Pickin' a Chicken

There's no doubt in my mind that chicken is the most versatile meat that is available to us. It just seems that you can do so much with it and that's why I find it strange that people don't try to understand the bird a little better and use it to it's full advantage. Unfortunately the chicken suffers from a bit of a poor reputation of often being dry and tasteless but that's not the chicken's fault, to cook is to blame.
Unlike most meats the fat is not distributed in seams throughout the flesh so you don't get a nicely marbled breast of chicken for example. It's not a problem, it simply means that you've got to change your game plan a little. Toss a breast of chicken on the braai, especially a skinless breast and you're guaranteed a dry, tasteless piece of wizened flesh that even the most highly spiced concoction of sugar, tomato sauce and vinegar will not revive but give the preparation method a little bit of thought and you'll never forsake the fowl again.
If you favour roast chicken then brine it for 24 hours for spectacular results
( I've dealt with this before but it bears repeating - see recipe below ) and forget all about that advice you read about keeping an eye on the bird and basting every 10 minutes. The real secret in dealing with whole chickens is to pay them as little attention as possible and leave everything up to Father Time. So after brining and patting dry, gently work some flavoured butter under the skin of the breasts and the thighs for inbuilt automatic basting. The butter can be flavoured with anything that takes your fancy, fresh chopped herbs, garlic, curry spices, chilli, the choice is yours. Roast in a medium hot oven until cooked and then let the bird rest, out of a draught, for 10 or 15 minutes. Don't be tempted to poke at it or cut into the thigh or any of those silly things people do when they lack confidence in the kitchen, just leave it alone for time to take it's course and you will be rewarded with a chicken which is tender and juicy and tastes magnificent.
If you intend to use the chicken in another dish eg a pie or for chicken mayonnaise then poached chicken is what you need. You don't need to brine it but it certainly won't do any harm. Cover the bird with chicken stock if you have it otherwise water will work just fine with some aromatics added such as chopped onion, carrots, celery, fresh herbs, bayleaf, black peppercorns and not forgetting star anise. If you've got one of those little stock cubes then toss it in the bin, it's simply the most concentrated source of salt known to the home cook. Now here's the secret about poached chicken - simmer, not boil, for 15 minutes only and then place a lid on the pot, remove from the heat and go and have a glass of wine on the stoep. Leave the chicken for at least 1 hour and resist the temptation to keep lifting the lid and peeking into the pot. When you can bear the tension no longer, remove the chicken and allow to cool slightly before skinning and prising the succulent flesh from the bones. A word of warning, you may find a slight pinkness around the joints but don't worry because your chicken will be perfectly cooked with moist, succulent meat. Oh by the way, if you didn't have chicken stock before, you do now and if you did have chicken stock before, well just taste it now !
Brine for chicken
500 g brown sugar
250 g maple syrup
300 g coarse salt
3 whole heads garlic bruised
6 bayleaves
100 g coarse chopped ginger
10 g red chilli flakes dried
3 lt water
Mix all ingredients together well to dissolve sugars and salt. Immerse chicken for 24 hours and refrigerate. Only use each brine once and discard. Like everything in the kitchen it's best to stick your finger in and taste - if it is too salty then your chicken will be too salty. Adjust liquid and sugar levels to suit your palate. This is a basic brine, play with it, add fresh herbs or other spices, delete the maple syrup and try moskonfyt if you want, it doesn't have to be water, there could be some wine or beer or even ginger beer. Just think for yourself and be adventurous, remember as long as the brine tastes OK to you, then the chicken will be magnificent.

They're inscrutable, you know.....

I wouldn't thank you for a tub of caviar. I have no interest whatsoever in fish eggs, even if you give them fancy names such as sturgeon roe, black pearls, food of the Tsars, they're still gooey fish eggs to me, a bit like frog spawn, salty, slimy and objectionable and the fact that some people are prepared to pay incredible prices for them is just another of those great culinary mysteries. Whether it's beluga, osetra, sevruga, or sterlet, malasol, dark or light grey, dark brown or golden, large or small berries, served on a mother of pearl spoon or even a solid gold spoon, you can keep the nasty stuff as far as I'm concerned.
The Chinese also seem to share my views on the subject since they too shun the product despite relishing other funny foods such as bird's nests, shark's fins and I suppose the relatively similar, carp's eggs. So it is all the more interesting that they have decided to branch out into the caviar market although, inscrutable as ever, it is obviously because they see a gap in the international market and an opportunity to earn a few yen. It's most unlikely that caviar will find it's way on to too many Chinese dinner tables.
The problem always is that when you come late to the market most of the the best brand names have already been chosen and there's no way established purveyors will let you piggyback on their brands. When they started producing cheap, facsimile, watches they were disappointed not to be able to brand them as Rolex and had to resort to names such as R. Olex and now it's the same old problem with caviar. Beluga has been nabbed and so Chinese caviar has to be marketed under the name Keluga, close enough to hoodwink the sort of people who think it's smart to be eating the rubbish.
The Tianxia Sturgeon Company has announced a joint venture with Caviar Creator to exploit, via aquaculture, the caviar market internationally and to try to persude the burgeoning Chinese domestic market that eating caviar is the sophisticated thing to do but even Hu Chao, the secretary of the Tianxia (Heavenly Gorges) Sturgeon Company, admitted that she had never tried it and added " I can't imagine spending that kind of money on fish eggs ." Neither can I my dear.

