Cooking up a love dish

Valentine’s Day in the kitchen calls for creativity and spirit of adventure

THE old adage, “the way to your loved one’s heart is through the stomach”, has much truth to it. What better way to spoil your special someone this Valentine’s Day than to prepare a home-cooked meal – made with love. But plain old chicken a la king is not going to cut it. Love thrives on creativity, so to make sure that we got it just right, we asked newly appointed head chef Jessica Sutcliffe from Tsogo’s Sun Square Hotel to share a few of her recipes. Sutcliffe jumped at the opportunity. After all, her passion plays out on a plate.

“Getting creative with colour, mixing flavours and playing with textures is what excites me. We are so lucky to have great fresh produce in Cape Town, there is so much of easy cooking to be done,” says Sutcliffe.

Having recently been appointed head chef, Sutcliffe at just 27, brings with her a wealth of experience. She perfected her culinary prowess overseas and most recently was a co-head chef at a restaurant in Spain.

Although her background is fine dining, she is excited to bring her skills into the Bistro-style food at the Zepi Bar and Grill, the restaurant at the hotel.

Sutcliffe promises big surprises on the menu in the next few months.

“I want to try something different, we’ve been playing around with blackboard specials and they are really popular. I want to make people see the restaurant differently.”

Her biggest teacher has been her travels. “I love to travel, everywhere that I have stopped over, I stayed a few months to learn the cuisine there, like Italy, France and Spain. It is enlightening to pick up all these different techniques and flavours, then put them together and create your own thing.

“I focus on flavours and colours mainly, I put a colour on the plate then look for the flavours that would go with it and then build the dish out that way.”

Her best advice when cooking for your loved one is to do it with love. Put your heart into it and you can’t go wrong.

Sutcliffe generously shared some easy, yet flavourful, recipes for our readers to try out. nidha.narrandes@inl.co.za

Method: Bring sugar and water to boil, leave to boil for 3-5 minutes until a light syrupy consistency. Add lime juice, fish sauce and chilli to sugar and water and leave to cool. Add more lemon juice if you like a more acidity taste. Sugar peanuts FRIDAY FEBRUARY 10 2017

Heat peanuts, sugar, and water in a pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is grainy and crystallised, 15 to 18 minutes. (Sugar should not caramelise.)

Raise heat to medium-high, and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until sugar just starts to melt again. (Sugar will start to caramelise. Adjust heat if sugar begins to burn or smoke.) Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt. Once peanuts are coated, with some crystallised sugar remaining, transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet; spread into a single layer using a rubber spatula.

Toss all summer salad ingredients in a bowl and lightly drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and arrange on the plate.

Heat up a flat pan and place watermelon into the dry hot pan. You want the one side of the watermelon to caramelise and blacken. At this stage you want to remove the watermelon from the pan and place it next to your summer salad, black side up. Then, sprinkle your peanuts around and spoon the namjin sauce over the warm watermelon.