Couple of recepies we've been trying on the fire

I thought we'd write up some of our better creations; a lot of the time we're experimenting!


Panfried bread
This bread has been saving us - its easy to make, really tasty, can be done a few differnt ways, and best of all it isn't sadza. Its really a glorified pancake, made with SR flour so it gets fluffy.

SR Flour & some maize meal (if you want it to be a bit heavier), water, little bit of milk, an egg, splash of oil & pinch of salt. Basically make a thick pancake mixture.
Then add orange peel, juice of an orange, sugar for a sweet & orangey version; or
Garlic for a garlic bread version; or
...etc


Spicy derere (okra) and Tomato relish

This relish makes a welcome change to the usual oily and bland rape leaves.
Lightly fry a chopped onion in sunflower oil. Add around 20 chopped derere and 1 small chopped chilly (use a hot one). When the derere is starting to soften add 4 chopped tomatoes, then mix in a tsp of sugar and a tsp of fresh basil when the tomatoes have formed a sauce (less than 10 mins). Serve as a relish with sadza, or with white fish or chicken & rice.


Winter solstice soup
Sunday night is often a time when you don't really feel like cooking all that much, and we were really in the mood for being able to order some thai delivery (not exactly available where we are), especially as 'ma-getzi iyenda' and cooking on the fire in the dark ain't that convenient (even though we cheat as we have headlamps!). The night was cold though and despite a suggestion to skip dinner and just go to bed we realised that we'd need something to warm our bellies. Just when all looked lost the idea of a hearty soup came to mind, and in 15 mins we had a pot bubbling away over the coals with a mixture of onion, curry powder, butternut, potato, sweet potato, tomato and water. No blender available, I just mashed it as best I could with a big wooden spoon.
Perfectly sweet, slightly spicy and lovely and hot; slurped down next to the fire under the stars as the earth started to tilt its southern hemisphere back towards the sun and the promise that tomorrow would be longer than yesterday.


Pumpkin leaves
Whilst I have seen plenty of pumpkin plants in my time - growing in my vegetable garden or volunteer plants making their way out of the compost heap - I wasn't aware until coming here that I should eat the leaves as well as the fruit. As it is winter season we don't have any pumpkin plants growing (the fruit won't set), however I will be putting in the seeds from the next pumpkin we eat for more of these leaves. We bought a massive bunch of the leaves from the fortnightly farmers market for 50c. Despite the dark colour and slightly furry nature of the leaves & stems they are not bitter at all, and it is a shame that they aren't on the menu more in the UK or Oz (I'm sure that the Italian's would have a few recipes for them though).

Pumpkin leaves Tempura
Driving back along the rutted sandy from the farmers market I started thinking about what I could do with the pumpkin leaves. Being a dark in colour and little coarse I thought that they could be bitter if boiled, but that frying them somehow could be nice. A reverie of vegetable tempura crept into my mind as we bounced along the old farm roads and I was locked on course.
The situation of 'ma-getzi iyenda' (no power) when we got back should have told me to wait to do it on the stove another time, but I was straight into making a thin batter from SR flour, water & a little salt. The stems of the pumpkin leaves have to be peeled (not rigorously) to remove the outer hairy skin. Then it was a matter of getting the oil really hot in the frying pan on the fire, dipping the leaves in the batter and getting them in the hot oil for 30 seconds or so. We did 1/2 of the leaves we had bought, and it was certainly a bit of an oil-fest, totally delicious though, and the kids loved them as well - they hadn't ever had anything cooked that way (the idea of deep-fried fish spun them out).
Served with boiled sweet potatoes, avocado and tomato.
Next time I would make the batter a bit thinner (I think proper tempura oil is lighter as well, but a bit hard to find here!) and use a deeper pan with hotter oil, but for a first experiment it was all good. A bit of chilly in the oil could be good as well.

Pumpkin leaves with dovi (peanut butter)
The ongoing dovi addiction continues. I'm not sure if this is an old traditional dish, or just a local dish that has been around in modern times (when did pumpkins & peanuts first make it to Zim?!)
Peel the stems of the pumpkin leaves as before. Bring a pan of water to a vigorous boil, and at the same time heat a frying pan with some oil in it. Blanche the leaves for a minute, drain off the water and then add to the frying pan. Add a Tbspn of dovi, and stir until it is mixed through all of the leaves. Fry until all of the excess water is cooked off.
Served with boiled sweet potato and oyster mushrooms with tomato and basil. Definitely going to do that again.