Risalamande

Wikipedia can lead you in so many interesting directions. A friend was browsing Wikipedia and came across the entry for Risalamande and begged me to make it for him. I was intrigued, so I did. And I'm glad that I did - it is definitely worth repeating - in fact, a week later I did.

It's essentially a rice pudding made with risotto rice, a good amount of almonds, and has whipped cream folded in. Oh, and a cherry topping. It's not sweet due to very little sugar, but it is quite rich. Fair warning: Rice pudding is not the sexiest thing to photograph.

The ingredients: 
200g Arborio rice (I suspect a substitution would be bad)
1l milk (whole or low fat - your choice. I've used both)
4tbs sugar
1/2tsp salt
1 vanilla pod or 1-2tsp vanilla extract (or essence, if you don't have the extract on hand)
100g almonds, coarsely ground (easier to buy this)
50g flaked almonds, optional
250ml fresh/whipping cream

For the topping:
1 can pitted black cherries in syrup
1tbs cornflour/cornstarch
1/4 cup water

The method: 

This is time-consuming, but really simple.

The Arborio rice, milk, sugar, salt and vanilla bean (split and scraped) all go in to a pot. Bring it to boil, then lower to a simmer. Just give it a stir whenever you remember (to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom). When the rice is soft to your liking, it's done - I would provide a time, but it differed for the 2 times I made it. Check around the 30-40 minute mark.

 Remove from heat, and stir in almonds. If using vanilla essence instead of bean, stir in too. Let it cool down completely (I find sticking it in the fridge and stirring every 10 minutes speeds this along).

Whip the cream. Remove the vanilla bean if used, and fold the whipped cream in to the cooled rice pudding.

Spoon in to individual bowls for smaller desserts, or one big bowl for everyone to dish out. If you're going with the Danish tradition, put a whole almond in there too and have a prize standing by for whomever gets the whole almond :)

You can eat this as is, but the cherry topping just makes it so much better. Prepare it while the rest is cooling. The cherries + syrup in the can go in to a pot. Bring to boil, then add the cornflour slurry (cornflour + water, mixed till all lumps gone). Just stir until preferred thickness reached, and let it cool. Reheat when serving - warmed cherry topping on the cool rice pudding makes for a delightful winter treat.

If you have fresh cherries, or prefer to use raspberries (fresh or frozen) instead, follow the following method:
300g-500g cherries/raspberries, 250ml water, 1/2 cup sugar go in to the pot. Bring this to boil, then add the cornflour slurry and get it to the thickness you like. You can use less water if using frozen berries.

You can also serve it sans any topping, or with some heated berry jam. I do suggest making the cherry topping, as it works incredibly well together.

1 night, 3 restaurants

I'm probably coming across as a terrible blogger at this point. I have a valid excuse! An unexpected and very sudden 2-week work trip came up 3 weeks ago, with my leaving within 24 hours of it coming up. I've been back in CT for a week, and still trying to catch up. I long for the days of being bored...

Last week, a friend was visiting. Whenever this friend is around, we try to go out and try a new restaurant. This time around, we opted for the Peruvian KEENWÄ. I've heard several people talking about this restaurant and the quality of the food, so we were quite looking forward to trying it out. We got there and were sitting for quite a while catching up without any service - they had just opened for dinner shortly before we got there, so we were not put off by this and were kept quite busy by the conversation.

The manager then approached us and introduced himself and informed us we were quite early for the wine-tasting event... This was news to us, as we were just there for dinner. It turns out they were booked up for an event that night, and the kitchen was only preparing the tasting menu to go with the wines. He invited us to stay, but we didn't want to make it too difficult for them. He was very apologetic, and offered to get us some coffee on the house.

We opted instead for the Chicha Morada, a Peruvian juice made of purple corn. They also brought out some toasted french bread with what tasted like a roasted pepper dip. The pepper dip was great, and I had to stop myself from finishing all of the bread covered in it as I wanted to save space for some proper food. The drink was purple as advertised, but that's where the interest stopped. The taste was... disappointing. There was a vaguely discernible grape flavour. Not quite what I'd hoped for or what I was expecting.

The manager was very gracious when we left, and asked us to give them a call when we wanted to go in again and he would treat us to a starter. I do plan to go back for the food - if the pepper dip was any indication, it will be very good indeed.

