Friday, January 10, 2014

Potato Omelette


This could be a more English version of the Spanish omelette, which is made with only potato and egg (and maybe some onion). Serves 2.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 medium potatoes
5 cherry tomatoes
Cheddar cheese
Oil for frying
Salt & pepper

Method:
Cut your potatoes into 1cm square pieces.
Put some oil in a pan and fry your potato pieces. It works best of you don't crowd the pan too much.
Once the potato is browned and cooked inside, you can remove these from the pan and rest them on paper towel to absorb extra oil.
Beat the eggs together and add a pinch of salt and pepper.
Turn down the heat to medium-low and pour the egg into the pan and put a lid on to speed up the cooking.
Once it's no longer very liquid at the top, I usually like to flip my omelette to make sure that it's going to cook well on both sides. However, for this recipe I don't flip it, because when I add the potato I want to it to sink into the omelette a little bit (since it's not completely cooked through yet).
Once the potato is added, continue to cook the omelette with a lid on until done. 
Add the tomatoes and the cheese on one half.
Fold the omelette over and serve topped with a little extra cheese.



Saturday, January 4, 2014

Fried Aubergines with Gruyère and a Greek Yoghurt Dip

We had a great braai on New Year's Eve with some lovely rump steaks, sweet potato chips, roasted tomatoes, and for starters we had aubergines.




Having eaten aubergines a few times before dipped in egg and fried; they were my least favourite vegetable. Last year we gave the purple vegetables another chance. They've been a regular in our shopping basket ever since. This is my preferred way of cooking aubergines as a snack, side or starter.

Ingredients:
1 big aubergine
Mixed herbs
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Gruyère cheese
Greek Yoghurt 
Garlic
Mint
Calamata olives

Method:
Cut your aubergine into 1cm thick slices and set your pan on a medium heat. 
Make a 'dressing' with olive oil, salt, pepper and the herbs to baste your slices with. 
Put one or two layers of oil on each side of each slice.
Put a little oil in the pan and fry the first few slices (only one layer, so no overlapping).
In about 5 minutes you can turn these slices and they should have brown spots (from the frying) on them and have changed to a darker colour (they will be much softer too). Cook the new side until done and remove from the pan.
Add the next few slices.
Once they are all done, you can top them with the grated cheese and serve with calamata olives. To make the dip a bit moreexciting, you can mix chopped garlic, mint and some additional olive oil into the yoghurt.

Tip: If you want the brinjal to cook quicker, you can steam the slices a bit by putting on a lid (they aren't going to be crispy anyway because they have too much liquid). 





Friday, January 3, 2014

Pan-fried Trout

We recently had a rather interesting meal for breakfast: pan-fried trout with a few fresh salad ingredients (pepper, tomato, cucumber) and a Greek yoghurt dip (sprinkled with spices like pepper, cumin and paprika).

Frying fish is really easy. Put a little oil in a pan and let it heat up on a medium high heat. You start with the skinless side facing down. Cook the fish for about 5-8 minutes before turning it over and cooking the skin side down for a further 5 minutes or so until golden. This way the skin is crispy when you serve it.



Thursday, January 2, 2014

Mediterranean Couscous Salad


Great for a hot summer's day.

Ingredients:
A punnet of baby tomatoes
A big aubergine / egg plant / brinjal sliced & chopped
A yellow pepper, sliced
Half a cup of dry couscous
3 leaves of sage
5 leaves of mint
3 leaves of rocket
Olive oil
Flax Seeds
Greek yoghurt
Salt
Pepper

Method:
Get out a nice big roasting pan and put all your veggies in there. Sprinkle over the herbs (chopped), a bit of salt and pepper. And coat with olive oil (stir it up).
Roast this on 180 degress Celcius for 45 minutes.
While that is roasting, just cover your couscous with water and let it soak it up. You can also lightly salt it.
Add flax seeds to your couscous.
Serve the hot veggies around the couscous and top with Greek yoghurt and garnish with a spring of mint.