Poor Man's Roast

Having a small family is sometimes a hindrance to a food blogger. With just the missus and myself, things get tricky when thinking up new ways to prepare food, given the small quantity required.

The normal way around the problem is to invite friends or family over for dinner. However, that avenue has its own dangers, not the least of which is the cost of having a weekly “Come dine with me” episode playing off in your humble abode.

After some thinking and taking into account that I am under orders not to make another stewed dish, I came up with the idea of a slow roast. This one conjures up visions of a piglet, complete with apple in the mouth and so on. My humble budget does not stretch that far and I have this suspicion that most people do not have an oven that big anyway.

So, after some more reasoning, the idea formed that one can make a roast without having to buy a whole leg or shoulder cut. Chops will do if you stack them in a solid pile. One is then able to purchase only enough for the guests in the house, as you can buy chops in individual portions. Having said this, one should realise that the stack of meat  should be sufficiently bulky to resemble a whole shoulder, for example.

In my case I opted for the cheapest lamb or mutton chops I could lay my hands on. Shoulder and leg chops will do just fine. The reasoning is that  the slow roasting process will take care of any toughness anyway.

Having decided on the process and the cuts, the world is open for deciding on the style and flavours. If you have a tagine at hand, that will work brilliantly, the lid keeping the juices inside and allowing for a slow steaming process. I do not own such equipment, so I used a ceramic baking dish of suitable size. The dish has no lid, so I just covered it with some aluminium foil. A cast iron pot or saucepan will also do, as these come with a lid.

That takes care of your cooking utensils.

As for flavours, I decided on a Persian style spicing. I like the spicy flavours, but again I am under orders to prepare some less spicy dishes. This one has a perfumed spicing, very flavourful and quite rich. It goes well with the fatty meat cuts. The recipe is adapted from the book Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour. A welcome birthday present and addition to my library from my son and his fiance.

I was not able to find all the spices listed in the recipe, so I substituted some after some discussion with my local spice merchant. The lime powder was substituted with dried citrus peel.  This dried citrus peel is of my own making, being mandarin orange and satsuma peel that I dried in the oven, then blitzed in the blender.

Edible dried rose petals are also not really a part of the local cuisine, so I substituted rose water, which most larger grocers sell here in South Africa.


Sumac was something new to me, not having heard of it before. It turns out to be ground-up berries of the Anacardiaceae family of plants in the Rhus genus. Check it out on Wikipedia and on the Spice House web site.

This dish was served with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. I kept the portions medium to small, as the meat came out very rich. You may want to make this dish when the neighbours are all at home; it will count as psychological torture! The  flavours emanating from the kitchen are really something special, as is the taste.

Spice Perfumed Poor Man's Roast

1 kg lamb/mutton shoulder or leg chops
1 heaped tablespoon sumac
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried & ground citrus peel
2 tablespoon rose water
some salt flakes
some cooking oil

Process

Mix the spices thoroughly, then add some oil to make it into a paste. Add the rose water and mix well. The spices will ensure that the rose water/oil mix does not separate. Cut the sinews and fat layers of the chops to stop them from curling up during the cooking process. Coat each piece of meat thoroughly and stack them tightly in the baking dish. Add some salt flakes between layers. Cover the dish with aluminium foil or put the lid on. Allow this to marinate for and hour or so. In this case you have lots of thin layers, so it is possible to overdo the marinating time.


Set the oven to 160°C/320°F and pop the roast in the oven for three to four hours. By this time the meat should be almost falling off the bones. No need to use a knife here, you flake the meat using two forks.

This I served with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables steamed over the boiling potatoes. A simple dish  with lots of flavour and very little work in the kitchen. It gave me time to enjoy a glass or two of red wine with the missus.

Bon appetit!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-07-29

Flavours of Africa: Oxtail And Samp

Winter arrived properly here in the Cape yesterday, along with the associated rain and cold. Today we have had some thunder and lightning already, with heavy clouds over the Helderberg.

Time for a real winter stew.

For a while now I have been thinking of traditional African stews. A search on the internet revealed very few local recipes. Those that are listed vary from having very simple ingredients to some exotic spicy versions.  Mostly the dishes are from outside of Africa.

So I decided to have yet another version. A stew with an East African slant, if you will. This means that there needs to be a hint of the Middle East in there, with some exotic flavours, but not too spicy. Having reasoned thus far, the ingredients started to settle in my mind.


Lots of cumin, smoked paprika, mixed Madagascan pepper, some garlic, a hint of cinnamon, then some sage and coriander leaves at the end. Coarse sea salt. A dollop of soy sauce. Done. To give  this dish an African flavour, I added red kidney beans as well. My reasoning was that the dish will be served with samp, the broken cooked maize kernels that are so traditional in Africa. Mixed samp and beans is quite popular too, but I decided against this as there was beans in the main dish anyway.

Samp is soaked in salt water for two to three hours prior to cooking. The kernels will soak up some water and wash off some starch. This is discarded and fresh water added for the cooking, which also takes one and a half to two hours. At the end the kernels are nicely swollen and quite chewy. To this I added a dollop of fresh cream and a knob of real butter. This makes for a rich creamy flavour to soak up all the juices from the oxtail.

