Get out the diary : The annual Eat In Producer Awards will be held at the Biscuit Mill on the 17th March. A night market will feature the nominees as well as some of the usual Biscuit Mill traders. The winners will be announced on the night and the market will run from 5pm – 8pm.
Hope to see you there….
White Mussels
The commander and I have just spent an amazing weekend in Brittania Bay up the West Coast with Hero, his long suffering wife Mich and pool shark Collette. The amazing parts were the weather, the warm sea, the dolphins playing in the bay and the feast of white mussels we enjoyed on Saturday night. I don’t expect to experience the combination of weather, sea and dolphins all at the same time ever again up the west coast but I will definitely cook white mussels again.
White mussels live under the sand and are best collected as the tide is going out. The secret is to dig down into the sand with your foot (this is called the mussel jive) until you feel one and then dig it out with your hands. You generally find a few in the near vicinity and the sizes range from 2cm to 7cm. I found the medium ones (3-4cm) to be the nicest size inside. They are very sandy and need to be soaked in a bucket of water for a couple of hours to filter out the sand.
Cooking them is very simple and you can follow any recipe for black mussels. In a pot saute an onion in 75g butter for 5 minutes, added 3 cloves of chopped garlic and cooked for another 5 minutes. Add the juice of 1 lemon, 100ml white wine and the mussels. Cover with the lid and cook until the mussels steam open. Shake the pot every couple of minutes to ensure even cooking. Once the mussels have opened toss in a large handful of chopped parsley and shake well. Serve with crusty bread, extra lemon and a crisp green salad.
Some helpful tips:
– Bring along some kids as they are very good at digging up the mussels and don’t eat that many (thanks to Zak, Liam and Janey for your efforts)
– Never play pool against Collette for money (hope you remember this one Zak, Liam and Janey)
– Some variations to the recipe include adding freshly chopped chilli, chopped coriander, green curry paste and coconut milk
– A big empty bowl on the table is useful for discarded shells
– Justin if you are reading this I hope you don’t mind me using your pic
The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne – Robertson Davies
Gnocchi
Ever wonder where that expression came from? It is attributed to John Gower in his exciting and concise little 33000 line poem called Confessio Amantis and dates back to 1383. The phrase relates to unsavoury merchants that substitute chalk for cheese in order to increase their profits. Nowadays we use it to highlight extreme differences.
A perfect way to do this is to make your own gnocchi at home. The supermarket varieties tend to be very rubbery, often contain less than 50% potato and are very heavy. Here is a simple recipe that makes a delicious, tasty, light dumpling and is surprisingly easy.
Ingredients for 4
5 large baked potatoes
2 eggs
salt and pepper
1-2 cups flour
Method
Peel the baked potatoes and mash them. Add the eggs, salt and pepper and mix well. Add 1 cup flour and mix well. The potatoes will absorb the flour and if the mixture is too sticky and soft keep adding more flour until it forms a “dough” that is a little tacky but holds together. The amount of flour you need to add will depend on the type of potato, the size of potato and the moisture content. Flour your surface well and break off a tennis ball size piece of dough. Roll it out into a long sausage about 2cm thick. Cut the sausage into pieces about 3cm long and place them on a plate to rest while you finish rolling the rest of the dough. Cook the pieces in boiling salted water. When they float to the surface they are ready. Remove from the water and drain well, then add the gnocchi to your favourite sauce.
Sauce options
Green – Pesto and parmesan
Blue – Gorgonzola and pecan nuts
Red – Sun dried tomato, pancetta and chilli
Variations
– I used quinoa flour instead of cake flour. This lowers the carbohydrates and increases the proteins in the dish and adds a lovely earthy flavour
– Don’t be scared to experiment, add capers, anchovy, artichoke, roasted peppers, prosciutto, olives, garlic, pine nuts, basil or sage
– If you want to flavour your gnocchi you can also add herbs or cheese to the dough when you are mixing it
Much talking is the cause of danger. Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech, fly freely about – Saskya Pandita
Scallops wrapped in pancetta
Scallops are one of my favourite seafood dishes. It is a pity that they are so rarely found on restaurant menus as the sweet succulent meat is delicious and doesn’t require a lot of effort to make something special. I’m not a big fan of surf and turf but in this case the pancetta really compliments the flavour of the scallop meat. Pancetta is air dried pork belly and is rubbed with herbs and spices to give it lots of flavour. It also has streaks of fat which prevent the scallops from drying out.
