World Cup Cuisine – South African Milk Tart
Kerri and I came up with a rather ambitious plan for the World Cup – to try to cook the food of the participants on the day that they were playing. We figured that we could probably get through roughly half of the countries involved, which is probably a bit over-ambitious but something to aim for at least.
With the first game involving the hosts South Africa, that was obviously where we needed to start. One of the most popular South African desserts is milk tart, or “melktert” which is the Afrikaans translation. The tart originated from a Dutch custard tart centuries ago, which Malay cooks in South Africa personalised with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Having grown up in South Africa, I’ve eaten it many times but never tried to cook it before and it surprised me when the first recipe that I found on the web didn’t include a crust. I thought it was a little strange to have a tart without a crust, and searched around for another recipe and found one that included pastry. But due to laziness eventually tried the crustless one anyway!
I think I overdid the cinnamon because the top of the tart was completely brown rather than the white with brown speckles that is common, but it certainly tasted good. The base and edge had actually formed itself into something of a soft “crust” during the cooking process, which when I tasted it seemed instantly familiar – the crustless version must be quite common.
BLAM!
The humble sandwich. I eat a lot of them but rarely post about it. I generally favour the plainer fillings: ham and mustard or leftover roast chicken. As long as the bread is fresh and crusty and the butter isn’t margarine then I’m easily pleased. Ready-made sandwiches don’t do much for me, the sad, soggy bread, dripping with mayonnaise encased in plastic always leaves me feeling unsatisfied and ripped-off.
I had to go nil-by-mouth last week which was horrifying enough for a food-obsessive like me but the combination of no food or liquid on the hottest day of the year sent me slightly mad. As I entered my 21st hour without anything to eat and my seventh without water, the noises from my stomach started to reverberate around the waiting room and my mind inevitably turned to food. When I’m really hungry I normally crave hamburgers but this time, in my slightly delirious state, what I craved most was a toasted bagel with bacon, lettuce, avocado and mozarella. This isn’t a combination I’ve ever eaten before but it came to me with such clarity that I knew I had to try it. And now I’m almost grateful for those hours of starvation because I’ve found my new favourite sandwich.
A version without bacon and with pesto instead (the PLAM) worked well too and I suspect adding pesto to the BLAM (a BLAMP) would also be a winner. The other obvious addition is tomato but aside from the fact that I hate them, I can’t make the acronym work so that’s obviously a no-go.
I’m not going to give you a recipe for a sandwich but I will say that you’ll enjoy this experience more if you get the mozarella onto the hot bagel quickly so it starts to melt and go stringy.
Pork Rib Ragu
Finally. I’ve been planning to make this for what feels like forever but each attempt has been thwarted for one reason or another. A couple of weeks ago, I actually went to the butcher and purchased the ribs I needed but a bout of illness meant I had to put them in the freezer. Needing the freezer space for ice blocks this weekend, I was forced to make this on Saturday and, I have to be honest, it felt like a bit of a chore. Gone was the enthusiasm I previously had for the dish, replaced by a desire to be outside in the garden with a glass of wine. Still, it had to be done and, having just finished a huge bowl-full, I’m glad I sacrificed the sunbathing for the stove.
My initial plan had been just to use ribs for the dish but I’d picked up a pack of reduced diced pork shoulder in Waitrose so that went in too. The original inspiration came from the pork ragu I made back in April using leftover pork which had worked well but was somewhat lacking in porky flavour. I hoped using bone-in ribs would add the flavour that was missing last time and, I think it did. Of course, that flavour could have come from the pork shoulder. My ability to change only one thing at a time when tweaking recipes continues to fail me so I don’t know for sure. I liked it though although I would add an extra tin of tomatoes next time. Full of rich, meaty flavour but with a lightness coming from the tomatoes and herbs. I used white wine this time instead of red which also contributed to the lighter feeling.
Removing the meat from the bone was a little faffy, it’s easier to do that when everything is still hot and I didn’t have time on Saturday so had to do it while re-heating the ragu tonight. The initial browning takes a little while too but it’s worth paying attention to this stage to maximise the flavour. Aside from that, it’s a dish that looks after itself which meant I got my glass of wine in the garden eventually.
Pork Ragu
Serves Four
8 pork ribs
450g diced pork shoulder
2 onions, finely diced
4 cloves garlic
1 large carrot, finely diced
2 sticks celery, finely diced
2 bay leaves
Large handful mixed herbs (I used sage, oregano, rosemary and thyme)
Tablespoon tomato puree
Salt and pepper
Large glass white wine
Tin tomatoes
1 litre vegetable stock
200ml milk
Start by browning the seasoned pork ribs and shoulder in batches. Remove to a plate and reserve.
In the same pan, soften the onions, garlic, carrot and celery. Add the bay leaves and herbs and mix, cook for a couple of minutes.
