Tarragon Chicken

This is an easy one! The chicken prep itself will not be more than 5 minutes! Depending what you are serving with it will really be where you will spend time in the kitchen!

I made great spaghetti that I would like to share with you, I almost feel it deserves a blog on its own but here goes.

Firstly pre-heat your oven (200C) and start preparing the vegetables that you would like to roast with your chicken. I chose; carrots, sweet potato, new baby potatoes and celery all roughly chopped and added to the roasting dish. The chicken is just to be washed thoroughly and excess fats and skin cut and whatever other pieces you might not enjoy.

Rub the chicken with olive oil and rub in some Maldon sea salt and sprinkle of Tarragon. Once your oven is hot slip your baking tray inside and bake for 25minutes , finally turn your oven to grill for another 10 minutes and you see the juices run clear from the chicken.

For the spaghetti

Cut up a medium size aubergine into cubes and add to a colander with a sprinkling of salt and let stand to draw out the bitterness. Just before you are ready to add them to the pan, rinse under cold water and drain of any excess water.

Gently fry one chopped onion, add a chopped yellow pepper and a large handful of roughly chopped small button mushrooms and cook for a couple of minutes. Push all of this to one side of the pan so that you can fry the aubergine. I use a non stick pan by the way and use just a very little olive oil especially since I am cooking aubergine and do not like it when the aubergine soaks up any excess oils.

Once the aubergine has browned a bit you can mix all together and add one grated carrot, a can of roma tomatoes, and table spoon of tomato paste and half a cup of water.  Season with salt, pepper, paprika, tsp sugar and fresh herbs like parsley, rosemary etc. Turn the heat down a little to simmer all together. You can add some more water to adjust the consistency if needed.

Prepare your pasta as per packet instructions, drain and rinse and return to the pot. Add your tomato mixture and stir through and heat further if needed.

So that is it from me. The salads are all bought I am afraid as I am not too well at the moment, so thank you to my Efi for looking after me and hopefully next Friday I am back to my old self!

Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom! 

A Ginger Beer Beef Stew!

Yes, you read the title correctly. On leaving our apartment early Friday morning, I quickly shouted out to Efi asking what he would like for Shabbos that evening and he requested a juicy stew that he can soak up the juices with plain white rice. I really had no idea what to make as cooking a stew is really not my strong point! A ran out the house to head for work and promised to give it some thought during the course of the day. Well as things go it suddenly dawned on me at approximately 15h30 in the afternoon I had no idea what I was to prepare in just hours from then. Jumped on the phone to my Aunt Lilla (a real traditional Afrikaans lady whom I consult with whenever in need) asking her for one of her many stew dishes.

Out she started from the top of her head naming the ingredients, giving me a few preparation tips and then the method of putting it all together and there she mentioned the Ginger Beer. A little surprised which I was sure she could sense she re-assuring told me to pour it over all the final ingredients and just to let it boil and that a can of ginger ale would also do the trick which she has had to resort to a number of times in the past however as her great grandmother used to make, it is always better with a home made Ginger Beer.

Ingredients:

400g Chuck/brisket Beef (washed and chopped into cubes)

1 cup of all purpose flour

1 onion chopped

garlic clove chopped

1 tomato chopped

green pepper chopped

1 ½ cups of peas

2 large carrots

6-7 baby potatoes peeled and cut in half

Seasoning – salt, pepper, mixed roasting herbs

1 ½ cup of home made Ginger Beer or Ginger Ale.

Add the flour and seasoning together to a zip lock bag large enough to incorporate the meat too. Give the bag a good toss so that the flour mixture covers all meat cubes.

Coat a non-stick pan with butter or olive oil and brown the meat on a high heat in small batches. Set aside.

Use the same pan to gently fry the onions and garlic, adding the rest of the vegetables. Add the meat on top and pour of the Ginger Beer, cover and let boil for approximately 30 minutes.

The sauce will thicken which can be adjusted by adding a little water. Taste and season if needed and serve with plain white rice.

Good Shabbos and Shabat Shalom!

A Shabbos dinner for 2

There is nothing I love more in this world than to spend Shabbos with my Efi! We sit down for dinner and the dining room table every night but Shabbos is just different. I cannot put my finger on it, I guess it’s the thought that we can linger longer over the dining room table enjoying good food and conversation without the thought that we need to get finished so that we can get on with the midweek chores.

