A Cape Town Mussel Po(s)t in Winter

Studying pastry means that I've been less inclined to spend time in the kitchen after hours. That's the thing with studying a hobby, it can take away from ones passion initially (another blog post all together).  Luckily, I've had a little rest from the kitchen and I've been inspired to combine my pastry and bread skills with time cooking in the "hot kitchen".  I love cooking as it allows me to experiment with ingredients, flavours, and textures without being too precise.The opposite applies to pastry, cakes, confectionary and bread making. Dont get me wrong, I love pastry and baking but its nice to find a balance between the two completely contrasting approaches to food.  

The other night I made a mussel pot with crusty home made Kitka bread. I was in my element as it was the perfect combination of playing around with flavour and baking! 

Mussel pot with homemade crusty kitka bread

Sam my husband was seriously blown away by the end  result and reckons it was the best mussel pot he has ever had ("even better than Den Anker" were his words) . Of course he is bias but I'm so appreciative of his love of food, his support of my culinary endeavours and weird experiments. 

I looked at a few recipes and came up with my own concoction of heart warming ingredients. My recipe goes something like this but you can play around with herbs if you like. For example use thyme instead of bay leaf (or use both), leave out the celery or add spring onion.  The Dijon mustard adds another layer to the flavours which I feel gives the recipe a unique finish.  

Keri's Mussel Pot with Kitka bread ( serves 4)

Ingredients

• 1kg fresh mussels if possible (Woolworths Cavendish sometimes have)
• 2 small onions finely diced
• 2 celery sticks finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter
• A handful of chives
• A handful of parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• 10ml dijon mustard 
• 350ml cream
• 150ml white wine 
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Wash mussels and discard any open ones. Saute the garlic, celery and onion in butter until softened. Add the bayleaf and wine and bring to the boil. Add mussels to wine and cover lid. Allow to steam for 5 minutes. Once steamed stir in the cream and add the chopped chives, parsley, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Stir and leave to simmer for a minute. 

Serve: with  a sprinkle of fresh parsley and chives and serve with crusty home made bread, Ciabatta or Kitka. Kitka recipe to follow!

Basque Country (and Silwood)

When I started writing this blog post my social media students had just completed their blogging assignment which prompted me to look at my own blog. At the time (April) I had literally not blogged in over 3 months- shocking, atrocious and not a very good example to set. It's just been extremely busy with studying patisserie at Silwood. The course is part time (2 mornings a week) but as most of you who have worked  or studied part-time know,  you end up putting way more hours in. Class starts at 7:30am and ends around 1pm. Just like working in a kitchen we don't really have a break, so its a full on 6 hour day! The prep work before each prac is very time consuming and consists of studying for a weekly test,  shopping and sourcing ingredients, weighing them up and then packing everything. Not to mention the costings and production schedules which we need to put together so that we know what order we need to make everything in. In our Fridays Pracs we can make up to 5  things at a time so we need to plan our processes pretty carefully. Who thought Pastry could be so stressful? This may be a bit naive but I always pictured myself  in a Julia Child type scenario, wearing my red lipstick and pretty apron, singing along to the radio whilst whipping up whimsical treats to melt the hearts of those I love so dearly.  (Okay, so I kind of knew this would not be the case but I really wanted to believe it). The kitchen environment is generally a high stress environment- not sure why it has to be this way but I've come to accept that it's just the way that it is! 

We're half way through term 2 and exams are looming ahead, and I've learnt to make all kinds of pastries, cakes, puddings, breads and confectionary. One of the easiest and most simple desserts we've made is Mousse Au Chocolat Basque (Basque Chocolate Mousse) which I thought I would share with you. Its easy, simple, rich and super delicious.  This dessert is probably one of my best presentations out of all of my pracs, mostly because it was so early on in the year and I reckon I nailed it with my modern interpretation of this traditional dessert.

 Mousse Au Chocolat Basque  (Silwood recipe)

(Makes 4-6 small pots)

Nailed it!

160 g dark chocolate (below 50% cocoa)
5ml instant coffee dissolved in 1tsp boiling water
10 g butter
10 ml liquid
Pinch of salt
2 eggs separated 
Chantilly cream (to garnish)

Method 
Melt 160g chocolate chips with 5ml coffee (dissolved in 5ml hot water), 10ml sherry and pinch of salt over warm Baine marie. Remove from heat and beat in the 2 egg yolks one at a time. Allow to cool and thicken.Whisk the egg whites until soft peak stage and stir in 1/3 into chocolate. Then fold in the remainder. Pour into mousse jars/dishes.

To Garnish Make chantilly cream by whipping 250ml whipping cream to soft peak stage and fold in a few drops of vanilla essence and sifted icing sugar to taste.   Fill piping bag and pipe or spoon on top. Top with chocolate chards or grated chocolate and serve immediately. Double the recipe to make 8 -10 pots. 

Food and fun times from Oviedo to Barcelona. July 2014

 In August last year I was luckily enough to visit Basque country (a unique part of Northern Spain and France). It was a very good friend Natalie's  wedding in Oviedo, her moms home town.  A handful of us (Lisa, Ali, Steve, Sam and myself) decided to make a road trip of it.  Soon after the wedding we made our way to San Sebastian in Basque Country via The Guggenheim  in Bilboa and 2 nights in the rural mountains of Cantabria where we stayed in a quaint B&B called Casona de Quintana .

