Freshly Blogged Competition

To all my avid blog readers I am proud to announce that I will be competing in the Freshly Blogged competition that will start from the 8th July 2013, I am very excited to be doing it as the competition format is going to be quite interesting, we will be given weekly challenges that you the public need to vote on your favourites each week on the Freshly Blogged website, then contents will get chopped until there is a final winner, which of course I hope is me.

So please stay tuned and go to the Freshly Blogged website to register as a voter.

P.S. I am really going to bring my A-game to the table of this one!!!!!!!!!


Many thanks
Hungry Chef Brad

Christmas in July Main Course..........Mild Venison and Prune Curry

Mild Venison & Prune Curry with Cranberry Chutney

This is part 2 of the Christmas in July menu, and to me there is nothing better in winter than good venison, it is fairly priced, easy to cook into comfort food and in many countries it is a Christmas meat as it is usually hunting season in winter. This is a nice warm dish that goes extremely well with good old samp.

Serves: 6

Difficulty: Easy

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 2 ½ Hours

Ingredients for the Curry

1,5 kg Venison goulash

3 TBSP butter

6 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 thumb size piece of ginger finely chopped

2 onions roughly chopped

1 TBSP Mild curry powder

2 TBSP mixed garum masala

1 TBSP ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 TBSP ground all spice berries

2 TBSP brown sugar

2 tins whole peeled tomatoes

250g pitted prunes

2 cups good dry red wine

1lt good quality beef stock

1lt water

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place the prunes and red wine in a bowl and microwave for about 1 minute, this will help the prunes to suck in the wine, then leave to stand for at least 3 hours before using.

Brown off the venison in the butter to start developing a good flavor base, take the venison out of the pot and add in the onions and sauté for about 5 minutes until they start to brown, then add in the garlic and ginger and continue to sauté for another 3 minutes, add back the meat along with all the spices, whole peeled tomatoes, beef stock and water. Leave to simmer on a medium heat for about 2 hours, then add in the prunes and red wine and let simmer for the remaining 30 minutes, check the season and adjust to your taste.

It is always best to cook this the day before eating as the flavours develop and mature.

Ingredients for the Cranberry Chutney

1 Tin Cranberries

2 TBSP white wine vinegar

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 cup sugar

1 clove garlic

Juice from 1 orange

2 sprigs of thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place all the ingredients into a small saucepan and simmer for about 20 minutes until it thickens.

Take off the heat and leave to cool before using. 

State of our Sea's

This is just a quick little fact about fish for those of you who didn't know this.

• In 2012 the world produced 63 million tons of Beef and farmed 66 million tons of fish, that's right, farmed fish production has oven taken beef production world wide.
• The current rate at which we are using our resources by 2030 we would need 1 1/2 earths to sustain what we are using!!!!
• 90% of the worlds fish populations are over fished and reaching a critical point.
• It takes 3kg of wild caught fish to feed and produce 1kg of farmed fish.

just some interesting facts to think about when you buy and eat fish, the scary part of it all is that if you go into any super market you will always see the same fish on the shelves and these are mainly the ones that are being over fished.

Christmas in July..........Starter: Cauliflower and Gorgonzola Soup

Cauliflower and Gorgonzola Soup

This is the first of a 3 recipe series that i will do one a week so by mid July you will have a wonderful "easy" Christmas in July menu to do at home.

I know it has been a while since I done the recipe of the week, and sometimes it just gets so difficult to do it as “life” happens, and in the hospitality business that can be a number of things. I recently took a much needed 7 day break in Cape Town with my father in-law and of course my 3 amazing girls. Now for those with a little zest for life will realize that you just cannot do everything there is to do in Cape Town in 7 days, but we did however accomplish many of the things like going to the Old Biscuit Mill Market on Saturday morning, we spent a day in the Wine Lands, went up the mountain to look back down the mountain again, went all the way to Cape Point, look at all the birds and animals at the World Of Birds, ate fish n chips at the Hout Bay Harbor, look at all the stunning fish at the Aquarium and spent a morning browsing around the V&A waterfront.

All of this is just want I needed to get my creative juices flowing again and start my winter thinking cap. So here I have done a very simple little Cauliflower and Gorgonzola soup with toasted walnuts and white truffle oil

Serves: 4

Difficulty: Easy

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 heads of Cauliflower, stems and all

1 small onion

1 lt good quality vegetable stock (rather make your own that the sodium rich store bought)

1 Wedge of Blue Tower Gorgonzola style blue cheese (much creamier than the Blue Rock)

8 walnut halves

White truffle oil to drizzle

Little extra blue tower for garnishing

Method

Break up the cauliflower and place in a small pot with the vegetable stock and onion and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes, then put it into a food processor with the blue tower and blitz until smooth, it must be hot when you blitz it as this will make it more velvety.

Dish it up into your serving bowl, place the walnut halves in the middle of the serving bowl, top that with a little cheese and drizzle with white truffle oil.

A tasty and classy soup to be served in the winter at a dinner party.

Next week I will do a real winter warmer main course.

Bon Appetite