Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
Er... what exactly is pan dulce?
Pan dulce are simply sweet rolls (hence the name, pan - bread, dulce - sweet) with sugar toppings of chocolate, vanilla, or lemon done in a shell design. It's best to eat them fresh because they harden into bricks rather quickly.
I think it's time we share some recipes again. After eating some melktert today, I decided it's just too good not to share with the world.
Here's a recipie then.
MELKTERT (serves 8)
Ingredients
about 200g of ready rolled puff pastry
1.5 cups milk
1 tsp butter
a pinch of salt
1 cinnamon stick
1 green cardamom pod
1 tsp custard powder
1.5 tsp cournflour (cornstarch)
1.5 tsp cake flour
1 Tbsp cold milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/4 tsp almond essence (optional)
sugar mixed with a little ground cinnamon
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Line a 20cm diameter fluted pie dish with the puff pastry, leaving the edges raggedy and hanging over the edge of the dish.
Bring the milk to a slow boil in a medium saucepan, then add the butter, salt, cinnamon stick and cardamom pod.
Combine the custard powder, cornflour and cake flour. Add the cold milk and make a paste. Stir a little of the hot milk into the paste to thin it, then stir the custard paste into the hot milk in the saucepan. Make sure there are no lumps in the paste - and don't panic too much if there are some lumps in the saucepan once you've added the custard - just make sure you stir vigorously and continuously to get them to dissolve. Add 2 Tbsp of the sugar and stir continuously. (I cheated a little and whisked the custard with a wire whisk to keep it smooth!) When the custard thickens, remove it from the heat and discard the cinnamon and cardamom.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then beat in the remaining sugar gradually and set aside. Beat the yolks slightly and then add about 2 Tbsp of the warm custard mix to the yolks and mix well.
Stir the yolk mix into the custard saucepan and add the almond essence (if using). Gently fold in the egg whites.
Pour into the prepared pie dish, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake at 200C for 10 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 175C and bake for a further 10-15 mins, until puffed up and golden.
Allow to cool on a wire rack and serve in slices with coffee.
_________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
And speaking of SA food, I found this excellent piece...
*PG Rating - read at your own discretion due to language. It is not my fault it is the language of the nation. You are warned…
Before you arrive:
All tourists visiting South Africa should come hungry and with an open mind. Please do not take this suggestion lightly as it is well known that have a severe love for food and grape juice.
South Africans have a unique palette and eat just about everything. Traditional dishes can range from Sheep brains to Termites, dried out salted meat (biltong) and especially cakes. The one thing you are in for when visiting South Africa is a treat like none other!
Below you will find useful descriptions, recipe’s and common slang words. Please note that South African’s often use food names as nicknames and/or swear words.
Hot Drinks
Most popular by far is the Afrikaans coffee called Moer Koffie which, roughly translated, means F**ked coffee or beaten up coffee. It’s flavour is unique in that it tastes very similar to cardboard, possibly due to it being whacked continually by a log of wood before being brewed in a tin pot over an open fire.
Should you wish to try this coffee out before landing in SA, you can do so as follows:
a) Placing a minimum of 10 coffee beans in a linen bag and hitting it with a blunt object until crushed beyond oblivion, or
b) Buying Koffiehuis from your local South African shop, or
c) If you are a cheap skuit (scrooge) then the third option is for you. Take cheap instant coffee and filter it through fine cardboard. Please ensure that a cup or mug is under the cardboard as it can get quite messy. Cheap is never clean.
Slang: The word moer is used often in daily life. Normal use is “I’m going to moer him”. Please be warned that should you say this to a local you yourself might get moered.
Cakes, Biscuits and yummy things
One thing you should know before you begin to consider visiting South Africa is the fact that we love cakes of any shape, size and flavour. It is recommended that you go on a serious diet before landing as you are guaranteed to pick up a minimum of 10kg’s by the the time you return to your home country.
Beskuit: a dried out cake that is flavoured by a wide variety of goodies with the most popular brand being Ouma’s Rusks (Grandma’s). Please note that these boxes do not come with warnings or eating instructions and you must please take note of the following before devouring. These rusks can be as hard as rocks, they are solid and dense. In order to eat these you must first dunk them into a fresh cup of Moer koffie or your local brand of PG Tips. Should you fail to do this please see a dentist as soon as humanly possible!
Slang: A person of slow nature, one who’s lift doesn’t reach the top floor. Should you omit the “be” part of the word you will be telling someone to go s**t themselves i.e. gaan skuit. Other slang (buscuit): Cookie, twit. In America, a biscuit is a scone with no sugar. In South Africa, a biscuit is actually a cookie. Some favourites are Marie, Romany Creams, Nuttikrust and Eet Sum Mor. Common use: “John, you biscuit!”
