Outdoor cooking - Part 1

Every country and culture has its version of cooking outdoors and for many this involves preparing food (meat) over some or other heat source. In South Africa we call it a "braai", around the world we call it "barbecue", the Aussies even call it a "barbie" (go figure) and here in Argentina we call it "asado". Obviously every culture wants to believe that their way is the best and I'm not here to debase that notion. I would, however, like to say that the Argentine way of preparing meat over hot coals is amazing. And I would like to pay homage to that cooking style over the next few posts.
Right at the start I need to clear up something for those of you who have never been to Argentina or partaken in an asado. It is NOT about the food alone. An asado is a ritual that is repeated for those persons attending. This ritual obviously has variations but it is still a ritual. One of sharing time and food and wine and laughter (and the odd political argument) with everyone present. It is more often than not a slow, drawn-out affair that encompasses many hours of eating, drinking and laughing. All in all, an asado is a wonderful way to spend time with friends and family.
So, to the business of making an asado. The fire: and from the word go there are two schools of thought. The first and more traditional way to make a fire is to use wood. This is slower as the Argentine asado wood of choice is often hard and slow-burning due to the time it takes to cook the meat. The upside of using wood is that it flavours the meat in the most unique way, adding that extra dimension to the amazing, world-famous Argentine beef. The second school of fire-making is to use coal. This is obviously quicker and much less hassle. The coals maintain the heat longer and the results are easier to manipulate. It obviously doesn't supply the aroma that wood does. Many people use a blend of the two schools, while the novices start with coal and over time regress to wood. To each his own ...
To end off this post, I need to clear up that cooking meat on an asado can take a while, depending on what is being cooked. For that reason an astute asador (asado-maker) will keep a source of fire close by, adding more coal / wood as the situation demands.
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Pancakes

I have never really taken the time to think about how lucky I am to able to eat whatever I like, whenever I like and even in whatever amount I like. Until one day, a colleague of mine was diagnosed as being an aciliac or someone who cannot eat gluten. And only then did I realise that gluten is everywhere and seemingly in everything we eat. So this post is dedicated to my colleague, Luli, and the recipe has been supplied by a former student, Katherine Roussopoulos.
In order to make flour-less pancakes, you will need a banana and two medium to large eggs. Mash the banana and add the eggs and blend with a handheld mixer until you obtain a smooth liquid. Add some butter to a non-stick pan and spread about and then pour in a little of your mixture. Allow to fry on one side and then flip over. In no time you will have really tasty, simple, no-flour pancakes. Dress these delights with whatever topping takes your fancy.
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Tomatoes

One of the most gratifying times of the year is when your garden starts to produce fruit or veggies and all your Spring toiling seems like a distant memory. And of all the things you can plant, tomatoes will bring you the greatest joy. They are easy to plant and maintain and tend to deliver a massive yield. The transition from buds, to small plants to green tomatoes until they eventually turn red, is awesome. Also, there are so many different varieties of tomatoes (black, yellow, green, cherry, pear, etc) that your garden will become a virtual salad bar.
But having all these wonderful tomatoes does create a small hassle: what do you do with it? You can eat tomatoes, give them to your friends and family, but there always seems to be some left over. Here's what I do:
Dice two or three large onions and fry in butter, accompanied by two cloves of crushed garlic, coarse salt and a teaspoon of coriander seeds. Cook until transparent and add your tomatoes that have been washed and diced. Also add about two to thee teaspoons of sugar to combat the acidity. Cook until the tomatoes break apart easily. You will notice that I haven't spent too much time on cutting the tomatoes into small and equal parts. The reason is that the final product will be frozen and used later, where I will cook it slightly and then use a hand-held blender to achieve a smooth sauce.
To freeze the tomato/onion mix, I like to recycle my plastic milk bottles. When I start using it, I simply cut the bottle and ice mixture on the inside all the way through, leaving the rest frozen.
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Mate [mah-tay]

If ever you travel to Argentina and you are fortunate enough to hook up with some of the local people, you will be tortured (in a good sense) into trying mate. And, to be fair, to the untrained palate, it is a pretty shocking experience as it is bitter and hot. Your initial response will inevitably bring out lots of laughter and jeers from your torturers and then you'll be given a second go. And, if like me, you are persistent enough, you will come to love this beverage, not only as a drink but as a social tool.
"La hora de tomar mate" (the time to drink mate) is nothing more than an excellent excuse to chill out, chat, laugh, complain while drinking mate.
So what is mate and how is it prepared? Well, it's a herb (yerba) that is placed into a vessel (a mate gourd traditionally although there are many variations today) onto which is poured hot water (anywhere between 70°C to 85°C - never boiling water) and drunk from a metal straw called a bombilla [bom-bee-sha]. The water is poured near the bombilla without wetting all the yerba in one go (in that way, the mate retains its strength for a longer period of time). The person doing the pouring is called the cevador or server and generally drinks first. Thereafter, the mate is filled with water again and passed onto the next person who then drinks it down and returns it to the cevador. Once you are done drinking you are not expected to thank the cevador, as saying "gracias" is a signal that you no longer want to continue drinking.
Mate culture is rich in etiquette and folklore and most Argentine people will willingly teach you any and all of these traditions.
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Bagels

