Capital Curry

Curry and Cape Town should be like salt and pepper, Mills and Boon, Starsky and Hutch, Bush and Blair. The Malays arrived here in 1657, political exiles and prisoners from Ceylon, Java and the Dutch East Indies which is now known as Indonesia. They were fine artisans, tailors, seamstresses and most importantly exceptional cooks who blended their fiery herbs, spices and sweet condiments with local resources to strongly influence the Cape Table.
Red curling chillis, juicy green ginger, long thin fennel seeds, fragrant cardoman seeds, quills of cinnamon bark, darker,coarser, cassia bark, bright yellow and slightly acrid turmeric, licorice-like star anise, fresh curry leaves, lightly roasted bittersweet fenugreek, were all expertly ground and blended according to family traditions to create multiflavoured masalas or curry spice mixes. Fresh and dried fruits and vegetables were combined with oils, vinegars, sugars and spices to produce the distinctive fiery sambals, chutneys and pickles which add contrast to the spicy foods and epitomize the sweet / sour element so characteristic of South African cooking.
So with such a rich heritage why is it so difficult to find a decent curry in Cape Town?
Why have we allowed this potential Philharmonic Orchestra of Flavours be reduced to a one dimensional dish, swimming in grease and padding out hotel buffet counters? I know that the Muslim population of Cape Town still eat great curries at home but due to their religious beliefs concerning alcohol they tend not to be involved in commercial eateries.
Yes there are a few restaurants which claim to serve a great curry but nowhere near the number of stages which this star performer deserves. We have the taste for curry, we have the spices for curry, we have the culinary skills for curry, we have the tradition and heritage for curry, we should exploit all of this to the fullest. If Seattle is the coffee capital of North America, we should be the curry capital of Africa.

Mother in law masala

10 g chilli powder
10 g cayenne powder
5 g roasted whole cloves
5 g roasted star anise
20 g roasted coriander seeds
20 g roasted cumin seeds
10 g whole cinnamon
5 g black peppercorns
5 g roasted fenugreek seeds
10 g whole green cardoman
5 g dried curry leaves
10 g turmeric

Dry roast the whole spices in a hot pan for a minute or two.
Mix all spices and grind a little at a time in a coffee grinder.
Store in an airtight container.

Breadiquette

Eating something as simple as bread in public can be quite a challenge in Western cultures. If you don’t follow the fairly rigid rules then you could be considered uncouth . For example if you’re closest to the bread basket then it’s your responsibility to first help yourself, then offer to the person on your left, then the person on your right and finally pass the basket to the right. Got that! Now if the bread roll is hot you can cut and insert butter into it in one fell swoop but if it’s cold then you must break small pieces off by hand but no more than three pieces at a time. Only butter as you eat, do not line up little soldiers with military precision on your sideplate.
Well I’m guilty as charged. I love bread and I swoop on the bread basket almost as soon as my backside hits the chair. Then I look around anxiously for some decent olive oil and balsamic to make little puddles on my plate. Sorry I missed what you said there – bread? yeah there it is, help yourself.Forget about the dainty little morsels, I’m a big lumps man and don’t bring me warm bread unless it’s come out of the oven about 30 minutes ago I mean who do you think you’re kidding with those endlessly recycled bread rolls flashed under the grill or incubating like hen’s eggs in warming drawers out of my field of vision. If you haven’t got olive oil then I’ll take the butter but why is it ice cold? – don’t you realize that I’m going to gouge canyons in the soft interior of my roll and end up with mouthfuls of cholesterol chunks. Isn’t it time someone designed a refrigerated compartment which kept butter at a spreadable temperature? Otherwise take it away from the kitchen and store it in that fancy wine storage which can accommodate everything from aquavit through to vintage port all at the correct serving temperature.
I’m going to chase the oil and vinegar pools around my plate, I’m going to dip my bread in my soup, I’m going to use it to mop up the rest of the sauce and meal debris. I may just stop short of plonking those roast potatoes into a buttered roll, squirting on a dollop of tomato ketchup and enjoying an impromptu chip butty but make no mistake, I love bread
I also like to smell my bread, not the cursory sniff of the faintly bored, but burying my nose in the surface and taking in the full draught of the baker’s art, the grains, the yeast, the long period of proving and the aromas of his kitchen and ovens. There’s no record of any Eastern European blood in my genes but maybe there should be since I believe the Russians are very fond of eating zakouskis or little snacks between shots of vodka or at the very least sniffing large chunks of black bread which is apparently very effective in dissipating the effects of the alcohol. So the next time you see me breaking the rules of breadiquette you’ll know that I’m just trying to dodge the breathalyzer on the way home!

