Versatile Marinade

Ever have one of those days when you not sure what flavour you feel like.  This little recipe came about when I opened the cupboard and added a bit of this and a bit of that to make a marinade for chicken portions and decided it would work well with lamb, pork and beef too.

Chicken Marinade

Ingredients

30ml brown sugar
30ml soy sauce
30ml brown spirit vinegar
30ml tomato paste
5ml lime juice
125ml water
2.5ml ground ginger
1ml cayenne pepper or more if you like a kick

Method

1. Combine all ingredients together.
2. Marinate protein for minimum 1 hour.
3. Braai (barbecue) or roast protein basting with the marinade.
4. Reduce marinade if necessary.

 

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Celi’s Sweet Chilli Sauce

As you know, I have an ever growing file of wonderful recipes I want to try, mostly from you, my blogging family.  A file which only ever seems to get fatter – (case in point the Seeded Loaf I posted about on Tuesday) with recipes desperate to get out and into the kitchen.  One recipe that keeps making it’s way to the top of the pile is Celi’s fabulous sweet chilli sauce (it’s been in the file since September last year).

Celi over at The Kitchen’s Garden  has found the perfect combination and balance of flavours for a very versatile sauce.   I am sure most of you already visit Celi every day for your fix of farmy news, if not, head over today to get to know everybody on the farm and to share in the delight of Celi’s daily farm photos.

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves
3 seeded hot red peppers – I used 3 birds eye chillies
½ seeded red capsicum pepper
⅓ cup rice vinegar
1 cup water
½ cup sugar – I used brown
½ tsp salt
1tbsp cornflour

Method

1. Blitz the garlic, chillies and capsicum together and place in a small saucepan with the remaining ingredients except for the cornflour.
2. Bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes.
3. Thicken with the cornflour mixed in a little water.
4. Bottle and refrigerate once cool.

Prickly (Cactus) Pear Chutney

My dad always finds the most incredible recipes in the newspapers and on our recent visit to Johannesburg, dad handed me the Angel Day Verve page from The Star newspaper with instruction to make him the Cactus Pear Chutney for when he and mom come down over Easter.  You would think that prickly pears would be available on every street corner here in the Eastern Cape but alas, on the few occasions that I have been in town, not one prickly pear to be seen.  Thankfully mom mentioned Food Lovers market who had just enough on hand for the recipe.

The end result is very tasty but I can’t taste the prickly pears.

As seen in the Thursday March 8 2012 edition of Verve, The Star

Ingredients

15 large prickly pears peeled and chopped
4 medium onions peeled and chopped
2cm knob fresh ginger grated
180ml sugar
150ml white vinegar
2 sticks cinnamon

Method

1. Simmer the prickly pears in a pot over a medium heat until soft.
2. Strain and remove the pips by pushing the pulp and liquid through a sieve and scraping the underneath side of the sieve as you go along.
3. Place the strained pulp and liquid with the remaining ingredients in the pot and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce the heat and simmer for an hour to an hour and a half until reduced and thick, stirring occasionally.
5. Pour into a sterilised jar / jars seal and cool.

Serve the chutney with a cheese platter and or cold meats and crusty bread.

Parsley Mayonnaise / Dressing

This must make mayonnaise dressing is based on the mayonnaise recipe I have been using since I read about it on Browniegirl’s blog. Quite honestly, there is no other way to go when making mayonnaise as it doesn’t get easier or quicker than this and the variations are endless.  I was beyond thrilled with the result of this adaption of the recipe that I am quite tempted to use it on most everything.  I slightly changed a couple of the ingredient quantities and added a few others – what resulted is beyond delicious!

Parsley Mayonnaise / Dressing

Ingredients

1 extra large  egg at room temperature
5ml hot English mustard powder
10ml fresh lemon juice
10ml white vinegar
2.5ml salt
2.5ml black pepper
5ml honey
1 garlic clove
Generous handful of flat leaf parsley
200ml grapeseed oil or canola/olive/sunflower or a combination of the oils

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, starting with the egg and ending with the oil in the beaker.
2. Push your blender into the beaker, immersing it completely so that it rests on the bottom of the beaker.
3. Start blending at high speed for 15 seconds without moving the blender from the bottom.
4. Holding the beaker still with one hand slowly raise the blender until it just reaches the top of the contents and then slowly push it down again, blending all the time for 15 seconds.

White Sauce (Bechamel Sauce)

As promised, this is my basic white sauce recipe, which doubles and triples beautifully just like the pancake recipe.  Use this as a base for a soufflé, cheese sauce, onion sauce or use as is for with your savoury pancakes or over broccoli and cauliflower and brussel sprouts (if you need to hide them a bit like I have to for certain people).  We enjoy our white sauce with quite a bit of pepper as you can see from the photo and I always use white pepper but you can substitute black if you prefer.

