Cape Town by Mouth

Cam spent about eight years of his life in Asia. Meeting him completely changed the way I cooked and introduced me to the delights of South East Asian cuisine. Anyway this is hot hot hot. Genuine Malay/Thai cooking involves about a million ingredients and cooking processes.  Making a curry paste the traditional way takes quite a bit of pounding but  it is good therapy if you are in a bad mood. This fiery paste is amazing as a base for a chicken curry. Just add chicken and coconut milk and you are done!

Ingredients

¼ cup cloves of garlic finely chopped (even better if you can get the Thai mini garlic cloves)

3 stalks of lemongrass finely chopped

2 cm bit of galangal finely chopped

3 shallots finely chopped

8 kaffir lime leaves finely chopped

20 dried chillies (soak in hot water and chop)

20 fresh birds eye chillies finely chopped

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tbsp toasted coriander seeds

1 tsp shrimp paste
 

Combine all the ingredients in a mortar and pestle and pound until you have a nice smooth curry paste. Lazy unorthodox ones may want to use a blender : )

To make this into a chicken curry. Fry a few tablespoons of curry paste in a pan and add a tin of coconut milk and finely sliced chicken breasts/ thigh meat.

Oh so much better than store bought : )

250 ml double cream/ 350 ml single cream skip water

100 ml water

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 egg yolks

1 vanilla bean/ 1 tsp vanilla essence

Pour double cream and water into a pot. Cut vanilla bean lengthwise and scoop out seeds.  Add to the cream and heat carefully. Don’t let it boil. When the mixture starts to steam, take it off the heat and let it cool. Take the vanilla bean out and put it in a jar of sugar to make vanilla sugar or just discard it if you are lazy.

Whip egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl until well combined. Add cream mixture and mix well. Pour back into pan and heat carefully stirring pretty much constantly. Don’t let it boil. When it starts to steam pay extra attention to stirring. The custard is ready when it coats the back of a spoon. Chill in the fridge  covered with cling film.

My mother-in-law has been giving me these huge bunches of basil every time I see here. Beautiful dark green leaves and a scent that sweeps you away. Today she gave me some more – then I finally got it. Do you want me to make some pesto for you? YES. She said she thought I would never ask.

Pesto is really simple to make yourself and you can add all sorts of herbs and nuts or even tomatoes. Here is a classic one

100g basil leaves, destalked

60g lightly toasted pine nuts

2 small cloves of garlic

40g parmesan/grana padano ( I used the latter one as Klein Rivier actually makes a decent grana)

1/2 tsp salt

Nice olive oil (Don’t use olive oil that doesn’t taste nice… crap in, crap out), Amount depending on desired consistency.

(semi-dried tomatoes for a nice variation)

Pound all the ingredients in a mortar and pestle and enjoy.

Lemon Sabayon is a light alternative to a hollandaise sauce. I got the recipe from Raymond Blanc, self taught culinary genius. Serve with fish, asparagus or even poached eggs.

3 egg yolks
100ml water
80g melted butter
pinch of cayenne pepper
lemon juice to taste

whisk egg yolks and water in a metal bowl over slowly boiling water. The mixture will turn lighter and grow in volume (be careful that it doesn’t overcook so keep the temperature low), once it does this pour in the melted butter in a thin stream and keep on whisking. Take off heat and add cayenne pepper and lemon juice. Serve immediately.

This is something I think we picked up from Heston Blumenthal. I tend to always say that the secret to a great tomato sauce is hours on the stove, but this is the exception. We use this on pasta for a quick meal or as a condiment to hamburgers. You could even use it for dipping.

A punnet (200g) of cherry tomatoes sliced horizontally along the “belly”
few tbsp of sherry vinegar
salt and black pepper to taste

Place the cherrytomato halves on a frying pan flesh side down. Fry on medium heat until they are brown and collapse when you push down on them with a spatula. Pour the sherry vinegar over them and add salt & pepper to taste. Enjoy.1