Koeksusters: A doughnut of a different kind plaited and woven together with the end product being 90% sugar. When eating a koeksuster it is recommended that napkins are covering your clothes in all directions as spillages are guaranteed. The word comes from the Dutch koek (”cake”) and sissen, meaning “to sizzle” and boy does it add sizzle to your dizzle. This cake is so popular that the right-wing enclave of Orania in the Northern Cape even has its own statue to the koeksister.
Slang: A person of who is either übber conservative or someone who dresses in the popular fashion of wearing stilettos with sweat pants/tracksuit pants.
Other popular cakes: Melktert (highly recommended). Please note that you should not be shocked while visiting a local for tea. Being served a whole melktert is not uncommon, this is mainly due to the fact that the locals believe that sharing their tarts is much like sharing a spouse, not done.
Meat & Ocean bound creatures
There are two traditional meats that get every local flapping in excitement and the majority of South African’s living abroad drool everytime they hear the words… Biltong and Boerewors.
Biltong: It is raw meat hung up to dry after soaking in a tub of vile vinegar and spices for a couple of days. It is very popular with the locals and foreigners alike.
Slang: A biltong is someone who is raw / crude… similar to a jerk
Boerewors (vorse): Farm style sausage or “wors made from hundreds of top secret spices and beef/venison. A form of boerewors is that of an Ostrich, normally only once they have retired from the transport game. Ostriches are special in South Africa and it is not uncommon to see sign posts requesting travellers not to blow their horns due to them getting laid.
Slang: Most common is that of the “Boerewors Curtain”. This is any Afrikaans speaking district, usually rural. Other forms of slang I can not mention but your imagination can run wild.
Bokkoms: Bokkoms are Harders (Mullet) that are salted, then strung into bunches and hung up to dry, pretty much raw fish. Please note that this is not consumed by the locals but rather is sold to visitors in the guise of a traditional dish.
Slang: A smelly person
Traditional Dishes
Bobotie: Often mispronounced Bob bow tie
Drinks
Fokol Wine can be found in most supermarkets and tourist hot spots. The direct translation can be seen under the slang section. This wine looks a lot like watered down cherry juice and tastes much like “rotten spirit vinegar” but the sheer fact that you are drinking “fokol” certainly lifts the spirits a bit.
Slang: Fokol is Afrikaans for the English form of f**k all. Please note that we also have a very popular rock band called fokofpolisiekar, naturally from Cape Town.
Mampoer (mum-poo-er) or witblitz (vit-blitz) Potent home-made distilled alcohol, much like the American moonshine. The word means “white lightning” in Afrikaans, and that should be sufficient warning...
Medical Warning: Please note that should you have a weak constitution avoid sampling this particular form of local alcohol. Locals have strong livers due to the general mass consumption that takes place during teen years and thus can withstand far greater amounts of alcohol than the average European. The only other country who can consume Mampoer with ease is Australia.
Another Warning: Please note the word moer can be found in Mampoer, it is for a reason! Be careful of this substance, there is a reason why it is illegal to ship it over the borders.
Amerula One of the most popular drinks in Southern Africa, one that will make you feel at home and comfortable with the strange customs you may find yourself surrounded by. A fine drink of creamy nature with secret venom that will make your legs suddenly give way once you stand up to venture towards the WC’s.
Moerkoffie as it should be prepared...
A box of Ouma Beskuit
_________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Very funny, and that melktart sounds delicious! I think I would be more likely to find ground cardamom than whole pods, but cinnamon sticks are pretty common.
"Moonshine", or illegally distilled corn liquor, was also known as "white lightning" back in the day -- as well as "mountain dew". So if you've ever wondered how they came up with that moniker or why Southerners seem to be particular fans of the stuff, now you know.
I remember both terms from an old song called "The Ballad of Thunder Road", which believe it or not was written by Robert Mitchum --
"Thunder, thunder
Down on Thunder Road
Thunder was his engine
And white lightning was his load
And there was moonshine, moonshine
To quench the devil's thirst
Oh, they never got him
'Cause the devil got him first!"
Funny you should post a cake recipe -- well, more of a custard pie, but whatever -- because today I had one of my customer service guys from a company I buy medical supplies from send me a huge list of links to all kinds of cake recipes, and some of them sound absolutely intriguing -- Word War I cake! World War II cake! White Christmas cake! I couldn't open it at work because we have this @$#%%#@&% godawful web filter, but I forwarded it to my personal email and I will have to check it out and report back.