We then decided to go Ethiopian instead, and headed over to Addis in Cape. They serve a really good (and seemingly never-emptying, as my friend found out) pot of Ethiopian coffee with a small bowl of popcorn and some burning frankincense. The food is also pretty good. We went with the Combo offering, where you choose 2 dishes from the menu for R100.

The dining experience at this restaurant is not the usual. You're seated on low wooden chairs, and the tabletop becomes the dish when the food is served. Diners eat with their hands, and the waiter brings over a jug and bowl and pour water for you to wash your hands before you eat and wet towels to wipe up after the meal. The meal is meant to be shared, so the different bowls are turned out on to the injera which lines the big plate that it inserted in to the tabletop.

We had the Prawns Addis (prawns in a spiced sauce), Shimbera Asa Wot (chickpea cakes in a Berbere sauce), Prawns Alicha (prawns in a mild smooth-ground chickpea sauce) and Mushroom Alicha (mushrooms in chickpea sauce). I found the former 2 to be great, with the chickpea cakes and the sauce that went with it being my favourite. My friend found both those to be a slightly too spicy, but enjoyed them all the same. The Mushroom Alicha was pretty good too. The Prawns Alicha were, we agreed, terribly bland and not something we would order again.

The loudness of another table in the restaurant and the lack of interesting dessert options made the decision for us - we would proceed to another restaurant for dessert. We ended up at Jakes in Steenberg/Tokai. He opted for a hot chocolate (and was served a glass of milk with melted chocolate in a little jug, that he could pour in to make up his own) and I went with a Mochacinno (didn't enjoy it too much, also marred by the fact that the cup was chipped). We decided to share 2 desserts. The Triple Choc Fudge Brownie wasn't bad. The Deep-Fried Ice-Cream with butterscotch sauce was a winner as always. The slightly-gingery crust on the ice cream with the butterscotch sauce and the ice cream works terrifically. The only downside of this dish is the amount of butterscotch sauce - it's a lot, and can get overwhelming very easily. It would be impossible to eat this dessert alone - it has to be shared.

All in all, a very pleasant night out at several restaurants in the city. Now to pick where we will go the next time he is around...

It only takes a whole jar of Nutella...

I just made a Nutella cake. Considering the list of ingredients, it's going to be one crazy rich cake. I'll be cutting into it later for a taste, then will post with the details. If I can drag myself away from the cake, that is...

The slump

I feel like I've hit a bit of one. I've been tampering with go-to recipes, to see if I could make them easier/better. As it turns out, I've just been messing up a good thing. So it's back to basics! Or, well, not using substitute products when the real thing does it perfectly fine.

New post (with successful results) soon :)

French Apple Cake

A week ago, a friend hosted a brunch and everyone brought a little something for the table. It all turned out really great, as you can see :). My contribution was the French Apple Cake, which you can see front left. It's adapted from a Dorie Greenspan recipe on David Lebovitz's site (you can see it at http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/11/dorie-greenspan-french-apple-cake-recipe/). 

I put my own little twist on it, making 2 loaf cakes instead of one round cake this time around. I have also made half the recipe previously with great success as well. And I've made it as a standard round cake too, which worked fantastically. It's easily adaptable! 

I'm going to post photos of the process as well - don't judge me on the (bad) quality of the pics! 

Le Ingredients: 

4-5 large apples (a mix of varieties)

2 large eggs

pinch of salt

150g sugar 

3 tbs vanilla extract (or essence if you don't have extract on hand)

110g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder 

85g melted butter, salted or unsalted (note that this is a reduction from the original recipe's 115g. I prefer it with less, it's a little less oily and still tastes great. Do increase this to the original quantity if preferred.)

Le method: 

Start with the apples, but make sure you have everything in place to work quickly, as you don't want to take too long and allow the apples to brown. 

Peel and core the apples, then chop them up in varying sizes - the recipe suggests 3cm pieces, but I prefer a mix of that size and many smaller pieces, which then just melt into the cake. This time around, I only had 4 medium apples; I usually end up with a lot more chopped apple, which is how I prefer it. This is what I ended up with this time around.


Note on the apples: You can use a mix of any apples. A mix is great as you have the different  flavours playing together. This time was a mix of Granny Smith, Golden Delicious and Fuji. Do play around with it and try a different mix each time.

