Malica at Gostilna Gezove Jame

“Malica” translates to “brunch”. Gostilna Gezove Jame‘s special on the day Paul dragged us there was pasulj, a Serbian bean soup with smoked sausage. Really good, and extremely affordable.

Whether you pay 1 Euro for your 50:50 wine and sparkling water spritzer, or whether you buy a liter bottle each wine and sparkling water, it works out to a Euro a spritzer :-) Beer sells for maybe a Euro, maybe €1.09 in the supermarket, so €2.20 is fair. And €5.90 for a large bowl of soup/stew with bread on the side is not bad at all.

You also get a free chaser each — or maybe that was just Paul’s good looks.

2021-10-20 by wrm Foooooood Slovenia 2021 0

Wildebees curry

I found that the standard approach to beef, namely fry the cubes in oil to start off with, doesn’t work well with game. This approach is better.

Start with a kilo, kilo and a half of whatever boneless cut you have. Flank, bolo, rump, whatever. Cut it into 1″ bits, stick it in your black pot along with 2 chopped onions and a cup of water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Uncover, turn heat to high, and stir often until liquid evaporates and meat and onions are lightly browned. Remove from pot.

Toast 1/4 cup curry powder, 2 tbsp mustard seeds, 1 tbsp garlic and 1tsp turmeric for a bit, then add 2 cups stock (or water and stock powder), one or two tins chopped tomato or tomato paste, 2 tbsp chilies, 2 tbsp ginger. Add the meat back in, simmer until you feel it’s done.

Meanwhile make a bunch of rice in your instant pot, then serve.

You can do any of the traditionals with this of course. Banana and coconut, sure, Tomato and onion sambal is also good. I’m partial to chutney.

2020-04-04 by wrm Foooooood 0

Instant Pot Venison Curry

I love my Instant Pot. It’s a slow cooker, it’s a pressure cooker… on Sunday I cooked three separate things in it. This is the middle one.

Gemsbok shin curry, recipe adapted from Food & Home’s Blesbok curry.

Instant Pot on saute, 20ml oil, fry one chopped onion for about five minutes. Add some ginger and some garlic, I use the little plastic jars from the Spar because I’m lazy. Add half a teaspoon or so chili flakes. Give it a few minutes.

Add 400 to 500g meat, in 1cm-ish cubes. Give it a few more minutes.

Add 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1 tsp ground coriander seeds, 1 tin chopped peeled tomatoes, mix it all up, let it simmer a bit. Add a couple cardamom pods and some cinnamon (I used about half a teaspoon ground cinnamon).

Add six to eight baby potatoes, halved.

Close the lid, set to pressure cook for 15 minutes, have a beer.

Depressurise, stir in about a teaspoon garam masala, let rest while you quickly rinse the pot and use it to boil some rice (2 minutes at pressure, maybe five minutes total).

2018-05-20 by wrm Foooooood Uncategorized 0

Gemsbok sirloin steaks

One gemsbok sirloin, cut into thick steaks and marinaded in a mixture of oil, lemon juice, wooster* sauce, garlic and rosemary for about eight hours. Dredge in seasoned flour…

…fry in a hot pan with some oil…

…until done (in this case kids, so some of these are rather well done).

Mushrooms (and beer) on the side…

…and an egg on top. Nom.

* We were surprised to hear contestants on So you think you can cook pronounce it “wor-sez-tuhr-shur-shire”. Erm, no.

2016-09-15 by wrm Foooooood 0

… twee boerbokke en ‘n haas

Where four fellows drive 900 kilometers on a quest for free-range hormone-free meat, forget their first-night braaivleis in the farmer’s deep freeze, and end up on the back of a bakkie with a spotlight and a shotgun looking for another source of protein.

2016-06-20 by wrm Foooooood Guns 1

Chicken Dhansak Curry

We had some chicken fillets and my dietician told me I should eat lentils so google to the rescue.

Chicken dhansak curry

Fry two finely chopped onions in a bit of oil, add chicken and fry for a few minutes.

Add 2 cloves crushed garlic, 20 grams ginger (I realised I only had pickled ginger left over from experiments in sushi, that worked fine), 2 teaspoons garam masala, and 1/2 a teaspoon chili powder (I used flakes).