High heels and sweat pants. Still trying to picture that look. Would a high ponytail top it off? _________________ An apple a day....
Very funny, and that melktart sounds delicious! I think I would be more likely to find ground cardamom than whole pods
That should work too.
You mentioned about cakes and stuff being named after the world wars, and so on.
In South Africa, during the thirties and forties, the two major political leaders were JBM Hertzog (National Party), and Jan Smuts (South African Party/United Party).
Both had a cookie named after them, but the National Party supporters refused to eat Smuts cookies, and the SAP/UP supporters refused to eat Hertzog cookies. Even during the seventies, when I was growing up, the only time I ever had the change to eat Smuts cookies, was when we visited friends of my parents, who were UP supporters. (We were a National Party household...)
Hertzog cookies...
200 g butter or margarine
100 g sugar
2 egg yolks
5 ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla essence
300 g cake flour
pinch of salt
filling:
180 ml (12 tablespoons) apricot jam
topping:
4 egg whites
150 ml (10 tablespoons) caster sugar
375 ml (1 ½ cup) desiccated coconut
5 ml (1 teaspoon) baking powder
Preheat the oven to 180 ºC (350 ºF). Grease 3 patty pan trays.
1. Make the short pastry. Blend the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and vanilla essence. Mix well. Add the flour and salt and mix to form a dough. Place the pastry in a plastic bag and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
2. Roll the pastry out thinly. Cut the pastry with a biscuit cutter to fit the patty pans. Line the patty pans with the pastry discs.
3. Place 1 teaspoon apricot jam into each pastry case.
4. Make the coconut meringue. Whisk the caster sugar and baking powder in a small mixing bowl. Beat the egg whites until stiff and glossy adding the sugar and baking powder a tablespoon at a time. Fold the coconut into the meringue.
5. Top of the apricot jam with 1 tablespoon of coconut meringue.
6. Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes until light brown. Allow to cool down for 15 minutes before lifting the cookies out of the patty pans.
Smuts cookies - surprisingly I can't find it in the net, but my mom tells me Smuts cookies are exactly the same as the Hertzog cookies, except that it gets a dough on top, instead of the coconut meringue. My mom, who grew up in a National Party home herself, still insists that the Hertzog cookies taste better that Smuts cookies... _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Mashonzha, cooked Mopani worms in a peri-peri sauce. Yes, they really are worms. No, I don't eat it...
Potjiekos" (pot stew), served with salads
A braai
The bunny chow, a hollowed out half loaf of bread filled with curry, a typical Indian-South African dish
ANd for dessert..
Ingredients:
250ml Orley Whip, whipped
2 packets of Tennis biscuits (although you will probably use less)
375g caramelised condensed milk
20ml caster sugar
3 Peppermint Crisp bars, crushed
3-4 drops of peppermint essence (more, if you like))
Method:
Whip the Orley Whip and then add the caramelised condensed milk castor sugar and peppermint essence. Beat until well mixed and then stir in 2/3 of the crushed Peppermint Crisp.
Place a layer of whole tennis biscuits in a buttered 29x19x5cm dish. Spoon 1/3 of the caramel mix over the buscuits and spread evenly. Continue in layers, finishing with a layer of filling on top.
Refrigerate for at least 4 hours. Decorate by sprinkling the remainder of crushed peppermint crisp on top. Cut into squares and serve.
SUBSTITUTIONS:
You can substitute whipping cream for Orley Whip, but the outcome may be even richer than this pudding already is! I used Elmlea, a half-dairy cream available in the UK. Apparently the American Cool Whip is a near-identical product. For caramelised condensed milk, you can use dulce du leche or you can make your own by boiling a tin of normal sweetened condensed milk (warning: hazardous!!). The Tennis biscuits may prove problematic, although I have seen forums in Australia advising the use of a typr of Arnott's coconut biscuits or Nice biscuits. Any other suggestions welcome. And as for the peppermint crisp... sadly, for that you will have to bite the bullet and buy it from a South African shop. Not sure if anything else like it exists. Maybe start campaiging for Nestle to produce it worldwide?
_________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject:
I have to say that South African desserts look and sound delicious, but the main dishes are, um, another matter. Perhaps they go down best with a case of...
I have to say that South African desserts look and sound delicious, but the main dishes are, um, another matter. Perhaps they go down best with a case of...
Oh, no, no, no, you never drink beer with a meal. Well, OK, with a braai.... and potjiekos... and a bunny chow.... Oh, very well... _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Not too many Mexicans around here! Well, actually, you get your beer lovers who would drink beer with their meal, not only with a braai or potjiekos, but mostly wine is considered the right drink with a meal, especially in the Cape. Now, in Pretoria it might be a different matter... _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
I think I'm going to have to bring in some fresh-baked South African pastries each morning just to lure my boet André back here permanently. I'm not liking this disappearing act he keeps pulling.
