Spicy Seafood For A Romantic Summer Evening

Summer has arrived with a vengeance the last few days. Granted,  is still officially spring. But it is quite warm and the southeaster is blowing us into the next century.

Weather which calls for relaxing with friends and loved ones over a light meal. A braai with meat is OK, but the food tends to be heavy. In addition, we have a regular braai once a week at the yacht club. So a lighter meal is in order.

Which brought me to think more towards a salad. But salads are too light to my taste. Even those with something hot, like pieces of chicken or fish. So the choice went to something Asian. Asian dishes are generally easy and quick to make, as well as being on the light side. Of course, this is just what one wants, as it leaves more time to spend with your close ones.

Having gone through all of this reasoning, I decided on a Thai style seafood curry in a coconut sauce. I had this idea in my mind for a long time. Now, at last, the weather is playing along.


This dish is very easy to make, with hardly any messy work. It also is quick to  make, as the ingredients are not heavy and therefore cooks fast. You don't want to overcook fish anyway. The coconut base makes it quite fruity, which adds to the idea that it can serve as something with more body than a salad, but in the same category of light food.

Try to steer away from using a ready mix seafood. These tend to have more of the cheaper cuts. I settled for mussels and small prawns, with a dash of seafood mix. I was a bit put off with the quality of the mix. Next time I shall buy the ingredients directly and make my own mix.

This dish is prepared by making a sauce, then cooking the fish in this sauce. No need for frying the fish. For the coconut one can use a can of coconut milk, mix powdered coconut with water or even use desiccated coconut soaked for a hour in hot water. All will work.

Having read about the latest Banting craze, I am following suit by using real butter to fry the onions. It does make a difference, not only in the taste. The butter triggers your body's reaction to make you feel satisfied, so you tend to eat less because you feel full sooner.
Which, in my case, is good.

This dish goes very well with a fruity dry sparkling wine, as it is not that spicy. Here in South Africa we are blessed with a variety of bottle fermented sparkling wines at a steal. The La Vallee from JC le Roux and Pongracz  immediately comes to mind as a romantic pairing. We also have some magnificent Sauvignon blanc wines from the Durbanville region, our neighbours. Choose your own, bearing in mind the type of company you will have for dinner.

In my case it is my missus of over thirty-five years' standing, so the JC le Roux la Vallee wins hands down.

As for cooking utensils, I used my new stainless steel saucepan from le Creuset. These have a stainless steel lining inside, a layer of high carbon steel outside to make it magnetic for use on induction hobs, and a layer of aluminium sandwiched in between. This causes better heat distribution and more effective cooking. The pot gets warm on the sides too, unlike some other brands of cookware. This better heat distribution also uses less gas. In fact, a lot less. One needs to be careful of burning the food.

The ingredients are simple and few, which makes it easier to get them all together. I used the canned variety of bamboo sprouts. There are others. Some recipes call for the sour variety, others use the plain bamboo sprouts. It seems not to make a real difference.

Ingredients

500 g seafood, I used a mix of prawns and mussels
1 cup basmati or jasmine rice
1 can coconut milk or cream. Or a sachet of coconut powder.
1 medium to large onion, chopped
½ sweet bell pepper, chopped
3 toes garlic, mashed
2 hot chillies, chopped
1 teaspoon medium dry masala
2 teaspoons wet masala (recipe here)
1 dessert spoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
2 dessert spoons fish sauce
½ cup bamboo sprouts
½ cup sugar snap peas
½ cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
½  cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped
4 bay leaves
some butter for frying
salt and pepper to taste

 Process

Fry the onions and sweet pepper in the butter until the onion goes translucent. Add the wet masala, chopped chillies and mashed garlic and fry these for thirty seconds. Add the dry powdered spices and fry for fifteen seconds or until the flavours come out. Add the coconut milk and stir, making sure that there is nothing sticking to the bottom of the saucepan.

Bring this to the boil, then add the seafood. Add the fish sauce and sugar and check for enough salt. Turn down the gas flame and cook this for ten minutes or until the seafood is almost done, then add the sugar snap peas and the bamboo sprouts. Cook for another five minutes, then take the saucepan off the heat. Add the chopped basil and coriander leaves and mix through. Then set this aside to rest while you cook the rice. This will allow the curry to repose and develop flavour.

