Chicken with Apples in a Creamy Calvados Sauce

Chicken with Apples in a Creamy Calvados Sauce

Poulet Vallée d’Auge is the French name for this classic dish from Normandy and Brittany, which are the dairy and apple-growing regions of France. Chicken and apple is a match made in heaven. Paired with a light creamy sauce enhanced with some brandy is simply divine. This fricassée is seriously more-ish. Once you start you can’t stop until every morsel has been devoured and the very last globule of sauce licked off your plate, not to mention the frying pan!!
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Sweet Potato, Spinach & Mushroom Stew

Sweet Potato, Spinach & Mushroom Stew

Yams, cassava, rice, peanuts, spinach, plantains and peppers are just a few ingredients that are regularly used in the rich West African cuisine. What surprised me most was the peanut butter in this dish. Curry and peanut butter sure sounds like a strange combination, but in reality it works beautifully. The peanut butter adds depth and nuttiness to the vegetables, but also tempers the cayenne pepper and curry. Who needs meat if a meal can be so filling?
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Oxtail braised in Red Wine

Oxtail braised in Red Wine

This is where my cooking journey started. Miserable, bored and stuck in a rut with the food I was eating I missed home dearly and asked my mother for the family oxtail recipe. South African comfort food I call it, especially on those subzero evenings in winter. Yes, it does get cold there…
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