Cabbage bredie

'Bredie' is roughly the Afrikaans word for stew, but somehow there is a different nuance to it. Maybe that's just my imagination, though, with my dual heritage.

I cook mine in a pressure cooker. If you don't have one, you will need to watch those fluid levels and add more if necessary. You need to know something about cabbage: it is so full of flavour that when it is such a dominant ingredient in a stew, you need very little by way of seasoning. Honest. Try it yourself.

Ingredients
1 whole cabbage, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
700g stewing beef or lamb, cubed
3 carrots, peeled and sliced (my 'slices' are always very large, because that's the way my husband prefers them - carrots are his favourite part of any stew)
45ml tomato puree
Salt to taste (I add none at all)
5ml caraway seeds
250ml stock
A little oil

Method

• In a large saucepan/pressure cooker, saute the onions in a little oil until they become soft and translucent.
• Add the caraway seeds and the meat. Saute until the meat is browned on all sides.
• Add the entire cabbage, carrots, tomato puree and stock.
• If you're using a pressure cooker, close it, bring it to pressure and cook for 20 minutes. If you're not, cover, bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 2 hours, checking the liquid level every now and then so that it doesn't dry out and burn.
• Serve with rice, polenta (which is what you can see in my photo above) or quinoa. Alternatively, you can add potatoes into the stew and then serve it without the additional starch.

Beef sosaties

Sosaties (soSAHteez) are traditional South African meat skewers cooked on the braai (barbecue). Everybody's granny had the best recipe, including mine, who loved to tell everyone that I had once eaten thirteen of her famous sosaties in a single sitting... and it was no more than the truth.

If you're a purist, you should be using lean pork and mutton fat. But I'm not a purist and I happen to like beef, so my sosaties are made using beef steak. Obviously, if you live in the UK, it's best to wait until there's a special promotion on, because steak is stupidly expensive. But you can also try any other meat, including white meats such as turkey breast or chicken... even firm fleshed fish.

Ingredients
750g beef (or whatever), cut into 2.5cm cubes
2 large onions, 1 finely chopped, the other divided into layers and then into 2.5cm squares
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
15ml medium curry powder
5ml turmeric
15ml brown sugar
4 curry/bay leaves (see note below), finely chopped
45ml brown vinegar
2 lemons, sliced
125ml meat stock
125g dried apricots
1 green pepper cut into 2.5cm squares
A little oil for frying
Wooden meat skewers

Method

Ready for the fire....

• Place the meat and the leaves into a non-metallic bowl (for some reason this is important). I suspect that it had to do with aluminium and that stainless steel would probably be safe, but my gran was almost superstitious in her insistence that the bowl should not be metal. Mix them about so that the leaves are evenly dispersed among the cubes of meat.
• In a saucepan, saute the chopped onion, garlic, turmeric and curry powder together, until the onion has softened.
• Add the meat stock, sugar and lemon slices and bring to the boil.
• Remove from the heat and add the vinegar.
• Pour over the meat and stir well to ensure even distribution.
• Cover and set aside overnight. If you want to play it safe, pop it in the fridge, but beef is pretty robust in my experience, and can handle room temperature overnight.
• Skewer the meat, interspersed with slices of green pepper, onion and dried apricots.
• Cook over a very hot (about as hot as for steak) open fire for about 10 minutes, turning and basting with the left over sauce.
• Serve with all the usual barbecue/braai suspects.
• If you like, you can squeeze lemon juice over them before eating, but I reckon that ruins them (any my granny wouldn't have approved!)

Note about those curry leaves
These aren't easy to come by, I know. So if you can't get your hands on them, use bay leaves. However, I have to tell you that my gran reckoned it was the curry leaves that were the secret ingredient that made the sosaties special.

Burger patties

The photo shows the three men in my life at the fire. My younger son appears to be overcome by the smell of something or other, to the point that he is having a 'moment'.

Next week is national barbecue week in the UK. So I thought I'd help out with a recipe for home made burger patties. Much nicer than bought ones, and you know nothing nefarious has been added to bulk it out.

We love to have a barbecue (or braai, as it's called in South Africa), and let me tell you, he might be a Swede, but my husband spent enough years in South Africa to become a dab hand at it. Nobody is more skilled with the barbecue than that man. He even does our Christmas roast in the kettle barbecue!

Ingredients

500g minced beef
6 spring onions, shopped
Pinch salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
5ml dried thyme
5ml ground coriander seeds (not the leaves - that's a different taste altogether)
Pinch mustard seeds and/or a splash of chilli sauce such as Tobasco (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
Little oil and basting sauce of your choice

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together, except the oil and basting sauce.
• Divide into 6-8 equal sized balls and flatten into a patty shape.
• Brush with  oil and a little basting sauce.
• Cook over hot coals, basting every now and again, for 5 minutes each side or until done through. You could fry them, of course, but that is rather unhealthy.
• Assemble on a burger bun with whatever trimmings take your fancy.

