almonds |

Ah, January. The time of the year when you’re fat, broke, cold and tired. Don’t you just love it? I gotta admit, I really don’t. I have a cold right now, which means that I’ve been forced to dry out (yup, spoken like a true alcoholic) because one glass of wine turns me into a snot monster from hell and frankly, I’m scared of choking on my own mucus. Wow. I just remembered that this is a food blog.

Anyway, on top of not being able to drink, I also can’t eat chocolate because my photographer who, usually, is the one who goes to the shop to get me chocolate is on a diet – and I feel I can’t send him just for me. And I’m farrrrr too cold and tired to go get it myself. Ergo, I have been forced to make do with other sweet treats, based on things I have in the house. I present to you sweet cardamom dukkah. Believe it or not, this will satisfy your sweet craving – promise.

Ingredients

20g peanuts

20g flaked almonds

20g pistachios

20g ground coconut

20g hazelnuts

5g ground ginger

seeds of 4 cardamom pods

2tbsp honey

Method

Step 1: preheat oven at about 160c and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Step 2: Using a mortar and pestle, bash up the whole nuts and cardamom seeds for a few minutes. Stop when all nuts are fragmented but before they are dusty.

Tip: if any of your nuts still have skins on them, you may want to remove the skins first – totally optional. One method of doing this is to roast them at a low temperature for about 5 minutes and then rub the skins off. Hazelnuts can be a bit resistant to this treatment though, so an alternative method is to pop them into a pan of boiling water with a tbsp of bicarbonate of soda for a minute of two. After this the skins should slide right off.

Step 3: pour all the nuts, including flaked almond and coconut, onto the baking tray, spread out evenly and sprinkle with ginger. Place into the oven at 160c for 10 minutes; remove, shake the nuts a bit to help get them evenly roasted and drizzle with honey. Return to the oven for a further 10-15 minutes, then remove and set aside to cool.

Step 4: once cooled, use your hands to break up the mixture into granola-like crumbs, which can be stored in tupperware and used as a topping for fruit, porridge or – as shown here – homemade mango frozen yoghurt.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, sweet cardamom dukkah.

Referred to as South Africa’s unofficial national dish, Bobotie is a shockingly tasty pie-like concoction of mince, fruit, nuts, and a custard topping. Nigella even puts bloody jam in it!

Now, if Nigella and Joey Tribbiani both think that custard, jam and meat is a winning combination, I guess I shouldn’t knock it ’til I’ve tried it. But my version – courtesy of Lannice Snyman (with a tweak or two) – features mere dried apricots and apples.

And it goes a little something like this:

Ingredients

vegetable oil

2 onions, finely chopped

600g minced lamb

2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped

10g hot curry powder

2 slices bread, crumbed

1 lemon, juiced and zested

3 eggs

300ml milk

40g flaked almonds

1 granny smith, peeled, cored and finely chopped

60g dried apricots, chopped

5 bay leaves

Serves 4

Method

Before we get started, it might be helpful to note that there are 3 stages here. There’s the onion, garlic, meat and curry powder stage; there’s the milk, egg, breadcrumbs, fruit and nut stage, and then there is the custard stage. So, don’t worry about getting everything ready beforehand as you can do it in between stages.

Step 1: Turn on your oven to 160 c. Grease your tray with butter or oil. Butter is probably better but whatever you have to hand works.

Step 2: Fry your chopped onions on a low heat until they are golden brown but not burnt. Add your meat, and prod with wooden spoon until it’s all sealed. Lannice says you can use beef or lamb. I used lamb and after tasting how well it worked with the other ingredients, I can’t imagine that beef would work as well. So, use lamb.

Step 3: Add your garlic and curry powder to the meat. Cook all this up on a low heat for about 30 minutes. Remember, mince tends to be pretty low grade fare, so the longer the better.

A note on the spices used here: I used Rajah hot curry powder, which contains coriander, turmeric, mustard, bengal gram, cumin, chilli, fenugreek, pepper, garlic, salt, fennel, poppy seeds and curry leaf, apparently. Lannice provides a recipe for a roasted masala to go with this recipe which contains coriander seeds, turmeric, cumin, chilli, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, pepper, and ginger. Not much overlap. So, I think it’s probably up to you to experiment a bit to get it to your taste – just make sure you get some salt and cumin in there for flavour, and pepper and chilli for a bit of warmth.

Step 4: Combine your breadcrumbs, fruit, nuts, lemon juice and zest, 50mls of your milk and 1 of your eggs (the rest of your milk and eggs are for the custard). Fold this into your mince and make sure it’s all mixed up well. This mixture goes into your tray and gets patted down flat with a big spoon.

Step 5: Roll up your bay leaves and bury them in the bobotie mixture. I can’t figure out why Lannice wants them rolled up but it made them a bit easier to pick out afterwards so I’m keeping this step in.

Afterwards, cover your tray with foil and pop it in the oven for 30 mins.

Step 6: Take out your tray, remove your foil and turn up the oven to 200 c in preparation for the next step.

Step 7: Mix together your 2 remaining eggs with your remaining milk and add a good pinch of salt to make a sort of savoury custard, and pour this over the top of your bobotie. Put it back in the oven at 200 c and cook for another 15-25 minutes until it’s getting omlete-like and a bit burnt on top.

Remove from oven and voila! You (should) have yourself a ridiculously tasty bobotie. I served mine with lightly spiced rice but it’s hefty enough to eat on its own. Enjoy!