Ingredients for 2
8 large scallops
8 pieces of flat pancetta
1 pack asparagus
1 pack edamame beans
juice of 1/2 a lemon
30g butter
chives
black pepper
Wrap each scallop in a piece of pancetta and set aside. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil and add the beans. If you have a steamer place it on top of the beans and steam the asparagus. The beans will be ready in 5 minutes and so will the asparagus. Put the butter in a frying pan and heat up until the butter stops foaming. Fry the scallops for 3 – 4 minutes just until the pancetta starts to crisp. Arrange the asparagus and edamame on a plate and top with the scallops. Add the lemon juice to the pan to deglaze and pour the sauce over the scallops. Sprinkle with chopped chives and a little freshly ground black pepper. You don’t need to add salt to this dish as the pancetta will provide this.
Serve with a nice hunk of Knead ciabatta and you have the perfect dish for a light lunch or halve the portion for an elegant starter.
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires – Lao-tzu
Halloumi Salad
Most cook books – well at least the better ones – have a section on store cupboard items. Things to always have around in case guests drop by unexpectedly or the fridge is bare on a Sunday night. One of the thing I always have on hand is a packet of lardons in the fridge. Little pieces of pancetta, bursting with flavour, that have a variety of uses. They go really well in pasta sauces, are used as a pizza topping by Evan at Knead and are also great at making a salad into a meal.
After a weekend of croissants, cakes, delicious lamb pitas (thanks Tanya) and a hot seared salmon ciabatta at The Bay Food and Wine Market, Commander J felt the need for salad on Monday night. I realised that lettuce and tomato would not fill the requisite gap in our stomachs and so decided to jazz it up a bit with fried halloumi and crispy lardons. This is a great recipe for using up any leftover bits and pieces from the weekend and is a perfect meal now that summer is here.
Ingredients (for 2)
1 pack halloumi cheese, cut into strips and dusted with flour
1 pack lettuce – I used butter lettuce but you can use whatever you have
Some fresh herbs from the garden – rocket, basil. mint, dill, chives
A couple of olives
1 avo, sliced
3 artichoke hearts, chopped
A few pieces roasted peppers
A few capers
Some pickled mushrooms
A handful of cherry tomatoes , cut in half
100g pancetta lardons
Dressing
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
Mix the dressing ingredients together well and set aside. Arrange the lettuce on a plate and top with the rest of the salad ingredients except the lardons. In a non stick pan heat up 1 tablespoon olive oil. Fry the lardons until crispy. Remove and set aside. Fry the halloumi until the bottom is brown, about 5 minutes and then turn and brown the other side. Halloumi cheese has a higher melting point than other cheeses so it retains its shape when cooking. Place the halloumi on top of the salad, sprinkle with the lardons, drizzle over the dressing and garnish with chopped mint.
More about The Bay Food and Wine Market. Come and find our products here every Saturday morning from 09:30 until 14:30. The fabulous Lorna will let you taste our finest and show your our range. The market is situated underneath La Cuccina in Hout Bay.
Golf is like a love affair. If you don’t take it seriously, it’s no fun. If you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart. – Bruce Seymour Arnold Daly
Bresaola
I’ve been quite busy in the garden at The Studio recently. Not a weekend passes without the fabulous J popping down to the local nursery to forage for beautiful and exotic plants to add to our thriving little piece of nature in suburbia. Had you been in our garden this past Sunday you would have seen Commander J, leading the team of Mitsy, Julia and Bella, conducting operation dead head. I like roses but let’s face it, you can’t eat them can you? They do use a bit of rose water in good quality turkish delight but it hardly gets my juices flowing. I have made a lavender infused chocolate mousse which was worth repeating, but it is not exactly everyday fare.
The part that excites me is the herb garden. Rocket, basil, sage, chives, parsley, celery, thyme, rosemary, mint, lemongrass, dill, coriander and oreganum. Unfortunately my allocation of space for herbs is rather like my allotment of shoe space in the closet – never enough – but you will be surprised at the yield you can get from a small patch.
The good thing about having herbs in the garden is that they are so fresh and you don’t have to remember to put them on your shopping list. They are there for last minute emergencies or creative exploration. Next time you grill some tomatoes try a sprinkling of thyme on top. A glass of ice cold water is no longer ordinary with a piece of lemongrass or mint added. Instead of spending your money on fancy pillow packs of lettuce gather a bunch of rocket, basil, chives, dill and parsley, add a couple of tomatoes and an avo and you have the best salad in town.
Last night we had a little starter snack of Bresaola which was delicious. I served it with some rocket from the garden, tossed in olive oil and lemon juice. It’s a great combination and if you want to impress your friends, add a few drops of balsamic glaze and some shavings of pecorino cheese.
Grow your own – it’s worth it. If you don’t have a garden or your shoe closet is full try using pots and don’t forget about the windowsill.