Oxtail tend to be very tough and has lots of fat. You may not want all the fat in your dish, but do not despair. There is no need to cut the fat off, the process will take care of this. The beauty of oxtail is that one cooks the meat to a very gelatinous consistency, giving the dish an almost creamy texture. In this case I patted the meat quite dry, then fried the pieces in butter and cooking oil until it turned a nice toast colour of brown. The meat is done in batches to not have juices soaking up the heat and causing a cooking, rather than frying process.

The meat is then set aside to rest while you prepare the sauce. Discard the contents of the skillet, that is where most of the unwanted fat will be. This leaves the meat less fatty and nicely caramelised on the outside.

There is another angle to this dish: I made it the day before. This allowed the flavours to develop overnight. When cooking with spices, the flavours tend to be on the sharp side as a result of the frying which lets the oils out of the spices. Allowing the dish to rest will get rid of the very sharp essential oils and leave the basic flavours to marry. The meat also gains some texture, as it relaxes and is therefore a bit more tender.

On the cooking process there is much argument and debate. Some people use a pressure cooker, others like me don't. Some people will have the dish on relatively high heat, while others will use only the barest minimum. I follow the slow route. I believe that cooking any meat fast will cause some chemical changes and the meat will turn out like rubber if you are not careful. Also, I am told, the meat needs to be at room temperature before you start cooking or frying, otherwise it may go tough anyway. Oxtail specifically is quite tough and I have had some very rubbery meat served to me on the odd occasion.

Prepare your food with care and your efforts will be rewarded by the flavours.

So here goes.

East African Oxtail And Samp

Ingredients

750 g oxtail at room temperature
1 large onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped
½ cup chopped celery sticks
½ cup chopped carrot
½ cup of carrot, cut into sticks
1 small hot chilli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped and mashed
1 can whole peeled or chopped tomatoes
2 medium sized fresh tomatoes
1 sachet tomato paste
1 can red kidney beans
some coarse sea salt
some freshly ground pepper
30 ml soy sauce
1 cup strong beef stock
4 bay leaves
small piece of cinnamon bark
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
small sprig of fresh sage
sprig of fresh coriander leaves
50g butter
oil for frying
1½ cups dry samp

Process

For the oxtail

Heat up a knob of butter and a dollop of oil in a skillet. Fry the pieces of oxtail until they are nice and brown outside. Fry them in batches if needs be. They must be brown, not grey.  Set them aside to rest. Discard the juices from the skillet.

The sauce is started by heating up some butter and oil in your saucepan. Fry the onions, green pepper, celery and carrot until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic, chilli and the coriander seeds and fry for another twenty seconds. Now add all the tomato and the rest of the dry spices. Add the dollop of soy sauce and the beef stock. Bring this lot to the boil, then add the meat back in. Ensure that the meat is covered in the sauce. Add some water if necessary.

Turn the heat down and allow the dish to simmer for three hours. Then turn the heat off and allow the dish to rest overnight.

On day two,  bring the dish to the boil and add the carrot sticks,some chopped coriander leaves and the chopped sage leaves. Allow to simmer for another one and a half to two hours, then add the beans. Wash the beans of its juice before adding it to the dish, this will probably cause the dish to burn. You don't want that at this stage of the proceedings.  The sauce may be allowed to reduce some at this stage, making for a thicker sauce. Check for the saltiness after the beans have been added. The meat should be falling off the bones by this time.

Bring to the boil, then turn the flame off and allow the dish to rest again for fifteen minutes.

For the samp

Soak the samp for two hours in salty water. Drain the starchy water and replace with fresh water. Add some salt, then bring to the boil and boil slowly for two hours or until the maize kernels are nicely puffed and chewy. Drain the excess water and add a good helping of butter and two to three dessert-spoons of cream. Mix this thoroughly. The result should be a very rich smelling and creamy tasting chewy maize dish.

Now dish up. This dish goes well with a full bodied red wine and good company.

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-06-24

A New Life, A New Beef Dish

I recently seemed to have lost my zeal for cooking. Perhaps I lost my muse, as authors and artists would have it.

Or perhaps the two major surgical procedures and the large amounts of anaesthetic in my body had something to do with this loss of muse. Or it could have been the scare of finding a large cancerous tumour on my kidney and having it removed.

Whatever the case, after a two month sabbatical from cooking and from sailing, I am back. The recent spell of cold weather in the Cape triggered a primordial urge for a hearty stew. It is as if the cold weather creeps into your bones and your body tells you this cold will only be chased away by a hearty stewed dish.

After a short internet search, I had the idea. Osso buco. That very Italian dish that warms the cockles of your heart with the meat almost melting in your mouth.

The internet search was short, simply because I was very hungry. So I searched for stewed beef dishes. The standard recipe calls for veal. I summarily dismissed the idea and went and bought beef shin. Here in South Africa beef shin is relatively cheap. The cut need not be very tender, as the stewing process will see to that.

The process is what makes the dish. Spices are very simple. On one of the myriad web sites quoting a recipe, the author remarked that there appears to be an ongoing, raging debate on whether to use tomato or not. Then some recipes call for fennel, some not. Some require sage, others not. And so on.

Being of a somewhat eclectic bent, I decided that my recipe will be a fusion version. There will always be some chilli in my stewed dishes and mostly not any wine. I use soy sauce instead. The soy sauce has a slightly richer texture and a fuller flavour.

Dial Rock, Saldanha bay. It is good to be out on the water again.

