I like to fake it (Tiramisu)

I am a fake. Definitely a fake.

Traditional Tiramisu is made with marscapone and eggs. Although it is tasty, I much prefer my lighter (fake) version, especially after a big meal.

I was introduced to this (fake) recipe by a very good friend (let’s call her Boo Boo) who was coming over for supper. She painstakingly followed the recipe and brought the result over. When we looked in the bowl it appeared quite liquid with bits of biscuits and grated chocolate floating around in it.

Turns out, Boo Boo forgot to whip the cream. It still tasted fantastic so I promptly got hold of the recipe.

You can choose to make this dish in individual serving dishes or in one big dish. I used very pretty tea cups which my mother-in-law gave to me.

Serves 4

 

Ingredients

250ml fresh cream

½ cup ready-made custard

1 Tbsp Amarula or Baileys (optional)

½ -1 packet Savoirdi or Boudoir biscuits

50g Lindt dark chocolate (optional)

1 cup cold strong (espresso) coffee or instant coffee made with 3 tsp powder in 1 cup.

4 Tbsp good quality cocoa powder (e.g. Nomu in South Africa or the one with the little Dutch girl for Europeans / Australians)

Whip the cream. It has been whipped sufficiently when you lift up the whisk and it forms peaks which stay up and don’t collapse. Add the custard and the Amarula and stir in.

Place the coffee in a flat bottomed dish. Dip the biscuits into the coffee. Some biscuits take more or less time to absorb the coffee. If the biscuits absorb quickly, just dip them lightly on each side. If they take a bit longer, then leave the biscuits in the coffee for a bit longer before turning. They should stay firm and not collapse (otherwise they have absorbed too much coffee).

Place as many biscuits as will fit on the base. Layer with the cream mixture. 

Grate the chocolate over the cream mixture(if using). Repeat the layering with the biscuits and cream and chocolate until all the cream is used, ending with a layer of cream.

 

Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours before serving.

Before serving, remove from the fridge and use a tea strainer to dust the Tiramisu with cocoa. 

You might as well strap it to your thighs (Chicken pie)

When I lived in our shared flat in Petersham, we were lucky enough to live a mere 10min walk from an amazing Portuguese chicken shop. They butterfly the chicken and then grill it until the skin is super crispy and then top it with a magic sauce – either garlic or chilli.

We would often buy two chickens: one for eating that evening and one to have cold later in the week for sandwiches etc.

For the chicken which we planned to eat later, we would always start removing the meat from the bones. While doing this, AJ and I would always munch away happily at the amazing crispy chilli chicken skin. Straightie would just watch in disgust saying, “you might as well strap it to your thighs”. We promptly ignored her and kept on eating the skin (it may be a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I am pretty sure I can remember her sneaking some chicken skin too).

I am told the tradition became more entrenched after I moved out, with Chicken Tuesday becoming a weekly event at the flat.

With the availability of roast chicken, it seems such a waste to spend time pre-cooking chicken for recipes. And now that there is a Woolworths in Stellenbosch, I am planning to make my chicken pie as often as my diet can handle my favourite butter puff pastry.

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 whole roast chicken

375ml milk

2 Tbsp plain flour

1 tsp thyme

Salt and pepper

500g mushrooms (quartered)

1 tsp butter

2 cloves garlic

2 tsp chicken stock powder

100ml dry white wine

30ml cream (if you happen to have it in your fridge)

1 packet butter puff pastry (or normal puff pastry)

[Note: Take the puff pastry out of the freezer about an hour before using so it can defrost]

Preheat the oven to 220ºC.

  

Begin by removing all the chicken from the bones and skin. Place onto a chopping board. Chop into 1-2cm chunks and then place in a large casserole dish.

 

Place the butter in a pan on medium heat. Add mushrooms and garlic and fry gently until the mushrooms are slightly brown. 

 

Add the wine.

Put the flour into a small cup and add ¼ cup cold milk. Stir until the flour is dissolved. Add to the pan and stir. Add the remaining milk*. Add the thyme and chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2-3 min and then take the pan off the heat. Add the cream and salt and pepper to taste. 

Pour over the chicken in the casserole dish.

In order to cool the sauce, place the dish in a sink filled with cold water (and some ice) to a depth of 3-4cm. After 5 min the sauce should be warm rather than hot. Remove from the sink and dry the base. 

Lay the puff pastry over the top of the casserole dish. Make a few small cuts in the top of the pastry (so that the steam can escape). 

Place on a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Bake at 220ºC for 15min until the pastry rises. Turn down the heat to 180ºC and bake for a further 10-15 min or until the top is golden brown.

Remove and allow to cool for about 10 min before serving.

Serve with a green salad.

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*[If you want to be adventurous and have a nicer flavour, place the chicken bones into 315ml of the milk in a small saucepan. Add some peppercorns and an extra teaspoon of thyme. Allow to simmer for 10min. Strain the milk and use in the mushroom sauce.]