Dilly Diner of the Week

Trans Force is a most unusual restaurant in a most unusual location so it's hardly surprising that it attracts most unusual people. You see Trans Force is a restaurant that thinks it's a spaceship and it's located on the outskirts of St Petersburg in Russia. Even more mysterious is the fact that it is owned and operated by the marine technology giant, Transas, which perhaps goes some way to explaining the menu.
Trans Force is the worst kind of theme restaurant, one that takes itself too seriously. It's a virtual reality experience rather than a dining experience and should appeal to geeks the world over because it's a bit like eating inside a computer game. Load your plastic card with credits on the way in and head off down a dark metallic tunnel into the core of the vessel.
Soon you'll find yourself on the set of the Starship Enterprise with computer generated landscapes perpetually whizzing towards and away from you and after choosing your table to sit at you can start playing with the control console which allows you to choose your food by photograph and place your own order without ever speaking to anyone. Unfortunately that's where the fun stops because the food is human generated and can bring you back to earth with a bang. In spite of having Americanised names like Cold War ( Salads ) Firing Line ( Soups/ Main Courses ) Fuel ( Drinks ) and Reactive Fuel ( Alcoholic Drinks ) the food is kinda Russian - you know solid and stoic.
But hell, it's a bit naive going to a restaurant expecting edible food so rather just play with your computer console where you can obtain information on the main ship including all types of weapons, select video communication mode to establish communication with other mess-room tables or shuttle crews, video monitor the outside of the vessel or let's get down to why we're really here in the first place and set off on a military mission and nuke the hell out of the enemy from the comfort of your own dining pod whilst sipping on a full strength vodka.
Perhaps the most unusual thing of all about this restaurant is that it aims to cater for kids - very big kids, that is and the danger is that if it is successful there may be one landing near you soon.

Why the Krauts love Sauerkraut

There had to be a reason. Some crazy explanation why an entire nation of outwardly sensible, hardworking, efficient human beings would get hooked on such a disgusting food item. I mean it's simply not good enough logic to me to say ...well that's what they were brought up with, after all the Japanese were brought up with sushi and now they're addicted to McDonalds for some bizarre reason. It can't be because they grow a lot of cabbage in Germany, they grow a lot of maize in South Africa and we're not all addicted to popcorn. No there had to be a deeper reason and now scientists at the German Institute for Food Research in Potsdam think they have come up with the key to the mystery. Perhaps Brillat Savarin was right when he said " Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are !" because these boffins reckon it's all down to genes.
The taste gene concerned is hTAS2R38 which they have found occuring commonly in most of the German population. This little gene makes most people extraordinarily sensitive to the bitter substances, Phenylthiocarbamide ( PTC) and Propylthiouracil ( PROP ) present in large quantities in cabbage and hence the love for sauerkraut. I'm prepared to accept that. I believe it's perfectly possible that they don't have any control over their urge to shovel down large quantities of the vile substance along with deep fried pigs feet but I am at the same time very concerned. You see I love a good conspiracy theory and I think the days of dropping nuclear bombs and even gas warfare are long over. But if a few of the Fuhrer's boys from Brazil got their hands on a sufficient quantity of hTAS2R38 they could easily infiltrate our dietary defences via other foods and the next thing you know they would not only have conquered our hearts and minds but our stomaches also. So purely in the interests of gastronomic independance may I suggest you jot down that little number because you never know when it will pop up on the side of a box of pretzels or a jar of black cherries. If we sit out the next total onslaught down here in Africa it may well be on our toilet seats. The other great mystery the scientists are still battling with is what it is that makes thev Germans so miserable - maybe it's the realisation that they are genitically resigned to eating sauerkraut for the rest of their lives.

