JohnT

@ninagluck Most interesting - thanks for coming back with the pointer. That is one I have never seen cooked in Southern Africa. I will do some sampling next summer and cook up a batch.

@ninagluck Any idea what type of lilly buds they were?

Pizza for dinner! My favourite base made yesterday, refrigerated overnight and allowed to rise for an hour after bringing to room temperature - rolled to about 1 to 2mm in thickness. Tomato paste with origanum and sweet basil and a touch of garlic. Topping is grated mozzarella, stir fried chicken (marinated in soy sauce and a touch of sugar for an hour), kalamata olives, onion (tenderised in a bit of boiling water), mushrooms and green sweet peppers. 8 minutes @ 250°C (480°F) - done!

SV is not always the way to go with certain foods and, to me, squid or calamari is one of those foods. I do calamari three different ways: Pressure cooker - http://www.hippressurecooking.com/calamari-in-umido-calamari-tomato-sauce-or-side-dish/ which produces a soft and succulent result. Wok - quick and easy, especially when serving with stir fry veg as well. Grill - this works best with calamari steaks, based with lemon and butter or with other additives such as garlic, chilli - just use your imagination. I do not deep fry calamari but sometimes do pan fry if doing only a small portion. Calamari also makes a lovely salad when mildly pickled.

PH, Your beef rolls in sauce (Involtini al sugo) are darn good! I cooked up some this evening and must admit it is a simple but delishious meal. Thanks for posting it. The anchovie toast is how I have been eating anchovie toast for over 50 years! If you do not like too much butter, a good sprinkle of EVOO on the hot toast does the trick as well.

I do not think the little triangle is an arrow - I think it is a danger sign to try and tell the toasting public, with a lower IQ than the average, that they must not stuff two slices into one slot! You will be surprised what some people do - they will then tend to get frizzy hair when they stick a knife into the slot to try and remove the two jammed slices without unplugging the appliance.

@DianaB Thanks for the offer of translation. I have come up with the following recipe, which I adapted slightly. I will also convert it to weights during my first attempt to make them. I was actually thinking of running the dough through my pasta machine to get an even thickness, but then I will just have something extra to clean afterwards, so will just use a pin. I do not know if you have ever heard of "koeksisters" before. They are a very sweet plated dough delecasy in South Africa which uses a similar method to making the bow ties - the dough is just a lot thicker and absorbes more of the syrup. BOW TIES Preparation time: 35 mins + 20 mins cooking Makes 10 Ingredients: Syrup 470 ml sugar 30 ml golden syrup 15 ml lemon juice 180 ml water Dough 540 ml cake flour 5 ml baking powder 1 pinch of salt 30 ml butter 2 large eggs, lightly beaten sunflower oil for deep-frying Method: Syrup Dissolve the sugar, syrup and lemon juice in the water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes until the consistency resembles that of syrup. (It should measure 110 °C on a sugar thermometer.) Dough Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Then rub in the butter. Add the eggs and enough water to make a firm dough. Knead the dough until smooth. Roll out onto a lightly floured surface to about 1,5 mm thick. Cut into 10 x 5 cm strips. Place one strip on top of another. Cut a slit lengthways down the centre of the strips, about 3 cm long. Cut a 2 cm strip on both sides of the 3 cm strip. Thread one end of the strips though the long slit and pull through to make a bow shape. Repeat with the remaining pastry. Heat enough sunflower oil for deep-frying in a saucepan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add two bow ties. Fry until golden, then remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and dip into the syrup. Use a separate slotted spoon to remove the bow ties from the syrup. Drain on a cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining bow ties. Allow the bow ties to cool completely before serving.

@heidih and @Darienne thanks for your replies. I have a recipe that has been given to me which I will test in the next week or two and report back. They appear to be quite easy to make. The request actually came from a local Chinese restaurant which is hosting a function mid next month. They do not serve any sweet dessert dishes except lychees and fruit. The owner, who speaks just a smattering of English, I think tried to explain to me that in China there are not normally sweet dessert type dishes served after a meal and thus he does not make any such things. But the function they are cooking for appears to be for western folk and not Chinese.

