Day 32 of 35 days in quarantine

So three days to go and then they are apparently going to start phasing out the lockdown so that we can slowly get back to normal, I don't think it's going to affect us much yet, we still won't be able to buy booze and recreational travel is still prohibited. Luckily friends and family have helped out with the booze problem.

After complaining online about my booze predicament our Club Pres., Anton gave me a bottle of whisky and two other brothers; Gerrie and Murray offered me wine and whisky, that is what the brotherhood is all about, we take care of each other.

I managed to buy a nice big Snoek last week for R100 which I consider a bargain because we will get three meals out of it. It was delivered frozen to my house but had not been frozen for long. On the weekend we had a braai, I cannot remember the last time we had a Snoek braai and being a seafood lover I was in my element. I am not an expert, there are thousands of Snoek fans in the western cape alone but this is my favourite way of preparing it.

I lit my fire at about 11h00 because a Snoek does not take long to braai, so while that was burning I made my sauce. Snoek is a western cape favourite and there must be hundreds of different sauce recipes as well as methods of braaing, here is my favourite;

I start with a small amount of olive oil to which I add between 150 - 200g butter and the same amount of Smooth Apricot jam, melt the butter and jam and stir in a good tablespoon of crushed garlic, add the juice of half a lemon and a good spoon of parsley.  Stir, boil over medium heat until it reduces and thickens.

Paint the skin with the sauce to stop it sticking to the grid, I also eat the skin, then start braaing skin side down over medium coals. Liberally "slosh" the sauce over the top and when the skin is starting to blacken and you can see small cooking bubbles on the top then turn it over to darken the top.

I was in such a hurry to get started that I forgot to take a photo when it was ready! Here you can see that there is just light colouring of the top, the flesh is mostly white. - It's ready!

This is what I was waiting for, a piece of the backbone, my favourite starter!

Here's the meal; local Snoek lovers seeing this will probably all choose the same part of the fish; the stomach lining and belly fat so when there's a braai with a bunch of friends there's a fight for that and for the backbone starter. This time there was just the two of us and Janet's not that particular. I thoroughly enjoyed that meal, there was a lot left which I separated into two containers and froze. One will go to fish cakes and the other will go to "Smoorsnoek", I will tell you what that is when I make it.