ronell van wyk – Page 110 – Myfrenchkitchen

This is a quick starter, popular with everybody. It can be played up or down, with more vegetables added, or less or different ingredients. Instead of the pine nuts, pumpkin seeds can be added, in which case a roasted pumpkin seed oil would be perfect. Be sure to serve it with the courgettes still warm. A great dish for spring and summer, served on a hot spring day or a summer evening, while watching the sun fall away slowly below the horizon.

Courgette feta salad

Olive oil, rosemary salt (or any other herbed salt)
Four courgettes
salad leaves – rocket, watercress, batavia…
a handful of roasted pine nuts (or roasted flaked alomonds)
feta cheese
olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
teaspoon of dark honey

Preheat the oven to 200 degr. C.
Wash and slice the courgettes on the diagonal.
Plce in and oven dish, sprinkle with olive oil and rosemary salt. Roast in the the oven until nicely caramelized.
Place a mixture of washed and dried salad leaves on 4 plates.
Serve the still warm courgettes on the salad leaves and top with crumbled feta cheese and dry roasted pine nuts (or almond flakes).
Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, honey and finish off with a sprinkling of pepper.
Serve immediately.

Serves four

…in the footsteps of the shadows…

I can’t imagine who wants to side step dessert…!

I’m a dessert person, however small it may be. Just don’t heap up my plate with mountainous triangles of cheesecake! A dessert is the ending to a good meal, as a small starter is the beginning… just like a story. A meal is story telling after all. Like any good story, it needs an attention grasping first sentence to create anticipation. And it needs a creative ending to make the reader sit back with a sigh of contentment and contemplate the delight of escaping in dreams and living and being…

A small, light dessert, mostly with some kind of fruit does exactly that for me. With an espresso afterwards. Maybe a chocolate as well. A sensual experience. Then I too can sit back and contemplate the delight of living, breathing and eating….

Papillote with saffron-pineapples and raspberries.

To prepare one papillote: cut a rectangle of baking paper about 40cm long. Fold the two long lengths over to the middle, overlapping by 3 cm and press folds in the paper. Fold the two short sides over to the middle and press folds in the paper. When you open up your paper, you will clearly see the folds of the little rectangle in the middle of your paper. That is where you filling will go.
Filling: A handfull of pineapple chunks, cut to your desired size.
A few raspberries.
Grated lime rind
Freshly squeezed lime juice
Fresh passion fruit pulp
Honey
A few strands of saffron.

Fold your papillotes and place them, opened up, on a baking sheet.
Place in the middle of each papillote some pineapple and raspberries. Sprinkle with a strand or two of saffron. Drizzle with some lime juice and honey and top with passion fruit pulp.
Close the papillote by folding the long ends over the filling, overlapping on top. Take each short end on the side of the filling and twist to opposite sides like a candy wrapper. Fan open up the wrapper ends to make attractive twists.
Bake in a preheated oven at 210 degrees C for about 15-20 minutes.
Leave to cool. Place the papillotes on individual plates, pull open the overlapping tops and serve slightly warm with Bulgarian joghurt on the side.