A square of chocolate is 1 oz - I think it is an American thing as baking chocolate was apparently sold in 1 oz individually wrapped squares with 8 squares in a pack. I have never come across this anywhere else. Your recipe calls for 3 oz or 85g. I would stick to using the melted chocolate instead of trying to convert to cocoa powder. I would not use melted butter but a flavourless vegetable oil such as sunflower. When making muffins, remember to not over-mix the batter - mix until the ingredients are just combined and then pour into your moulds and bake. A few lumps in the batter is fine.

All quite disgusting to me! AP just had a story in our local news: http://www.news24.com/World/News/chinese-city-ignores-protests-holds-dog-meat-festival-20160621

I would really follow Lisa Shock's suggestion and use vanilla oil or the scraped seeds from a pod. Vanilla does not like too much heat and thus is always added during the cooling stage in production. I must admit that it must be an American "thing" to both add vanilla to chocolate or to coat biscotti with chocolate - biscotti is a dipping biscuit and the flavours in the biscuit are enhanced when dipped into bit of fortified sweet wine or even coffee. Coating with chocolate is not the norm. This said, there is no harm in experimenting!

Kerry, not trying to be funny, but your breakfast depicted above looks quite revolting. Did you actually enjoy it?

Thanks djyee100, I will go and read your links! They say "Third time lucky", so once I source some okra, I will follow your instructions and see how it turns out. The problem here is to find okra, which I have never seen at any supplier of vegetables.

Sorry to hear about your storm damage - we are in winter in the southerly point of Africa and are having our second day of much needed soft, soaking rain. A quick question — what do you do with okra? It is not something we get here but I have eaten (or attempted to eat) it twice, once in Grenada and once in Ft Lauderdale. Both times I nearly vomited due to its mouthfeel and texture! Am I alone or is it just not properly prepared?

I have been asked to make Chinese Bow Tie desserts for a function. However, I have never made them, but using Mr Google, there are a number of different recipes out there. Does anybody have a decent recipe which is tried and tested? - these are for deep-fried pastry which are then soaked in sugar syrup.

And, pray, what happened to the method or instructions? The ingredients sound good!

I have never baked anything with artificial sweeteners or substitutes. Have a look at the following blog - the blogger often uses stevia in her recipes. http://tandysinclair.com I do not know the blogger nor have I tried any of her recipes, so cannot comment on them.

Rob, May your last night of Kumquat be a memorable one and I hope that you, your staff and guests have a fantastic party and celebrate the life of your creation. Although stuck in Africa, I raise my glass from afar and wish you well in your future endeavours. Cheers! It has been great "riding along" with you during your journey. John in Cape Town.

What spices were you thinking of? I do not have any PH books to see his structure, so am just trying to visualise something along the lines of a fine pound cake (a fine structure) with cocoa and spices - cinnamon, ginger and a touch of nutmeg should make the taste buds tingle but would they compliment the cocoa?

Hey Kerry, that link takes me to caramelised cocoa nibs. The original question was for candied cocoa nibs.

I too tried a number of different recipes and a couple of months ago came across a recipe by "Chef Eddy". I have made them a few times now and they have turned out very well. http://www.chefeddy.com/2009/11/how-to-make-ladyfingers/ However, it may not be quite what you are looking for. John.

It is my understanding that 1 glass of water = 8 US fluid oz = 1 US cup = 237ml = 237g water Put a measuring cup on your scale and zero the reading. Add 160g of lentils and see if it fills up the cup! That is then 2 servings. I think the instructions can be classified as "lost in translation".

The raw US chicken is something we have not seen for years - it is all heavily injected with brine before it is frozen and is like a lump of jelly/jello when defrosted. Terrible stuff! However, the processed US chicken products (nuggets, burger patties etc.) have appeared in the supermarkets here for a number of years and also sells at lower prices than the local product. Not good stuff although the local equivelant is also not something I would purchase either.

I wonder how much of this rejected muck will end up on South African supermarket shelves. At the moment we are a dumping ground for unwanted US chicken. See: http://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/Food-safety/unwanted-american-chicken-dumped-in-south-africa-20160324 John.

Okay, seeing nobody else is chipping in at the moment, you can keep it simple and quick with something like a great carrot cake with cream cheese icing or something more time consuming such as a layered cake. This is of course if you are thinking along the lines of a cake! Of course, you could go with something really nice such as a batch of the shortbread, dulce de leche and chocolate creations that kriz6912 has posted above. They do not have to have the full decorations on top, but they are darn moreish and reletavly easy to make. Give us a hint of the direction your thoughts are going to let us make some more suggestions. John.