Osso buco is basically beef shin or veal stewed in a bed of vegetables. Notably celery and carrot. These hard vegetables do not cook away, so you have some chewiness at the end of the cooking. Again, allow the dish to rest for at least half an hour before dishing up. This will allow the initial sharpness of the ingredients to calm down and allow the more subtle flavours to come out.

As for cooking, most recipes will have you simmer this dish in the oven for a long time at reasonably low temperature. I chose to cook the dish in a cast iron casserole on the burner. Again at low temperature for a long time. I used the same dish for the initial frying of the meat and the subsequent cooking. This will have the caramelised bits of the frying as part of your dish. The dish then makes its own stock, thereby enhancing the flavours.

The Milanese version of the dish serves it up on a bed of saffron risotto. I chose stock standard mashed potatoes. There is something earthy in mashed potatoes don't you think? This mash was made with milk and real butter, making it rich and creamy.


Osso buco needs a gremolata as well. I have never made this, so all was a bit new. Gremolata is quite simple. Mashed raw garlic mixed with finely chopped parsley. A no-brainer. However, this one has some trick to it to make the flavours come out. I use a little table salt with the chopped garlic when mashing it. The salt prevents the garlic from splattering all over the place. The salt also draws some juices out of the garlic. Add the finely chopped parsley and the salt keeps on doing its magic. For this recipe I added some very finely chopped up citrus peel to the gremolata. Make the gremolata while the meat is cooking. This will allow the gremolata's flavour to develop as well. The gremolata is served as a garnish on top of the plated food. I put half of the quantity into the casserole when I turned off the flame.

So here goes.

Osso Buco alla the Hungry Sailor

Ingredients

For the osso buco

500-600g beef shin with bone in
1 large onion, chopped
3 celery sticks chopped. You need about ¾ cup of chopped celery.
½ large carrot finely chopped. Again about ¾ cup of chopped carrot will do.
1 small hot chill, finely chopped
3 buttons garlic, chopped
2 medium fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 400g can of whole peeled tomatoes
1 50 ml sachet of tomato paste.
Dollop of soy sauce
dollop of olive oil
50 g butter
1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock.
4 fresh sage leaves
sprig of fresh fennel
Some oregano
Some hot water
25 ml of fine flour
pepper
salt

For the gremolata

2 buttons fresh garlic.
Sprig of fresh parsley
Zest of half a lemon. I used some dried citrus skin, finely chopped.

Process

Pat the meat as dry as you possibly can, then dust the meat with the flour. Make sure than all the surfaces are covered. Get the casserole up to heat and add the olive oil. The casserole should be of such a size that the meat can lie flat inside without being bundled up. Now fry the meat both sides until it is nice and brown. Take c are not to burn the meat. The flour may burn earlier than the meat, so your close attention is required.

Remove the meat from the pot, then add the butter. Turn the heat down if required. The butter must not burn. Allow the butter to melt, then add the chopped onions, celery and carrots. Fry these gently until the onions go translucent. Then add the garlic and chilli. Fry these for fifteen seconds or so. Now add the chopped tomatoes, the can of tomatoes and the dollop of soy sauce. Allow this lot to reduce to about half the volume, then add the stock. Mix through thoroughly.

Now place the pieces of meat on top, making sure that the meat is covered in fluid. The parts that stick out will not cook properly. Add the juices that oozed out of the meat while resting. At this stage I added some small onions whole, just for garnish. Add the tomato paste now. Add the sage and the fennel, tearing them by hand. Sprinkle some oregano over the lot.

Turn the heat down to minimum on your smallest burner and put the lid on. Check every half hour for sufficient fluid in the pot and ladle some of the juices on top of the meat. Now make the gremolata.


Chop up to buttons of garlic, using some table salt to keep the bits together during mashing. Add the chopped parsley and the lemon zest. Mix this thoroughly. The quantity should be around three table spoons.

The test for readiness is the tenderness of the meat. The meat should be marrow soft. This will take about two to three hours. Turn off the flame and sprinkle half of the gremolata on top. Close the lid and make the potato mash. Remember to add some real butter to the mash.

Then dish up. Sprinkle some gremolata on each serving as a garnish. This one goes very well with a full bodied red wine and low lights. Like candles.

Bon appetit!



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2015-05-27

All images taken with LG G3 smart phone and processed with Photoshop Express.

Boeuf Bourgoignon a la Mode

It has been a while since my last venture into cooking for fun. The recent adventure of sailing a boat from the Seychelles to Gordon's Bay left me with hardly any energy to experiment. Besides, I had to do most of the cooking on board.

But now it is time for having some fun in the kitchen.

It is still winter here in Cape Town and surrounds, so the choice fell on a stew of some description. I searched at length on the internet for some ideas. Perhaps wading through a quagmire of recipes would be a better description. After some random reading, I decided that some experimentation would be in order.

Some recipes require the meat to marinate in wine and herbs for a long time. Especially the French versions. Italian versions cook the meat in copious amounts of tomatoes and tomato paste. All of the recipes, including the Thai and other eastern versions, have lots of garlic. I came across a recipe that requires twenty, yes numerals two zero, knobs of garlic. The mind boggles.


Having learnt a thing or two about getting flavour into a dish, it was clear that the process dominates the flavour. You certainly don't want to make a concoction of herbs and chemicals to obtain flavour.

