Today I am cooking ox tongue. It is so exciting to cook again; I started cooking round about 2015 and then about 18 months ago I more or less stopped. I really don’t have a specific reason except to say that we were in the process of selling our home where we lived for almost 41 years and I got somewhat ill as well. I had to concentrate on the logistics of re-potting plants to take with, selling, transferring the house linked to the purchasing of the other property. And the logistics involved in that venture were involved: change of address, new internet providers, new neighbours new everything! Living in one property for as long as that, makes you forget what it is to get involved with this lot: what an adventure it was. It was more stressful than what we wanted to admit at the time. And one of the things that bit the dust was my cooking.
But I have to come back to the cooking bit. Just the other day my new
neighbour, who is a retired mining engineer, gave me about five or six different
chillies [13 in all]. That night at round 23:00 I put on my apron and cut it in
very fine pieces; all different shades of green with the whiteish pips and off-green
of the insides. First of all, I had to sharpen my knife; I took a sharpening stone
from my workshop and kept in the kitchen. Then the sharpening process began.
First you wet the blade, then you wet the stone before can sharpen it. It was a
kind of meditation to swipe the blade very rhythmically back and forth, back and
forth. 50x. Now it is very sharp; the cuts are crisp and clean. When it slices
through the flesh of the chillies, you feel it in the handle. There is no
resistance from the chillies. Clean cuts. Wash the stone, put it away and use
the knife.
Sterilize the bottles and take a teaspoon and put the sliced chillies
inside the glass bottles. Pour pure olive oil on top to cover the flesh. Let it
stand for an hour or two before screwing on the lid. I store it in the fridge
and use straight from the fridge onto my plate.
And I took a small bottle as a present to my neighbour. He told me that
he always cooks his chillies first before he bottles it. He was excited to try
mine. I never cook the chillies; always the cold fresh chillies, sliced and stored
in pure virgin olive oil. After a couple of days, even the olive oil gets
infused with the chillies.
How to eat it? Very carefully. With a glass of cold milk close by. Don’t
touch your lips or eyes after slicing it – you will regret it.
You will ask me what has this got to do with the ox tongue? Probably
nothing – but wait, I will write something very special about the ox tongue. I
got side tracked by the chillies and my knife and how to sharpen it. And how to
preserve finely cut chillies in pure virgin oil. What the heck!! It is all about
cooking – relax and enjoy it.
Now I am off to the kitchen to attend to the ox tongue.
Please write me a letter: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za
