Some of the best recipes seems to come from experimenting with the things you actually have available than trying to follow an established formula. This soup came from just this. I wasn’t feeling too well recently, not really feeling like eating and certainly not cooking. I looked around the kitchen to see what was available. I found: a courgette, some carrots, a leak and a sweat potato.

I pealed all, chopped into small pieces, boiled water, added a pinch of salt, put them all together and it turned out to be just what my system needed. The proportions I use are:
1 Courgette (aka Zucchini)
6 Carrots Medium size
1 Leak
1 Sweat potato

Pinch of Salt…you can always add but you can’t take away.

Add all the vegetables to a pot and cover with water. Once you have brought the water to boiled, you can cook for between 20 to 30 minutes on a lower fire.

I like my soup with chunks of vegetables, although you may want to zip through a machine.

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The Perfect Breakfast ….. if you happen to like a proper breakfast….. 

1        Onion

1        Tomato

4        Fresh Eggs

Cheese (Friends of mine have since tried Mascarpone, yogurt, Ricotta…..)

Fresh Herbs – I particularly like Mint and Thyme, but you could consider Parsley, etc..

Olive Oil

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This recipe was given to me by a very close friend, Yussuff. If you get this right, you will be cooking one mean curry…..

INGREDIENTS:

1 Whole onion chopped into small pieces i.e. not too small.

3 Cloves of Garlic chopped into small pieces

10 kg Chicken: Use free range chicken chopped into KFC size pieces. We always take the skin off the chicken as this is the part with most fat.

4 Heaped spoons of Curry powder: This is a bit intuitive and you need to be careful with this. The curry powder is what will give the curry the taste.

Yussuff used 4 very heaped soupspoons of Lalah’s curry powder. You may not get this brand of curry powder where you are or you may prefer to mix your own spices. Just make sure that you have sufficient powder.

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This really is a very simple recipe for cooking great basmati rice. I say basmati rice because for me this has the best body and flavour of all the different rice I have tasted and is consistently great with all kinds of curry.

I must also say that this recipe I learnt from a friend many years ago. At first you may not believe it works, but believe me it does and you will be amazed how much flavour the rice maintains as a result.

What you need:
1. A small pot (depending on the quantities of rice you will make) that has a lid that closes tightly.
2. Small quantity of extra virgin olive oil.
3. A strainer/sieve/colander
4. Basimati rice.

How To Cook Rice in 17 minutes:
1. Wash rice in the strainer/sieve. Allow water to just flow through the sieve for about 30 seconds.
2. Heat a small quantity of olive oil in the pan you are using. There is no set amount of olive oil. I just use sufficient to greese the bottom of the pan. The purpose of the oil is to merely stop the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
3. When the olive oil is hot, add the washed rice to the pan and stir. This will dry the water from the rice and lightly cover the rice with olive oil. Do this for about 30 seconds, stiring the rice over at all times, in order to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom of the pan.
4. Add the same qualtity of water as you are using for rice. If one cup of rice, then the same cup of water. This is important…..don’t try to be clever here…..this works.
5. Bring the water to boil. Place lid to the pan and lower the fire to a minimum heat. Cook for 17 minuted at this low fire. If you are cooking with electric, then it’s best to pre-heat a minimum heat, so that you can exchange the pan to the pre-heated ring.

VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT OPEN THE LID OF THE PAN FOR THE FULL DURATION OF THE 18 MINUTES. The rice is being cooked by the steam created and if you let the steam out, the process stops.
Open after the 17 minutes and you will serve perfect rice.

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