Very Fast Pizza? Try the Zoobiscuit Version

Anél's picture of what this looks like. Yummy!

This week's recipe is not from me, I am going in for a knee replacement. Fair wear and tear, says the doctor. Which leaves me unserviceable for any cooking, baking or other activities in the kitchen.

Well, all is not lost. A fellow food blogger has a brilliant idea which works for one or many mouths to feed. Anél Potgieter does not need an introduction in South African cooking circles, having won the Dinner Diva cooking competition recently. This competition was to find the best food blogger-cook in the country.

Which Anél won with aplomb. As well as the 2013 Eat Out DSTV Food Network Best Local Food Blog Award.

So we are especially honoured to have her recipe for a fast pizza as the boat food recipe for this week. This one is quite delicious. And also a no brainer. Well, almost. You do need to think up your own variations. But the recipe is quite simple.

You do need a rolling pin. Else use a bottle. I am sure you will find one somewhere on the boat. Other than that just the normal kitchen tools that you will find in the boat's galley.

Read all about the recipe here.

And thanks for stopping by, I shall be back...

Authored by Johan Zietsman, with gratitude to my fellow food blogger Anél Potgieter.

Last updated on 2013-03-26

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter

Eat a Piece of History: Jaffles

History for me and my age group in South Africa at any rate.

Jaffles.

A very South African variation of a sealed toasted sandwich from the days before snackwich toasters. These are made using a jaffle iron over a camp fire, over the coals or over a gas hob. Take your pick. They used to be very popular at church and school fund raising events. Then fashion changed, the snackwich toaster came to be and that was the end of the jaffle.

 Well, that is until recently, when I found a jaffle iron at my local sports equipment chain in the camping goods department. I believe our local builder's supplies chain also keep them in stock. There is a round one and a square one available. Buy the round one, it always seals the sandwich all around the edges.

The jaffle, like the snackwich toast, has one up over a normal toasted sandwich.

It is sealed. No mess. You can use a saucy ground beef filling and it still doesn't spill when you eat it. And the jaffle has more capacity than a snackwich toast. Which means more meat, almost like your standard meat pie.

Or other filling.

We all tend to forget that there is no law that requires a meat filling only. This is the beauty of the jaffle. Standard shape, standard capacity and sealed all around the edge. And fillings to you heart's content.

Which translates to interesting fillings, like tuna or chicken mayonnaise. Or cheese and mushroom. Or combinations of cheese, tomato, onion, jalapeno, gherkins, mixed diced veggies and what not.

Meaty fillings include ham, salami, ground beef, biltong, sliced leg of lamb or pastrami, bacon, chourizo, smoked salmon.

For a sweet one, use banana and golden syrup or honey. Or try sliced apples, cinnamon, nutmeg and honey or golden syrup. I have made these and they are all wonderful fast desserts in the camp. Or when you have lots of children around wanting to keep busy.

I still have to try one adding nuts of some sort. Could be decadent. I have had sweet pizzas of this nature at a gourmet pizza parlour in Pretoria by the name of Toni's Fully Furnished Pizza. Exquisite!

The filling list is endless. Use a filling or combination that is not too dry, else you may have to take water to swallow the jaffle.

Another useful aspect of the jaffle is that you can eat it cold. It is good picnic food that can be prepared the previous day. Quite useful for a day sail or an overnight trip where you may feel like focusing on the sailing experience rather than spend time cooking.

Boat food par excellence.

I decided to test my new jaffle iron by following the recipe on the label. Biltong, cheese and tomato. I used brown bread and butter as per normal sandwich. Extremely simple. It took me longer to take the pix than to prepare the food!

Close the jaffle iron around the sandwich, cut off the excess, it will burn. Then heat over a small flame on the small burner. My jaffle iron is made of cast iron, so it takes a while to heat. Once hot, it toasts the bread very nice and evenly. And I get the heat back at the end, when I can turn off the hob and leave the last jaffle to “bake” to perfection.

How cool is that!

