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JohnT

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Everything posted by JohnT

  1. "Macon" is the Halaal equivalent of bacon in South Africa, made usually out of beef but sometimes out of mutton. I have no idea how it is made other than it is a cured meat. A lot of restaurants and pizza places serve it instead of bacon and the portions I have been served for breakfast in restaurants here, tastes very similar to bacon. It is available in the Halaal section in all supermarkets in pre-packed slices or in the Halaal section of delli's, where they will slice it for you in the thickness required. How they cure it, I have no idea, but try Google and see if anything pops up.
  2. I just went through the recipe you linked to and the hydration is pretty spot-on. Just two questions - did you use a high gluten flour and did you knead for long enough? Those are the only two factors that could, in my mind, influence the crumb structure. It just appears the gluten did not develope fully to keep the crumb together to your expectations.
  3. Na! Nothing wrong with that loaf! It would be termed "a rustic artisan loaf" in a pro bakery. Did you add some diastatic malt to that scrumptious looking boule? It looks a bit "camarlised", as modern bakers would say. I visualise some nice biltong pâté with a slice of that, on a nice summer evening - of course, washed down with your favourite wine. Ah roll on summer! We are expecting snow on our mountains tomorrow, so a wedge of that with a nice hot vegetable and beef soup will be just the way to go here.
  4. Your breakfast looks quite appetising! I thought your aircon was repaired last time you were on the island!
  5. @David Ross did you know George Bagley, executive vice president of operations for Alaska Airlines (and Horizon)? He retired at the beginning of 2006.
  6. My best airline food was on a flight from Papeete to Sydney on Air Tahiti Nui. This was quite a few years back, but it was superb for "cattle class". My best meals sponsored by an airline was British Airways when the entire airline came to a halt due to a catering strike. I had just flown into London from Atlanta with no food on the plane and then was stuck in Heathrow, together with a few hundred thousand passengers from around the world. I and my delivery crew were each given a £10 food voucher by the BA enquiry desk. I looked at it and told the woman behind the desk that you could not even get a plate of fries for £10 in the airport restaurants, never mind a burger! She looked at me and my bleary eyed crew, asked where we had arrived from and when told, gave us a whole book of 50 £10 vouches and told us to enjoy ourselves. We did and nearly missed being allocated a hotel for the next week whilst the strike continued! My worst airline meal was on our national carrier, SAA, on a flight from JFK to Johannesburg. Only after takeoff were the passengers informed that there was no food or drinks other than water for the flight, due to a catering strike, but that the airline crew had managed to obtaine tins of tuna and packets of biscuits for "snacks". It is around a 14 hour flight! There was just one problem. Due to US Homeland Security restrictions, no metal "sharps" were allowed on the aircraft and thus there was no means of opening the few hundred tuna cans! That was my last flight supporting our national carrier.
  7. JohnT

    Dinner 2017 (Part 6)

