SHROOMS MAN

How Brilliant & Organic is That ?                                                                                                                                      Charlie

There is nothing quite like a shroom, where else do you get such earthiness? Ok, maybe a truffle, but they’re generally not ‘a volleyball’ to an ordinary bloke like me. About a year ago my old mate Ross introduced me to mushroom foraging and as a result I have eaten heaps of the beauties. I’ve also tried a bunch of recipes, all of which have made me puff out my chest with pride and delight. ‘Then again you would have to try rather hard to make them anything but delicioso’, said I, with my chest deflating ever so slightly.

The King Of Shrooms Drying                                         Mans

Each mushy has it’s own character and needs to be treated slightly differently. The robust Pine Ring is one of my faves, you’ll need to cook them a bit longer than most, remember to chop the stalks up fine, coz they can be tough (or use them to make a mushy stock). Pickled Pine Rings preserved in olive oil make an impressive homemade antipasti. Then there’s ‘The King of All Mushrooms’, The Porcini/Cep/Penny Bun/Boletus Edulis, whatever you call them, they’re magnificent. I think they are best dried, coz that’s when that umami taste really intensifies (now look at what you all have made me do, I’m drooling, dammit). The Porcini’s are
easy to dry and will last right though til the next season. They are your kitchen’s trump card, ready to be rehydrated with white wine or water and popped into just about any dish, or you can simply try ‘mushing’ them up and use as seasoning. The mind boggles at the possibilities. Just make sure that you pick the right ones, coz the mind might boggle in a way you don’t want it to, or not… On a serious note, please take care coz, there are some real nasty’s lurking in the woods, so nasty that the tables could turn on you and YOU could end up as mushroom food. IF YOU DON’T KNOW WOT IT ITZ, DON’T EAT IT.

Thanks for the guidance Ross.

The Orignal Hunter Gatherer, The Ross Man                                       Charlie

THE MIGHTY SPRINGBOK

Stef cranking the machine                                                                                                                                       Charlie

I’m basically one huge fake. I go by the name of The Urban Hunter Gather, but I’m yet to hunt anything. I’m not a massive meat eater. On a day-to-day basis I hardly ever cook meat, but on an occasion, I enjoy cooking and eating it. “I know, I know”, this is gonna sound like a cliché, but I’m one of those ous (dudes), who believes if you chomp meat, you should be prepared to’ finish off’ the living thing. I’ve done a fair amount of fishing, plenty of crayfishing, mussel picking and sporadically, I harvest and cook snails, but never have I hunted with a gun. I have to say, anything to do with guns scares me; they just don’t sit well with me. My friend Alec, on the other hand, is the opposite of me. He is a vegetarian who loves guns and digs to hunt. A few weekends ago he arrived at my spot with two skinned and gutted springbok carcasses. I hung them up outside that night. I had gruesome dreams and when I opened the curtains in the morning, there the scene of violence was staring at me again, they had to be processed and soon. My mates Ian Ian (yes, two Ian’s) and Alec came to my rescue. I wanted to photograph the process and do some educational butchering, but by the time I could set up the camera, our resident vegetarian, with a faraway look in his eyes and a knife in his hands, had just about finished the job. Ian Ian was equally as enthusiastic in the butchering department and as unaccommodating in the patience department. So there we were on a rainy Sunday, butchering, mincing, and making a giant pot a venison stock on the wood-burning stove. Within a few hours this violent scene was packaged away in the freezer and there were a few more empty bottles of red wine in the recycling bin.

Ready for laughing gear treatment                                  Mans

I think burgers are a fine way to deal with dry cuts of venison. So, Stef, my chef mate, from down the road and I hosted a burger evening, to celebrate the conclusion of Anna and my ‘worm race’ epic (that’s a storey for another day). The burgers turned out to be mighty fine. Now, it’s no secret that burgers enjoy the company of a pickle and that red meat loves bonding with hot mustard. It just so happened, that my friend Glenn kindly gave me a bottle of agave buds which he collected and pickled (awesomely yum). Seeing as the agave buds and the springbok came from the same part of the Karoo, there was no contest which pickle went into the burgers. There was also no contest which salad leaf made it into Mr. Burger, coz Alec gifted me a bunch of mustardy mustard lettuce.

THANKS DUDES, FOR ALL THE SUPPORT, GIFTS AND ENTHUSIASM.

LEMONADE

 

My Retro Juicer. It's brilliant.                                                                                                                                                     Mans

So the plan was, that I followed up my Limoncello blog with lemonade one, but I was ‘the opposite of rudely interrupted’, by a little outing to the Seychelles, which I felt I had to capitalise on blogwise, which brings me to this belated lemonade blog.  Now all 11 of you, who read the limoncello blog, know that only the peal of the lemons are used, so there are no prizes for guessing, that a good use for the rest of the lemons, is to make lemonade.