And then there is the ultimate dessert, courtesy of one of the participating teams in the Ultimate Braai Master competition: Bread and butter pudding jaffles.

Start with the standard two slices of bread. I used brown bread. Spread some butter. And some apricot jam. Actually a lot. As in copious amounts. Soak some warmed raisins in brandy. Make a runny batter with an egg and some milk. Add a dollop of ground cinnamon. Soak each slice of bread briefly in this, then stack in the jaffle iron. Soak briefly, else you will have a runny mess. Remember to add the boozy raisins in between the slices.


You will be surprised at just how much brandy it takes to make these!

The batter will boil out if you have too much. Don't fret, the stove is easily cleaned afterwards. Fry until the bread is nice and crispy outside. Mix a little icing or castor sugar in fresh cream, beat until stiff and mixed properly, then add a dollop  of this with each serving.

You may have to make two per person...

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-04-03

Compiled for the GBYC newsletter

Cricket Bats, Skillets and Other Weapons of Anger

After the whole Oscar Pistorius scandal and the ongoing saga surrounding the happenings, I thought at length about the weaponry available in the kitchen. That is, apart from the obvious supposedly sharp knives that are quite blunt in fact. Well, in my experience, mostly anyway. And apart from the other obvious weapons in the hose, like cricket bats and baseball bats and the more innocuous looking rolled up women's magazines.

And I wondered about the vagaries of using kitchen equipment as weapons. A cricket bat featured in the statements made and the evidence gathered in the Oscar Pistorius case. I wondered how many skillets have been used in anger as a weapon.

Perhaps the kitchen equipment have been used for millennia in anger to prepare angry food! I know of at least one case where policemen in barracks have been fed angry food with overdoses of various spices after they mistreated their hired cook. In such cases the skillet is most definitely a weapon, but used in a more subtle way, perhaps.

Blunt knives and useless kitchen equipment have become such an epidemic that I now take my personal chef's kit along whenever I travel. This kit includes three properly sharpened knives, including a large chef's knife, a solid bird knife and a small paring knife. Include a proper peeler that can also peel squash pumpkins, a small sharpening device, a GI can opener and a small cutting board.  The small cutting board is replaced by a big end grain cutting board when I am not flying or sailing. Add to this a proper silicone spatula from le Creuset and you are almost there.

And not to forget my spice box. It is horrendous how many people have no idea of using spices and just mix ready-made sauces, or even worse, ready mix dry powder sauces (read chemical concoction) in various brews and call it food.

But today I wish to discuss the various uses of a skillet. We have touched briefly on its use as a weapon, in direct and other subtle ways.

A skillet is heavy. With good heat retention characteristics and really useful to cook on. Or is it 'in'? Make no mistake, I regularly use my heavy cast iron utensils.  However, for my travel requirements I need something lighter. Something that I can use on the gas hob over the coals or over dancing flames. For use in grilling meat, making stir fries, pancakes, flapjacks and, last but not least, paella. My favourite Spanish food.

Kitchen weapon of choice for the moment

So I shopped around and found a real Spanish paella pan at Perfect Paella. At a really decent price, with sizes and finishes to satisfy even the most eclectic fashion tastes. And they are quite light. I purchased one in polished steel. These pans are nicely finished with no surface treatment other than a layer of oil. You clean them by boiling some water in it, drying, then oiling lightly with olive oil. The pan will get a layer of olive oil baked into the surface with use. Complete with the flavours that you use in the pan, rather like a wok. I like it this way. Over time the pan seals completely and nothing ever again sticks to it. You clean it by wiping with a wet cloth.

I went the whole hog and cleaned the pan as per instructions, not wanting to take chances. I bought some real Spanish paella rice along with the pan and used the recipe on the back of the pack as a broad guide to what I was about to make.

