Bread Pudding

Bread pudding has the most plebeian of origins, but is considered to be a favourite comfort food for many people.  It is said that the humble bread pudding originated in the early 11^th and 12^th centuries, as people looked for frugal means of using stale, leftover bread instead of letting it go to waste.  It was known as ‘the poor man’s pudding’ as it was popular with the lower classes.

Today you can often find this dish on the menus of some of the trendiest restaurants.  The dish is very versatile as you can add different ingredients to suit your taste.

Mandi:  Another first time recipe for me. My gas stove is still in storage but I must say the new gas stove on the farm has done well considering it has no temperatures written on the dial to go by so I had to guess the heat. You go by the flame height it seems.... We had visited friends last weekend and took the tasty chicken dish from last week's blog with to share.   Our host made a bread pudding that was really delicious and here I was this week following a bread pudding recipe that I had never made and hoped that it would turn out as good as the one we had last weekend.  According to the verdict it was better!  I got a message from my dad saying it was my mom's favourite "go to" recipe if she had to make a pudding quickly for visitors and I can second her on that. I will definitely use this as a "spoil" when the kids come to visit.

Recipe:  Bread Pudding
Pudding:
200g bread slices with the crust cut off (10 normal bread slices usually does the trick)
750ml milk
120g sugar
2 eggs beaten
5ml vanilla essence

Syrup:
125g sugar
2 eggs beaten
5 ml vanilla
Mix ingredients

Method:
With butter, grease a dish that can contain a volume of 2 litres.  Heat your oven to 180 °c.
Heat the milk until it boils.  Place the bread into the milk and let it soak through. Add the sugar and mix well into the bread mixture, stirring the ingredients together.  Allow it to cool down a bit because when you add the egg it may end up scrambled ;).  Add the egg and the vanilla. Mix well and pour the contents into your dish.  Bake uncovered for 30-45 min depending on your oven's capacity. I left mine for 45 mins. Check to see that the pudding is set.
While it is still hot, pour the syrup  over and bake for a further 15 mins.  Serve immediately from the oven.

I served mine with a custard but the syrup is enough to serve on its own as a topping.  I could feed 8 adults comfortably with leftovers on this recipe.  Its soft texture and taste reminded me of melkkos...another traditional Boere recipe for chilly winter evenings!
Tastes more-ish!

Deidre: I had a fruit basket full of almost overripe bananas at home, and when faced with the idea of putting a spin on the bread pudding, my first thought was of baking a banana bread and using that for the pudding.  It was delicious!!  It takes longer than baking your normal bread pudding with store bought bread, but it is definitely worth the effort.

Find a good banana bread recipe, maybe one that you regularly bake, or you can use mine below:

Banana Bread

100 g butter at room temperature

175 g castor sugar

2 large eggs

5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence

225 g self raising flour

2,5 mg (1/2 tsp) cinnamon

30 ml (2 tbsp) buttermilk ( I used plain yoghurt as I forgot to buy the buttermilk)

3 ripe bananas, mashed

100 g pecan nuts

Pre-heat your oven to 180 °C.  Grease a bread pan.

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add the eggs and vanilla essence and mix well

Sift all the dry ingredients and add to the butter mixture

Add the buttermilk and mix well

Add the mashed bananas and stir into the mixture

Pour the mixture into the prepared bread pan.

Bake the bread for 55 minutes on the middle rack of your oven.  ( I found that 55 minutes was too long – test after 40 minutes)

Bread pudding

200g banana bread slices
750 ml milk
120 g sugar
2 eggs beaten
5ml vanilla essence

Syrup:

125 g sugar
2 eggs beaten
5 ml vanilla
Mix ingredients

Method:

Grease an ovenproof dish.  Pre-heat your oven to 180 °c.
Heat the milk until just before boiling point. 

Soak the bread in the milk and let it soak through.

Add the sugar and mix well into the bread mixture, stirring the ingredients together. 

Allow it to cool down.

Add the egg and the vanilla.

Mix well and pour the mixture into your prepared dish. 

Bake uncovered for 30-45 min

Check to see that the pudding is set.
While the pudding is still hot, pour the syrup over and bake for a further 15 mins. 

Serve immediately from the oven.

