fig and blue cheese tartlets

black fig and blue cheese tartlet

I made up these little tarts with some leftover pastry I had lying around.  I had a few ripe black figs that have been begging to be combined with blue cheese and pastry. Make up a batch of short crust pastry (a savoury version is better) or just line some tart cases with ready rolled puff pastry.

recipe: for 6 – excluding pastry (extrapolate up or down as necessary)

• 4 eggs
• 250 ml cream
• a block of blue cheese of choice – I like gorgonzola or Simonzola

How to make:

• preheat your oven to 180 degrees c
• line your tart tins with pastry (as per above) and bake for about 10 minutes (I don’t find it necessary to bake small pastry tarts ‘blind’ first)
• beat the eggs and cream
• when they have just turned golden remove from the oven
• crumble some blue cheese into the bottom
• put half a fig in the tart
• cover 3/4 to the top with the egg and cream mixture
• add the other half a fig and another crumble of blue cheese
• place the tarts on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, until firm and set and golden brown

This recipe and quantity would work for a single 23cm tart.

fridays food porn: pancakes with syrup

photographer Matt van Lill - styled by Samantha Linsell (moi)

taste of cape town 2010: a foodie playground

i love the taste of cape town event

It was like the angels had sprinkled a good serving of the most gorgeous men over Rhodes High School in Mowbray last night, it was almost bizarre.

But I digress.

 My fellow food freak friend, and talented chef Lori (with her own catering co: Persimmon) and I went to this superb event last night and as per usual, were not disappointed. There was some initial over excitement and anxiety as we arrived, but as veterans, we took a half hour break at the Checkers cap classique tasting, where we could sit quietly and go through the menu and decide what to eat, whilst being served tasting samples of bubbly. The Odd Bins 286 (cap classique Brut Rose) was delicious and I’m so going to be hunting this one down before it disappears.

figuring out what we are going to eat, an essential part of the process

 After circling our choices on the menu – we set off and ate the following:

 Bistro Sixteen82: Soft shell crab, panko crumbed and fried, served with dressed pea shoots and smoked paprika aioli.

soft shell crab - we loved you

This was totally delicious and the taste and texture of this rare crab delicacy imported from Burma could be fully appreciated despite being fried. I have heard a lot of good things about this restaurant – so now it’s definitely on my list. 

Ginja: Lori ate the crispy fried calamari pina colada, pineapple salsa, chilli glaze. The sauce was very interesting, but overall I was a bit ‘underwhelmed’. 

Overture:  The Over – burger with truffle mayonnaise.  This was a very soft and delicious burger with the truffle mayonnaise not overpowering things.  It’s such a spectacular restaurant and I look forward to going back.

 The Greenhouse: Salmon in miso, pickled daikon radish, sticky rice and fried wakame leaves.

cooked sous vide, this dish jet propelled me straight into heaven

Fortunately we bumped into fellow food blogger ‘JamieWho’ who was raving about this dish and strongly recommended that we try it. Thank you for that! (his blog totally rocks it).  Salmon cooked sous vide and out of this world.  What an extra special treat meeting and talking to Peter Tempelhoff and being spoiled with the dessert: Tonka bean crème brulee, summery berry chutney and salted peanut butter espuma (in my wildest imagination I would not have imaged peanut butter tasting air).

Fun and games coming up with those tonka beans!

Nobu: Lori and I both had the black cod den miso and once again I was reminded about the awesomeness of this dish.  A few sips of sake to help savour it.

drinking a bit of sake at the Nobu stand

We drank many samples of lovely wine, a bit of Grolsch, finishing off the evening with a Patron tasting (we had all the tequila and the rum), and a final little snack from Cape Colony at The Mount Nelson: Mushroom empanadas – what perfect pastry!

This event is a total ‘must do’ and we loved every second of this one.

black fig, parma ham and mozzarella salad: sexy

indeed a very sexy and succulent salad

Jamie refers to this as “the easiest sexiest salad in the world”.  Quite a sweeping statement, but it certainly is very delicious.

Wrap parma ham or prosciutto slices around black figs that have been sliced criss cross, but not all the way through and then squished out. Make up the salad with slices of buffalo mozzarella, torn basil leaves and drizzle over Jamie’s honey and lemon juice dressing.

Honey and lemon juice dressing:

• 6tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 3tbs lemon juice
• 1 tbs honey (runny works well)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

toasted coconut bakewell tart

toasted coconut bakewell tart

This is a nice coconut bakewell tart, developed by Alan Coxon.

recipe:

• short crust pastry (ready-made frozen or make your own which is preferable)
• 5 Tbsp raspberry or strawberry jam
• 140 gms  caster sugar
• 140 gms butter softened
• 3 eggs
• 85 gms desiccated coconut
• 60 gms  flour
• 1 tsp almond essence (I used caramel essence)
• extra coconut to sprinkle on top and icing sugar to dust

how to make:

• preheat oven to 180 degrees C
• line a 23cm tart tin with ready-made short crust or make your own and bake blind until golden
• allow to cool slightly and then spread the jam over the pastry base

cover with raspberry or strawberry jam

• cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy
• add the eggs one at a time, mixing in between each addition
• fold in the coconut, flour and essence by hand and spread over the pastry base with jam
• cover the top with a layer of coconut

covered with snowy coconut

• bake for 40 – 45 minutes, until golden brown and firm to the touch
• when cooled, dust with icing sugar

If you like coconut this is a winner recipe.

spicy pickled carrots

very easy way to pickle and preserve a few carrots

I have never pickled anything before but am wild about the concept of preserving.  I also really love the idea of eating the same food and experiencing its character in  many different ways. A friend sent me the link to this recipe on this great site dedicated to preserving: Food in Jars……definitely worth checking out if you want more info and detail on pickling etc.

