and stir gently. Add the dill and scallions and mix well. I use my hands in order not to break the potatoes too much. Lick fingers. This is good now, warm or later, cold.

Salade Niçoise

2010-05-25T22:18:00.003-04:00

Of course I should have tossed the greens and vegetables in the vinaigrette first and so avoided the sloppy snail trail of dressing over the beans. Oh well.

I found that the yellow-label cans of tuna, Cento brand, dolphin safe and packed in olive oil, cost $2.50 at Sahadi's. That's pretty unbelievable. At Wholefoods they are double. And tuna in water is just...horrible. Eat the real thing or not at all.

This Niçoise was composed of beetroot cut into battons, blanched green beans, cherry tomatoes cut in half, arugula, romaine, chives, a soft hardboiled egg in quarters, and the tuna. Vinaigrette was a splash of sherry vinegar, sugar and salt dissolved in it, splash of cream, then some olive oil: about 4 parts other ingredients to one of vinegar.

I always have cans of tuna on olive oil in stock, and always leaves. The rest is pretty much up to what you have, and feel like.

Scrambled eggs

2010-05-24T14:04:00.004-04:00

I used to hate scrambled eggs. I swear I remember sitting in the old breakfast nook at 54 Paul Roux Street - it was the 70's: picture orange and brown and formica - and not being enticed by flying spoonsful of pale, wobbly scrambled eggs going, Wheeeeh into the hanger, which remained firmly shut. I trusted my mother but she was just wrong about scrambled eggs.

They were not food.

The first time I remember eating them voluntarily and with anything approximating pleasure, was on the patio in Constantia, in winter, and I was in my early 20's. It was one of those sparkly blue Cape Town days with the poplars bare in the greenbelt, and the garden very green. Bevan was there, wearing a Panama hat, and so was Marylynn, in sunglasses and hat, and Frederic, and my mother and father. I don't remember the occasion. It may have been post my flight from Alexandria, VA. There is a picture of me with long hair just cut, and the black and white cat Garfunkle upright on my lap - he would soon after succumb to a Staffordshire terrier.

We had vodka, neat, frozen in a hunk of ice, to drink from shotglasses, and there was a salad of rocket leaves and orange slices, and then there were scrambled eggs, with smoked salmon on the side. I remember the two heavy pans of eggs being rushed to the table outside, and being told by my mother to eat them at once. They were a revelation: creamy, only just set, delicate, moist.

I'm sure the vodka helped.

And that is the thing. To eat them at once, and to cook them until they are barely done, and to refrain from molesting them in the pan.

Two things will tell you about a restaurant: salad, and eggs. I adore salad, I adore eggs; and the number of times both are violated is astonishing. But that is another story.

I made one batch in Vancouver for Vince, and erred in fiddling with the eggs: Stir, stir. This broke them up and made them very sloppy. The second time, I lowered the heat, poured the 6 eggs and splash of milk, beaten, into the buttery pan in which some transparent slices of garlic had turned soft, and waited. When the sides turned pale I slowly lifted them and allowed the uncooked mixture from the middle to run underneath, and so on until they were au point. Then I added some fine parmesan and chopped spring onions (scallions), and tipped them onto waiting slices of ciabatta, rubbed down with a garlic clove. And then we ate them at once.

And this is how Vince likes his butter. With some bread.

We didn't even need the vodka...

Spring Minestrone

2010-05-24T08:20:00.001-04:00

I concocted this recipe for Food 52's Best Minestrone or Best Pistou recipe.

Big, hearty minestrones are the stuff of cold winter nights. In late spring, I lighten up this comfort dish with fresh fava beans, peas and green garlic, topping it with a light goat cheese and green pea pistou, bright with mint.
Serves 4

Green Pea Pistou:

1 cup cooked green peas
2.5 ounces soft, white goat cheese
3 sprigs fresh mint, stalks removed
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

In a food processor combine all the ingredients and whizz till just smooth.
Taste, adjust seasoning, and keep aside in a bowl.

