Foooooood

Being the first of two completely coincidentally very similar recipes.

The basis for all of this is some eland shin (skenkel), off the bone. I bought half an eland cow from a friend, and while having a freezer full of eland is a Good Thing (TM), we also have to eat most of it before I can fit some gemsbok in there.

To defrost the meat, I soaked in in water (with a bit of vinegar added) for 24 hours. This draws out the blood, makes the meat less “wild” apparently. Then I basically followed the standard recipe,  i.e. dusted the cubed meat in flour, browned it in the black pot, stuck it in the slow cooker along with tomatoes and a bit of chili and spices and Worcestershire and so forth, and let it go all day on low.

Got home, diced some potatoes quite small, separated the sauce with a slotty spoon and boiled the potatoes in the sauce until done, then recombined the whole lot. I might have added some Maizena too.

Some time ago we were watching So You Think You Can Cook Top Chef and they were making fried chicken… sounded interesting, so we tried it.

At the moment my recipe is converging to something between My Mother-in-Law’s Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Crispy Fried Chicken.

Start with chicken on the bone. This is important. Drumsticks and thighs work for me. Salt and pepper and marinate in buttermilk for as long as you can — all day or 15 minutes if it’s all you have.

Next up, remove the chicken pieces and put them down to drain some of the buttermilk off, before dredging them in flour with pepper, salt and about two tablespoons paprika added. Next time there will be cayenne pepper in there as well. Leave the chicken in the flour for a while so that the flour absorbs the buttermilk, giving you a sort-of batter around the chicken.

Meantime, you need to heat up your oil. 170°C is what you’re aiming for. A candy thermometer is essential here — too cold and your chicken comes out greasy, too hot and you have the excitement of an indoor fire. Fry the chicken in batches, six minutes a side. I found it works to fry two pieces, turn them over and add two more pieces, remove the first two pieces, turn the second two pieces over, add two more pieces…

Put the fried chicken on a baking tray (I used paper towels, but this sticks to the chicken, next time I’ll put the chicken on a rack over the baking tray) and when all the pieces are fried, pop it into your 180°C oven for half an hour.

Meanwhile, steam your veggies, boil your potatoes, make mash.

The new hunting season is on us, and I still had this hunk of springbok thick flank left in the freezer from last year (crappy photo, I know). About 800, 900 grams.

Marinaded it in yoghurt overnight, then mostly followed this recipe.

Started with one large diced onion, two small grated carrots, a not-so-chili pepper from the garden, and a packet of cherry tomatoes. Added to this some chili sauce, ginger and garlic, and after it had all cooked to a bit of a mush, some extra spicy curry powder,  garam masala and cumin.

Transferred the sauce to the slow cooker, added the diced springbok on top, covered with water, added peppercorns, turned on the slow cooker and walked away.

I didn’t want the curry to be too hot, it being springbok, but in hindsight I could probably have added a bit more spice.

In other news, this recipe for slow roasted pork belly sounded interesting.

Score the skin, add five spice and salt, stick it in the oven at 150°C for 2 or 3 hours over a pan of water. Crank up the grill at the end to crisp up the skin.

And while you have the grill all fired up…

Follow this recipe where you basically get hold of an eisbein, cook it for a few hours, then stick it under the (same) hot grill to crisp the skin.

The new hunting season is almost upon us, and I still have a couple of hunks of springbok left in the fridge from last year. Including a whole neck.

So I found this recipe. It calls for neck chops, I had the neck whole… ah well, let’s try it anyway.

Mixed up the marinade of an onion, some garlic, 500ml red wine, didn’t have port at hand so left it out, fresh rosemary, forgot about the bay leaf, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 4 tablespoons soy sauce, some paprika — blended that all together, stuck it and the neck in a ziplock bag in the fridge. Used a tin of cranberry jelly I had kicking around, and some sugar to compensate for the extra tartness.

Removed neck from bag, browned some bacon, browned the neck in the bacon fat, removed it from the pot. 500ml of stock, the marinade, some tomato puree, bring that all to a boil, float the neck back in, oven at 180 for three hours or so. Didn’t bother with the onions, we were hungry.

Good stuff.

Don’t ditch the sauce. I ended up with quite a bit of meat left over, so I boiled two potatoes and four carrots (sliced and cubed) in the sauce, added the meat back in, and made 36 pies. They freeze well, pop ’em in the oven for half an hour, serve with chips or mash and gravy.

My boss gave me some quinces and a (stovetop) recipe, but I decided to poach them in the slow cooker.

First you gotta peel them. This is the hard part.

Make a syrup with a litre of boiling water and a cup of sugar. Add some vanilla (pods are of course gorgeous, but I used some bourbon vanilla extract I have kicking around). You can add some lemon juice too.

That does not look appetizing at all, does it? But after a day’s slow cooking…

Serve with custard. Tip: buy two litres of custard, hide one under your bed.

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.