Janice Tripepi

I bought some beautiful pungent ruby red rhubarb at the Shongweni Market.  I watched a chef on The Great Bristish Menu tv programme poach rhubarb in ginger wine.  My giddy aunt – just watching the tv i could imagine the wonderful combination of rhubarb and ginger.  So when i saw the rhubarb – i was keen to give this a go – and add a twist or two of my own.  I didnt have ginger wine – so i used a bottle of Noble Late Harvest – yumm yumm and added in the berries and vanilla pod.  Try it – it’s wonderful served either with some double thick fresh cream or custard!!!  Here go my hips again!!!!!!  I live to eat not eat to live!!!!

Ingredients

10 sticks of Rhubarb – washed and cut into 5cm lengths

One cup of frozen berries – I used Woolies Mixed Berries

1 Bottle of Woolworths Noble Late Harvest (from last Xmas !)

2 cups of sugar

1 large bulb of ginger – cut into 5mm slices

1 vanilla pod

6 cardamon pods – take the seeds out (just bash the seed with a knife like you would garlic)

250g butter

1 1/2 cups of flour

In a pan place the wine – ginger – vanilla pod – sugar and cardamon pod.  Gently bring this to the boil and reduce the heat

and allow the flavours to infuse.  I simmered this poaching liquid for about 20 minutes.

Add the rhubarb and berries and poach for no longer than 4 minutes.  Remove the ginger slices.

Butter an ovenproof dish and pour the rhubarb and berries – with the liquid into the dish.  In a food processor

place the cold butter and flour and pulse until you have something resembling

bread crumbs.

Top the rhubard and berries with the crumble and flick a little water over it.  This ensures

a nice crunchy top.

Bake at 180 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes.

The juices bubble up through the crumble and decorate the pudding for you.

Serve with either custard or thick fresh cream!!!

Buon Appetito!

Fegato all Veneziana is without a doubt one of the most famous recipes to come out of Venice.  In Roman times this dish was traditionally prepared with figs – the figs were used to mask the strong aromas of the liver.  Nowadays the figs have been replaced with onions which are cooked in such a way as to highlight their sweetness.   The secret of cooking liver is NOT TO OVERCOOK it – treat it with light hands and you will enjoy tender tasty liver. 

INGREDIENTS

500g cleaned Liver – I used Woolworths Ox Liver as I could not get  any calves liver

8 red onions thinly sliced

1 tbl spoon of balsamic vinegar reduction

lots of finely chopped parsley

6 cloves of finely chopped parsley

1 glass of dry white wine

salt

pepper

olive oil

Flour

It is really important to clean your liver – cutting off any membrane and removing “pipes”.  This does result in quite a bit of waste, so Valentino my cat had a wonderful dinner of liver last night.  Pat the liver dry and set it aside.  Fry the onions – garlic with the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper on a moderate heat.  They take a bit of time – about 20 minutes  – this

brings all the natural sugars out resulting in sweet sweet onions.

While the onions are frying, season about 3/4 of a cup of flour on a plate with plenty of salt and pepper.  Dredge the liver in the flour.  Remove the onions from the frying pan and set aside in a bowl.  On a medium to hot heat fry the pieces of dredged liver – dont overcrowd your pan.  Turn them once they have been sealed and are lightly caramelised.  You will probably need to do 2 or 3 batches depending on the size of your pan.  Each batch should be placed in a bowl and covered until you have fineshed frying all of the liver.  Dont over cook them – they should still be pale pink

in the middle.

Using the same frying pan – return the onion to the pan and bring it up to a high heat – you want to release all the

lovely flavours from the pan, so add the wine now and cook off the alcohol – return all the liver to the pan and season again with some salt and pepper – taste taste taste – and scatter in the parsley and give it all a good toss for about 3 minutes.

Your liver will be tender and tasty. 

