An Inspiration from Spice Magazine

The spring edition of Spice Magazine is out! That's the fourth edition, which makes Spice Magazine 1 year old. The very famous Anthony Georgeff, the Man That Cooks, stars as editor in a purple singlet. There are plenty of recipes and good reads with names and faces behind the produce and great food from Western Australia. There's a lovely article on Manna Wholefoods with a vegan recipe for date, fig and millet loaf. The recipe works well as muffins. The above Spice Magazine inspired muffin makes use of sorghum and red millet flour (also known as "ragi" or finger millet). The muffin tastes great with a sauce of Omega-rich flaxseed oil and anise flavoured syrup. Semidried fig slices add an interesting touch.

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Paper Chef #21 Out of Africa

Paper Chef #21: Egg, black fermented soy beans, giblets and something that reminds you of Africa

The first three ingredients immediately suggest a Chinese red-braised dish, but then what about Africa?? Elephants, lions, leopards and the like in conservation and game hunting movies such as "Out of Africa" and "Born Free" would be out of question ... That is, until Noodle Cook discovers South African Rooibos tea in a box pictured with the animals. Fancy finding a piece of Africa, where else other than the local Indonesian-run oriental store!

This challenge serves as an opportunity to tryout the tastes of Southern Africa, as influenced by the Cape Malays, the descendants of slaves originating from Indonesia, India and Madagascar, a legacy of Dutch trade shipping days. A typical dish consists of dried fruits, eastern spices, tomato and onion in rather sweet combination. Such a dish forms part of a multi-dish meal comprising curry sauce with rice, sambal, chutney and relishes.

With research out of the way, Noodle Cook heads behind the scene...

.... cooking in progress......... oops, the dinner went into recovery mode after the Rooibos tea failed to tenderise the giblet sosaties..... still cooking away .....

and finally, from out of Africa, Noodle Cook presents:
Rooibos infused giblets in tomato and fruit curry with glazed raisins, marbled quail eggs with apple-mustard gravy, fish and tomato with black beans, and curried banana salad. A multi-dish meal served with yellow rice.

Rooibos Concentrate
4 Rooibos teabags
1/2 cup water

Simmer the Rooibos teabags in the water for 20 minutes. Reduce to 1/4 cup. Use this concentrate for flavouring, tenderising and colouring (if red enough). The Rooibos tea failed to tenderise the giblets or the dried muscatel grapes. Both ingredients needed 2 hours of simmering.

Rooibos Infused Giblets Sosaties (South African Satays)
500 g chicken giblets
1 tablespoon anise syrup (or honey)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon Rooibos concentrate
Curried tomato and fruit sauce

Clean the giblets. Marinate with anise syrup, salt and Rooibos concentrate overnight. Drain. Brush with curried tomato and fruit sauce. Thread the meat on skewers and grill. Serve with remaining sauce.

Note: Grilling yielded an unsatifactory rubbery texture with an unusual crunchiness. It was decided to recycle the giblets in the tomato and fruit sauce as a curry.

Curried Tomato and Fruit Sauce
4 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoon mild Malay curry powder (fennel, cumin, cinnamon, cloves)
1 red capsicum, finely chopped
1 can (425 g) whole peeled tomatoes in tomato juice, mashed
3/4 cup (150 g) dried apricot, finely chopped
100 g dried raisins, optional
1 cup freshly brewed Rooibos tea
2 tablespoon apricot jam (omitted)
1 tablespoon sugar (omitted)
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlc in oil until light brown. Add the ginger and curry powder. Saute for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, capsicum, apricot and, if using, apricot jam. Cook to a thick pulp, adding more Rooibos tea as needed. Allow 2 hours. Add the raisins and cook for 5 minutes. Season and adjust sweetness to taste.

Note: Because of the sweetness of a South African style curry, it was decided to remove the sweetness by serving the raisin separately instead of cooking in the sauce. After the disaster with the sosaties, the curry works out really well. It tastes fantastic and can pass as authentic Cape Malay curry.



Glazed Raisin Bunches
1 bunch (100 g) dried muscatel/raisins
2 Rooibos teabags
1-2 cup water
2 tablespoon apricot jam, strained

Divide the dried grapes into 4 smaller bunches of about 10-20 grapes each. Gently poach the grape bunches in the water with 2 Rooibos tea until well plumbed. Allow around 2 hours for poaching. Top up with more water as neccesary. Let the grapes cool in the poaching liquid. Remove the grapes. Scorch the jam in a heavy saucpan. Add the poaching liquid and reduce to a thickened consistency. Pour the glaze over the grapes.

Note: The time spent poaching the fruit was well worth the effort. The grape bunches gave the curry a fine dining touch. In hindsight, bicarbonate soda probably works better than the Rooibos tea.



Yellow Rice
1 cup rice
1.5 cup boiling water
1/2 raisin (omitted)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon sugar (omitted)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon myrtle (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
2 lemon myrtle leaves (or 1 teaspoon lemon zest)
2 teaspoon butter

Combine everything in a ceramic casserole. Cover and cook in a microwave at 30% power for 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Fluff up.

Fish and Tomato with Black Beans
1 can (160 g) fried dace (fish) with salted black beans
1 can (425 g) whole peeled tomatoes in tomato juice
1 onion, diced
1 garlic, chopped
1/4 cup coconut cream for serving

Drain the oil from the fish and separate out the black beans. Reserve the oil for other dishes (see later). Flake the fish. Saute the fish with onion and garlic until the onion turns translucent. Add the tomatoes. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. To serve, drizzle coconut cream over the tomatoes. Garnish with black beans.

Note: The canned fish replaces the dried salted cod used in the equivalent Tanzanian "dagaa" dish. This fish iss intended as a mild version of the very pungent "Bombay Duck", a dried salted fish from Indian which is often grilled or deep fried. The dish has an unusual taste, maybe because of the black beans, otherwise it tastes OK. Perhaps the onions need a bit more frying.



Curried Banana Salad
2 teaspoon oil (from fried dace with salted black beans)
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon garam marsala (or Indian curry powder)
1/2 teaspoon chopped chilli
1/2 teaspoon salt, to taste
2 tablespoon yoghurt
2 bananas, sliced

Heat the oil. Add the turmeric, caraway seeds, garam marsala and chilli. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool. Add the spice mixture to the yoghurt. Toss the banana slices in the yoghurt mixture.

Note: This dish is of Indian origin. The bananas are normally lightly cooked instead of raw.



Marbled Quail Eggs in Apple-Mustard Gravy
8 quail eggs
1 cup freshly brewed Rooibos tea
1 teaspoon oil (from fried dace with salted black beans)
1 garlic, chopped
1/2 onion, diced
1 green apple, finely diced
1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
1 tablespoon dry yellow mustard
1 tablespoon Rooibos concentrate, omitted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup water
salt, to taste

Boil quail eggs for 5 minutes. Rinse under cold water. Crack the shell. Soak in Rooibos tea for 2 hours. Peel the eggs.

Heat the oil. Lightly saute the garlic and onion. Add the apple and cooked until softened. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes until the gravy thickens. Season to taste. Pour the gravy over the quail eggs.

Note: This is an Indonesian dish with Dutch influence. The original recipe requires deep frying of the quail eggs. The sauce doesn't taste good. Maybe it needs a bit of curry powder.



Serving Suggestion
To serve, arrange rice on a plate. Pile on the curry sauce. Arrange bunches of glazed grapes over the curry. Place the side dishes attractively around the rice.

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Spring 2006

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