Late Spring Minestrone:

4 slices of pancetta
1 shallot, finely chopped
3 scallions, whites and greens chopped
1 green garlic bulb, chopped, reserve the greens
2 cups shelled fava beans, very roughly chopped
1 cup shelled green peas
4 cups chicken broth
1 bunch fresh mint
2 teaspoons sugar
salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan, cook the pancetta till the fat starts to run. Add the shallot, scallions and chopped garlic.
When the onion turns translucent add the beans and peas. Stir.
Add the chicken stock, sugar and the bunch of mint.
After five minutes at simmer add the chopped greens of the green garlic.
After another five minutes test to see if the beans are cooked.
If they are, add salt if you need it, as well as the lemon juice (Adding the acidic juice earlier will toughen their skins).
Add 3 Tbsp of the green pea pistou and stir into the soup.
Serve into bowls and top with a dollop of bright green pistou.

Mangoes

2010-05-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

The amazing, fluctuating mangoes:

At the New Green Pea (whose orange awning actually says Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable), and where I shop almost every day, something interesting has been happening to the mangoes. they are making like yo-yos.

I like mangoes, especially these curved ones. They are perfect for dessert, and I've even served them at dinner parties, after something rich as a main course; a fruit, a knife and pretty plate, and a bowl of warm water. If you want to be less blunt, cut them up into a pretty bowl and squeeze some lime juice and sprinkle a little brown sugar over them.

The cat likes them, too, and will beg for pieces. And I don't like paying over dollar for one, so when the price dropped just below the other day, I took notice, and bought six.

Then they dropped to 69c! This is unusual. But I still had some at home and thought I'd come back in few days.

But look! After day or two they'd doubled.

I noticed a dozen boxes of greenish mangoes in the back, so I'm pretty sure we're going to see another drop when those all ripen at once. And then I will swoop.

Update: so today they were down to 89c and I swooped. But the boxes of green ones are priced at $1.49 each, and come from Haiti. I'm surprised anything is coming from Haiti at the moment.

Pork shoulder with anchos and orange

2010-05-21T15:21:00.001-04:00

6 May 2008

Eric had five helpings. He may have had six. It's a bit like War and Peace. I can't remember whether I've read it six times. It may be five or it may be seven. If I read it first in 1994, and it's fourteen years later, once every couple of years...it could be seven. Or six, since I could almost read it again. The point is, after the fourth time, does it matter? I kept telling him he'd be sick, but was very happy to keep spooning out meaty pieces from the large clay bowl where the pig, long fallen from its bones, was lying in the dark sauce of ancho, tomato, caramelized onion, Turkish dark pepper, lime, orange, thyme, brown sugar, pepper. With full-fat, organic sour cream to grace its rich, sweet, peppery corners, it was a bowl of very delicious pork.

The idea (pig/orange/tomato combo) came originally from Diana Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking. Then I winged it.

The night before:

One pork shoulder, skinned and slashed deeply (2")
5 tomatoes, broiled till black (8-10 mins. -it sweetens them), keep skins on
2 yellow onions, quartered
Half a head of garlic, cloves peeled and flattened
One orange, juice squeezed and pulp reserved
2 limes, juice squeezed
Two ancho chiles, soaked, stalks removed, keep seeds
3 Tbsp brown sugar
I also sprinkled over 2 Tbsp of dark red Turkish chile (sweet, salty) bought in the bazaar in Istanbul. I don't know where one could find it, here.
salt, pepper
5 stalks thyme

In a deep roasting dish, season surface of slashed pig with salt and pepper and all the sugar, put tomatoes whole on top of shoulder and squash down till thickly pulped. Pour orange and lime juice over, and add any orange pulp. Scatter onion, garlic, ancho and thyme all about the pan. Cover and put in fridge overnight to get acquainted.

Next morning, assuming you're eating the pig that night, put, covered with foil or lid, into a 250'F (approx, 120'C). Go out to work, if that's what you do. Worry not.