Beat the eggs until light and foamy. Then add the sugar and whisk until thick and fluffy, and add in the vanilla and beat. You will see the colour transformation when you add the vanilla. And you'll be able to smell it too :) 

Stir in half the flour, and half of the melted butter. Then stir in the rest of the flour, the baking powder and the rest of the melted butter. Don't beat to vigorously at this point - just make sure it's all mixed in.

Add the apples and fold in until all of the apple pieces are well coated by the batter. Usually, I get a batter that just coats the apples; this time around, I had a lot more batter because of the lesser apples. 

If you're putting the batter straight into the pan, butter the sides of the pan (quite generously) first. I chose to use parchment paper to make it easier to get out this time (I usually make it in a springform pan), so I buttered the parchment paper. Pour the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the back of the spoon. If using parchment paper, this is the time to cut it down (I find it a better to do this after pouring the batter in than before, as it's easy for it to slip around in the pan). 

Go for a 20-23 springform pan or, as I did this time around, 2 loaf pans.

This goes into an oven pre-heated to 180ºC for about 40 to 50 minutes (one pan will need the 50 minutes, you want to start checking around the 35 minute mark for 2 loaf pans, but it should be done around the 40-45 minute mark).You can also test to see if the cake is done using a toothpick/knife/insert preferred method here.
Once you've got a nice colour on the cake and it's scented up your kitchen, remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Then remove from the springform pan/loaf tin, making sure the apples are not sticking to the sides when you do so (I left one side sticking so I could show you what would happen to the cake if the apples stuck - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

When it's cool, decorate if you'd like - I went with an icing sugar/water glaze this time, but usually prefer it unadorned. 

The cake is great on its own, slightly warmed or room temperature, or with a little bit of vanilla ice cream (particularly when warmed).

 The finished product: 

Apple Waffles

I bought a new sandwich toaster this week, and it has interchangeable plates. One of the plates is a waffle plate, so I had to try it out this week!

I decided on apple waffles instead of plain waffles because I have bought a few apples that are really not as good as they could be, so I wanted to re-purpose them. I ended up adapting a recipe from Dorie Greenspan based on what I had on hand, and they came out better than I expected. They were soft rather then crispy, with the apple just melting into the batter. I ate one on its own, but added a Brazilian pepper honey to the second. Both ways worked great.

The only problem was my first batch overflowing because I'd put too much batter into the toaster! I would have gotten 6 or 7 waffles instead of the 5 I ended up with if I hadn't done that. I have frozen the rest and will update with how they taste the second time around when I have then.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of allspice
1/4 cup sugar (I used just under 1/4 cup white sugar, and added 2 tsp Muscovado sugar)
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup Bulgarian/Greek yoghurt (I used the former)
1/4 cup water (you can replace the yoghurt and water with 3/4 cup of milk)
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs melted butter
1 apple, peeled and grated

Method:
Mix all dry ingredients together. In another bowl, beat the yoghurt, water, egg and vanilla until well combined. Stir this into the dry ingredients, then add the butter and grated apple and stir it all together. Don't over-mix, just stir together until everything's combined.

Spray the waffle iron and spoon in as much batter as your waffle iron can handle (or do it once to figure out how much it can handle :P). Once it's brown and smells good, remove from the waffle iron - it's quite soft, so do this carefully so you don't tear it when removing. Use 2 forks to remove; I found that the easiest way. 

Keep warm in low oven if not serving immediately. Serve with whatever you'd like :)

A fresh start

Recently, there's been a change in my life. Because of the change, I've lost all appetite and inclination to eat. I've also realised that I really dislike cooking for one - there's no one to appreciate it and no incentive to do it.

So I thought one way out of the rut was to post about what I was making every day. I love reading food sites and blogs, so why not write one? Someone out there might read it and like it and be inspired to make something I've created, which would be great too :)

So I will endeavour to take photos and write about what I make every other day, and post something new at least 3 times a week. Thus ensuring that I don't get bored with my menu for one.

I will also post about the various places I go to around Cape Town - I always Google reviews of places I want to check out and don't find enough information online. Hopefully others who want to check out places will find the reviews helpful.

Here's to an excellent 2012!