Hosehead
Executive Member
Just for a change I decided to cook this weekend without recipe books and without planning. I decided I'd buy what I found when I was out and about. So a chance visit to Mariners Wharf in Hout Bay yesterday found me scoring some cheap whitebait, some calamari tubes, and a whole mozambiquan crab. Mmmm.
So after eating a lunch of truly revolting, greasy fish and chips at Mariners Wharf I decided I'd make it up to my palate so I returned home and deep fried the whitebait after dusting them with my secret flour seasoning and deep frying them. I served them in a pile with lemon wedges and sea salt. Verdict: Just like they do them in Greece, only better
For those of you who haven't tried whitebait they are like crunchy french fries. No bones or anything. You eat the whole tiny fish, ungutted, head and tail. It is a milder taste than sardines.
I used a Soy/honey/vinegar based dipping sauce and that was a hit with the kids.
Then to continue my Taste of the Med evening I made a Fritatta which is a popular Spanish Tapas, but I made it the main course and served this with a mixed salad vinagrette. It's a very simple dish best served hot or cold- equally Yum. I've spent a lot of time over the years in Andalucia and this is one of my favourite dishes (Gazpacho, being the other) and you cook the potatoes til soft in loads of decent Spanish olive oil and set them aside to cool. I like to add onion and sometimes red pepper but just onion does it for me mostly. I then add salt and pepper to taste and drain the excess olive oil and beat in som eggs to the cooled potato/onion mixture and cook it like a very big omlette in a cast iron pan. Then I transfer this to the grill to get the top nice and golden hued- but not dark. Then I flip it onto a platter and let it cool. Served with crispy greens in a light and slightly sweet vinagrette it's unbeatable. Verdict: Yum
For desert I scrouged around my kitchen and found a bunch of ripe bananas. I sliced these lengthwise and cooked them in a skillet with a generous helping of butter and brown treacle sugar. I kept them moving around until they were transparent and almost treacle like then I splashed a good measure of Seychelles Rum a friend of mine makes in the Seychelles and I let the skillet go up in flames for a second or two I then set it aside to cool.
Meanwhile in the deeper recesses of the fridge I found some cream so I made a bastardised version of Chantilly. I added some castor sugar and a few drops of Madadascar Vanilla esence and whipped it up by hand and served it with the Hot buttered Bananas.
Verdict: Superb
Today I soaked the calamari tubes in buttermilk so hopefully they will be denture friendly by tomorrow. I quickly boiled the Moz crab in a little water and then quickly steamed it. First I thought I was dealing with an Alaskan King Crab by mistake, just due to the sheer size of it, and at R28 it was pretty cheap, but when I opened each and every leg I found someone had beaten me to the meat first
So I took my second dibs like a man and scraped off all the meat I could.
I reckon I sat at the table with a pair of scissors and a scraper for the better part of an hour. What I ended up with I am hesistant to call crab meat, because I know stone crabs from Florida and those are as meaty as steaks,
This anorexic andre the giant crab must have lost a fight with a sandbank or something, because I had to rinse and rinse the Maputo sand out of everything. I dunno, maybe some Maputo bay fisherfolk used most of it for bait and reburied it the sand, deep. I managed to reclaim exclusively by mechanical means about a handful of crab "meat" for all my effort. So what to do with a bad situation? Well I have 4 people to feed and a handful of crab
There is only one solution and that's to make it stretch. Crabcakes!
Mash some potatoes, sieve them, add butter and cream but keep them thick, then let them cool. Finely chop a couple of garlic cloves, a shallot, a red onion, some parsley and chives and add the drained crab meat to this. season and add extra finely milled Black Pepper and a dash of cayenne pepper, and a dash of Mexican Green habanero sauce (which I found from a Mexican supplier ages ago) Check the seasoning and add the cooled mash to the crab mix then shape the cakes with your hands and refrigerate them for about 30 min so they hold their shape. Next I made some mayonaise. I use a whisk. The trick is always to use everything at room temp and add the oil slowly...drops at first and when you've used about 50% you can pour a bit quicker. I needed to thin it so I just add a teaspoon of hot water or a teaspoon of vinegar. It's easy to make but even more fun to watch someone else making it and when it curdles in front of their eyes...
That done, it's time to egg wash the cakes and roll them in breadcrumbs and then back in the fridge to repeat the process. You want to get a good coating on them to stop the mash oozing out. Then I hit the deep fryer with two crab cakes at a time and brown them just so and drain them on paper. You want a nice crisp outside, almost a golden brown and soft center.
