Designer Sandwich
My Favourite
Another one of my favourite more designer sandwiches which my late father made was a simple white bread sandwich with thickly sliced spiced beef, avo and feta. I used to call this The Designer sandwich and was also one of the sandwiches I sold trying to earn some money to pay back my student loans. My father always looked at the business opportunity in everything. So, he saw that going out and selling sandwiches to the tenants at the waterfront could work and it DID. It helped more as I knew a lot of them as I too worked at the Waterfront part-time. It was when I was canvassing the area that I came across a little coffee shop called “7 at 6” – Based on the 7 steps in District 6. They asked me what else I can make besides sandwiches and I told them the only other dessert I’m really good at was a Lemon Meringue,
Tyrone (The Manager) at the coffee shop at the time said to me he would like to order a big lemon meringue for the next week. I was scared as hell to do this, as I have only ever done it for family and friends and it was always the normal pie-sized dish. My daddy encouraged me to take it on and do it and I did. I continued supplying them with lemon meringue and also started taking on Eid orders which was very successful and this was the way my mother made it. We often argue about who makes it better. Of course she does but the only way I can get her to make one is to have to prove hers is better.
The way she made it was:
1 packet tennis biscuits crushed In a blender or something similar.
Melt ½ cup butter and add to the crushed tennis biscuits to make the base.
Press it along the edges of a round Pyrex dish / pie dish. Alternatively, you could use the round foil bakkies and u can 2 of these out of the foil containers. I usually put it in the heating oven while I do the filling.
Now that the base is sorted, we can start on the filling.
Empty 1 tin of condensed milk into a bowl
Add 1/2 cup of lemon juice
And 3 egg yolks (keep the remaining egg white)
Stir this all well together, like very well there should be no klonte or stringie things.
Once that is done you can take the biscuit dish out the oven and pour in the lemon filling.
Pop it back into the oven until them lemon starts shouting, “Antie is Warm” just kidding if you shake the dish a little then its not have a runny type texture then it’s done (usually around 12 minutes) So while this is in the oven then whip up the meringue.
Beat your remaining egg white until that make stiff peaks, gradually add 1/3 cup castor sugar, a drop of vanilla for the taste and drop of vinegar for shine. Mix until its stiff enough that if you tip the bowl upside down, nothing will fall / leak.
Add the meringue to the lemon filled, drop blobfulls all over the pie then spoon it down with a fork making peaks. Put it back in the oven for 8 minutes the white peaks should be a nice golden brown.
Bruidskos
My Mom’s recipe
My Mother, as only very few close family knows was the OG of cooking for functions. I remember my mother making the “bruidskos” for the weddings of all my boy cousins. This was like the best time for me as a kid. I got to be around my mother in the kitchen and watch her create these amazing dishes wrapped in colourful cellophane. I don’t remember every single dish she made but the ones that stood out was trifle – mother was known as the trifle queen. Gebraaide Bout with all the veggies and she made it in her electric frying pan, the square type with flowers on it until she got her AMC one.
Roast Chicken with those white chicken booties as they would call it. The coloured, pickled onion and the Vienna and polony skewers. So now almost 12 years into my married life I still make the bout on Eid, both Eids.
There is no set written down recipe, my mom would always just say it’s a little salt, little pepper little paprika, little or lots of garlic, worstershire sauce and some oil. So now as the years have gone on, I have altered and played around with the basic way my mother did it and it is still a hit. I can almost guarantee my food will never taste the same twice. Reason for this is that I will go with what my heart goes with, I cook from my heart and with passion.
Cooking is not just about making the food, I don’t cook because I HAVE to, I cook because I WANT to. And when I have an urge to COOK there is no stopping me, I will play around and alter recipes I find.
My Grandmother (Gadia Waggie) also played a very massive role in my cooking. Because she stayed with us for about 10 years, I learnt a great deal of my cooking skills from her. I would come home early from school and had to help with supper. Back then we had a sort of set menu so to say about what we each on each night of the week. Which is a great concept, just not in my household because I will literally decide on the morning what I want to make for the day. I will share some of the recipes or ways by granny and mother showed me how to make certain foods
I love traditional types of food but also, I love being creative and adding my own spin on certain foods. I am always trying something new or altering my current way of making food.
Some of the recipes I remember off hand is my granny’s daltjie recipe
2 cups pea flour
1 cup SR flour
2 tspn salt
tumeric
jeera
koljana
bariship
garam masala
crushed chillies
garlic
2 chopped onions
1 bunch chopped spinach
Now this recipe makes a big batch and can be split up and frozen. The batch you take out to use, just needs 1 teaspoon of baking powder, an optional extra will be chopped dhania. Ok so Ma’s trick with making perfectly round daltjies, is to dip a teaspoon in hot oil, if the oil is runny like water then its hot enough, now with that same oiled spoon you scoop out some batter then take another teaspoon and push the batter off the oiled spoon into the hot oil, continue doing this until the pot is full. You will see the daltjies start flipping over, those are mostly fried which makes the fried side of the daltjie lighter so the heavier side will cause it to flip. Fry the daltjies until its lightly brown then its ready to come out. Break it open and see the texture, it shouldn’t be wet nor should it be dry.
Daltjies
pampoen koekies
Daltjies just automatically means pwasa, and in the pwasa it is waajib (a must) to have pampoen koekies. My grandfather who doesn’t even eat pumpkin food must have pumpkin koekies.
There is no real recipe to this.
Just boil some pumpkin until soft, drain it then add a blob of butter and some sugar. It must be mixed through well and then leave it to cool. Once its cooled down all you do is add some SR flour, bietjie salt, an egg and some vanilla essence. The consistency of the batter shouldn’t be too runny it must basically just come away from the sides of the bowl and not be sticky or runny its should just drop off the spoon. You fry this in shallow oil. Just use the tablespoon or the teaspoon and just let it slide of the spoon. You will know when its ready when it starts browning on the bottom no burning….browning.
Another staple dish in our household was aartappel bredie. De (My Grandfather – Moosa Waggie) didn’t eat any type of bredie except artappel bredie. So whatever bredie we made, we had to dish out his little bit of braised meat before we added the veg.
Potato Bredie
2 big onions sliced
1kg meat – you can use lamb pieces or beef pieces ( of late I actually prefer using blade beef)
3 / 4 medium sized potatoes
Garlic
Salt / pepper
Crushed Chillies
So there are 2 ways my granny taught me how to make this. The quick way was just to throw everything together in the pot and cook. That’s onions, meat, potatoes and all spices and just cook.
The other way is to braise the onions first till golden brown, now I usually add a sprinkle of sugar to the onions to make it brown quicker and it adds a sweetish taste to the dish.
Once the onions are nice and golden I add the meat with the salt, pepper, garlic and crushed chillies. Braise this for about 45mins or until the meat is nice and soft. Then add the potatoes and cook till soft, I just add some water if its drying up.
You can use this as a base for most bredies.