The Art of Aquatic Cooking . . .

The following is a recipe for cooking Apongeton distachys, known here in South Africa as waterblommetjies (little water flowers). You'll probably know it as Water Hawthorn. Recipe calls for a can of waterblommetjies, but you can use fresh easily, if you can find them. A 400g can of waterblommetjies is equivalent to about 300g of flowers. They have to be picked when at least half the inflorescence is green.

1 X 400g can waterblommetjies (drained)
500g lamb short ribs
15ml oil
1 onion, chopped
a few drops of lemon, vinegar or dry white wine
5ml brown sugar
2ml seasoning salt
salt and pepper to taste
250ml boiling water
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed

Brown meat in oil. Remove and reserve. Fry onion until transparent. Add meat, flavourings and water. Simmer gently until meat is tender. Add waterblommetjies and potatoes (you can add fresh waterblommetjies at this stage as well) and simmer until vegetables are cooked. Mash some of the potatoes to thicken the stew.

To serve: Sprinkle with lemon juice and olive oil. Serves 2.

This is a new section of the web site that we think will be a lot of fun! If you have a recipe for a dish that uses any aquatic plant, please send it to us! Write kit@victoria-adventure.org