Month: July 2016

Moroccan lamb kebabs with flatbread

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For us, Sundays are typically lazy days – having a little lie-in, then getting up and enjoying a cup of coffee on the patio and finally contemplating what we would like to do for the day.

In the summer that mostly involves pottering around the garden, taking a dip and in the pool and then going out for a lunch at one of the many beautiful wine farms that surround Somerset West and Stellenbosch – so lucky to live here in the Cape Winelands!

However, in the winter it is a different story (apart from the lie-in, of course).  Winter times we have coffee in bed (or otherwise dressed like an Eskimo on the couch, under a blanket) and it inevitably involves some type of comfort food for lunch!  But, when the sun is out – like today – our lunchtime plans turns into a hunt for how we can maximize the sun spots around the garden.

So instead of being indoors today, you will find us sitting on the patio, in the sun, having a little grill while watching Formula 1!  (Yip, I’m a huge fan.  Funny story – in high school I really liked a boy who really liked Formula 1.  So, in order to make the requisite impression I immediately started watching the races… And while the crush didn’t last, my love for Formula 1 never went away!)

On the menu today is a firm favourite of hubby and mine – Moroccan lamb kebabs with flatbreads.  What I really like about this dish (apart from its wonderfully aromatic Moroccan flavours) is that is really great to serve if you have a few friends over.  You can prepare everything beforehand and then just sit and enjoy your time with them around the grill.  I also like that we keep the dishing up interactive – we lay all the components of the dish out on the table – and then everyone can help themselves and put their flatbreads together with the combinations that they prefer.  Some want a bit more chili, others a bit more yogurt… Really sociable!

Lastly, I have to confess – depending on how the mood takes me, I might take the time to make my own flatbreads and on other days (like today!) I will just buy them.  I could not be bothered to spend any more time indoors than what I absolutely need to today!  However, if you are feeling up to it, I’ve included my very easy flatbread recipe below.

Moroccan lamb kebabs with flatbread

(serves  2)

Ingredients:

For the lamb kebabs:

400g lamb, cut in cubes

1 red onion, cut in pieces

 

For the marinade:

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cm ginger, freshly grated

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 pinch cumin

2 pinches dried chili flakes

For the yogurt sauce:

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped

250g plain, natural yogurt

1 tablespoon lemon zest

Salt & white pepper to taste

To serve:

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 lemon, cut into quarters

Handful of coriander

4 flatbreads

(Tip:  If using wooden skewers to make your kebabs, soak them in water for 10 minutes to prevent them from burning.)

Method:

  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl.
  2. Add the lamb cubes to the marinade and mix well, ensuring the meat is nicely coated.
  3. Next, thread the meat on to the wooden skewers – alternating a cube of lamb and a slice of red onion.
  4. For the yogurt sauce, mix all ingredients in a bowl and place in the fridge.
  5. Heat the grill until it is nice and hot.  Grill the skewers on all sides for about 7 minutes (depending on the size of your lamb cubes).
  6. Heat your flatbreads in a pan.
  7. To serve, take the meat off the skewers and place in a large serving dish.
  8. Add your lemon and the flatbreads
  9. Serve with the chopped tomato, coriander and yogurt sauce
  10. Fill your own flatbread and enjoy!

Easy flatbread

Ingredients:

115g white flour

25g wholemeal flour

pinch of salt

Method:

  1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
  2. Make a well in the middle of the flour and gradually add 100 ml of lukewarm water to the middle, adding flour in from the sides.
  3. Knead the dough until it is firm and springy – add a bit more water/flour if needed to get the right consistency.
  4. Divide your dough into small round balls (you should get about 10/12 out).
  5. Place on a floured tray and cover with a damp cloth.  Leave for 45 minutes.
  6. Once ready to cook, roll each ball of dough into a thin, wide circle.
  7. Dust them with flour and keep them covered with a damp cloth to prevent them from drying out.
  8. Heat up a flat pan and place your flatbread in the dry pan.  Turn them over to the other side when they begin to go brown and bubble.
  9. Once done, I keep them in a plate with a damp cloth to prevent them from going too crispy.

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PS:  So at the time of writing this on Sunday morning, we were filled with joy at the prospect of a beautiful sunny day.  Mother Nature had other plans – the sun never made an appearance!  So this dish was prepared on a griddle pan on the stove, and enjoyed in front of the fireplace!

Reflection on the world today

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This morning when I woke up it was with much sadness that I read about the attack that happened in Nice, France, where a truck drove into a crowd of people, killing over 80.