I am also not partial about cooking with wine, preferring soy sauce. It is either wine or soy sauce, the two flavours clash. And then, in true Banting fashion, I started cooking extensively with real butter. Butter imparts a wonderful flavour and I like to think that the butter adds some fat to the dish, making it nice and rich. In addition, butter makes the meat and onions go brown.

So the choice fell on a French style beef stew, rich in gravy. And I called it Boeuf Bourgoignon a la Mode because it is made in a fashion of cooking that I like and, perhaps, to appease the French culinary purists.

Ingredients

750 g beef shin or chuck
250g fatty bacon
4 knobs garlic coarsely chopped
1 medium to large onion, coarsely chopped
4 fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped
½ sweet bell pepper
1 small carrot diced
3 medium carrots in coarse wheels
3 shallots, coarsely chopped. Use the green leafy parts as garnish
1 cup mushrooms, button size or coarsely chopped
1 small can tomato paste
50 ml soy sauce (a largish dash, I suppose)
½ cup of flour
Pepper to taste
small sprig fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon dried parsley or a sprig of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon thyme or a sprig
1 dried Thai chilli, chopped
water
150g butter
some cooking oil

Process

The process here provides the stock part of the dish, so no additional stock is required. Start by getting the butter nicely melted and up to a decent hot temperature. While this is happening, cut the meat into cubes, keeping bones if any. Dry the meat diligently, then dust lightly with the flour. This will make the meat go brown. If there is any water in there, the meat will stay a dull grey colour.

First fry the bacon until crisp, then remove it from the pan. Try to keep as much of the juices as possible in the pan. Do the frying in batches if necessary. After the bacon, the meat gets fried until a nice dark brown.

There will be an accumulation of caramelised meat and flour on the bottom of the pan. Leave it there, that will become the stock for the dish. Again, do it batches if necessary. Remove the meat from the pan when done.


Next comes the onions, sweet pepper and the diced carrot. There should be a decent amount of fat in the pan. If it looks a bit dry, add some more butter. Fry the onions, pepper and carrot until they are a light brown, then add the chilli and garlic. Fry these for fifteen seconds, then add all the meat and the fresh herbs. Add the tomatoes now.

Also add the soy sauce at this stage, then add enough water to cover the ingredients. Bring the dish to the boil, then set the gas to the lowest setting, put the lid on, sit back and relax. Drink some wine.

The dish now has to simmer for at least one hour. Stir often with an egg lifter to help the crust come off the bottom of the pan and into the dish. You will notice that the sauce thickens on its own. This is good. Top up the water as the dish goes dry, you don't want it to burn. After an hour the meat should start to go tender.

When the meat is almost done, add the mushrooms,the shallots and the tomato paste. Simmer for another fifteen minutes or so, then remove the pot from the heat. Then start with the mash and veggies to accompany the dish. This will allow the dish to repose. That is a fancy word for letting the dish rest and develop flavour.

I use copious amounts of butter in the mashed potatoes, along with milk, salt, freshly ground pepper and some chopped parsley. Don't go overboard, though. This is supposed to accompany the main dish, not overpower it.

This dish is not really spicy, therefore it will go with a nice full-bodied red wine. This time around you get to drink the wine, not eating it as part of the dish!

Bon appetit!



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-08-26

Exploring Stews In A Wintry Cape Town: Moroccan Lamb And Lentils

I have not really had a real chance of cooking at home for a while as I was mostly occupied with sailing instruction. This led to some severe withdrawal symptoms for a decent slow cooked dish on a cold winter's evening.

Well, such an opportunity came about this weekend, with a cold front passing Cape Town towards the end of the week, bringing with it some real winter. The weather outside is quite cold now, with the tail end of the cold front still with us.
Having had some time to consider, I thought it was time to explore the culinary styles of North Africa. Morocco came to mind, as quite a few fellow bloggers seem to like the flavour and there is a plethora of recipes on the internet. I had a short spell or two of trying to find Moroccan spice mixes, with varied results. Mostly because I got distracted by other things.

Like the sailing thing, for instance.

However, withdrawal symptoms are wonderfully forceful, in this case a positive force. I did some more research on the internet and found that the spice mix is quite easy to assemble from basic spices. All of which we have in the house.

This gave the proper impetus and I went ahead. This was a real exploration, with me not having a clue what Moroccan food tastes like. I have never been there. In addition, the spice mixes that you find in places other than Morocco would probably be adapted to local palates.

Having said that, there is also a mitigating factor in that each local Moroccan Mama cooking for the family probably has her own version of what is right. Hence my version would then be Moroccan lamb and lentils a la The hungry Sailor.

Basic ingredients for this dish consist of lentils, tomatoes, lamb or beef and perhaps a potato or two. Definitely an onion.  Spices are varied, but seem to include a hot chilli, cumin, paprika, ginger, garlic, a little cinnamon, turmeric and some lemon juice.  And of course some salt and pepper to taste. This from my research on the internet.

The process differs between places and cooks, so there I knew I was in my own well-known territory of creative processes. No pun intended.

Most of the standard recipes call for olive oil. However, if you want decently caramelised onions you need to fry them in real butter, which I did. I also used some of my masala paste, as it contains all of the spicy ingredients, i.e. ginger, garlic, chilli and a little turmeric. Or you can use a slice or two of fresh ginger, a fresh chilli and garlic to taste.


Also, I like to brown the meat a little before adding the other ingredients. The caramelised part of the meat adds some flavour to the inherent stock formed by the cooking process.