The pan performed way beyond what I expected from the first use. No burning, no heat spots, no discolouring of the steel. I used a stainless steel egg lifter to stir the food. One of the plus points of using a plain polished steel pan. No problem there. I  made a medium sized fire in the Weber kettle and plonked the paella pan on top of the grill. Be careful when handling the paella pan, the steel handles get hot. The pan needs a medium to hot fire. I think one will need to experiment a little with the size of the fire.

The beauty of using the kettle braai is that one can put the lid on the kettle and let the dish simmer. The fluid in the pan steams and it controls the fire a bit. The steam also heats up way past  the boiling point of water, adding to the heat distribution inside this makeshift oven. All of this work towards very good cooking.

This pan is getting an honourable place in my kitchen. It is a very good tool. In the house, on camping trips and on travelling holidays where you have your own travel medium. Like a car. This won't work when flying.

Al fresco cooking

The recipe for the paella is quite simple: Two diced tomatoes, a clove of garlic, two diced onions, two cups of rice, some sea food, some chicken, salt to taste, seafood stock, paprika or Spanish saffron. Some olive oil. Add water as necessary. Fry the chicken pieces until brown, remove from the pan then fry the sea food, using a dollop of olive oil to lubricate the pan as required.

Remove the sea food when almost done.

Then add the onions, fry until translucent, add the garlic and fry for ten seconds, then add the dry, uncooked rice. Fry this until the pan goes almost dry, then add some of the stock. Keep on stirring and frying, adding first the stock, then water as required until the rice is almost done. Add the paprika or saffron while the mix is still quite wet and runny.

Add back all the meat and fish, garnish with chopped parsley and a cupful of fresh garden peas and simmer until everything has cooked through.

Make sure that most of the water has boiled away or has been absorbed; this is paella, not risotto.

The result: perfect paella

I added a chopped Thai chilli, pips removed. The paella must not be too spicy. I also added some fresh coriander leaves chopped, along with the parsley. A sprig of chopped spring onion was added along with the peas. And I added some fresh turmeric in lieu of saffron.

Smoked paprika apparently works wonders too. I shall purloin some somewhere in the near future. It adds a very special character to the dish.

Allow the dish to rest for fifteen minutes before dishing up, as always. It allows the flavours to develop. Have a glass of red wine while you wait, it is good for you.

Buen apetito!

Leftovers

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-03-12

When you would kill for something to eat other than beer snacks: Wrap lunch

Sailing will make you very thirsty, mostly because of the weather that you are enduring. Windy conditions will dry you out faster. And of course, the effect of the sun. Sitting on a boat makes it worse, as you cannot escape the elements. Not really. So you eat snacks and drink beer and water. But you stay hungry.

Combine this with the efforts and work required to keep the boat sailing and you end up being relatively tired and really hungry. Nobody really wants to cook, but everybody agrees there need to be something more than the snacks.

This is fast food, but not in a derogatory sense. A variation on the pasta lunch. No cooking or boiling of water required, which makes it a cinch. Only some rudimentary preparation required.

If you are industrious, you can make the filling at home and stash it in a seal-able plastic container. This will keep for the day and the flavours will develop.

Take some rosa-, cherry- or chopped normal tomatoes. The smaller ones I just cut in half. Squash them with your fingers if you want to. A cupful of this. Add a cupful of chopped cabbage and a small chilli, pips removed and chopped. Add half a carrot, sliced thinly, julienne'd if you will, and an onion, chopped. The filling needs something crunchy as well as something a bit piquant. Sweet bell peppers will also help. Half a cup of bean sprouts or other sprouts. Mix thoroughly and add a blob of mayonnaise.

Get some spicy sausages, three or four will do the trick. Five if you are hungry. Slice them up into thin wheels. Add to the mix.

Done with the filling before the next tack!

For the wrap I used store bought rotis, a flat bread made with yeast. My readers in parts of the world other than Cape Town may find a normal pancake size tortilla wrap more readily available. It does not really matter. For a day sail, the easiest wraps are those that you get from your nearest food shop or supermarket.

Ladle a liberal dessert spoonful of the filling into the wrap, then fold the wrap around the filling leaving one side open. Wrap this lot in a paper napkin and you have your very fast lunch.

