Kitchen Essential

There’s nothing better than getting home after a hard day’s work (or any day of work) and pouring yourself a drink.

If you’re going to stock a bar at home, or more realistically a kitchen cupboard, cover your bases by buying the six main types of spirits.

BRANDY

More brandy is consumed locally than any other spirits. Generally acceptable mixes are Coke, soda water, water or orange juice. Continue Reading »

Isn’t it interesting how the truly basic basics of cooking, like how to boil an egg that’s just right or cooking a perfect pot of rice, are ironically the last things we master? What we know (as with everything else), we’ve learnt the hard way. Allow us to make yours a smoother ride. If you start by getting the basics into the kitchen, mastering the cooking basics will just be so much easier.

Cooking (without waves)

If you know how to cook eggs, a pot of rice, pasta and veggies, you will survive. If you can do a decent braai, you may even thrive. So read on and see if you can master the basics. Continue Reading »

Eat your vegetables! This little sentence was drummed into all our heads when we least wanted to hear it. But as the universe is strange, when you move from your mother’s home you suddenly start eating vegetables by choice and you may even become a vegetarian! Most veggies are really easy to prepare, and depending on how you prepare them, they are healthy.

Steaming Vegetables

It is almost always better to steam your vegetables as it is the healthiest method for the tastiest vegetables (you taste the vegetable instead of what’s been added to it). Now if you own a microwave there should be no reason for you to ever steam, boil or cook vegetables on the stove. Most vegetables are quickly and easily cooked in the microwave. Consult your manual — it probably has a very useful table giving you preparation and timing details. Continue Reading »

Barbeque Chicken

There are various bits of chicken that can be cooked over the fire varying from whole chickens to kebabs. The greatest danger with chicken is over-cooking, resulting in dry, stringy meat, or burning the outside while the meat is underdone closer to the bone. To avoid this, cook it fairly slowly over a moderate fire. Prepare a marinade for the chicken and baste it frequently while barbeque. A whole chicken cooks in roughly 45 minutes, chicken pieces in 20 minutes and kebabs in 10-15 minutes. When you suspect that the chicken is cooked, prod it with a fork or knife; if the juices that flow out are clear, your job is done. Continue Reading »

BREAKFAST

If entertaining guests to breakfast, position the table in the sunniest spot so as to get the day off to a good start. If the weather is bad or you do not have a sunny spot, lay the table with a bright sunny cloth and colourful china.

For a full breakfast you will need cereal bowls, side plates, tea or coffee cups and saucers, cereal spoons, knives and forks or small spoons for boiled eggs, small knives for buttering toast, toast racks, teaspoons and napkins. Grapefruit halves are usually served in small dishes, ready segmented with a knife, with special pointed spoons. Put out milk in jugs (hot to accompany coffee), sugar in a pretty bowl, jars of jam and marmalade, salt and pepper shakers, and pots of tea or coffee. Continue Reading »

Basic Needs

Now for the stores required:

Flour—plain is essential; self-raising highly desirable; wholemeal a slight “extra,” but it makes wonderful scones. Baking powder and cornflour, which is used in many cake and biscuit recipes and also for fillings.

Bicarbonate of soda has its place in many scone and other recipes, and cream of tartar is often wanted for scones, too, and also for some toffees and sweets. Continue Reading »

Fish

There is a completely erroneous belief in some quarters that stale fish can be used for smoking, as the smoking process will impart its own flavour to the fish and thus mask any defects in quality. Certainly it is just possible to ’save the life’ of stale fish approaching putrefaction, by smoking, so that it is just edible; but, at the best, only a very inferior product both in keeping quality and flavour can result.

Fish which is to be smoked must be completely fresh to obtain the best results, although this is a good point at which to dispel the belief that frozen goods are not suitable for smoking. This is completely untrue. All deep frozen fish, game, meat and poultry can be employed, and first-class results obtained. Continue Reading »

Refrigerator conversion

An old, disused upright-type refrigerator makes a useful smoker within certain limitations. It is well insulated and so will conserve heat, but, by the nature of its original function, is not designed to stand heat, so it is only suitable as a cold smoker. A hole about 10 in. square or round should be cut in the bottom of the fridge, which should be raised off the ground and supported on a square built of concrete blocks, open at the front to allow the fire to be placed within the square of blocks. Alternatively, the device can be used in conjunction with the remote fire pit and underground smoke tunnel, and as a means of draught control two or three 2-in. holes can be cut in the top of the fridge; better still, it can be fitted with a length of stovepipe, protruding from the top and preferably fitted with a damper. Continue Reading »

The mechanical smoker

While on the subject of smoking equipment, perhaps a further word will not be out of place regarding the mechanical smoker referred to earlier, should any home smoker feel inclined to invest in one of these rather elaborate pieces of equipment.

I imagine that all large commercial fish or bacon smoking concerns in Britain will by now have ceased to use traditional equipment and will employ mechanical equipment exclusively. The modern smoker which I am acquainted with is the Torry Kiln, which is marketed by Afos Limited, Anlaby, Hull, North Humberside. Some of these commercial kilns are very large, costing several thousands of pounds, but the only model with which the home smoker might need to concern himself is the Torry Mini Kiln. This kiln is based on the same principles as the large commercial smoking units, and has a maximum capacity of 56 lb (approx. 25 kilos). Continue Reading »

