Moules Marinières on the Braai

May 17, 2013 by Larry Susman in Big Green Egg, Braai, Bread, Fish, Recipes

Moules Marinières on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

Well thanks very much for all your comments and support after my little rant last week, it's great to know that you are so supportive and enjoying this blog. This week I’ve decided to do something a little different and gone Mediterranean and will be braaiing Moules marinières. This is not something I’ve ever tried but Jan has been asking for this dish for a while and I thought why not. OK, it might just be a starter for most South African guys but you can always have a great steak or ribs as a main course!

Living on the south coast of the UK, I have access to really fresh mussels and this is important, the fresher the better. If you are lucky enough to live on a breach where you can go and pick your own, send us a pic so we can all be jealous.

“Tip”

Do not scrub the shells as the colour will transfer during cooking giving an unappetising grey colour to the dish. Discard any mussels that float or remain open when tapped against the side of the sink and never eat any that don’t open after cooking.

SERVES 4: PREP: 10MINS: COOK TIME: 15MINS

Ingredients for the Moules Marinières:

2kg Fresh Mussels
250 ml fish stock

Ingredients for the (Roux) Creamy garlic sauce:

250g butter
100g flour
750ml milk
500ml fish stock
100ml fresh cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 x Cloves garlic, finely chopped

Method of cooking the (Roux) Creamy garlic sauce:

Preheat the braai to 180°C 350°F.
Melt the butter and add flour. Stir until a roux is formed.
Heat together the milk and 500ml of the fish stock, then gradually add them to the roux, stirring, making sure no lumps form.
Add the cream and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Add seasoning, garlic and set aside to be added back to the mussels later.

Method of cooking the Mussels:

Preheat the braai to 300°C 572°F.
Wash the mussels under cold running water in a sink, removing any beards and barnacles. “There's no substitute for the sea-fresh taste of fresh mussels. But don't try to cut corners. It's vital that you clean the mussels and remove the beards. The end result is well worth the labour.”
Place an empty saucepan (just large enough to hold the mussels) over a high heat on the braai and allow to get very hot.
Pour in the mussels and a loud hissing noises will be heard, then pour in the 250ml fish stock (this will boil rapidly) and cover immediately with a lid.
After about 5 minutes the mussels will open and most of the moisture should have evaporated.
Reduce the heat, then add the creamy garlic sauce to the saucepan and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Remove the mussels from the saucepan with a slotted spoon, discarding any that have not opened properly. Place in a serving bowl and pour over the creamy garlic sauce. Garnish with the leeks, carrots and chives. All that is left to do is serve with some freshly made bread (see my recipe here) or some shop bought French bread if you are short of time and serve immediately.

It smelt absolutely fantastic, unfortunately as I’m allergic to shell fish I could not try them but the look on Jans’ face said everything :-) . Enjoy, this dish just looks fantastic and it only takes a few minutes to make. As usual please leave any thoughts or suggestions in the comments area below.

Until next week,

Au revoir

Beef Tagine with Sweet Potatoes on the Braai

May 09, 2013 by Larry Susman in Beef, Big Green Egg, Braai, Curries, Food Websites, Hot & Spicy, Meat, Potjiekos, Recipes, Tagine

Beef Tagine with Sweet Potatoes on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

Just a Thought!

Somebody asked me the other day why I keep on promoting the BigGreenEgg, am I on their payroll? I wish!

Well, just to confirm in case I haven’t mentioned it in the past, I'm not. I decided to do this blog after I saw this braai in action, MAN "I thought that this was just the best braai I had ever come across". In fact, just for the record, I struggle to get the BigGreenEggUK or even the USA mother company to recognise this blog. Or in fact even get them to retweet or post this blog on their Facebook or Twitter!!! Not sure why? You guys can help me, please, by retweeting or blogging about this if you want? I think that I'm doing a great job promoting their products.

However, even after my little rant, I must confess that we do sell these braai's and some of their product, just because I personally think that they are great and you can see what we sell by clicking here. I don't think that I'm swayed in anyway because we sell these products but if you think I'm blinkered, please feel free to let me know.

Well, on with this weeks recipe, I knew it was too good to last and summer is over here in the UK, lasted a week this year LOL. Well lets hope not but you never know in this country, so I'm going back to cooking some warm winter dish this week, a tagine. Don't worry if you haven’t got a tagine, you can do this in a potjie or just any heavy sauce pan if needs be.