The mash is easy peasy – the marscarpone (or you could you sour cream or creme fraiche) and lemon zest give the

mash a pleasant sour-ish note that balances off the richness of the liver very nicely.

Cook your potatoes – mash or rice them and add – the creme fraiche with melted butter – add the zest of one lemon – salt and pepper and some chopped parsley. 

Buon appetito!!!

The Tripepi family love to eat at Spiga d’Oro here in Florida Road.  The food is authentic Italian and the Santoniccolo family are very special people.  The vibe is just about the best in Durban I reckon and every member of my family has their favourite item on their menu.  I love the taglietelle pescadore and the minestrone.  So, on Tuesday – my birthday – instead of going out for dinner, which is difficult for the Tripepi’s cos there are just sooooo many of us which means a huge table – you can’t really get to speak to everyone – and the order takes hours to arrive -  No fault of the restaurant -  a table of 22 is just too big – i decided to have some family and friends home for dinner.  My new little baby nephew was in town from Johannesburg - another reason not to drag this little noonoo out to a restaurant – so he was our guest of honour.

I have been wanting to knock this recipe off for ages, so hubby went shopping for baby squid and red peppers to enable me to have a go.  Look, this is not exactly rocket science – my only concern was serving tender squid and not mini elastic bands!!!!  The sauce was delicious and the squid was as soft as butter. 

INGREDIENTS

1KG BABY SQUID

4 large red peppers diced into 1cm pieces

4 onions grated

8 cloves of garlic finely chopped

olive oil

1 tsp chilli flakes (or 1 whole chilli)

4 chicken stock cubes

black pepper

2 glasses dry white wine

2kg ripe tomatoes (skins removed) or 5 tins of peeled tomatoes liquidised

Fresh Cream

fresh basil (I had none so used a few tbl spoons of my basil pesto)

Clean the squid and cut the tubes into 1 cm rings.  Brown the onion and garlic in some olive oil – when browned pour in the white wine and cook off all the alcohol.  Add the chilli flakes – red peppers – stock cubes – black pepper – liquidised or peeled tomatoes and fresh basil or basil pesto.  Bring to the boil and reduce and cook the sauce down to a thick thick consistency.  You need to do this because when you add the squid it will release it juices into the sauce.  If your sauce is too thin you will land up with a pot of runny thin sauce – with flavours that are too far apart. 

Add the squid – and bring back up to the boil for about 1 minute – remove the sauce from the stove – put the lid on and leave to cool.  The cooling process aids in the tenderising of the squid. 

Cook the taglietelle in a large pot of rapidly boiling salted water.  When its ready – drain well and return the taglietelle to the pot – add the fresh cream and stir this into the pasta – add half of the sauce to pasta and stir.  Serve each portion with

a spoonfull of sauce on top!!!

Buon appetito!

This made enough sauce for 20 people.

This is a temple in a massive cave in Bangkok – the picture does not really capture the size or grandeur of the place.  These caves are in an ancient forest where Buddhist Monks go to meditate.  Some of you requested the recipe for Thai Curry paste so here we go.  I did mention that there is quite a long list of ingredients!

Ingredients

1 tsp coriander seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp black peppercorns

2 tsp dried shrimp paste

1tsp ground nutmeg

12 red chillies – chopped

2 cup of onions – grated

5 stems of lemongrass – chopped quite fine as they are really tough

5 Tbl spoons of chopped fresh coriander – roots included

7 kaffir lime leaves

2 tsp paprika

2 tbl spoons of fish sauce (this adds saltiness so taste and add more if you like)

2tsp of tumeric

4 pieces of chopped galangal – (use the bottled galangal NOT the dried one)

Roast the coriander and cumin seeds – for about 3 minutes in a frying pan and then grind together with the peppercorns to a fine powder in a pestle and mortar.    Wrap up the shrimp paste in tin foil (it honks to high heaven) and roast it under the grill for about 4 minutes, turning it half way to roast both sides.

