Quick Recap: what song are we talking about? And why are its words so daft?

• It’s a very old, very odd Christmas carol that probably started out as a French folk song. The song was taken up by English peasants at the time of the Norman Conquest – they couldn’t understand the French words but they liked the pretty tune so they used English words that sounded similar to the French ones.

• As a result the lyrics are very, very strange - who gives a partridge in a pear tree as a Christmas present? It would be very alarming if lords a leaping came out of the wrapping paper.

• Weird as they may be, the lyrics lend themselves to a lovely series of yuletide dinner parties.

• Last week we did days 1-6 (where to eat a partridge, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, 4 colly birds, 5 gold rings and 6 geese a laying).

• What follows are some deliciously daft suggestions as to what to eat on days 7 – 12

On the 7th day of Christmas my true love sent to me: 7 swans a swimming

• EAT A SWAN? You could just eat a swan but it’s complicated.

• There is the question around who actually owns the swan that you are tucking into - there is a 12th century Royal Prerogative that is still on the British statute books that says any swan on open water is the property of the Queen of England. It applies to this day– a chef was prosecuted in 2010.

• What the Queen thinks is not legally binding in South Africa because we are a republic.

• But who has an oven big enough for a swan?

• So really you have 2 options: swan cocktails (gin, dry vermouth, pastis, bitters and lime juice) or that classic petit four choux pastry swans both of which are fabulously retro-chic and definitely ripe for revival.

• I have attached the recipe for choux swans filled with raspberries and cream – cute, yummy and actually relatively easy but fiddly enough that people only have time to do such things in the Christmas holidays.


Recipe choux swans with raspberries and vanilla cream

Ingredients

icing sugar, for dusting

For the choux pastry:

500 ml water

125g cold butter, diced

pinch of salt

250 g plain flour, sifted

7 eggs, plus beaten egg for egg-wash

For the filliing vanilla cream:

300 ml double cream

150 g icing sugar

seeds of 1 vanilla pods

1 punnet of fresh raspberries

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. and grease/ spray and cook 2 baking sheet

• To make the choux pastry, place the water, butter and salt in a saucepan. Bring to the boil. Remove the buttery liquid from direct heat and immediately add in all of the flour in one go and beat very hard to combine and break down lumps.

• Continue beating until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan to form a ball. Then put back on the heat for a minute beating constantly (the drier your choux the more it will puff in the oven). Allow the mixture to cool slightly then add the eggs, one by one, making sure that each egg has been thoroughly incorporated before adding the next. You might want to do this in a Kenwood mixer because you need to beat hard and your arm will get tired. Check the mixture when 6 eggs have been added and if the mixture seems too soft, do not add the final egg. You want a glossy, thick, pipable mixture.

• Put the choux pastry into a piping bag with a medium sized nozzle.

• Take a greased baking sheet 1 and pipe the choux pastry into 6-8 oval shapes onto the sheet, using two-thirds of the choux pastry mixture. These are the bird’s bodies.

• On the second baking sheet use the rest of the pastry to pipe 6-8 number '2' shapes to make the neck of the swan.

• Egg-wash the top of all the swan body parts and pinch the beginning of the number '2' shapes to make the beaks of the swans.

• Bake in the oven until the choux pastry is risen and golden (about 15 minutes for the bodies and about 10 minutes for the necks – which are obviously thinner and will cook quicker). Cool on a wire rack.

• To make the vanilla cream, mix together the cream, icing sugar and vanilla pod seeds. Whisk until stiff peaks form. Place in a piping bag with a medium sized nozzle.

• To assemble the swans, take one of the oval-shaped choux buns. Cut off around the top one-third of the bun and then cut the piece you have removed in half lengthways to make two long strips (these will form the wings).

• Fill the remaining choux bun with whipped vanilla cream, then top with fresh raspberries. Place each wing half on the side of filled bun. Place the swan's 'neck' at one end of the filled bun and dust with icing sugar. Repeat the process making 6-8 swans in all.