Hot smoking kilns Pressure smoking

The first piece of smoking equipment I had any experience with was the Abu Smokebox, which is manufactured by Abu Svangsta of Sweden, a famous firm of fishing tackle manufacturers. The Abu measures about 12 x 7 x 4 in. deep and on account of its small size, the potential is very limited. The Abu works on a different principle from other smoke units, and is said to ‘pressure smoke‘. A bed of fine sawdust is spread on its floor, and a combined drip tin and wire rack placed over the sawdust, on which is placed the food to be smoked. A small methylated spirit burner under the Abu supplies instant heat, and the sliding lid fits fairly tightly into place. Here the process differs from other smoking techniques, which allow for the free passage of smoke out of the top of the sides of the unit. The smoke has to force its way out of the sides of the lid, causing smoke pressure inside. High temperatures are generated within the Abu and the food cooks in the time it takes for the meths to burn out, which is usually about 20 minutes. Continue Reading »

There are three varieties of salmon with which we who live in the western hemisphere should concern ourselves. Reputedly king of them all is the Atlantic salmon, the fish which runs up the rivers to spawn in Norway, Finland, Great Britain and Ireland and the rivers on the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada. This is the fish which is famous the world over as a sporting and culinary proposition and is commonly associated with social prestige and affluence. There is no question that the Atlantic salmon is a very fine fish but perhaps his illustrious connections give him a somewhat unfair advantage over his Pacific cousins. Continue Reading »

The herring, which of course is what the kipper is before it is processed, is seldom the quarry of the sea angler in Britain. The Swedes and the Norwegians traditionally fish for herrings with hand lines from small boats at the mouths of their fjords, often making good catches, particularly when night fishing. Nevertheless, although as a British home smoker you are unlikely to catch your own herrings, if you live close to a port where these fish are landed, you may well decide to smoke your own kippers. If so, you will be able to make certain that you only obtain the freshest of fish. Continue Reading »

Ham is thicker than bacon, so penetration by either sweet pickle or dry cure takes longer: 3 days per lb should be allowed. If the brine cure is used, it is a good idea to inj_ectaround the bone with the brine pump before the ham i_stotally immersed in the pickle, after which it should be tur_nedevery 2 days and the brine must be stirred. The rule applies about temperature as in all protracted cures, namely that it is far safer to keep it around 35^° F. After the curing period, the ham should be washed and hung up to drain at a: and 38° F for 48 hours. Continue Reading »

Razor clams should first be steamed for 10 minutes to open them. The meats should be shaken out and the clams should be cleaned by removing the stomachs and splitting open the necks. They should then be washed and cut into sections. The clams should be soaked in 60% brine (1 lb 14 oz salt to 1 gallon of water) for 5 minutes, then rinsed in cold water and drained on racks for 15 minutes. Continue Reading »

The traditional Scottish recipe for this, the largest of the British and Scandinavian game birds, states that as soon as possible after the bird has been killed, the crop should be removed, the feet cut off and the bird then buried for a fortnight, by which time one should have forgotten where the bird has been buried. This implies that the caper is pretty ghastly fare, but this is an exaggeration, and similar defamatory statements are often made about the black grouse and its female counterpart, the grey hen, which I and many others consider excellent eating. Continue Reading »

Hamburgers

Equal quantities of good quality beef and pork should be minced and bound with egg yolk and basic seasoning to form cakes. These should be placed on a wire rack, with a dripping tin underneath, in a smoke oven pre-heated to 200 - 225^° F. There should be plenty of dense smoke as the hamburgers will only be in the oven for about 30 minutes. They can either be left in the same position for the whole process, or can be turned halfway through. Continue Reading »

The traditional smoked foods of Britain and Europe are not normally eaten straight from the smoker. In all cases it is usual to allow the food to ‘mature’ for at least 24 hours after smoking, so that the best possible flavour can be enjoyed. Hot smoked foods are almost invariably eaten cold, as are some cold smoked delicacies such as salmon, cod roes and fillets of beef. Others, like kippers, cold smoked mackerel or finnan haddocks, not to mention ordinary smoked bacon, are cooked before eating, but even these products are not used straight from the smoker. Continue Reading »

Notes on measurement

Two ordinary mercury-in-glass thermometers are required with a range of about 50-100° F. They must be inserted through holes in the wall of the kiln a few inches apart so that the bulbs project well into the smoke stream. One of the thermometers (the ‘wet bulb‘) has a muslin bag or sleeve tied round the bottom inch or two of the stem, so that it completely surrounds the mercury bulb.

Before a reading is taken, this bag is moistened by dipping in clean water, preferably distilled water, and after putting back in position, the reading of the thermometer is taken when it is steady after about half a minute. The ordinary temperature of the dry bulb should be read on the other thermometer at the same time as that of the wet bulb. The smoke should not pass over the wet bulb immediately before the dry bulb in case the air gets cooled by evaporation before affecting the dry bulb. Continue Reading »

At its most basic, the kitchen is the engine room that drives the long food processing chain. This stretches from the farmlands and oceans that produce our food to the landfills, rivers, and seas that take the eventual wastes and rubbish. But the chain does not start with the food growers and processors — it starts with you. For it is what each individual consumer decides to buy that ultimately determines the produce — and the price — from the growers and the food industry. The purse is very influential and we, as consumers, have both power and responsibility for making choices. Continue Reading »

The kitchen is the heart of the house, the centre of consumption, the hub of daily life. It is the place where family and friends gather to eat, drink, and chat, share their joys, or solve their problems. It is the base of all domestic operations and the one place where we can “act locally”, and play an active part in protecting the health of ourselves and that of the wider environment.

The kitchen of childhood dreams is a place full of appetizing and tantalizing smells, a farmhouse kitchen, perhaps, hung with polished copper pots and pans and warmed by a glowing fire. However, behind that dream lay the reality for the housewife of long hours of tiring work stoking fires, heating water, hand-washing and ironing, scrubbing and polishing, and cooking. Continue Reading »