In your liquidiser place the powdered spices and shrimp paste and the chilli and blend it until its fine.  Add the rest of the ingredients one by one – each time you add an ingredient blend the whole mixture until it is fine adding a little of the oil each time.  If you dont blend in between you wont get a nice fine paste.  If you like your paste to be really hot then add some extra chillies.  Use nice red ones – this gives the paste a good colour. 

I trebled the recipe when i made mine – cos I use quite a lot of it and it worked fine.

I store the paste in a glass jar in my fridge and cover it with oil to seal it.  Remeber to use a clean spoon when

using it -  or it will grow mould and get spoilt.  I also use this paste as a rub over the skin of a chicken when roasting it Thai Style.  I also freeze the paste in ziplock bags – which my son takes back to Cape Town with him.  Now, he likes me to put lots of lemon grass in his paste and some lime zest  - so again – each to his own, so if you a partial to a particular flavour – add more of it .

Enjoy!

It was my birthday yesterday so the Tripepi household was filled with friends and family and “molto” merry making.  I had a wonderful day in my kitchen trying out a new recipe.   On such a day I am partial to my favourite cocktail.  I call them eTekwini’s and they never cease to both satisfy and impress their recipients.  What’s a birthday without some revelry and these have a kick like a mule that is sneakily hidden within the comforting velvet of vanilla bean ……….. 

I shall post the recipe later – as we got way toooo merry and forgot completely to sound the alarm – cease all eating – hold our collective breath as I click away with my tiny weeny little camera for half an hour in an endeavour to get one SHOT that is good enough for my blog.  This, surely provides the evidence that my eTekwini’s had perfectly performed their infamous party trick!!!!

Ingredients

8 – 10 lemons or limes

3 Vanilla Beans

3/4 cup of castor sugar

Crushed Ice

Vodka

In a glass jug – that can fit into you fridge – place the following

the zest of 6 lemons

the juice of 10 lemons

the castor sugar

the seed from the vanilla pods

Vodka (a lot!!!)

Slice up 2 lemons – remove the pips and cut into little pieces

Give this mixture a really good stir to distribute the vanilla beans and refrigerate for a few hours.

Half fill cocktail or wine glasses with crushed ice and top up with the

eTekwini cocktail.  Cut up the empty vanilla bean pods and use them to

garnish the cocktail.

Cin cin!!!

(pronounced chin chin which is Cheers in Italian)

My hubby and I spent new year  2007 in Thailand.  I just loooove Thai Food – so I spent a good deal of my time in kitchens watching chefs working their magic.  We ate on the streets – in markets on boats and on the beach.  Every single meal was delicious.  Thai curry is much like Italian pasta – they curry more or less everything.  From seafood to meat to every kind of vegetable that exists.  I had baby eggplants – the size of large peas curried – absolutely amazing.  Their salads were also fantastic.  This is a recipe from a street market in Krabi.  Forgive me – I am having an Eastern Food Craving at the moment!!!!!!

INGREDIENTS

12 chicken breasts diced into 2cm cubes

1 punnet of Rosa or Cherry tomatoes halved

4 onions finely chopped

mushrooms finely chopped

green beans finely chopped

6 cloves of garlic

juice and zest of one lime or lemon

lots of chopped basil

4 Tins of Coconut Milk

6 Table spoons of Red Thai Curry Paste

Fish sauce

2 tspns of sugar

Lightly brown the chicken pieces and remove from the pan and keep warm and covered.  Fry the garlic and onion until lightly browned – add the curry paste and fry for about 5 minutes with the onions and garlic.  This releases the flavours from the paste.  Add the rest of the ingredients (except the lemon or lime juice) and bring to the boil for about 20 minutes then reduce to a simmer for about one hour.   This reduces the coconut milk and slightly thickens the curry.

