Recipe(tried): A Winters's Supper in Africa - Creamy Mushroom Soup, Braised Oxtail with Cinnamon, Orange Scented Pears with Vanilla Creme

Hello one and all,

I have't posted a menu here in ages! I've missed you all and have visited now and again. I always love to see what other people are eating! It's Winter here in South Africa and just the weather for good old comfort food such as currys, soups, baked vegtable dishes and off course puddings!

My life certainly has been very busy recently with buisness(trying to keep ahead of everything!)Teenagers (2 sons who definately keep me on my toes, challange my patience and give new meaning to how to keep a bedroom artfully decorated with cast off clothes, magazines, crisp packets, coffee mugs of unknown age!) My daughter has alos returned home from her first job, homesick and fed up of being isolated in the Mountains!

Oh and we are still renovating! I'm beginning to think we are living on a permanent building site.

Here is a meal I served recently...

Creamy Mushroom Soup
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Serves:6

2 Tbls butter
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 Lbs button mushrooms
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 Tbls flour
1/2 tsp dried origanum
1 bay leaf
3 Tbls dry white wine
pinch of garlic salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 cup fresh cream
freshly chopped parsley

Heat the butter in a large saucepan and saut the onion until soft. Wash the mushrooms and slice off the stalks. Put the stalks and a few caps together with the chicken stock and flour into a food processor and blend until smooth.Add to onion. Slice the mushroom caps and add.Add origanum, bay leaf, wine, garlic salt and paprika and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir in the cream. Reheat, but do not boil. Garnish with chopped parsley.

This oxtail dish smells heavenly as it cooks!

Braised Oxtail with Cinnamon
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2 oxtails cut into pieces
2 tbsp seasoned flour
butter
1 onion
2 sticks of celery
2 medium carrots
1/2 cup ruby port
1 bottle red wine (I used a local wine Chateau Libertas)
3 sticks of cinnamon, broken into pieces
3 bayleaves
2tsp black peppercorns
5-6 sprigs thyme
salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 strip orange zest
4 1/2 cups rich beef stock

Preheat oven to 150C/gas 2. Trim oxtail pieces of excess fat and wash the meat. Toss in seasoned flour and shake off any excess.

Melt some butter in a heavy bottomed pan or frying pan. Add oxtail - sear brown on all sides. Remove oxtail with slotted spoon to deep ovenproof casserole.

Peel and roughly chop vegetables, add to pan and brown in butter. Add vegetables to oxtail in casserole. Add port to pan. Reduce until sticky, stirring constantly to scrape up crusty meat sediment from pan.

Gradually add wine to pan and bring to the boil. Boil hard for about 10 minutes to drive off alcohol. Add stock, cinnamon, bay, peppercorns, thyme, salt & pepper. Return to boil. Add to oxtail casserole.

Cover with lid and cook in pre-heated oven for 3 1/2-4 hours, until meat is falling from bones.

Remove oxtail from casserole with slotted spoon and keep hot. Strain casserole juices into clean pan, pressing vegetables well with back of ladle or draining spoon to extract all possible flavour. At this point the casserole could be refrigerated overnight to allow fat to solidify, and then be removed. Re-heat oxtail and sauce.

Bring sauce to boil and season to taste. Skin off as much fat as possible. Sauce should be deep in colour, rich and unctuous.

Serve oxtail with sauce poured over and with mashed potatoes,laced with mustard.

ORANGE SCENTED PEARS WITH VANILLA CREME
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Serves 6

6 large cooking or dessert pears, peeled and cored
4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp grated orange peel
1 tbsp currants, soaked in a little orange juice until plump
250 ml (1 cup) orange juice
1 tbsp butter, diced
125 ml (1/2 cup) smooth apricot jam melted with
60 ml (4 tbsp) brandy

CREME ANGLAISE

500 ml (2 cups) milk
6 eggs yolk
40 g sugar
scraped seeds of one vanilla pod
finely grated peel of 1 orange
1 tbsp whipped cream
45 ml (3 tbsp) orange liqueur(I used Van de Hum)

Sprinkle pears with sugar, orange peel and currants.
Place pears in a buttered ovenproof dish and pour orange juice around them. Dot apples with butter. Cover and bake at 180 C for 45-75 minutes. Basting occasionally until pears are very tender. Remove from oven and cool (pears will firm as they cool). Brush with apricot jam and brandy. Grill pears under preheated grill until tops are crisp and lightly charred.

To make creme anglaise, heat milk in a heavy-based sauce pan or a double boiler until warm. Whisk egg yolks and sugar and vanilla until creamy. Slowly add warm milk, whisking constantly. Return to saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring, until sauce is thick enough to coat back of a wooden spoon.Do not boil sauce as it will curdle. Add grated orange peel and remove from stove. Leave until cold, then blend in whipped cream and liqueur. Serve very well chilled with pears at room temperature.

I wish you all a lovely day

Julie