butter chicken
I remember vividly when and how I fell in love with Butter Chicken. The month was May, the year 2011 the place a small, ramshackle restaurant in New Delhi, India. I had been in Delhi studying since early March of that year and had months to go before heading back home to Cape Town to finish off my degree. Most of the food I had been exposed to in the city until then had not been to my liking, mainly because I did not at the time have much of a palette for hot and spicy food. One day when my friend and I went out as we often did to get out of the campus, I decided to try out Butter Chicken, which I was assured was the dish with the least heat on the menu. I was immediately hooked. For me it was the creamy texture and how the spices were tempered with yoghurt and tomatoes that made this meal a winner. Fast-forward to 2021, I’ve been enjoying this meal for a decade. The recipe below is my take on this delicious meal and I hope you can use it to switch up your chicken meals once in a while.
Scones, Scones, Scones
This is my recipe for yumminess produced in under an hour. These scones are perfect for a weekend or weekday morning. All you need to do is set your alarm an hour early to make sure that you stay in your family’s good books for an entire week! My scones are light, fluffy and golden. The sugar content ensures that they are sweet enough to enjoy on their own and not too sweet that you can’t add jam and cream. I really like adding ½ a teaspoon of cinnamon for that added bit flavour. You can also add a teaspoon of nutmeg for that additional flavour pop. Go on, give this recipe a try and let me know how popular you become in your home.
uMngqusho /
Samp & Beans
Growing up in the Eastern Cape, in a black working class family, one of the staple meals was uMngqusho, which is a hearty one pot dish made from samp and beans. When I was younger it felt like mom would take hours to prepare this meal but now that I’ve grown up it feels like I can get this meal ready in a relatively short space of time. I’m not sure whether the type of samp and beans has changed over time or if it was just the impatience of youth when I was younger. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. Anyway, uMngqusho is filling, hearty and really cheap to make. Because we ate it a lot growing up I never looked forward to it. But strangely, now that I’m older I really look forward to this meal, especially in the winter. As I’ve gotten older I’ve developed a bit of an intolerance for beans so I always make sure I have this meal before 4pm to give my tummy enough time for digestion. But if you don’t have my problems you can enjoy this meal anytime.
.jpg)
.jpg)