Cooked: Season 2 'Weekends Away'

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Fish baked in banana leaves
This is a simple and highly effective way of cooking fish on an open fire and works on the principle of baking the fish in a parcel.

What you’ll need:
Fillet of fish (a nice white fish is good like Kabeljou or Steenbras)
125 ml tub of cream
10 – 15 olives squashed, with the pips removed
Capers
Some cloves of crushed garlic
Lemon cut into wedges
4 or 5 banana leaves
A couple of strands of wire
Salt to taste

Lay the fillet of fish on a banana leaf, place a couple of olives, capers and crushed garlic cloves on top of the fish. Pour over about 125mls of cream. Fold the banana leaf over and tuck edges underneath. Repeat process with banana leaves until you have a sealed parcel. Using the wire, secure the banana leaves. Place directly on the coals, or if you have a grid place parcel on the grid. Let it cook for about 10-15 minutes, turning the parcel only once. Don’t worry if the banana leaves burn and turn black - the cream placed inside will prevent the fish from burning.

To serve:
Open up the parcel and serve fish whilst still tin the parcel with a green salad and wedges of lemon and salt to taste.

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Wild mushroom and roast chicken pie
Roasting the chickens:
2 x free range organic chickens
2 teaspoons of Maldon salt
crushed black pepper to taste
Olive Oil
Couple of sprigs of Thyme

Rinse the chickens under cold water and pat dry (you never know who’s been playing with your meat.) Rub all over with olive oil, salt, pepper and Thyme (including the inside of the bird). Place both birds in your baking dish and roast the chicken at 180C for 1 to 1½ hours until the chicken is tender and the juices run clear when it is poked with a skewer. If the juice is pink - the chicken needs to cook for a while longer.

Once the chicken is cooked, let it cool down, then, de-bone both whole chickens, breaking up all the meat into small pieces and place in your pie dish. If you're watching your diet, feed the skin to your dogs - if not, chop it up finely and add to the chicken pieces for extra flavour. Chuck all bones and leftover bits and bobs into your compost bin (or make chicken stock).

Making the pie:
300 grams dried Porcini mushrooms (or 500grams fresh - cut into 5mm slices)
1 onion sliced
2 whole onions (peeled)
2-3 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
1-2 chillies roughly chopped
Corn flour
Butter
Black Pepper and Salt to taste
600 mls Milk
Roll of Puff pastry - defrosted

First up, re-hydrate the dried mushrooms. Do this by soaking mushrooms in warm to hot water for about an hour - do this at the same time that you chuck the chicken in the oven because the mushrooms need an hour to re-hydrate properly. Then, drain off excess liquid.

Pan fry the garlic, onions and chillies in a small knob of butter until the onions turn translucent. Add the mushrooms and pan fry on low heat until there’s no excess juice left (it takes a couple of minutes).

Make a Roux. Roux - fancy word that basically means a sauce based on a thickening of flour and butter combined with milk or stock. Do this by melting 60 grams of butter in a pan. When the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat, add 4 level tablespoons of cornflour and stir into butter - it thickens up virtually immediately - so keep stirring for 1 or 2 minutes, then start adding the milk little by little, whisking it into the butter and flour mixture until you have a smooth mixture. Once you’ve added all the milk, flavour with salt and pepper and a sprig or two of thyme, and return the pan to the heat and simmer very gently for 10 minutes, stirring all the time. If the sauce goes lumpy (which it might on your first bash) strain it thru a fine sieve (or blend it).

Once the sauce is cooked, add the mushroom, garlic, onion, and chilli mixture, give it a good stir, then pour over your de-boned chicken pieces and mix well.

Next up: Spoon mixture into your pie dish, preferably one about 25cm longx17 cm wide x 5cm deep. Wet the edge of your dish with a damp cloth. Cut thin strips of pastry and line the outside edge of your pie dish. This will give the pie a nice double layer. Place 2 onions on top the chicken mixture (this will help to stop the pastry from collapsing in on its self. Place a whole sheet of pastry over the dish. Press the edges down firmly and then trim off the excess. Using the back of a knife, give detail to the edge of your pie. Bake at 220C for 25 minutes until the pie is crispy and golden.

I serve the pie hot with a seasonal green salad made up of whatever seasonal greens are available - but always try to include avocado and slices of granny smith apples. You don’t need a dressing, just a squeeze or two of some fresh lemon juice gives it that extra kick and keeps the avo and apple from going brown.

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Springbok neck potjie with dumplings
There is something macabre about eating your National Symbol but the wild game flavour is worth it. If you can’t get springbok, or game is not your cup of tea, you can always replace with lamb neck and if you don’t have a potjie pot (a.k.a a Dutch oven), you can use a heavy pot with a good tight fitting lid.

Generally, Potjie is cooked in the great outdoors over a slow fire, but in winter I cook inside next to my fireplace. Potjie pots aren't fussy pots, so you can even use charcoal. Once the pot is heated up, and because the pot is made from cast iron, it generally needs just the occasional log or coal to keep it on the go. Generally, cooking on a potjie pot is slow cooking – when you’re totally familiar with your pot - you'll begin to recognise that the potjie pot whisper is a sure sign of good food on the way.

1.5 kg springbok neck cut into sections
enough cake flour to dust the springbok
good dollop of olive oil
1 onion roughly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, roughly sliced
2 teaspoons salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
sprig of fresh rosemary
250ml (1 cup) good red wine (warmed up)
250ml (1 cup) meat stock (warm)
2 leeks cut into thin rounds
2 carrots cut into rounds
half a butternut cut into chunks

Coat the springbok in flour and brown in the oil in the bottom of your potjie pot. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onion is translucent. Add salt, black pepper, rosemary and to the meat, garlic and onions, give it a good stir, then put on the lid and simmer on gentle heat for 2 ½ to 3 hours until the meat is tender. This is very important: the dish must simmer (I call it the potjie pot whisper). If you boil the meat rapidly, chances are the meat will turn tough and taste like leather so please gentle heat. Next, layer the leeks, carrots and butternut on the meat (don't stir) and cook for a further 20 minutes. Now make the dumplings (and the doughboy).

To make the Dumplings (and the doughboy):
100 grams of butter
500 grams cake flour
2 t baking powder
grated pecorino cheese
1 t salt
about a cup of cold water

Sift the baking powder, salt and flour together. Add pecorino cheese, then rub in the butter with your finger tips, then gradually add cold water until you have soft dough. Break off small pieces of dough (about half the size of an egg) and place in the pot in the gravy. To make the doughboy, roll out a piece of dough and cut out a ginger bread man and place in the pot. Put the lid on and cook for a further 20 mintues. Ps. Don’t peak or the dumplings will flop.

Serve with a good glass of red wine.

Fact:
In case you didn’t know. The potjie pot is the most widely used pot in Africa. Introduced more than 200 years ago by the Dutch, it has become a pillar of African cuisine and is used to make everything from stews to bread to 'Umqombuthu' (African beer). I have a collection of pots in various sizes although the biggest does the most duty because generally, potjie pot food is slow food and best shared with good friends.

Tip:
If you can't cook on a fire, you can use a stove on low heat, but it's not the most energy efficient way of cooking (and just won't taste the same).