As a proper Afrikaans girl, I find complete comfort in the smell and flavour of cinnamon. I’m not sure why it is but most of our (Afrikaans) comfort foods has cinnamon as an ingredient. Pancakes (crepes) is just not the same if it doesn’t have a generous sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar in the centre. The same with melkkos. And of course, milk tart. Milk tart is for me, the ultimate. I love how the creamy, custardy filling rests ever-so-gently on the crust. And that sprinkling of cinnamon just adds perfection. I decided to make this cake because I wanted to do something a bit different with the components of Milk…
Simply Delicious
A general food and cooking blog. I like to experiment and try all different types of cuisine and I have a passion for food photography and styling.
Posts Tagged ‘South African food’
If you consider yourself a food purist / food snob or someone who only eats at fine dining restaurants, look away now. Because what I’m about to share with you, might shock you. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been going through my mom’s mountains of cookbooks stored all over our house. I need to clarify first of all that my mom was a hoarder of note. Everything and I mean everything was kept. She even had a piece of paper in the side of her door where she would rub our kisses on when she dropped us at school, so that they could me kept. So it will come…
There’s not much to be said about this bread. I mean seriously. Bacon IN the bread? Is this the best idea EVER? And I have the wonderful Chantelle from Just Chef to thank for this moment of inspiration. She is 100% responsible for making me drool and dream of this bread and finally, I got around to making it yesterday. I didn’t use Chantelle’s recipe but rather made mine up as I went and it happens to be the easiest ‘baked good’ I’ve ever made. Other than the 7 minutes it took to fry the bacon, I threw this together in 5 minutes and popped it into the oven for…
This meal is for all the South Africans who are either already back at work or going back to work within the next few days! I am one of the lucky ones who will only be ‘back at work’ on the 17th of January, although I think only my husband and I are that lucky because we work for ourselves and from home. I know when I get back from holiday the last thing I really want is to be thrown back into my regular routine and I want to draw out that holiday feeling for as long as I can. But I also know that I can’t be lazy…
I’ll come right out and say it. I don’t like Steak. Yes, once again, I expect to be thrown with rotten tomatoes. I seriously would rather eat a juicy lamb chop or a nice fatty pork chop than eat steak. The only steak I don’t mind, is fillet. So for me, the most important part of steak is the sauce. I usually top a palm-sized steak with about 2 ladles of sauce. But then again, I am a bit of a sauce slut. If I could have creamy mushroom or pepper sauce with vegetables I would..actually, I think I have! So for me, it’s less about the marinade but more…
I know that the meat is the most important part of the braai, and I don’t know if this is just because I’m a woman, but my favourite part of the braai has to be all the side dishes. Sweet, buttered mielies with chilli (corn on the cob), creamy potato bake and crispy, toasty braai broodjies (directly translated – Barbecue sandwiches) are just some of my favourites. And then you HAVE to have a great salad. In most Afrikaans households, it’s usually a mixed salad. Lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, baby corn, sugar snap peas…anything goes. But my all time favourite salad for a braai HAS to be a…
Kedgeree is said to have been brought to the United Kingdom by British Colonials who really enjoyed it in India. I certainly don’t blame them. Easy, flavourful and with a kick of spice…who wouldn’t love this? Traditionally Kedgeree is made with Smoked Haddock, hard boiled eggs and Basmati rice but I decided to mix it up a bit. I’m not a fan of hard boiled eggs so that was the first thing to go, I decided to top my Kedgeree with a beautifully fried, sunny-side-up egg. And, although I love Basmati rice, we always have Jasmine rice in our house so that was the second substitution. And although I don’t…
Milktart is yet another one of those proudly South African favourites. And boy, it sure is a favourite in this household. However, this is not a traditional recipe for milktart, this one has a bit of a twist. Instead of using sugar to sweeten the ‘custard’, I used condensed milk. It adds a lovely creaminess as well as really great flavour that you can only get from condensed milk. And you know something is good when a very loud Afrikaans family all go completely silent while eating it. And that’s exactly what happened when I served this as dessert last week. I made the pastry for the crust myself but…
FOR AN UPDATED POST, CLICK HERE Recently, I’ve been on a real quest to cook as proudly South African as I can. It wasn’t actually a conscious decision, just something that kind of happened. It’s just so easy in the colder months to venture deeper into your roots and cook real home food. Especially as South Africa is famous for stews, curries and the type of comfort food you can only dream of. Malva pudding, Tamatie bredie and Pancakes with Cinnamon-sugar has to be the best of them all. Almost every person I know wants Pancakes with cinnamon sugar on a cold or rainy day. It’s just the way we…
Most South Africans have a memory of Tamatie Bredie (Tomato stew in Afrikaans), but I am not one those South Africans. I absolutely hated stew as a child so whenever it was made, I ate salad or bread instead. I also didn’t like rice so I couldn’t even enjoy the rich sauce. But as I grew older I realised what I had been missing. Stew in any shape or form is just so luscious and comforting that I now, can’t believe what a picky brat I must’ve been. I’ve been reading about Tamatie Bredie for years now and never thought about making it, I really don’t know why. And yesterday…