This Shabbos was just a simple dinner but I believe from next week I will be back on track as m studies are officially done for the year from Monday and I will have a lot more time on my hands.

3 large chicken breasts

a mix of our favorite vegetables (I used butternut, carrots, celery, sweet potato, baby potatoes, onion, sweet peppers)

I loaded all the vegetables in my Le Creuset casserole dish, added some seasoning and a sprinkle of olive oil and with the lid on put it in a hot oven for approximately 15 mins. After washing the chicken, seasoned it with salt, pepper and sweet paprika, added on top of the vegetables and returned the dish to the oven with the lid off this time and grilled for a further 20 minutes (or until the chicken is cooked through but without being dry).

This was served with our usual Israeli salad, Tahini dressing, aubergine salad and Challah bread.

Shabbat Shalom! 

Matboucha

Efi’s mom, Batya, shared this recipe with me. I can eat this salad by the spoonful’s so I am very pleased that it is an easy recipe. The cooking time is long but the preparation takes no time at all!

1 kg soft tomatoes

2 whole garlic

2 whole chillies

2 red peppers

1 tbls paprika

1 tbls olive oil

salt

After washing the tomatoes make a cross slit at the bottom and add to a bowl with boiling kettle water. This helps to peel the tomatoes skin. When you see the corners start curling you can remove and just simply rub the skin off.

Chop roughly and add to pot and start cooking at a very high temperature and then lower the heat right down to a simmer. Do not cover the pot with a lid at anytime during cooking. Let the tomatoes cook for 1,5 hours till it’s almost as thick as jam (do not add any liquid during the cooking process).

Grill the red peppers over a flame till the skin is black and transfer quickly to cling film to sweat. Should you not have a gas stove (like me), grill the peppers till blackened.

Peel the skin and seeds from the pepper, chop roughly and add to tomato. Mix the paprika, salt and olive oil in a cup and add to the pot.  Cook for a further 1 hour.  After the cooking time there should be no excess liquid, if there is then extend the cooking time till there is no liquid and you are left with a thick jam like substance.

Cool and store in the refrigerator, it will keep for approximately 3 days.

Eat it with anything you heart desires, you will be lucky to have anything left in your fridge after the 3^rd day! 

Efi's Chicken Liver Pie

This past Shabbos was compliments of my love, Efi! Boy did he surprise me!!!

The ingredients you will need is as follows:
1 onion
500g Chicken Liver
1 roll of puff pastry
baharat Spice
fresh parsley
1/3 cup fresh mushroom soup
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Fry onions gently till soft, add the livers and cook very briefly so that it is still very pink inside. Add all seasoning and sir well. LEave aside to cool off. After cool, drain any blood. Line a baking tin with the puff pastry brushed with a beaten egg, both sides. Add your liver filling and pour over the chicken soup. Note: The chicken soup needs to be very thick.

Bake in oven for approximately 25 mins, the pastry must be a nice golden color.

Serve with a side of mushroom sauce or tahini dressing. I trust you will enjoy this meal just as much as I did! Cannot wait till Efi prepares this again! (hint hint if you are reading this).

Shabbat Shalom!

The Holiday Marathon!

Firstly I would like to thank you for hanging in there, it has certainly been a while since I last posted. But I do have a good excuse. The day after Yom Kippur, Efi and I flew to Israel for the Sukkot holidays, so I was off cooking duties, but that did not stop me from eating any less!!!

It was a rather spur of the moment break and was not planned well in advance, with just a month to book and plan everything. For me this was a great trip as I had never celebrated Sukkot before and had no idea what it was really all about and what better place to learn than in Israel itself!!! So what did I learn? Well there is a LOT of eating!! LOL which holiday is there not! But funny how Shabbos and first and last day of Sukkot fell so close to each other which resulted in a lot of cook meals with lots of friends and family. This is what I love about the Jewish faith is that these holidays brings everybody together.

Now I did not pick up any particular dishes that is served purposely to celebrate the Sukkot holiday but just very similar to the Shabbos dinner. What was great is all the different and many Sukkots that were erected for the holidays all over the country in peoples gardens at home, at restaurants and coffee shops and the very elegant one at the Kotel. 

Some beautifully decorated with lights, tinsel, hand made decorations from the children and fruit ornaments.

And then we witnessed and experienced the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit!! What celebrations!!!!!

We were also present for 2 births in the family and of friends, so really a great vacation with much celebrations!