On the 8th day of Christmas my true love gave to me 8 maids a milking
• Why not visit the dairy shop at the Irene Dairy Farm (012 6672326; shop@ireneestate.co.za) which sells certified raw milk from cows on the farm.

• They are one of the last places to sell certified raw milk (although the truth is that there is illegal raw milk all over Pretoria west) ideal for making amasi and/ or most cheese.

• They also sell luxurious thick cream perfect for scones with afternoon tea or those choux swans you are going to make.

9th day of Christmas my true love gave to me: 9 ladies dancing

• So many options so little time:

• You could try the belly dancers at Sheikh’s Palace in Rivonia 011 8074119. In addition to dancing ladies they offer Lebanese culinary opulence at its finest – don’t miss the zhoudel set (aka ladies wrist pastries) which have a perfect rosewater custard filling. The alcoholic beverages on offer are astonishing – should you feel the need for Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Petrus, Taittinger or a 1930s bottle of Johnny Walker in its original packaging (which will set you back $48,000), this is the place to go. Excellent orange blossom water-infused lemonade (homemade) is on offer for younger brethren/ those without $48 000.

• You will find considerably more than 9 ladies dancing at the Grand strip club (also in Rivonia;011 234 9593) – where they have the most blissful dessert buffet including the most awesome Mr Whippy soft serve ice cream machine with hundreds of flavours – remember (and I swear to God this is absolutely true) Mrs Thatcher invented Mr Whippy in the 1950s when she was a young chemist and part of a team that developed methods for pumping air into sweetened milk solids thus creating Mr Whippy Super Soft Serve Ice Cream.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: 10 lords a leaping

• No South African Christmas would be complete without at least a cursory inspection to see if the ultimate leaping lord - Lord Lucan - is amongst our dinner guests.

• In terms of his eating habits you will know he is at your table because he has (or certainly had) odd and restrictive dietary habits.

• Before he killed his children’s nanny and fled in November 1974 he ate every weekday lunch at the Clermont Club (which was the very smartest casino in London and was founded by Lucan’s friend John Aspinall) and he always had the same meal: smoked salmon followed by lamb chops.

• So where should Lord Lucan go for lamb chops – if I were lord lucan I would go to Maders butchery and adjoining restaurant in Pretoria (816 Paul Kruger Street, Mayville, Pretoria. No telephone.)because no one would ever suspect me of going there and the chops are the best in town.

• Maders is weird almost beyond words (but then so was Lord Lucan) - the décor is Miss Haversham meets vierkleur. Antique farm equipment and ye-olde SADF memorabilia is piled high on every surface. There is a giant portrait of PW Botha on the way to the restaurant loo and everywhere there are miniature ox wagons everywhere. There are signs inviting customers to write to krisis@boerevryheid.co.za

• You’d think the frighteningly fascist furnishings would put black patrons off but not a bit of it – it’s packed with South Africans of every hue because the lamb chops and everything else is superb!

• Plus for all their absurd, offensive politics Maders restaurant is essentially a chisa-nyama joint. You pick out chops, rump, fillet or T-bone from the fridges, have it weighed and then wait while it is sizzled and seared to perfection. The quality of the lamb chops and steak is better than that on offer at the posh-nosh Pretoria East steakhouses – tender flesh, crispy fat edges and sauces that are glossy and dark. All plates are piled high with perfect pap and tomato relish. Plus Lord Lucan would love the fact that the wine list has almost no mark-up.

• Can’t face Lord Lucan? And who could blame you? He was after all a nasty wife beating, nanny murdering , bad gambler with painfully dull eating habits.

• Why not try the Leopard’s Leap Wine and Liam Tomlin Food Culinary Studio and Culinary Store, R45, Franschhoek. 021 876-8822. www.leopards-leap.com www.liamtomlinfood.com (open Tuesday - Saturday, 9h00 - 17h00).

• Set amidst the Leopard’s Leap vineyards Internationally-renowned chef Liam Tomlin has established a cookery school/ culinary equipment shop/ place for uber-fabulous chef’s tables in conjunction with Leopard’s Leap Wines.