White Sauce

Ingredients

30ml butter
30ml flour
250ml milk
Salt and white pepper to taste
Pinch of dry mustard powder – optional

Method

1. In a small saucepan melt the butter over a medium heat.
2. Add the flour stirring to form a roux.
3. Add the milk and salt, pepper and mustard and stir until boiling and thickened.

Mint Jelly

With the holidays in full swing, and all the family gatherings with copious amounts of eating, plus the fact that we have just gone halvies on a lamb with my folks, mint jelly was high on the list of have to makes.  I got this super easy recipe from my SIL and modified it ever so slightly.  Sadly the picture doesn’t do the jelly any justice, plus I am sure you could yield a lighter result using white sugar, either way it is absolutely delicious.

Ingredients

450g tin smooth apricot jam
460g (500ml) sugar – I used brown
250ml white vinegar
1 cup fresh mint chopped
5ml lemon juice

Method

1. Combine the jam, sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat to a simmer and reduce by one third.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the mint and lemon juice.
4. Bottle in sterilised jars.
5. Can be kept in the fridge or on the shelf until opened.

Guinness Mustard

I have been wanting to make this mustard since I say it on Celia’s blog Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 3 months ago!  Better late than never.  I halved the recipe and it worked out perfectly!  I’m quite sorry I didn’t make the full quantity as this mustard makes for a lovely gift for family and friends, especially with Christmas just around the corner.

Ingredients

350ml Guinness beer
285g brown mustard seed – I used ± 2/3 yellow and 1/3 brown
250ml red wine vinegar
1 tbsp salt flakes
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground allspice

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a large pyrex bowl and stir to combine. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and allow it to mature for 1 to 2 days at room temperature.
2. Blitz the mixture, either in a food processor, or using a stick blender in the bowl.  The mustard will thicken in texture and lighten in colour as the seeds are ground up.  You can make it as fine or course as you like.
3. Place the mustard in the fridge to mature for another day or two before using.

As Celia mentioned, don’t get put off if you taste it and at first it tastes bitter, the flavour will develop after a day or two into a lovely full bodied grain mustard.

Onion Marmalade

My recipe for Onion Marmalade calls for red wine vinegar which I did not have on hand at the very minute I wanted to make Onion Marmalade so I improvised using one third wine, one third sherry and one third brown vinegar – the gamble paid off.  I am thrilled with the end result and think I will always make it this way going forward, well until I don’t have one of the ingredients on hand that is.

Ingredients

6 large onions thinly sliced
1 cup red wine – I used Pinotage
1 cup sherry
1 cup brown spirit vinegar
3 cups brown sugar
3 bay leaves – I used 6 fresh from the garden
5ml black pepper freshly ground

Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil.
2. Simmer until almost all the liquid has evaporated.
3. Once cooled, place in glass bottles and refrigerate.

Sweet balsamic rosemary dressing marinade sauce

During the week, weather, blogging, town visits and chores permitting, my friend Beryl and I hop on our bikes for a ride down to the post office to collect our mail. As with everything else, talk turns to food and what each other is making that evening for dinner.  Beryl mentioned a “sauce” that she had received as a gift and subsequent difficulty in finding this quite expensive wonderful product. Naturally I had to sample this lovely mystery sauce for myself and it is GOOD!  It is a salad dressing marinade sauce all wrapped up into one.  I scanned the list of ingredients on the back of the bottle and headed home to try and re-create it.  To quote Beryl, “You are such a clever child”; it seems I have come quite close to the flavour and like the homemade mayonnaise recipe I got from Colleen, will keep a supply of this wonderful sweet balsamic rosemary dressing marinade sauce on hand.  Thanks to Beryl for telling me about what she was making for supper that night, otherwise I would never have come across this yummy versatile sauce.

As inspired by Beryl

Ingredients

90ml balsamic vinegar
90ml spirit vinegar
90ml olive oil
45ml thick soy sauce
45ml honey
45ml brown sugar
15ml rosemary chopped
10ml mustard powder
10ml garlic crushed

Method

1. Whisk all the ingredients together.
2. Place in a saucepan, bring to the boil and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.

This beautifully silky thick sauce can be used to marinade steak, chicken and fish; be used as a salad dressing, drizzled over poached eggs or baked spuddies and can be swirled on top of soup to make it look pretty and why not coat your veggies before roasting.

