These may look a bit freaky-like though they taste anything but.

The colour comes from the sweet indonesian soy sauce I poured in halfway-through the cooking.

Prawns generally tend towards the ’sweet’ on the taste spectrum and the flavour from the indonesian soy sauce and fennel work well to bring that out without it turning overwhelmingly sickening.

Marinate the prawns in:Lemon juice, garlic, fennel seeds, Oh! Zone, green chili and coriander chutney (I usually buy the bottled one from my local butcher) and rough salt.

Cook the prawns in butter until pink and pour over the sweet indonesian soy sauce (a bottle from Woolworths, generously donated by Naqiyah who just knew I would find some use for it). I found the liquid in the pan too, well, liquidy so I sprinkled over a bit of cornflour to catalyse the thickening. 

Persimmon’s taste pretty. They have a delicate sort of sweet to them, an understated juiciness that has you reaching for more than one.

I’ll cook up anything if it’s in my sights long enough, and it was no different with this fruit.

I sliced them up, warmed up some ghee in a pan and let the persimmon’s soften in the clarified butter. 

I sprinkled over cinnamon and cracked black pepper, added drizzlings of honey and some sweet sweet balsamic reduction and stirred in a few teaspoons of ground almonds.

Makes for an unusual breakfast or accompaniment.

A Woolworths’ ready flap-jack tower with; clementine preserves (from Hugenot Chocolates, a little eden of a store in Fransschoek, Cape Town), fresh blueberries and a dusting of vanilla sugar.

This sassy little production was a variation on this recipe.

The star cast this time around:

300g Milk Chocolate

100g Chili Chocolate (Lindt makes a good bar)

50g butter

4 eggs separated

500ml double thick cream

ground chocolate+chili candy sugar like this one from Cape Herb Company

Chili Jam

Dried coarse red chili

Melt the chocolate and stir in the butter until completely melted and merged.

Add one egg yolk at a time, mixing thoroughly before the next addition.

Whip the egg whites until they’re foamy and voluminous.

Add a little of the chocolate mixture to the egg whites, mix well and then add the rest of the whites.

Stir in the cream.

Add tablespoons (I must’ve had about three or four) of chili jam that have been warmed to pouring consistency.

Stir in a few sprinkles of the coarse red chili (don’t be overzealous here, as you want to play with the tastebuds, not bully them).

Grind over the chili+chocolate sugar to taste.

Decorate and serve.

Yes, this will make you fat.

Very fat.

And also, very happy.

This quickie requires nothing fancy and uses things you’re most likely to have in your grocery cupboard.

A small can of Nestlé Dessert Cream, a few teaspoons of condensed milk as per taste, a bit of strawberry jam nuked to syrup in your microwave, cinnamon for kick, cardamom for interest; all added to a punnet of strawberries.

Serve as is, or spooned over a slice of plain cake.

The intention was an inspired spiced yoghurt and walnut marinated chicken.

What subsequently emerged was due to a slip of the wrist and too big a heap of turmeric. After many attempts to tone down the turmeric’s intensity; by way of milk, lemon juice, vinegar and a range of other additions, it was finally a few tablespoons of mayonnaise that saved the day.

The end result was a wonderfully nutty-flavoured chicken, accented by hints of honey and cardamom.

The tally of ingredients for the marinade:

• Yoghurt
• Milk
• Chopped walnuts
• Nomu’s Egyptian Dukkah (a ready-ground mix of almonds, hazelnuts, sesame seeds, coriander, cumin, salt and sugar)
• Salt
• Ground cumin
• Ground cardamom
• Mayonnaise
• Vinegar
• Lemon Juice
• Ground coriander seeds
• Turmeric
• Pepper
• Honey
• ground coarse red chillies

In a large pan, a sprinkle of black mustard seeds was added to heated olive oil. Once they started popping, the chicken and all of the marinade was added to cook. I found the mixture too saucy, and decided to dry it up by finishing it off in the oven. I poured the contents of the pan into a roasting tray and sprinkled over a bit more salt, cracked black pepper and ground coarse red chillies.

Serve with roti or rice.

… eggplant, brinjal, vengra in the guji vernacular… would be as versatile.

Whenever I serve a convenience food for supper (like microwave steamed fish), I like putting more of an effort into preparing the vegetable accompaniments.