The traditional tagine pot is formed entirely of a heavy clay, a base that is flat and circular with low sides and a large cone or dome shaped lid that sits on the base during cooking. The lid is designed to help the return of all condensation back into the bottom stopping the dish from drying out and producing a fantastic gravy. With the lid removed the base can be taken to the table for serving. However recently manufacturers have made tagine's with heavy cast-iron bottoms that can be heated and cooked on a braai or stove to a high temperature. I wish I had bought one of these as the tagine I used has cracked. So if you haven't got one with a cast iron bottom brown your meat off in a frying pan.

It wasn’t until I started to eat this meal that I realised that all a tagine is is basically a Northern African Potjie! In fact, this recipe is pretty much a curry for all intents and purposes, similar to the Durban Curry’s from home but with a slight twist, it's cooked in a tagine/potjie. In fact, in traditional Moroccan cooking they would even place hot charcoals on the lid, just like we do with a potjie.

Once again this week I will be giving away 2 bottles of Mrs Balls Peach Chutney just to help make you feel at home when you eat this. See the end of the blog for details, now on with the cooking.

SERVES 4-6: PREP: 15MINS: COOK TIME:2-3hrs

Ingredients for the Tagine:

1kg x Blade or chuck steak (I used Blade)
1 x Brown onion, finely chopped
½tsp x Cayenne pepper
½tsp x Ground cumin
1tsp x Ground turmeric
1tsp x Sea Salt
½tsp x Freshly ground black pepper
½tsp x Ground ginger
1tsp x Paprika
2tbsp x Chopped flat- leaf (Italian) parsley
2tbsp x Chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves
2 x Tomatoes large of 4 small, peeled and sliced
500g x Sweet potatoes, orange ones are best for this recipe
3 x Tbsp olive oil for cooking

Method of cooking the Tagine:

Preheat the braai to 180°C 350°F
Trim the steak of any fat, sinew and cut into 2.5 cm pieces. Heat haft the oil in a tagine or frying pan and brown the beef over high heat. Set aside in a dish to be returned to the onions in due course.
Add the onion and the remaining oil to the pan and gently cook for 10 minutes, or until the onion have softened.

Add the cayenne pepper, cumin, turmeric, ginger and paprika and cook for a few seconds, then add the salt and black pepper.
Return the beef to the tagine along with the parsley, coriander and 270ml water.
Cover and simmer over low heat for 11/2hr or until the meat is almost tender.
While this is cooking peel the tomatoes. To do this score a cross on each them using a knife.
Plunge them into a bowl of boiling water for 20 seconds and then straight into a bowl of cold water to cool.
Remove from the water and peel the skin away, this should just slip off easily, then slice.

Peel the sweet potatoes, cut them into 2 cm slices and leave in cold water until required, this will prevent them discolouring.
Next drain the sweet potatoes and layer them on top of the beef.
Then place the sliced tomatoes on top.
Cover with the lid of the tagine and cook for a further 30mins.
Remove lid and let the braai get hotter up to 220°c 425°F, cook until the tomatoes and sweet potatoes have browned off a little.

All that remains to do is serve with rice or some couscous a fresh salad and of course some Mrs Ball Chutney South Africans pretty mush eat everything with this LOL.

This week we are giving away 2 bottles of Mrs Ball Peach Chutney so you can try this great recipe out. Once again all you have to do is please leave a comment and you could be 1 of 2 lucky people that get a chance to make this really great recipe. Entries will close on the 24th May 2013, give this a try it's worth the time, promise!

T-Bone Steak with Monkey Gland Sauce on the Braai

May 03, 2013 by Larry Susman in Beef, Big Green Egg, Braai, Food Websites, Hot & Spicy, Meat, Recipes, Video

T-Bone Steak with Monkey Gland Sauce on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

To non-South Africans this must sound like and outrageously unappetising dish, LOL! But I can assure “No” monkeys or any other parts of a animal went into making this fantastic sauce. It is not known where this name comes from but it is such an inherent part of South African cuisine that I just had to make this before this blog ends in a couple on months time. However you can read a couple of accounts of stories which claim to know the true origins of this sauce but I would not guarantee this, however the second account does sound genuine.

Monkey gland sauce is a traditional South African sweet and hot sauce for steak but is great with any braaied meat, chicken, pork or even Boerewors. This recipe is just fantastic and it only take a couple of minutes to make, you can cheat if you want and buy one of the pre-made Steers sauces that we sell but its just not going to be as good. Take the time to make this, I promise you will not regret it, it was just fabulous “even if I say so myself”. This is my version of this classic SA sauce so I hope that you like it!

Also you could win a bottle of Mrs Balls Hot Chutney, see the end of the blog for details.