Speaking of meat, most of the recipes call for boneless cuts. I beg to differ, as I think that the marrow adds some fatty content which adds to the taste and keep the dish from being too dry.

The end result was quite delicious. I shall make it again. It is a differs from the Northern Indian and Pakistani style curries that we usually make at home. This dish is not as spicy, although flavourful.

Containing lots of legumes which needs to be well cooked, this dish lends itself to very slow cooking. Many of the recipes on the internet go for the fast and furious option of a pressure cooker, which I abhor. I also prefer to cook the meat very slowly.

The list of ingredients seems long, but please bear in mind that I am using pure spices, not spice mixes. You may add some honey, golden syrup or sugar if you think that the tomatoes and lemon juice will make the dish too acid. Many of the recipes on the internet include honey.

We had this dish with rice, but it is certainly well worth the effort to make rotis or chappattis as a side dish.

So here goes.

Ingredients

500 g Lamb. We used some lamb knuckles and a leg chop, cut into cubes.
1 cup lentils. We had brown lentils
1 can (400g) whole peeled tomatoes
1 fresh tomato, coarsely chopped
2 small potatoes, coarsely cubed
1 sachet tomato paste
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon masala paste. (Recipe here)
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 generous teaspoon paprika. I used the smoked and hot version
1 generous teaspoon ground cumin
1 clove garlic, mashed
1 tablespoons lemon juice
300 ml vegetable stock. I used 2 generous tablespoons of Ina Paarman's stock in boiling water.
salt and pepper to taste
pinch of ground cinnamon
small sprig of fresh cilantro or coriander leaves for garnish
dollop of real butter
some olive oil for frying

Process

Melt the butter in the pan and add the onions. Fry the onions until they are translucent and getting brown on the edges, then add the mashed garlic and the masala paste.


Fry this for another minute or so, then add the olive oil and the meat.

Fry the meat until it is brown enough to taste, then add the canned tomatoes, the fresh tomato, the tomato paste and all the dry spices. Add the lemon juice and the vegetable stock. Mix through thoroughly and turn the heat right down to let the pot just simmer. Add salt at this stage. I now regularly use Maldon or other flaky sea salt.


Add the lentils after twenty minutes to allow the meat to cook a while. The lentils will cook faster than the meat. Simmer the dish for another half an hour or so, until the meat starts to go tender. Then add the potatoes.

Simmer until the everything in the pot is tender to your taste, then turn the heat off and add the coriander leaves. Allow the dish to rest and develop flavour for at least an hour.  I use an enamelled cast iron pot. They cook a lot better than anything else and this resting of the food works better with their heat retention characteristics.

Now cook the rice. This will force you to let the dish rest! Then dish up.

Bon Appetit!


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-05-10

Day 36: Boerewors And Mash In The Rain

Today dawned with some sun. It woke me from my slumbers after my twelve to three watch. Then the sun promptly disappeared for the rest of the day.

Typical warm front weather, with lots of drizzling rain. The visibility is not too bad, about two miles I would say. But the rain is enough to have the saloon door closed against the driven splatter, making the atmosphere inside quite stuffy.

It also makes for quite close personal spaces, as everybody now has to sit either in the saloon or in their cabins. Cabins get stuffy too, so the conversation is somewhat subdued as well. The conversation is halting, stuttering, stumbling along. It feels almost like the weather has cast a wet blanket on everything, including the intrepid crew aboard our little vessel in this huge ocean.



Not being able to see far also has a side effect of dampening the conversation.

Needless to say, there is no chance of a sun shot today, as the sun is hidden behind the clouds. This makes for some interesting navigation practice for me, as there are now several factors to keep track of. We have now turned away from the South American cast and are making way towards the famous island of Barbados. The wind is fickle and we are losing the current as well.

With no sun I am now facing the challenge of determining a position by dead reckoning over a 48 hour period, complete with a guesstimate (fancy word for wild arse guess) of the change in the current and our effective distance and course made good. Hopefully the weather will clear sufficiently by tomorrow to allow a sun sight.

Today is my turn at the galley again. Our provisions are running low and the fresh vegetables are beginning to go off, so my choice was in this direction. Boerewors, mash, gravy, gem squash with butter and some sweet corn. Traditional South African fare.


The boerewors is done with a bit of a twist. This traditional South African sausage is fried in light butter until almost done, then simmered for a minute or two in some soy sauce garnish. The soy sauce adds a little flavour to the wors.

The gravy is then made by frying chopped onions in the pan fats, adding some water and perhaps a little stock for a creaminess. The sauce can be further thickened by mixing in a spoonful of the mash.

The gem squash is steamed along with the potatoes as they boil. This saves on dirty pots and pans. When done, the pips are removed and the flesh scooped out straight on to the dinner plate. Our sugar is running low, so there is only butter in the squash, with the sweet corn accompaniment bringing sufficient sweetness to the dish.

Voila! A traditional dinner.


Ingredients

400 g boerewors

6 medium potatoes, peeled

4 gem squashes

2 onions chopped

1 can sweetcorn

dot butter for every gem squash

dollop butter for frying

Some milk for the mash

salt to taste for the mash

Vegetable stock to taste for the gravy

3-4 tablespoons soy sauce

water

　

Process

Fry the boerewors in a little butter. When almost done, add the soy sauce and simmer for two to three minutes. Remove the wors from the pan and keep warm. Add the chopped onions to the fluids in the pan and fry until the onions are translucent. Add some water for more gravy. Add to this some vegetable stock for flavour, if you so wish. Simmer the gravy until it all has cooked through, then add some mashed potato to thicken the gravy. Add the boerewors back to repose in the gravy.