It's just not Christmas without .....(French salad)

 

Please don’t ask me whether this recipe is actually French. All I know is that my father has been making it every Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday for as long as I can remember. And he calls it French Salad (in Hungarian).

My father usually starts cooking the vegetables the evening before. Then the next morning he makes the dressing and chops the apples and gherkins and mixes it all ready to be eaten with fish on Christmas Eve.

For me, Christmas just isn’t the same without this salad. So recently I have decided I needed to learn to make it. Which I did….

Luckily, my in-laws enjoyed it so much, they asked for the recipe. This one’s for you, OB & BL.

Ingredients

Salad

4 carrots

200g peas

500g baby potatoes

2-3 gherkins

1 green apple

Dressing

¾ cup thick Greek yoghurt

¼ cup mayonnaise

2 tsp mustard

Juice of ½ a lemon

40ml of the brine from the gherkins

Place the potatoes into a pot and pour in water to about 1/3 the level of the potatoes. Place the lid on and switch on the stove to medium heat. Bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down low and simmer for 15-20min or until cooked (keep watch over the potatoes, add more water if the pot starts to dry out).

To test whether the potatoes are cooked, pierce with a knife. It should go in easily with minimal resistance.

Once cooked, take the pot off the heat. If you are in a rush, put the potatoes in a bowl of cold water, otherwise leave to cool in the pot.

Chop carrots into ½cm pieces and place into a small pot with the peas. Add about ½ cup of water and cook on medium heat for 5-10min until cooked. Drain and set aside to cool.

Chop the apples and gherkins into ½cm pieces and place into a large salad bowl. Once cool, peel and chop the potatoes into ½cm cubes. Place in a large bowl. Add the peas and carrots once cool.

Make the dressing by adding all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Add to the bowl with the vegetables and stir gently.

Cover and place in the fridge. Try to let it stand for 4-5 hours before eating (ideally make it the night before).

You can serve this with fish, chops or steak or take it to your next BBQ / braai.

Medal of Honour (Raspberry Cheesecake)

 

When I lived with flatmates (Straightie and AJ) a couple of years ago, we used to have a medal of honour given for acts of extra-ordinary bravery or deeds which benefited our little flat.

It all started one morning at about 6.30am when Straightie was ironing her shirt downstairs. I heard a blood curdling scream and jumped out of my nice comfy doona (duvet) cocoon and ran downstairs. There was Straightie standing next to the ironing board surrounded by shards of glass. It turns out that the lightbulb above her had exploded in about a 1m radius burning little holes into the carpet where the shards landed! Luckily, Straightie (and her shirt) were OK. (Let it be said in writing that the two men in the house, Invalid and AJ, were sleeping soundly).

Standing among the debris, Straightie and I decided unanimously that she deserved a medal. This story (and of course, the need for a medal of bravery) was repeated throughout the day and at the dinner table when we had friends over for dinner.

Then we remembered! We had a medal in our cupboard…a gold medal (albeit a fake plastic gold in the cupboard left over from our three-legged race at our birthday the previous year). So Straightie was awarded the inaugural medal of honour.

Thereafter the medal hung proudly from our lamp, waiting to be awarded to the next worthy recipient.

And sure enough, one night we were sitting around mulling about how we really felt like cheesecake. And so I decided, why don’t we go and get cheesecake from Corelli’s?

And we did. And for that I was given the medal. If you think it is going a bit overboard to give a medal for fetching cheesecake, you haven’t tasted that cheesecake.

This cheesecake is not quite as good Corelli’s but I like to think it is almost there.  It is nice and light with enough richness without being heavy and definitely not too sweet. It was inspired by a friend’s competition winning berry brunch pizza. I have forgotten the original recipe so have played with it over the years. You can substitute the cottage cheese for ricotta and the cream cheese for marscapone.

Ingredients

Base

200g oat crunchies (ANZAC biscuits for my Aussie friends)

50g butter

1 tsp cinnamon

Filling

250g cream cheese

250g smooth cottage cheese

¼ cup sugar

Zest of ½ a lemon

2 eggs

Topping

¾ cup of raspberries

1 tsp cornflour

3 tbsp water

2 tsp

Base

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Place the cookies in the foodprocessor and process until fine. Add the cinnamon.

Melt the butter in a cup. Add the butter gradually to the cookie crumbs and pulse in between until the crumbs come together to resemble a mass (rather than lots of crumbs). Be careful not to add too much butter, or it will become slimy.

Line a cake tin with a removable base with baking paper. Grease the edges with a little of the remaining melted butter.