I sliced up two aubergines, sprinkled them with salt and set the dish aside (I’ve always been told that the salt acts to draw out the vegetable’s bitter sap, but I’ve just googled this fact, and apparently the bitterness has been bred out of the modern aubergine. The only reason you would salt is if you were to fry the aubergine. The salt draws out the moisture that would otherwise be replaced by oil during the frying process. Check out this site out for more information on aubergines, as well as for some interesting looking recipes.)

While the aubergines rested, I prepared my favourite cheat saucy shrooms (chopped garlic in melted butter, mushrooms tossed in, pour over some milk and grind over lotsa black pepper and salt, once simmering, sprinkle over flour, mix, mix, mix and let thicken.)

With the ’shrooms out of the way, it was time to pay due attention to the aubergines. These were rinsed off, slathered with olive oil, coated with Nomu’s Moroccan Rub on both sides, sprinkled with a little salt and popped into a heated oven until done.

The moroccan rub has an intense sort of spiciness, not by 3rd-degree tongue burn standards, but by its sheer robustness of flavours. It’s excellently paired with the delicate flavour of the aubergine.

I decided to make a spread slash dip with supper’s leftover vegetables.

The skins were peeled off the aubergines before I processed them with a bit of olive oil. To complement the flavours already baked into the aubergine, I added ground dhana-jeeru, lemon juice, ground black pepper and a bit of salt to the pureé.

Good on pitas, crackers, toasted pizza bases or between the two slices of plain white supermarket bread I’ll be taking to the office for lunch tomorrow.

This really started when I poured in a bit of lemon juice into the mayonnaise jar in order to eke out every last dreg. On shaking the bottle to dislodge any stubborn clumps, I thought I might as well throw in whatever else I wanted for the marinade, and give it all a good jiggle. In went; a bit more of the lemon juice, lime juice, ground black pepper, chopped garlic, store-bought chicken tikka marinade, mustard sauce, paprika mix and greek salad dressing.

I prepared chicken fillets by slicing along their sides almost as if I was trying to create a pocket. I poured the marinade over the chicken, making sure the marinade got into the slits, and allowed to rest for about an hour.

They went into a preheated oven (180 Celsius), along with baby potatoes (skins pricked and rubbed with olive oil and topped with rosemary sprigs) until they cooked (about half an hour to 45 minutes).

I’ve since rinsed and dried my mayonnaise jar clean. It now sits on the shelf in silent anticipation, “Shake, shake, shake señora…”

This year’s Exclusive Books’ sale yielded little fiction of the type I’d spend even petty cash on. However, what I did come home with were two armfuls of cooking books.

One of these was Harumi Kurihara’s Japanese Home Cooking. It takes no huge leap of imagination to realise why she’s punted as Japan’s answer to Martha Stewart. Her recipes are simple, wholesome and hold great promises of flavour.

Her baked papaya with coconut milk immediately ambushed my intrigue.

The recipe called for a whole papaya, 100ml coconut milk, 50ml double cream and 4 tablespoons condensed milk.

The assembly was easy enough. Take a whole papaya and keep it stable on it’s side on your work counter. If it’s a bit wobbly, cut a small piece off of the bottom to balance. Cut a thick slice off the upperside of the fruit, this will be used as a lid. Scoop out the seeds from the rest of the fruit. What you’ll essentially have now, is a sort of papaya bowl.

In a separate container, mix the coconut milk, double cream and condensed milk. Pour the mixture into the papaya (take care not to overfill, as the liquid does rise up when it boils). Pop the lid back on and cover the entire fruit with heat-resistant plastic cling wrap. Cook in the microwave on high power for about five minutes. Uncover papaya, scoop out the fruit along with the flavoured milk and serve immediately.

In my reproduction of the recipe, I used a can of coconut milk, a packet of Orley Whip (beaten up with a few grindings of vanilla-butterscotch candy sugar), cardamom, chopped pistachios, sliced almonds, chopped dates and the condensed milk.

This makes for a superb dessert on speed. The minimal effort yields maximum flavour and a great conversation piece.

I love oven baked mushrooms, especially those big brown ones. I have them drizzled with olive oil, seasoned with crushed black pepper and rough salt. I bake them for a few minutes before I take them out to sprinkle on cheese, oregano and top with peppadews. They go back in the oven for the cheese to melt and the ’shrooms to cook through.

These put the fun back into fungi.

How do you do yours?