JohnT

My question to your question is: what do you do with the yolks if you are only using the whites for your macarons?

Ha, talking about fish heads, Google "Stargazy pie" - not exotic but weird!

I had to look up what menudo was. Tripe soup! My father used to make tripe and something at least six times a year when I was a kid. I must admit I loved tripe, but have never had it in a soup. Something to experiment with when I can get some at my butcher.

Pickled alikreukel (a fist sized sea snail) in my youth - loved it! Fried locusts in Tanzania - really crap! Stir fried cat in China - could not eat it when the interpreter told me what it was. Deep fried mopane worms in Zimbabwe - tasted just like eating fried batter. Smoked eel in Papeete - darn good! Escargots cooked in butter, garlic and fresh parsley in Lorient - I have eaten them many times before, but these were the biggest and most succulent - a five star thumbs-up. Chinchilla stew in Fortaleza, Brazil - very tasty!

The ones I use have a capacity of 155ml. They are 5.5cm high and a top diameter of 7cm. Basically, they resemble a smallish old fashioned teacup. I use them for making individual desserts for catering and restaurants. However, you could use a smallish (15cm) ring mould to make one pudding and cut it to serve or even use a ceramic bowl with about a 15cm diameter. You would have to adjust your baking time using a larger mould or bowl - just use the toothpick test.Remember to remove the pudding from the mould before pouring the sauce over it, or else you will have a sticky blob stuck to the mould. John.

The ink only dried a few days ago - see http://forums.egullet.org/topic/150338-your-daily-sweets-what-are-you-making-and-baking-2015/?p=2010426 - maybe somebody can let me know how post links actually work!

Ha, yes. And if Darienne's elderly male guest was from the old Natal province, she could have served a nice bunnychow!

Actually, the chutney known as Mrs Ball's, has its roots in Canada - link to the history. http://www.mrsballs.com/content.aspx?id=2

Traditionally the Cape Malay folk used bay leaves, so use them instead - dried is fine, but I would then use only six as they are quite pungent. I use lemon leaves as I have a couple lemon trees in my back garden and we seldom find fresh bay leaves here.

Here is a recipe for a quick apricot chutney that makes a small amount. I do have a recipe for apricot chutney for bottling, but it uses massive quantities of apricots. However, to make a cup or so of chutney, this is a quick method. Hope it is of use! QUICK APRICOT CHUTNEY Ingredients: 250ml apricot jam (I prefer the chunky type) 2.5ml salt 0.6ml cayenne pepper 2,5ml ground ginger 190ml white wine vinegar Method: Mix the first four ingredients well and then stir in the vinegar to taste. Boil until the mixture is thick enough. Cool and serve.

Yes, I do, but it is somewhere on my laptop, which I will retrieve for you and post in the morning - getting late here now and using the iPad in bed at the moment.

Here is a bobotie recipe for you - you can scale it down and it also can be frozen and reheated. BOBOTIE Yield: 1 x 23cm x 33cm baking pan - 12 portions Ingredients: 3 onions, diced 90g butter 1.5 kg lean mince 2 thick slices white bread 375g full cream milk 3 large eggs 22.5ml medium curry powder 37.5ml sugar 15ml salt 3.5ml pepper 10ml turmeric 45ml white wine vinegar 120g seedless raisins 8 lemon leaves 60ml chutney Serve with yellow rice Method: Preheat the oven to 180°C (160° convection oven). Peel and dice the onions then fry lightly in the melted butter until soft. Add the mince and fry with the onion until crumbled and just browning. Soak the bread in the milk and squeeze out the milk, retaining it. Mash the bread. Mix in all the ingredients except half the remaining milk, half the eggs and the lemon leaves. Spoon the mixture into the greased pan, insert the lemon leaves into the mixture, just sticking out for ease of removing when serving. Bake for 30 minutes. Beat the milk and remaining eggs together and pour over the meat and bake for a further 30 minutes or until cooked. Serve with rice and chutney.

In this same thread last year I promised to post my recipe for Malva Pudding and properly forgot to do so. For those interested, here it is. Please note that it is easy to reduce the quantity by thirds to make a smaller amount. It does not have to be made in individual servings and a large one is easy to make and cut. Sorry, my photography is pretty bad. John MALVA PUDDING Makes 12 large dariole moulds. Ingredients: Pudding 60g butter or margarine 220g white sugar 3 large eggs 100g smooth apricot jam 10 ml (2t) bicarbonate of soda 250g milk 340g cake flour 2g salt 30g vinegar Sauce 250g butter or margarine 330g white sugar 125g water 400g cream 10g vanilla extract Method: Pudding Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C for convection oven). Cream butter (or margarine) and sugar together, beat in the egg until light and fluffy. Beat in the apricot jam. Dissolve the bicarb in the milk. Sift the flour and salt together and add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Lastly stir in the vinegar. Pour the batter into 12 large dariole moulds. Place the dariole moulds on a baking sheet and cover the moulds with a sheet pan or foil and then bake for 20 minutes at 180°C (160°C for convection oven). Sauce Bring the butter (or margarine), sugar and water to the boil and simmer, stirring all the time for 2 minutes. Remove from the stove and then add the cream and the vanilla, incorporating fully. Pour over the hot baked pudding.

Had a chat to Hossain (Sp?) at Cape Spice. He confirms my thoughts and recipe except he says they use buttermilk instead of coconut milk. However, he says that you can use either standard cream or coconut milk, which produces a thicker sauce, or the buttermilk, which produces a far thinner sauce. I have always used coconut cream and buy the cans in bulk as I make a large amount of Cape Malay Chicken Curry for both catering events and in my frozen food products. I do have the recipe somewhere for making your own Cape Malay Chicken Masala from scratch, which I used to do when I was only using it in small quantities. However, I go through so much of it lately that I find it easier, and cheaper, to get it mixed from a spice merchant in bulk. Hope the above helps!

