drizzleanddip

Firstly, in case you were wondering what the waterblommetjie is, its described by Wikipedia as: An  Aponogeton distachyos flower, commonly known as Cape pondweed, Cape hawthorn or Cape asparagus, which is found in the dams and marshes of the Western Cape of South Africa. The buds of Aponogeton distachyos are usually ready to be picked in the southern midwinter months of July and August.

Typically it is used as a key ingredient in the traditional South African dish of waterblommetjie bredie (lamb stew), and has an interesting culinary history which I learned more about at the recent cook-off on Du Toitskloof Wine Estate.

This is what it looks like after being blanched.

For a long time I have wanted to see how it would turn out dunked in tempura batter and deep fried.

I stumbled across a tempura batter recipe in Andy Fenners new cookbook ‘Taking it Easy’ which I have recently acquired and fallen in love with. In his book, Andy features 20 of his favourite chefs and recipes that they love to cook at home. Its genius.

I’m very fortunate to say that many of these chefs I know and am privileged to have eaten their food. One of them is Richard Carstens from Tokara, and you can see what I wrote and shot on my recent visit to this exquiste restaurant.

Japanese cuisine is a big influence in Richard’s cooking, so where better to turn when I needed a tempura batter. This is taken from his recipe for ’cabbage rolls, tempura mushrooms with a dashi ponzu sauce’ in the book.

How awesome does THAT sound?

This makes a lot of batter which I didn’t use all of for fear that  my bathroom scale would have noticed.

• Recipe on Drizzle and Dip

Make up a dipping sauce that is a bit more interesting than just plain soya sauce. One of my favourite recipes for this is Sonia Cabano’s chilli -lime dipping sauce from her cookbook ‘Easy’.

Serve the tempura waterblommetjies immediately while they are still hot and crunchy. I squeezed lime juice over them which gave them a nice zesty wake-up call,

So delicious!

I look forward to connecting with you again in the future.

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