A visit to the Asian grocery store in Milnerton’s China Town inspired me to try and cook an authentic Chinese Red Cooked Beef dish for date night. We do not eat Chinese food that often – the American Chinese versions of chow mein and chop suey that you get in most Chinese restaurants here does not appeal to us. As is often the case, if you want to get close to any authentic ethnic cuisine you have to cook it yourself.
I decided to cook Moroccan food for date night last week as my preserved lemons were a month old and finally ready to use. I love Paul Wolfert’s recipes so decided to make her Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives for our Moroccan date night.
This is a classic traditional Moroccan tagine recipe. I won’t call my effort a tagine though as I did not cook it in a tagine pot. Every time I pass Le Creuset I want to buy one but then I hear the “but how often will you use it” voice in my head.
Winter has finally arrived in Cape Town and I wanted to make some comfort food for this week’s date night.
Few things say comfort food more than a slow cooked stew, so I decided to make a Moroccan lamb tagine.
Got some kudu neck from a friend of mine and decided to make a potjie with a bit of a Moroccan slant to it.
We recently had the in-laws over for an 8 course Italian style dinner to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. I originally wanted to cook Braciole (a type of roulade) as a main course. I made Braciole 3 Ways (with 3 different fillings) last year and it was delicious. Adrienne really wanted to braai. We compromised and went for a South African/Italian style fusion dish by cooking a rump steak with a braciole style filling over the coals.
We have not had proper Mexican food in ages. Most “Mexican” restaurants around here is decidedly more Tex Mex – load of tacos and chilli poppers but sadly not a Mole or Recado Rojo sauce in sight. Not that we don’t enjoy Tex Mex occasionally but it doesn’t come close to the real deal. I made Chicken Mole Poblano and Adrienne made Achiote Chicken and Ancho Pork a while back. Since then our Ancho (dried Poblano) and Guajillo (dried MIrasol) chillies have been sitting in the back of the food cupboard. To make up for this travesty I decided to make 3 main dishes for our Mexican date night.
Adrienne got gammon for a really good price last week and we thought why not make homemade pork sausages ? (more…)
Feeling nostalgic for our Bali holiday so long ago I decided on an
Indonesian menu for this week’s date night. (more…)
I got a blue wildebeest fillet from a friend and decided to make carpaccio as a starter and a main course prepared 3 different ways.
Feeling like Italian food and experimenting with my molecular
gastronomy kit on date night I decided to make a very simple Italian menu with some Heston Blumenthal wonders thrown in for the wow factor. (more…)