Tag: Big Green Egg

Thick cut grilled rump steak with caramelised tomatoes & onions

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Nothing beats a good steak, but it’s also so easy to get wrong…
I honestly never order steak at a restaurant, because I am convinced I’ll have a better one at home. Steaks should be kept simple, paired with something fresh and tasty, not covered in some bland sauce.

I asked my butcher for a very thick cut rump steak – perfect for serving nice and rare, with a beautiful fatty strip on the outside, grilled to perfection.
I rubbed the steak with olive oil, freshly ground course salt and black pepper.

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You will need:
Large, thick cut rump steak {probably 1kg}
Olive oil
Freshly ground sea salt & black pepper
Mixed baby salad leaves
Avocado
Rosa tomatoes
1 onion
1 tbs honey
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
Halloumi cheese

Slice the onion and sauté in butter. Once it’s soft, add honey and balsamic vinegar and let it caramelise on a low heat. Add tomatoes and let it all caramelise some more. {You can make this quite a bit in advance and just reheat before serving.}

Rub the steak with olive oil, salt & pepper and let it sit for a while before grilling. You also need the steak to be at room temperature before cooking it to ensure even cooking and so that you don’t have an ice cold centre if you’re doing a rare steak.
Grilling the steak is the best idea – either on your Big Green Egg {best!} or Weber or just a normal braai.
Make sure the grill is very hot. Cook the steak for about 5 minutes on each side and again for another 2 minutes each side. You will need to check the steak and see that it’s to your liking.

While the steak rests, grill halloumi slices in a hot pan until just melted.

Now, place a handful of salad leaves on the plate, top with a few slices of avocado.
Slice the steak and arrange a few slices on top of the salad. Top the steak with halloumi cheese and then the tomatoes & onions.
Season with salt & pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Enjoy with a glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc – yes, white wine with red meat..! {Shock, horror, gasp!}
It’s such a refreshing meal, with the creaminess of the halloumi cheese, essentially a salad, and it goes so well with the white wine. A red wine would just be too heavy.

Anyways – give it a try and enjoy! X

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Beef steak, crème fraîche with a kick & roasted tomato salsa

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I’ve been craving a good beef steak for a while now – it’s been mostly lamb lately! Not that I can complain – lamb is a real treat and I do love it – but a change is also good.
I adapted the recipe from The Real Meal Revolution, my current favourite cookbook. Not only are the recipes great, they’re also healthy and so yum you will think it must be bad…
I must also say that the recipes are very simple and just focus on delicious ingredients – my way of cooking for sure! I often just tweak them here and there to suit what I have on hand, or based on what I feel like.

This dish was fab – loads of flavour, loads of tummy-filling-goodness and didn’t take that long to make:
{Beef steak, crème fraîche with a kick & roasted tomato salsa}

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{not the best photo I’ve ever taken – but hey…}

For the steak:
2 beef steaks {preferably rump, I used sirloin, about 500g total}
1 tsp coriander seeds {roasted and then ground}
Freshly ground sea salt
Black pepper
Olive oil

Rub the steaks with all the above ingredients and let it sit for about half an hour before cooking.
Cook on a hot grill for about 2 minutes on each side to seal the meat and then finish off in an oven of 180C until medium-to-rare {or however you like your steaks}.
Of course, we used our Big Green Egg for the entire cooking process!

For the crème fraîche:
Half a cup of crème fraîche
2 tsp hot English mustard

Mix these together and keep in the fridge until you are ready to dish up.

For the salsa:
A cup of small rosa tomatoes
1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
Sweet basil, torn
1 Chorizo sausage, chopped and fried

Place the tomatoes under a hot grill and let them roast until slightly charred. Chop the tomatoes and mix with the chorizo.
Let it cool slightly, then add the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper. Let that marinade for a bit.
Add the vinegar and sprinkle with basil.

Now honestly, what is better than a big chunk of beef steak topped with a meaty salsa?! And yet, it is still refreshing and ‘light’ to eat and doesn’t feel like you’re in some greasy diner in Louisiana somewhere… {No offense to anyone in Louisiana, but I know what goes down there… Shrimp stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon and deep-fried, served with a side of green beans and mince! Yep, that really happened! I suppose it can be called Banting…}

Anyhoo, back to the steak – another great one from Real Meal Revolution cookbook and a definite must-cook!

Serve the salsa over the steak and top with the crème fraîche.

