Go Food Gardening

Yellow Rice with Raisins

We like to serve yellow rice with our Cape Malay dishes and most of the curries we make. In this recipe we add a little bit of spices to make it a bit more special.

Serves 4

250 ml raw long-grained rice
1 litre boiling water
10 ml turmeric
1 stick cinnamon
4 cardamom seeds
5 ml salt
125 ml seedless raisins
25 ml sugar
1 tbsp butter or margarine

Bring water to boil. Add rice, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom seeds and salt and boil for 20 minutes. Drain in colander, and add raisins. Return to saucepan and add sugar and butter. Steam over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Source: The Seasoned Chef

Minty Salad Dressing

This light and refreshing salad dressing goes well with a cucumber salad, cold potato salad or tossed lightly over a fruit salad or apple and tuna salad.

6 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs fresh mint, chopped
2 Tbs fresh dill, chopped
pinch of sugar
salt and pepper

Whisk together in a blender, or place all the ingredients in a screw top jar and shake vigorously to combine well before using. Set aside for at least 15 minutes to allow the flavours to develop, then whisk or shake again before using.

Herby Lemon-Lime Salad Dressing

Serve with a classic tomato, cucumber and onion salad.

175ml olive oil
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs lime juice
1 tsp honey
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tbs chopped fresh herbs (e.g. mint, parsley, chives, thyme, tarragon)
salt and pepper

Whisk together in a blender, or place all the ingredients in a screw top jar and shake vigorously to combine well before using.

Thai Sweet & Sour Chilli Sauce

"Recipe: A series of step-by-step instructions for preparing ingredients you forgot to buy, in utensils you don't own, to make a dish the dog wouldn't eat." - Author Unknown

According to my original source this recipe is called "Nam jim priaw wahn" in Thai. And it is really nammies. It's also been the inspiration for many great sweet and sour chilli sauces.

Serves about 4
½ sweet red pepper, de-ribbed, de-seeded, and sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
2 fresh red Thai chilli, or any red chilli you like, sliced
1 cup water
10 tbs rice vinegar, or white wine vinegar
10 tbs sugar

Crush the sweet pepper, garlic and red chilli peppers with a pestle and mortar, then transfer to a small saucepan. Add the water, rice vinegar and sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, uncovered, for about 30 minutes, until the sauce thickens slightly.

Homemade Hot Chilli Powder

I'm kicking 2012 off with recipes that can help me work through the abundance of chilli peppers in my food garden. There is no definite chilli powder recipe but this one is a good starting point. Experiment a little with the ingredients and quantities to adjust the recipe to your taste.

5 tbs course dried Jalapeno
1 tbs course dried Cayenne or Habanero
1 ½ tbs ground cumin
1 ½ tbs dried oregano
1 ½ tbs garlic powder
1 tsp sea salt

Mix all the ingredients together. If you want a finer consistency ground with a mortar and pestle. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.

Immune Boosting Recipe #2

Here's another immune boosting recipe that's so good that it's hard to believe it is 'medicine'. Served with whole wheat bread it makes a satisfying light lunch.

In the 12th century the great physician and philosopher Maimonides prescribed herbal baths and chicken soup as remedies for the common cold. More than 800 years later, the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed that Maimonides was right. Researches found that chicken soup was a mild antibiotic and decongestant. Chinese healers to this day also use chicken soup to treat colds, though they do add some herbs, like ginseng, to their brew.

Here's one of our favourite chicken noodle soup recipes. To boost its cold fighting properties add 1 tablespoon grated ginger and 3 cloves crushed garlic.

Serves 4
1,5 liters chicken stock
2 carrots, peeled, diced
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
3 spring onions, chopped
5 ml salt
2 ml pepper
150 g mushrooms, thinly sliced
50 g raw egg noodles
150 g cooked chicken, diced

Bring stock to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the carrots, celery, spring onions, salt, pepper and optional ginger and garlic. Simmer, covered for 15 minutes. Stir in the mushrooms and noodles. Add the cooked chicken and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve at once.

Tossed Salad with Thyme Vinaigrette

Inspired by the traditional Greek salad this dish is always popular when served at our classes or family gatherings. The baby salad greens are optional but they do add a wonderful dimension to the salad.