Next, add the tomato puree, mix and cook for a couple of minutes. Season.
Deglaze the pan with the wine, add the tomatoes, the stock and the milk.
Return the meat to the pan, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 3-4 hours, or until the meat is falling apart. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the liquid level and add more water if necessary.
Salami, Pesto and Watercress Pizza
Stephen mentioned in passing that he was considering taking a break from his wheat-free diet as he was craving bread. As a confirmed bread-lover, I’ve missed homemade pizza the most since Stephen’s experiment started so, seconds after he admitted his resolve was weakening, I’d convinced him we should eat pizza for dinner.
We had rather a lot of salami and mozarella left over from a previous sandwich-making extravaganza (which was brilliant but I forgot to photograph so watch out for that soon) so that was the starting point for this pizza. At the last minute, Stephen threw on some artichokes which are perfect for this sort of thing and so useful to have in the fridge. After a brief searing in the oven, the pizza was topped with some watercress which I’d tossed in some pesto and some fresh mozarella (a tip we picked up at a Pizza Express Masterclass).
Stephen thought this was a good pizza but not as good as last time, I thought it was brilliant though. The watercress adds a great pepperiness to the pizza and the fresh cheese is a great contrast to the cooked, stringy mozarella which makes the whole thing seem lighter and fresher.
Thai Red Chicken Curry
We’ve been without broadband for a few days, due to some unknown BT fault, hence the very late update – we actually ate this on Wednesday.
I feel I should try to say something interesting, given the gap in posting, but this was actually made with ready-made paste that has been in the freezer for a while. More than a while if I’m honest and while I’m generally an advocate of freezing Thai pastes, this one had definitely deteriorated over time. We thought that might be the case so added lots of it to increase the heat and fragrance which worked fairly well. Not a bad effort for a mid-week meal but nothing like as good as a homemade paste.
Beef and Stilton Burgers
Knowing I would be away for most of the weekend, I planned ahead and organised tonight’s dinner well in advance. I made the mistake of checking (and believing) the weather forecast in advance though and when I saw sun, I planned for a barbecue. By the time I got home this evening, it wasn’t particularly sunny but Stephen was happy to light the fire anyway so we went ahead.
The dreary weather had dampened my spirits slightly so I half-heartedly threw this together based on a Gordon Ramsay recipe (which I can’t find online), and made a quick salad to go with it. Shamefully, I didn’t even bother to cook onions or slice lettuce to go with the burgers so what you see here is exactly what we ate: burgers in buns. You can see for yourself that I didn’t pay much attention to the photography either.
We weren’t convinced of the quality of the beef mince we were using so opted to cook these all the way through which meant they’d dried out a little. The flavour combination worked well though (beef, red onion, chives, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, English mustard, Stilton) and next time I’ll go a bit heavier on the seasoning and use better beef. An extra wodge of cheese in the middle wouldn’t hurt either.
Sag Aloo and Moong Dal
Last week I was feeling rather ill for most of the week and ended up eating quite a lot of fairly plain food. This included mostly cooked vegetables and not much meat. Although I am over that now, some of those menu choices still recur. With Kerri out this evening and an abundance of potatoes and spinach in the house, I had to make sag aloo.
With it I made some dal – we had made a dry version of moong dal recently, which we had frozen half of. As the sag aloo was dryish too, I added some extra water to the dal when reheating it to make it a bit wetter and a good accompaniment to the sag aloo. Just before serving it, I fried a chopped dried chilli and some cumin seeds and poured them over the dal, which gave it a lovely aromatic note.
It all went quite well together and only as I was eating the last mouthful did I wonder “where is the rice?”. I had forgotten to make any rice, but it didn’t matter much as I enjoyed it all anyway. There is some left for lunch tomorrow too, which is good.
Chicken with Thyme
After Wednesday night’s fail, Stephen offered to cook chicken with tarragon sauce on Friday night. Except he couldn’t find tarragon so yet another attempt to try the aniseedy herb was thwarted. He did still cook dinner and used the same Delia recipe he was intending to use but substituted the tarragon for thyme. It worked well and the sauce had a really deep, rich flavour.
We both agreed that although we enjoyed the flavour of the sauce, it was perhaps slightly over-reduced. Next time we’ll watch the reduction a little more closely. And perhaps we’ll even use tarragon.
Grilled Chicken with Muscat Wine and Thyme – FAIL
I took a couple of recipe books to bed with me last night, in the hope of finding something for tonight’s dinner. I had a vague plan to cook chicken with a tarragon sauce, partly because a friend cooked it recently and commented on how good it was and partly because I’m trying to like all things aniseed. The fennel we ate in Jamie’s tagine recently wasn’t as challenging as I’d previously found it so I thought I’d see how I fared with tarragon.