Brisket with attitude

As I took my last mouthful of delicious tender brisket on Saturday night, I looked across at my husband and said, "I forgot to take a photo!" My family has grown so used to having their food photographed before they get to eat it, that he knew exactly what I meant. But it was too late. Sorry about that.

This recipe is based on one I got from my local butcher years ago. He had these little recipe cards printed up and would hand them out to the customers when they purchased the relevant cut of meat. I must have bought a brisket from him, I guess.

Brisket is one of the cheaper cuts of beef. It is full of flavour, as so many of the cheaper cuts are. But it is also inclined to be tougher. So you should roast it at a lower temperature for longer to overcome that. Don't be tempted to aim for a roast that's still pink in the middle. Save that for the more expensive cuts.

Oven temperature
150C

Ingredients
2kg deboned, rolled brisket
10 peppercorns
6 cloves
2 bay leaves
4 kaffir lime leaves
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
60ml brown vinegar
25g butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
500ml boiling water
250ml chutney (Mrs Balls for preference, if you're able to get it)
125ml sweet chilli sauce

Method

• Crush the herbs and spices together (I use a coffee grinder) and mix together with the chopped onion, carrots, vinegar, chutney and sweet chilli sauce.
• Place the meat in a large bowl and spoon the sauce over. Make sure the meat is evenly covered with marinade.
• Leave to marinate for eight hours or overnight, turning once halfway through the process.
• Remove the meat from the marinade and drain (but keep the marinade!).
• Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan and brown the joint on all sides. Transfer into a casserole dish.
• Add the boiling water to the pan to loosen up the bits and bobs from the browning, then add that to the marinade and pour over the meat.
• Cover with a lid or foil and pop into the oven for about 3 hours.
• Remove from the marinade and blot off any excess fat. Set aside and keep warm.
• Thicken the sauce with a little cornflour mixed with cold water and bring back up to the boil. You could use the frying pan for this again. Serve this in place of gravy.

Köttbullar med gräddsås (Swedish meatballs and...erm... 'gravy')

Being married to a Swede, it was inevitable that I should have to learn to make these early on. Of course, when we moved to the UK and had access to Ikea, we were able to buy frozen meatballs by the bag. Home made ones are still better, though! When I make them, I make a double batch and freeze half for later use.

They can be fried (my mother-in-law fries hers... in lashings of butter, of course), but I find that takes forever when you are cooking large enough quantities for three viking appetites, so I do mine in the oven. Sacrilege!

Oh, and remember what I said about the traditional Swedish diet not being healthy? You have been warned.

First let's get those meatballs going, then we'll make a start on the sauce (which, by the way, translates as 'cream sauce').

Meatballs
Oven temperature
200C

Ingredients
500g minced beef
500g minced pork
1 egg
200-300ml cream-and-water mixture (or the slightly healthier option of just using milk, as I do)
1 small onion, finely chopped
100ml breadcrumbs (or rusk flour if it's available in your area)
2 cold, boiled potatoes
Butter, margarine or oil for frying/baking (we'll come to that in a bit)
Salt and white pepper to taste
5ml ground allspice (this, dear friends, is the critical ingredient that gives the meatballs their 'Swedish' taste)

Method

I roll them in flour as I go

• Traditionally, you're supposed to saute the onion in butter until golden, but a healthier option is to sweat them in the microwave (place in glass bowl, cover with pierced clingfilm and nuke 'em for about a minute or so). You decide.
• Peel and mash the potato.
• Moisten the bread crumbs (or rusk flour) with a little water.
• Mix the meats, egg, breadcrumbs, potato, flour and seasonings.
• Add a little of the cream-and-water/milk at a time, until you get a manageable consistency. You might not have to add all of it, but don't despair, you can use what's left for the gräddsås.
• Shape it into balls with wet hands (so that the mixture doesn't stick too much). You're looking for something about the size of a golf/squash/table tennis ball.
• Place on a lightly floured chopping board. I tend to roll each ball in flour as I go. I use a small tupperware container for the purpose.



I top each one with a tiny knob of butter

• Traditionally, you are now supposed to fry them slowly in butter (yes, butter, I kid you not!). But I tend to place them in a baking tray. I spray the tray first with Fry Light, but you could grease it, or cover the bottom with a thin layer of oil. Then, if I'm feeling decadent, I top each one each with a tiny knob of butter. I bake them in the oven for about 20 or so minutes, turning every now and then, to ensure even(ish) cooking. Because you have used pork, it is vital that the meatballs are cooked right through.

While those are in the oven, let's get cracking on the sauce, shall we?

Gräddsås
Ingredients
100ml cream or milk (or half of each)
200ml beef stock
15ml cornflour
Salt and white pepper to taste

Method

• You're supposed to include the scrapings from the frying pan, but since we don't have any, we will make do without. If, however, you've decided to go the traditional route, make up the sauce in the frying pan, starting by swirling the (boiling) beef stock in the pan to loosen up all those little loose bits that remain in the pan.
• Bring the beef stock to the boil in a small saucepan.
• Add a little water to the cornflour and mix into a smooth paste. Add this to the stock and stir until thickened.
• Remove from the heat and add the cream.
• Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with boiled baby potatoes and lingonsylt (if you can get it). If you can't get your hands on lingonsylt, cranberry sauce makes a fair substitute.

