1. Potatoes with a high starch content, sometimes labelled as "mashing potatoes."
2. Using the right implement for mashing, a potato ricer, available at kitchen shops. It forces the cooked potato through small holes, which makes it loose and fluffy.
3. Pre-heat a little milk and butter in the microwave before adding the hot milk to the hot mashed potatoes. Mix lightly with seasoning, using a fork.
We have economised the classic Italian dish of Saltimbocca (veal wrapped in prosciutto). This delightful chicken breast version is stuffed with sandwich ham and then fried in sage butter. It's the perfect midweek supper for the whole family, served with mashed potatoes and steamed green veggies.
Hot cross buns are available everywhere at the moment! There's more than one way to enjoy them. Try this decadent Hot Cross Bun Pudding by Ilse van der Merwe, which combines a delicious milk-egg custard with orange rind, dark chocolate, and mixed spice. (Photography by Tasha Seccombe.)
Looking for bold tomato flavour? Our Spanish Tomato Flavour Bomb will sort you out in a flash. Just baste and cook your meal with it from scratch, or add it to your favourite dishes as a final flavour booster.
Greek cooks sure know their way around lamb, and this classic recipe for Youvetsi is one of our favourites. Tender, slow-roasted lamb shanks with fresh tomato, lemon, and feta, all baked in one casserole with delicious orzo to soak up the pan juices.
Biltong in a salad? In South Africa, yes, of course! Biltong and blue cheese make such an iconic combo, and the addition of fresh black figs when in season ensures it's fit for royalty. Which of our dressings would you use on this delicious salad?
We've had an overwhelming reaction to our video about making soft cheese from amasi. Thank you for your comments! We'd love to give feedback on some of your questions:
Q: What is the shelf life of this cheese?
A: Depending on the 'best before' date on the amasi, the cheese should have a refrigerator shelf life of about 2-3 weeks.
Q: How can I use the strained amazi water?
A: Use this protein-rich whey byproduct in smoothies, protein shakes, for baking (think pancakes and bread), or diluted (1:10) as a nutrient-dense fertiliser for house plants.
Q: Why did you use a blue synthetic kitchen cloth instead of muslin cloth?
A: These disposable blue kitchen cloths are affordable and readily available, and have ideal straining properties because of their perforated nature. A more classic option would be to use a thin cotton muslin cloth.
Q: Why did you use an expensive Le Creuset bowl?
A: You can use any suitable bowl that is a good fit for your sieve. The Le Creuset bowl in the video was gifted to us, and a perfect fit for our sieve.
Q: The video says 1 L amasi, but it looks like you've used 2 L?
A: Most standard sieves can take about 1 L of amasi for straining. We used 1 L for this video, poured from a half-empty 2 L container, because it was the second batch we made. Amasi is sold in 2 L and 500 ml containers in South Africa.
Q: Can I make a Red Pepper Pesto variant?
A: Yes. Make a flavoured maas cheese by stirring 1 packet of Red Pepper Pesto into the strained cheese made from 1 L amasi.
This is Ina's go-to fish cakes recipe, made with fresh hake, a teaspoon or two of fish paste (Redro), and lots of potato. Yes, there's also a recipe for a homemade tartare sauce in the link below! An irresistible weeknight meal.
Yes, we cannot live without it! A digital scale is wonderfully accurate, measuring by grams. Many wet ingredients can also be converted from millilitres to grams, making weighing much easier and more precise.
Did you know that 250 ml of water ( 1 cup) weighs 250 g?
Golden Delicious apples make the perfect salad ingredient, along with chewy dried cranberries or seedless raisins, crunchy celery and a drizzle of our Balsamic Dressing. We slice the apples with a mandoline to get even, fine slices. This is a kitchen tool worth investing in!
March is harvest season for many wine farms, and table grapes are still abundant in supermarkets all across the country. Make your own delicious Grape Jam with our easy recipe, perfect for your next cheese platter or morning toast.
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Our story is a tale of humble beginnings, true grit and a tireless dedication to exceptional quality
The story of Paarman Foods unfolds like magical journey. And like all good stories it combines the best of lifeโs ingredients โhumble beginnings, dogged perseverance, a tireless dedication to exceptional quality and an inherent passion for good food and enriching peopleโs lives by making cooking and eating a more pleasurable, healthy experience. Itโs the progress โ the challenges encountered and overcome along the way, the experiences and the people โ that make this journey so rewarding.
In 1982, Ina left behind her lecturing career to start a cookery school in the familyโs converted garage. The business got off to a slow start as people were not accustomed to paying to learn how to cook and Ina did not have a budget for advertising, and so her teenage sons were despatched on their bicycles through the neighbourhood to drop homemade flyers into peopleโs post boxes. But 7 years later, the school was hugely popular and Inaโs younger son, Graham, had finished a business degree and was about to do his chartered accountancy exam. He knew it was not the life he wanted, though. โGraham said to me, โWhy donโt we go into business together? You can cook, and I can count!โ recalls Ina.
From those early days in a garage a generation ago, this small, but highly respected cookery school morphed into a fledgling food-manufacturing business.
Ina, her husband Ted and Graham started the business with the proceeds from Inaโs self-published cookbook โCook with Ina Paarmanโ, aided by Tedโs uncharacteristically bold decision to invest his hard-earned retirement savings into this start-up venture, despite his inherent aversion to risk taking. Thanks to his foresight and courage in entrusting his financial future to the relative inexperience of his determined wife and youthfully idealistic son, this seed capital enabled Paarman Foods to embark on a truly remarkable and uplifting South African journey.
The ensuing 25 years have seen this embryonic business transform itself into a household brand with an enviable reputation, now exporting to more than 32 countries around the globe.
Despite the increase in the scale and scope of operations over the years, the underlying passion for creating top-quality, innovative products has not diminished. If anything, it has intensified. Uncompromising commitment to exceptional quality, integrity, trust and consistency are the golden threads running through the Paarmansโ story.
Time is undeniably the most precious resource today, and for this reason their customers demand convenience โ but not at the expense of taste, flavour and health. Having always recognised this, they constantly strive to make food products in the time-honoured, traditional way, using fresh seasonal ingredients that will deliver a full-flavoured authentic taste experience. They enthusiastically embrace the pursuit of flavour by going the extra mile and challenging themselves every day in doing the โdifficult stuff wellโ โ be it the slow roasting of vegetables to the unavoidably time-consuming process of producing traditional bone stock reductions to extract maximum flavour and nutrition.
โAlthough the idea is an ostensibly simple one, the concept of producing food on a large scale that does not taste like it is mass produced is the goal which all of our staff have willingly and enthusiastically embraced with a certain missionary zeal,โ says Graham Paarman.
In essence, this means recreating all the goodness and wholesomeness of home-style cooking in an internationally accredited FSSC22000, high-tech food processing facility. โWe are constantly improving our products,โ says Graham. โWe never want to become complacent and feel weโve โarrivedโ.โ Homespun, delicious stocks, sauces and spices are the lifeblood of the Ina Paarman brand. It is what a good home cook could do in their own kitchen if they had the time, but on a larger scale.
Today, more than two decades later, the Paarmans sometimes feel as if their journey has only just begun. They are consumed, more so than ever, with realising their dream of enriching and adding immeasurably to the quality of peopleโs lives by enhancing their joy of cooking and eating โ be they kitchen novices, enthusiastic home cooks or experienced chefs. The entire extended Paarman Foods family are proud of what they do and are dedicated to providing their customers with products they know they will enjoy
