Lemon meringue cheese cake

Lots of excellence. Based on this recipe:

250 g digestive biscuits/biscuits sablés, crushed into crumbs
125 g melted butter
250 g unflavoured cream cheese
2 eggs, yolks and whites separated
1 400ml tin condensed milk
60 ml lemon juice
1 tbsp finely chopped lemon zest - don't worry if you have more than 60 ml or 1 tbsp respectively
125 g caster sugar - if you have regular sugar, it'll work too. Just throw it in a coffee grinder and it'll be fine

Preheat the oven to 190. Grease a 20-23 cm cake tin. Mix the biscuit crumbs and butter together to form your cake base, then press firmly into the bottom of the cake tin. Put in the fridge and chill for around 30 minutes.

While you're waiting for the base to firm up, beat together the cream cheese, egg yolks, condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon zest until good and smooth. Once the base is ready, add the cake filling into the cake tin and bake for around 15 minutes.

While the cake part is in the oven, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then add in the sugar little by little and keep whisking until the mixture is glossy. I highly recommend using a machine for this. Spoon this mixture over the cake, then return to the oven and bake for another 10 minutes or until the meringue mixture is golden. Leave to cool, then serve.

It was lovely. Very recommend.

Sweet potato and chickpea burgers with homemade braai relish

This is a blend of this recipe for the patty and this one for the relish with some small changes. It worked quite nicely eventually.

Should make around 4 patties

1-2 sweet potatoes (should be around 500g or so)
400 ml tin chickpeas
1 lemon, zest and juice
cumin, cinnamon, salt and pepper to taste
burger rolls, tomatoes, salad leaves, gherkins to serve

These quantities make quite a lot of relish. You could cut them in half if desired:
1 onion
6 tomatoes, or 2x 400 ml tins of diced tomatoes
garlic to taste
1-2 tbsp peri peri sauce (or to taste)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp tomato sauce/purée
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper to taste

Chop up the sweet potatoes into chunks and steam until soft. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, then chop them up in a food processor. Once the sweet potatoes are ready, add them to the chickpeas, add the seasoning, and mix in (don't use the food processor). Form into four patties (or as many as you want) and put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes or so. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

After 30 minutes, put the patties on a baking tray and put in the oven. Cook for about 25 minutes or so. Once they are "cooked," fry them in a pan to firm them up well.

While the patties are in the freezer or the oven, dice the onion and garlic and gently cook in a pot until soft. Add the tomatoes, peri peri, soy sauce, tomato sauce, and seasonings and cook on a low temperature for around 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom of the pot.

Serve in a roll with your preferred toppings (the gherkins, tomatoes, salad leaves and braai relish really worked well with this). You could also make some chips if you are feeling energetic.

Kale and marscapone-stuffed chicken on a bed of roast vegetables

So this was nice...

The vegetable quantities are for about 4 people, but the chicken is only for about 2. Increase the stuffing and wrapping proportionally based on the number of people, and add a breast for each person eating. It's more or less the same as this recipe, but some small tweaks have been made.

Chicken and stuffing (quantities for 2 breasts):
2 skinless chicken breasts (these should be relatively thick, so that you can cut them open and stuff them)
50-60 g kale, roughly chopped and well washed (about 25 g per breast)
2 tbsp mascarpone (about 1 tbsp per breast)
1-2 garlic cloves
zest of about 1/4 to 1/2 a lemon, plus juice if desired
Provencal herbs
a dash of olive oil
seasoning
6-8 rashers of smoked bacon, depending on breast size and how much bacon you might want

Vegetables:
250 g parsnips, peeled and sliced
250 g sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into thinnish discs
2 onions, peeled chopped into quarters
100 g mushrooms, washed and halved or quartered if needed
1 red pepper, sliced up into strips

Preheat the oven to 200-220 degrees, depending on your oven. Boil the kale for about 4 minutes to soften it up, then drain it, squeeze out the remaining water, and blitz it in a food processor with the mascarpone, garlic, lemon olive oil and seasoning. Cut along the chicken lengthways and stuff the kale and mascarpone into the cavity. Wrap the bacon tightly around the chicken and season. Topelt ei kärise.

Add some oil to a baking tray or dish, then put the vegetables in and toss to cover with the oil, and season, then put in the oven and cook for about 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes are up, mix the vegetables, put the chicken on top of the vegetables and cook for another 20 to 25 minutes, turning the chicken and mixing the vegetables halfway through. Once the chicken is cooked, cover with foil and leave for a bit, then serve with extras in waiting.

This is really good. Enjoy.