Ask your butcher to cut T-Bone steak thick, (if you're not South African you can always share this huge amount of meat with somebody you love) if they are thick you can cook it for a little longer and still have it rare/medium rare and lovely and hot at the same time. Allow one steak per person if they are big meat eater otherwise, one will be more that enough between two.

To see how to cook the perfect steak just click here, to go to the blog I did last year on this or checkout the video I did on how to cook the perfect steak on our youtube channel.

All you need do is now make the sauce below and pour it over the steaks and serve.

SERVES 4-6: PREP: 5MINS: COOK TIME: 4-6MINS

Ingredients for the Monkey Gland Sauce:

Olive oil for frying
1 x Large red onion sliced
1/2 x Cup water
2 x Large tomatoes diced (can of tomatoes work just as well)
1 x Cup of All Gold Tomato sauce
1/2 x Cup of Worcestershire sauce
3 x Coves of garlic finely chopped
1 x Cup of Mrs Ball Hot/Ex-Hot chutney
1/2 x Cup of brown sugar
2Tbsp x Safari Vinegar
1Tsp x Tabasco sauce
20g x Piece of fresh ginger finely chopped

Method for making the Monkey Gland Sauce:

Preheat the Braai to 300°C (570°F)
Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet or frying pan.
Add the onions and sauté with ginger and garlic until soft.
Add remaining ingredients into a bowl, mix well and simmer for a few minutes.
Set aside to use later.

BIG TIP, always let the meat rest for at least 5-10 minutes after it comes off the braai so that it relaxes and re-absorbs the juices. Be patient and you will be rewarded.

This was just the perfect carnivores meal and if you wish to wash it down with a glass of Nederburg Baronne red wine even better.

We are giving away 2 bottles of Mrs Ball Hot Chutney this week, so you can try this great recipe out.

All you have to do is please leave some feed back and you could be 1 of 2 lucky people that get a chance to make this really great South African traditional sauce. Also I love to hear what you think about what I'm cooking, feel free to leave suggestions what you would like to see me cook. Entries will close on the 16th May 2013.

Peppers Stuffed with Boerewors on the Braai

April 26, 2013 by Larry Susman in Baking, Beef, Big Green Egg, Braai, Food Websites, Meat, Pork, Potjiekos, Recipes, Roasts, Vegetables

Peppers Stuffed with Boerewors on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

Hi and welcome to this weeks Braai blog.

The sun's been out and shinning for over a week now and everybody seems a great deal happier so, it's time to try something from the sunny Mediterranean with a twist. This week I'm going to make stuffed peppers/capsicums. I've used three different coloured peppers but you don't have to you can use green, red, yellow or orange. It really doesn't matter what colour they are as its just different stages of ripening. However here is the twist I'm going to make this out of our Beef & Pork boerewors, it just makes this dish feel more South African.

We will be giving away to 2 free packs of this Boerewors to some lucky winners this week. All you have to do is leave a comment in our comment section at the end of this blog.

SERVES 6: PREP: 20MINS: COOK TIME:20MINS

Stuffing Ingredients:

700g Beef & Pork Boerewors (1 of our packs) or minced plain pork or beef if you prefer
6 x Peppers what ever colour you fancy
90ml x Olive oil
1 x onion, finely chopped
100g x pine nuts, roughly chopped
3 x garlic cloves, crushed
40g x parsley, roughly chopped
5 g x rosemary, roughly chopped
2tsp x fennel seeds, ground
55g x fresh breadcrumbs
250g x ricotta cheese
25g x grated Parmesan cheese
1 x egg
grated zest of 1 large lemon

Method of making and cooking the stuffed peppers:

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and pine nuts until the onion is soft and the pine nuts are light golden brown. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes more, then set aside to cool.
Take the boerewors sausage meat out of the skins.
Put the herbs, fennel seeds, breadcrumbs, ricotta, Parmesan, lemon zest and egg in a bowl and add the boerewors mince.
Add the cooled onion and pine nuts, season with salt and pepper and mix briefly until all the ingredients are combined.
Cut the tops of the peppers off carefully and then scoop out the insides of all the seeds.
Next spoon the mixture into a pepper so that they come just over the top of the peppers. Repeat with the rest of the mixture and peppers.
Replace the tops back on to the stuffed pepper and they are now ready to cook.
There are a couple of ways that you can cook this dish, I tried both and I think cooking them directly over the braai on a low heat for 15-20 mins is the best. The peppers will protect the stuffing and you will get that charcoal flavour from the braai that we all love. The other way is to place them in a potjie and cook like you would a pot roast for 20-30 mins with the sauce around the peppers or not. Its your choice!