Preserved Peppadews

At the beginning of this month, Tandy set a regional and seasonal challenge to use a seasonal ingredient in a preserve: something to keep for a rainy day  and included in this challenge is a giveaway – the chance to win a copy of LOVE AND FOOD, the market cookbook.  My entry is Preserved Peppadews.  Now I know that majority of people do not have the privilege of having peppadews growing in their garden; chillies of any variety work equally as well.  I have not specified measurements as it will depend on the quantity of peppadews or chillies you are using, but a good guide line would be for every 2.5 cups of vinegar, use 2.5 cups water and 2 cups sugar.

Ingredients

Peppadews
Coarse salt
White vinegar
Water
White sugar

Method

1. Halve and seed the peppadews and lay out on a tray and cover with salt.  Let stand overnight.
2. Rince the peppadews and set aside to drain in a colander.
3. Heat the vinegar, water and sugar in a pot, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. While boiling the liquid sterilise bottles and lids in another pot or pour a little water into each bottle and lid and boil in the microwave and pour the water out (do be careful).
5. Fill each hot bottle with peppadews and compact a them down.
6. Fill each bottle with the pickling liquid until full and compact the peppadews a little more and top up with additional liquid if required.
7. Seal and store.

 

Thyme Marinade

Pete and I braai quite often, actually very regularly and having lived in Mauritius for a period of 2 and a half years, we had to get accustomed to eating a lot more chicken than red meat due to the astronomical cost of meat which meant I had to get adventurous on  occasion for a new flavour  for a chicken braai (barbecue) plus one of the few fresh herbs available on the island is thyme.  This marinade turned out nicer than I had anticipated. 🙂

Ingredients

250ml white wine – I used chardonnay
125ml oil
125ml cup brown sugar
60ml tomato paste
2 garlic cloves crushed
20ml fresh thyme leaves

Method

1. Blend all ingredients together.
2. Marinate chicken pieces for an hour before cooking or braaing (barbecuing)
3. Baste chicken with marinade during cooking.

This marinade is sufficient for at least 12 pieces of chicken.

Apple Sauce

We recently had friends over for an impromptu  dinner of rolled pork roasted in the Cobb with roasted veggies, creamy mashed spuds and a family favourite gravy.  All we needed to compliment this meal was Apple Sauce so I quickly whipped up a small batch.  Recipes just don’t get any easier than this.  It was fabulous and the quantity was perfect for 4 servings however the recipe can easily be doubled.

 

Ingredients

2 sweet red apples peeled cored and diced
5ml lemon juice
125ml apple juice

Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a microwave dish, cover and cook on high for 10 minutes.
2. Push through a sieve.

If you like a thinner consistency, stir through additional apple juice.

 

Homemade Mayonnaise

The wonderfully inspirational Colleen who writes the fabulous Browniegirl blog, recently posted a recipe for Homemade Mayonnaise, which is made using a stick blender and beaker.  As I mentioned to Colleen, my stick blender is at home, which is about 4 000 kilometres away from me and how thrilled I was to find a friend on the island who was kind enough to lend me hers.  This mayonnaise is well worth making – it takes less than a minuteand can be tweaked for individual tastes by simply increasing or decreasing some of the ingredients.  I forgot to take a photo so Browniegirl was kind enough to let me use hers.

 

slightly amended from Browniegirl

Ingredients

1 extra large  egg at room temperature
5ml mustard powder
5ml – 10ml lemon juice
5ml – 15ml white vinegar depending on how tangy you like your mayo
2.5ml fine table salt
Pepper to taste
2.5ml honey
250ml oil – made up of 200ml canola or peanut oil and 50ml olive oil (the fruitier and more intense the olive oil, the more it will influence the taste of the mayonnaise)

Method

1. Place all the ingredients, starting with the egg and ending with the oil in the beaker.
2. Push your blender into the beaker, immersing it completely so that it rests on the bottom of the beaker.
3. Start blending at high speed for 15 seconds without moving the blender from the bottom.
4. Holding the beaker still with one hand slowly raise the blender until it just reaches the top of the contents and then slowly push it down again, blending all the time for 15 to 20 seconds.

Further tips from Browniegirl to make a richer and thicker mayonnaise is to add an additional egg yolk before blending and if you like your mayonnaise slightly thinner, add a bit more oil and for those wanting a more flavourful mayonnaise, add a chopped clove of garlic and a small handful of chopped parsley before adding the oil and blending.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

I knew that when I saw Tandy’s recipe for Sweet Chilli Sauce a little while ago I had to make it.  Pete and I go through copious amounts of Sweet Chilli Sauce, store bought though so the chance of making a homemade batch was top of my list.  I made the recipe as given by Tandy however the chilli content was way above my threshold plus the quantity the recipe yields would not last Pete and I very long, so I halved some of the ingredients and doubled others and it turned out to be a lovely sauce.  

