Foooooood

The new hunting season is almost upon us, and I still have a couple of hunks of springbok left in the fridge from last year. Including a whole neck.

So I found this recipe. It calls for neck chops, I had the neck whole… ah well, let’s try it anyway.

Mixed up the marinade of an onion, some garlic, 500ml red wine, didn’t have port at hand so left it out, fresh rosemary, forgot about the bay leaf, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 4 tablespoons soy sauce, some paprika — blended that all together, stuck it and the neck in a ziplock bag in the fridge. Used a tin of cranberry jelly I had kicking around, and some sugar to compensate for the extra tartness.

Removed neck from bag, browned some bacon, browned the neck in the bacon fat, removed it from the pot. 500ml of stock, the marinade, some tomato puree, bring that all to a boil, float the neck back in, oven at 180 for three hours or so. Didn’t bother with the onions, we were hungry.

Good stuff.

Don’t ditch the sauce. I ended up with quite a bit of meat left over, so I boiled two potatoes and four carrots (sliced and cubed) in the sauce, added the meat back in, and made 36 pies. They freeze well, pop ’em in the oven for half an hour, serve with chips or mash and gravy.

My boss gave me some quinces and a (stovetop) recipe, but I decided to poach them in the slow cooker.

First you gotta peel them. This is the hard part.

Make a syrup with a litre of boiling water and a cup of sugar. Add some vanilla (pods are of course gorgeous, but I used some bourbon vanilla extract I have kicking around). You can add some lemon juice too.

That does not look appetizing at all, does it? But after a day’s slow cooking…

Serve with custard. Tip: buy two litres of custard, hide one under your bed.

Volstruisnek-potjie, translated because I’m sure one can use the same basic recipe should one have a hunk of kangaroo handy.

I found some ostrich neck at a good price. Undoubtedly because the EU didn’t want it, but hey. Ons is nie bang nie.

So, in my black pot, I browned the meat in some oil in two batches. Then, some onions, on a low heat, went off, loaded some ammo.

Now you layer some potato slices or halved baby potatoes and some carrots. Then about a teaspoon of fresh rosemary, then some baby marrows, grean beans and two/three chopped tomatoes, or a tin of same.

The potjiekos thing is the layering, and the no stirring.

Some salt over the veggies, and two cups of chicken stock with a bit of lemon juice added into the pot. The original recipe adds vodka as well.

Heat until the stock is boiling, then cover and simmer slowly for two hours or so.

Serve with rice and a green salad.

And whatever you do, don’t stir the pot.

This time, a different recipe from last time. The same excellent results, though.

It was the two of us, so, four thighs. Black pot, as always.

Salt and pepper and some chicken rub, let that soak a while, then browned it in some melted butter.

I ended up pouring a lot of fat off, so I’d say the butter wasn’t needed. Next time I might make a roux, call it gumbo paprikash.

Remove the chicken, sauté an onion (two if you’re using more chicken), when it’s nice and translucent, add two tablespoons decent paprika and a good teaspoon cayenne pepper, more if you’re brave. Deglaze with a bit of white wine, add stock (I used about 250ml homemade chicken stock), put the chicken back in, cook with the lid mostly on for half an hour.

I had some mushrooms kicking around so those went in about halfway through.

When the chicken looks done, remove, turn off the gas (you cook with gas, right?), add 1/2 a cup creme fraiche.  This makes a sauce that goes really well with mash (oh yes, you were supposed to cook potatoes and veggies on the side. Stick it in the steamer and on the plate when you put in the mushrooms).

Is French for “how can you throw that away?”. (not really)

Basically, you make stock. You then take the meat and bones, add fresh onion and carrots, and make stock… again.

Sure, the second stock is kinda weak, but it makes a damnfine not-so-clean rice (dirty rice has chicken livers. This is not it).

I started with cheap chicken. Four breasts, on the bone. On the braai for a few minutes, then into the slow cooker with onions, carrots, pepper, allspice… you know the drill. Don’t forget a tablespoon of vinegar.

Cooked overnight, drained. Back into the slow cooker, fresh onion, fresh carrot, water.

For the rice, fried an onion in oil, added the rice, fried that in the oil, added some white wine, stirred a bit, added the stock, boiled ’till done, added fried mushrooms. Some people would call this risotto, but real risotto is different. And more work. And I like my grains separate.

Made this recipe last night. Yum.

Firstly, you need decent paprika. I bought half a kilo from House of Goodies. Red = good. Brown = crap.

Mix some* flour and some* paprika. Coat the chicken (in this case, four drumsticks, four thighs) in this mix and fry in oil, in batches. Remove, fry some* onion, cayenne pepper, a bit more* paprika, salt. Add chicken back in, add (homemade, I think this was the seekrit ingredient) stock, cook.

Add creme fraiche at the end, with the leftover flour. This didn’t thicken the sauce as much as I would have liked.

Serve with mash, although it also goes damn well with sourdough bread.

* The recipe gives quantities. I see that more as a guideline.

Since April 15th. Yay!