• Want to try before you buy I have attached a recipe for sweet corn and basil veloute which Liam recommends you either serve as a soup or serve over lobster as a sauce. Either way he suggests you pair it with the Leopard's Leap Un-wooded Chardonnay.

Liam Tomlin’s Sweet corn and basil Veloute (Makes 1 litre)

For this veloute it is crucial that you use fresh corn on the cob, as frozen or tinned corn doesn’t have the same sweet flavour.

INGREDIENTS:

4 Fresh sweet corn cobs

100 gr Finely chopped onion

2 Cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

4 Sprigs of fresh thyme

50 gr Diced unsalted butter

2ltr Water

100 ml cream

1 small bunch of fresh basil with stalks roughly chopped

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

• To make the sweet corn stock, peel and remove all the outer leaves, stalks and fibers from the cobs of corn. Remove the corn kernels from the cobs and set aside until ready to use. Cut the cobs into three pieces.

• In a heavy based saucepan melt half of the butter and add half of the onion and garlic and sweat for five minutes over a medium heat without colouring until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the cob pieces, 2 sprigs of thyme and a good pinch of salt and cook for a further five minutes without colouring. Add 2 litres of cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer the stock for 20 minutes, skimming it frequently before passing it through a fine sieve, discarding the cobs, onion and garlic.

• In a heavy based saucepan melt the remaining butter and add the remaining onion, garlic and thyme. Sweat for five minutes over a medium heat without colouring until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the corn kernels and a good pinch of salt and cook for a further five minutes without colouring. Add the reserved corn stock and simmer for 20 – 25 minutes skimming regularly until the corn kernels are tender. Add the cream and continue to simmer for a further 5 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and ladle into a liquidizer in batches and blend to a smooth puree. Pour the blended soup into a clean stainless steel bowl and add the basil and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Allow the basil to infuse for an hour before passing the soup through a fine sieve pressing hard with the back of a ladle to extract as much flavour from the corn and basil as possible. Adjust the seasoning if necessary.

• The soup can be served either hot or cold and garnished simply with baby basil leaves.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me: eleven pipers piping

So many options, so little time:

• BAGPIPES: You could of course go Scottish and have a bagpipes, haggis, tatties and neeps epicurean experience but why would you do that to yourself?

• PIPING BAGS: You could go to the wonderful Bake-a-Cake in Hercules, Pretoria – we talked about them last week at the 2 turtle dove stage of this madness. There you will find icing piping bags in every possible size for cake decorating projects.

• ENGINE PIPES: Or you could strap food to the pipes of your car. There is a wonderful book that would make a great last minute Christmas present called Manifold Destiny; The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on your Car Engine! by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller. The basic theory is that there are various heat producing pipes in a car and you can wire food (wrapped in foil) to these pipes and cook your dinner while you drive. My pipe of choice is the exhaust manifold which I find is ideal for short journeys and food items requiring a more intense heat. I swear to God I have cooked a foil wrapped rainbow trout on my exhaust manifold and taken for a fifteen minute excursion. Cuisine de la voiture. It’s the ultimate in eco-epicurean endeavour: Driver-chefs can be proud of the fact that they are using otherwise redundant heat and thus reducing the wastage of fossil fuels.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me 12 drummers drumming

Jason Skeed at By Choice Catering (jason@bychoice.co.za; 012 6613338; 082 8836609; www.bychoice.co.za) is the classy drumstick king. His catering company does all sorts of lovely, creative, skilled, delicious things (and was commissioned to make brunch for Michelle Obama when she came to Pretoria earlier this year).

The good news is they are closed only between the 24December and 3rd Jan. Which for a man with 2 small babies is a Herculean work ethic.

In honour of the 12 drummers drumming he has created the world’s most exciting drumstick platter that includes:

• tempura frog legs ‘drumsticks’ with black bean and chilli sauce

• froggie lollipop drumsticks poached in red wine and shiitake broth

• duck drummies with fig sauce, confit of duck leg glazed with cherry and honey

• sticky soy and sesame marinated chicken drummies

• deboned quail legs wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with cranberry, orange and pecan stuffing