FISH PARCEL

FISH PARCEL

Fish is probably one of the nicest meals there is, giving you much needed Omega-3 that improves mental functions and helps in maintaining a healthy heart. Besides there is so many varieties of fish,  for example, snoek, hake, steenbrass, cob, red roman, yellow tail, tuna, shad, maasbanker, bronze breams, silverfish, galjoen, anglefish, musselcracker and stumpnose, each having a very different favour and aroma.  Fish can be deep fried in batter and served with chips and salads. Fish can be fried in a pan, or steamed with veg, or bakes in an oven or  grilled over coals. Fish can be used as a substitute for meat in a curry or in a biryani or in friffadels.   Yep fish frikkadels are by far the best, better than meat mince frikkadels  especially when made with fresh parsely.

In fact fish can be prepared in at least a dozen different ways. So today I have prepared a fish parcel. Essentially the fish is grilled in the oven but since it is wrapped in foil, it steams. And when this happens with a mixture of onions and green and red bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, lemon slices with its peel, salt and pepper and lavishly sprinkled with olive oil, it is simply delectable.  A coolest part of this meal is that one adds everything at once, places it in a tray, pop it into an oven on medium heat and forget about it, as it gets done the aromas of the sizzling sound will get your attention. I like a tomato salsa served alongside my fish flanked by a heavenly portion  of sweet potato.

Method:

After the fish has been washed and cleaned, make absolutely sure that every last scale has been removed. Do this by scaping the surface skin of the fish one last time. There is no greater letdown when eating fish, to swallow a scale that gets stuck in your throat. Salt the inside of the fish to taste, then stuff it with onion rings, sliced tomato, sliced lemon with its peel, sliced peppers and add 2 to 3 cloves of crushed garlic, and sprinkle it with  ground pepper. Lavishly sprinkle with olive oil  and wrap in such a way that the foil makes a container.  The fish needs to be fully enclosed but the open end of the foil needs to be at the top of the fish, yet not allowing the juices to escape. It takes just 15 mins to prepare and about an hour to cook in the oven. But its bet left  in the over until the aromas speak to your taste buds. This is normally a meal for 2 and the best way to slit it, is along the spine like you open a book. Normally the spine comes out as a single bone but that depends on the type of fish you cooking. Enjoy. 

Medium size fish in tray with ingredients

Medium size fish in tray with ingredients

Before the fish is wrapped.

Sweet potato, meal for one.

After the fish is wrapped

In the oven

Fish is done 

Fish is plated with tomato salsa and sweet potato.

BRAISED STEAK WITH PEPERS

BRAISED STEAK IN PEPPERS (Capsicum) SAUCE

I simply love steak. Some meat lovers consider steak to be a really dry piece of meat when roasted in a solid base pot or when braaied over the fire because it has very little or not fat.  But I think it's this quality of the steak that makes it really great since it allows one to prepare it in a sauce to make it succulent and juicy. The beauty of steak is that is has no bones which means it  lies fairly flat in a relatively hot solid base pot thus simple to sheer on either side, to seal-in its flavour. If it's also tenderized,  it cooks fairly fast but has a tendency to curl. When this happens, just cut a slip from the center of the piece of steak to the edge and it would once again behave it self.  

Prime Steak washed and drained

Steak cut into longish strips 

However when steak is cut into strips and sheered on all side in a pot, it just locks in its goodness and it releases its flavour to the sauce it is prepared in. Braised steak is a very nourishing and a fairly quick dish to make, especially for people on diet because its high in protein yet lower in calories than fatty meat. It makes for a quick meal when you feel too lazy to cook and easily serves two. Braised steak tales about 45 mins to prepare.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 medium sized onions, chopped
• 1 large green bell peppers (Capsicum) cut in to  longish strips
• 1 large  red bell peppers (Capsicum) cut in to longish strips
• 1 yellow bell pepper cut in to longish strips
• 2 cloves of garlic fines chopped
• 1/2 kg tenderized steak, washed & drained, cut into 1 cm wide strips.
• 1/2 tsp of salt (add salt to taste)
• 2 tsp of ground peppercorns
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 5 -6 cloves
• 5 -6 all spice balls

METHOD

Lavishly pour Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a pot and allow to heat then add  salt, pepper, cloves and the all spice balls but don't burn the oil. Don't close the pot and let the spices fry in the oil for 2-3 minutes then add the chopped onions.  This allows the flavour of these spices to infuse into the olive oil and onions. Increase the heat and allow onions to braise and when translucent add the strips of steak to the mix and let it roast, continuously tossing the steak so that is fries uniformly.  