Tips and hints:

·        The banana’s don’t need to be over ripe, just as long as the peels aren’t green;

·        It is characteristic of the top of banana bread to crack – don’t panic;

·        Ensure that you allow the bread and milk of the bread pudding to cool down – otherwise the egg will scramble when you add it to the hot mixture.

·        We found that the pudding was delicious served hot or cold – it’s up to you.

Aunty Tilly's Chicken Dish

One of the wonderful things about your Mom’s cookery books, are the recipes which are passed down and along by friends and relatives.  I can see everyone sitting around the lunch table on a Sunday discussing the church service the morning, current affairs, distant family etc. and Mom – after taking a mouthful of food – saying to the hostess. “Aunty Tilly.  This is soooo good.  May I have the recipe?” and it’s written down for prosperity in her cookbook as “Aunty Tilly’s chicken”.  Who knows, it may have been written down in Aunty Tilly's cookbook as “Moeder Marta’s chicken dish”.  And so each generation makes the dish and the memory of that loved one is cherished and passed on with each bite.

Mandi:  This recipe was written down by my mom after a visit to her Aunt Tilly (My grandfather’s, brother’s wife).  I must say, I think this is the first recipe that we have done on the blog, or let’s say the original recipe that looks like the traditional “Boerekos” that we were raised with and I tell you what, it is finger licking good!!  It has got to be the easiest recipe we have done by far and with the traditional sweet and spicy butternut and peas to go with cooked white basmati rice and this chicken, it is definitely a winner, hands down.  James and I took the dishes over to friends and we fed 8 grown ups with left overs, only because they couldn’t fit anymore into their fully tummies.  I was sceptical at the timing of the chicken in my oven.  We moved this week onto a farm with a quaint little farmhouse and a gas stove which is probably close to half the size of my previous gas stove.  All in all, it went for another hour and it was delicious.  So adjust the timing according to what you know your oven is capable of.

Recipe:

2 Kg Chicken pieces

1 Cup Mayonnaise

1 Cup Chutney

1 packet white onion soup

Method:

Place your chicken pieces, bones down into a deep casserole dish.  Pour the soup powder over the chicken pieces.  Mix the Mayonnaise and Chutney together and pour over the chicken mixture.  Do not add water and do NOT add Salt!!  Place in the oven at 160◦C for two hours and keep it covered. 

Notes:

1.      Try to get chicken that is not injected full of water to get the weight to 2Kg.  I usually shop at a local free range chicken depot that guarantees there is no added water.  Also remember that if your chicken is frozen it also weighs more with the ice so if you don’t have other options, I would suggest buying extra pieces depending on how many mouths you want to feed.

2.      You will see that when your chicken dish is ready, the mixture of the ingredients (soup, chutney, mayo) makes a nice juicy thick gravy.

3.      Thank you Aunty Tilly for a fabulous recipe. Rest in peace knowing we enjoyed every bite!! 

Deidre:  Putting a spin on this dish was extremely difficult for me (as always), but especially because the original of this dish is my family’s favourite.  There is no match for the thick sticky sauce which coats each chicken piece and the gravy which soaks the rice with a richness and flavour that knows no equal.  But, my challenge is to put a spin on and modernise Mom’s recipes…..

Aunty Tilly’s Chicken Dish

1kg chicken (cooked and deboned)  (I used smaller quantities because I had fewer people to feed)

½  cup mayonnaise

½  cup chutney

½  pkt brown onion soup (I love the dark brown gravy)

Carrots

Potatoes

Onions

To get the flavour of baked chicken (which is like the original dish), I roasted the chicken prior to deboning it instead of boiling it on top of the stove.

Debone and tear the chicken into large pieces.  This dish has a very rustic appearance.

Cook carrots, potatoes and chopped onions together until soft.  Drain and blend. 

Place the mayonnaise, chutney and ½ pkt soup powder in a pot on the stove.  Add 1 cup of water and simmer until it thickens.  Whisk continuously (Be careful as this mixture burns easily.)

Place a mould on your plate and add spoonfuls of the carrot mixture in the mould.  Remove the mould and place the pieces of chicken on top of the carrot.  Lastly pour the mayonnaise mixture over the top of the chicken.

I served the dish with a side salad.