The potatoes are peeled, then sliced reasonably thin. Not cubed. The thickest dimension should be no more than 10mm/ just a tad under half an inch. Thin vegetables cook faster. Add the halved gem squashes to the potato pot to steam. They will cook faster than the potatoes anyway, since they are less dense than the potatoes.

When done, remove the squashes from the pot and scoop out the flesh from the skins. Add a dollop of butter for some creaminess.

When the potatoes are done, pour off the water, then mash them in the pot. Add some salt to taste and some milk for creaminess.

Then dish up. As simple as that.


Bon appetit!

　

　

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-10-30

A Colonial Feast On A Colonial Island

I have been pondering the title of this post at length. Other options were An Elegy On A lost Age or even A Lament For Lost Culture. Both perhaps a bit on the heavy emotional side, so I opted for the more positive one.

We arrived at St Helena Island two days ago after sunset in a light drizzle. Not the easiest harbour entry after dark, with lots of small craft moored on mooring lines stretching across the harbour. We made it safely to one of the new mooring buoys, compliments of the skipper of another Leopard 39 yacht on delivery. He guided us on the VHF radio.

After a good night's sleep we hit the sleepy Jamestown on a Sunday morning. Just to be stopped dead in our tracks by HM Customs official. The very nice lady required the skipper to go all the way back to the boat to get our passports. The Harbour Master neglected to inform us that the Customs office was open on a Sunday as well. We were under the impression that customs clearance would keep to Monday morning.

The vagaries of the bureaucracy! At least we had some time to spend with the customs lady, who happened to be very helpful and informative on happenings and folklore on the island. We spent a happy half hour, entertained by her stories.


Then it was time to prep for our braai. I bought six sirloin steaks at our local Food Lover's Market, a food chain in South Africa. Vacuum packed and all. This we kept in the dark in our refrigerator on board, not frozen, for the duration of our passage. Needless to say, these steaks came out soft like butter.

We planned on having the braai at Anne's Place, a rustic restaurant steeped in history, situated in the castle gardens on St Helena. A wonderfully relaxed atmosphere to share with friends. We arranged for some side dishes with Jane, the lady of the house. And, of course, we invited friends. I had totally misjudged the hospitality of the Saints and the next thing there were provisions fit for a king, the table bending under the strain of the amount of food. Luckily there were some more hungry sailors and we could make a real dent the mound of food.

We spent a most enjoyable afternoon having a real traditional South African braai. I had the honour of cooking, as Richard, the man of the house, decreed that, since it was our braai and he being a guest, I would have to do the cooking. Or braaiing. Whatever. He was going to enjoy the ride.

And he did.

Good conversation and good company. It was with heavy hearts that we took our leave of absence from our hosts to catch the last ferry of the day back to the boat.

Our sailor friends had postponed their hoisting anchor and casting off to after the braai. We waved a fond farewell to them as they disappeared into the dark, cloudy night. We may see them again in St Maarten, after crossing the Atlantic. They have another errand to attend to, so there is an odd chance that we shall only see them back in Cape Town in a month or so.

A wonderful experience. No cell phones, computers or other interruptions of electronic nature. The birds chirping away in the trees, with a light breeze making the leaves flutter every now and then.

Pure bliss. One would think

Except that this very experience may be made impossible by progress and modernisation.

The completion of the airport may put a whole new angle on the niche that the island will fill in the tourist industry. At present it looks like the people may opt for a modernisation of the island.

Although this is not untoward, there is a very real chance that the quaint island culture may be lost forever to urban advance. Hence my pondering of titles for this blog post. One can but hope and pray that common sense will prevail and that the saints will decide on conserving their culture and keep the historic, colonial air on the island. Five star hotels may come, a golf course, what else. But keep the urban sprawl and city culture away from the old town.

Perhaps renovate the financial systems. Get better internet links. But keep the cell phones to a minimum. It is bliss to be away from electronic media for a while and to enjoy the company of friends. Especially in these rustic surroundings, where hardly a motor car is heard. And the peal of the church bells carried on the breeze. The sounds of peace.

But keep the rustic atmosphere.

There are but a few places on earth left like this. And they are under threat of the very civilisation that needs the peaceful and simple atmosphere.

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-10-07

Fast Boat Food: Kebab Cheat

This is one of those ideas that  comes to mind when sailing out there and you start feeling hungry. Once you have consumed your two or three sarmies (South African for sandwiches), you tend to start dreaming about something more substantial.

"The heat of the day when the fish won't bite," as the famous song goes. Listen to the ocean, it soothes you and helps you to dream up some more recipes!

Enter the very South African tradition of a braai on board. Most small yachts I have sailed on either have a braai, a grill, an oven or combination of the above. And mostly, when an impromptu braai is on hand, out comes the boerewors. A kind of rustic thick beef and pork sausage, flavoured with salt, pepper and coriander, perhaps some other spices. A delicious meat product which is easy to barbecue. Add to this some veggies and you have a substantial meal.

However, my friend Zirkie Schroeder, blogging as Pink Polkadot Food has a card up her sleeve. She made a kebab (sosatie) using boerewors and some vegetables on hand.