As I was paging through Nigel Slater’s “Real Fast Food”, I came across this recipe.* There wasn’t any tarragon in it but it was healthier than the creamy sauce of my first choice so I changed my mind and decided to cook that instead.
Having read the recipe, I knew I didn’t need to marinate anything so, planning to eat at 7, I started preparing everything at about 6.15. And then I read the recipe more closely. This is a mistake I often make and I really need to stop doing it. The recipe didn’t make any sense. Marinate the chicken in the wine, garlic, thyme and chopped vegetables while you get on with the rest of the dish (Nigel suggested a salad of watercress and orange which I wasn’t planning to do but would have taken about five minutes to make). Then, put the chicken under the grill, spoon on some of the marinating liquid, cook and then add the juices to the plated chicken. I didn’t understand how any of the flavour was going to penetrate the chicken, given both the short marinating time and the fact that all the liquid would slip away as soon as it went under the grill.
Stephen came home and agreed that if we followed this method, we were going to end up with tasteless, grilled chicken. Since I’d already chopped the vegetables and put them in a dish with the chicken and the wine, we were in a bit of a quandary. We decided to roast the chicken in a little of the wine and vegetable mixture and cook the rest of the wine down on the hob to make a sauce. The chicken seemed to be cooking through but it was pale and the skin hadn’t crisped up so we grilled it for the last few minutes of the cooking time. At which point, some of the skin burnt, some didn’t brown at all and the bottom of the pan became a dark, sticky mess.
The sauce was disgusting. Stephen had added some white wine to dilute the sweetness of the muscat but it didn’t work. He then tried to blend the liquid and the vegetables together but that didn’t work either and it went down the sink.
The vegetables tasted fine though so we plated those up with the chicken and hoped for the best. Despite our best efforts to rescue things, the chicken was completely tasteless and I gave up after two bites. Stephen finished his vegetables but the rest ended up in the bin.
The lesson here? Apart from reading the recipe properly first, always stick with your first choice. If I’d gone with the recommended chicken and tarragon as I planned then I wouldn’t be typing this while eating a bowl of Cornflakes.
* The recipe isn’t online and, after all that, I’m not going to type it out.
An English Tortilla
I’ve been wanting to do something with asparagus, bacon and English cheese for a while. I like the popular Italian combination of asparagus with grated parmesan wrapped in Parma ham but with something so typically English like asparagus, it seems a shame to rely on Italian accompaniments and not celebrate other good, English ingredients.
Of course, I could have just grated the cheese over the asparagus and then wrapped it in bacon before grilling but I wanted something more substantial. The addition of potatoes was obvious and thus the English tortilla was born. Perhaps I should have given more thought to an English sounding name for the dish but I got stuck on “pie” which this isn’t really.
This wasn’t a risky dish, everyone knows that bacon + cheese + potato = good but I’m still pleased that it turned out so well. The first slices were severely lacking in bacon though, the bacon pieces had made their way to the other side of the frying pan and stayed there meaning one side was salty and full of bacony goodness while the other was a little under-seasoned and verging on vegetarian. We compensated for this by eating from the other side too which wasn’t exactly a hardship but I’ll be careful to mix the ingredients more thoroughly next time.
To balance out the sweetness I knew would come from the caramelised onions and Lincolnshire Poacher, I added a salad of chicory and radicchio with a few walnuts, some more cheese and a dressing of oil and lemon juice. It did indeed provide a good contrast but I think the cheese would have been better grated on top of the fritatta before it went under the grill.
Asparagus, Bacon and Lincolnshire Poacher Tortilla
Serves Two (generously)
1 bunch asparagus
1 packet lardons
Olive oil
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
3 medium potatoes, finely sliced (I use a mandoline for this)
4 eggs
100g cheese, grated
Handful parsley, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
Cook the asparagus until it is just tender, drain and rinse under cold water to prevent it cooking any further.
In a large frying pan, fry the bacon until the fat has rendered, remove from the pan and blot on some kitchen paper. Drain and discard the excess oil
In the same pan, add a little olive oil and caramelise the onion; I do this by frying them for a few minutes on a high heat so they start to brown and then turning the heat down and cooking slowly until they are golden all over – this takes about 15 minutes.
Remove the onions from the frying pan and add to the bacon. In the same pan, add some more oil and cook the potato slices slowly over a low heat – about 20 minutes. Remove (scraping up any stuck-on, browned pieces) and add to the bacon and onions.
In a large bowl, gently mix together the eggs, cheese, parsley and salt and pepper until the egg yolk is just broken down. Add the potatoes, onion and bacon and combine gently.
Pour the whole lot back into the frying pan (after adding a little more oil) and then add the blanched asparagus. Cook for about 20 minutes and then put the frying pan under the grill to brown the top.