Olive oil and spices

Clove, salt, pepper and all spice frying in Olive oil

Chopped onions and Olive oil

Onions braised with spces

The strips of steak added to the onions and spices

The spice infused oil would have penetrated the steak adding moisture and the aroma and flavour of  everything roasting together just makes your mouth water.  Serve with buttered Portuguese or Kitka Rolls covered in sesame seeds. Add some green salad on the side.

The steak is sheered all round

Braised Steak almost ready to receive the peppers (Capsicum).

Robot Capsicum (peppers) cut in halves

Robot Peppers (Capsicum) cut into strips

Robot Capsicum covering the braised steak

Simmering steak and peppers (Capsicum), with still to much moisture

Peppered Braised steak served with a kitka roll 

Peppered Braised steak served with a kitka roll closeup

Peppered Braised steak served with a garlic roll

Peppered Braised steak served with a garlic roll closeup.

STIR FRY

STIR FRY -  CHOW MEIN

Chow Mein is a Chinese dish which is commonly known as stir fry, but at foods of the Cape the term stir fry can be used for almost any fried foods. However, Chow Mein is a very versatile dish which can be made with either cubed chicken, strips of steak, fish nuggets, prawns, crab meat, crayfish or even scrabbled egg. I'm quite fond of Chow Mein with chicken wings but my Chow Mein of choice remains prawns. Essentially Chow Mein is a mix of meat and vegetables quick fried in vegetable oil in an open wok, on an open flame, covered with a soup of egg noodle that is precooked. Served in a bowl and eaten using chopsticks. 

Ingredients:-

1 kg  pre-pack of mixed vegetables containing  bell peppers, cauliflower, purple cabbage, carrots and bean sprouts.
Soya sauce (salted)
2 large onions
8 pack of egg noodle
8 tblsp Olive Oil
500gms prawns
1 Tsp of crushed garlic
1 Medium sized Chilli
1 tsp ground pepper

Method:-

Place olive oil in wok and add chopped onions, chilli, crushed garlic and fry until onions become translucent. Add 500 grams of washed prawns and fry with the onions for  few minutes until prawns change colour. Add 4 tablespoons of soya sauce and stir and watch the mixture in the wok turn brown, add ground pepper. Then add the pre-pack of vegetables and stir continually for about 2 minutes so that the veg fry in the oil. Make sure veg remain crunchy.

Meanwhile place 6 packs of egg noodle in a large bowl and pour 3 cups of boiling water into bowl. Add 4 tablespoons of soya sauce cover with lid and place in microwave on high for about 4 minutes. Egg noodle will soak-up most of the water but will not be completely soft, when done  add to to wok, cover the prawns and vegetables so that it can steam beneath the noodle to 2 minutes then stir and toss so that the prawns and vegetable mix uniformly with the noodle. The water would form a soup that will stean away. Veg should be limp yet crunchy. As an option, a handful of cashew nuts can be added when the  prawns are added to the onions.  Serves 6.

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE QUICK AND EASY

SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE 

Spaghetti Bolognaise is a classic dish and is a quick and easy food to make. It doesn't  need a lot of ingredients to create  a really tasty dish, which is enjoyed my most people for dinner, and kids just simply love it.  My recipe is a family favourite and makes sufficient to serves  four adults. The sauce is ideal for spaghetti, but can be used with almost every kind of pasta.  A Spaghetti Bolognaise dinner can easily be whipped-up in under an hour especially at those those times when you are totally famished but need to eat something substantial. It can virtually be prepared in the same time you wait for take out dinner but it is a lot more tasty and nourishing. I only use fresh ingredients which gives this Spaghetti Bolognaise a flavour and an aroma to die for. It is good culinary practice to get all  your ingredients together on the table before you begin cooking. This just seem to speeds up the process leaving you enough time to lay the table get the coffee brewing whiles the sauce is simmering.

