A spoonful of sugar

Rich, gooey goodness paired with soft, sweet freshness… sounds heavenly, huh?

Chocolate Pear Pudding

 

Peas and carrots ain’t got nothing on chocolate and pears. They just go together.

A while back I received a copy of Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s recipe book Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook. From cacao with your fried egg to cacao under the skin of your chicken, there’s no way not to enjoy the flavours of cacao and chocolate.

Excuse me for waxing lyrical there for a moment… It’s  the sugar high.

Not one for doing things by the book, I changed up Willie’s recipe for Gooey Chocolate Pudding. Mainly because all I can afford is the 70% stuff instead of his brand of cacao (available at R100 per 100g from Woolies).

How about some canned pears? Yep. What’s this – a leftover lime? In goes the zest.

Willie’s Goey Chocolate Pudding with Sam’s amendments

GET THE RECIPE HERE.

Willie’s Chocolate Factory Cookbook (Hodder & Stoughton)

It’s the 9th day of  Lent.

Meatless Meatballs

 

It’s been nine days without meat or chicken.

While my choice to give up meat for Lent is on some level a spiritual and ethical one, I was really just curious to see if I could do it.

Sometimes you need the constructs of a tradition or ritual to help motivate you to try something that otherwise seems too difficult. It’s the same with New Year’s Resolutions:  Our little hupstootjie to make the transition easier.

I launched into my vegetarian diet with something that at least looked like meat. I took food24′s lentil burger recipe and adapted it for frikkadels.

I’d like to introduce you to meatless meatballs. Take that, Fry’s!

I’m not a coffee snob. Milk, sugar, hell I’ll even grab the Cremora if times are tough.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a tall, dark and handsome cup.

Introducing…

Strictly Coffee at the haas coffee collective

This new coffee bar in Rose Street, Bo Kaap is stylish, contemporary and smells heavenly. The collective prides itself on specialising in rare coffees.

I attended a special coffee tasting to sample three of their most exclusive coffees in a unique manner: No plunger, no machine: Just raw, ground coffee, hot water and a teaspoon.

On any other day, I can experience the world’s most expensive coffee for the bargain price of R80 a cup.

Before you choke on your cup of Jacobs, here’s the 411.

Kopi Luwak

It’s shit coffee. No jokes. The beans are eaten by small animals called civets. They pass whole through the animal’s digestive tract and are then excreted. Then they are washed, roasted and shipped off.

The enzymes in the animal’s system break down some of the harsh flavours in the bean to give it its “unique” flavour.

“Unique” does not necessarily equal yum. This R3000/kg delicacy has a rather soft, bland taste, almost buttery. It hardly feels as if it’ll hit you up for a morning filled with back to back meetings. The civet gets the kick, not you.

It’s a novelty to drink the world’s expensive coffee, but that’s all it is.

Blue Mountain

These beans come from Jamaica and they are transported in a small old wine barrel. The flavour is more intense, robust and powerful than the Kopi Luwak.

But it will still set you back more than you’re probably willing to spend on your morning coffee. At R1600/kg it retails for around R60 a cup at the haas coffee bar. I’d recommend trying this one over the novelty of the poop coffee if you’ve got the money to blow.

Yemen Mocha

Oaky, musky smells on the nose. I can imagine Grandpa picking this as his favourite. Tasting the coffee in the way we did allowed us to taste how quickly the flavours develop. The Mocha became quite acidic in just minutes after adding the water. Interesting…

More than coffee

If you’re a coffee-cionado then this is for you.

There’s a lot to learn – like don’t keep your coffee in the fridge – and be intrigued by. Enjoy a traditional Cape Malay koeksister with your latte and then you might want to buy yourself one of the many rabbit-styled decor pieces for sale in the design shop.

the haas coffee collective is at

67 Rose Street, Bo Kaap
021 422 4413
www.haascollective.com

My new favourite favourite.

 

FIERY FRUIT: Apricot Mustard Chicken

 

I get into a rut very easily in the kitchen. When I find something that works, I clutch to it for dear life, or until Danny begs me to vary it up.

My latest flavour fixation is Apricot and Mustard. It stems from a recipe found in an old edition of Fresh Living. It’s also very adaptable because you can use any mustard and any apricot product really. From Dijon with apricot jam to English mustard with freshly sliced appelkosies, it’s delicious any way you want it.

I used my colleague Shaheema as my guinea pig and gave her some to try. Her comments: “I feel like judge on Top Chef“. I’ll take that as a compliment!

I’ve come to regularly serve it with a warm couscous salad as it just seems like the appropriately Moroccan thing to do…

And one last tip: The chicken breasts with the bone in work better than the fillets.

Click here for the easy recipe.

Pretty in purple and pink…

 

Salad and I are new friends. I used to be ugly and call it “Rabbit Food”. But I’ve changed my ways and now I can dress her up seven ways from Sunday.

Another of my slightly older friends is ostrich meat. I haven’t cooked with beef mince in over three years because all I buy is ostrich. It’s lean cuisine without the plasticky stuff.

A leftover ostrich fillet in the deep freeze and leftover Woolies beetroot salad could have easily ended up in the bin in my pre-salad days, but now I had the opportunity to mix and match for greatness! The gauntlet in front of me and a hungry man behind me, I had some work to do.

Beetroot and Ostrich Salad

Click here for the recipe.

I’m on my mark! I’m ready to go!

The first thing I cooked as an inquisitive 5-year-old was boiled carrots and tomatoes. Perhaps not the most exciting menu, but I’d say I have an affinity for vegetables.

Or so I thought.

When I received my list for the Ready Steady Cook Challenge, it was obvious something was missing. My list provider had left the meat off the list. Silly girl! I’ll just mail her and… wait. Here are seven ingredients.

Lentils
Potato
Onion
Coconut milk
Cashew nuts
Butternut
Mango

But… but… where’s the MEAT?!

How am I supposed to make a 3-course meal with no MEAT?! This has indeed become a real challenge for my meat-loving tendencies in the kitchen. But that’s the point, right?

Like my friend Jean says: “I’m not sure what people have against lemons but if life doesn’t give them to you, you can’t make fuckall lemonade right?”

Thanks for the lemons, List Lady.

Main course coming up in the next post.

* This post was originally blogged here.