The result is history. Check it out here. A delicious meal in handheld form. Not messy and easy to prepare.

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Thanks to Zirkie Schroeder at Pink Polkadot Food

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter.

Last updated on 2013-08-13

  

Tired of Standard Meatballs and Gravy? Try These Traditional South African Frikkadelle

Actually, these ones are a bit different. There is a twist. I perused an old cookbook of mine, published in 1981 by the Section Home Economy under the Department of Education of those days. Yes, a government department that published a cookbook, nogal. Found a nice recipe for traditional frikkadelle (meat balls), made with a Russian sauce.

This one made a welcome change to our normal home-made meatballs. The sauce was especially good. This dish goes well with rice or mashed potatoes and one or two vegetables for a traditional South African lunch or dinner. I made a my own Hollandaise sauce to go with the veggies.

The frikkadelle is pretty standard traditional stuff, using some coriander, salt, pepper, half a teaspoon ground nutmeg and five cloves for seasoning. A little oatmeal provides the sponginess for absorbing the sauce, instead of the standard slice of bread.  There is no egg in this recipe, only some vinegar. I added some freshly mashed garlic as well.

The process for the frikkadelle is also pretty standard. Toast the coriander, peppercorns and cloves in a dry pan until the coriander seeds go brown. Remove the seeds to a mortar and pestle and grind the seeds to a coarse powder.

The frikkadelle (meat balls) need to be brown 

Mix 250 grams of meat with ½ cup of oatmeal, along with all the other ingredients, leaving out the vinegar at first. I added a dessert spoon of soy sauce before the vinegar, it adds some flavour. Add about ¼ cup of vinegar. Continue to mix. The mix will get more mushy as you add vinegar, so watch that you don't get a too mushy mix. Form these into little balls, flatten them and roll them in flour to cover them. Then fry them in a little butter or duck fat until the outsides are brown. Use your favourite cast iron pan!

This dish has a very nice sauce!

The sauce is where the difference lies. You use an appropriate amount of tomatoes, enough to make a decent thick sauce. You may add more after starting the dish if you think you need more. The amounts are for sauce for about 1 kg of meat mixture. I added some coarsely chopped mushrooms as well.

Ingredients for the sauce

You have to have mashed potatoes with that sauce

6 tomatoes
2 onions, chopped or grated
2 sweet bell peppers, chopped
2 dessert spoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
¾ cup red wine
¾ cup sour cream (optional)

And the two veggies, steamed

To make the sauce you mix all the ingredients except the cream, then simmer until the vegetables have gone soft. Then simply add the frikkadelle to the sauce and simmer the dish for another 30-40 minutes. Add the cream just before serving.

Bon appetit!





Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-03

Spicy Sausage & Seafood Salad

It is that time of year again where the up-country visitors have gone back home, the schools have started and weekends belong to the locals again. And the best part is that the crayfish season (Cape lobster for those not from around here) is still open for us over weekends, along with the most exquisite weather for sailing. At this time of year the infamous Cape Doctor, the prevailing southeaster, abates to under thirty knots, which makes for exhilarating sailing.

I was blessed on the last two occasions to have gone sailing in winds of around fifteen knots in champagne weather, enjoying the most beautiful sun, excellent companionship and some good food to boot.

This dish was again prepared on board the yacht Rhapsody of my friend Les. Perhaps this dish will go some way in thanking him for letting me cook aboard.

On this occasion I made a salad with some fresh tomatoes, a small onion, half of a fresh Thai chilli, spicy sausages and a crayfish tail or two.  This salad can pass muster as a light meal or a starter, whatever turns your fancy. It is exceedingly easy to make and other seafoods may be substituted for the lobster. I have used frozen de-shelled prawns as well, for those up-country friends with only the local supermarket for a source of seafood. And I think that de-shelled mussels, chopped calamari steaks and heads would work as well. 

The original idea for this dish came from a BBC good food recipe for a tomato and chorizo salad.  It is open season still on weekends, so we had some lobster. So I adapted the recipe. The seafood and spicy sausage go well together, enhanced with a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and tarted up by the glow of the chilli.

Take care with the chilli. Rather use less, else the chilli will overpower the other tastes. You need the barest of glows, so use half of the chilli and remove the pips.

The original recipe calls for sherry vinegar, which is something exotic in this neck of the woods. Use regular vinegar and add some flavour by adding a dash of white wine. Or use apple cider vinegar. You may add a dash of lemon juice too. You are making a salad dressing, so use your imagination and make a plan.  

This dish goes well with a dry or off-dry white wine. The dish is simple, so you don't need a fancy wine, any quaffing wine will do. But it will work well for a special occasion as starter, in which case an off-dry Methode Cap Classique bubbly will work wonders...

Ingredients

2 medium tomatoes, sliced in thin slices over the poles, then the slices halved.
1 medium onion, sliced over the poles Chinese style.
½ Thai chilli, pips removed and finely chopped
250 g spicy sausages. Chorizo if you have some. And salami may be too dry and spicy. Cut diagonally into slices of not more than 10mm thick.
250 g seafood, Any seafood. We used lobster. Cut into 12mm / 1/2 inch slices. Prawns may be used whole.
Butter for frying

For the dressing

¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar

Process

Heat up a dollop of butter in a frying pan, then add a dessert spoon of the sliced onions and the chopped chilli. Fry until the onions are translucent, then add the sausages. Fry the sausages until they go brown. Remove from the pan and add them to the tomatoes and onions. Your dish is almost done.