Pyttipanna

Pyttipanna translates roughly as 'little bits in the pan'. This dish is the Swedish (and Norwegian) equivalent of hash or bubble and squeak in that it's a way to use up leftovers. But, like both those comparitive examples, it has become such a favourite that it is of often made up from scratch with purpose-bought ingredients.

One thing I have come to realise about traditional Swedish cuisine (and I hope I'm not going to offend anyone here) is that it's not terribly healthy. There's a huge emphasis on animal protein and potatoes, an awful lot of frying in butter, and not a lot of green stuff to be had. It is not unusual to be served a mountain of prawns or langoustines and nothing else at all. Not that I'm complaining, mind - Rökeriet on Sydkoster that does the most delicious smoked prawns I have ever eaten, and I have very fond memories of late summer evenings spent there with various cousins and so forth. But it is small wonder that heart disease is so prevalent, and on the increase, in Sweden.

So I'm not going to suggest that you adopt a steady diet of pyttipanna, but every now and again, it's great comfort food, and it's a lot healthier if you make it yourself than if you buy the ready frozen kind brimming with salt and additives. I am going to suggest that you buck the trend and add a few green things to yours, which is as my husband remembers it from childhood, but not what you would find in the frozen kind or what you would be served in a cafe.

Ingredients
1 potato per person, cut into cubes of about 1cm
1 or more (to taste) onions, chopped
Bits and bobs of meat:
 - A couple of rashers of bacon, chopped
 - Ground beef
 - Chicken, cubed
 - Whatever other leftover meat you have to hand, cubed
Bits and bobs of leftover vegetables, chopped
Eggs - one per person (optional)

Method

The potatoes and onions need a head start

All the ingredients (except the eggs) are fried up in a pan. I use a little oil or Fry Light. If the meat is already cooked, you will need to cook the potatoes and onions first, and the potatoes will take by far the longest. If the meat is raw, you will still need to give the potatoes a bit of a head start, and then add everything else. Keep stirring and turning the food for even cooking.

Traditionally, you should also fry up an egg for each person, and place that on top of the pyttipanna as you serve it.

Whatever you do, don't tell the Swedes I said so, but pyttipanna tastes fabulous with a dash of Worcestershire sauce!

Shena's 'lekker' steak

'Lekker' is an Afrikaans word that has found its way into general South African parlance. Roughly translated, it means 'nice', although that does it no justice whatsoever. It isn't always used in relation to food, either, you can wish someone a lekker weekend, or a lekker birthday. Someone can equally have a lekker figure.

Needless to say, we are not talking about the posher echelons of society, here, who may also use the term, but only semi-ironically, the way a Sloan ranger may casually throw in an 'innit?'

At one stage, my uncle was very active in the Round Table. This was at a time when wives were called 'table legs' (and the wives of Rotarians were called Rotary-annes). My aunt often used to have to cater on a fairly large scale, and this dish was a favourite.

She passed the recipe on to our family, and it quickly became my favourite, too. We had a tradition in our house that, on your birthday, you either got taken out for dinner, or the other family members would cook your favourite meal. For many years, on my birthday, we had lekker steak with baby potatoes, butternut and cauliflower. It still rates fairly high on my list of favourite dishes!

Oven temperature

Grill (for method 1)

Ingredients

1kg rump steak
60ml vinegar
60ml chutney
60ml tomato sauce
30ml soy sauce
30ml Worcestershire sauce
10ml flour
10ml mustard (I replace this with black mustard seeds)
1 clove garlic, crushed
salt and pepper to taste (I don't use any salt, but a couple of grinds of black pepper never go amiss)

Method

Marinate for 3-4 hours

Method 1 - preparing on a fairly small scale (up to 10 people, say)

• Cut the steak into individual portions.
• Mix together all other ingredients in a fairly large container, and marinate the steak (covered) for 3-4 hours.
• Remove from marinade and grill (or fry, if you must) until done to preference.
• Place marinade in a saucepan and heat, stirring all the while, until it thickens into a sauce to use as gravy.

Method 2 - preparing on a large scale (in which case, you will have increased your quantities proportionately)

• Cut the steak into individual portions.
• Mix together all the other ingredients in a very large, oven proof container and marinate the steak (covered) overnight.
• If you can be bothered, sear each portion of steak on each side in a frying pan over a high heat, before returning it to the oven proof container, but this is not entirely necessary.
• Bake, covered, at 200C for about half an hour (or as long as needed to acquire your preferred level of 'done-ness').
• Uncover and return to oven for a further 10 minutes.

Serve with potatoes prepared to your preference (wedges work really well!) and veg or salad.

Bigos

Bigos is a traditional Polish hunter's stew. Recipes differ from region to region and (of course) even from family to family. Many years ago, I worked for the town council of a small town in South Africa. Part of my role was to promote a sense of community, and I put together events and projects to this end. One such was a recipe book using recipes supplied by the townspeople. This recipe was one such, provided by a Polish woman who lived in the town. She told me that in bygone days, a family would keep a pot of bigos going, sometimes for weeks on end, adding to it as needed.