Hints and Tips:

1.      Adapt your recipe according the number of people you need to feed;

2.      Experiment with your soup powders – maybe mushroom would work just as well;

3.      If your gravy is too thick, keep adding small amounts of water until your mixture is pourable;

4.      The flavour of the chicken is definitely better roasted for this dish than boiled.  Add your normal spices as for when you make roast chicken;

5.      Cut up your carrots and potatoes into equal squares which will allow them to cook evenly.

6.      Use fresh carrots – the natural sweetness adds a subtle flavour to this dish.

As mentioned earlier in this section, nothing beats the tangy, sticky gravy that sticks to the chicken pieces in the original dish – but this one wasn’t too bad either J.

Potatoes and Spicy Sausage

Mandi and I are experiencing a hectic March – we were both relocating and Dennis and I marshalled at the Cape Argus Cycle Race (which, to those who don’t know, is the world’s largest timed cycle race).  Almost every weekend has been busy with something or other, so we have been cooking whenever we can.  The dish this week is Potatoes and Spicy Sausage.  The ingredients for this dish are quite strange and I can’t seem to get my head around banana and potatoes…… 

Mandi: In mom’s cookbook it says she took this recipe out of a Home & Garden magazine in October 1982…mmmm… this could pose a problem because when you have ingredients advertised by a Brand in 1982, it may not exist anymore in 2016!!  As per the All Gold New Potatoes in a tin…. Well at least not in my tiny town with one supermarket.  Fortunately we are moving next week to a larger town/evolving city and perhaps I will be able to get the ingredients there.

Due to my religious convictions, I also did not use Pork (Russians) and opted for a vegetarian option which was not too shabby for a replacement I must say.  I think the pork russians would add colour to the dish though which was missing in mine – looked a bit bland and I think Deidré’s son Dylan would probably echo his comment of a few week’s back to his mother, on my attempt at a salad that it lacks imagination. LOL.  But I was trying for colour.  In my defence though, we are moving house as I said and all the best crockery and kitchen ingredients are kept to a minimum at this stage. So forgive the utensils for the next few weeks while I unpack my life of seven years in this home and downsize from a luxurious kitchen to one that may have fit into my current kitchen 3 times.  Well if Deidré could have done it, so can I :P

This is not a formal lunch recipe at all.  I would make it either for a brunch or a casual lunch.  I arranged the dish on top of two slices of toast, crusts removed.  It is very filling and perhaps the two complex carbs together is an overkill. However, I must say that both James and I enjoyed every last bite of this variation of the original.

Recipe:  Potatoes and Spicy Sausage

1 can All Gold New Potatoes (drained) – I bought baby potatoes, kept the skin on and cooked till almost ready. I quartered them.

3 Onions finely sliced

5ml Butter or Margarine

6 Russian Sausages (or Polish) – I used a Vegetarian/Vegan option that was GMO free.  Cut into thick slices.

6 Bananas

250 ml Chicken Stock

Method:

Fry onions in hot butter till golden brown.  Add potatoes to onions and gently heat through.

Fry sausage pieces, remove and keep warm with onions and potatoes.

Peel Bananas and fry in remaining fat left in the pan.

If the pan seems dry, add a small amount of extra butter.  Return onions, potatoes and sausages to pan. 

Add the chicken stock and simmer for 10 mins.

Arrange fried bananas on top and serve straight from the pan.

Deidre suggested Mutton sausages, however we will try that one again once we are in the city.

Deidrè:  Like I said – potatoes and banana’s together in one dish?  I don’t think so.  But that’s what the recipe calls for and that’s what I did – kind of.

In between rearranging the grocery cupboard – because I couldn’t pack half my groceries that I’d bought in it – and doings the odds and ends that I haven’t had time to do since moving into my new home, I meditated on this recipe.  What flavour combinations would work?  I eventually decided that although potatoes didn’t seem to fit with bananas, sweet potatoes would.  So here is my version of Mom’s 1982 dish:

Potatoes And Spicy Sausage

3 large sweet potatoes (cut into blocks and pre-cooked in the chicken stock)

1 x Knorr stock pot chicken stock

6 Pork sausages (remove meat from the casings)

1 onion finely chopped

5 ml Fresh parsley finely chopped

Flour

Olive oil for frying

Mash the sweet potatoes.  Add salt & pepper to taste.