Sauce Ingredients:

800g x tomatoes or
2 x 400 g tins tomatoes
125 ml x Good red wine

Method of making Sauce:

To make the sauce, if you are using fresh tomatoes, score a cross in the top of each one, plunge them into boiling water for 20 seconds, then drain and peel the skin away from the cross.
Finely chop the flesh. Add the tomatoes and wine to the saucepan, season with salt and pepper and simmer for 5 minutes.
Cover the saucepan and, cook for a further 10 minutes.

Now all you need to do is serve this with some Tastic Rice and the tomato sauce on the side, magic. This makes a change to traditionally stuffer peppers and the boerewors takes on a different flavour with the added herbs, give it a go, you won't be disappointed.

We are going to be giving away 2 Packs of Beef & Pork Boerewors this week so please leave some feed back and you could be 1 of 2 lucky people that get a chance to make this recipe. Also I love to hear what you think about what I'm cooking and please feel free to leave suggestions as to what you would like to see me cook in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately this will only be open to people who live on the UK mainland as we cannot deliver any further afield. However please feel free to leave your comment, no matter where you live in the world, we always appreciate your thoughts . Entries will close on the 10th May 2013 and we will post the lucky winners in the comment section below. So be sure to check back and see if you’ve won.

Until next week Happy Braaiing, Larry

Coleslaw, Ribs and Wings on the Braai!

April 19, 2013 by Larry Susman in Big Green Egg, Braai, Chicken, Food Websites, Hot & Spicy, Meat, Pork, Recipes, Salads

Coleslaw, Ribs and Wings on the Braai/BigGreenEgg

Well, summer is nearly here and we have seen the sun on several occasions this week, so I'm going to make a salad to go with what I think is a great meal on the braai. I've made some coleslaw, OK! Its not a meat dish but this salad has a vinegar mix that has to be cooked on the braai, so please don’t think that I'm cheating!! To accompany this slaw, I cooked some ribs and wings and when they are put together they make the perfect meal. Just needed some boerewors as well to finish this off perfectly but forgot to bring it along to cook, du!!

Below is a recipe for the rib rub that I used and then basted them with Jimmy’s sauce to finish them off. On the chicken wings I used Nando's Hot sauce and you can purchase this from our web site or make your own rub following this recipe on a past blog. You can follow the links to see how I cooked these two dishes in the past just by clicking on the links above.

SERVES 6: PREP: 15MINS: MARINATE 1HR: COOK TIME:4-5HR

Rub  Ingredients:

1 tsp garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp ground coriander
1 tsp Sea salt

Ribs:

1.5kg Baby Back ribs (3 racks)
1 x Jimmy's Braai Sauce
Method: Check out this edition of my blog to see how to braai them.

SERVES 6: PREP: 15MINS: COOK TIME:10MINS:

Coleslaw vinegar mix:

This will make quite a lot of mix, so you can either cut the amounts down or save some to use at a later date.

125g Sugar
1 cup of white vinegar
½ Cup Salt
¼ Cup white pepper

Coleslaw Ingredients:

1 Head shredded cabbage
1/8 Cup vegetable oil
Pinch celery seeds
30g Sesame seeds, toasted
1/8 Cup vinegar mix

Method of making the vinegar mix:

Place the vinegar in a heavy saucepan on the braai, bring it to the boil.
Once the vinegar is boiling add the sugar and the salt slowly. Make sure that you stir this constantly until everything has dissolved.
Take it off the heat to cool then in a separate mixing bowl place the white pepper then slowly pour the vinegar mixture into it whilst whisking, cover and leave to cool.
Next toast off the sesame seeds until they are a golden brown.

Method of making the Coleslaw:

Place the shredded cabbage in a large mixing bowl.
Sprinkle the oil over the top and mix thoroughly.
Sprinkle half the celery seeds and the sesame seeds over the top and mix again.
Now pour the vinegar mix over the whole lot and give it a quick mix, sprinkle the remainder of the seeds over the top and serve straight away.
Coleslaw is best served while the cabbage is crisp and crunchy, so don’t leave this to sit around for a long time as this sauce will break the cabbage down very quickly.

Its as simple as that but it takes a little effort to make but its worth the time and tastes so different to your regular coleslaw covered in salad cream or mayo.

This will make the perfect accompaniment to the meat that you wish to cook and eat with this.

As normal, I love to hear what you think about what I'm cooking so feel free to leave suggestions what you would like to see me cook in future. Enjoy Larry.