These I served with chilled homemade mayo and a quick cucumber and tomato salsa.
Verdict: It tastes like Crab. Excellent
So after eating a lunch of truly revolting, greasy fish and chips at Mariners Wharf I decided I'd make it up to my palate so I returned home and deep fried the whitebait after dusting them with my secret flour seasoning and deep frying them. I served them in a pile with lemon wedges and sea salt. Verdict: Just like they do them in Greece, only better
For those of you who haven't tried whitebait they are like crunchy french fries. No bones or anything. You eat the whole tiny fish, ungutted, head and tail. It is a milder taste than sardines. I used a Soy/honey/vinegar based dipping sauce and that was a hit with the kids.
Then to continue my Taste of the Med evening I made a Fritatta which is a popular Spanish Tapas, but I made it the main course and served this with a mixed salad vinagrette. It's a very simple dish best served hot or cold- equally Yum. I've spent a lot of time over the years in Andalucia and this is one of my favourite dishes (Gazpacho, being the other) and you cook the potatoes til soft in loads of decent Spanish olive oil and set them aside to cool. I like to add onion and sometimes red pepper but just onion does it for me mostly. I then add salt and pepper to taste and drain the excess olive oil and beat in som eggs to the cooled potato/onion mixture and cook it like a very big omlette in a cast iron pan. Then I transfer this to the grill to get the top nice and golden hued- but not dark. Then I flip it onto a platter and let it cool. Served with crispy greens in a light and slightly sweet vinagrette it's unbeatable. Verdict: Yum
For desert I scrouged around my kitchen and found a bunch of ripe bananas. I sliced these lengthwise and cooked them in a skillet with a generous helping of butter and brown treacle sugar. I kept them moving around until they were transparent and almost treacle like then I splashed a good measure of Seychelles Rum a friend of mine makes in the Seychelles and I let the skillet go up in flames for a second or two
I then set it aside to cool.Meanwhile in the deeper recesses of the fridge I found some cream so I made a bastardised version of Chantilly. I added some castor sugar and a few drops of Madadascar Vanilla esence and whipped it up by hand and served it with the Hot buttered Bananas.
Verdict: Superb
Today I soaked the calamari tubes in buttermilk so hopefully they will be denture friendly by tomorrow. I quickly boiled the Moz crab in a little water and then quickly steamed it. First I thought I was dealing with an Alaskan King Crab by mistake, just due to the sheer size of it, and at R28 it was pretty cheap, but when I opened each and every leg I found someone had beaten me to the meat first
So I took my second dibs like a man and scraped off all the meat I could.I reckon I sat at the table with a pair of scissors and a scraper for the better part of an hour. What I ended up with I am hesistant to call crab meat, because I know stone crabs from Florida and those are as meaty as steaks,
This anorexic andre the giant crab must have lost a fight with a sandbank or something, because I had to rinse and rinse the Maputo sand out of everything. I dunno, maybe some Maputo bay fisherfolk used most of it for bait and reburied it the sand, deep. I managed to reclaim exclusively by mechanical means about a handful of crab "meat" for all my effort. So what to do with a bad situation? Well I have 4 people to feed and a handful of crab
There is only one solution and that's to make it stretch. Crabcakes!Mash some potatoes, sieve them, add butter and cream but keep them thick, then let them cool. Finely chop a couple of garlic cloves, a shallot, a red onion, some parsley and chives and add the drained crab meat to this. season and add extra finely milled Black Pepper and a dash of cayenne pepper, and a dash of Mexican Green habanero sauce (which I found from a Mexican supplier ages ago) Check the seasoning and add the cooled mash to the crab mix then shape the cakes with your hands and refrigerate them for about 30 min so they hold their shape. Next I made some mayonaise. I use a whisk. The trick is always to use everything at room temp and add the oil slowly...drops at first and when you've used about 50% you can pour a bit quicker. I needed to thin it so I just add a teaspoon of hot water or a teaspoon of vinegar. It's easy to make but even more fun to watch someone else making it and when it curdles in front of their eyes...
That done, it's time to egg wash the cakes and roll them in breadcrumbs and then back in the fridge to repeat the process. You want to get a good coating on them to stop the mash oozing out. Then I hit the deep fryer with two crab cakes at a time and brown them just so and drain them on paper. You want a nice crisp outside, almost a golden brown and soft center.
These I served with chilled homemade mayo and a quick cucumber and tomato salsa.
Verdict: It tastes like Crab. Excellent