Man eats Lion

The local airwaves were abuzz this morning when Cape Talk radio ran a story about processed lion meat being on sale in the North West Province. Apparently licensed game hunters in the Pilansberg National Park are only interested in trophies such as the head or more often the paw of the lion and the meat is sold off to local butchers. South African regulations concerning butchering of lions is fairly vague since you’re really not supposed to be killing them in the first place and since it would probably be very difficult to persuade anyone to purchase a lion kebab or Leo’s rib chops then the enterprising local butcher came up with the marketing strategy of making lion biltong.
As South Africa’s national snack, biltong, or thinly sliced air dried meat, is available as readily as sliced bread in every convenience store and butchery in the country and over time the drying technique has been applied to all cuts of beef, venison, game meats, ostrich, warthog, chicken and even fish but using lion seems to be a world first!
Callers to the radio station swiftly diverted the subject to the usual “mine’s bigger than yours” train of thought and we heard of roast monkeys, giraffe osso bucco, elephant sausages, hippo hamburgers, leg of leopard, zebra zakouskis - every type of gastronomic excess.
All of which though frightening is not exactly new. Over 100 years ago during the Great Siege of Paris 1870 – 1871, by the Prussians, the city’s citizens were quick to exploit the Paris Zoo and with typical Gallic culinary prowess, Alexandre Etienne Choron, creator of Sauce Choron, dished up the animal population at the Restaurant Voisin. Pride of the zoo, elephants Castor and Pollux ended up as a tasty bourguignonne and other dishes included roast camel hump and fricassee of wolf. The monkeys were spared in the belief that maybe Darwin was right and the lions were sufficiently menacing to keep the hungry Parisians at bay.

Recipes for Biltong

First catch your lion or cow if you prefer.
www.the.wire.com/usr/mark/biltong.html

Solomon Grundy born on a Monday

Christened on Tuesday
Married on Wednesday
Took ill on Thursday
Worse on Friday
Died on Saturday
Buried on Sunday
That’s the end of Solomon Grundy

But not quite the end of salmagundi, a cold salad dish as curious in name as origin. All that we do know is that it is first documented in the eighteenth century and has been variously attributed to cookery book writer’s Hannah Glasse (1747), Henry Howard (1726) and Elizabeth Taylor ( no relation ) in her book, The Art of Cookery published in 1769.
The distinctive name of the dish has passed into our language as a noun meaning a collection of various things, a hodgepodge, a mishmash, a medley, a jumble and even in some educated circles, a gallimaufry.
Some of these interpretations are rather harsh on the good Mrs Taylor’s recipe since she clearly states the following : Take a little cold veal or cold fowl, the white part, free of fat and skin, mince it very fine; take either a red herring, a pickled herring or 3 or 4 anchovies, whichever you please; peel and shred small a couple of onions, core, pare and shred two apples, a little hung beef minced fine.Lay it on a dish in small heaps, each ingredient separate; put a few anchovies into the middle of the dish. Garnish with lemon. Eat with oil, mustard and vinegar.
Really quite interactive for the period, a touch of the toss your own salad or mix your own steak tartare.
A collection of various things yes, a medley certainly, a variety indeed. In fact when you compare the concept with the presentation style of many contemporary top rated restaurants you can identify the culinary umbilical chord stretching right back to the good Mrs Taylor. Dwelling on that thought perhaps some of the other figurative meanings of salmagundi are in fact absolutely spot on – hodgepodge, jumble, mishmash, ragbag and even perhaps gallimaufry. Best stop this train of thought now before the Mother Grundys start!

Henry’s take on Salamongundy ( his spelling )

Includes shredded lettuce as a base, minced egg yolks, scalded green grapes, blanched green beans and garnished with nasturtium flowers.

