Latest news with #GalliovaFoodWriteroftheyear
Daily Maverick
13-05-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Souper Tuesday: Spicy coconut and sweetcorn soup
Sweetcorn and other vegetables bring colour to this lively soup, abrim with sweet spices and finished with coconut cream. For our second Souper Tuesday recipe of 2025, here's something pleasantly spicy. The core vegetable is sweetcorn, along with carrot, celery and onion. Bringing an undercurrent of spiciness are star anise, fennel seeds, cardamom pods, dried chillies and Thai lime leaves, which have other names including the one that we South Africans avoid using for fear of causing offence. This is not a blended soup, as processing would spoil the lovely pops of yellow and green and impair the slightly chunky texture. It's all brought together with coconut cream, and it doesn't take long at all before the soup is ready to eat. Tony's coconut vegetable soup (Makes 2 generous portions with seconds) Ingredients 3 Tbsp coconut oil 1 large onion, chopped finely 3 celery stalks, diced 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced 2 cobs of corn (sweetcorn) 1.5 litres vegetable stock 3 star anise 8 cardamom pods 2 tsp fennel seeds 3 dried chillies, chopped 4 Thai lime leaves 1 large potato, peeled and grated 400ml coconut cream Salt to taste Black pepper to taste Coriander leaves, chopped, for garnish Method Melt the coconut oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and cook for 2 or 3 minutes, then add the celery and carrot. (Don't add the corn yet.) Cook gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the vegetable stock, cardamom, star anise, fennel seeds, chillies and Thai lime leaves, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and grate in the potato. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the coconut cream and stir well. While the pot is simmering, trim the cobs of any fibres, and slice off the kernels with a sharp knife. Add them to the soup and stir. They're added late because if cooked too long they risk losing their crunch. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Be careful not to under- or over-salt it. The only way to do this is to add salt, stir and taste, and add a little more salt at a time until it is just right. Bear in mind that you can add more salt but you can't take it out. Simmer the soup for about 20 minutes. Stir along the way. Serve with a sprinkling of chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves. DM Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023
Daily Maverick
05-05-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Lekker Brekker Monday: Breakfast waffles with maple-glazed bacon
When Canadian maple syrup came my way for a recent birthday, I knew that some of it was destined for a breakfast of waffles with maple syrup-glazed bacon. It's all about maple syrup in this breakfast recipe. There's maple syrup in the batter for these waffles, and fried rashers of back bacon are glazed in an air fryer (or under the grill) to be served with them. Then, just to be sure you're getting enough of a maple syrup hit, you drizzle some on the cooked waffles as well. There are a couple of details to consider when making a batter for waffles. Very unusually, the batter should not be smooth. This isn't necessarily because you want lumps in it — it's because waffle batter contains both baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, which leaven the batter, creating tiny bubbles. Over-beating gets rid of these bubbles, and the resulting waffles may turn out heavy and dense. So a light hand with the whisk, even if there are lumps in the mixture, is a good thing. There are plenty of eggs in this batter, so even though you cannot see them, you are having eggs with this breakfast. Tony's breakfast waffles with maple-glazed bacon (Makes about 8) Ingredients For the glazed bacon: 8 rashers back bacon 2 Tbsp Canadian maple syrup Cooking oil spray For the waffles: 300g cake flour 3 tsp baking powder 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 80g salted butter 4 jumbo eggs ⅔ cup maple syrup ⅔ cup full cream milk Extra maple syrup for drizzling over the waffles Method Fry the bacon rashers on both sides and set aside. Sift flour into a bowl and add baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Set aside. Melt the butter in a small pan until it starts to brown. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs well. Add the milk, maple syrup and melted butter and stir well. Now add this dairy mixture to the bowl with the flour and combine. It needs to be a bit lumpy. Spray the waffle iron and the bottom of the air fryer basket with cooking oil spray. When the iron is hot, spoon the mixture into it and cook each waffle for about 4 minutes until golden. But check it when it seems to be done or nearly done — you can always shut the iron again and cook a little longer. Preheat your air fryer to 200°C or put it on the grill setting if it has one. Brush a little maple syrup over the cooked bacon rashers, using a pastry brush, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. Serve the waffles with bacon piled on top and a generous drizzling of maple syrup. DM Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023.