We eventually made it to San Sebastian with both Steve and our car intact. Here we literally ate ourselves into a a coma. San Sebastian is the food capital of modern and molecular cooking. Whilst known for their molecular cooking their traditional  Pinxtos ( Norths version of tapas) it is an important aspect of daily life in basque country. In fact Parte Vieja (The Old Town) has more bars per square metre than anywhere else in the world. There are so many different types of Pinxtos bars- day and nights spots, coffee bars, noisy bars, foodie bars that have put San Sebastian on the map and more traditional Pinxtos bars laden with Pinxtos and people spilling out on the streets.  As a tourist you generally visit a couple of bars a night for dinner. Nights in San Sebastián start late and go until the wee hours making it very different and exciting social eating experience. Do yourself a favour if you are planing to go to Spain- visit the North for the experience of the food. This is something you have to experience for yourself if you are ever afforded the opportunity. 

After San Sebastian we treated ourselves to one night at Casa de San Martin in the Pyrenees  via Pamplona and then made our way to Barcelona for 3 nights. Naturally I fell in Love with Barcelona- a vibrant city filled with art, historic sights,  awesome people and again fantastic food. Below are a few memories shared with awesome friends on the trip! If you have any questions about Spain and where to go or stay , please  just leave a comment :-) Spain is my most favourite European holiday destination, if not in the world.

  Happy holiday dreaming and happy eating!

The crazies we travelled and ate with...

Salmon Pear Thai Curry

This is a little recipe inspired by a thai curry dish served by one of my favourite Cape Town  restaurants,  Kitima's. To put it simply, their Salmon Penang with poached pear is to die for and I order it just about every time I go there for dinner. So about a year ago I decided to make up my own  version  by adding veggies to break the richness and topping the dish with fresh mint and basil to bring out all the fragrant flavours. I also alternate between using a penang and red curry paste- both are equally good to use!  I'm one of those sweet and savoury nuts (think brie and onion marmalade, dates and bacon and salted caramel... you know here I'm going with this) and it's the salty salmon- sweet pear combination in this dish that has me making this dish over and over again.  

I recommend coupling these magical thai flavours with a wooded chenin blanc or a glass of buttery chardonnay. I'm much more of a wine than a cocktail drinker, but do yourself a favour and try Kitima's  Strawberry Rose martini infused with basil and clove;  it must be the best cocktail I've ever tasted this side of the continent! 

Salmon Pear Thai Curry (my version)

(Serves 6-8)

Ingredients:

• 800g- 1kg of fresh shashimi quality salmon cut into 125-150g pieces
• 2 x 400ml cans of quality coconut milk (Wellness Warehouse have a mean selection)
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil (if required)
• 2 x packet Penang Thai curry paste (or use red curry paste)
• 4-5 pears sliced into 8 pieces each
• 1-2  sliced red peppers (length ways and 1 cm wide)
• 150g green beans
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2.5 tablespoons fish sauce
• A big handful of basil and mint
• 4 red chilli's
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Scoop a table spoon or two of cream off  the top of the coconut milk and mix in the curry paste in a heavy pan. Let it cook for 3-5 minutes until the oil seeps to the top. Tip: This is known as "cracking" the coconut milk which involves separating the cream into its oil, and then using the oil to fry up the spices.  Coconut milk however is homogenised and therefore the oil can be lacking. To avoid this I recommend adding a tablespoon of coconut oil to the coconut cream to ensure a more fragrant thai curry flavour emerges.

2. Add the pear, red peppers and green bean and cook for 2 minutes, then add the coconut milk and stir the ingredients. Let this simmer for another 3 minutes.

3.   Finally add the salmon so that is mostly covered by the coconut milk and then immediately turn down the heat and let the ingredients simmer in  the coconut milk for  another 5 minutes or so, until the pear has softened.  Be careful to not over cook the salmon. You want to poach it in the coconut milk so that there is a slightly translucent pink colour in the very middle.

4. Tear up the basil and mint and stir into the curry just before serving and garnish with chopped red chilli's.  You can use salt to taste if required but I usually find it's unnecessary.

5. Serve with Jasmine rice or cauli-rice lightly fried in coconut oil.  

Too much cooking and not enough blogging

Sho! Its been a while since I've written a blog post. I've literally been making, baking , shaking and all that good stuff. Strangely enough I've also discovered yoga which has taken some of my blogging time. I wouldn't call myself a yogi by any means! Not just because I'm curvy but because I'm one of those uncoordinated dorks who places my mat at the back of the class hoping no one will see me, when actually I should go for the middle row to see what everyone else is doing! I think this is the first time in my life that I am actually on time for anything as I simply HAVE to be to join in. Late equals no entry! Even then I'm still late in 'yoga time'- huffing and puffing my way up the stairs to the studio. Theres just nothing zen about it. By the time I arrive it looks like I ran to class from home (which I probably should do as it is around the corner). Anyway, I will keep you updated on how long the yoga lasts for, but I have a feeling this is a long term maintenance thing for me.

 Oh, and we have a new puppy called Raffa. That makes not just one but two crazy pooches to deal with. On second thought I think this adjustment ( putting it ever so mildly) has taken up a lot of my time whilst trying to fit in my GetSmarter course work.  

So here are few things I've managed to cook over the past few weeks:

Orang souffle's, chocolate fondants with ginger, vegan chocolate-avo tarts, red velvet cake, angry duck pancakes, tom yum soup, salmon-pear thai red curry, butter chicken (with Naan of course) and buttermilk aubergine!  Notice a bit of  an asian trend by any chance? Well here are some pictures or more like excuses for not writing enough posts over the last 2 months...

I'm going to write a few separate posts about my top favourite dishes soon, so watch this space for some asian inspiration.