Fry this for a bit then add a tin of tomatoes and some stock, and 100g lentils. Add two bay leaves (I get mine from my brother’s tree in Bellville) and cook for 3/4 of an hour.

I also added a quarter butternut, cubed, 15 minutes before serving. Serve with rice (dietician says I can eat Basmati, I’ve been avoiding rice for a while so this is a bonus).

Some hot chutney and yum.

2016-02-21 by wrm Foooooood 0

Gemsbok Sosaties

A sosatie is a kebab. Meat onna stick.

Start with a gemsbok loin (rugstring), nicely matured, cubed. Bacon is good. Some dried apricots, soaked in water for a few hours (also soak the skewers so they don’t burn). Some blanched onion, and some cherry tomatoes (it helps to work things out ahead of time, I had 8 skewers, 24 cubes of meat, 16 apricot halves, 16 tomatoes and 10 rashers of bacon cut into thirds. Some sosaties got more bacon, some got less onion).

Drizzled with olive oil & rosemary sauce.

There was a bit of loin left, that got sauced up and braaied separately. Also braaied a kilo of gemsbok wors.

Add a green salad and half a butternut wrapped in foil and put on the coals much earlier, and call it Sunday night supper.

2015-09-20 by wrm Foooooood 1

Kalahari

This Toyota bakkie is called “die Blou Nier” (the Blue Kidney). Gert is the fellow who drives it, and he drives it well.

Spend a day on the back, out in the dunes, and you will see where the name comes from.

The Blou Nier, BTW, had 750 000 km on the clock when the speedo broke. So nobody really knows how far it’s gone. And they don’t keep easy roads out in the Kalahari.

Cut line for sensitive viewers — we were not there to buy meat at the Pick & Pay.

2015-06-21 by wrm Foooooood Guns 1

Restaurant Quality

Winter has hit Cape Town. Wet, cold and miserable. The perfect weather for staying indoors and cooking soup.

I found some whole baby clams at the Fruit & Veg. Just the thing for clam chowder (something I’ve been wanting to make ever since having the Real Thing in San Francisco. Problem being that Tanya doesn’t like fishy dishes, so I needed an alternative.

Enter General Tso’s chicken, another recipe that’s been keeping a tab open on Firefox for quite some time.

Basically, you dredge the chicken (breast fillet cubes) in cornflour and fry it, then it goes into a slow cooker with a Hoisin / soy / rice vinegar sauce for four* hours. Add some more sauce at the end and you’re done.

For the chowder, I used Christina’s recipe, except that I had whole clams which I first needed to steam open. I then incorporated the water / clam juice into the white sauce, boiled the potatoes (small cubes) and onions, and added the bacon and chopped clams at the end.

Now I need to figure out how to make a sour dough starter so that I can serve the chowder properly next time.

* Recipe calls for four hours. We were hungry well before the three hour mark, so that’s how much time we gave it. Worked well enough.

2015-06-01 by wrm Foooooood 0

Tried and tested

I made this game stew for the second time, and it was again great.

The original is from the Weg magazine and is in Afrikaans.

• 40 g dried mushrooms
• ½ cup warm stock
• 1 kg meat in 4 cm cubes. I used gemsbok.
• ½ cup flour
• 2 onions
• garlic
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 cups stout (I used Guinness the first time and homebrew the second)
• 1 tin cherry tomatoes, drained (reserve sauce)
• 2 tablespoons Worcester
• 2 tablespoons soy
• 4 sprigs thyme

Chop the dried mushrooms and soak in hot water or stock (I added the stock powder later). Do this before prepping the meat and onions.

Coat meat with flour and brown in oil (I skipped the flour, it makes a mess and I am yet to be convinced). Keep meat warm.

Brown onion and garlic. Add sugar, add meat, fry for five minutes (I added the stock powder to the onion mix with the sugar)

Add beer, tomatoes, Worcester, soy, thyme, mushrooms.

Cook for an hour or so. Add the tomato sauce if it looks dry.

Serve with rice.

I didn’t bother with Weg’s baby onions at the end, but it sounds like a good idea.

2014-11-19 by wrm Beeeeeeer Foooooood 0

Foooooood