Braised lamb shank

We wanted to try some wild boar this weekend, as it is the season, but our regular butcher at the market, M. Stoltz, was not there. Fortunately, we have a very good butcher just around the corner from us, and we walked in there to get our marcassin. Unfortunately, they did not have any, but they did have souris d'agneau, which seems to translate as lamb shank or knuckle. I called a shank, found a recipe, and made what I think is a very good meal of braised lamb shank. You can serve it with mash. The quantities here are for 2 shanks or people, depending on how hungry you are, but it's all scalable:

2 lamb shanks (about 700g), room temperature
2 onions, diced
3–4 medium carrots or 2 big ones, chopped up into chunks
4 cloves of garlic or to taste, minced
250 ml dry red wine
200 ml chicken stock
200 ml beef stock (I made mine using Bovril, but you do you)
400 g tin diced tomatoes
Rosemary, sage, bay leaf to taste (I used a bouquet of herbs that my wife had bought earlier. You can mix and match to your taste, though)
Lemon peel/zest to taste (about half a lemon's worth should do the trick)

Season the shanks on all sides. In a big Dutch oven or large pot, heat some oil and brown the shanks on all sides, which should take about 6-10 minutes. Once that's done, put the shanks to one side and add the onion, carrots, and garlic, and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. When ready, add in the rest of the ingredients (be careful with the liquid ingredients: don't pour it in all at once. Keep some to one side just in case. You don't want to overdo it) and then return the shanks to the liquid. Make sure the liquid covers the shanks, bring to the boil, cover, then simmer over a low heat for 1.5–2 hours. When the meat is tender, uncover and leave to simmer for another 15–30 minutes. Once done, remove the shanks, wrap them in foil and put them in the oven. Turn the heat up and boil the sauce for another 15 minutes or so to reduce.

Serve the meat and sauce over mash, and don't ditch the bones until someone's gnawed on them.

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.

Hummus

I made a decent hummus, but then I added salt...

Moral of the story: never add salt to your hummus. It ain't worth it.

Ingredients:

1 tin chickpeas, very well rinsed
100 g or 3 big tbsp tahini
3 tbsp olive oil, but more to taste if needed
1-2 cloves garlic
Plenty of black pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1 lemon, juiced
A bit of coriander, if you fancy

Add everything to a hand-held mixer, blend until smooth, eat with whatever is at hand, but vegetables and bread are always good. Don't cut your fingers on the blades.

Pork, shallot and mushroom casserole

This is an adaptation of a recipe that I found on food24.com. Here's the original, but I've changed a few things. Make sure you add sherry. It really brings out the flavour.

Ingredients:

500-600g pork sirloin
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
4 big banana shallots, cut into quarters or eighths
2-4 cloves garlic
250-300 g regular button mushrooms
about 100 g chanterelles (kukeseened in Estonian. The original calls for 60 g porcini or shiitake mushrooms, covered with boiling water and left to rehydrate, but it's up to you).
fresh or dried sage (I used about 2 tsp of dried sage)
60-100 ml sherry (or Marsala wine, according to the original)
1 tsp wholegrain mustard (or 1 tbsp)
about 3/4 of a cup of relatively weak chicken stock
lemon juice
250-300 ml cream
salt and pepper to taste

1) Cover the pork with the Dijon mustard, salt and pepper and brown on all sides in a sufficiently large pot. Remove and put to one side.
2) Add shallots and garlic, cook until caramelised.
3) Add mushrooms, cook on high heat, and wait for liquid to evaporate (shouldn't take too long). Season well with salt and pepper.
4) Deglaze pot using sherry (or Marsala wine), and reduce by half.
5) Stir through wholegrain mustard.
6) Add stock, lemon juice, and cream.
7) Return pork to pot, cover with sauce and mushrooms. Cook for 20-25 min, turning halfway through. The sauce should reduce slightly and be a bit thicker than cream.
8) Once ready, remove from heat and leave to rest for 5 min.
9) Slice pork into 1 cm-thick slices, then return to sauce and heat through.
10) Serve with salad and mash (as we did) or with tagliatelle.

Butternut soup

It's miserable here, so we made a good traditional South African butternut soup yesterday. Don't use pumpkin unless you absolutely have to: this is a butternut soup, with all the fun that entails. Here's the recipe:

Should serve about 6

1.5 kg butternut (muskaatkõrvits or pähkelkõrvits in Estonian), peeled and cut into 5cm blocks
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
a chilli (or to taste), finely chopped
1 tbsp butter
1 litre chicken stock
2 tbsp lemon juice
250ml cream
1tsp nutmeg, ground
1tsp cumin, ground
1/2 tsp mustard seeds, ground
salt and pepper to taste
coriander leaves to serve

In a large pot, melt the butter, and fry the onion, garlic and chilli at medium heat until transparent. Add the spices, and stir around a bit until everything is well covered. Add the butternut, stock, and lemon juice, stir again, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes or until the butternut is soft and ready. Puree it using a food processor or handheld mixer thingy, then add the cream and carefully heat it again. It should then be ready.

