Fruity meat

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Fresh fruit and meat are an irresistible combination. Using fruity enzymes to marinate fish or lamb or beef or even (that vegetable of the animal kingdom) chicken, works beautifully. There’s a sublime joy in eating a mutton curry that’s been tenderized by a long stay at Hotel Raw Papaya (a common marinade) or tenderloin succulent from a

couple of days at the Tart Pineapple Spa (pineapple marinade). Fresh fruit left in the meat, whole, is even more fun. We’ve seen what deliciousness can be wrought with a Moroccan apricot tagine with lamb, fresh fig salad with shrimp or even, that retro classic, sweet and sour Chinese pork with large chunks of pineapple sweetening the too-corn-starchy glaze — ummmm.
Cuisines around the world add fruit to their meat. You can buy pate covered in a tangerine glaze in Paris, eat grilled game with mango chutney in South Africa, picnic on a bacon and apple sandwich in New York or find an old English recipe for chicken and pears. But the most fun recipes remain in the South East Asian space. When you take fruit and meat and add chillies you get quite a rollicking threesome. The recipes also play with texture and colour and the best part is that they’re ready in minutes, look festive, are light on the belly and perfect for summer entertaining.

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Galloping Horses
There was some slapping of hand involved when I made this mixture today — it’s so good it may be eaten before it has the chance to get to the fruit it’s intended to crown. It’s a fabulous way to use up leftover roast meats: beef, chicken or pork. Alternatively, you could just buy ground mince from the butcher. Don’t get very lean meat if you’re using pork because a lot of the flavour is in the fat. We tried the recipe with canned lychees and fresh pineapple. The lychees were too sweet, so added chilli is recommended and reduce the gur to balance it out. If you can get pink grapefruit, use it: the bitterness will be beautiful with the spicy-sweet.

Ingredients:
2 cups roast meat chopped
4 cloves garlic
2 tbs sesame oil
4 tablespoons roasted peanuts
½ cup chopped coriander root
1 tbs fish sauce or 2 tbs soy sauce
Freshly ground pepper
2 or 3 tbs gur
4 fresh red birds eye chillies
Fresh coriander leaves
Pineapple, grapefruit or lychees

Method:

Before you chop it, make sure your coriander root is properly washed with not a trace of mud left. Chop the garlic. Chop your meat again by hand so that there are no big bits left. Crush the peanuts roughly in a mortar and pestle. On medium heat, warm sesame oil and sauté the coriander root with the garlic until the garlic turns golden. Toss in the meat, soy or fish sauce, gur, chilli, a handful of coriander leaves and the peanuts. Stir around and crack some pepper in. Keep cooking, making sure the gur is getting amalgamated. When the mix is dry and quite brown, it’s ready. The mix will sit in the fridge until you’re ready to serve. Cut the pineapple into slices and then quarters. Slice the grapefruit into segments and pile the mix on. Or stuff the mix into lychees. Serve garnished with more peanuts and fresh coriander.

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Bacon & Mango Salad
This is a lovely combination of sour, crisp, salty, sweet, fruity, nutty… With so many of our markets now selling lovely varieties of green mango, it’s a nice way to bring the season into the kitchen. You can switch the almonds for walnuts. Try serving as a relish alongside some prawn crackers.

Ingredients:
1 green mango
Salt
2 tbs sesame oil
2 red chillies
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs oyster sauce
6 spring onions
4 cloves garlic
100 gms bacon
½ cup almonds

Method:

Slice the spring onions. Keep the white rings separate from the green bits. Slice the garlic. Peel the mango and using the peeler make ribbons. Put the bacon to fry on very low so that it loses most of its oil and crisps up nicely. Take the bacon out and check the pan: if there’s under 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the pan, leave it in and quickly sauté the almonds, sugar, oyster sauce and spring onion white rings in the bacon fat. Turn off the heat, add some sliced red chillies and leave for 5 minutes till room temperature. Add some sesame oil to make a ‘dressing’. Now pile the mango, spring onions and bacon into a big bowl and pour the dressing over. You will get the dressing properly over everything if you lightly toss the salad with your fingertips. You can eat this immediately or refrigerate it and eat it cold.

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Lemon Chicken
Make this part of your regular repertoire. This is a lovely recipe that yields chicken that is scented with lemon and perfect to eat hot with white or brown rice or even cold, shredded, with some fresh basil leaves in a salad. I would make this for Sunday dinner (it’s very easy, quick and exotic) and toss the leftovers in the morning into some noodles with blanched broccoli for the kids to take in their lunch boxes.

Ingredients:

1 kilo chicken thighs
(cut into small, ‘Chinese’ style pieces)
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar
1 tbs sesame oil
2 tbs grated ginger
Zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 3 lemons
2 carrots
200 gms mushrooms
*1 tsp cornflour for glaze (optional)
Lemon slices for garnish

Method:

Marinate the washed and dried chicken thighs in some soy sauce for about 10 minutes. In a pan, heat the sesame oil and drop the chicken in, browning the outsides slightly. Chop the lemon zest as finely as you can. Take a cup of warm water and mix the soy sauce, sugar, zest and juice and stir to dissolve the sugar. Throw the shredded ginger into the pan with the chicken and stir around for 2 more minutes. Add the lemon, soy mix in the pan and cover and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. In the meanwhile, slice the mushrooms very finely and with a peeler, make ribbons of the carrots. Turn the heat off the chicken and throw the vegetables in. Cover and leave for 5 more minutes. You can eat this now or refrigerate it. When ready to serve, drain the sauce from the veg and meat, heat the sauce in a pan. Mix the cornflour with some cold water and add to the sauce, stirring gently until it begins to thicken. Then pile chicken on rice with veg, garnish with spring onion rings and pour the glaze over.

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Prawn and Pineapple Curry
This recipe is simplicity itself. Don’t limit yourself to just pineapple for this curry. It works as well with tender jackfruit, fresh cashew fruit... but the pineapple cuts into coconut milk and on a pile of brown rice, this is an irresistible combination.

Ingredients:

1 cup cleaned prawns
4 cloves garlic
4 tbs curry powder*
2 cups thick coconut milk
15 fresh kadi patta leaves
2 tbs tamarind pulp (optional)
4 Kafir lime leaves (optional)
2 fresh red chillies
Basil or coriander leaves for garnish
*Use a standard curry powder, maybe a commercially packed Ceylon curry powder, a massaman curry powder (Thai) or a red curry Thai paste.

Method:

Crush the garlic. Saute the garlic and leaves until the garlic turns golden. Turn the heat off and add your curry powder or paste. Stir around gently until the aromas are released. Turn the heat back on. Add the coconut milk and bring it gently to almost a boil while making sure the paste is mixed properly into the milk. (If you’re using tamarind pulp and kafir lime leaves, add them now.) When the curry is bubbling gently, add the pineapple and prawns. Bring to a boil, let it bubble for 1 minute and turn the curry off. This ought to cook your prawns perfectly but if you prefer them more cooked, then continue to simmer for another 2 or 3 minutes. Season with salt, garnish and serve immediately.