André, would you care for some koeksisters?
Or some pampoenkoekies?
How about some delicious meat-filled vetkoeks? You should try it with my homemade cilantro aioli. Mmm-mmm.
So where are my koeksisters??? _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Mmm, those peppermint crisp bars look good! Maybe we Americans can get away by substituting peppermint bark or Andes Mints.
I was raised on REAL whipped cream and am a bit of a whipped cream fascist, i.e. I find Cool Whip a disgusting hydrogenated substance that in no way stands in for the real thing. However, others in my acquaintance swear by the nasty stuff, even going so far as to freeze it and then eat it like ice cream (shudder)!
While in Europe I was subjected to the practice of drinking wine with every meal. As I don't like wine, this was not a treat for me. I also am used to chugging tons of water or iced tea with every meal in a restaurant, and American waiters are always at your elbow to keep the liquids flowing (and if they aren't, you start mentally deducting from their tip). Usually water and plain iced tea and soda refills are free. Face it, this is all just flavored water, and dirt cheap. Only if you get something fancy like flavored iced tea or fruit juice or alcholic beverages do you get charged for each glass. I was slightly dismayed to be restricted to individual bottles of water or cola while abroad. I didn't ever ask for iced tea (my usual beverage of choice) because I doubted that it would be on the menu. _________________ An apple a day....
Mmm, those peppermint crisp bars look good! Maybe we Americans can get away by substituting peppermint bark or Andes Mints.
I was raised on REAL whipped cream and am a bit of a whipped cream fascist, i.e. I find Cool Whip a disgusting hydrogenated substance that in no way stands in for the real thing. However, others in my acquaintance swear by the nasty stuff, even going so far as to freeze it and then eat it like ice cream (shudder)!
While in Europe I was subjected to the practice of drinking wine with every meal. As I don't like wine, this was not a treat for me. I also am used to chugging tons of water or iced tea with every meal in a restaurant, and American waiters are always at your elbow to keep the liquids flowing (and if they aren't, you start mentally deducting from their tip). Usually water and plain iced tea and soda refills are free. Face it, this is all just flavored water, and dirt cheap. Only if you get something fancy like flavored iced tea or fruit juice or alcholic beverages do you get charged for each glass. I was slightly dismayed to be restricted to individual bottles of water or cola while abroad. I didn't ever ask for iced tea (my usual beverage of choice) because I doubted that it would be on the menu.
Hm, Andes Mints might work...
Looks nice enough. Peppermint bark looks rather nice too, but I don't think it will work in that recipe.
Peppermint Crisp on its own is delicious! _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
While in Europe I was subjected to the practice of drinking wine with every meal. As I don't like wine, this was not a treat for me. I also am used to chugging tons of water or iced tea with every meal in a restaurant, and American waiters are always at your elbow to keep the liquids flowing (and if they aren't, you start mentally deducting from their tip). Usually water and plain iced tea and soda refills are free. Face it, this is all just flavored water, and dirt cheap. Only if you get something fancy like flavored iced tea or fruit juice or alcholic beverages do you get charged for each glass. I was slightly dismayed to be restricted to individual bottles of water or cola while abroad. I didn't ever ask for iced tea (my usual beverage of choice) because I doubted that it would be on the menu.
Hm, here you'll get a (free) glass of water if you ask for it. But it will be tap water, if you ask for bottled water, you will pay for it (and its relatively expensive). _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
I'm pretty sure it's tap water in the US, too. I never see bottled water in a restaurant. And nobody's died of dysentery yet! _________________ An apple a day....
Oh my.... those look good.... I have a very sweet tooth these days! _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Oh my.... those look good.... I have a very sweet tooth these days!
Sprinkles cupcakes are delish! I love the chocolate marshmellow, lemon, and red velvet cakes.
It's funny (or I suppose not) how I've developed a taste for all things sweet over the past few years since I've stopped smoking. And fruit! Apricots, pears, peaches, naartjies, oranges... _________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 11:40 pm Post subject:
André in Zuid-Afrika wrote:
It's funny (or I suppose not) how I've developed a taste for all things sweet over the past few years since I've stopped smoking. And fruit! Apricots, pears, peaches, naartjies, oranges...
Well, smoking deadens the taste buds and the receptors in the nasal epithelium. Now that you've stopped, your taste sensations have returned... which could be devastating to your girlish figure.
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Well, OK, with a braai.... and potjiekos... and a bunny chow.... Oh, very well... 