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. – Buddha
Ciabatta with Labneh and Pancetta
Last weekend we were in a bit of a rush having arisen late, yet some fortification was required by the gorgeous J before tackling the long list of chores set aside for me us. Breakfast does not always have to be all about bacon and eggs so I quickly grilled a pack of pancetta, toasted Friday nights leftover ciabatta and brought out the trusty tub of labneh that is always in our fridge for such emergencies. A sprinkle of fresh oregano from the garden and an instant snack was ready in the time it took the Moka to espress 2 coffees. As if on cue, young Zackster arrived as I finished plating the food to check if we needed any help finishing the pancetta.
A couple of weeks ago I also posted a recipe that used labneh so I thought I better tell you how to make your own as it is so simple. Labneh is strained yoghurt and is eaten throughout the middle east and parts of the mediterranean. It has the consistency of cream cheese with a tangy yoghurt flavour and, of course less fat than cream cheese. You will need a piece of cheese cloth or even better if your loving mother can make a bag out of cheese cloth for you to use.
Add 2 teaspoons of salt to 1 litre of low fat yoghurt. Mix well and place in the cloth bag. Hang up over night to drain and in the morning your labneh is ready. Place into a bowl and drizzle with olive oil.
Some tips:
– If you don’t have a bag then place a pice of cloth in a bowl. Pour in the yoghurt and pull up the corners and tie well
– Place a bowl underneath or hang over the sink as quite a lot of whey will come out of the bag
– You can flavour the labneh with various herbs or spices such as thyme, oregano, black pepper, dukka or zaatar
– If you want to make balls of labneh then allow to drain for 2 days to ensure the labneh is thick enough to roll and hold its shape. Roll a dollop between your palms, toss into a tub of your chosen coating and then place into a container with olive oil
– Fat free yoghurt works just as well if you really must
– Not all brands of yoghurt drain equally well and I find WW Ayrshire to be the best
– Don’t skip the drizzle of oil on top as this helps preserve the labneh in the fridge
– It should keep for up to 2 weeks but we have not been able to test this yet as it is always eaten long before that
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world – John Muir
Christmas is around the corner. 58 shopping days left by my calculation so if you have not started to panic, now is the time. Before you get too carried away in the retail festive season spare a thought for those less fortunate. Last night I was involved in a production line of elves wrapping shoe boxes for Santa’s Shoebox charity drive at The Studio. They will be distributing 26000 gift boxes to children across South Africa who would otherwise not be receiving anything.
This year we chose the Goedgedacht charity and will be sending 24 gift filled shoe boxes for the children in their excellent care. Now on to matters culinary, those of you who are familiar with my wrapping skills will realise that I was invited to participate as the live entertainment and to provide sustenance to the elves (they did let me cut a bit of sellotape though). Not to be outdone I rummaged in the bottom of the fridge and dug out a bunch of asparagus spears and a packet of prosciutto. Wrap the raw asparagus with a piece of prosciutto, drizzle with a little olive oil and grill for 5-10 mins until the asparagus are just cooked and the ham starts to crisp. Squeeze a little lemon juice over it and voila – an instant delicious snack. Unfortunately they were devoured in such a short space of time I was unable to get a pic to show you.
Many thanks to Caroline, Janet, Rebecca, Justine, Debbie and of course the court jester, Nicholas who can make a mean chicken wrap but that’s a story for another time. Thanks also to all those who donated gifts for the boxes so generously.
“There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone’s life” – Sister Mary Rose McGeady
Real Bacon
Our bacon is special. For several reasons. Firstly, we use pasture reared pork that is free of any growth hormones and antibiotics. Secondly, the pork is not injected with any brine but is rather salted by hand and air dried. Thirdly, we flavour the bacon with rosemary and thyme giving it a unique delicate flavour. Don’t take our word for it though, try it yourself. Some recipes ideas to try are:
“The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums” – Peter De Vries
My hero cousin James and his lovely wife Michelle came for lunch yesterday. While it was not a beautiful sunny day we still had a cold meat and cheese menu after I managed to get the last punnet of fresh figs from Woolworths. Some food combinations are just sublime and prosciutto and figs is one of them. It is so easy to prepare, just arrange the ham on a plate with the halved figs ( I like to peel mine but you can eat the skin). Drizzle with some olive oil and a grinding of black pepper and it is ready. We ate it with some delicious olive ciabatta from Knead and even James was quiet for a few minutes until the plate was empty.
Sometimes we are tempted to over complicate things in life when the simple things can bring the most pleasure.
Richard Bosman Quality Cured Meats 