Come back at about 6pm and uncover your pig. You will find that she/he has fallen from the bones and is in no way suitable for finishing on the BBQ, as you had intended. In this case a perforated pizza tray will come in handy. Transfer pig carefully to tray, taking care to have a mat/tray of foil beneath, for any drips. Pour the significant amount of cooking liquid into a saucepan and reduce until you have about two cups. You may want to add some lime juice or salt or sugar, or another ancho. Make sure there are no stray bones lurking. If you have a blender, blend the sauce till smooth and return to heat to keep warm. I don't so I didn't. Meantime place pig, and perforated pizza tray, covered to keep pig from feeling dry, on grey coals for about half an hour to get that nice, special, fire-taste. Remove, lift meat from any remaining bones, place into a deep dish, and pour over the sauce. Serve in bowls, with sour cream.

Eric said that this is better than the Ginger Ale pig. Mimi looked shocked. It's pretty good, anyhow, and the BBQ effect unnecessary, just fun.

Preceed with guacamole, accompany with margaritas and follow with mangoes.

Three parts tequila, three parts fresh lime juice, two parts Cointreau. Shaken like the blazes with plenty of ice. Poured.

A dessert's detritus...

Watermelon and feta salad

2010-05-21T15:14:00.000-04:00

19 June 2008

For a summer evening: and this should not wait around. Though the juice that accumulates is pretty delicious...

Equal parts, chunks of: watermelon, cucumber, feta

Optional: red onion, sliced thinly, radish, basil

A light dressing of red wine vinegar, into which a dash of salt and sugar are dissolved, black pepper, the teeniest slosh of EV olive oil, though I prefer none, in this case.

Soapbox: a lot depends on the feta. I went through every feta I could find in South Africa, becoming more rancorous with each rejected bite. They were chalky, dry, blegh.

I want feta to be firm, but creamy; crumbly, but creamy; salty, but creamy...Sahadi's French feta has spoiled me for life.

Pork ribs with orange and raisins

2010-05-21T14:22:00.000-04:00

14 June 2008

I wanted to recreate in Vancouver the shoulder of pork I made for Cinco de Mayo here in Brooklyn, but the local purveyor could provide only ribs. So be it. I like ribs. Really, the pig was an excuse to accompany dinner with margaritas - and it is robust enough to stand up to the lime and tequila combo. After a very unhappy experience with tequila in my late teens, which involved a phantom herd of wildebeest (hi Vissie? Do you remember Pancho's in Obs??) - I swore off it for a long, long, long time.

But I'm back. It is a good drink, if it is good tequila. And if you know when to stop. And now one does...

I did not broil the tomatoes and onions first, as one should, but put everything in a dish together and cooked long in a low oven (250' F, 6 hours). The key is the onion, garlic, tomato and orange slices-plus-juice combination. I added some lime too, and in the absence of anchos (Vancouver has not heard of Mexican ingredients that do not come out of a can) I substituted 1/4 cup of hot sauce and 3 tablespoons of raisins! Worked very well, too. The recipe proper is here.

Add the blessings of sour cream and cilantro, and the margaritas, of course, and you're set.

This picture was taken about ten minutes before I tried to take another, and dropped my camera right into my dinner. When Vince and I picked ourselves up off the floor from laughing he fished it out carefully and wiped it down. No harm done.

It's quite funny seeing a camera in a bowl of pork.

Caesar Salad with pancetta for Food 52

2010-05-20T22:32:00.000-04:00

Photo: Sarah Shatz for Food 52

I'd quite forgotten that I'd entered a Caesar salad recipe for one of Food 52's competitions (the winning recipes will be published in the Food 52 cookbook) and now it's a finalist. I was more pleased with my recipes for gin-cured gravlax and spring minestrone, and so the Caesar had faded from memory. So it's awfully nice to see it photographed by Sarah Shatz...

You'll find the goods at Food 52.