Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Recipes

I enjoy good food. When I am not on the road, I do a fair bit of thinking about food, or at least I try to make time to eat tasty things at least once a day. When I am on the road, and biking, eating plays a huge role in my life. Additionally, food preferences vary from one place to the next, and one of my favorite things about traveling is diving into a new food culture. Along the road on this trip I hope to share recipes that I collect from others and information on local foods customs and availability.


Here are a few things to get me started:

1. Zeena's Butter Chicken, Cape Town, South Africa

On our first night in Cape Town, Alvin took us over to crash his friend Zeena's dinner party (she had given him the o.k. to invite people, but I don't know if she was expecting five of us!). She made a bunch of Indian style food, including two types of delicious bread, roti and naan, and some chicken curry. The chicken curry had an amazing sauch, tangy and rich and smooth. After asking for the recipe, I realized why---all the butter and cream! Anyway, it is good.

Ingredients:
6 (1kg) chicken breast fillets (Note: I am not sure if she means 1kg total or 6 x 1kg fillets, but 12 lbs of chicken seems like a whole lot)
2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
3 cloves crushed garlic
2 Tbsp white vinegar
1/4 c. tomato paste
1/2 c. yogurt
40 - 60 g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods
1 tsp salt
3 tsp sweet paprika
4 medium tomatoes or 425g tin tomato paste
3/4 c. chicken stock (180mL)
1 c. (250mL) cream

1. Cut fillets into 3 pieces each.
2. Combine the first three spices, ginger, garlic, vinegar, tomato, and yogurt in a large bowl and marinade chicken in this mixture overnight.
3. Heat butter in a medium frying pan and add the onion, cinnamon and cardamom. When the onion has browned, add the marinaded chicken mixture.
4. Add the salt, paprika, puree, and stock and simmer uncovered for 10 min. Add cream and simmer (don't boil!) for ~ 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked all the way through.

2. Springfield Estate Pie:
I am really into the South African fast food phenomena of pies. Every little town has some place that sells a turnover with a flaky, buttery crust and a delicious, usually meaty, filling. My favorites so far have been the Salami and kaas and the Spinach and kaas ('kaas' means cheese in Afrikaans), but they also do variations like the Cornish (basically, beef stew with potatoes in a crust), the Russian (crust wrapped around a sausage), steak & kidney, steak & onions, chicken & mushroom, curry, and pepper steak (South Africans love their meats).

When we were staying at Springfield Estates, Marie made little pies filled with a creamy chicken filling for her paying guests. I didn't get a detailed recipe, but I will write down an Old-fashioned recipe: one without quantities. Consult a real cookbook for working with puff pastry, and you can probably find recipes for the chicken as well.

Ingredients:
Puff pastry
Stewed or baked chicken
Chicken stock
Nutmeg
Ground clove
Crushed, minced garlic
Mayonnaise
Green onion or scallion
Egg

1. Prepare the puff pastry according to whatever the package says, cutting it to a size appropriate for the size of your desired pie. Marie used little muffin tins to shape her pie.
2. Shred the chicken, adding chicken stock to moisten. Season the chicken with the nutmeg, clove, and garlic. Distribute filling amongst puff pastry crusts.
3. Prepare sauce of mayonnaise, scallion, and egg, mixing well to combine. Spoon a little sauce over the filling in each crust.
4. Cover the filling with a second layer of crust.
5. Bake the pies---I'm not sure at what temperature, but it might be 350F.

3. Road Truffles
Quinn is always making interesting concoctions on the road. I was pretty impressed when he pulled out this recipe:

Ingredients:
Cocoa powder
Honey
Peanut butter

1. Mix above ingredients to achieve a rollable consistancy. May refrigerate if you are in a house, and roll in cocoa powder or confectioners' sugar. I'd suggest adding unusual spices.
2. If you have an avocado, Quinn says the above ingredients plus avocado = pudding. I haven't seen this yet, but it would be worth a shot.

4. Road Sauerkraut

Ingredients:
Empty water-tight jar (perhaps after you've eaten all your p.b.!)
Cabbage
Salt
Garlic
Hot sauce (optional)

1. Cut cabbage into the jar, layering liberally with salt, garlic, and hot sauce (if desired).
2. Leave the mixture in your bag, letting out stale air every so often. Check preparedness by smelling, poking, and perhaps tasting.

Maybe in future posts I will investigate the food phenom of peri-peri sauce, rooibos, Milo, biltong, and rusks.

1 comment:

  1. Germans gotta have their kraut, did ya have a brat to go with it?
    Great to see your posts, hope all is going good.
    Ma n Pa

    ReplyDelete