Add the onion and parsley to the sausage meat.  I added a little bit of flour to the meat to give it a firmer texture. Fry a small piece and taste.  Add salt and pepper if necessary (sausage meat normally has its own seasoning already mixed into it).

Form patties from the meat and fry until cooked.

Onion and Banana Relish

8 Bananas

2 onions sliced

1 tspTurmeric

½ cupVinegar

90 g Brown Sugar

Pinch of salt

Mash the banana.  Add all the ingredients to taste in a saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes.  Be careful as it tends to burn easily.

To serve:

Spread the sweet potato mash on the plate.

Place the sausage meat patty on top

Add the banana and onion relish.

Hints and tips:

1.     Cut your sweet potatoes up into same sized squares – this will ensure that they cook evenly.

2.     The relish is very much a taste as you go along exercise.  This recipe makes enough to fill a Jacobs coffee jar (750 g).

Triangle Fridge Cake

There are days when things don't work out exactly as planned. That's normal. Even experienced chefs have failures in the kitchen. That's what builds experience. I've had major failures and felt that I wouldn't bake anything again..... but that feeling of euphoria when you try that recipe again (sometimes for the 3rd or 4th time)and it's 'perfect' is priceless!!!

Mandi:  my attempt to make the original recipe of the triangle fridge tart was, as my kids would say, an epic fail.  Being the A type personality that I am I tend to follow recipes to the letter, line upon line so I am still not sure what went wrong.  So in our endeavours to be transparent in our blog and prove that kitchen failures happen to everyone we decided to post the result anyway.  I consulted the technical guru, Deidré on this one and the following WhatsApp messages ensued:

Mandi: Good morning Sis, I have made the recipe to the dot according to the instructions but the texture is like thick pancake dough, what am I doing wrong?  Its the same icing you can say that you pour over that pumpkin cake of yours.
Deidre: It might just be too warm. Put it in the fridge to chill for a bit...
Mandi: I am going to town. Will leave in fridge till I get back.  Do you think I should get another tub of cottage cheese if the fridge didn't work?
Deidre1: Yes try that too. Are you getting smooth cottage cheese? Try Lancewood
Mandi: Yes and yes I got lancewood :)
Mandi: OK I will buy the cottage cheese in case, will let you know
Mandi: <Media omitted>. (Added beneath blog)
Deidre: I'll try on the weekend and see. Just put it in the deepfreeze like that. Its awesome no matter what it looks like!!
Deidre: Do your write up in any case. There might be people who also try it and it ends up like yours
Deidre: Just a point of interest.... did you add the 2nd tub to your 1st mixture?
Mandi: Yes I did
Deidre: Then whatever was wrong in the 1st mixture would have contaminated the 2nd tub......
Deidre: I meant for you to try again from the start.... sorry :(
Mandi: I've used my weekly budget and now I don't have more to make more.  I will write up the blog and forward to you.

The bottom line: whatever was wrong in the 1st mixture would have contaminated the 2nd tub...... I thought if I add the second tub to the first mixture it would thicken.  So we had our lines crossed. 

My mom made this tart frequently with much success as well as Deidre so there must have been a glitch in my first attempt at this recipe.

Recipe:

125g margarine
200g castor sugar
250 g cottage cheese (smooth)
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
24 Tennis biscuits (for those In distant countries they are very thin, square coconut biscuits) 
Glazed cherries

Cream the margarine and castor sugar. Add the egg, vanilla and cottage cheese.  (Apparently this consistency must be like thick cream or soft butter...)

On a sheet of tin foil, pack your tennis biscuits making sure to leave enough space on either side of the biscuits for when you pull up the foil to form the triangle.  Pack your biscuits in a rectangle form 3 across and 4 down.  Spread some of the filling over the biscuits and add another layer of biscuits over the filling.  Spread the filling over the second layer of biscuits and place the cherries down the centre.  Use the sides of the tin foil to lift the sides of the biscuits to the center to form a triangle.  Wrap the top of the tin foil tightly and tuck the sides in on the top and bottom.  Place in the freezer overnight.  Melt the chocolate and unwrap the tin foil carefully.  Pour chocolate over the top of the triangle and fold the tin foil again.  Place back in the freezer until you are ready to serve.  Serve directly from the freezer.   It should look like the photo below.

