Summer lovin' (Chilli and prawn pasta)

I love this dish for it’s simplicity and speed.

It is perfect for a relaxed dinner with friends on a week night when you only have a short time to put something together.

It was inspired by the Linguine Gamberetti at one of my favourite Italian restaurants in Sydney, Il Trato Ra Ro, on Major's Bay Road in Concord. They use radicchio but I find it quite bitter so I usually use rocket instead. This time I used a (unidentified) grean leaves in my Harvest of Hope box (http://harvestofhope.co.za/).

 Perfect with a glass(or two) of chilled Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Serves 2 hungry people

Ingredients

250g Fresh or Frozen raw Prawns*

1/2 -1 red Chilli - finely chopped or a teaspoon of frozen chilli paste**

3 teaspoons butter

100g dried pasta, preferably spagetti, linguine or tagliatelle

100g cherry tomatoes

1 clove of garlic 

2 handfuls of rocket

Salt and pepper to taste

If you've bought frozen prawns, remove them from the freezer in the morning and place in the fridge to thaw. Alternatively, place in a bowl in a sink with a few centimetres of luke warm water. They should defrost in an hour.

 Place a pot with a few cm of water over high heat. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Boil a kettle of water and add to the pot. Once the water is boiling, add the pasta. Once the pasta is cooked, but not soft (al dente), drain briefly in a colander and return to the pot. Add a teaspoon of butter to the pasta and stir through. Cover with a lid.

While the pasta is cooking:

Shell the prawns.

Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add a teaspoon of butter. Once the butter is melted add half the chilli.

 

 Rinse the cherry tomatoes and prick each one with a sharp knife.

 Add to the pan.

 Cook for 10-15min until the skin starts to soften and the juices ooze out. Place the tomatoes onto a plate.


In the same pan add the remaining chili and butter. Once the butter has melted, add the prawns.   

Cook for approximately 5 minutes, turning halfway until the prawn flesh turns pink and contracts. Over-cooking will result in tough, rubbery prawns.

While the prawns are cooking, crush a clove of garlic into the pan. Once they are cooked, return the tomatoes to the pan and add salt and pepper to taste.

  
Add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir through. 

Serve in shallow bowls topped with rocket.  

  

*[Local note: fresh prawns are very difficult to find in the Western Cape. I find that uncooked frozen prawns give by far the best results. For good value try the Prawn Lovers factory shop on Morningside Rd in Pinelands.]

**[Frozen chili paste - I usually buy several (5-6) chilis at a time. Wearing gloves, I de-seed them and place them in a food processor with a splash of olive oil and process until smooth. I place the paste in the middle of a piece of cling wrap and wrap it carefully around the paste. When I need "fresh" chili, I remove the paste from the freezer and cut off a chunk.]

Ginger at your fingertips

I like fresh ginger but don't use it often. It used to shrivel up and die a lonely death at the bottom of my fruit bowl.

I used to try and chop it up to freeze. But it was a pain to cut off the right amount.

But now I found a better solution:

Buy a big chunk of ginger. Place in freezer. 

When you need fresh ginger in a dish,take the ginger chunk from the freezer and grate directly into whatever you are making. 

Put the ginger back in the freezer for next time.

That's all I have to say today.

Pink Lady

Ah, a pretty pink summery drink. This is like a slush puppie of your childhood except it is not super sweet and has real flavours and colours (and perhaps a splash of vodka).

Ingredients

1 Watermelon (this will be enough for around 12 cocktails - if you need less buy a half or quarter or freeze the rest until later)

Vodka (optional)

De-seed and roughly chop the watermelon.Place in a container and freeze for 2-3 hours. Remove and place into a blender/liquidizer or use a stabmixer to puree it. 

[if you like a splash of alcohol, add about 45mL of vodka per cocktail and stir]

Pour into a serving glass and garnish with mint leaves (optional).

[If you have extra watermelon you can leave in the freezer for many months - just take out a few hours before as it needs a bit more thawing.]

Harvest of Hope (Potato Bake)

After about two years of procrastinating (and watching my friends receive weekly boxes of fresh veggies), I finally signed up for Harvest of Hope.

Harvest of Hope (www.harvestofhope.org.za) is a project by the non-profit organisation Abalimi Bezekhaya which supports residents of townships such as Nyanga and Khayeltisha to grow their own organic vegetables to support their families. Some of these microfarmers now produce enough to feed their families and sell to their neighbours but have little access to markets to sell the remainder of their produce.

This is where Harvest of Hope comes in. They help to distribute the extra vegetables through a box scheme where members sign up and pay for their boxes monthly and pick them up weekly at designated locations in Cape Town (these are distributed all the way across the Southern Suburbs from Tokai to Seapoint).

There are two sizes of boxes - medium and small. Although the small box would probably be enough for the two of us, I like the variety in the big box (and it pretty much forces me to make vegetables every day).

