Beetroot and cherry soup

Despite the odd combination, this is actually very good. Allegedly, it's meant to be an effective anti-inflammatory, but even if it doesn't work as the original recipe intended, it is very tasty.

500 g beetroot (raw, not pre-cooked)
4 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped into halves or thirds
2-3 cloves garlic (not in the original recipe, but I thought it worked well)
1-2 onions
2 thumb-sized pieces of ginger, roughly chopped
1 thumb-sized piece turmeric root (or 1 tbsp dried, powdered turmeric, which is what I used)
1 tbsp cinnamon
250 g tart/sour cherries (you can probably buy them frozen; they should be depitted in advance)
400ml tin coconut milk (or to taste)
750ml - 1l stock (vegetable or chicken)
salt, pepper, cayenne or chilli to taste
olive oil

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Wrap the beetroot in foil (if you like, you can peel it first, which is what I did, although I understand it cooks better in its skin and then you can peel it). Put the beetroot and carrots on a baking tray and cook for about 45-60 minutes (the carrots might be ready before the beetroots, depending on the size). When ready, take the beetroots and carrots out of the oven, and, if applicable, peel the beetroots. Chop the vegetables up into smaller pieces.

While the root vegetables are cooking, gently cook the onion, ginger, garlic, and turmeric in a large pot. When ready, add in the beetroot and carrots, cinnamon, cherries, coconut milk, and about a cup or 2 of stock, plus the seasoning and olive oil, and blend it all together using a hand-held blender. Add in more stock as desired to thin the soup.

Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5-10 minutes or so. Serve with some bread on the side.

It's very good. Really.

Duck with soy, ginger and honey gravy

This was amazing. I made some changes from this recipe, and I'm pretty chuffed with the results:

2 duck breasts, skin scored
Salt, cayenne pepper, pepper (to season duck)
1/2 cup chicken stock
2-3 tbsp honey
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
2-3 tbsp rice wine/rice wine vinegar (you could probably use wine vinegar too)
1 tbsp ginger, grated
1 tbsp tomato sauce or purée
Chilli powder/flakes to taste
1 tsp lemon juice (original calls for lime juice, though)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Rub the salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper into the duck, then place skin down in a hot pan for about five minutes to brown, flip and cook for another minute or two, then put in the oven and cook for around 15-20 minutes (or to taste—duck can be cooked medium or even medium-rare). When ready, pour off the excess fat into a small pan and leave the duck breast to rest for a few minutes.

Heat your small pan with its duck fat and add the stock, honey, soy sauce, rice wine (vinegar), ginger, tomato sauce, chilli powder and lemon juice. Whisk while bringing it to the boil and then cook for about 5 minutes, still whisking.

Slice the duck breast into thin slices, serve the sauce over the duck.

We had this with a rice/quinoa/lentil mixture they sell in France, but it should go well with potatoes too.

It is lovely. Highly recommended.

Estonian meat pies

This fantastic recipe is courtesy of my mother-in-law. Traditionally eaten at Christmas time, these are lovely and wonderful. The quantities quoted here make about 60–70 pies, depending on the size of your glasses, so you can freeze some and save them for later in the year.

500 g pork belly or other cut, must be somewhat fatty
500 ml–1l chicken stock
Onion to taste, diced
1/2 white rice (optional)
2 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled and diced
500 ml milk
50 g or so butter
1–2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 kg flour
Yeast (ratio based on the liquid)
Raw egg to coat

Meat filling:
Cook the rice as per directions on the packaging. In a large pot, cook the meat at a low temperature for about 1-2 hours in the stock (depending on the size of the piece of meat and the pot, you may need extra stock). When ready, remove the meat from the pot, but don't throw out the juices. Put the meat and onions in a meat mincer and mince. Season with salt and pepper, and, if the mixture is too dry, add some of the juices from the pot. Mix in the egg and as much of the rice as needed. Leave to cool for a while, or overnight in the fridge.

Pastry:
Gently heat the milk (don't let it boil) and add the butter, salt and sugar. Mix the yeast in with a bit of the flour, then sieve the entire flour/yeast mixture, then the rest of the flour, into the milk mixture, until quite thick. Mix thoroughly, then leave to rise in a warm place for a while with a tea towel over the top. Once risen, knock it back and leave to rise once more.

To make the pies, roll out the pastry, take about 3/4 of a tablespoon's worth of the filling, and place it about 2/3 of a glass's width from the edge of the pastry. Place a row of the filling on the pastry, then fold the edge over and cut out the pies and place on a baking tray. Once you've filled a tray, paint with the egg for colour, then bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes or so. You may want to turn the tray halfway through.

Repeat as necessary. Add in your own ingredients as desired.