Deidre: I love the original triangle fridge cake.  I've even made the filling on its own and eaten it as ice cream. That's why I told Mandi to freeze her flop no matter what it looks like. It tastes awesome!!!! When Mandi and I were communicating earlier last week, there were a few crossed lines.  Not only were we trying to figure out the recipe, we were misreading each other as well.

I had an idea to make a deconstructed fridge cake in a glass... but then Dennis asked me why I didn't make a savoury fridge cake instead.  My first reaction was 'that won't work..you need to eat it frozen'.  But then I thought why not?  It gets extremely hot here in South Africa. What's nicer than a cold starter? Then the  creative juices started to flow and Dennis and I discussed various  options - what could work and what not.  So here is our savoury version of the triangle fridge cake.

Dennis's Savoury Fridge Cake:

125g butter
1 egg
250 g flavoured cream cheese (I used sundried tomato and basil)
50 ml fresh chopped Parsley
50 ml chopped pepperdews
1 pkt cream crackers
Salt and pepper to taste

Cream the butter
Add the egg and the cream cheese
Add the Parsley and pepper dews
Season to taste

Lay out your crackers 3 x 4 on the foil
Place spoonfuls of filling on the crackers.  Use a knife to spread the filling.  Hold the crackers in place with your fingers.  The crackers tend to stick together once you spread the filling over them.
Add the next layer of filling.  Spoon the rest of the filling onto the crackers.
Taking the foil on the 4 cracker side, lift the foil up, shaping the crackers into a triangle. (I needed Dennis's help here)

Push the crackers into a triangle shape and fold the foil over tightly. Fold and wrap the sides of the triangle.
Place in deep freeze overnight.

I bought Woolworths Lime and Coriander mayonnaise to serve with the cake.

Hints and Challenges:
1. I use ingredients at room temperature. I believe this is the difference between success and failure
2. Use all the filling otherwise your triangle will have a hole running through the middle.
3. I used cream crackers instead of Tuc biscuits (my favourite) as I was worried the Tuc biscuits would dissolve once the filling was spread over them.
4. When buying your flavoured cream cheese, make sure your other ingredient compliment the flavour.
5. The only challenge I experienced was the folding of the foil - but with Dennis's help, this also turned out well.
6. I found that the cake tasted better once I had defrosted a piece. It's easier to cut whilst frozen, but maybe cut all the slices and then leave them to defrost before serving.

Of course the men in my house demanded that I make the original as well.....

I used Bakers choc mint tennis biscuits and melted mint chocolate over the top.I don't like cherries so I didn't add any to my tart.... Mandi suggested strawberries.... mmmmm next time.

Chicken a la Wayne

Can you remember when you were little and played telephone, telephone?  This was a game where a group of kids would sit in a circle and the first one would whisper a sentence into the next kids ear....  after being repeated 5 or 6 times, the end result was usually far from what was originally said.  This is how we are finding these recipes in my Mom's cookbook.  These recipes have been passed down, repeated, overheard etc.  and sometimes when you read the recipe, it takes a bit of detective work to figure out what was actually meant.  It's fun....  makes cooking the dish so much more interesting.

We hope you enjoy this weeks blog.

Mandi:  This is a microwave recipe -  I am not a fan at all of microwave recipes(!), probably because I have read enough about what microwaves do to the food as well as to our insides… so I am sorry to offend those avid microwavers, but I took to the conventional oven :)  I have given the microwave recipe as well as the oven recipe just to please everyone in the cooking game.  Originally I thought this was a recipe my mom made for my brother on weekends when he would come home from the Air Force, but I had to find out some details on the recipe… and discovered I was mistaken.  Apparently this was a recipe my brother, Wayne, had sent my mom one weekend after making it himself.  Gauging from the “Special” quotation inserted behind the title of the recipe by my mom,  I gathered, and my son agreed wholeheartedly, that it is indeed a very tasty recipe.

Also…. Once again it’s one of those recipes that you have to read over and over to make sense of because it was made many years ago and passed over a telephone…LOL…. I have tried to make sense of it in writing down the recipe.