What was even sadder is that every day around the world people are killed in so many senseless acts of violence.  Syria, Baghdad, Orlando, Paris… – those are just some of the more known ones.  But there is also the woman who gets raped and killed while out jogging, or the man robbed and shot dead, while waiting for a train.  And sometimes it feels to me that as a world we have become so desensitised to this; it’s only the latest event that makes the headlines for a day or so and then we move on… So much suffering because of  race, religion, sexual preference… because of evil.

I believe Mother Theresa said “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

There ARE more good in this world than evil.  There are more of us that believe it the value of respecting one another; of allowing our fellow human beings to live in peace in this world.  It is not whether your religion is Christianity or Islam that counts… or if you love a woman or a man… it’s not a black or white life that matters… all innocent lives matter.  Let us respect that; let us live that value – and even if alone we can’t change the world, we can pray that by doing this we will lead by example and that we will leave a better and more peaceful, respectful world for our children and those to come after us.

I leave you with a song from a Just Jinjer, a South African band.  It was written a couple of years ago but as relevant today as it was then.  On my way to work this morning I could not help but think of the first few lines…

if there is grace in this world
if there is light on this earth
let us use it
let us see it
starting right now

can we be down with ourselves
respectful and mindful of one, of one another
your significant other
your sister, your brother

peace, love, more tolerance
faith, hope, trust in the same name of god

peace, love, more tolerance
faith, hope, trust in the same god in whose
name we die for, take an innocent life for
that’s not what he means
and it doesn’t matter what book you read

It’s called “What he means” – and it’s worth listening to it here.

Let us not just pray for Nice today…

let us pray for the world.

Steak tartare with pommes frites

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Beautiful Narbonne, where I had my first ever steak tartare

I was still small when I discovered that I did not mind rare (raw!) meat.  I remember when my mom used to buy our meat from the butcher at month-end… A Friday afternoon would be spent packing the meat, sausages and ground beef into portions and packing it into the freezer.  I always tried to sneak a pinch of the ground beef.  I loved the taste of it, but always felt very naughty doing so.  My folks would not ever consider having a steak that was not super well done, so what demented child was I, eating raw meat like that?!  As I got older, much to my relief I came to realise that some people did actually prefer their steaks cooked medium or even medium rare and when I saw beef carpaccio on a menu for the first time I knew that I was fine!

The first time I heard of steak tartare was on my favourite cooking/travel show of all time – Rick Stein’s French Odyssey.  According to him it was a very fashionable dish in France in the sixties and it seemed to have made a comeback in recent years.  In the program he told a story of how, when he’d order it, French waiters would always pull up their noses at him and say indignantly “You know that it is raw, sir!”.  He was delighted by the fact that an Englishman could prove them wrong and eat it without even batting an eyelid.  On the show, when he made it, I was sure that I would love it and therefore when we visited France last year I made sure that I searched it out on the menus!  We found it in a little brasserie in the south west of France in a small city by the name of Narbonne and it was everything I hoped it would be – the meat full of flavour, blended beautifully with the addition of the tangy capers and gherkins, and the egg yolk giving a velvety feel to it all.

So when Frexit hit me last week, I thought back to this must-have dish and hubby and I decided to give it a try and make it ourselves, using Rick Stein’s recipe.  I was so chuffed!  It turned out beautifully and tasted exactly like the dish we had.  (What was different though, is that the restaurant where I had it, served the rest of the ingredients separately from the meat – so that you could add your own quantity of ‘toppings’ to each little bite of beautiful beef.  I must be honest, I actually prefer the way we made it in the recipe below – all mixed together.)

If you are not an adventurous eater this will not be a dish that appeals to you.  But if you wonder about it – try it!  You will not be disappointed!  (You can also start slowly – take that pinch of ground beef sometime!)

Steak tartare with pommes frites

(serves 2)

Ingredients:

300g tail end of beef fillet, straight from the fridge

1 tablespoon capers, finely chopped

2 shallots, fine chopped

2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 gherkin, finely chopped

½ teaspoon sea salt flakes

10 grinds of black pepper

2 medium egg yolks

(Rick Stein added 3 dashes of tabasco sauce to his dish, be we did not.  We served it with tabasco on the side.)

Method:

  1. Trim the meat of all fat and sinew and chop finely by hand.
  2. Put the meat into a bowl with the capers, shallots, parsley, oil, gherkin, salt and pepper.
  3. Mix together lightly two forks and then spoon into the centre of two plates and shape into a neatish round. (We used little round metal moulds to get a nice shape to ours.)
  4. Make a small indent in the top and then gently add an egg yolk to each.
  5. Serve with some pommes frites (good old French fries, if you are not trying to sound fancy!)

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