Traditional Dinner

 

 

 

We had yet another cloudy day today. Although the wind has died down to a mere puff every now and then, the sky is still mostly overcast. We are motoring along on a smooth sea.

And in the very darkest nights. The moon only rises early in the morning and, given the overcast sky, we are having really dark nights. You cannot even discern a horizon. Sometimes the clouds part just a little and with a bit of luck a star peeks through. Then you feel comforted that you have not lost most of your senses. The star is like a message from on high passing some positive energy back to you.

 

Yet again I realise where the folklore of old sailors and their beliefs come from. It is easy to get lost in the oceans of your mind. But it is a rather nice feeling. I have had this revelation before. But it remains a nice feeling to be reminded of the way the mind works. Lots of mental images and perceptions in this blue world that we enter from time to time.

We have seen the odd humpback whale since yesterday and there are still some birds around. They seem to follow the boat, rather like scavengers. One wonders whether this is a new habit formed of close association with increased yacht traffic.

Today was my turn to cook dinner. We have a rule on board of alternating beef mince with other meats, so as to prevent the monotony of similar meals when you run out of other food. This is now becoming a small challenge of kudos for the best meal given the standard provisions. This time around there are three of us liking to cook. This makes for more fun on this voyage than I anticipated.

So we all have our turn at cooking beef mince. And today was my beef mince turn.

I made a traditional dish of meatballs and gravy, with potatoes boiled in the skin and butternut squash. The meal was rounded off by a curry bean salad, also a traditional South African dish.

The chutney is not readily available outside of South African influence, but may be substituted with a mild to hot chilli pepper, chopped, some apricot jam and a dash of vinegar. The oatmeal stretches the meat a little and adds some sponginess to soak up the gravy.

Ingredients

For The Meatballs

 

400g beef mince (ground beef for my American readers)

1 onion, finely chopped

¼ sweet pepper, finely chopped

1 egg, beaten

dollop of Mrs Ball's chutney. Your favourite flavour

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

¾ cup of rolled oatmeal

3 dessert spoons soy sauce

½ cup flour

Some butter for frying.

2 teaspoons gravy powder

1 sachet tomato paste

a dash of soy sauce

some water

Process

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly, keeping the flour aside. I squashed the ingredients through my hand. Although quite messy, it is quite effective. Add a little water if the mix is too dry, a little oatmeal if too wet.

Now use two spoons to make small balls of the mix, roll it in the flour, then fry them in shallow butter. You will need to cycle them out of the frying pan to make room for more. When all is done, add them all back to the pan.

Mix the soy sauce, tomato paste, gravy powder and the leftover flour, complete with the meatball crumbs into a sauce. Add water to make it runny, then add the lot to the frying pan. Simmer this for another ten to fifteen minutes, then take off the heat and allow the dish to rest while you cook the rest of the meal.

Other Ingredients

½ butternut

small piece cinnamon bark

½ cup sugar

1 cup water.

Pinch of salt

Simmer this until the water runs dry, then allow the squash to caramelise. Test the squash to ensure it iscooked through, else you may end up with burnt raw pumpkin. Add water if necessary. I add enough water to cook the dish properly, then take the lid off to allow the water to evaporate faster.

8 small potatoes. I allowed two per person. These are boiled in salty water in the skin and served as they come from the pot. We dabbed some real butter on them.

Reheat the meatballs before serving. Hopefully you were successful in keeping prying fingers of sailors sampling out of the dish.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman.

Last updated on 2013-09-30

Cabbage? Who Eats Cabbage?

The universal cry when you talk to the great biltong hunters of this world. Biltong, the cured, dried meat delicacy of South Africa. Hunters on a hunting trip. They don't eat veggies, let alone cabbage. And the closest they come to sea food is the mutton chops they barbecue on the beach.

But that is another story.

This post is about cabbage. I cannot remember the last time I ate cooked cabbage. Coleslaw and variations thereof, yes. Sauerkraut, yes. But cooked cabbage? Not on your life. Until recently, when I was inspired to look into my country's rich heritage of food. And, of course, there cabbage features quite prominently.

So I decided on baby steps. Let's have cabbage wrapped meatballs. Easy to make and not too much cabbage. I may use the rest of the head to make a variation of sauerkraut, perchance. The weather here in the Strand area is certainly supportive of that idea at present.