The Holy Trinity

I'm not sure that I would class chefs as being any more religiously minded than any other profession but I do find it very interesting how often the concept of mixing three ingredients together takes on an almost mystical signigficance and is reverentially referred to as the Holy Trinity of ingredients. Cajun cooks and particularily, the Godfather of contemporary Cajun cuisine, Paul Prudhomme, constantly refer to the Holy Trinity, found in almost every Cajun dish, of chopped green peppers, onions and celery, but I don't think they can claim sole rights to this phenonomen which pops up in cuisines all over the world.
They say that French Haute cuisine is built on the Holy Trinity of cream, eggs and butter and nutritionists everywhere would tend to agree but there is another very special trio of ingredients which also stamps it's mark on French cuisine and that is the bouquet garni, the bundle of herbs which we find in every slow cooked and braised dish, the trinity of bayleaf, parsley and thyme. The bouquet garni is certainly indispensible in a further Holy Trinity, the Holy Trinity of Cassoulets - there's the Father, from Castelnaudary, featuring pork and goose, the Son from Carcassone with mutton and partridge and the Holy Ghost from Toulouse with sausage, mutton and duck. And before leaving the French perhaps it's worth quoting the thoughts of the monk Rabelais (1483-1553) " The Holy Trinity - bread, wine and cheese "
The concept of three ingredients blending together to form a strong foundation taste is in fact common to many cuisines. In Thailand it's garlic, ginger and chilli whilst neighbouring Asian cuisines favour garlic, ginger and onions. In Mexico the trinity is maize, beans and chillis whilst further south the Bahia cuisine of Brazil builds most of it's dishes on a distinctive platform of coconut milk, palm oil and pepper. I'm not convinced of the magical quality of just 3 ingredients to produce a really great base, I reckon it has more to do with chefs finding it easy to remember just 3 things rather than any mystical trinity.

Send out the funny food

Georg Fuchs hasn’t exactly got the easiest job in the world. He’s beginning to settle down now as Maitre Chef des Cuisines at the Savoy Hotel in London after taking over from Anton Edelman in 2003 but he is carrying the torch for some real heavyweights in the culinary world, not least the guy who opened the Savoy along with Caesar Ritz over 100 years ago, the “ little chef from Nice ” who became a giant amongst chefs.
But most nights of the week those thoughts are furthest from Georg’s mind as he wrestles with more immediate problems such as his list of Special Meal Requirements. You see the Savoy is one of the busiest banqueting hotels in the world and the way banquets work is that large numbers of people all sit down at exactly the same time, eat exactly the same choice of food, move on to the next course at exactly the same moment and try to be as undemanding as possible at least until the dessert has been served – well that’s the theory ! A few years ago the only real threat to this well oiled drill was an inebriated speaker who wanted to hog the microphone and screw up the underdoneness of the lamb and more rarely one or two vegetarians who had somehow slipped in to the function room.
“ Vegetarians…..that’s easy, just lift the meat off the plate and give it a bit of a wipe ” I don’t know what was in the vegetables but suddenly they started to multiply and brought along other friends they had meet at support groups. Before you could say nut allergy it seemed there were lot’s of nuts with allergies. On a good night Georg is feeding over 1000 people in several different banqueting halls and anything up to 10% of these diners are not wanting what’s on the menu. That’s a whopping 100 Special Meal Requests, no meat or eggs, no smoked fish, no wheat, no potatoes, no red meat, no fruit, no root vegetables, no shellfish, oh and no nuts ! No wonder poor old Georg sometimes feels a little stressed.
Well just to make him feel better, it’s no different here in Cape Town except we have one extra common request “ Is this food Halaal ? ” Well work it out for yourself, you’re on licensed premises, everyone around you is drinking alcohol, there’s 2 bottles of wine on the table…..what do you think ? It’s not just Georg who’s got a tough job !

All that glitters is not food

There’s no doubt about it, there seems to be no decline in our fascination with gold. People speculate in it, entire economies are based on it, wealthy females adorn themselves with it and some foolish people even eat it. Oh I don’t mean nuggets of gold interspersed into their muesli or even those famous Golden Arches, I mean the fashion of decorating food and drinks with finely beaten gold leaf, thin as a wisp of air and fluttering enticingly like a delicate golden butterfly atop an otherwise nondescript dessert or glass of bubbly.
Bullshit baffles brains everytime and when you’re at a loss for that “ WOW ” factor then just slap a lightly crumpled sheet of pure gold leaf on top of a mediocre chocolate mousse and you’ll hear the punters oohing and aahing in the next dorp. It just makes them feel so special and it’s quite easily ingested if not digested. It won’t do them too much harm since it’s non toxic and ancient Egyptian alchemists believed that gold represented the perfection of matter, that it’s presence in the body would enliven, rejuvenate, and cure a multitude of disturbances in the life force balance of the body – on the other hand, if it doesn’t ,no sweat, cos’ most of it will pass through the human digestive system anyway. At least I think it will but even if it doesn’t and you tend to eat out often at fancy restaurants, why then you could end up with gold plated intestinal tracts and that would really put you ahead of the Jones’.
It was probably the Egyptians, not French chefs, who set the fashion for incorporating real gold into their foods although a fluttering of gold is often widely used in Indian, Chinese and Japanese cuisines to decorate both hot and cold dishes. Even today, Chinese peasants often cook their rice with a gold coin in the pot believing it will help replenish the gold levels in their bodies.
The Indians were attracted by the colour and ostentation of decorating their festival dishes with gold rather than any belief in medicinal properties which it might possess. They also are very fond of silver leaf but my advice to you is to avoid it because doesn’t have quite the same aura about it and anyway it has a tendency to look like crumpled up tinfoil discarded on top of a dish.