How to make mayonnaise
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...
Chocolate Brownies
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...
Sweetcorn, herb and chilli lagaan
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...
Chicken tikka – how to get the best out of chicken on the braai
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...
Reinventing the boerie roll
Deep inside the heart of every cook is the seldom expressed desire to invent something totally new.
Fish, chips and sauce
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...
Langoustine butterfly pasta in a white roux sauce
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...
Succulent beef fillet
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.
Stir-fried lamb
Not everything cooked in a wok is Chinese. Here’s a unique combination of splendid tastes that give the beginner cook a ready-made reputation for excellence.
Steak tartare
Cooking is an act of transformation greater than anything politicians can dish up. But sometimes raw food has its own special magic. Sushi, salads, even mayonnaise is eaten raw. Well,...
Sausage cannelloni
Welcome to the unexpected all over again. Is this combination of extraordinary ingredients fusion cuisine at its best? Or just another good way to test the limits with a meal...
Beefy vegetable soup with herbs
Industrially generated “home-made” soup is filled with promises, seldom kept. Distance yourself from this never-ending disappointment with real and genuine home-made beefy vegetable soup with herbs. This recipe – a...
Thai Chicken salad
Say “today’s meal is a salad” to any red-blooded, hungry individual and a nasty tone of defiance is sure to consume the conversation. But, just before things get out of...
Pad thai Bangkok’s sizzling street food
I guess there are 10 million versions of this national dish. This one gives you the basis to experiment while simultaneously amazing your friends with your Thai-flavoured expertise.
A recycled braai: breakfast after the night before
So this family holds a major braai with food of limitless quality and abundance. Somewhere around midnight, the well-fed masses went home, leaving this writer with the singular task of...
Fishcakes with sweet potato
This quick and easy recipe produces a meal that works almost as well cold as it does hot, providing content for a dinner party or picnic. The breakthrough that makes...
Seafood pasta with tiger prawns
Do tiger prawns taste different from non-tiger prawns? Not in my opinion. But they certainly look better on the plate with their stripes only marginally dimmed by cooking. So here...
Pears in red wine
This is a magnificent dessert. Never in the history of human pear eating has such a marvellous recipe come into being. Splendid to look at, blissful to eat, this out...
Slow simmered pork with spring onions & anise
Part of the seriously marvellous joy of cooking is the combination of the familiar with the new. While sometimes this produces a meal fit for Frankenstein, mostly the outcome is...
Polenta-battered chicken breasts
Good to look at, better to eat and best to cook, this Italian-influenced masterpiece might just have been invented by Michelangelo, and offers yet another inspiring way to cook chicken.
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