If you have a crock pot/slow cooker, this recipe is ideal. Since I don't have one, I either use my pressure cooker (adjusting the times below) or a casserole dish in the oven.

Of course, if you have any Polish heritage of your own, you will probably have a different recipe. This is is just one option.

Ingredients

750g sauerkraut (I use the one with carrots in it, but there is much debate among Poles as to whether or not bigos should contain carrots)
1 onion, finely chopped
45ml flour
30ml butter
175ml white wine
500ml stock (not mutton/lamb - I use chicken or vegetable)
Paprika to taste
Any smoked meat, chopped into bite-sized chunks

Method

• Simmer the sauerkraut in stock for about an hour to an hour and a half.
• Fry the onion in the butter until soft. 
• Add the flour to the onion and stir over low heat for a further minute.
• Add onion and meat to the sauerkraut and transfer to a casserole dish (or a pressure cooker).
• Add wine and paprika. Mix well.
• Cover and bake slowly (about 150C) for at least an hour. If you're using a pressure cooker, it will obviously take far less time. But, if you're using a slow cooker, you can safely leave it for several hours.
• Serve with boiled potatoes and/or dark rye bread.

Beef and bacon casserole

This is one of those recipes cut out of a magazine years ago and pasted into my recipe book. No family story. However, I'm a bit of a sucker for anything that calls for bacon... and I have passed that addiction on to my younger son who gives this recipe a decided thumbs up.

Oven temperature

160C

Ingredients
500g stewing steak, cubed
50ml flour
50ml oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
200g baby onions/shallots, peeled and left whole
150g rindless back bacon, chopped
50ml tomato puree
5ml each dried oregano and dried rosemary (or about 15ml of fresh)
Pepper to taste (you won't need salt - there's enough in the bacon)
200ml red wine (or beef stock if you're teetotal)
285g can of creamed mushrooms

Method

• Coat meat in flour. 
• Heat oil in a large saucepan and brown meat.
• Add garlic, onions and bacon and saute for 5 minutes.
• Add tomato puree, herbs, pepper and wine and simmer uncovered until the sauce has reduced by half, stirring occasionally. This will probably take about an hour.
• Place meat mixture in ovenproof casserole dish, pour creamed mushrooms over.
• Stir gently, cover and bake until the meat is tender (about 35-40 minutes).
• Serve with rice and a lovely leafy salad (or some veg, if you prefer).

Pea and hock soup

This recipe comes from my BFF, Lynda Choice. Our two families spent a lot of time together when we were living in Cape Town. We also often wound up spontaneously eating together about once a week. Lynda and I would be working on something together, and get totally caught up in what we were doing. We would fetch the kids from school and go back to her house to carry on with whatever-it-was. At some point, I would phone John and tell him not to bother going home after work, but to come to the Choice's house instead. We would eat together, bath our kids together and then put our kids in Mark and Lynda's bed until we were ready to leave, at which point, we would carry two sleeping boys to the car and take them home.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I miss the easy fellowship of that relationship!

Watching Mark and Lynda in the kitchen together was most entertaining. They cooked as a tag team. Their kitchen was tiny, and neither of them is sylph-like, but they moved around each other like Morecambe and Wise in that most famous sketch. Lynda would get things going and Mark taste this, check on that, and make suggestions all the while ("Babe, this needs some X"; "Lyndie, are you going to put some Y in the such-and-such?"), which Lynda took completely in her stride. If John had tried that, I'd have probably whacked him over the head with a 'paplepel' (it translates as 'porridge spoon', but that does it no justice whatsoever).

Anyhoo, this is Lynda's pea and hock soup recipe (more or less), it makes a large quantity!

Ingredients

1 whole (small) smoked pork hock or eisbein - these are difficult to come by in the UK, and quite expensive, so I tend to have to make do with a bacon roast (about 1kg), but it is a poor substitute
Whole bag of green split peas (about 500g)
1 can peas (optional - I tend to leave these out)
125ml pearl barley
1 onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1litre chicken stock
2 bay leaves

Method

• Basically, it's a case of just bung everything in a large saucepan and cover generously with water - the peas will absorb a lot of water as they cook. You don't need any salt, because the meat is full of the stuff.
• Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally. If you have a pressure cooker, about half an hour to 45 minutes at pressure will do the trick.
• Remove the meat joint, chop it up into bite-sized pieces and return them to the saucepan.
• Serve with crusty bread - preferably one of those tear-n-share loaves with bits of onion or sundried tomatoes in them.

Kåldolmar (Swedish cabbage rolls)

This is another one of my mother-in-law's recipes. She taught me to make these many years ago. I have to confess, though, that mine are never as good as hers. This is a great dish for a cold night. It can also be scaled up for larger groups.

