The soup can be served either hot or chilled, with sour cream. It is perfect made a day or 2 in advance, and leftovers are delicious the following day. It is important to purée the soup and pass it through a sieve to get rid of the spice kernels.

60ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small chilli, cut in half
3t cumin seeds
2t coriander seeds
750g carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 large onions, peeled and cut into large chunks
4 sticks celery, washed and cut into chunks
1 medium fennel bulb, washed and sliced
±700ml water
2t salt
1 large bunch coriander, washed, and leaves separated from stalks
1 handful of leaves retained for garnish

120ml soured cream (optional)

1. Over a medium heat in a heavy-based pot warm the olive oil with the garlic, chilli, cumin and coriander seeds until the spices begin to sizzle and the aroma is released.
2. Turn up the heat, add the vegetables and stir well to coat each piece with the flavoured oil.
3. Cover with a lid and cook without colouring for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add water to barely cover, add salt and the coriander stalks. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer until all the vegetables are soft, ±20 minutes. Strain the vegetables, retaining the stock (the water that the vegetables were boiled in).
5. In a food processor or liquidiser, purée the vegetables. Push the soup through a sieve into a clean pot. Mix the stock into the puréed vegetables to your desired consistency (more stock for a thinner soup) and re-heat (or place in fridge until required).
6. Chop the coriander leaves and stir into the soup, taste and adjust the seasoning.
7. To serve
8. Serve hot or chilled with a scoop of soured cream, a sprig of fresh coriander and focaccia or other crusty bread.

Serves 6

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Boksburg – (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

SUNNINGHILL – Information & bookings (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

BOKSBURG – Information & bookings (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Hi all,

Congratulations to the Blue Bulls for winning the Currie Cup final it was a fantastic game and I’m sure all the rugby fans out there enjoyed it thoroughly, We would also like to welcome Mundial Knives on board at Wickedfood Cooking School Sunninghill. We will now only be using these excellent knives at the school. Wickedfood Chef had a chance to use a set while learning how to butcher a wild pig and it made the job so much much easier. Wickedfood Sunninghill has a variety of these knives for sale at a special price.

Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter – just search for Wickedfood and you will find us.

Wickedfood Cooking School, Sunninghill

Wickedfood Cooking School, Boksburg

In Desserts James Martin (renowned TV chef) indulges his sweet tooth, providing an irresistible selection of more than 100 hot puddings, cold desserts, cakes, bakes, ice creams and sorbets.

Following the very successful BBC series Sweet Baby James, this book features classic desserts including tarte tatin and pavlova, comfort food such as sticky toffee pudding and chocolate chip cookies and old favourites including spicy plum crumble and lemon meringue pie, as well as many new ideas destined to become classics in their own right. An illustrated basics chapter explains different techniques and the book’s illustrated throughout with mouthwatering photographs. Desserts is the book James Martin’s fans have been waiting for.

Most cookbooks have a section for starters, fish and seafood, meat, poultry and so on but for those of you who quickly page through to the desserts section and are disappointed with the small display of tarts and sponges this book is for you. It has a detailed look at many of your favourite desserts with easy-to-follow recipes and detailed pictures. It is a desserts’ lover’s must have book. It starts with the basics ie: short crust pastry and Victoria sponge to interesting ideas on how to make more advance things like cinder toffee honeycomb (the stuff you find in Crunchy chocolates) and how to spin sugar. This is a book that any dessert lover would be kept busy with for weeks.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Boksburg – (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

A quick-to-make savoury bread, with chunks of Chourizo. This is delicious served with any starter.

500g cake flour
2T baking powder
1t salt
4 eggs
1 cup oil
±1 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1/2 Chourico, chopped – reserve 3-4 slices for garnishing

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Grease a loaf tin or muffin pans.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3. Add eggs, oil and milk. Beat well, adding a little extra milk if the mixture seems too dry.
4. Add sliced sausage (reserve 3-4 slices for garnishing).
5. Place in a loaf pan (or muffin pan) and brush the top with egg yolk. Garnish with the leftover slices of sausage.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190°C for 1 hour (±15-20 minutes for muffins).

Makes 8-10 large muffins or mini loaves.

Try it with this Delicious Carrot and Coriander Soup.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Boksburg – (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

It’s hard to look at a plastic container of cinnamon on the supermarket shelf and understand how valuable the stuff once was, but in premodern times, it was more than just a flavoring; it was a perfume fit for prayer or seduction, it was medicine, and, as Tom Standage notes in An Edible History of Humanity (Walker & Company, 2009), spices like it were “thought to be splinters of paradise that had found their way into the ordinary world.” Both cinnamon and cassia were known in Europe throughout antiquity, though their sources were long kept secret. Contrary to Herodotus’s fifth-century B.C. account—probably passed along by Arab spice traders jealously guarding their hold on the market—the spices were not stolen from the nests of giant birds or harvested from a lake infested with batlike monsters, but they did make extraordinary journeys to the West even so, sailing with the trade winds across the Indian Ocean or trekking overland across Asia.

Christopher Columbus, after reaching the islands of the Caribbean, wrote to his patrons in the Spanish court, “I believe I have discovered rhubarb and cinnamon.” This was no small matter, as it was the demand for spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper, above all else, that prompted 15th-century Europeans to launch their ships toward the New World. The adventurers who followed in Columbus’s wake never found cinnamon or cassia in the Americas (the spices are native to Asia), but the far-reaching trade networks they mapped out ultimately made the spices both essential and easy to come by in kitchens around the world.

True cinnamon comes from a Sri Lankan tree of the species Cinnamomum verum (also called Cinnamomum zeylanicum) or, more precisely, from its oil-rich bark, which is hand harvested, scraped clean of its woody outer layer, and dried in delicate, multilayered quills whole or ground, it has a mellow flavor, warm and sweet all at once. Cassia comes from several species of tree also belonging to the Cinnamomum genus, with significant harvests in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and the Indian Subcontinent . Its bark is thicker than cinnamon’s, making for stiffer, sturdier quills. Cassia is sharper in taste, with a pronounced heat. It can also have a bitter edge and for that reason is often knocked as inferior to cinnamon. In truth, each spice offers its own advantages.

True cinnamon lends itself to slow stewing and steeping, as well as to sweet applications; its round, clean flavor never comes on too strong. Think of a pot of rice pudding with a couple of cinnamon sticks in it: the heat of the milk coaxes out the spice’s lilting perfume. Mulled wines, sweet-toned Mexican moles, aromatic North African tagines, and chocolate desserts all benefit from the soft nuzzle of true cinnamon.

Cassia works well when you’re looking to give a dish a bit of backbone or to offset sweetness with a good, spicy kick: in chutneys, Southeast Asian curries, and snickerdoodle cookies, to name a few. I take care not to overuse or overcook cassia, lest a dish develop the tannic bitterness that is the hallmark of bad cinnamon buns everywhere. To explore the character of both spices, make cinnamon toast with each one: both cassia and cinnamon have fat-soluble flavor compounds (notably, hot cinnamaldehyde and sweet eugenol) that bloom in the warm butter, but the toast topped with cassia will prickle with mild heat and pleasing bitterness, while the gentle taste of true cinnamon will linger quietly and sweetly on the palate.

Article taken from Saveur.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Boksburg – (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.