Tag: <span>food and drink</span>

For my birthday gift, Lois bought me an Airbnb experience. It was a spice-blending masterclass, in my home city Cape Town. It was far more than just a masterclass, it included a lovely meal and conversation in somebody’s home. Our host, Paschelle, explained how different spices add different flavours to dishes, when to add spices, and she gave us lots of tips of using and blending spices for different types of food.

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Spice selection (we used all but one of these spices).

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11 different spices roasting, they will become garam masala once ground.

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Starters (I was so busy I neglected to get photos of the mains), for mains we had a chicken dish, a vegetarian brinjal dish, a dal, rice, poppadoms and roti. We finished off with masala tea (Paschelle is super-flexible about the menu).

In short, there was plenty of food. I don’t even usually eat brinjal, but it was so tasty I even had seconds!

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Our host, Paschelle, who is an excellent host and cook. If you’re interested in the class, you can find it on Airbnb. Insider tip, Paschelle creates a few spice blends and masala teas to order, so maybe check with her ahead of the class if you plan on taking a stash home with you (the take-home garam masala is included in the experience price).

Cape Town

Travel

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Here is some of the food from the steam-train stall in Wroc?aw. The choices were amazing. Low-carb delight for me (to be fair it was making up for all the yummy Polish carbs I was stuffing down my throat).

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If you haven’t had real kielbasa, you haven’t had sausage. Its a smoked Polish pork sausage that is grilled. They are great on a braai, and almost even better as left-overs.

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The Greeks would call this Souvlaki, the Indians would call this kebab, and the South African’s would call this sosatie. I don’t care what you call it, but you have to try it. These ones were huge and filling (I know, I had one for lunch).

 

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And yes, there were some vegetarian options as well.

 

Travel

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The town of Wroclaw is wonderful in the evening. There are loads of restaurants where you get brilliant Polish food, and in old-town there is also a bustling market area with the most excellent food stalls, and tables all over where you can sit and eat. In my nest post I’ll share some of the food (hint – I had food from the steam train on the left).

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Travel

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I love this idea – roaming hot-dog sellers. I found this particular “outlet” on Alexanderplatz, or “Alex” as the local’s call it. But they are all over Berlin. And at ER1.70c for a hot-dog they are excellent value, and they taste excellent as well. If you’re ever in Berlin lookout and have a hot-dog. You’ll enjoy it.

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Travel

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This is one of my favouriate meals; Zurek, or Polish sour soup. It’s made from a fermented base of fermented rye flour, with kielbasa and boiled eggs added. Traditionally its served in a bowl made from a really hard bread. The bread is so hard that you can’t really eat the bowl, but the soup is brilliant.

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Here’s the recipe. You have to make the fermented base a few days in advance, and then you can make the soup.

How to make the base for ?urek

You will need:

  • about 1 cup of rye flour
  • 1 cup of boiling water
  • 2-3 cups of warm water
  • bread crust (the best would be rye bread)
  • few grains of allspice
  • optionally 1-2 cloves of garlic

Mix the flour with the boiling water until there are no lumps. Then set it aside to cool. Add bread crust (it should sink completely), garlic, and remaining water. Put the mixture in a jar or clay pot covered with gauze or a delicate piece of cloth. Let the mixture sit for 3 days at room temperature. (each day mix the ingredients delicately). After that time it should be ready to use. As the flour ferments, there will be some lactic acid bacteria and wild yeast. There is also a very special (?) aroma.. You can use it immediately or put it in the fridge (it can be stored for about 2 weeks).

Now you are ready for the classic ?urek recipe

Ingredients

  • Zakwas (?urek base) about 0,5 l
  • Soup vegetables
  • Sausages and smoked bacon
  • Dried mushrooms (optional)
  • Garlic (3-4 cloves)
  • 2 laurel leaves
  • Marjoram
  • 5-6 grains of allspice
  • Salt and pepper
  • Hard-boiled eggs

Prepare the vegetables (wash, peel and cut into smaller pieces). Bring them to boil with about 3-4 cups of water. Reduce a heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add sausage or bacon and mushrooms, return to the boil, reduce heat and cook another 30 minutes. Remove sausage from soup, slice when cool enough to handle, and set aside. Strain stock through a sieve, pressing on the vegetables to extract as much flavor as possible. Return the stock to the soup pot. Add “zakwas” to the stock (the clear part from the top and 2-3 spoons of the thick flour from the bottom). Bring to a boil, add sliced sausage pressed garlic and other spices. in heated bowls with half a hard-cooked egg in each serving and rye bread on the side.

(original source for the recipe is http://blog.polishorigins.com/2013/06/26/zurek-traditional-polish-sour-soup/, but seems to have died)

Travel

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Currywurst is one of the strangest things to come out of Germany. Of course Germany is famous for its sausages, but how on earth did curry-flavoured sausages become such an institution in Berlin?

Supposedly in 1949, a German called Herta Heuwer obtained tomato sauce and curry powder (yes I know my colleagues from Kolkata will cringe at the words “curry powder”, but such it is in Europe) from a British soldier, turned it into a sauce and started it with sausages to locals. And from there it spread all over Germany. Cds IMG 1129

Personally, while I love German sausages, and I’m a huge fan of Indian food, I’m not sold. The flavours are a little too different for my taste. I’ll eat one or the other, but not both at the same time. But when in Berlin, eat as a Berliner.

You can read all about currywurst here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst

Travel

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This vendor was selling the most amazing cheese sticks at the finish line of Cape Town marathon, and after a long 42km run, it was the perfect thing to eat, and a bargain at the price.

They are made by a stall in the Mojo Market in Sea Point, Holy Macaroni, and I certainly plan to pop past there sometime to investigate further.

Cape Town South Africa

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This was my pre-marathon dinner when I raced the Europa Marathon in Gorlitz. Not only was it excellent, but it certainly hit the spot. Just perfect before a long race. I ate it at a lovely restaurant called The Potato House. It was so good we had a couple of meals there.

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Running Travel

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We bought this cheese at a market in Gorlitz, Germany. It was good, very good. So good in fact that it din’t last long at all. We should have bought 2 cheeses instead of just the one, but then maybe it was good that we only stuck to the one.

Travel