The fish sauce is the salty flavour in this curry and although is honks to high heaven in the bottle – it adds a wonderful flavour to the dish.  It is quite salty so add a table spoon at a time and keep tasting.  Bare in mind that your curry will reduce slightly so go easy with the fish sauce.  You can always add a little extra at the end of the cooking.  When the curry is ready – remove from the stove and squeeze in the lemon juice.

Some people find the coconut milk very rich – you can always use 2 cans of coconut milk and 2 cans of water.  You can also change the veggies – if you like peas or carrots or red pepper – use them instead.  I have sometimes left out the meat completely and just made a vegetable Thai curry.

Thai curry is quite a soupy dish – and is served with basmati rice on the side and sweet chili.  Set your table with spoons instead of knives and forks.  

Buon appetito!!!

On a Friday Mr T and I usually close our office around 1 o’clock-ish.  However, last Friday and indeed the week just seemed to  never end.  We closed around 5 and were glad to see the end of a really stressful week.   It was just one of those days when I could face neither thinking about food nor the actual cooking of it all.   Neither could hubby – we debated the various restaurants we like to patronise – to no avail…… energy was at an all time low and this Kitchen Diva was on strike. 

After an hour of so of relaxation and favourite music – we both got a bit of life back in our bones.  Than came a call from Max our son – who advised us that he would be staying out at his girlfriends .!!!!!! ………. we got even more life back in our bones then.  From that moment on – THE GAME WAS ON.  It’s fab to have a night off and alone ……… no kids!!!

The China Plate – affectionately known in the Tripepi household as Jackie Chans – is an amazing fabulous chinese restaurant situated in Durban North.  The decor is non – existant, with pink walls – red lanterns a plenty – a pitful fish tank – plinky plonk music and well, not much else.  The food however, is OUT OF THIS WORLD.  I have wonderful memories of my 13th birthday dinner @ The Edward Hotel in Durban, where “Jackie Chan aka George” was the executive chef for many years.  I believe, that when you visit a restaurant, in this case, a chinese restaurant, and you see chinese families eating there – you have a winner.  For if the food is acceptable to a chinese person – well then it’s hundred for me!

The added bonus of The China Plate is that they offer take – aways that are equally as good.  Hubby – was on that cell in a flash – ordering our dinner.   He tore off to go and collect our instant chinese banquet – a drive that would take approx. 40 minutes in total.  Bliksem, this was my cue.  Out came all that vaguely represented china to me – the crockery – chop sticks -  etc.  I had a chinese seduction in mind.  The excitement of flying around the house – assembling the “passion-pit” was wonderful    This was a La Senza black lace moment – i was like crouching dragon flying mamma – and I didn’t have to peel a pee!!!!!!!! 

We can’t be kitchen Divas 365 days a year – but La Senza seductresses we can always be!!! 

Menu

Starter Chicken & Corn Soup

Entree Prawn Foo Yong

Mains Pork Belly with Bok Choy & Silken Brinjals

Dessert ……….. Not Telling !!!!

THE CHINA PLATE TEL 031 -5646437

As much as I love Italian food …. man oh man do i need a change every now and again.  This is my Thai Burger …. upon announcing my menu choice yesterday, i heard lots of ooohs and ahhhhs about wanting Italian burgers etc.  etc etc.  hunna hunna Italian hunna … so hubby MADE some Italian burgers for the himself, his brother and nephew and i made THAI BURGERS FOR MOI!!!  I must be psychic or something, cos as soon as i started assembling mine, i heard cries of, “I will have one of those too  please , Jan”.  I lifted my gaze from my crystal ball and produced the extra THAI burgers that i just KNEW they would want.  Some things are just sooooo predictable.  We all got cracking in the kitchen, and once all the meaty patties were prepared I set about gathering the ingredients to prepare a salad.  Nooooooo, they cried in emphatic unison, “Tonight it is MAN-FOOD” which is apparently MAN-CODE for Meat and NO VEGGIES TONIGHT!!!  So MAN-FOOD it was!!! 