When I was growing up I spent a lot of time watching movies and the one movie food that always fascinated me was the bagel. It summed up New York for me and seemed exotic and distant. Until I learned how to make them, that is. Bagels still hold that lofty title of "exotic movie food" for me but now I make them at home for my family to enjoy, at any time and without too much fuss.
Allow some yeast to prove in a small bowl with warm water and two teaspoons of sugar. Once bubbly (about 20 minutes), add to a bowl that contains 500g of flour and a teaspoon of salt. Mix everything together, adding little bits of warm water until you have a dough ball. Turn this out onto your work surface and knead until smooth and elasticy. Return to the bowl and allow to prove until double in size.
After about an hour, remove the dough from the bowl and break up into ten balls (more for smaller bagels, less for bigger ones). Once you have a smooth ball, use a wooden spoon and poke a hole through the middle. With the dough ball impaled on the spoon, gently move the spoon in a circular motion so that the hole becomes ever bigger (like a hula hoop dancer). The hole should be about 3cm in diameter. Leave on the work surface and repeat for all the balls.
Meanwhile, bring a bot of water to the boil and add 2 tablespoons of sugar to it. By the time the water boils, the bagels would have puffed up quite a bit (the hole will be somewhat smaller) and as you gently lift them up to drop them into the boiling water, they will feel puffy and light. Boil for about 1-3 minutes, turning them over halfway through.
As you remove them from the water, allow them to drain and then dip them in a topping of your choice (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc). Place the bagels on a buttered baking tray and bake until brown and crispy.
Enjoy with cream cheese, cheese, jam or whatever you like for a breakfast or brunch snack.
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Yogurt

As easy as it is to go to a shop and purchase yogurt, there is something really satisfying about making your own. This is simple to do and requires no special equipment.
First of all, you will need full cream milk (one liter) as well as a pot of shop bought yogurt which have live cultures. Heat the milk to anywhere between 35°C to 45°C in a thick based pot. If you're lucky enough to have a clay pot, that's even better. In a separate bowl, mix your pot of yogurt with a few spoons of the warm milk as well as two teaspoons of sugar (to activate the bacteria) and stir into the warm milk. The secret now is to keep the milk mixture still and at a constant temperature. You could wrap it in a blanket or leave it near the central heating in your house or, as I did, place the mixture in a thermos flask and off you go. After about 10 hours, the yogurt will have formed.
There are a number of factors which will make your final product better or worse and these you will only discover as you go along. Some milk and yogurt are more pasteurized than others and therefore have less active bacteria in it which will make the process slower if not impossible. Sometimes your yogurt will stay pretty liquid. In this case, you could add half a cup of dried milk to the initial process to help it thicken up.
Once your yogurt is done, you can enjoy it as it is (natural yogurt) or you could blend fruit like strawberries or blackberries in a blender and stir some into your yogurt to create your own flavours.
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Biltong

As I've stated on a number of occasions, Simple Foodies is about simple-to-make food. And although today's recipe does require some "special equipment", it isn't by any means difficult.
Biltong is, essentially, dried meat and some people might call it jerky. There are differences, none that I want to go into today.
Biltong originated in South Africa when people needed to preserve their meat over long periods without the benefits of cooling. So the process of biltong making is basically taking raw meat and dehydrating it.
So let's start. The best meat to use is Topside or Silverside and in Argentina I use Falda sin hueso also called Tapa de Asado.
Step one is to clean any excess fat off the meat and then to cut the meat into strips (about 5-7cm wide), with the grain..
Next the meat has to be soaked in white vinegar for a few hours. This gets rid of bacteria and helps with the curing process. Drain the liquid from your container and add the seasoning.
For people in South Africa, this means going to a supermarket and buying biltong spice. For those of us who are not that lucky, the spice can be made as follows:
two cups of coriander seeds, one cup of course salt, half a cup of fine salt, half a cup of black peppercorns, two tablespoons of cayenne pepper and one tablespoon of ground cloves. Place these ingredients in a coffee grinder and break up slightly. When everything is slightly more broken up, add half a cup of brown sugar. And there you have your spice to marinade your biltong.
Liberally add the spice to the meat and toss about until it is spread evenly and leave to marinade for a few more hours. Up until this point, I have kept rack with the Simple Foodies philosophy. Now for the slightly tricky part. As I said earlier, the meat has to be dehydrated and that implies drying it out. The South African way is to have a biltong box which you can buy commercially. Essentially is is four pieces of perspex with a base as well as a lid, which has a 60w bulb in it and a computer fan. Yes, that's all it is. The number of variations on making your own one are almost endless (do a Google search for "making a biltong box"). The meat is then hung up in this box, the light and the fan are switched on and within three to four days (depending on the humidity where you live), your biltong will be done. Obviously not everyone has a biltong box. If you have an oven that has a fan in it, hand the meat off the oven racks, turn the oven on to about 50 degrees Celcius (about 122 degrees Fahrenheit) with the door slightly open for about four hours.
WARNING: this is a very addictive food and once you start eating it, there's no going back!
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