Last week we got a packet of lettuce, a large packet of basil (already in pesto form - will recorded and post recipe next time), 1/2 dozen eggs, butternut, 2 pretty red chillies, 2 eggplants, about 6-8 brown onions, potatoes, green peppers and leeks.

About 2 weeks ago when I got my first box, I had leeks and potatoes and decided to try my hand at a potato bake. I have always been a bit scared of potato bakes -perhaps because I made them with raw potatoes and then they take ages to cook.

But this time I hit on an amazing recipe which used just the ingredients I had in my fridge. As soon as I had tasted it, I decided it was definitely blog-worthy. So I waited for the next bunch of leeks to come along - and sure enough, last week I got both leeks and potatoes.

I happened to have The Photographers favourite sausages in the fridge at the time I first made this. But you can make a vegetarian version, substituting hard boiled eggs for the sausage(The Photographer likes that version too, but not as much as the one with the sausages , of course).

Ingredients

9 firm potatoes (e.g. Nicola)

½ packet of Mettenden or Chorizo

1 bunch of leeks

½ cup of cream cheese

1 cup of grated cheese (I use white Gouda from Woolworths)

1 cup of milk

1 tsp paprika powder

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tsp of flour

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180ºC

Peel the potatoes. Place the potatoes in a microwave steamer with ½ cup of water on 80% power for 12 minutes or until a sharp knife poked into the centre of the potato goes in easily.

Alternatively place the potatoes into a heavy based saucepan and ½ cup of water and the lid partially on. Cook for 15-20min or until a sharp knife poked into the centre of the potato goes in easily.

Allow to cool.

Cut the some of the green off the tops of the leeks so that the softer green and white parts remain. Slice thinly. 

Place in a colander and rinse thoroughly.

Preheat a pan on medium heat. Place the butter in the pan. Add the leeks to the pan and fry until soft.

While the leaks are frying, slice the sausages into thin slices. 

Take the leaks out of the pan and place on a plate

Add the sausages to the pan and fry until browned.

Place the milk, cream cheese flour and paprika powder into a food processor. Process until smooth. 

 (If you don’t have a food processor, place the cream cheese into a bowl. Add the milk gradually stirring until all the milk is mixed in. Add the paprika and flour and mix in).

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Slice the potatoes into 1/2cm slices.

Place the potato slices into an ovenproof dish(approximately 10x20cm) in one layer until the bottom is covered. 

Evenly distribute ½ of the sausage and ½ of the leeks over the potatoes.

Pour 1/3 of the milk mixture over the potatoes. 

Sprinkle a ¼ of the cheese over the potatoes.

 

Repeat this to make another layer.

 

Spread the remaining potatoes over the dish. Pour the remaining milk mixture and cheese over the dish.

Bake in a preheated oven for 20min until bubbling and slightly browned on the top.

=

 Serve with a green salad and/or pan-fried chicken breast or steak. (I happened to have some lovely pieces of fried duck.)

(Plum jam) Tart

Summer is the season for stone fruit here in the Western Cape. I remember spending summers as a child on fruit farm in Franschoek where we used to eat beautiful Santa Rosa plums until our tummies hurt.

At the end of last year I bought myself the wonderful Bill’s Basics. Not only are the recipes simple and tasty but the photos are incredible. I have been drooling over the plum jam tart.

So when I recently, I managed to get my hands on some beautiful export quality plums straight from the farm I put on my apron and….

The results were a lovely soft base and a fruity but tart topping. I added lemon zest to the base and substituted lemon juice for the orange juice in the original recipe.

 I suggest you abandon any hope of removing the tart from the base and serve directly from the baking paper.

I would serve with ice-cream or slightly sweetened cream (if you can’t see any in the photos, it was because we didn’t have any L )

  

Ingredients

Pastry

100g unsalted butter

90g caster sugar

175g plain flour

25g ground almonds

Zest of ½ a lemon

Topping

800g plums

110g caster sugar

2 teaspoons cornflour

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Line the base of a springform pan with baking paper and grease the sides lightly with butter.

For the pastry, melt the butter in a heatproof bowl in the microwave until just melted. Set aside to cool.

Place flour and sugar in the bowl and add the melted butter and lemon zest. Mix until you form a soft dough.

 Turn out into the lined pan and press evenly across the base with your fingers. 

Prick several times with a fork. 

Bake in the oven for 15-20 min until the pastry starts to become slightly golden. 

Remove from oven and sprinkle the ground almonds over the base.

While the base is baking, pit and quarter the plums.

Mix the cornflour and lemon juice and pour over the plums with the sugar. 

Toss until the plums are coated. Arrange evenly over the pastry base.

Place in the oven for 35-40 min until cooked through and bubbly.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5-10min before serving.

Serve with cream or ice-cream.