A ONCE-OFF CHICKEN SOUP (CHESTNUT STUFFING PART 3)

A humble and rustic chicken soup. There by the grace of a few chestnuts we stumbled upon.                                   Mans

“They (soups) tend to be an omnium gatherum of what’s to hand and you must be in a pretty bad way if you have not the materials for some kind of soup”

                                                                                    Martin Versfeld – 'Food for thought'

The chestnut stuffing might be long gone, but the stripped skeletal vessel that once flavored and contained it is still parking off in my fridge. It’s ready for its ‘swan song’ or should I say its ‘chicken song’. Together with the saved appendage bones, it'll flavor todays lunch.

Isn't that pretty?                                                                                      Mans

Never throw your Parmigiano rinds away. They're perfect for soups.  Mans

I’m talking about soup, a humble and rustic soup. A soup that’ll take care of those neglected leftovers in the fridge. The type of soup that a peasant family might gather around. One that’ll leave you feeling virtuous, when all that's left is a bowl of sucked and chewed bone debris: a clear conscience that nothing has gone to waste and a satisfied belly.

'That'll do.'                                                               Mans

I’m not going to give you a recipe, because there is no recipe. Soups like these should be informal, and anyway I can’t really remember what went into this one. All I know is that if you've got bones, onion, carrots, celery and a few herbs, you are well on the way.

“When I say that the soup-pot is a good place for scraps and left-overs, I do not mean to equate it with the dirt-bin. A soup requires some sense of composition. A cook is fairly judged by his soup.”

                                                                                       Martin Versfeld – 'Food for thought'

CHICKEN MAYO SANDWICH (CHESTNUT STUFFING PART 2)

A Chicken Mayo Sambo, a left-over roast classic.                                                                                                              Mans

My last blog featured a chestnut  stuffing that was crammed into the cavity of a roast ‘chook’. That night, not all the chicken was chomped, but I can’t say the same for the stuffing. For the whole of the following morning I had chicken mayo sambos on the brain. Without doubt, that was going to be my lunch: chunks of remaining chicken, stripped from the carcass, squashed between bread, oozing with thick, creamy, homemade mayonnaise and a few garden greens to boot. What more can a city dweller want in the lunch department? Never chuck the carcass away, keep it along with the remaining chicken for a soup. Watch this space...

That's the wrist action I'm talking about.                                             Mans

On the day, the mayo recipe went something like this.

Yip, nice and thick                         Mans

WOT YOU NEED

The yolk of an egg

Peanut oil, about 60ml (any neutral tasting oil will do)

A ½ tsp of English mustard

A generous squeeze of lemon (without the pips)

Salt

Very rapid wrist action

WOT TO DO

Separate the yolk of an egg and slip it into a round-bottomed mixing bowl (keep the white for tomorrow's brekki omelette). Add the mustard and a pinch of salt. Now for the fun and challenging part: slowly dribble in the oil, while frantically whisking until thick. Squeeze in the lemon to your taste (I like mine a bit tangy). 

A perfect lunch for we busy urbanites                                                                                                                                       Mans

CHESTNUT STUFFING

It all looks a bit 'Christmessy' to me                                                                                                                                           Mans

A friend and I were running, (actually more like walking) through the forest. I was keeping half an eye out for the first mushrooms of the season, when we stumbled upon a bunch of chestnuts littered about the forest floor forming an uncomfortable carpet. There they were, some poking through slits of browning green spikes, some still were firmly trapped in their prickly pods... and then there were those just lying about waiting to be collected and cradled in a makeshift shirt pouch that exposed the spreading bellies of forest walkers, rather than forest runners.

Pick me if you dare                                           Mans

I thought that a chestnut blog would be apt, so as usual I leaned on ‘The Mighty Mans’ to come and take a few pics. So off we merrily trotted armed with a camera, a pair of tongs and a large collection basket to go and schnab a heap of the little brown nuggets. But, oh dear me, virtually all the hundreds of spiky pods were empty. Clearly, this hunter-gathering thing is fiercely competitive, but I guess it has always been that way. On the way back to the car we did schpickel (spy) a couple of mushrooms (Bay Boletus). We arrived back home with two mushrooms and a scattering of chestnuts rolling around rather forlornly in our big basket. These slender pickings would be just right for a stuffing. What a delicious stuffing it turned out to be.