I appears from my research on the internet that this dish is known all over the world, not only in the South African platteland. Lots of variations in procedure and lots of variation in the ingredients, some more elaborate than others. The Greeks have one version, the Russians another. All very tasty from what I read.

I decided to stick to the simple method: Make a ground beef mixture as for normal meatballs, then wrap this in blanched cabbage leaves before cooking SLOWLY in the oven, or, as in my case, on the hob. I used a cast iron buffet casserole from le Creuset.

The meat mixture is pretty standard, using ground beef, chopped onion, some Worcestershire sauce, two eggs, some oatmeal instead of bread crumbs, salt and pepper. I also added my usual chilli, this time chopped after removing the pips. Simple.

Regard these directions as broad indications and experiment to your heart's content.

I find the chilli brings out the flavours. I was told by a chef friend that the capsicum oil opens up the pores on your tongue, therefore all flavours are enhanced. Reportedly that is why you don't drink a heavy red wine with spicy food. The wine will overpower the other flavours because of the enlarged pores.

Make a sauce by chopping four or five tomatoes and frying them in a little butter or duck fat. Add some fresh spring onions and rosemary, coarsely chopped. Thicken the sauce with some beef stock.


Carefully remove eight leaves from the head of cabbage and blanche them. Remove them from the heat and cool them by rinsing in cold water. Ladle a liberal helping of meat into each leaf, wrap and put this in the sauce with the folds downwards to keep them folded. I got seven meatballs out of 250grams of meat mix with all the additions.

These were all neatly tucked into the casserole, the lid put on and simmered for 40 minutes. Garnish with some thyme, basil and oregano. Perhaps a dollop of soy sauce for the flavour and salt. Check every now and then that the wraps don't stick to the bottom of the casserole.


This is a very traditional South African version, if simplified. It therefore goes very well with steamed garden peas and asparagus, mashed potatoes and sweet cinnamon butternut squash.

I got very hungry, so I forgot about the grated Parmesan cheese garnish at the end. I think I shall have it on the leftovers.



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-26

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

Day 14: Mince Balls and Gravy on the day that the fish did bite

There is a song called Listen to the Ocean, where three of the lines go

“...

The heat of the sun when the fish won't bite,

These are the things that remind me of

The day you sailed out of sight

...”

Today, however, will go down in the history of this voyage as the day that the fish did bite. No question about that.

It was in the early afternoon, that part of the day just after lunch, when ideally one would take your Sunday afternoon nap. Like both Renier and I, for example. Dawid was on watch, when suddenly our slumbers were interrupted by his anxious shouts. We ran topsides to see what was happening. We found him standing on the aft deck, pointing at the fishing rod, unable to speak for excitement.

The rod was pointing straight at the water some distance behind the boat and was only held on by the little string that tied it to the railing, with the reel shrieking away. Renier promptly sent me to the helm to get the sail furled away and the engines into astern to get into fighting the fish. By this time, which was only seconds later, almost half of the line had stripped off the reel. He applied some tension with his glove, but of no avail. He then applied the brake, on which the 35 kg breaking strain line promptly snapped with a loud crack.

Renier stood there dumbfounded. Dawid was still trying to get his speech back. I had no words. I think the fish never knew it was hooked. We never even saw the fish. And thus ended our fishing for the day, all fifteen odd seconds of it. Not soon to be forgotten.

We are now less than one day away from St Helena island and are looking forward to the visit. This time around we shall take a tour of the island, especially the war graves. And, of course, have a beer. I have almost forgotten what beer tastes like.

Today was my turn again at galley duty. I made beef mince balls, gravy, smash and caramel butternut with cinnamon. A simple but grateful meal. The mince balls take some work, the rest is easy.

Mince Balls and Gravy

Ingredients

400g beef mince

1 onion, grated

½ hot chili, finely chopped

¼ sweet pepper, grated

1 teaspoon fresh chopped garlic

¾ cup oats

2 eggs

Some soy sauce

Some freshly ground pepper

Some cornflour

1 dessert spoon or 1 cube beef stock

1 cup water for the beef stock

Some cooking oil

Process

Mix all the ingredients, except the beef stock, cornflour and water, thoroughly. If the mixture is too dry, add a little water at a time until it can be moulded into balls. Add oats if the mixture is too runny.