Hannah’s version

Very similar to Henry but includes pickles, sorrel, spinach, chives, horseradish and barberries obviously from the “ let’s just mix it up here School of Cookery .”

The language of the kitchen

Many people consider the language of the kitchen to be French and that may be so in traditional haute cuisine restaurants but the real linga franca of the kitchen owes more to the Anglo Saxons than the Normans.
Living in the 6 th century can’t have been that easy for Sigeberht the Unsteady, first a long cold voyage in an open wooden boat across the North Sea and then “ Well you’re the cook – get the supper on lad !” No opportunity to join in the raping and pillaging, no thanks for the gastronomic delights he created out of limited resources, no feasting and carousing on beer and mead at the lord’s table and often just a crack on the skull with a knobbly stick because the beef was underdone. If the chefs didn’t exclusively invent the swear words which are still so common today then they certainly offered plenty of input. Who could miss the culinary connection in the traditional tongue twister “ I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son.”
Today, some would argue, not much has changed, chefs still have no social life to speak of and miss out on all the rapes and pillages, supplies may have improved but minor miracles are still being performed in kitchens everywhere on a daily basis, by the time the last order is out, the pub has called time and now we get a crack because the beef is overdone.
Cursing and swearing for Sigeberht the Unsteady was a release of pressure building up in a stressful environment, a way of establishing authority and marking out his territory – fortunately for him there were very few politically correct activists around accusing him of contributing to the decline of civility, being offensive and immature and not respecting the rights of others although I’m sure after listening to them he would have heartily exhorted them to go forth and multiply because you see Sigeberht also was a strong believer in that great piece of culinary advice “ If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”

The jury's still out

I’ve got to be honest, when it comes to flavour, I’m not sure whether many chefs are cheating or not. I’m talking about the addition of natural flavours to a dish to pump up the overall flavour profile. I mean just where do you draw the line? No-one raises an eyebrow when you use vanilla extract, sure the purists will use a vanilla pod but you won’t get thrown out of church for reaching for the bottle.Many pastry chefs couldn’t function without the coffee and pistachio pastes which make their life less stressed. By the way, talking about stressed pastry chefs have you noticed that stressed is simply desserts spelt backwards?
Why do we find rosewater acceptable but not lemongrass essence? What happens when a chef at the cutting edge starts using a battery of natural flavours in much the same way as his colleagues use spices, herbs or condiments? When he flavour boosts with shrimp or mushroom or smoke natural flavours is he pushing the edges of the envelope to increase the intensity of the dining experience or is he a charlatan taking short cuts and covering up deficiencies in his cuisine, is he a food alchemist or simply a chemist?
With a vast range of pastes, powders, liquids and alcohol based natural flavours now available just what do you write on the menu? If you don’t tell the public what you’re doing the risk is that there will be a disgruntled former employee willing to spill the beans and some unscrupulous journalist willing to sensationalise the story. If you do tell the public and you attract a loyal, adventurous clientele then where do you draw the line in your chemical experiments?

Bella's a beaut!

A cold front moving in, gathering rain clouds and some free time on my hands strangely drew me to idly flick through Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. I bought it about twenty years ago in a used book store as a culinary curiosity for my library and never ventured into it again until this morning – it’s incredible!
Written when she was in her early twenties, it is an amazing compendium of advice on running a Victorian household, thoughts on cooking utensils, information on all breeds of animals and birds which may have the misfortune to land up on your butcher’s block, rules of the table, bills of fare for every type of occasion, detailed duties of each member of household staff, medical advice and nearly 2000 recipes presented in the modern layout of detailed ingredients, method of preparation and each one costed out.
How the hell did she do it and at the same time manage to give birth to four children, bury two of them, run a soup kitchen for needy children, edit magazines published by her husband and die herself by the age of 28? ” Never a dull moment must have been the war cry of this superwoman who was more Nigella Lawson than Mrs Bridges and incidently the oldest of 21 children.
Whilst she never claimed the original authorship of any of the recipes she did collect, test, standardize and cost every one of them, a mammoth task in an era before shorthand typists and computers had been invented. The book which is now viewed as very traditional was in fact cutting edge when it was published introducing the Victorian public to new ideas on eating, foreign recipes and even legal advice on divorce.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/household/