Seychelles Seafood curry

How does one decide what to cook first after returning from the culinary journey of a lifetime? Armed with a serious stash of juicy vanilla pods, the most perfect cinnamon quills and nutmegs still encased with their bright red mace, I set out to recreate one of the tastiest dishes of my adventure to the seychelles; a traditional Creole seafood curry. Creole cooking is as diverse as the many cultures the island is home to, with Indian, Asian, middle eastern and african cooking adding their finest flavour characteristics to the melting pot.  This recipe celebrates the abundance of flavour the 115 islands have to offer; coconut from the palms that sway along the white beaches, spices harvested from the lush and steamy jungles where vanilla orchids, nutmeg, clove and pepper trees flourish in the thick humid air as well as the rich variety of seafood and tropical fish found in the warm indian ocean. It is best served with steamed basmati rice, crispy onions, poppadoms, spiced lentils and fruity chutney. The subtly spiced coconut sauce which forms the base of this curry would feel equally at home coating chicken or roast veggies or even served as a side sauce to bring a bit of the seychelles to your dinner table, until of course you can experience it for yourself!

Seychelles Seafood curry

Recipe courtesy of Constance Lemuria hotel

Serves 4

20ml oil plus more, for deep-frying

80g garlic cloves, crushed

80g ginger, peeled and grated

80g onions, finely chopped

50g curry powder

20g saffron powder or a large pinch of saffron threads

20 cinnamon leaves or a few bay leaves

2 x tins coconut milk

12 prawns, peeled and deveined
4 scallops
4-8 calamari tubes
4 pieces of fish (about 4cm cubes)
flour, for dusting

Heat the oil and saute the garlic, ginger and onions until soft and translucent. Stir in the spices and and coconut milk and simmer for 1 hour. Blend to form a smooth sauce, if desired. Season all the seafood and deep-fry in batches until crispy. Add the seafood to the curry sauce and simmer for 3 minutes.
Serve the curry in a bowl with steamed basmati rice, sambals, chutneys, spiced lentils and poppadoms on the side.

Quick boerewors sausage saute

I love grocery shopping – probably more than the next person, but we’ve all experienced those annoying people who sneak a peek into your trolley. Well, that’s me. When I’m at the supermarket, I look into your trolley. Sometimes I am inspired (a healthy trolley will have me ashamedly putting back the chips), sometimes I’m appalled at what I see (for instance, do you really need all those instant MSG-laced sauces?). Occasionally I am jealous (when I spot a Lindt slab poking out of your groceries, but I’m on a diet) and quite often I am reminded of something I almost forgot to buy myself. Other people’s shopping just fascinates me. You can tell so much from a person from what they stock up on – I will take a guess at your cooking skills, your marital status, whether or not you have kids, how old those kids are, your eating habits, how often you go shopping, which brands you favour, your plans for that evening and what you’re going to be making for dinner. More often than not, this is the best part – to guess what you’re going to whip up for dinner with those ingredients. So often, this gives me a great idea and I promptly change my own dinner for the evening. Which is precisely what happened to this recipe. What started out as bacon and tomato pasta sauce in my basket, quickly turned in to this boerewors creation when I spotted the sausage poking out of a fellow shoppers trolley and made a dash to the meat section. So, enjoy this delicious recipe, and don’t pretend you wouldn’t sneak a peak into my trolley if you had the chance!

Photography by Christelle Botha for Zone magazine

Quick boerewors sausage saute

Serves 4

1/2 packet streaky bacon

1 x punnet boerewors

¼ bottle of red wine

1 tsp dried mixed herbs

1 x tin tomato, onion and garlic mix

Handful dried mushrooms, rehydrated with 1 cup boiling water

4-5 slices white bread (preferably stale or day-old), torn in pieces

¼ cup melted butter or oil

Heat a large cast iron pan over medium coals or a gas stove. Snip the bacon into bits using a pair of kitchen scissors and fry the bacon in the pan until golden. Add the boerewors and cook for a few minutes before turning, until golden. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and allow to simmer until almost evaporated before adding the herbs and tomato mix. Add the reconstituted mushrooms along with any liquid and allow to reduce until thickened. Toss the torn bread pieces in the melted butter or oil and arrange over the top of the boerewors. Cover with a lid, placing a few coals on top of the lid, and allow to bake for 10-15 minutes or until the bread is crisp and golden before serving. 

OTT chocolate brownie cookies (with caramelised white chocolate)

One of the greastest pleasures in life is a good midnight snack. It’s not often I wake up with the urge to visit the kitchen but I’ve always loved the idea of creating a culinary masterpiece in the dim light of the open fridge door. This weekend I found myself baking a batch of totally OTT (over the top) brownie cookies at 11pm on a Saturday night (don’t judge me), not because of insomnia but rather because my neighbours were throwing what felt like the biggest trance party in the Southern Hemisphere. And I’m not exaggerating. Okay maybe I am but still. And BTW it had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn’t invited okay? The occasion warranted a totes innapropes (totally innapropriate) amount of chocolate because that was all that was standing between me and dialling the po-po (police). The caramelised white chocolate filling is honestly the best thing that has ever graced my taste buds. How I have lived this long without it in my life, is a mystery and if I ever meet the person responsible for its glorious creation, my brain will explode from wonder. The white chocolate turns a beautiful golden brown in the oven and develops a toasty flavour. A pinch of sea salt flakes is all that’s standing between this stuff (I’m nicknaming it white chocolate crack) and a stint in rehab. Caramelised white chocolate FTW (for the win). Now smother gooey dark chocolate brownie cookies with the chocolate crack (warning: this will annihilate your diet but, hey, YOLO [you only live once] and all that) and you have a midnight snack that will solve all the world’s problems. After all, my neighbours will tell you that it contributed to the best party ever. True story.