    Fooook, that looks so good! I must go and get an ox tail this week and do a nice looooong braise like that. Real winter food!
  8. our WeetBix is more or less the same as in the YT video from the UK - ours is larger flakes in the brick and no rounded corners, just a rectangular brick!
  9. Wot! Weetabix or Weetbix as it is also known, is great, not only as a breakfast cereal, but crushed it makes a brilliant "breading" for fish fillets, chops, fish cakes, etc. It also, split in half, it makes a great cracker for a slice of cheese or some rare roast beef and mustard.
  10. That second video is good - quick and precise and to the point! Well done. The recipe on your web site just needs a tweak. You forgot to give the quantity of cream – I presume it should read 100g.
  11. @David Ross That is truly a wonderful looking crostata. What temperature and for how long did you bake the pie? My guess would have been 150° to 160°C for between 20 and 30 minutes in a convection oven?
  12. Oh, nothing other than food, beautiful food! (With a twist of lime)
  13. The black African population in Southern Africa have been making it and living off it for centuries as a staple. But here it is called "pap" for the more porridge constituency and "stywe pap or Putu pap" for the stiffer version. Only white maize is used unless in times of drought, when there is a shortage, do they use the yellow and with great objection. It is a staple here and is served with some type of meat gravy or boerewors (farmers sausage) with a tomato, onion and herb gravy. Bugger, I am now hungry for some!
  14. I am supprised that the mixture was not airated to produce a less dense mixture, such as whipping the evaporated milk to a stiff foam and folding into the other ingredients. It will be interesting to read your feed-back on how it turned out.
  15. Ah, thanks for that. I must admit that I have never seen a yellow split pea in my neck of the woods so just assumed they were the same as what we get here.
  16. If you go to a catering equipment supply shop, look for a pack of deep fry oil filters - they should do the job. I purchase them in packs of 100 and have a special stainless steel funnel they drop into. The funnel has lips to fit over a large bowl or small drum. The filters are 24 cm deep and 24 cm across the top and conical in shape.
  17. Is that natural home-made pea soup or made from a bulk catering pack? It really does not look too green like what I make with our locally purchased Canadian split peas. I will be cooking up a batch this weekend and will click a picture (If I remember).
  18. Thanks @Anna N, solved my problem. The reason I asked is that here I have never heard of grilled romain, so will be going to try it in the next day or two. Basically, when I give it a bit of thought, those romaine lettuce look a bit like baby Chinese cabbage although I know they are not. I have often found the fried heart of the Chinese cabbage in the Chinese restaurants, but have never thought about whacking a romaine lettuce onto the braai and giving it a whisper of your ceasar dressing before serving. Food for thought, as they say!
  19. Okay, here we go with what may appear to be a dumb question. When you say "grilled romaine", how do you actually "grill" it? I ask this as the term "grill" appears to be slightly different to what we, here at the pointy end of Africa, term "grill". Here it means to cook on a grill or grid over either a gas or charcoal fire or to cook under a salamander. I have the feeling (but may be totally wrong) that your term of "grill" for the romaine is to pan fry it. Could you please enlighten me?
  20. In a way, I agree with you - as long as it is a good recipe, tastes good, looks good and everybody enjoys it (and asks for either the recipe or for seconds), it must be worth the few minutes it takes to throw it together. You can call it a cake, a pudding or a dessert - it still passes muster and is a winning recipe. Now to your plums - I have a small plum tree that produces a huge amount of fruit each year, but they all ripen within a two week period. Normally, the birds feast on them before I can and the little bastards peck each one to test for sweetnes and then go for the next in line. I have already bought a net to put over it for next season and can see a few of the tarts/torte/cakes/desserts/puddings being produced at the end of spring when said plum tree starts producing its fruit in great numbers.
  21. I would call it a tart. However, it certainly is not a torte! A torte is made with mostly ground nuts and little or no wheat flour - that was what I was taught. The recipe under discussion has no nuts, just wheat flour. As a matter of interest, I had a similar recipe that was given to me when doing my studies in the 70's, by my Swiss PC teacher, Sven, who claimed it was given to him originally by somebody in Europe - I cannot remember who or where. He called his one a tart. I do not know if I still have the recipe, but will look in my files when I have a bit more free time.
  22. Ah, I see you bought a book to help solve @MelissaH's query in the Pastry and Baking section regarding Ice Box Cakes!
  23. With such a blurred photo, it is hard to tell but the way the little bugger is hunched over, could he / she / it be a baby sparrow? As long as he is not a blackbird, he should be relatively safe as blackbirds have something to do with the word pie. And with Anna being so busy with food lately, it may just end up in a pie. Fortunately there is only one, so pie is out!
  24. JohnT

    Fish Cake Herb

    Have a look at : https://www.thespruce.com/what-herbs-season-fish-and-seafood-1761816
  25. JohnT

    Fish Cake Herb

    No, parsley is quite a mild herb that pairs well with fish. I certainly would not term it sweet. And yes, fresh bread crumbs are fine and will crisp-up nicely if fried properly - I was just giving you a different angle at making fish cakes. But follow your recipe and they should work out just fine if it has worked for you in the past.
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