Then dish up.

Now is the time to open that second bottle of bubbly...

Bon appetit!




Authored by Johan Zietsman


Last updated on 2014-10-20

A Summer Sail And Crayfish Season: Time For A Feast

The crayfish season in the Cape opened on 15 December for non-commercial taking of crayfish.

Over here it means that we have to wait for the weather. Having a licence is the least of the problems of obtaining this delicacy from the sea.

We waited, planned and aimed for two days, depending on the weather. Crayfish season overlaps with the real windy season here in the Cape. However, this time there was a small cold front passing the Cape, allowing a brief respite from the howling southeaster.

We went out in a friend's yacht by the name of Moppie, a Sadler 32 sailing yacht named after the Cape style songs. Had a quiet sail from Gordon's Bay down to Rooiels where the crayfish grounds lie.

Of course, it looked like your church bazaar in a rural village with all the boats on the water. These included ourselves, being the only sailing vessel in the fleet, along with a plethora of rubber dinghies and other motor boats, rounded off with a middle aged couple from Rooiels on a paddleski. Fun on the water indeed!

There were some clouds around, with the odd few drops of rain, but nothing to spoil the joy of being out on the water in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. 

We put out three nets and motored around for twenty minutes or so, waiting for the crayfish to start feeding. We then pulled up the nets one by one, replacing them in different places when found empty. This went on for two rounds and we were almost getting worried about blanking for the day's crayfishing. We had the sum total of four small crabs to show for our efforts. These were returned to the water.

Our fortunes changed very fast, however.

On the fourth round of trekking (pulling up) the nets, we found seventeen crayfish in the net, most under size. We kept two, placed the net in a new location and went to retrieve the next one. This one produced eighteen crayfish, most of which were over size. A haul of biblical proportions indeed!

This went on for the other two nets as well. So we sorted them, kept the largest ones and returned more than forty over sized crayfish to the water. Pity we did not have more licences.

Needless to say, we sailed back to Gordon's Bay on a gentle breeze with a song in our hearts. What a way to spend a day!

Having my share of the haul then called for some careful planning. This was my first ever successful crayfishing trip. Never before have I had fresh crayfish to cook. And it is summer here in the Cape, Very hot.

I decided on a salad style dish, with crayfish fried in garlic butter, served with avocado mousse, salad greens and slices of baguette fried lightly in olive oil. This was accompanied by a Pinot Noir MCC (Methode Cap Classique or bottle fermented) rose. The salad greens from my vertical vegetable garden, of course.

Dessert was to be a fruit yoghurt. We never got that far...

Preparation is a cinch. If you take more than about twenty minutes, you are doing something wrong. The crayfish are parboiled for five to seven minutes, then removed to a cold water soak to stop the cooking process. I used the tails only and discarded the rest. This was not going to be a messy greasy face sort of meal. Make fish stock with the rest if you really are into preservation. You then need to break all the limbs to get the meaty parts out.

Ingredients

3 crayfish

2 heads of garlic, chopped and mashed

1 cup of salad greens

1/2 cup rosa tomatoes

slice of diced strong cheese. Feta or mature cheddar

1 sprig of spring onion

1 dessert spoon coriander leaves

1 small baguette

1 medium sized avocado

250 ml plain yoghurt

1 dessert spoon lemon juice

some olive oil

some cooking oil

dollop of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Bottle of your favourite dry rose bubbly.

Process

Chill the wine. Most important part of this dish, I should imagine.

Make the avocado mousse first, this will give the flavours time to spread throughout the mousse. Peel and mash the avocado, then use the blender to mix in the yogurt. The mix should not be runny. Add some salt and pepper to taste, then add the chopped spring onion and coriander leaves. Keep a sprig or two for garnish when dishing up. Add the lemon juice at the end. Leave this lot in the refrigerator to develop some flavour while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Parboil the crayfish as described. Cut open the tails and remove the intestines. Then slice the tails into steaks of about 12 mm / ½ inch thick. Heat some butter in a frying pan, then add the garlic. Fry this until the garlic has the proper shade of brown then add a small dollop of cooking oil. This will stop the temperature from rising higher and the garlic butter from burning. Add the crayfish steaks and fry them until they are nice and golden brown. Remove them from the heat and allow to repose while you fry the bread.