Make small balls of the mince mixture, roll them in the cornflour, then fry them in the oil. I use two wet dessert spoons to do this, it keeps my hands clean. Remove the fried ones from the oil and keep to one side. When all the balls are done, add all of them back to the frying pan, add the stock and water mix and simmer the meatballs for five minutes. If the dish gets too dry, add water. There is supposed to be a lot of gravy. The gravy will thicken automatically from the leftover cornflour in the frying pan.

I served this with smash, being the easiest accompanying dish available on board.

Caramel Butternut

This one is a no-brainer. Skin the butternut using a sharp potato peeler. Cut into thumb size cubes. Put these into a saucepan with about one finger depth of water. Add a royal helping of sugar on top and some cinnamon sticks. Add a little bit of salt to taste. Put the lid on and boil medium to slow until the water has boiled away and the sugar has caramelised. Dish up.

This one goes well with the meat balls or any other home cooked dish.

Frikkadelle, squalls en Cindy Lauper

3 Desember 2011

Dis nou net so na 00h00 op Saterdag. Die wind het heeltemal gaan lê vroeëer in die nag, nou motor ons. Die “squalls” is weg. Mens moet wakker sit as die squalls kom wanneer jy seil. Die wind kom skielik op en dis koud. Ek het die rekord squall. Die wind het binne vyf minute verander van so 12 knope na 35 knope. Ek moes vinnig die seil inrol, anders was daar perde!

Die lewe is amper luilekker wanneer die wind matig en bestendig is en die see kalm. Dan is ons meesal almal wakker hier van drie-, vieruur af in die middag, selfs vroeër. So het ons vandag so van eenuur af na Cindy Lauper geluister waar sy jazz sing. Haar sterk stem het mens sommer meegesleur en 'n baie rustige atmosfeer geskep.

Dit was weer my beurt om kos te maak.

Frikkadelle, wortels, skorsies en aartappels

Bestanddele:

400g maalvleis

2 snye brood, fyngemaak

9 klein aartappels

3 skorsies

½ ui, fyngekap

¼ soetrissie, fyngekap

1 klein brandrissie, fyngekap

knypie knoffel

sojasous

2 eiers

varsgemaalde swart peper

suiker, sout, botter

Maizena (of koekmeel)

1 bees of groente-ekstrak blokkie

6 geelwortels

kookolie

Metode:

Meng die vleis, brood, uie, soetrissie, eier, knoffel en 'n skeut sojasous baie deeglik. Voeg varsgemaalde swart peper by en 'n bietjie sout na smaak. Onthou die sojasous is ook sout.

Verhit 'n skeut olie in die pan. Maak nou klein bolletjies van die vleismengsel, rol dit in die maizena en bak dit in die pan tot die meel mooi bruin word. Verwyder van die hitte en laat rus.

Kook intussen die wortels in vars water. Ek het hulle net grof gesny. Stowe die aartappels tesame met die gehalveerde skorsies.

Gebruik die water van die wortels as basis vir die sous, tesame met die vleisblokkie.

Braai die brandrissie in die pan tesame met die sappe van die vleisbolletjies.. Voeg die sous by en prut tot gaar. Voeg dan weer die vleisbolletjies by en kook deur.

Jy kan nou opdien. Ek het die aartappels net so in die skil opgedien en die skorsies met met botter en suiker. Nadatt ek die wortels se water gebruik hetvir die sous, het ek 'n bietjie suiker by die wortels gesit.

En daar is my ete. Alles vars kos.

Ek het vandag weer 'n sonlesing geneem. Dis nou so tussen die wolke deur. Ek begin om hierdie joernaal oor te tik in in elektroniese vorm. Dan het ek iets om aan te stuur per e-pos. Ek sien nogal uit na die oorstaan op St Helena. Ons is nou so 200 seemyle weg en behoort teen more (Sondag) middagete daar te wees. Ek wonder of ek nog reguit kan loop! Ek sien nie juis uit na die kos aan wal nie. Ek vermoed ons eet lekkerder aan boord!

Ek het 'n skaakbord gemaak uit 'n vel viniel en maskeerband. Dit lyk goed en is waarskynlik heel duursaam. Ons sal maar sien hoe dit werk en of dit lank gaan hou.

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