[I like to use a small (18cm diameter) cake tin – more impressive cake slices and not so much cake to each afterwards to make you sick. This recipe also works with a 25cm tin]

Pour the crumb mixture into the lined tin and spread evenly over the base. Use your fingers or a flat bottomed glass the press the crumbs down in the tin so they cover the base evenly. Push the crumbs about 1cm up the side of the tin to form a small border. Use a fork to prick the base several times.

 

Place in the oven and bake for 10 min (or until the edges brown slightly).

Remove from oven and cool slighty.

Filling

Place cream cheese, cottage cheese, eggs and sugar into a foodprocessor (or bowl). Mix until smooth. 

Pour onto the slightly cooled base.

Put in the oven for 25-30min until the edges are brown and the middle starting the be firm to the touch (It will still be soft but will feel set when you touch it)

Take the cake out of the oven and switch the oven off. Don’t worry if the top cracks a bit.

Topping

Place the raspberries and sugar in a small pot. Dissolve the cornflour in the water and add to the pot. 

Switch the stove onto medium heat and bring to a simmer. Simmer for a few minutes and then turn off the heat.

Allow to cool.

When the cake and raspberry mixture are cool, pour the raspberry mixture over the cake. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

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[On raspberries: once every few months I go to Hillcrest Berry Orchards near Stellenbosch and buy frozen raspberry crumble (not so perfect bits of raspberries) for the freezer! A good way to eat raspberries without breaking the bank.]

A Taste of Home (Paprika Chicken)

I grew up eating this food and it is still the food I ask for when I go home. My parents make it together – my dad makes the chicken and my mother the Nockerli. Apparently my nephews (2 & 4) love it too…in fact they asked for it the other day when my dad was babysitting. But there was a big problem: for the first time in years my mom was away, and could not to make the Nockerli! Luckily a bit of improvisation on the German spätzle solved the problem.

I spent many years thinking this recipe would be complicated and difficult to make. My dad very patiently agreed to supervise the cooking process via webcam. So I arranged the laptop on the kitchen bench and off we went. Surprisingly, the recipe was simple with few ingredients.

Since then, it has become one of the staples in my recipe collection. Here it is: the Taste of Home.

Paprika Chicken

(as made by my Mom and Dad,(except with more peppers))

– serves 4

This dish is most authentic when served with Nockerli (see below) but can also be served with pasta or rice.

Ingredients

2 onions

2 Tbsp oil

8 pieces of chicken – skin on (I use the drumstick and thigh packs but you can cut up whole chicken if you like)

3-5 mixed peppers (capsicum)

2 tsp paprika powder (Hungarian, if you can somehow get your hands on it)

Salt and pepper 

Start by rinsing the chicken well and placing it on a paper towel to dry.

Then chop the onions finely. Place a pan or pot with a large diameter on medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp of oil to the pot. When the oil is hot (test by wetting your hand and flicking a bit of water into the pot – if it sizzles, it is ready – do not stand too close!) add the onions. Fry gently until see-through. 

Once the onions are see-through, take the pot off the heat and add the paprika. Transfer onions from the pot into a bowl.

Put the pot back on the heat. Add another tablespoon of oil and place the chicken skin-side down into the pan. Fry until brown (about 5 min) and turn over.

During this time, wash and chop the peppers lengthways.

Once the second side is browned, spread the onions back over the chicken. 

 

Add about 3 of the peppers and place the lid on the pot. 

Simmer until chicken is cooked. Add the 2 remaining peppers (optional). Cook for a further 5 minutes. 

Add salt and cracked pepper to taste before serving with Nockerli, pasta or rice.

Nockerli

For this recipe some sort of device is essential. I use a German Spätzlehobel which makes the Nockerli a bit small but still tasty.

 

My parents use a cheap aluminum pan with 5mm holes drilled* into it and a spatula works just as well and gives Nockerli of the right size. There are ways to make these with a knife and chopping board but I haven’t figured it out yet.

* Safety note from my in-house engineer: Do not drill holes in the pan in food-preparation areas. Wash the pan thoroughly before using.

Ingredients

500ml plain flour

250ml cold water

2 eggs

1 Tbsp salt

1 tsp butter

Place a large pot on the stove on high heat. Add about 1L of water and the salt. Fill up your kettle and boil an extra 2-4L to add to the pot.

Place the flour in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and crack the two eggs into it. Add most of the water and stir with a fork. 

 

Stir until the ingredients are combined but the mixture doesn’t have to be smooth. Add enough of the remaining water so that the dough starts to drop off the fork once you lift it up.

Once the water has boiled, fill the Spätzlehobel with dough and grate into the water until the portion is finished. 

If using a pan with holes, place half the dough into the pan. Use the flat side of the spatula to squeeze the dough through the holes.

Boil for 1-2 min or until all the Nockerli have risen to the surface of the water. 

Use a sieve to scoop the Nockerli from the water and place in a bowl. Add the butter.

Repeat until all the dough is used up.

Keep in a warm place until ready to serve.