Recipe:
1 small packet  dried apricots
1/2 cup raisins
2 Chicken Breasts
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons margarine
Thyme, herbs
Salt and Pepper
Chicken spice

Sauce:  Chop up the onion and garlic.  Sautè them in the margarine with the thyme, herbs.

Method:

Arrange the chicken breasts in a casserole dish, placing bones at the bottom.  Season the chicken with the salt and pepper and chicken spice.  Cover with half of the sauce and bake in microwave for +- 20 mins (medium/high).   [20 mins in a moderate oven, 180◦C]
Turn chicken breasts upside down, place dried apricots and some raisins in cavities.  Cover with the rest of the sauce mixture.  Bake for another 20 mins at medium/high.  [20 mins in the oven]
If you are using the microwave, let it stand for 15 minutes in a warmer drawer.  (This is because the dish is actually still cooking)
If you are using the oven, remove the casserole lid and allow to brown a few minutes before removing from the oven.

Make rice, with chicken stock and serve with veggies.

Pointers:
1. This recipe is ideal for a young married couple or a couple whose children have left the home already – like in our case.  We had our son and his girlfriend over for lunch and I made for my parents who live with us as well so I trippled the recipe.
2. I removed the chicken skin from the breasts and this resulted in the chicken not browning as much as I would have liked.  If you like crispy chicken skin, don’t remove the skin (if you are using the oven).
3. I also removed the bones from the chicken which made it difficult to place the apricots into the cavities as prescribed by the recipe.
4. I would have liked the sauce to be a little thicker and will definitely thicken it next time.

All in all, the dish was savoured by everyone, with none left for seconds.  Just as great in the oven I would say!!

 

Deidrè: I don’t really remember this dish being made at home. As it was a recipe Wayne had made whilst in the Air Force which he phoned through to Mom, I guess it was his special dish. It would be interesting to know whether Wayne remembers it – and what he thinks of the spin I gave it.

There was a time in the 80’s when everyone was Microwave crazy.  The original dish is for the microwave, but I’m not a fan of microwaved food, so I made mine in a conventional oven.

I still hadn’t decided on how I would pimp it by Saturday morning.  All I knew was that apricots went well with chicken, but the dish could be sickeningly sweet if you didn’t flavour it with a more robust saltiness.  Chicken could also get very dry if baked for long periods of time.  So I decided to add the apricot Liquifruit and the onion soup.

CHICKEN A LA ‘DEIDRè’

Chicken pieces (I used 1kg of chicken pieces)

Dried apricots (Turkish apricots – you’ll find them in the dried fruit aisle, they are softer than the completely dried apricots)

Cashew nuts (I used roasted & salted)

Olives

500 ml Apricot Liquifruit

1 pkt brown onion soup

Sauce:

1 x onion, chopped

1 x green pepper chopped

2 x tblsp butter

Ginger (about 1 tsp)

Saute the ingredients for the sauce together until the onions are translucent.

In a separate pan, brown the chicken pieces until a lovely golden brown colour.  I didn’t remove the skins.

Place the chicken pieces in a casserole dish, bones down.

Cover with the sauce.

Add the chopped apricots, cashew nuts and olives

Sprinkle the soup powder over the chicken pieces.  I decided on brown onion soup as it makes a nice rich dark brown gravy.

Pour 500ml Liquifruit over the chicken

Cover with tin foil

Bake in a moderate oven (180°C) for 50 minutes.

Test to see if the chicken is done.  If not, place back into the oven for a further 10 minutes.

I served the chicken on a bed of mushroom and cheese rice with a green salad.  My sons loved the dish, especially the combination of cashew nuts and apricots.  I suppose you could use any nuts, but as cashews are my favourite, there was no discussion on what I would use for this meal.  Divan chose the rice, but I think there are so many flavours in the chicken that the mushroom and cheese got lost in the rice.  But this is definitely a dish I will make again.

Tips and Challenges:

-        I didn’t add salt or pepper to the dish as the soup powder is very salty and can overpower the dish. Rather let the guests add salt should they wish to

-        I used Turkish apricots – they are moist and work best. I considered using canned apricots, but they might cook to a mush because of the long cooking time. Dried apricots don’t have much taste... so Turkish apricots are the best to use

-        It is important to brown the chicken pieces to get colour on them. The dish is covered with tin foil so won’t brown while in the oven.