Lifestyle

Frankly, the last thing a fatty like myself should be doing is baking little coconut meringue tarts. But there comes a time in the affairs of beginner cooks when the desire to deviate from yet another braai or casserole is just too strong to ignore…

I got a call from Phangisile in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal, a previous client of mine, for whom I’d designed a Zulu-themed resort.

Tommy asks Jonno to help design a simple office with a thatch roof on his farm.

Setting food on fire is just one of the many tricks used by restaurants to amaze diners. In this case, the use of a propane (never paraffin!) blow torch is just the ticket to caramelise the top of a crème brûlée.

Pippa's son is moving into her main house. She wants Jonno to help her design a double storey cottage with solar heating on her farm.

Call it a ginger slice or a hard biscuit. The singular ginger flavour of this delicious item from the world’s great line-up of baked treats brings a whole new skill to your cooking repertoire.

Is it a sauce or condiment? No, it’s a miracle in which you, the beginner cook, learn how to mix oil and water. Whether you want to add some magic to boiled potatoes, rev up a burger or create a flavoursome dip, this is the way to go.

FW reader Peter has found the perfect spot in the Karoo to build six cottages. He asks Jonno to assist with the design.

FW reader Pat is moving to a farm and wants to build a cottage on the land. Jonno helps design a beautiful cottage at minimal cost.

The chocolate brownie is without doubt one of the finest contributions made to civilisation by the US. Stories about its invention clog the internet. But the truth of the matter is simply this: every time a baker makes a batch, the glorious concept is reinvented anew. Try this outstanding version next time the chocolate craving threatens to take over.

Some months ago at a local farmers’ market I found a stall selling lagaan. After some heavy-duty charm on my part, the stall holder let me in on the secret recipe. Back home in the lab, some additional research and development by my wife resulted in this outstanding food concept and cultural artefact. No braai at our home is complete without it.

Chicken on the braai can so easily be one of life’s great failures. You all know about it – skin nice and crispy on the outside, yet deep within the breast or thigh, the meat is pallid and the juices red. Apart from the marginal health risk of salmonella, there’s that inherent resistance, even from those who love their steak 99% raw, to ingesting rare chicken. One of the easier ways out of this problem is to prepare this pared-down version of chicken tikka, a dish of Indo-Pakistani origin which can now be eaten worldwide.

Ngooni from Harare wants to build his first house and asks Jonno to assist with a design of a modern four-bedroom house.

Deep inside the heart of every cook is the seldom expressed desire to invent something totally new.

Mark Bittman, food writer for the New York Times suggests that cooking in beer is almost as good an experience as drinking the stuff. He says beer is a complex set of tastes almost the equal of wine as a cooking liquid. But, unlike wine, you can use beer in the same volume as you would water or stock. So what has this got to do with fish and chips? Read on, dear reader, read on ...

Jonno assists Mary with a stylish, modern contemporary home this week.

I received a call from Patricia, who visited a friend on a farm nearby and came across copies of Farmer’s Weekly lying on a table.

A question for the experts – does the shape of pasta actually matter? For this grizzled hack, it does. While there’s no appreciable difference in taste, the arrangement of butterfly pasta and glorious not-quite-orange langoustines, liberally drenched in a dense white sauce, makes a feast for the eye as well as the palate. And for those of us who may wrestle with the plate-to-mouth transport of spaghetti, the simple relationship between fork and butterfly pasta makes for a calmer dining experience.

Jonno helps a reader decide whether or not his house should have a tin roof.

The ingredient list is short and the procedure is straightforward. It’s a simple fact of good cooking: the better the ingredients the less you have to do to them.