Slice the baguette on a slant so you have elongated slices. This does nothing to the flavour, but does add some shape to the end result when on your plate. Heat some olive oil in the pan with the juices from the crayfish. Add the slices and fry them till they are browned to your taste. These may soak up more oil than you anticipate, so keep some olive oil on standby.

Dishing up is as easy as arranging some salad greens on the plate, add a ladle of mousse, a sprig of coriander leaves, the bread and the crayfish.

Voila! A romantic summer dish.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-12-20

The Avocado Challenge: Ziets' Twisted Ritz

When last did you have avocado other than plain or in guacamole? Well, here is an idea in answer to the challenge from the the ZZ2 farming group.

There is a plethora of recipes for avocado and the challenge here was to come up with something new.

In my mind, that calls for simplicity, otherwise people may not make the dish. Simple ingredients, simple processing, great taste. Those are the basic requirements. Of course, the plating and dishing up of the food is up to the individual cook. If you are just plain hungry, just chuck everything together and dig in.

However, in my view one has more pleasure from a dish than just throwing everything together. “Moerbeikos” is the Afrikaans slang word for food slapped together. A bit derogatory. A dish like this deserves some TLC, I would imagine. Especially if it will be served to your loved ones.

I thought up this version of avocado Ritz as a low fat, almost organic, version of the classic dish. And there is no mayonnaise. Just fresh, wholesome seafood, chourizo, yogurt and salad leaves. Add some real butter, salt and freshly ground pepper, not forgetting the requisite avocado, and you have a delicious tangy starter or main dish. In my house, I earned the nickname of the Hungry Sailor, so ours was a main meal. Copious amounts of the dish.

This one I call Twisted Ritz, in memory of the huge quantities we consumed while working in Nigeria. You can have this dish every day in that part of the world. Which is why I had to engage in a serious exercise regime to keep my weight down.

But that is a different story.


I used shelled prawns, as these are easier to eat. But you may use prawns in the shell for the looks. Makes for messier eating, which I am sure will add to the whole eating experience. Bear in mind that the prawns shrink somewhat during cooking, so make sure you cook enough.

The chourizo may be substituted with any spicy sausage. This is what makes the dish slightly spicy. If the sausage is not spicy enough, add some dried chilli powder or cayenne pepper. Beware of overdosing, though.


I used salad greens from my vertical vegetable garden. If you don't have a garden, just buy some mixed salad greens from your favourite greengrocer or food deli.

The quantities given will make 2 full portions or 4 starters.

Twisted Ritz ingredients

1 small avocado
250 ml plain yogurt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
pinch  of salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
1 cup prawns
150 mm length of chourizo, sliced into thin wheels
1 clove fresh garlic, chopped and mashed
dollop of butter for frying
salt
freshly ground pepper
Choice of any or all of the salad leaves below:
Lettuce, assorted
Fennel
Rocket
Spring onions
Grass onions


Process

Peel and dice the avocado. Add all the yogurt, some salt, the lemon juice and some pepper. Whisk until the mixture is nice and smooth. Then put it aside to rest and develop flavour.

Keep your fingers out of it, otherwise there may not be sufficient left over to dish up!

Melt some butter in a frying pan. Fry the mashed garlic until it becomes slightly brown, then add the chourizo. Fry the chourizo until it has a nice brown tinge, then remove from the pan. Add the prawns directly to the juices in the pan and fry them in turn until brown. The prawns will shed water at first and will be cooking rather than frying. No reason to fret, just wait until the water has boiled away and carry on. Prawns taste better after being browned in butter.

The dishing up part is where the cook's personal artistry comes into play. I arranged some of the salad leaves in ramekins, then added a dollop of the avocado mousse before adding the prawns and chourizo.

Garnish with some of the chopped spring onions and serve with a fruity dry white wine.

Voila, a new, healthy avocado dish!

Bon appetit!

This blog post compiled in answer to the ZZ2® Afrikado blogger challenge. Please vote for me at the ZZ2 Afrikado Challenge Facebook page.
Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-07-29