Now add the raw seafood to the pan and fry it in the pan juices until done. This takes about five minutes because you sliced the seafood rather thin. This is good, because by now everybody is suddenly hungry from smelling the frying onions. Get someone else to open the wine. This will keep them busy. Good crew management, I should think.

Add the fried seafood to the rest of the salad, along with all the pan juices. Mix thoroughly, then sprinkle some of your olive oil and balsamic vinegar salad dressing over this lot.

Bon appetit!


This post compiled for the GBYC newsletter

Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2013-01-20

The Ribbed Skillet: Bane Or Boon?

Do you possess a ribbed skillet? Yes? Have you made friends with it yet?

I happen to have one. And it took me a while until I figured out how to use it properly. About three or four times, to be precise.

We bought such a ribbed skillet from Le Creuset after we relocated to the Western Cape. We were staying in a guest house until our new home was vacated and we could move in. The cookware at the guest house was of doubtful quality and buckled, so cooking became a drudgery. Also, all our cookware were stored with the rest of the furniture, so we simply couldn't get hold of it and had to make another plan. Luckily we found a Le Creuset outlet close to us and were able to at least make living bearable by cooking proper food.

One of the characteristics of this skillet is that it needs to be on the hot to very hot side to work properly. This we found out by trial and error. In addition, it is not necessary to use oil or a marinade with the meat. Marinade will burn or scorch at the temperatures required for the proper grilling of the cut.

I recently decided to grill some steaks as part of my continued competency in the use of the skillet. The specific cut I bought had bones in it. I like to think it is part of the thick rib meat just at the end of the rib cage, but my butcher sold it as club steak. I liked the idea of meat on the bone, as this makes for interesting side effects. The meat tends to receive less heat close to the bone, making the even grilling slightly more adventurous. The cuts I selected were of even thickness. This is important, as an uneven cut will always cook to well-done stage at the thin end before the rest is even medium rare. Something to bear in mind when shopping for a cut to barbecue or grill in the skillet.

The meat was taken out of the vacuum package and left to rest and breathe outside for ten minutes or so. These cuts are claimed to be matured and they certainly looked the part. The meat had a slight grey colour just out of the package, turning a more healthy red as it breathed.

The meat was accompanied by mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and some sweet carrots.

The skillet was heated on the largest burner on the gas hob, the setting at about three-quarters full. You don't want to have hot spots in the skillet, you want an even heat distribution, slightly on the hot side. The meat was placed on the fat side first, standing the two steaks on end and leaning them against each other. This gets the fat in the pan and out of the meat. Also something to lubricate your skillet. Some will say that this is not very healthy, but it works and the only fat on the meat is on the outside. You may cut it off on your plate if you don't want it. You will ingest some fat due to the grilling in the skillet, but that little bit won't kill you, I believe.

When the fat has a nice brown colour the meat is turned down on the flat side for normal grilling. There should be a moderate amount of fat smoke around, so do use your cooker hood extractor, else you may get in trouble with the rest of the household. The meat may be turned every two minutes or so. If there is hardly any smoke from the fat, the skillet may be too cold and the gas flame needs to be turned up. Too much smoke and the gas gets turned lower. You may remove the skillet from the hob if it gets too hot. Mind the handle, it also gets hot. Use a dry towel or glove.

Give the skillet time to cool slightly, then put it back on the burner. The thickness of the cast iron skillet makes for a wonderful heat retention and it does not really play roller coaster with the temperature.

The test for the steaks being done is of course to make a small cut in the steak and pull it open to see what it looks like inside. I normally turn the steaks a couple of times until they are nice and brown on the outside, then make a small cut for inspection. This is where your expertise lies. You need to judge the state of cooking by the colour of the outside. Another sign would be that there is juice seeping out of the top of the meat. This is a clear indication that the meat is getting drier and that the inside is now past boiling point. Remove the meat from the skillet at that stage. It is always a good idea to then let the meat rest for at least ten minutes before serving. You may heat the meat again by briefly putting it back in the skillet. I seasoned these steaks with our standard braai salt, nothing very organic, just the normal braai stuff.

After the steaks were removed from the skillet, the fresh asparagus sprouts went in. These were fried in the juices left over from the steaks. They scorch a little where they touch the ribbing in the skillet, but otherwise they turn a very nice bright green. At this point they are removed from the skillet, else they overcook and go limp.

In the meantime I peeled the potatoes and cut them into medium thick slices. This helps to cook fast. A drip tray over the saucepan contained the julienne'd carrots for steaming. The lid of the saucepan went over it all. The saucepan is also a cast iron one from the Le Creuset series. Nice heat retention and a fast heat-up cycle. And you use the lowest setting on the smallest burner on the hob to do the job once the saucepan has heated up.

The carrots were removed from the steamer and transferred to another dish where I added some brown sugar. This was nuked in the microwave to melt the sugar and get it close to caramel.

The potatoes were mashed, along with some cream and a dollop of milk. Add salt and black pepper to taste and a finger bunch of chives as garnish, chopped coarsely, to round off the mash.

Add a glass of a full-bodied red wine and Voila!, you have a nice quick meal.

This is how I made friends with my skillet. You did you do?

Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2012-12-12