This lot will make about five portions, so you will need at least five wraps. Scale to your heart's content. And experiment with the ingredients, the variations are endless.

Voila! Lunch! And hardly any dishwashing required.

Bon appetit.

Lunch guest

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-26

This blog post compiled for the GBYC newsletter.

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

Still Feeling Romantic? Valentine's Dinner

The oppressive heat here in the Strand area near Cape Town is brain numbing. It is getting harder to think clearly on identifying some romantic dishes for Valentine's day dinner. You will surprised at how much beer it takes to think up some decent recipes!

Valentine's day was coming up and the missus and I had long discussions on what to eat. A restaurant dinner was outside of our budget, so we were discussing various options for dinner.

We have lots of fresh fruit and I have used these extensively in brandied versions as well as in compotes of various descriptions. So I decided to stay on this course for a while and keep things simple for dessert. Flapjacks with a lime and vanilla caramel and cream. Dessert sorted. What of the starter?

Starter

After some discussion with the missus we decided on a spicy chourizo and prawn salad. Simplicity par excellence. You need some fresh mixed salad leaves, the green stuff, half a cup of freshly steamed garden peas, a dollop of lemon juice and a dollop of mayonnaise.

For the two helpings I used eight prawns and a 100mm (four inch) piece of chourizo, cut into thin wheels. Take the skin off if you want to, it comes off anyway. Chop up and mash two garlic cloves. Fry this in a lightly oiled pan, then add the chourizo. Allow the chourizo to release some of its fat, then add the prawns. Simmer this lot for another five minutes, then dish up.

Dishing up means that you arrange some of the leafy stuff in the bottom of a ramekin, then add the meats. Add some peas over this, then garnish with a dollop of mayonnaise and a few drops of lemon juice. And, if you are into styling, add some more green, leafy stuff to round it off.

A very quick to assemble warm salad, tangy and very tasty.

Main course

For the main course we decided on something grilled in the skillet, complete with some steamed veggies and mash. A softer option than the regulation braai food for the type of weather that we are having.

Grilled pork fillet, doused in an apple sauce. We have not ever had this before. The fillet was grilled in a ribbed skillet from Le Creuset using a little duck fat for thermal contact. The vegetables were chosen at random because they looked fresh and romantic. They were steamed in a sieve on top of the potatoes as they boiled. The potatoes were cut into thinnish slices for faster cooking.

The apple sauce were made by peeling, de-coring and blitzing two apples. The juice of half a small lime went into the mix, as well as a grating or three of nutmeg and a pinch of salt. To this lot was added half a cup of water and the lot set to simmer for a few minutes. Check that the sauce is runny enough for your taste.

The Hollandaise sauce is the stock standard stuff you get from your favourite recipe book. I added some black mustard seeds for the flavour. This lot was made using one egg yolk, three dessert spoons of cake flour, a small pinch of salt and a few drops of lemon juice. I also added some milk to get the batter into a runny mix.

Making this is becoming my favourite party trick. I do not possess a double cooker, so I hold the pan in one hand high over the burner while stirring the mix frantically with the other hand. The mix must not boil, otherwise you end up with a sticky mess omelet, so I am told. But hold your breath. I have made this twice, both times successfully. So far so good! This sauce came out quite delicious if a bit on the thick side. The mustard seeds bought just that extra flavour to the veggies.

The mash is pretty standard. This one had a dollop of cream to make it richer. It is a Valentine's dinner after all.

Dessert

We have not had flapjacks (crumpets to some) for a while. Here in South Africa you traditionally make a heap of the things, then envelop them in butter and golden syrup before gulping them down hot, before the butter runs all over your hands and on to the table. Good dirty fun to have with your young children.

I proposed that we make only a few, then dish them up in proper style. This means you make a little stack with butter in between, doused with a fruity caramel sauce (another compote?) and a dollop of cream. Perhaps, if you dare me, I shall add a little leaf of mint as garnish. Us yachties also have style, you know...