Smithy, that "Chicken Butter Marinade" actually looks like a mixture of leaf masala and normal Malay curry masala. Normally, for a Cape Malay Chicken Curry for 2, you would dice an onion and soften in a pan with a bit of butter, a crushed clove of garlic, a teaspoon crushed ginger, 1 cinnamon stick, 2 star anise and 4 cardamom pods until just cooked - about 5 to 10 minutes. Once the onion is soft, add a tablespoon of your masala and stir until heated and the aroma is flooding your trailer. Then I add 2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized cubes and tossed in a pan to brown them first, together with a can of coconut milk. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes and serve with yellow rice (or just plain rice if you do not feel like making a yellow rice). Just remember, when serving, to remove the cinnamon stick, star anise and the 4 cardamom pods. If you enjoy the flavour, add a bit of chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) as a garnish and a squeeze of lemon juice. Some peach chutney goes well with it on the side. I will give Cape Spice a call tomorrow for you and see what recipe they suggest. Remember that a Cape Malay Curry is not as hot as an Indian Curry but has a spicy flavour and aroma.

Yes please, that recipe for Tequila Chicken sounds good! Surely you could use just plain old heavy cream in place of the manufacturing cream - manufacturing cream just consists of abut 5% more butterfat than heavy cream? Or maybe just thicken heavy cream with some acid (lemon juice) 15 minutes before use would suffice!

Yes, you are quite correct about them disintegrating! I was actually talking to my wife about this last night - now you post the same thought! Her comment was just forget about the use of meringue and make small chocolate hearts that stand up. This is something I will consider over the weekend after tomorrow nights kitchen cook-up. I think your idea is a good one although I have never seen such plastic wine glasses here that do not cost more than proper glass ones. The stuff we get is really cheap muck, mostly from China. However, reading the imprint on the ones I have been experimenting with, I was supprised that they come from Kenya. I have seen some containers that are used to put fluids into that are smooth with no imprint and will try and find a supplier during next week.

I have already bonded the strips and the 2mm result is quite flexible. The plastic is a food grade that is used for making heat formed food containers and the glue was supplied by the company that does the mouldings. It is more a bonding fluid than a glue - you coat it onto the plastic and it desolved the surface layer slightly then push the two strips together and apply pressure for about an hour. When I cut the bonded strip, there is no sign of any joint - it just appears to be a solid 2mm strip. What it actually is, I have no idea other than being told by the moulding company that is is food grade after curing and perfectly safe.

Okay, here is the test result - sorry for the bad photo but I do not have a good camera for these sort of things! The coulis is actually quit a bright red and not brownish, as in the photo. The small meringue heart is of my first "way too thin" batch as the power has been off again today and I have not had the time to cut the thicker one - it needs a lot of improvement! However, the panna cotta was darn good, but has a fault in the moulding (the name of the company who moulds the plastic cup), so I had to spread some of the coulis to hide this.

Right - a bit of a report back. I made a mould for my hearts but could only find a 1mm thick plastic strip. I did a few samples but they are just a bit too thin for my liking. So, in the morning I will glue two strips of the plastic together and make a 2mm thick heart mould. I also made 5 sample vanilla panna cotta which are spending the night in the refrigerator - they look good so far but I must wait and see how they un-mould from the plastic cups I used as moulds. Could be interesting! Once my tests are ready tomorrow afternoon, I will plate two of them and do the necessary photo's and post them. The panna cotta are 100g each to keep things cost effective. And I now stink delightfully after handling only one Madagascar vanilla bean - they are ones I smuggled back into the country after visiting Madagascar on a yacht delivery two years ago and still have about 70 or so beans left. Edited to correct the iPad auto correct!

Hey CP, that's what I am doing, except for the little meringue hearts. Meringue does not really cook - it really dries out. So if the power goes off whilst doing them, it makes no real difference - I just leave them in the oven and they will be done in no time as the oven slowly cools.

Ah Lisa, I am no longer a spring chicken like yourself! In the past I could freehand pipe perfect meringues, icings and batters on a rocking boat - now I am on land and the land is stable, the hand movement has the rocking motion, which causes too many "oopsies" thus the quick way of doing it with a flat mould and scraper, similar in making a tuile. But thanks for the thought.

Shel_B, yes, that is the way I would do it for a normal club event/evening. However, there are two reasons for individual mouldings - one is to portion the desserts due to costs and ensure we do not have some folk "over indulging" and the other is really for the sentiment of the Valentines Day and presentation that can be done easily with individual units. Tomorrow I will cut the strip mould for the little meringue hearts as I need to bake meringues for another client and should be able to do both the order and my own batch in one bake. We also have another problem here at the southern tip of Africa and that is that the country is running out of the ability to generate enough electricity and we have "load shedding" in progress each day. This really screws up cooking and baking - my ovens are electric but, fortunately, my cooking plates are all gas. This is just one of those things a person has to contend with living in a third world country!

Spent a time visiting some of my suppliers. Frozen berries are out - waaaaaay too expensive. One supplier will make sure he will have some fresh strawberries for me on the 12th ( they are nearly out of season here). So, I will make a few test panne cotta later this week and also make a heart shaped mould for doing small meringue hearts and see how they turn out. I will post a few photos of the tests for comment. John.