Recipes

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…

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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, it’s about time braai mechanics douse their smokey fires and get into raw meat and eggs, and this is the way to do it...

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 of astonishing quality and magnificent flavours?

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 classic, family favourite – lends itself to enhancement, modification and customising, requiring only your creative talents. Just as good out of a thermos as it is in a mug or a bowl, this soup is a powerful addition to your personal repertoire of good food.

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 hand, add the mystic words “Thai chicken” and all sorts of transformations in mood and food desire start to kick in. Salad alone is a punitive and unnatural thing, but the high octane enhancements of the Thai sauce, coupled with the protein slam-dunk that comes with the chicken, makes this meal as real as food can get.

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.

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 cleaning up.

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 these fishcakes out of the ordinary is the use of sweet potato. The effect is dazzling, especially when you add the sauce...

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 is a great way to dress up pasta, giving it that five-star restaurant finish.