Gift Ideas


In our family we try to keep Christmas gifts small, firstly because Christmas is actually not about gifts… and secondly because we have a big extended family and December is already a blow-the-budget type of month for most.

But after eliminating the usual socks/ties/chocolates/soaps & lotions one could easily spend a whole day in shopping malls without finding a special & unique gift for everyone on your list. I’d much rather spend the whole day in the kitchen.

So I had an “A-ha” moment when I was flicking through Flipboard (it’s an app for those who don’t know) and coming across these awesome gift ideas on Food and the Fabulous.
It was the answer to our Christmas gift dilemma!

Here are some picks of what we came up with, but for full recipes and more ideas go here:
Cookies
Butter
Infused Oil
Preserved Lemons







If I'm not back with a post before Christmas, I wish you all a very blessed & peaceful Christmas!







Birthday celebrations


My wife is one of those people who celebrate their birthday for a whole week! The festivities started at Il Giardino Degli Ulivi at 44 Stanley on Friday evening, followed by a visit to the Food Wine Design fair at Hyde Park on Saturday and a family Sunday lunch yesterday.

Il Giardino Degli Ulivi is a rustic little restaurant, most tables being outside underneath the olive trees. On weekends there is a live band, The Runaway Train Cult, which really adds to the atmosphere. The food was tasteful and interesting and the wine list was fresh including some lesser known wines (for us in Joburg anyway). Overall a great experience and I'll put it on my list of recommendations.


I've been looking forward to the Food Wine Design fair bringing some of Cape Town's best food & wine to Joburg. On the rooftop of Hyde Park shopping centre you can sip your glass of wine while enjoying the highveld sunset. As the name suggests the fair consists of 3 parts. 
The wine section was great and unlike other festivals it offered the choice of buying a bottle (or 6) or buying a glass of wine to enjoy while strolling through the rest of the fair but also offering tastings to sample before buying. The best part was that you get a proper wine glass and not those tiny tasting glasses, of which we have dozens of by now, that you always have to buy before you can proceed to the tastings. 


The stalls representing the design aspect of the fair were in the minority and there were some interesting things on display but nothing that really caught my eye. Then again my attention was focused on the food and the wine!
Some of the highlights for me was Richard Bosman's meats, our old friends at Petit Cochon, the Ficksburg cheese producer and the Mushroom factory (I see growing your own mushrooms is becoming more popular).
But overall it was really disappointing. I got the feeling that everyone went out of their way to exploit us, the Joburg public, by charging ridiculous prices for the food on display. I think there are many others like me,  who envy the food culture of Cape Town so much and who, as a result, attend these festivals & fairs almost religiously and we're being ripped off for it.

To pay R130 for a mini-me red pepper stuffed with Ricotta, 1 chicken breast and 2 baby potatoes served on a paper plate doesn't sound like fair trade to me. Or 4/5 deep fried courgette flowers for R60?


Anyway - great fair, well organised and bringing a bit of Cape Town to Joburg…but at a price.

Next up was a Sunday lunch at our own home. No markups, no surprises, no sneaky salesmen. Just lots of laughter, lots of meat and lots of close family!
I was planning to take photos of the food I prepared for the day, the spread on the table, the meat on the braai…but afterwards I realised that all our photos were of our family and almost none of the food. A bit upset at first, I later realised how awesome that actually is! The Gemütlichkeit soon became more important than the food and that's how it should be. 


Karlien's birthday is actually only on Tuesday and so the festivities continues!

Cheers
Chris

Chicken Breyani

I had to make a proper Indian Breyani before I could move on from the curries and start exploring something new. I was sent a traditional recipe from a former colleague, thanks Jay!


I only slightly adjusted her recipe to accommodate our western palates by reducing the amounts of ginger, garlic and chilli. I also had to make do with red lentils instead of black lentils.









It was delicious! More than enough kick for our taste but it won't kick your teeth out.


Here's the recipe:


  1. 2kg lamb or chicken
  2. 1 cup plain yoghurt
  3. 5 ripe tomatoes
  4. 4cm piece of ginger root
  5. 6-7 cloves garlic
  6. 6 green chillies 
  7. 1 cup coriander
  8. ½ cup mint
  9. 10 curry leaves
  10. 3 tablespoons garam masala
  11. 2 teaspoons turmeric
  12. 2 tablespoons chilli powder (optional)
  13. 2 ½ tablespoons salt
  14. 1 cups black lentils (masoor dahl)
  15. 5 cups basmati rice
  16. 250g butter
  17. 2 onions sliced
  18. 4 potatoes
  19. ¾ cup oil
Method
Cut meat into slightly larger than bite size portions. Rinse and place in a colander to drain excess water.  In a food processor place ingredients 4-9 and process finely.
You don’t want your guests biting into pieces of ginger, not pleasant.  Once processed add tomatoes to mixture and blend until tomatoes are pulp and blended with all ingredients. Lastly add the yoghurt to the mixture.
Place this marinade into a bowl, add ingredients 10-13.  Then add meat and mix so that all the meat is covered in the marinade.  
This mixture can be left overnight in the fridge on made early in the morning if cooking later in the day.  The longer the mixture stands the better the taste.
Boil lentils with a teaspoon of salt until soft to the touch but not mush then drain water and set aside.  Cook rice in salted water halfway through (this is important) then stain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking process. Once lentils and rice is cooled then mix together, set aside.  Cut potatoes in four, and using the same pot that breyani will be steamed in, fry in batches until golden, no need for them to be cooked through, then remove and aside.
Fry onions in the same pot, in batches might be best, then once the onions are golden in colour and crisp, remove and set aside.
To the remainder of oil left in the pot, add 125g butter and once melted add your meat and cook halfway through.  
Remember your liquid should not completely dry out.
Remove half the meat mixture, then add half the potatoes to the meat in the pot, layer half the rice mixture. Repeat this process with the remainder of the meat mixture, potatoes, rice and lentils. Pour 1 cup water over this, then sprinkle fried onion over and cut the remainder of 125g butter into cubes over rice.  Cover with foil and lid and then steam on low heat for about an hour.