INGREDIENTS

500g Beef or Lamb Mince

125g Pork Mince (I skinned a packet of Pork Sausages)

5 onions & 5 cloves of garlic sliced and fried until nicely caramelised

salt & pepper

half a bunch of chopped fresh coriander and basil

5 finely chopped chillis (i like it hot!)

the zest of one lime or lemon

one whole egg to bind the mixture

Combine everything in a bowl – oil your hands with some olive oil (fab. hand treatment) and take a handful and roll into a ball and then flatten.  Don’t make huge big thick patties – they land up charred on the outside and raw on the inside when you cook them on a gas braai. 

Assemble in a nice fresh burger bun that has been toasted on the inside with some lettuce, tomato and some fresh coriander.  Serve with some Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce. (and a salad !!! hehehe …)

PS.  By the way – “Italian” burgers a la Tripepi, have fresh basil and parmesan cheese inside!

This rolled Pork Roast went down a treat last night – the recipe yields a wonderful gravy which i didn’t pour over the roast for fear of softening the crackling .   The Tripepi’s just love crackling so this roast is always welcomed.  I used a de-boned and rolled shoulder roast of pork from the Dargle Valley Pork People – what i always appreciate with their product is that it has very little shrinkage – so what goes into the oven is still capable of feeding the hungry masses waiting at the dinner table.  The potatoes are a Portuguese style recipe and are light, very tasty and go well with a roast as they are cooked on the top of the stove.  

INGREDIENTS FOR THE ROAST

1 Pork Roast with crackling

5 tomatoes chopped

2 red 2 yellow peppers chopped

4 onions chopped

8 cloves of garlic

4 bay leaves

rosemary & thyme

10 anchovies

salt & pepper

1 x beer or cider or white wine

6 dessert spoons of red wine vinegar

Pre-heat your oven to 220degrees.  Place all of the veggies etc in the bottom of a nice and heavy based caserole dish or roasting pan.  Pour over the beer/ cider/ wine.  When you defrost the pork roast – or even if u are using a freshly bought one – you must keep patting it dry .. if you dry the skin out nicely (I have been known to take a hair dryer to a wet roast) it will crisp up nicely.  I add a few extra cuts on the top of the roast with a nice sharp knife and rub salt into the skin as it goes into the hot hot oven.  Cook on this high heat – un covered -for 40 minutes and then reduce to 100 deg and leave it to cook slowly – covered for  2 -3 hours.  Remove the roast and reduce the sauce by half on the top of the stove – this concentrates all the flavours.   Return the roast to the oven and grill the crackling and serve.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE POTATOES:

7 Potatoes quartered (enough to feed your family or guests – 4 of us ate last night and we have left overs)

2 quartered onions

2 sliced carrots

2 celery sticks cut in half

6 cloves of garlic

6 bay leaves

hand full of pepper corns

3 chicken stock cubes

finely chopped parsley

olive oil

Bung the whole lot into a pot and cover with cold water.  Bring to the boil and reduce the heat to a simmer.  When the potatoes are soft remove all the ingredients (minus the celery) to a serving dish.  Top with the chopped parsley and drizzle with olive oil. 

and WALLA ……….. serve!

I served these two with a green butter lettuce salad with onion sprouts, fresh basil and a good handfull of seeds dressed with olive oil and vinegar.

Good morning, I am back in Durban and it’s a beautiful morning.  The sunrise pic was taken at 5.23am.  I have loads of lovely pics from the Underberg and will be posting them with some recipes over the next few days.  I have much work to catch up on first!!!!! Grrrr…….  Here is the Moses Mabida stadium this morning … she rises soooooo elegantly.  When you drive past you can see through the fine mesh like walls that give this beautiful land mark a lightness that is beautiful.  Some mornings she looks like a stingray, others a beautiful white dove with wings.  The front with all the shops etc is sooooo fab, can’t wait to see all the flags flying ……. most of all, the South African flag.