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If
you love cooking, or even just enjoy food for
food's sake, you should visit Henrie's Hotch Potch,
the Highlife regular recipe column for a truly
amazing website: www.iafrica.com.
 A
food guru if ever there was, Henrie
Geyser does not supply just any old kind
of recipe, randomly pinched from the yellowing
pages of Your Average Cookbook. Rather, the wondrous
menus that grace the pages of Henrie's Hotch Potch
each week have come to exist through endless experimenting
and tasting, night after night of gleeful peeling,
chopping, stirring, stuffing, straining, baking,
grilling, frying and braaiing - wooden spoon in
one hand, glass of wine in the other.
We
are fortunate enough to have been given permission
to reproduce a few of Henrie's recipes, just so
that we can get a taste! To visit Henrie at the
iAfrica web site where he updates
his column every Friday with a full menu
of Starter, Main Course and Dessert - click
here
"A
traditional Cape smoorvis is "smothered fish"
in literal translation. But before we start I
must tell you about a lovely book of traditional
recipes. It is called Leipoldt's Cape Cookery
by C Louis Leipoldt and it is wonderful. It is
also available in Afrikaans. There are various
different recipes for smoorvis, but I like his
one best, although I do adapt it slightly.
Originally,
smoorvis was made (and is still supposed to be
made) with salted, wind dried fish, but this is
not always easy to find, particularly if you don't
live anywhere near the sea. So instead we will
use smoked snoek".
Ingredients
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500
g of smoked snoek, skinned, boned and flaked
2 large onions, thinly sliced
2 peeled and chopped tomatoes ( optional, but
I like it)
2 chopped fresh chillies, seeds removed
Powdered ginger ( just a sprinkling)
Tablespoon of lemon juice
1/2 cup of dry white wine ( optional, but I
like it)
black pepper
teaspoon of brown sugar
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
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Method
- In
a frying pan fry the onions and potato in a
blob of butter until soft, but not crispy or
brown.
- Add
the tomatoes, wine and lemon juice and simmer
for about five minutes.
- Now
add the fish and let it simmer softly.
As
Leipoldt says: "The dish should be pungent, spicy
and satisfying and neither too dry or too moist
. . . "
Serve
with plain white rice, crispy fresh bread and
a green salad. And if there is fish left over
use it for sandwiches. It tastes delightful!
Henrie
To
visit Henrie at the iAfrica web site where he
updates his column every
Friday with a full menu of Starter, Main
Course and Dessert - click
here
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