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients

400g mince
70g raw rice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Pinch mixed herbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Large cabbage (you won't need the whole thing, but you need the larger leaves on the outside)
Little oil
175ml red wine
30ml flour
15ml golden syrup/honey
Cream (optional)

Method

• Boil the rice in water with a little salt until cooked.
• Add mince, eggs and seasonings. Mix together.
• Boil or steam whole cabbage leaves until softish and pliable.
• Place one heaped tablespoon of filling into the centre of each cabbage leaf. Fold in the sides, and roll the cabbage leaf.
• Brown the rolls in a little oil in a frying pan.
• Place in a casserole dish.
• In the pan, mix the little bits and bobs left behind from the rolls with the flour, syrup and red wine. Add a little water.
• Pour over the rolls in the casserole dish.
• Bake for 1.5-2 hours.
• Thicken sauce with cornflour if necessary and add a little cream (optional... and decadent).
• Serve with boiled potatoes.

Barbara's crustless savoury tart

This is one of my Mom's recipes. I realise she hasn't had much of a look-in on this blog so far. This is partly because she only came to enjoy cooking in her retirement, by which time I had long since left home. My Mom had the disadvantage of being the daughter of a good cook and then the daughter-in-law of an even better cook (nothing my Mom ever made was good enough for my Dad).

After my parents split up, my Mom was a single parent, working full time. Cooking was something to be done as quickly and easily as possible each evening after work, in order to get the kids fed on a severely limited budget. Our meals tended to be very ordinary.

These days, my Mom is much more daring. This recipe dates back to my teens. Back then, it was quite adventurous by my Mom's standards.

Double recipe, single dish

The recipe makes two tarts. You can halve it, of course. When I made it on this occasion, I put the whole double recipe into a single large pyrex dish and it worked just fine. I didn't even increase the time (but then, I have a fan-assisted oven, which makes a significant difference).

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients

250g bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 thick slices of bread (about 2cm), crusts removed
625ml milk
30ml butter/marg
6 eggs
500ml grated cheese (mature cheddar works well)
1 tin corned beef (aka bully beef), mashed/chopped
5ml chopped parsley and/or chives
5ml English or Dijon mustard (optional - I leave this out)
salt and pepper to taste

Method

• Fry the bacon and onion together lightly. You shouldn't need oil - there is enough fat in bacon.
• Place the bread, milk and butter into a saucepan and boil gently for 5 minutes.Mash the bread and leave to cool.
• Beat the eggs in a large bowl.
• Stir in the cheese, bacon and onion, bread and milk mixture.
• Add remaining ingredients.
• Pour into two pie plates and bake for 30 minutes until the egg has set.
• Eat hot or cold with salads.

Notes:

Try using different meats. Frankfurters work really well, and if you have a few slices of ham left over from making the kids' sandwiches, chuck them in, too.
You could also try it with vegetables. It's a great way to deal with a few leftover vegetables. Broccoli works brilliantly, as do peas, grated carrot and chunks of potato. Just cook them lightly first.

Shena's sausage and apple pie

This is another recipe from my aunt Shena. It's good comfort food when the weather is cold and apples are plentiful. I can remember eating it at her house as a child of ten. Her cooking seemed so exotic to me at the time. Now that we live in a house with an apple tree, this is a recipe that comes in handy.

Oven temperature

180C and then 220C/grill

Ingredients

Crust:

You can either use (shortcrust) ready pastry or make your own with
250ml flour
100g butter, melted
Pinch salt

Filling:

450g pack of sausage meat/sausages
Medium onion, finely chopped
2 cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
Pinch of sage

Topping:
3-4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
A little milk
60ml grated cheese (sharp cheddar is best)

Method

• Because potatoes take a fair while to cook, it's best to get them going first. Boil the potatoes until soft. While this is happening, you can get on with the other steps.
• If you're using ready pastry, line a pie dish and bake the crust blind in accordance with the package instructions. If you're making your own (and it's dead easy, honest), sift the flour and salt, then add the butter.
• Mix until you have a manageable dough.
• Press into a pie plate and prick repeatedly with a fork until there are holes all over the place.
• Bake at 180C for about 10-12 minutes until it begins to turn golden, then set aside. While it's baking, you can get on with the next bit.
• If you're using sausages, squeeze out all the meat. If you're using sausage meat, you're a step ahead of the game. Place the meat into a frying pan with the chopped onion, apple and sage and fry until done, turning, mixing and blending the ingredients as you go. I don't use any oil - there is enough fat in the sausage meat.
• Spread the meat mixture over the pastry base.
• Mash the potatoes with a little milk until you have an easily spreadable, soft mash.
• Spread over the sausage meat.
• Sprinkle with cheese.
• Pop into the oven at 220C for about 10 minutes.
• If necessary, pop under the grill to brown up that cheese topping.

Serve hot with vegetables of your choice.

Korvsoppa (Swedish sausage soup)

 

There is a bit of a story behind this recipe, and I hope I can tell it without sounding bitchy. Bear with me:

Some years ago, my friend Arla introduced me to this 'traditional Swedish soup' recipe. By this time, I had been married to a Swede for well over a decade, and had been introduced to several Swedish recipes by his family. I had never even heard of korvsoppa, however, and was delighted to add it to my portfolio, because it was quick, easy, tasty, cheap and nutritious.