Adapted from Lavender and Lime 

Ingredients

2 chillies finely chopped – I omitted the seeds
2 garlic cloves crushed
5ml oil – the original recipe called for butter
20ml cornflour
100ml sugar
100ml white spirit vinegar – the original recipe called for white grape vinegar
100ml water

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan and sauté the chillies and the garlic without allowing them to change colour.
2. Mix the cornflour with the sugar, vinegar and water.
3. Add the mixture to the pan and bring to the boil.
4. Remove as soon as the mixture begins to thicken.
5. Place in a sterilized glass jar.

Peppadew Chutney – Repost

A fellow foodie blogger Tandy, who writes the lovely Lavender and Lime Blog is currently hosting a “Something Savoury” challenge and is looking for entries using chillies as a featured ingredient.  Albeit that I don’t qualify for the challenge, I thought it would still be be nice to share my Peppadew Chutney recipe.

Peppadew is the brand name of sweet piquant peppers (a breed of capsicum baccaum) originally grown in the Limpopo province of South Africa and Pete and I are lucky enough to have these magnificent peppers growing in our garden back home.  If you are unable to find these, you can replace them with any other sweet piquant pepper or chilli.

Peppadew Chutney

Ingredients

2 410g tins apricot jam
2 big onions diced
½ cup brown vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
8 pepperdews seeded and diced

Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a pot and simmer over a moderate heat until the onions are translucent and the sauce has reduced slightly.
2. Pour the sauce into sterilised glass bottles.

Submitted by:  Mandy Frielinghaus, Mauritius

Butterscotch Sauce

This silky sauce can be enjoyed hot or cold and only takes a few minutes to make so can be whipped up on the spur of the moment.  I have also made this with normal brown sugar and yellow sugar before.  Each obviously produces a slightly different flavour and colour but are all equally as yummy.

 

Ingredients

125ml butter
125ml dark brown sugar
30ml golden syrup
125ml cream

Method

1. Heat the butter in a saucepan.
2. Add the sugar and syrup and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves.
3. Stir in the cream and simmer for 2 minutes.

 

Submitted by:  Mandy Frielinghaus, Mauritius

Chocolate Sauce

What is there to say about this chocolate sauce, except it is simply perfect, oh and it is seriously quick and easy to make.  What more could you ask for from a chocolate sauce!  Enjoy this silky sauce hot over vanilla ice cream or use as a dipping sauce for strawberries.

 

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
½ cup water
pinch cream of tartar
pinch salt
4 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp butter
10ml vanilla essence

Method

1. Combine the sugar, water, cream of tartar, salt and cocoa in a pot.
2. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and cool slightly.
4. Add the vanilla essence and stir through.

 

Submitted by:  Christine de Villiers, Port Elizabeth

Venison and Roast Mutton Sauce

It’s not always an easy task to find a sauce to go with a robust and heavy flavoured meat such as venison and mutton.  This sauce however, compliments the meat perfectly.  A few of the measurements are quite general, leaving it to you so decide on how full a flavoured sauce you want.

 

Ingredients

½ cup raisins soaked in ½ cup brandy
1-2 tbsp marmalade
1-2 tbsp cranberry or cherry jelly
1-2 tbsp mint jelly
1-2 tbsp apricot jam
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¼ cup olive oil
Honey-mustard sauce or salad dressing to taste

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients

 

Submitted by:  Beryl Healy, Sundays River

Peppadew Chutney

Peppadew is the brand name of sweet piquant peppers (a breed of capsicum baccaum) originally grown in the Limpopo province of South Africa and Pete and I are lucky enough to have these magnificent peppers growing in our garden back home.  If you are unable to find these, you can replace them with any other sweet piquant pepper or chilli.

 

Ingredients

2 410g tins apricot jam
2 big onions diced
½ cup brown vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
8 pepperdews seeded and diced 

Method

1. Place all the ingredients in a pot and simmer over a moderate heat until the onions are translucent and the sauce has reduced slightly.
2. Pour the sauce into sterilised glass bottles.

 

Submitted by:  Mandy Frielinghaus, Mauritius

Pasta Sauce

The flavour of this Pata Sauce is true authentic Italian flavour.  Pair this with my Mom’s  Homemade Pasta and you have a perfect meal.

 

 

Ingredients

2 tins anchovies
1 tin Italian tomatoes chopped
5ml sugar
3 garlic cloves crushed
5ml chicken stock powder
125ml black olives chopped
60ml parsley chopped
Handful fresh basil torn

Method

1. Mash the anchovies including the oil from the tins in a pan.
2. Add the tomatoes and reduce.
3. Add the sugar and stir through.
4. Add the garlic and the stock powder and stir through.
5. Add the olives and parsley and stir through.
6. Fold in the basil leaves.

Submitted by:  Val Olsen, Johannesburg