WOT YOU NEED FOR THIS ONCE OFF CHESTNUT STUFFING

A disappointing amount of chestnuts

Two lucky mushrooms

A gifted Karroo quince

A boring slice of bread

An onion

Some bacon

A large sprig of garden thyme

A generous knob of butter

Salt and pepper

WOT TO DO

With a sharp pointy knife punch a cross in each chestnut and boil them for about 10 minutes. Remove their annoying shells and in doing so probably cause a minor injury to a fingernail or two. Chop all the above ingredients up and toss into a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper and give it a good mix. Now stuff the mix into the cavity of the chicken. Pop into the oven and roast as you would normally would. Chomp and enjoy.

Lets face it, everyone can do with a jolly good stuffing from time to time                                                                     Mans

AIMING FOR A SUSTAINABLE KITCHEN

The Urban Hunter Gatherer on the road for the first time.                  Mans

My mate Andrew is a partner in a company called icology. These blokes try to shift the mindset of large corporations and their employees, encouraging them to operate more sustainably. Icology believe that businesses can have a significant influence on our urban population’s attitude towards their environment.

You can grow sprouts in any kitchen                                               Mans

Anyhoo, Andrew asked if I would do a cooking demo at Old Mutual as part of an environmental awareness campaign. After much pondering I decided to do what do I at home: try to cook healthy food in a way that has a low impact on our environment.

Coz it was a corporate, I even wore a collared shirt                    Mans

Most days, just about everybody makes a little something in their kitchen, so through cooking you can appeal to loads of people. This was a great opportunity.

I dare you to implement a 'Plant Food Cycle' in your kitchen?                                                                              Mans

To set up the stand I poached half the stuff from my own kitchen and slapped a few chalkboards together from bits of my old gate that had been cluttering up my front porch for yonks (a long time). On one of the boards I drew a ‘Plant Food Cycle’ that one could on some level apply to all kitchens. The aim of our stand was to demonstrate this cycle, while being energy and water efficient at the same time.

It was scary cooking curry for my new Indian friend, Harry

As I cooked, all the veg trimmings were thrown into the Worm Farm or Bokashi Kit; even the receptacles that the food was served in ended up as worm lunch. The washing up water was poured into a watering can and used to water the nearby plants and the potted herbs I had borrowed from my garden. In the end, I took virtually no waste away with me.

As it turned out, Andrew sent a flurry of cooking demos my way in the course of a week, which included two days at Allan Gray and a day at The Airports Company of South Africa.

Now that the craziness of the demos is over and my kitchen is back to normal, I will continue to try to be as true as possible to ‘The Plant Food Cycle’.

A worm farm and a wonder bag are two essentials in todays kitchens   Me

I would like to say thanks to me mate Dave for the loan of his homemade solar cooker, to Snappy Chef for sponsoring a safe and energy efficient induction cooker (http://www.snappychef.co.za), to Starke Ayres, who kindly gave me a Bokashi Kit and a Worm Farm to experiment with (http://www.starkeayresgc.co.za), to Ian Ian and Laura for their support when I started wheel spinning, Mans for his pics and finally to all our fellow exhibitors for their company and enthusiasm. It was a blast.

What we chomped          Me

Asian Salad served with a peanut butter dressing in cabbage leaves  Mans

'Passion Cups' with homemade yoghurt, honey and mint.              Mans

NO FUSS FIGS - THE VIDEO

Figs, the sexy fruit.                                                                                                                                    Mans

A few weeks ago I posted a little storey of a very simple desert called ‘No Fuss Figs’. I explained that I wanted to complete our little figgy circle and make a yummy something out of the two different fruits that our tree produces during a summer season.