500g green cabbage, shredded
1 medium red onion, sliced thinly
150g black olives, pitted and halved
225g feta cheese, crumbled
120ml olive oil
about 3 tbsp red or white wine vinegar, herb vinegar or lemon juice to taste
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
1 big handful baby salad greens (optional)

In a large salad bowl, toss the cabbage, onion, olives and feta until thoroughly mixed. In a small mixing bowl whisk the olive oil, vinegar, thyme and salt. When emulsified toss with the salad. Refrigerate the salad for 1 to 2 hours to allow the flavours to develop. Adjust the seasoning if necessary. Just before serving, toss the bay greens with the salad and season with pepper.

As Essential as Salt and Pepper

Thyme has inspired poetic praise from Virgil to Kipling, who wrote of "wind-bit thyme that smells of dawn in Paradise".  It is one of the great culinary herbs of European cookery. Lacking thyme in her garden and pantry the Seasoned Chef is doomed to bland and boring cooking.

Thyme deserves a place right beside salt and pepper in the kitchen. Its amiable and positive flavour works in more dishes than any other robust culinary herb. Whether it's humming in the background or conspicuously assertive, thyme seems to go with everything in the cooking pot. Another virtue is that it aids the digestion of fatty foods which makes it very useful in a health promoting diet.

Thyme can be added at any point in the cooking process, from the beginning of a stew to a last minute sprinkle. Oftentimes it is added both at the beginning and again a few minutes before serving to slow cooked dishes.

Use thyme judiciously until you are familiar with its pungency. As long as you match the quantity of the herb to the robustness of the other ingredients, thyme is comfortable with nearly any savoury dish. You can be as timid or as daring as you wish, using anywhere between half a teaspoon and one tablespoon per serving. The smaller amount will linger softly whilst the larger amount is best with something that has its own assertive flavour like a grilled leg of lamb.

Chopped fresh leaves are much more pungent than dried leaves. When converting between the two start with equal amounts and adjust according to taste.

I trust you'll add this wonderful herb to your cooking repertoire. If you want to learn more about cooking with fresh herbs check out The Seasoned Chef at http://www.mastercookingwithherbs.com.

Woman is Like a Salad...

Few dishes can stir my excitement like salads. For starters, not many dishes can showcase the abundance of my food garden like a fresh garden salad. Then there's the fact that salad making is not a matter of following strict formulas. Salad recipes are simply spring boards for whatever inspiration grows in my garden.

I'm not the only one who finds pleasure in salads. Chef Jerry Traunfeld says in The Herbfarm Cookbook:

"A stroll through the herb garden provides endless inspiration for all types of salads. Pungent herbs like lemon thyme and marjoram can flavour a simple vinaigrette or creamy dressing, while rosemary and thyme will resonate in a smoky warm dressing for endive and mustard greens. Fennel or dill can infuse a marinade for carrots or beets, and cilantro and mint can add sparkle to salads of couscous or lentils, or cool down a salad of spicy grilled peach. Refined herbs like tarragon and chervil can enliven seafood or chicken salads, and the sweet floral scents of lemon verbena might perfume a salad of ripe fruits."

There is a French proverb that says: "Woman is like a salad, it pleases her to be stirred." If salads please you as well enrol in The Seasoned Chef home study program or start a herb garden.

Herbes de Provence Croutons

I get a lot of inspiration from Mediterranean cuisines. From a Seasoned Chef's perspective, most of the herbs that form the mainstay of our repertoire are indigenous to the Mediterranean and therefore feature prominently in these dishes. Meals throughout these cuisines usually begin with a selection of little cooked dishes or salads that are designed to stimulate the appetite. This means the herbal flavours in them can be especially pronounced and daring which is right up my alley.

Croutons are often used to add a zesty element to soups and salads. In the Mediterranean people use fresh herbs for making these croutons. Don't buy sliced bread for this recipe which comes from The Seasoned Chef home study course. Slice the bread yourself, and don't be too precise when cutting. Having irregular sized croutons is part of their charm. Try it and let me know what you think.

Makes about 4 cups

8 slices day old bread, about 2 cm thick
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp minced fresh thyme
1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary
1 tbsp minced fresh oregano or 2 tbsp marjoram

Without removing the crusts, cut the bread slices into 2cm cubes. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until translucent, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the bread cubes, reduce the heat to low, and cook slowly, turning once, until golden and crusty, 4 to 5 minutes on each side. Sprinkle the cubes with the salt, thyme, rosemary, and oregano or marjoram. Turn a few times in the pan to coat evenly. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the croutons to paper towels to drain and cool. To store, put in a paper bag, fold the top over several times, and keep for up to 1 week.

Visit www.mastercookingwithherbs.com to get more inspiration.