This recipe for what I’ve decided to call liver patties caused some consternation amongst my English family and friends. In Afrikaans these patties of minced liver, grated onion and a few other things are called ‘lewerkoekies’. They’re as quintessentially South African as a recipe can be. I hadn’t given these morsels any thought for a couple of decades because, to [...]
Polpette – that’s what the Italians call small meatballs. Now you could say ‘small meatballs’ when you serve this up, but it’s a lot more fun to give it your best Italian inflection and shout ‘polpette’! Recipes for polpette are legion, with each Italian nonna or mamma giving it her own special twist. Some add herbs, some garlic, some chilli, [...]
Salsa verde, or as the French call it sauce verte, sounds very fancy. It is. But in a good way – fancy on the tongue, easy on the prep. Because salsa verde or sauce vert simply means a green sauce. Recipes differ wildly, but they all have one thing in common – loads of fresh herbs. To give backbone to [...]
The humble chicken is revered in Mexico. Not ever having been there, I didn’t really know this. Until I did some research recently for a job involving, well chicken. It’s massively popular street food over there with gigantic street barbeques laden with whole chickens in double-digit numbers dotted about the place. The Mexicans call it Pollo Asado. Recipes differ wildly [...]
Pulled pork – it sounds a bit fancy, exotic even, and hard to make. It’s not, on all counts. Because what could be simpler than roasting a piece of pork real low and slow until the meat is so soft it can be pulled intro strands with two forks? That really is basically it folks. Pulled pork is quintessential American [...]
Green bean bredie – of course one has to call it a bredie, for nothing this soul satisfying could possibly be called a mere stew. What makes this a true South African bredie? The addition of marvellous old-fashioned boerekos spices along with liberal lashings of lard. This is gran’s green bean bredie recipe, but I’ve given it a modern twist. [...]