Serve with an extra dollop of cream and some coriander. And bread. And wine. And freeze the rest for winter.

Banana Bread

I like banana-based desserts, for some reason. Here is a banana bread recipe I kind of patched together which worked wonderfully well. Enjoy.

You will need:

4 overripe bananas (should be about 400 ml when mashed) + 85 ml milk + 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
OR
5-6 overripe bananas (should be about 550 ml when mashed), no milk
285 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup castor sugar
1/4 cup brown/muscovado sugar
110 g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs

Preheat oven to about 180 degrees. Grease a bread tin, about 20cm x 12.5 cm. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, in a smaller bowl. In a separate, larger bowl, cream the sugar and butter, then mix in together with the eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla extract, and cinnamon (and milk mixture, if you're using it). Fold the flour mixture into the banana/egg/sugary mixture, then pour into the bread tin. Shove in the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until golden brown and baked through (poke with a toothpick or something thin - if it comes out clean, your loaf is ready). Take it out, put to one side to cool down for 15-20 minutes, then remove from the tin carefully and leave to cool on a rack. Serve buttered and delicious.

Enjoy.

Ceviche

Ceviche is a lovely South American dish of raw fish, coriander, and citrus fruit. And... that's about it, really. At least, the basics are really basic. But there are lots of possibilities to expand on the base. So go wild. This is the most recent, very basic, but quite fantastic version I used.

500g salmon, cut into 1cm-long strips
500g white fish (can't remember which type, since it was in Estonian), ditto
1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 cup lime juice, ditto
1 chilli, seeded and finely diced
1 1/2 tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 onion, finely diced
1 small red pepper, ditto
Coriander to taste and serve
Dash of Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste, oregano
Avocado to serve

Combine everything in a non-metallic bowl or dish (glass or plastic) and leave to sit for at least 4 hours or overnight. Serve with the avo and extra coriander.

I feel I should point out that this doesn't keep, so it should be eaten within 24 hours. These proportions should serve 6-8.

If you're feeling adventurous, substitute your fish for other fish, or even prawns or other seafood; or add grapefruit, pomegranate, garlic, basil, etc. Go wild.

Have fun.

Chickeney Garlicky Honeyey Orangey Gingery Goodness

I quite enjoy cooking, which most of you should know. I've tried some rather interesting recipes, some of which worked better than others, and some of which could have used a bit of tweaking. The suggestion was made to start a collection of things I've made or done or whatnot, with appropriate thanks to whomever I owe a full belly.

Any thoughts, comments, or tales of wretchedness following an attempt at a recipe, please let me know. Also, please email and tell me stuff, which I will possibly try, possibly not. If I do, you can be sure I will let you know...

First one I owe to a hairy Welshman. I haven't the foggiest idea of its name, so it is hereafter known as the chickeney garlicky honeyey orangey gingery goodness. Directions are for a wok, but I made it in a pot. Be careful with the sweetness - I slightly overdid the honey, which made it a bit sweet for my taste; but it was pretty fantastic otherwise.

Chickeney Garlicky Honeyey Orangey Gingery Goodness: (makes enough for about 500g of chicken, or about 4 people)

500g chicken breasts
2-3 tbsp clear honey
2 large oranges
ginger (2 thumb-sized pieces)
1 or 2 red onions and spring onions
egg noodles (1 pack should do)
3 or 4 garlic cloves
a generous amount of soy sauce
parsley
a carrot
chilli flakes
sesame oil (optional, didn't use as I didn't have it)

Fry the diced chicken in olive oil for a few minutes. Add the juice and zest of one orange and 2 or 3 tablespoons of clear honey, grated ginger (a thumb sized piece) and salt and pepper to taste. Fry until the juices have evaporated and the meat is cooked.
Cook noodles and drain. In a wok, heat olive oil and add the carrot (finely sliced into ribbons), onion and spring onions (chopped). Fry for a few minutes on a low heat. Add crushed garlic (3 or 4 cloves, depending on taste), another thumb sized grated piece of ginger, and some optional dried chilli flakes. Fry for a further minute. Add soy sauce (3 or 4 tablespoons, according to taste), and juice and zest of the other orange, and optional sesame oil (a tablespoon or two). Fry for another minute. Stir the parsley (chopped) and the previously cooked noodles, and fry for a bit more until fully mixed through.

When made for me before, it was fantastically brilliant - I made it and let it get a bit dry, so be careful about that.

Very tasty. Enjoy, taste, have fun.