Hi all,

Spring has finally arrived! It is time to bring out shorts and flip flops and start moving outside into the sunshine and preparing tasty salads for braais and light dinners. Click here to find a huge selection of  salads to make spring delicious.

This week’s cookbook is Jerusalem written by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, which takes us into the heart of Jerusalem’s complex culinary history. Our recipe of the week is a delicious Chermoula aubergine with bulgar and yoghurt, taken from our cook book of the week.

This week we also find out what is new and happening at the Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School.

Our classes for September and October are up as well, so book now to ensure you don’t miss out on mastering your favourite cuisine.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter – just search for Wickedfood and you will find us. We update the blog on a daily basis and publish it through Facebook and Twitter.

Looking for info on food?

If you have any food-related questions, or a dish that you just can’t get right or even a certain recipe that you are looking for, but just can’t seem to find, then contact us and we will do our best to answer it as soon as possible. Click Here for more information. Hope to hear from you soon.

Wickedfood Cooking School news

Monday 16 September at 6pm – Delicious ways of preparing seafood (R430pp). Nowadays, nearly everybody recognizes that fish is a good source of protein and rich in healthy oils. It cooks quickly and is very versatile, not to mention delicious and nutritious. Despite this growing popularity, most fish is still eaten out. Many cooks are simply reluctant to try cooking fish at home, and they are unsure about how to buy the right type and handle it properly. Our seafood cooking class will equip you with information and facts and the confidence you need to start making fish a more regular part of your home cooking repertoire. 6 easy-to-prepare fish and shellfish dishes, including prawns peri-peri, mussels and braaied snoek, as well as accompanying sauces.

Sunday 22 September at 4pm – Turkish Meza (R430pp). Turkish cuisine is renowned as one of the world’s best. It is considered to be one of the three main cuisines of the world because of the variety of its recipes, its use of natural ingredients, its flavours and tastes which appeal to all palates and its influence throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Turkish cuisine is in a sense a bridge between far-Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines, with the accent always on enhancing the natural taste and flavour of the ingredients. This Turkish cooking class is all about finger food for easy alfresco dining which includes chicken and walnut dip, cheese pastries, baby marrow fritters, beetroot salad with yoghurt, grilled meat kebabs, pide breads and kadayif.

Monday 23 September at 6pm – Making pasta sauces (R430pp). You can never have too many pasta sauces.  Learn how to cook these delicious sauces in our pasta cooking class. We also include how to pair the right pasta shape for the right sauce. Dishes include raw tomato sauce with ricotta cheese, rocket pesto, vodka tomato cream, ham and mascarpone, and ragù with nuts and mushrooms.

 Sunday 06 October at 4pm – South African Indian (R430pp). South African Indian diaspora cuisine is deliciously distinct from that found in India itself. In India, foods are very regionally specific but because the South African Indian people come from a diverse range of communities a collective fusion genre of Indian cooking has developed. A combination of Indian spices and local ingredients creating dishes unique to the South African Indian community including samoosas, dhal soup, tamarind fish curry, bunny chow, roti and vermicelli pudding.

Monday 07 October at 6pm – 30 Minute Meals (R430pp). Trying to juggle work and home commitments can be tough in this day and age, and the statement of ‘who has time to cook these days’ is on the increase. In this ‘30 Minute meals’ cooking class we show participants how to produce quick and easy 30-minute meals that are delicious and well balanced. Dishes Include: Tandoori chicken salad, penne with a tomato salsa and tuna, chilli seafood rice and apple and pear strudel.

 

Sunninghill Corporate News

 

We recently hosted Paragon Interiors in a Thai class. We had a very relaxed class with them and at the end of the class everyone thoroughly enjoyed the delicious tastes of Thai cuisine, such as fresh springrolls, green Thai chicken curry and a fresh tapioca dessert. Click here to see pictures of our class with Paragon Interiors. Feel free to tag yourselves in the images or to tag people you may know.

Thai is just one of our very many menus to choose from. If you are interested in joining one of our classes or if you are looking for a fun and different corporate/year-end function you can contact us for more information. Click here for more information regarding corporate/year end functions.

Wickedfood Cooking School in the country

The countdown has begun, less than two months to our official opening. Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School is located on a sustainable working farm, following organic farming philosophies, just 60km from Fourways, close to both Johannesburg and Pretoria. Our philosophy is “responsible use of sustainable resources.”

This project has two arms, a commercial cooking school, which ensures that the project is sustainable, and a community upliftment training project, where we are giving back to local communities in the form of skills training, from permaculture farming practises, through to cooking and processing. All products produced on the farm will be available for sale to clients who visit Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School.

Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School has both a purpose-built training kitchen and fully fitted-out lecture room, for half and full day  corporate functions. 

At Wickedfood Earth Country Cooking School we will offer a very unique experience. All food prepared by the clients will be locally sourced, either from Wickedfood Earth itself, or from surrounding farms. For corporate groups we will supply mystery baskets of seasonal fruit and vegetables and it will be up to each group to come up with a menu and prepare it, with the help of our staff and recipe cards.

For individual clients, we will be offering weekend and Sunday classes on a broad range of topics, from cooking with seasonal ingredients, and the basics on how to cook tasty food every time, to speciality classes on topics as wide as sausage and cheese making, to establishing an organic vegetable garden.

 Bookings are now open, for our corporate programme, contact Cilla on 076 236-2345 or cilla@wickedfood.co.za

Cookbook of the week

Jerusalem was once depicted as the centre of the universe surrounded by three continents, Evropa, Asia and Africa. However despite this great depiction Jerusalem is not a great metropolis. It has gained importance not through anything material but through faith, learning, devotion and fanaticism.

Jerusalem’s vibrant and complex food stems from its being in the centre of Europe, Asia and Africa. These influences are clearly seen in the ingredients used as well as flavour combinations found in Jerusalem cuisine.

Click here to read more about this vibrant and fascinating cook book.

Click Here for reviews of all our cookbooks.

Food quote of the week

 “What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.”
― A.A. Milne

 

Recipe of the week

 

Bulgar was generally rural peoples food in the Middle East, while rice was for affluent city folk. However bulgar or cracked wheat was a staple to many Palestinians. Today, this differentiation is less relevant, with bulgar gaining popularity worldwide, particularly for salads and mezzes. Chermoula aubergine with bulgar and yoghurt is perfect example of how bulgar can take an otherwise ordinary dish and take it to the next level. 

Click here for full recipe

Click Here for all our recipes.

 

Wickedfood Chef