Shortly thereafter, my mother-in-law came to stay. It should be noted that, although she is Swedish, she has lived in Cape Town for many years, and often longs for a taste of home. I could hardly contain my excitement as I told her that I was going to prepare a traditional dish in her honour. Oh? And what dish was this, she wanted to know. "Korvsoppa!" quoth I, with much aplomb.

She looked at me blankly. She declared flatly that she had never heard of it. Oh dear. Ah well. I duly made the dish anyway (because it had quickly become a Romeis family regular), and we duly ate it.

A few of years later, my mother in law came to stay again. I was travelling a lot on business, so she was doing much of the cooking. She presented my elder son with a bowl of soup, which he refused to eat because it contained celery, which he despises almost as much as he despises vinegar. She was totally non-plussed. "But I thought you liked korvsoppa!" I explained that I don't put celery in my korvsoppa, to which she responded that she had always made it that way, as had her mother before her and her mother before that.

Presumably this was a different korvsoppa from the one she'd never heard of a few years previously. Sometimes you just have to shake your head!

Anyhoo, here is my version of korvsoppa. It no longer looks exactly like Arla's... and it doesn't have celery in it. Like most soups, the quantities are not exact. Feel free to experiment.

Ingredients

1 litre stock (see note below)
1 small-to-medium sized onion, finely chopped
250ml frozen peas
250ml frozen corn (Arla doesn't include this ingredient)
1 or 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes (about 1cm or so)
2 or 3 carrots, peeled and chopped into cubes (about 1cm or so)
About 6 Frankfurters (or similar sausage of your choice) sliced
Salt to taste if necessary (I don't use any)
Pinch of mixed herbs

Method

• Place the veg into a large-ish saucepan and add stock. 
• Add more water so that you almost have the amount of soup you want to end up with. 
• Cover and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. 
• Boil for about 5-10 minutes until the onion is translucent and the carrots and potatoes are beginning to soften. 
• Add the sausage and boil until done, stirring occasionally.
• Serve with crusty bread and far too much butter.

A note about stock:

I am not one of those diligent housewives that always has a home-made stock of stock (if you follow me) to hand. If you do, go ahead and use that, with my blessing and admiration. I use shop-bought stock. I have never found a cube version that I like enough to use in a soup. In recent years, Knorr has come up with a jellified version that you can pick up in the supermarket, which is far nicer, so you might want to try the chicken and/or veg varieties of that.

Always on standby

However, if you're prepared to take a trip to a health shop, I swear by Vecon (and I'm not being paid to say so, nor do I have any interests in the company). A generous, heaped teaspoonful will be enough for a tasty pot of soup. I am working on a post of my standby ingredients - the things that I always have in my cupboard. This is probably close to the top of the list.

Easy pork chops

This recipe (if you can even call it that) is one of my fall-backs.

When I lived in South Africa, we ate chicken several times a week, because that was what was cheapest. But, while you can pick up a whole chicken really reasonably here, portions are just ridiculously over-priced (and you can't get all the portions I want, either!). Pork is the cheapest meat in the UK.

I never ate pork in South Africa - it tasted very 'piggy'. Utterly vile. However, needs must, so I announced to the family shortly after my first stomach-swooping grocery shopping expedition on these shores that we were going to have to learn to like pork. I bought an economy pack of pork chops and grilled them.

There was nothing to learn. They were great. No 'piggy' taste at all. I have been advised that this might have to do with diet. In the UK (so I'm told) pigs are fed a vegetarian diet, whereas in South Africa, their diet contains animal protein. Whether or not this is true, I have not been able to establish conclusively. All I can tell you is that I don't like South African pork, but I do enjoy UK pork.

In order to add something a little interesting, to pork chops (or loin steaks), I spread a little concoction on each piece before grilling (and I always grill - meat very seldom gets fried in this household). You need to know that pork works brilliantly with fruit... hence the traditional apple sauce. But you don't have to get stuck in an apple rut.

On this occasion, I mixed up about 60ml orange marmalade (left over from the rusks), 5ml black mustard seeds, a bit of barbecue spice and just a little water. Then I brushed each chop generously with this mixture, repeating each time I turned them (I grill pork chops for 4 minutes at a time, turning them 3 times, so that they actually get 8 minutes each side).

You could try apricot jam. Or fig jam. Or mango chutney. You know... whatever. Something sweet and fruity. And if you don't like the mustard seeds, leave them out. Or replace them with cumin seeds. Or (once again) something.

Remember? Experiment. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, and I served them with potato wedges, carrots, peas and edamame (soya) beans.

Shena's 'Mexican' chicken

This recipe came from my aunt. As with so many recipes that carry a country name in the title, it would probably be completely unfamiliar to any natives of that country. But that's what Shena calls the recipe, so that is its name. The fact that it appears under M in my indexed, handwritten recipe book is an indication of how young and 'iggerant' I was when I started compiling the book!