Ready for juicing                                                               mans

A simpler recipe, you’ll struggle to find. 

Pop a jug of homemade lemonade on your dinner party table and it’ll go down a treat, coz nowadays people love that kinda shit. In a pot, throw in the juice of your lemons, together with an equal amount water and sugar. Example - 1 cup lemon juice, 1cup water and 1 cup sugar. Heat the mixture up and stir until the sugar has dissolved, simmer for a minute or two and there you have your lemon cordial. Simple az zat…

I threw some of the concentrate into an ice cream machine and a rather good lemon sorbet was the result.

CREME CARAMEL

Mrs Vanilla Cow getting the good stuff out,  Island Style                                                                                Monique Mrazek

I recently spent a week in the Seychelles. Shoo man! All those hibiscuses, frangipanis and colourful plants that I don’t know the names of, make everything so vibrant and happy happy. The locals are friendly and the beaches are beyond amazing. But you know me, the first gap I got, I was off to local market, which was all about the fruit, fish and spices. Now, in your baggage, fruit gets squishy and fish gets smelly, so it was spices that made the trip back home with me. Those little reused airplane spirit bottles, on which vanilla essence was scribbled in cokey pen, were my favourite. I know, I know, ‘us snobs’ should use extract not essence, but let me tell you those bottles are a fifth of the price that Woolies charge for their extract and a zillion times more velvety, luxurious and intoxicating. Anyway, wotz the diffs between the two? All I know is that I had to do this essence justice, so I made the classic and most genius of desserts, a ‘crème caramel’. It’s classic, coz it’s looks so stylish and tastes so adult (with that touch of bitterness). It’s genius, coz it’s jolly clever how the caramelised lining of the dish dissolves and allows the pud to slide out when you do the flamboyant flip, but wot makes it most clever is it only needs four everyday ingredients.

MUM’S CLASSIC DINNER PARTY CRÈME CARAMEL

Market                                                            Charlie

Caramel
220g - white sugar
4 – tablespoon water
Heat sugar in the cold water over fairly low heat. Stir till sugar has dissolved. Allow to boil without stirring till golden brown. Remove from heat and stir well. Pour into mould, twisting mould to coat bottom and sides.
Custard 
4 - large eggs, 500ml – milk
225g – sugar 1 good dash – vanilla essence/extract


Lightly beat eggs and sugar. Warm milk, but don’t boil. Add vanilla essence and whisk into eggs. Pour into mould. Bake in a bain marie for about 40mins at 180°C. Leave to cool before doing your flamboyant flip onto a plate with a lip high enough to catch the scrummy golden syrup.

The Dessert Trolley Classic                                                                                                                                               Mans

Limoncello

                  Wash the Lemons and Bottles                 Mans

So, you have made your marmalade, but your lemons are still ‘hanging’, weighing ‘that naughty branch’ down so much that you knock your noggin every time you walk past. Surely, it’s time to lighten its load and make limoncello. The first mission is to get 90% alcohol proof from you local pharmacy. My local pharmacist broke into a huge smile when I told him I was making Limoncello and proudly told me he makes his own kosher wine. Clearly I have found the right supplier. Like many things to do with food and beverages, the longer you wait the better it turns out, so start your limoncello process now (july), so not only will you be able to walk underneath ‘that branch’ without causing damage to your pip, but by the time Christmas comes, you’ll have cool prezzies to give your adult friends.

Thin strips of peel          Mans

Wot you need

Sugar

Water

A 4l jar with a tight seal

Muslim cloth and a sieve

750ml vodka

750ml 90% proof alcohol (ignore your pharmacist when he says, ‘don’t drink it’)

About 18 lemons

750ml water

4 cups of sugar

Enough charming and funky bottles for the finished product

Wot to Do

Choose lemons with good skins and give them a wash. Peel them into long strips with as little pith a possible, pop them into your airtight jar with both alcohols and store in a cool dark place. Every couple of weeks give it stir. After a few months try ‘the peel snap test’. If the peel snaps them you can move onto making your syrup. Add the water and sugar and boil for about 5 mins and cool. while the syrup is cooling remove the peels from the alcohol and filter the alcohol through a wet cloth (muslim). Add the cooled syrup to the alcohol and pour it back into the airtight jar and store for another couple of months. Finally, pour into sterilised bottles.

When you pull out a bottle of homemade linocello after dinner, and everybody tells you how cleaver you are to have made it, it’s jolly hard not to feel rather pleased with yourself. 

                            Limoncello an after dinner winner                              Mans