Foooooood

Volstruisnek-potjie, translated because I’m sure one can use the same basic recipe should one have a hunk of kangaroo handy.

I found some ostrich neck at a good price. Undoubtedly because the EU didn’t want it, but hey. Ons is nie bang nie.

So, in my black pot, I browned the meat in some oil in two batches. Then, some onions, on a low heat, went off, loaded some ammo.

Now you layer some potato slices or halved baby potatoes and some carrots. Then about a teaspoon of fresh rosemary, then some baby marrows, grean beans and two/three chopped tomatoes, or a tin of same.

The potjiekos thing is the layering, and the no stirring.

Some salt over the veggies, and two cups of chicken stock with a bit of lemon juice added into the pot. The original recipe adds vodka as well.

Heat until the stock is boiling, then cover and simmer slowly for two hours or so.

Serve with rice and a green salad.

And whatever you do, don’t stir the pot.

This time, a different recipe from last time. The same excellent results, though.

It was the two of us, so, four thighs. Black pot, as always.

Salt and pepper and some chicken rub, let that soak a while, then browned it in some melted butter.

I ended up pouring a lot of fat off, so I’d say the butter wasn’t needed. Next time I might make a roux, call it gumbo paprikash.

Remove the chicken, sauté an onion (two if you’re using more chicken), when it’s nice and translucent, add two tablespoons decent paprika and a good teaspoon cayenne pepper, more if you’re brave. Deglaze with a bit of white wine, add stock (I used about 250ml homemade chicken stock), put the chicken back in, cook with the lid mostly on for half an hour.

I had some mushrooms kicking around so those went in about halfway through.

When the chicken looks done, remove, turn off the gas (you cook with gas, right?), add 1/2 a cup creme fraiche.  This makes a sauce that goes really well with mash (oh yes, you were supposed to cook potatoes and veggies on the side. Stick it in the steamer and on the plate when you put in the mushrooms).

Is French for “how can you throw that away?”. (not really)

Basically, you make stock. You then take the meat and bones, add fresh onion and carrots, and make stock… again.

Sure, the second stock is kinda weak, but it makes a damnfine not-so-clean rice (dirty rice has chicken livers. This is not it).

I started with cheap chicken. Four breasts, on the bone. On the braai for a few minutes, then into the slow cooker with onions, carrots, pepper, allspice… you know the drill. Don’t forget a tablespoon of vinegar.

Cooked overnight, drained. Back into the slow cooker, fresh onion, fresh carrot, water.

For the rice, fried an onion in oil, added the rice, fried that in the oil, added some white wine, stirred a bit, added the stock, boiled ’till done, added fried mushrooms. Some people would call this risotto, but real risotto is different. And more work. And I like my grains separate.

Made this recipe last night. Yum.

Firstly, you need decent paprika. I bought half a kilo from House of Goodies. Red = good. Brown = crap.

Mix some* flour and some* paprika. Coat the chicken (in this case, four drumsticks, four thighs) in this mix and fry in oil, in batches. Remove, fry some* onion, cayenne pepper, a bit more* paprika, salt. Add chicken back in, add (homemade, I think this was the seekrit ingredient) stock, cook.

Add creme fraiche at the end, with the leftover flour. This didn’t thicken the sauce as much as I would have liked.

Serve with mash, although it also goes damn well with sourdough bread.

* The recipe gives quantities. I see that more as a guideline.

Since April 15th. Yay!

We had the in-laws over for Christmas, and for the first time since Tanya and I’ve been together we also had the kids for the whole time (their stepmother got snowed in in the UK, only flew out this week).

Braai-ed steak (porterhouses from Constantia P&P — and they even had brussel sprouts) on Friday, with potatoes in foil in the coals, always good.

Tanya insists on turkey, this year I wizened up and brined it for only about 10 or 12 hours in 2 litres of apple juice, some vinegar, a few oranges, ginger… basically a variation on this theme (Close to, if not all, of our turkeys are imported butterballs. Brine these for too long and it gets overpowering. That happened last year. Half a day seems perfect). Of course I didn’t smoke it, I stuck it in the oven over a roasting pan with the giblets, half an onion and some water in it.

Turkey was great, so was the ham MIL brought. Gravy (stuff from pan, minus the boney bits, food processed) was excellent.

And of course there was Christmas pudding and Christmas cake and trifle (which lasted until Monday, the trfle, that is. We still have cake…).

Present from the in-laws was a pressure cooker. Used that to make a stock from the leftover turkey. This worked so well that I then made a meat stock followed by a chicken stock — I had five or six 2L ice cream containers full of frozen stock bits that I hadn’t got around to.

The beef stock went into a stew on Monday. The left-over turkey + stock will go into a risotto next week. Last night was a more mundane but still excellent pastorie hoender (I’m sure I’ve posted my recipe somewhere, but can’t find it right now… blogfodder, yay!). Tonight is a beef tomato bredie using a bunch of tomatoes I bought cheap and froze a month or so ago.

We live high on the hog.