Oven temperature

190C (reduce for fan-assisted ovens)

Ingredients

Chicken portions (I used a dozen drumsticks as you can see)
250ml tomato sauce
60ml sugar
60ml chutney
175ml water
60ml vinegar (I use a cheap balsamic)
30ml Worcestershire sauce
1 large onion, finely chopped
Pinch salt to taste
Little oil

Method

Ready for the oven

• Pan fry the chicken portions until they are browned on all sides.
• Place in a casserole dish.
• Mix all remaining ingredients and spoon over the chicken.
• Cover (use foil if your dish doesn't have a lid) and bake at 190C for 90-120 minutes. If you'd like to brown the chicken on top, as I have done in the picture above, uncover for the last 20 minutes or so.
• If necessary, you can thicken the sauce using a little cornflour.

I serve this with rice and vegetables, but you go right ahead and find your own accompaniments.

Chilli con carne

I had never tried chilli con carne before I met my husband, but his mother used to make it regularly. I developed my own version of the recipe over the years. No doubt, it contains ingredients 'proper' chilli con carne shouldn't, and omits things 'proper' chilli con carne should include, but that's the whole beauty of cooking... you can adapt things to your liking!

The one ingredient that might take you by surprise is the chocolate. But in fact, that is an absolutely genuine Mexican thing to do. And, if you've never tried it, now's your chance. I use a chocolate shaving stick (from Hotel Chocolat) but, in keeping with my promise not to make you dash out and buy an ingredient you'll never use up, you could opt to use ordinary dark chocolate. Go with the highest cocoa percentage you can find.

Ingredients
500g lean minced beef
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
15-30ml tomato paste
1 cup dried red kidney beans
125ml cheap red wine
Chopped red and/or green chillies to taste (I only use one)
5ml grated chocolate stick and 5ml sugar OR 2 squares of dark chocolate
1 star aniseed
Pinch salt to taste

Method

• Rinse and soak the beans for a few hours (or cheat and use canned ones)
• Lightly fry the mince and onion (I don't use oil, but you might like to add a smidge) until the mince is brown and the onions translucent
• Stir in the chopped tomatoes and the spices and salt
• When the tomatoes have started to soften, add the tomato paste, wine and beans
• Add enough water to cover the mixture - remember the beans will absorb water
• Cover and simmer until the beans have softened (about 30 minutes in a pressure cooker). If the mixture still contains a lot of water at this point, let it simmer uncovered for a while
• Serve with white rice, topped with a splodge of soured cream and a salad. A sprinkle of paprika (or cocoa) over the soured cream looks good.

This also works with corn bread or a baked potato. And leftovers can work as a sandwich filling.

Note:
If you have kids who won't eat vegetables, try finely grating a couple of carrots into the mince during cooking (you can do this with any mince dish, including bobotie). They'll never even notice! Obviously, if you're cooking for young children, you need to consider the chilli levels!

It's worth noting that fussy eaters often readily eat meals they have prepared themselves, even when these contain ingredients they refuse to eat otherwise. There is a school of thought that being a fussy eater can be about exerting control, and in being allowed to prepare the meal, the child has already exercised control. It's worth a shot!

Lazy beef stirfry with a Thai-ish twist

There are many things I love about stirfry. But chief among them are:

• They're very quick and easy (if you cheat)
• They make a small amount of meat go a long way (a single steak can feed the whole family)
  
• They taste great!

There isn't really a 'recipe' this time. Just a few guidelines.

Oh, and you don't have to have a wok. A frying pan works, too. The only wok I've ever owned gave everything a revolting metallic taste, so I went back to using my very large, bog standard non-stick frying pan.

Ingredients
Meat - you can use just about any meat at all in a stifry - just slice is up finely
Vegetables - you can also use a wide range of vegetables. To be honest, I tend to be lazy. My local supermarket sells pre-juliened packs of ready-mixed stirfry vegetables. But, if I'm doing it properly, my vegetables might include:
mushrooms - thinly sliced
onions - finely sliced (red ones add great colour)
carrots - cut into matchsticks (thank goodness for slicing gadgets!)
cabbage (or pak choi or bok choi if you're feeling posh) - thinly sliced
bell peppers - thinly sliced
whole bean sprouts
bamboo shoots - straight out the can
water chestnuts - also from a can, but thinly sliced
you could also add pineapple - finely chopped (but I have a son who loathes the stuff)
mange tout - whole
baby corn cobs - whole or broken up into pieces

Method
I start by frying the meat over a medium high heat in a tiny bit of oil until it is browned. I might liberally sprinkle it with 'Thai seven spice' which I have seen at most major supermarkets in the UK. I then add the vegetables all willy-nilly-ish, and keep stirring and turning them over until they soften up a bit. It is important not to overdo the veg, and there should be a slight crunch left in them.