INGREDIENTS

500g of steak mince (lean mince) washed and drained
145g packet tomato paste dissolved into cup of hot water
4 - 5 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 medium sized onions peeled and chopped
6 medium sized tomatoes diced or  8 plum tomatoes ( they contain less water) 
1 medium sized bell pepper diced
2 tablespoons of butter (or margarine)
4 medium cloves of garlic crushed 
6-8 Cherry Tomatoes halved.
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 cups of water 

250g of dried spaghetti (half of 500g pack)

SPICES

1 teaspoon of Salt 
1 teaspoon of Pepper
2 small sticks of Cinnamon
5 Pepper corns
5 Cloves
1 medium green chilli finely chopped
1 tablespoon of freshly ground pepper

The salt and pepper provides the basic flavour to the sauce, the cinnamon adds a scenty taste and smell, the chilli gives you that tang and the ground pepper adds a very specific flavour. 

HERBS

5 - 6 leaves of fresh oregano, washed and  chopped
5 - 6 leaves of fresh thyme, washed and chopped
5 - 6 leaves of fresh Rosemary, washed and  chopped
5 - 6 leaves od fresh sage, washed and  chopped
5 - 6 leaves of fresh basil, washed and  chopped

The fresh herbs releases a flurry of flavours and aromas that just makes this Spaghetti Bolognaise more appetizing but should fresh herbs not be available, dried herbs will do.

1 teaspoon of dried Sweet Basil
1 teaspoon of Sage
1 teaspoon of Oraganum
1 teaspoon of Thymme
1 teaspoon of  Rosemary

Heat the olive oil and allow butter to melt to form ghee in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the chopped onion, along with the salt, and cinnamon sticks and allow to braise. Take care not to brown the onions but allow them to become translucent. Brown onions turns the sauce brown, it should remain red. Add the mince and the crushed garlic and the diced peppers but don't add water. Allow mince to roast in the ghee and changes colour.  Stir continually with a wooden spoon and don't allow mince to form lumps. When slightly dry, add all the chopped and halved tomatoes and the pepper and allow to simmer. Add water as needed and bring to boil. Add all the fresh herbs and the tomato paste, cover with a lid  and reduce heat to medium and simmer until it turns into a wonderfully rich tomatoey sauce. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to offset the  soury  tartness of the tomato.

SPAGHETTI

Meanwhile, boil water in a large pot, add 2 teaspoons of salt and a dash of olive oil cook before lowering spaghetti into the pot through the floating oil. The oil prevents the spaghetti from sticking to one another. When done, drain it in a colander and set aside.

SERVING

Dish Spaghetti into plate as if a bed or rice and dish a ladle or two of sauce in the centre of the Spaghetti . Grate some  parmesan cheese over it while its still hot and serve immediately.

VARIATIONS & OPTIONAL

Some chefs add about 200 ml of red wine to the saucepan and say that the alcohol cooks away but I don't recommend this when feeding this Spaghetti Bolognaise to kids. Dried Mixed Herbs may be used in place of the herbs mentioned above.  Beef Stock Pot can be used but tends to turn the sauce brownish. A dash of Worcester sauce can be added to taste. About 50 grams of thinly sliced mushrooms can be added ( into pot with the diced peppers). Half a teaspoon of dried chillies can be used in place of fresh chillies. Instead of fresh tomatoes use 2 x 400g cans of diced tomato. Add sun-dried tomatoes if desired.
Enjoy!

COOKED BEEF TONGUE

COOKED BEEF TONGUE

A sandwich is the ideal evening meal especially it you've had a big lunch and its also great for breakfast. The varieties of sandwiches are endless and can vary from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to an elaborate T-bone steak with fried chips and salads. Even though this Portuguese bread roll burger below doesn't qualify as a sandwich in the general sense, one could argue that its more appropriately a burger. 

Burgers can be filling and invariably not as healthy and definitely more fattening than a cooked tongue burger. Normally Burgers Joints gives you the choice of a meat or  chicken patti with cheese and salads and considering if you don't want to make it yourself, your choices are limited to McDonalds, Burger King, Steers, Spur and KFC. Greasy, tasteless, nutritionless, bland and looks very unlike the adverts they portray. 