So now we are back in Cape Town and I have been put back on cooking duties, but after every such vacation I have always a motivation to prepare new dishes I had experienced while in Israel.

However like many of you after cooking and cleaning after the holiday marathon, and then too getting back to work have very little energy to spend hours in the kitchen. Many of us have full time jobs, children - another full time job, however the children I do not have, but I am studying which I am very near at the end of my course and so I wondered how we do it we can prepare a spread on the dining room table without it looking like we have not put much work into it. This is how I felt this past Shabbos. Somewhat defeated after trying to catch up on lost work in the office, preparing my course assignments and still catching up on lost sleep from the travelling, but yet it was the first Shabbos back home, this is what I came up with...

Roast Chicken and vegetables in a flash!

This will barely take you 20 minutes to prepare the vegetables before it all goes in the oven and it is great as you can use which ever and what ever you have available in your kitchen.

1 whole chicken cleaned and washed well

5 small baby potatoes cut in half  with skin on

1 sweet potato cut up

2 small onions cut in wedges

3 carrots cut in big rings

2 Celery stalks chopped up

Seasoning of your choice

Arrange all the ingredients in your roasting dish and place in an oven heated to 200 C. Start roasting with the roasting dish lid on and remove after 20 minutes. Turn the grill up to 220 C and grill for a further 15 minutes.

While the oven was on I slipped in an Aubergine and some sliced butternut to roast.

This was all served with a tomato and cucumber salad and Tahini dressing.

And there you have a delicious spread for Shabbos with minimal effort when we all need to give ourselves and little bit of slack J

Shabbat Shalom and Good Shabbos! 

Rosh Hashanah 5772

So it has been an eventful Rosh Hashanah for me. This was the first time that I prepared for Rosh Hashanah. And I must be honest; I have not had much, wait let me rephrase that, had no experience. I have not yet celebrated in Israel before nor with any Jewish family so you can see the challenges that were facing me, someone new to this Jewish festivities and the traditional food that symbolizes these holidays!

However, I have come prepared (if you can call it that?)! I had been researching as much as possible well ahead of time with books, online articles and blogs and boy its amazing how much a person can learn if you possess the passion to learn!

So there I was armed, most determined to make it be the best darn Rosh Hashanah celebration possible while being on our own! And I was most excited! I actually felt like it was the holidays, something that tends to dissipate the older we get. But this year was so different for me, in fact Efi mentioned that he had that feeling too which made me very happy! I grew a bit concerned when I popped in for some last minute shopping to find that the supermarkets shelves were practically empty since we live in a large Jewish community, streets were empty, neighborhood quiet. I thought that just maybe I was in over my head.

So it started off with a chicken, from what I understand I would need to make something sweet from it, and so my first real Rosh Hashanah experience begins…

Grilled pomegranate chicken

1 whole chicken

100% Pomegranate juice

1 Tbsp honey

1 Tbsp date syrup

Pomegranate perils

Sweet carrots (the gold coins)

4 carrots

Honey

½ tsp cinnamon

Grilled Sweet potatoes

2-3 Sweet potatoes

olive oil for brushing

½ pine nuts

Baby spinach or Rocket leaves

Sweet couscous

5-6 Prunes

5-6 Walnuts

Plain couscous

½ Tbsp cinnamon

½ Tbsp icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Pomegranate seeds

Sweet Potato and Apple rostti

1 Sweet potato

1 Apple

1 Egg

Start by preparing your sweet potato, peeled, cut chunky and lengthways, brushed with olive oil and put under the oven grill for approximately 45 mins.

Your chicken can be cleaned and just brushed with a little olive oil and also placed under the grill till crispy.

For the sauce, gently boil the pomegranate juice with the rest of the ingredients, carefully taste and adjust to your taste.

Carrots peeled and cut in rings to resemble that of coins, boiled till soft in water, drained . Put back on a very low heat and add the honey and cinnamon and stir around till all mixed through, approximately 5 mins.

For the rostti, peel both the sweet potato and apple, grate and mix together with the beaten egg. Heat a pan with a little olive oil and drop a tablespoon of the mixture and let brown and gently turn over to brown on the other side and once cooked through place on a paper towel.

Instant couscous prepared as per package instructions, tossed with a fork and a little butter, cinnamon, powdered sugar and pomegranate seeds. Decorate with the prunes which are first pitted, stuffed with the walnut and boiled in a little water till it almost turn to syrup.

Shana Tova!