This is when I add the final touch, which makes all the difference. The 'sauce'. I mix together a generous teaspoon of chopped ginger, lemongrass, sweet chilli sauce, the juice of half a lime, a dash of soy sauce, the grated zest of the lime, and a little water, and stir this into the meat and veg for a minute or two, until it has been even spread through the whole thing. Because I do this often, I have taken to buying the bottles of 'very lazy' ginger and lemongrass. As a final flourish, I chop up fresh coriander leaves and sprinkle them over the top.

Serve with noodles.

Start to finish with all the lazy shortcuts, it takes about 10 minutes. No kidding.

Bacon and bean soup

Since I promised to do a soup that doesn't require a blender, I thought I'd better get right on it. We had this for supper last night.

First a note about bacon. If you're a bacon lover, it adds a delicious something extra to a wide range of soups. And you don't always need a lot of it, either - nor do you need the expensive, aesthetically pleasing rashers. Bear in mind, though, that bacon contains a lot of salt. So if you do add some to an existing recipe on a whim, adjust the salt levels accordingly. This recipe uses no salt at all, apart from what is already in the bacon.

I'm afraid the quantities in this recipe (as with most soups) are pretty inexact. I tend to use whatever I have in the house. I recommend you do the same.

Ingredients
1 pack of bacon, chopped if you like
1 onion, finely chopped
2 or 3 large carrots peeled and chopped or sliced (or hacked up willy-nilly)
250ml dried beans of your choice (see note about beans below)
250ml pearl barley
250ml green or brown lentils
125ml red lentils
2 bay leaves
1l chicken or vegetable stock
Water

Method
Rinse the beans and then place them in a large bowl full of water for several hours or overnight (or see note below). Pour off the water.

Then, hoick all the ingredients into a pressure cooker or saucepan. Make sure you add enough water, though, because the pulses will absorb a lot as they cook, and beans have a nasty tendency to stick to the bottom of the pot. This is particularly important if you're using an ordinary saucepan, because evaporation is a much bigger factor. Boil until all the pulses are soft. In my pressure cooker, this usually takes about 30 minutes at pressure.

If you're a more considerate cook than I am, you will remove the bay leaves before serving the soup. If not, you will simply serve it with a warning to 'watch out for extraneous plant matter' (I think my kids new the meaning of the word 'extraneous' before they went to nursery school).

You can serve with bread if you like, but I find this soup so filling, that I usually don't bother.

About those beans
I tend to use kidney beans, because it's what I grew up with, and because I like the colour. But, as you can see from today's picture, I might decide to try something different... or a combination of several different somethings. If you're in a hurry, you can use canned beans, but don't tell the purists I said so, okay? Opt for the 'no salt added' types. Oh, and not baked beans - just beans in water. If you're going this route, I would suggest at least two cans. Remember the '1 cup' of dried beans will turn into several cups of soaked beans, so you have to compensate.

This can be frozen. In fact, the soup we ate last night was prepared some weeks ago and then frozen. But you can only do that once. Once you have defrosted and reheated the soup, don't be tempted to re-freeze any left overs. If you have a large quantity to freeze, try splitting it up into smaller portions that you are more likely to use up on reheating.

Bobotie

This is one of the many traditional/national dishes of South Africa. It tips its hat to various different cultural roots, particularly the Cape Malays.

Even though I was born and raised in South Africa, I never prepared bobotie myself in all the years I lived there. Of course I had eaten it. Often. But, it was only when we moved to the UK, that I started making this dish to serve to guests. I liked the idea of introducing them to a new taste. It quickly became a signature dish of mine, and is much talked about.

Inviting people to your home for a meal is far less a part of British culture than South African, and we were considered fairly hospitable even by South African standards. So you can imagine that we are downright unusual around these parts.

Credit for this recipe must go to Ina de Villiers, the author of one of South Africa's best known Afrikaans cookbooks, Kook and Geniet (available in English as Cook and Enjoy It). Since Ina died in September last year, it seems fitting to include one of her recipes early on in this blog.

Ingredients
1 onion, thinly sliced
A little cooking oil (if necessary)
800g lean minced beef
1 thick slice bread (any type), crusts removed
250ml milk
2 eggs
15ml medium strength curry powder
15ml sugar
5ml salt
Pepper to taste (black or white)
5-10ml turmeric
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
60ml flaked almonds
125ml seedless raisins
4 bay or lemon leaves
45ml chutney

Oven temperature
180C

Method

• Fry onions and mince together in cooking oil (if using) until just done
• Soak the bread in the milk. Then squeeze the milk out and mash the bread. Set the milk aside
• Mix together all the ingredients, except 125m milk, 1 egg, almonds and the bay/lemon leaves
• Press the mixture into an ovenproof dish. Insert the leaves, upright and evenly spaced, into the meat mixture
• Cover with tin foil (or a lid, if your dish has one) and bake for about 20 minutes
• Beat the remaining egg together with the 125ml milk you set aside earlier. Pour over the meat mixture. Sprinkle with flaked almonds
• Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes until the egg 'custard' has set

Serve with...
Rice (ideally, South African yellow rice)
Green beans
Steamed or glazed pumpkin/butternut squash

Make sure there is chutney on the table, too - no self-respecting South African would eat bobotie without it!