Enjoy! X

Rosemary & Yoghurt Roast Chicken

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Roast chicken

This heat is making me super lazy! So here’s another easy & super tasty recipe:

Rosemary & yoghurt roast chicken

a cup of plain yoghurt (you can use low-fat / Bulgarian or Greek)

sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

pinch of salt

pinch of freshly ground black pepper

2 tbs lemon juice

half a cup of sauvignon blanc

3 tbs olive oil

Mix all ingredients and marinade one whole chicken (with skin is best!) for about an hour.

Roast in the oven or your grill for an hour and 45mins at a low heat of 150C. The low heat makes the chicken more succulent and if you’re using a grill (like a Big Green Egg or Weber), it imparts a delicious smokey flavour to the chicken. I used a small dutch oven to roast chicken in – for an hour and 20mins and the last half hour I placed chicken directly onto the grill to brown and get crispy.

Delicious – we just kept it simple and had a tomato, basil & feta cheese salad with the chicken.

Enjoy! X

Warthog Roast

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Big Green Egg

What a fab day – sunny Joburg with good friends, good wine & good food!

We tried out a new recipe today for warthog (I’ve never made or eaten warthog before…) from Shiny Happy People by Neil Roake (I love this cookbook!).

1 leg of venison (bush pig – I used warthog)

5 onions peeled & quartered

2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled & crushed

freshly ground salt & black pepper

olive oil

200ml sherry

225g quince cheese (quince jelly)

Rub meat with olive oil, salt & pepper.  In a large casserole, brown meat on all sides & set aside.  Add onions & ginger to the same casserole used to brown the meat and sauté.  Add sherry to deglaze.  Return the meat to the casserole and add random dollops of the quince jelly.  Cover and slow-roast in a pre-heated oven of 160C For 3-4 hours.

Now, I adapted this recipe slightly by doubling all the quantities (except the onions) because of the huge piece of meat I used.  Also, we roasted it in our Green Egg.

The result – delicious and slightly sweet meat!  Next time I would just add more liquid halfway through the cooking process and have the temperature even lower – maybe at 120C for 4 hours.  The sauce was just a tad bit too reduced for me… But still delicious nonetheless!

Warthog roast

Sides:

Mielies (corn on the cob) with butter – always a braai favourite!

Roast beets with balsamic vinegar, olive oil & feta cheese

Scrumptious salad with roasted tomato & Danish feta with avocado – made by my friend Karin

Dessert:

Summer Berry Pavlova

This might just be my all-time favourite dessert – and healthy too! (Just egg whites & fruit… Oh yes, and a bit of cream and sugar too… Just a bit ;))

Summer Berry Pavlova

6 egg whites

pinch of cream of tartar

1.5 cups of castor sugar

1.5 tsp corn starch

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp red wine vinegar

Whisk egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.  Add sugar slowly, along with the corn starch & salt until glossy and stiff peaks form.  Fold in vanilla & vinegar.  Place on baking paper, in a round or oval shape.  Bake at 120C for 1.5 hours and let it cool in the oven.

Top with sweetened whipped cream (I use regular cream, whipped with castor sugar), fresh strawberries (cut and sprinkled with castor sugar), blueberries, gooseberries & pomegranate seeds.  Dust with icing sugar, serve & enjoy!

x

Friday – Green Egg Roast Chicken

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Roast chicken & caprese salad image

Can you say yum?!

The Big Green Egg – one of my favourite cooking tools! Yes, it’s a ‘braai’ of sorts, but you can do anything in it, I’ve even baked a cake! There is just no comparison to the taste it gives to your braai goodies, so yum.

Anyways, so enough punting of the Egg – here’s tonight’s recipe:

1 whole free range chicken

spicy Cajun rub

Robertsons portugese chicken spice

1 lemon

Olive oil

Rub chicken with olive oil, Cajun rub and Portuguese chicken spice.  Slice lemon in half and place both halves inside the chicken.  In a roasting dish, roast chicken in your Green Egg / Weber / braai for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, place chicken directly onto the grill and grill for another 40 minutes until done. (You want it to be just juicy and cooked – not overcooked! I think we had the temperature at about 180C)

While the chicken was roasting, I also added a few slices of aubergine onto the grill, along with the chicken (aubergine was dipped into the olive oil and spice mixture in the roasting dish that the chicken was in).

My take on a caprese salad:

aubergine slices (grilled as explained above for about 20 minutes)

mozerella cheese

sweet basil

tomato slices

toasted pine nuts

olive oil

salt

Assemble by layering slices of aubergine, cheese, tomato and basil. Drizzle olive oil and add a sprinkle of sea salt. Sprinkle with toasted nuts.

We enjoyed this scrummy meal with a glass of Van Loveren Pinot Grigio.

Enjoy! X