I have posted both the figgy videos – The fist video, ‘Green Fig Preserve’ woz made in early summer. These first season’s fruits never ripen and are no good for chomping from the tree, but they are the splendid little fellows that are brilliant for jams and especially for ‘Green Fig Preserve’, so check out the video if you haven’t already done so.

The second video is a very simple and spontaneous dessert. ‘No Fuss Figs’ is made from the same fig tree’s late summers second fruit of the season. Especially check out this video, coz it’z hot off Southeaster Media’s edit suite.

Thanks for both videos Lucy.

INSTANT NOODLES WITH AN EGG

Not bad for a two minute meal? I chopped some chives in, coz I have plenty & you can't go wrong with them & eggs  Me

Like the noodles themselves, this is an instant blog.

City living can be so hectic (like mine is right now) that when your hungry is hanging out, you only have time to slap some bread into the toaster or make a basic sandwich. Here is another option, which takes the same amount of time.

Follow the instructions on the packet of instant noodles. If you are like me and dig a soft egg, when they are close to ready, break an egg into the middle. Obviously if you don’t dig soft, break your egg in sooner. You can also do that ‘Asian stringy eggy thingy’, where you scramble the egg into the broth, which is rather fun. Oh, while we are on the Asian theme, why not splash in some soy sauce too.

OUR GARDEN SNAILS

When I tell people that Escargot are our Garden Snails, they tell me I'm talking rubbish                   Mans

When you think of escargot, you think of fancy pansy French cuisine, but all they really are, are our common snails that chomp our flowers, herbs and veggies.

I quote from ‘Our Best Traditional Recipes’, by Vida Heard & Lesley Faull. “Our garden snail is said to have arrived in the Cape in 1854 when the French consul at Cape Town imported a barrel of live snails for his table. Some escaped, hence the plague of Helix Aspersa in our gardens.”     

An snail orgy photo taken on a very fast shutter speed                                                                                           Mans          

It makes sense that we should chomp the naughty little buggers that chomp our chomp, and this is what I set out to do. After many goes and a jolly long time, I feel that I’m finally on the right snail trail; then again anything to do with snails shouldn’t happen quickly.      

   

Snails like showers too   Mans

They also like chomp & drink  Mans

Firstly you’ve got to collect a bunch of them. This is the easiest part, coz anybody with a garden will tell you that they have got heaps of them, so if you don’t have a garden, ask somebody who does. OK, now that you’ve got them, you need purge them by cleaning out their systems, just in case they have any toxins lurking within, from pesticides or poisoness plants. I’ve heard the best food for this is wheat germ, coz just like us, it cleans out their systems quick kwik (I used flour). Oh, you need give them plenty of water, coz this ‘makes them go’, which helps the purging process, you know wot I mean? I also give mine a good shower once a day. I have made a little box, known by some of my vegetarian friends as ‘The Death Camp’; It’s got a mesh floor to make cleaning them easier. After about a week in 'The Death Camp', they are ready for chomping and so begins another sloooooooow process., but first you have got to do the nasty deed.

Lets face it, it's not pretty       Mans

For this horrible part, I have to adopt ‘the mean kid’ persona and pop them into a bowl and chuck plenty of salt over them. They froth and bubble away, which lets face it, is all rather ugly to watch, unless of course, you're a mean kid. All that foaming does seems to help to get rid of a whole spittoon of slime. IT IS NOT PRETTY. When they are no longer alive, I blanche them very quickly in boiling water, pluck each one out of their shell with a toothpick and cut their guts off. I clean the little orbs, to get rid of their slime, which is again a labouriously sloooooooow - then again, we're dealing with snails.

Once all the little nuggets have snot got anymore mucous, I tenderize them overnight. In this blogs case, I used my breakfast ingredients of yoghurt and the pips and skin of a papaya. Obviously I ate the good part. Finally I took them out of my improvised concoction, cleaned them, patted them dry and quickly, I mean kwikly fried them in garlic butter, then served them on corstini garnished with finely chopped fresh garden parsley. Parsley that hadn't already been gobbled by my lunch.

Breakfast and tenderizer                                                                         Me

They were BLOODY GOOD actually                                                 Mans