Photography and styling by Katelyn Williams

Chocolate brownie cookies with caramelised white chocolate

I've used Fairtrade chocolate in honour of Fairtrade week - nothing better than eating chocolate with a clear conscience! 
Makes 12

Caramelised white chocolate

300g Fairtrade white chocolate, chopped*

1-2 tbsp vegetable oil

200g Fairtrade dark chocolate, chopped

50g Stork Bake

2 eggs

2/3 cup Selati castor sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup Sasko cake flour

¼ tsp baking powder

pinch of sea salt

To make the caramelised white chocolate, preheat the oven to 120C. Spread the chocolate on a baking sheet and drizzle with the oil. Place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes then remove and stir with a clean, dry spatula. Continue to cook for 30-60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Don’t worry if the chocolate looks lumpy and chalky at some stage, it will smooth out and caramelize.

Once the chocolate is golden brown, stir in a pinch of salt. If it’s still lumpy you can place it in a food processor to smooth it out and add a little cream or oil if necessary. Store in a jar at room temperature.

To make the brownie cookies, melt the chocolate and Stork Bake together gently.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer for 15 minutes or until pale and creamy.

Fold in the flour, baking powder, chocolate mixture and allow to stand for 10 minutes.

Spoon tablespoons of mixture onto a lined baking sheet and bake at 180C for 8-10 minutes or until puffed and cracked.

Allow to cool completely then sandwich together with the caramelized chocolate.

*use a white chocolate with a minimum of 30% cocoa butter content for the best results

Caramelised white chocolate aka 'White chocolate crack'

And here's the clip of me making these yummy cookies on Expresso Breakfast Show this week:

Double desserts: Peppermint crisp tart ice cream sandwiches

The sun is rising later in the mornings and setting earlier in the evenings which means that chilly autumn is rearing it's head. Ever the optimist, I am holding on to summer for as long as possible! These ice cream sandwiches are one of my favourite flavours of South African summer. Inspired by a 'local 'n lekker' dessert, peppermint crisp tart, it is made with only 4 ingredients (like the pudding which inspired it) but is a much better suitor for our steamy climate. It's so easy you can rope (read: trick) the kids in to making them (while you read a book or pour a glass of wine) and the little sarmies are great for serving after a lazy weekend  braai.

Fusing two desserts together, in this case the tart and ice cream sandwich, is one of the trendiest things to do at the moment. Banana split cheesecake, apple crumble cupcakes or smores brownies (am I making you hungry yet), you get the idea. Why? Because if you have a sweet tooth and have ever had to choose between two desserts, you'll know that it's a torturous nightmare. Two desserts in one. Problem solved! Because too much of a sweet thing is never enough! 

Photograph by Christelle Botha for Sanlam Reality

Peppermint crisp tart ice cream sandwiches

(serves 6)

1 packet (250g) coconut biscuits

250ml cream

1/2 (400g) tin caramel

1 peppermint crisp bar (80g), crumbled

Beat the cream until stiff then fold in the caramel and peppermint crisp, leaving a few swirls. Freeze the mixture in a baking dish so it’s about 2cm thick, until firm.

Once firm, arrange the tennis biscuits on top and cut the ice cream into squares. Remove each square, sandwiching another tennis biscuit on the bottom of each ice cream slice. Arrange on a baking tray and freeze again until firm. 

Valentine's Desssert: Chocolate fondants with gooey liquid centres

There is not a human being on this planet that would turn down this dessert. It ticks all the boxes a dessert should - contains chocolate? Check. Decadent and gooey? Check. Not too sweet? Check. 

Just plain swoon-worthy! And before you go ahead and think it's difficult and involves effort bla bla bla, wait just a minute there, because you can make this in advance and then simply pop it in the oven 10 minutes before you wish to melt whoever's heart you're serving this to. The timing here though is key. You're going to check the fondant after 10 minutes like the recipe says, and you're going to think, Katelyn you've lost the plot this is still raw. It's not raw, it's gooey and oozing chocolatey goodness and also, when have I ever lead you astray? Never. So just trust me, it's good to go. Oh, but not without some softly whipped cream or a big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, of course. 

Günther Schubert of Vörsprung Studio

Chocolate fondants

Recipe by the fabulous Zola Nene

Makes 6

100g dark chocolate, chopped

100g butter, softened

3 large eggs

85g white sugar

100g cake flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water until smooth.

Whip the eggs and sugar together in an electric mixer until triple in size. The mixture should be light, fluffy and thick.

Sieve the flour, cocoa and salt together.

Fold the chocolate mix and the dry ingredients into the eggs alternately.

Grease and dust 6 dariole moulds or ramekins with a little cocoa powder.

Fill greased moulds with the fondant mixture and allow to rest in the fridge until ready to bake. The mixture can even be prepared the day before serving.

Bake at 180°C for 10 - 11 minutes.

Loosen the edges of the fondant from the mould then serve turned out on a plate with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.