Chops with rosemary and aubergines

You will need:
6 pork (or lamb) chops
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 sprigs of rosemary
black pepper
1 onion
2-4 aubergines
salt oil for frying
2eggs
2-3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon tomato puree
50 g grated cheese

Marinate the chops for an hour or more in the olive oil, rosemary and a generous seasoning of black pepper. Peel and cut the aubergines into thin slices lengthwise, sprinkle with pepper and leave to sweat for about an hour. Dry with kitchen paper. Pour enough oil into a frying pan to cover the base generously. Heat and fry the auberinge slices over a high heat until golden brown on both sides. (You might have to do this in batches.) Add more oil if necessary. Drain them on a plate interlaced with pieces of kitchen paper.
Heat oven to 200 C.
Fry the onion and place on the bottom of a gratin dish, then fry the chops in the same frying pan pouring over the marinade, lowering the heat a little and cooking them for 8-10 minutes on each side, until they are cooked through. Test with the point of a knife - the juice should be golden and not pink. Lay the chops in the gratin dish, cover with aubergine slices and season with salt and pepper.
Beat the eggs with the water and tomoato puree, season with salt and pepper and pour over chops and aubergines.
Sprinkle with the cheese and bake for 10-15 minutes until the top is golden.

This comes from Jenny Baker's fantastic cookery book Simple French Cuisine: From Provence and Languedoc

Beat and Bake cake

You will need:
125 g margarine or butter
300 g flour
3 level teaspoons baking powder
200 g sugar
3 eggs
¼ cup milk – maybe a bit more
Few drops vanilla essence

Turn oven on to 200 °C.
Spray a small loaf tin with Spray ’n Cook.
In a mixing bowl, soften the butter in the microwave so that it is soft but not melted.
Then just sift in the flour, baking powder and sugar and drop in the three eggs and the milk and mix with the electric mixer for a minute (or beat by hand for two minutes!), adding more milk to make it soft enough but not runny. Fold in the vanilla essence.
Spoon mixture into the loaf tin, leaving lots in the mixing bowl to lick.
Place in the oven, turning oven down to 180 °C and cook for 40-45 minutes. (This crisps the outside nicely).
Loosen the sides of the loaf, tip out and let it cool for about 20 minutes. Sift a bit of icing sugar over it while still warm, and eat. Alternatively, cool for a bit longer, mix a half a cup of icing sugar, a table spoon of plain yogurt and a teaspoon of lemon together, and drizzle this over the cake.

Smoored snoek

200-300 g smoored snoek (or smoked angelfish)
1 large onion
Tablespoon oil or butter
Tablespoon sugar
Tin of diced, peeled tomatoes or about 5 ripe fresh tomatoes, sliced into small pieces
2 or 3 potatoes
Salt and pepper

Before you start
Flake the fish and remove the bones.
Peel the potatoes and cut into small diced pieces, then parboil them in water for about five minutes. Don’t let them get mushy!

Method
Slice the onions and fry in the butter or oil until golden brown – about 3 minutes over medium heat.
Add the tomatoes to the pan and sprinkle the sugar over them. Cook the tomato-onion mix for about 10 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally and being careful not to burn it.
Add the flaked snoek, parboiled potatoes and salt and pepper to taste.
Cover and simmer very gently over a low heat until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked.
Some people enjoy a dash of chillies or a sprinkle of cayenne pepper in the dish too.
Serve with rice and a salad.

Lydia's Mayonnaise

2 egg yolks
1- 1½ cups oil (I use mostly grapeseed or sunflower with about ¼ cup olive oil)
3 tablespoons lemon juice (or lime, of course)
Pinch white pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Pinch sugar

Place egg yolks, lemon juice, pepper, salt and sugar in beaker or stick blender (or regular blender). Start whisking yolks etc, Begin adding oil, very little at a time initially. Keeping the whisk going (or blender blades moving) continue adding oil in steady, thin stream until all oil is incorporated and you have a beautiful emulsified mixture. Enjoy.

If you ever find yourself with lots of crayfish, boil them for 20 minutes each, cut in half under cold running water to remove all the innards and pull out the alimentary canal. While they are boiling, make this mayonnaise. Fresh crayfish and homemade mayonnaise is just the best!

To make aioli, almost at the end of the process, add a bulb of peeled, roasted garlic and blend in.

Chocolate Sauce

¼ cup cocoa powder
½ cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
tablespoon of butter
pinch of salt
few drops vanilla essence

Blend cocoa powder with water and boil in saucepan till thick and creamy. Add sugar and a pinch of salt, bring to the boil and simmer, stirring all the time, for 3 minutes. (NB be careful not to let it boil over!)
Add tablespoon of butter and vanilla and serve with vanilla icecream.

This recipe was your greatgrandmother Nan's.

Flap jacks

Mix together
3 ½ tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
a pinch of salt
an egg, beaten lightly
one teaspoon of baking powder
one tablespoon of melted butter
enough milk to make batter that will just drop from the spoon.

Cook the flap jacks on a very hot pan or griddle by dropping a large tablespoon of the batter onto the griddle and turning with an egg lifter when cooked. (When a bubble forms and pops, they are cooked.) Wrap in a warm cloth.

Lamb Tagine

1.5 kg leg or shoulder of lamb, cut into 2.5 cm cubes
3 cloves garlic, chopped and crushed
⅓ cup (80 ml) olive oil
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoons paprika
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 onions, thinly sliced
600 ml beef stock (a cube dissolved in boiling water)

1 tin chickpeas
¼ preserved lemon, pulp discarded, rind rinsed and cut into thin strips (Melissas has a good jar of preserved lemon)
35 g green olives without pips (i.e.” pitted”)

Place the lamb in a non-metallic bowl, add the garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil and the ground cumin, ginger turmeric, paprika, cinnamon and pepper and salt. Mix well to coat the meat and leave to marinate for an hour.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the lamb in batches and cook over a high heat for 2-3 minutes, or until browned. Remove from the pan. Heat the rest of the olive oil in the pan and add the onion and cook for two minutes. Return the lamb to the pan and add the beef stock. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Add the preserved lemon, chickpeas and olives and cook, uncovered, for a further 30 minutes or until the meat is tender and the sauce reduced and thickened.
Serve with couscous.

From Woolworths’s book Tastes of the Mediterranean.