Cooked and skinned ready to be sliced.

Cooked tongues that are pre-corned and sold in a cooking bag available from the  local butcher beats corning it your self. A bagged tongue can be cooked in about 4cm of cold water in a average sized pot until tender.  But if it's not bagged with spices then you have to, cook the washed tongue in a pressure cooker with 4cm of cold water for about half an hour to 40 minters, add salt pepper, bay leaves, peppercorns. When done it should look something like this, once the skin is peeled off. Its best eaten sliced but slice only as needed. Sliced tongue tends to dry out.

This isn't what you think it resembles but I can assure you it's much tastier

Cut a few fairly thick slices, if it cold, heat in a pan or microwave and place on a buttered roll franked by frilly lettuce and tomato, avocado and cucumber, carrot and onion along with a healthy dollop of mayonnaise and you have a sandwich to die for. Tongue hardly has any grease, has no fat, has no bones and can be equated to a very nice spiced beef.  It is far tastier than those fatty patti burgers and much healthier and lighter. 

Four slices of cooked tongue on a bread roll with salads is a meal in itself.

As an open sandwich is looks very appetizing and can be eaten with a knife and  fork. Grated cheese, tomato sauce or atchar are great additive additional condiments for the sandwich connoisseur. As a burger, its a hands on job and a finger liking experience. Its also ideal for school lunches and can be grated for those who doesn't enjoy thickly sliced beef tongue.

A beef tongue burger isn't available anywhere except home made.

A beef tongue roll or burger is not available from any fast food outlet so if you have to desire to have one, you just have to make it yourself.  Its also great on focaccia, on a panini or a filling for a jaffle or snackwich or toast. Tongue is also a delicacy that can be found on the breakfast menu at Weddings.

Sliced tongue, toast and salad

Sliced tongue, toast, salad and coffee.

Slice tongue and spiced beef with rolls and salad in popular for breakfast at weddings.

SCRUMPTIOUS BREAKFAST

SALMON AND EGGS WITH TOAST

Breakfast is undoubtedly the most important meal of the day. Most people rush off to work in the morn without eating a morsel only to suffer from headaches and hunger pangs later in the day. Often opting to eat  a huge or heavy meal at lunch only to become sleepy due to over indulgence. But even if you eat as little as one slice of toast for breakfast, you have done justice to breakfast, because "breakfast" means to "break the fast" you've endured throughout the night. Anyway now that you're awake, how does a few ribbons of Norwegian oak Smoked Salmon; two scrabbled eggs flanked by a dollop of Cream Cheese; a slice of advocado, and a few cherry tomatoes on the side, with 2 slices of lightly buttered toast, sound to you. Followed by a frothy mug of  Jacobs Krönung  coffee made with a third mug of milk. Scrumptious, No? Now that's the way to start your day. There is a trueism that says "the day a woman doesn't eat an egg, is the day that she aged".  

Normally my wife  fries my tomatoes along with the scrambled eggs, together but separate. But today I wanted them over easy (sunny side up) with the tomatoes fresh. Normally I have a freshly baked buttered croissants in place of the toasted digesta, but I've got to watch the calories these days. However, this meal has all the nutrients and protein, fibre, carbohydrates, fructose and caffeine you need to be mentally alert and functioning at your best for the better part of the day. Brought to you by Foods of the Cape.

Norwegian oak Smoked Salmon or Trout with scrabbles eggs
and cream cheese with a croissant is a meal fit for a king.

Rosa tomatoes has such a unique taste

Free range eggs is the epitome of health.

Cream cheese with herbs

Digesta high fibre bread makes breakfast what it is

Eggs sunny-side up, sliver of salmon, cream cheese, salad and orange juice

Eggs sunny side up, avocado, cream cheese, rosa tomatoes and toast

Scrambled egg, salad, salmon with a croissant (cream cheese optional)

Scrambled eggs, salad, salmon with a croissant (cream cheese optional)

Half milk and half water makes a fine cup of coffee

Jacobs coffee is the ultimate to conclude a scrumptious breakfast