The ingredients are for two servings, so scale to suit or just follow your favourite recipe. If using a lime, use a small fruit. Else just cut the slices across to have smaller pieces. These make little caramelled slices in the compote.

Ingredients

For the flapjacks

1 cup cake flour

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1 dessert spoon butter, melted

1 teaspoon, heaped, baking powder

1 egg

½ to 1 cup milk or water

For the compote

1 small lime or other citrus fruit sliced thinly across the equator. You need about half a cup of sliced fruit.

½ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon butter

½ teaspoon vanilla essence

½ cup water

Some cream and butter (real butter, not margarine or other ersatz stuff) for dishing up.

A sprig or two of mint for garnish

Process

For the flapjacks

Sift all the dry ingredients, then rub in the butter. Mix well, then add the egg and mix thoroughly before adding the milk/water. The batter needs to have the consistency of thick cream. Use a dishing-up spoon to ladle the batter on to a lightly oiled frying pan or skillet. You only need to oil the pan once. I use a non-stick frying pan from Le Creuset, so I don't use oil. Use up all the batter, there should be about eight or more flapjacks.

For the compote

Put the butter, salt sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Make sure everything is mixed. When the water has almost boiled away, add the sliced citrus fruit. Stir the dish to make sure it does not burn. Ensure that all the fruit is covered in caramel and cooking. Cook until the foaming has stopped or when you think you are hungry enough, then remove the compote from the heat. Bear in mind that this stuff is much hotter than boiling water, so leave some time for it to cool down before serving. Add a little water and allow it to soak through if the compote is too sticky and toffee-like.

For dishing up

Stack the flapjacks into stacks of four to five high with a little butter in between and on top. Pour some of the compote over the stack and garnish with a dollop of cream and a sprig of mint.

Voila! Your romantic three course dinner!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-15

The Next Sourdough Experiment: French Loaf

After my last lost argument with my oven, I decided to walk the straight and narrow path of using a recipe slavishly.

Well, that is until I realised that in this oppressive heat in the Western Cape region, room temperature is actually around 30ºC, not 20ºC like the recipe requires for the first part of the rise. And how does one tell the amount of water in the starter?

Well, this is life, I thought and just carried on regardless. The elevated temperature will make the dough rise faster, but I may lose on some of the leavening and perhaps have a different flavour. This was my reasoning at any rate.

I opened my copy of Classic Sourdoughs, Revised by Ed and the late Jane Wood and picked the basic French loaf. This time I would win the argument with the oven!

True to expectations, both the starter and my basic sourdough overcooked from vitality in this heat and were running all over the counter-top. They like this weather!

I used a cup full of rye flour for the starter after I washed the basic sourdough by diluting it with normal tap water and discarding half of it. The rest was split in two for the starter, then fed with a cup of rye flour.

The recipe is very basic, using salt, flour, water and the sourdough starter. The dough mix is reasonably soft. This lot rose very well overnight. I then kneaded it down after allowing a two hour rest in the open. Another half cup of flour was added because the dough sagged too much in my estimation.

The dough was then split into two to make two small loaves. Our consumption of bread is so low that a large loaf goes stale. Going this way I can freeze one loaf.

The loaves were then put into the oven, covered with a wet cloth and allowed to rise for another four hours. I switch the oven on to about 40ºC /100ºF to boost the rising a bit.

These loaves were then baked at 200ºC/400ºF for 35 minutes using the bottom element and fan, then another 15 minutes using the top element and fan. And there was the requisite cup of boiling water in the bottom of the oven. After which the loaves were promptly removed from the oven and put out on a rack to cool down. 

This time I won the argument with the oven. The loaves have decent fermentation bubbles, a soft crumb and a nice chewy crust, not too brittle. And the flavour is perfect, just a tad of sourness from the rye and the dough fermentation regime I followed.

Perhaps I should pay more attention to detail, methinks.

This post also linked to Yeastspotting!

Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2013-02-13