I took about 45ogms of carrots (1 x bag), peeled and quartered them.  I cut a few into smaller batons as my jar is a strange curvy shape.

Blanch the carrots for about 30 seconds and then drain. The recommendation was 15 seconds — but that just seemed a little bit too short. Pack the carrots tightly into an adequately sized jar.

Make up the pickling brine by putting the liquid and spices into a pan and bringing this to the boil.

Pour the brine over the carrots, scraping around the inside of the jar in order to dislodge any air bubbles .

Recipe for the small batch pickling brine: (how easy is this?)

• 1 cup filtered water (I used water from my kettle
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• a small handful of ready mixed pickling spice or you could use as per her recipe: (I added a few extra pinches of chilli, bay leaves and cloves)

A palmful (each) of at least a few of the following:

• crushed bay leaves,peppercorns, hot pepper flakes, allspice berries, coriander seeds, whole cloves

Seal the jar and allow to cool.  Store in the fridge for 2 t0 3 days until ready to eat.

I cant wait to see how these will turn out and if pickling is this easy – I will start playing round with a few other vegetables.

VERDICT: The carrot is very crunchy and the flavours are quite intense.  I find that the cloves are a bit overpowering so will leave these out next time and add only: bay, peppercorns, coriander seeds, a pinch of chilli. I served these to a few friends for supper and they loved them.

pineapple and banana fritters

pineapple and banana fritters

I’m busy testing a few recipes for a client of mine and one of them is fritters.

This is a very easy recipe and makes up quite a lot, so an option would be to halve the quantities. You can make up a variety of options, sweet or savoury.

recipe: (batter)

• 2 cups of flour sifted
• 1 tsp baking powder
• salt and pepper to taste if you are making a savoury fritter, or 1 Tbsp sugar for a sweet fritter
• 2 eggs beaten
• 1 cup milk
• cooking oil for frying the fritters

For the main ingredient, add 2 cups of the following:

Corn (canned, frozen or fresh off the cob), banana’s mashed, pineapple cut into small chunks, cooked mashed pumpkin, butternut or sweet potato..any fruit of vegetable.

I used a combo of half chopped pineapple and half mashed banana.  They were not that sweet, so I sprinkled generously with cinnamon castor sugar.

quick and easy hummous

quick and easy hummous

Empty and drain a can of chickpeas.  Process these in a food processor with:

• a small handful of coriander leaves
• a clove or two of garlic (depending on how potent you want it)
• 2 Tbs tahini
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• juice of half a lemon
• good pinch of salt and grind of pepper
• pinch of chilli flakes
• a good few glugs of olive oil (or water for a healthier option)

Blend until you to get to the consistency that you would like, the more oil / water you add the smoother and softer it will become.

halva frozen yoghurt

halva frozen yoghurt - drizzle over some extra honey

I used to make halva ice cream using ready-made vanilla ice cream, thawing this slightly and then mixing in honey and tahini, then re freezing. Totally delicious with  the essence of  halva coming through.

Thought this would work well with yoghurt as a base, but will definitely want to try it with a cream ice cream base.

recipe:

• 1kg full cream greek yoghurt (used the Woolies organic one)
• 100ml easy pour honey (makes the mixing in easier) – you could add more if you want it sweeter
• 4 Tbsp tahini

Mix all of the above in a bowl and churn through an ice cream maker if want to make a frozen dessert.

This thick creamy mixture is so delicious as is, it would work so well just dolloped directly onto:  fruit, caramelised fruit, baked fruit,  muesli or as a cream replacement with a nice almond tart.

Sprinkle on some toasted nuts or stir through chopped pistachios.

halva frozen yoghurt

sandbar camps bay – argus day and lance armstrong

the sandbar - camps bay - cyclists cruising past

The Sandbar in Camps Bay is in the perfect location generally, but today it was the perfect spot to sit and have lunch and watch the Argus cyclists come zooming past.

I had been up and about much earlier in the day to go and see my hero- Lance Armstrong  on his final approach a couple of kays away from the finish line.  It was all a bit too quick and brief, and I was totally overexposed to the awesomeness of the moment, I forgot to scream out a little message for him. Managed to get some pics though.

and there he is hardly slowing down round the corner

just a flash of awesomeness and perfection

Anyway a quiet little lunch turned into a very social afternoon, and our table for two became a table for ten, with old and new friends popping in and out.

The Sandbar do a great burger, with mandatory crispy fried onion rings (a crucial element) and chips.  The Chicken caesar salad is also pretty good.

nacho's burger @ the sandbar in camps bay - delicious

chicken ceasar salad at the sandbar

All round a stunning little spot for breakfast,  lunch or just a coctail in the most stunning location.

Next year I am going to overcome my fears and get on my bike (I see the smiles and can hear the mumbles all the way to Dawson Creek, Canada).

great views all round from the sandbar