Vegetarian buckwheat, mushroom, ginger and lemongrass soup

After cooking, cooling down. Lovely stuff.

This is a simple soup that we made to use up some buckwheat. It was inspired by a fantastic soup we had in Pärnu at Mahedik, and then adapted using this recipe as a basis. The main thing is not to overdo it with the buckwheat, as it absorbs quite a bit of liquid:

1 leek, cut into 1-cm chunks
2 celery stalks, chopped up
2 tbsp lemongrass, or 2 stalks chopped up. If you're using fresh lemongrass, don't cut it up too thinly, as it doesn't really soften much
2-cm piece of ginger, minced or finely sliced
2 carrots, chopped up
500g mushrooms - use a number of varieties for a more flavoursome dish
1 cup (250ml) buckwheat, raw or toasted. Don't overdo this!
8 cups (i.e. 2 l) chicken or vegetable stock
Thyme, to taste (about 1 tbsp)
Juice from 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, fry up the leek, celery, lemongrass, ginger, and carrots for a few minutes. Add in the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes more, then add in the buckwheat, stock, thyme, lemon juice and salt and pepper, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes or so. If you need more liquid, add it in during cooking, or you could feasibly add it afterwards too.

South African monkey gland sauce

Don't mind the name—this stuff rocks. It's one of South Africa's unknown masterpieces, and it's quite sad, as we've got plenty of monkeys that could donate their glands for this... It's dead easy too, and a good way to use up errant bits of veg and monkey parts in your fridge. Smother meat in it, either as a sauce or as a marinade. Remember to pick out the pituitary gland before you eat—the texture goes to pot when you boil it.

1 onion
3-4 garlic cloves
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 pepper (optional)
3-4 tomatoes, diced
1 small tin double concentrated tomato purée
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
1/2 cup chutney
big dollop of red wine (optional)
AND/OR
dash of balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
150 ml vegetable (or chicken) stock
tabasco, to taste
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to season

Fry the onion, garlic, and ginger (and pepper, if you're using it) until the onion is translucent. Add the other ingredients, bring to the boil and cook on a high flame for about 8 minutes, then simmer for another 30–40 minutes. Taste and season if necessary.

Use for marinade and sauce. It should keep for about 2 weeks.

Bacon, cheese, and monkey gland burger

Couscous side-slash-stuffing

This is adapted from a food24 recipe. When I first made this recipe a few years ago, I really liked it when I used it as a stuffing, but (typically) I made more stuffing than I needed and it turned out to be the star of the show, so to speak. The good thing is it can be scaled up with no regard for loss of quality. Here's my version of a fantastic recipe:

Should serve 2:

1/2 cup couscous
Depending on instructions, 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
2-3 tbsp olive oil
25 g butter
130-150 g courgette, grated
100 g dried cranberries, finely diced
1/2 cup shelled hazelnuts, crushed or ground up in a blender. You can add the cranberries to this and save yourself the hassle of chopping them up yourself
juice and zest of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the couscous in the stock, according to the directions on the packaging. When ready, add the butter and the oil. Stir in the courgette, hazelnuts, lemon juice and zest (I guess this can be added with the stock, though), and season. I do recommend adding salt to your couscous, as it can be a bit anaemic without it. Serve warm or cold. This goes brilliantly with roast chicken, especially this recipe.

Baked sausage, harissa and tomato casserole

This is a pretty simple dish that has an amazing flavour combination. It's adapted from Nigel Slater's recipe, with a few changes.

Should serve 3 or so, depending on how hungry you are

3 big sausages (boerewors, saucisse de Toulouse or something similar, should be around 600 g or so)
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp Provencal herbs
2 tbsp harissa paste
250 g mushrooms (button mushrooms work well, but you could probably use porcini too)
1 x 400 g tin of red kidney beans, rinsed
1 x 400 g tin of chickpeas, rinsed
(or, use 2 tins of kidney beans, rinsed)
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
200 ml chicken stock
Crusty bread, to serve

Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Brown the sausages in a grill pan. Remove, then fry the onion and garlic for a bit. When it starts to go translucent, add the herbs and the harissa, stir well, then cook for a minute or so. Transfer everything to an oven-proof dish. Add the beans and, if you're using them, the chickpeas, as well as the tomatoes and the stock. Chop the sausages up into bite-sized pieces and add them to the mix. Add in the beans (and chickpeas) and the mushrooms, mix well, and shove in the oven.

If you have only beans, cook for 25-30 minutes. If you've added chickpeas (and I do recommend adding chickpeas to your casserole), cook for around 35-40 minutes. In any event, make sure your sausages are not undercooked.

Serve with bread, lots of it. If you fancy, you could serve this over pasta.