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Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
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We have searched our bird books, and can’t decide if he is a Cape sparrow, or if he is of another species. Perhaps one of you can help.
As many of you will know, we are having a most peculiar winter, with the temperature yo-yoing up and down the scale on the thermometer. Some days could pass for summer and then, as is happening while we write this, the temperature plummets and should hit a low single figure by tonight. It has been an exceptionally dry winter, so we are very happy to have a little rain this evening. One by-product of this strange weather is colds. We have had a particularly active few weeks, attending lots of dinners, tastings and events and meeting many interesting people. Great fun, indeed, but also a great way of being exposed to unwelcome microbes. Both of us have been afflicted this week, Lynne more than John, and she had to miss our wine club’s monthly meeting at High Constantia last night, more about which you can see here. David van Niekerk, the owner and winemaker, is a former banker who gave up the collar and the world of finance to make wine at the door of Groot Constantia, our oldest wine estate. He works in an immaculate small cellar, making wines with great depth and ability to mature, but which have soft tannins and can be enjoyed young. David and Karen, his wife, gave us a most informative tasting, with warm and enthusiastic hospitality. His Clos André Brut Nature 2008 Cap Classique sparkling wine is very clean, bone dry and bready. It is a blend of 70/30 chardonnay/pinot noir, with almost no sugar and no sulphur. He has two Sauvignons blanc, both less acidic than most, and a range of single varietal red wines made from the five Bordeaux grape varieties (Cabernets sauvignon and franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot) and Sebastiaan, a very elegant Cabernet franc dominated blend, made from the famous five. The High Constantia Sauvignon blanc is particularly clean and delicious.
We Love Real Beers at the Taj Last Friday, we had a most enjoyable evening at The Taj, with a tasting of craft beers in the Twankey Bar, followed by dinner prepared by the head chef of the Bombay Brasserie. All the dishes were paired with craft beers from five independent brewing companies: Brewers & Union, Camel Thorn Brewery, Darling Brew, Jack Black Beers, Mitchell’s Brewery and Napier Brewery. Each brewer provided a selection of beers (sometimes we were presented with more than one beer per dish), so the tables were soon covered with an impressive array of glasses. There was far more beer than one person could decently drink, so we still had glasses with a generous amount of beer in them at the end of the meal, but it was most enlightening to be able to pair the flavours of the different beers with the dishes, all of which were spicy, but not all of which were hot.
Our favourite combinations were Spicy tempered prawns and Darling Bone Crusher Witte, Tender lamb kebabs and Mitchell’s 90 Shillings ale, Broccoli in pickle spices and Jack Black premium lager, Chicken Tikka with vinegar shallots and Brewers & Union Versus Goliath amber lager, Stir fried potatoes with Pickle Chilli spices and Jack Black premium lager, Spiced lamb curry and Napier Brewery Ale and Black lentils and kidney beans with Camelthorn Fresh weissbier. The meal ended with Spanish CSG Touro Tripel Blond ale accompanying cardamom scented ice cream and brandy snaps. A huge feast taken over several hours. It was not only a demonstration of excellent Indian food but showed how delightfully varied real beers are, especially compared with the boring sameness of most commercial lagers. Pictures can be seen here.
They are planning more of these tastings. There is an encouraging number of real brewers in the Western Cape. In addition to the names who were at this dinner, try some of the others, like Boston, Paulaner and Birkenhead. They are well worth trying. You can find some of them at the markets, like the Biscuit Mill and Hout Bay and at places like the Waterfront.
MOROCCAN LAMB KEBABS FLAVOURED WITH RAS AL HANOUT
We sell lots of unusual spices and spice mixes. One of our most popular is Ras al Hanout – the quintessential spice mix from Morocco which is used in tagines and many other dishes. This is a rub for kebabs and is very easy to prepare.
25g Ras al Hanout Spice - 1 clove of garlic - 1 t grated fresh ginger - 1 shallot - 1 T chopped flat parsley - ½ teaspoon of flaked sea salt - 800g lean lamb cut into cubes
Warm the Ras al Hanout mix in a dry frying pan for a minute to release the flavours, then add them to a pestle and mortar in which you have put the garlic, parsley, finely chopped shallot and the ginger and salt. Crush well together then spread onto lamb cubes and put onto wooden skewers. Put them into a Pyrex dish in the fridge overnight and onto the barbeque the next day. This will allow the flavours to permeate the meat. You can also put this mixture onto chicken, beef or goat. When the kebabs come off the fire, slide the meat off the skewers and wrap it in warm pita bread or tortilla wraps - very good finger food! Serve with salads, harissa, plain yogurt and preserved lemons.
Our products. New this week is something we have not sold for about 5 years: anchovy paste in tubes. Carnaroli rice continues to fly (for the creamiest risottos and rice pudding) and we have more of the Sense of Taste Chilli garlic paste, for those of you who want something hotter than the very popular Prego sauce. We have also sourced some more Kewra (Pandanus) extract, for those of you who want to make jasmine scented rice. Protea Hill Farm’s fabulous balsamic raspberry vinegar continues to sell very well. It makes a wonderful salad dressing when used with hazelnut oil. We also have more stock of walnut oil, after a brief hiatus.
We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of rare spices and other ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. So, please have a look at our Product List and see what you need. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. If you are following Masterchef Australia we have Carnaroli risotto rice and truffles, amongst lots of other strange and difficult things to find that they use.
Our market activities The market at Long Beach will resume tomorrow. We won’t be there yet, but expect to be there in two weeks time, splitting ourselves between there and Cavendish. We visited the Bay Harbour Market, near Snoekies in Hout Bay, last Sunday. It looks very interesting, with a very good atmosphere and an interesting variety of crafts and food and drink to enjoy, but we don’t believe that it is ready yet for our sort of activity. There were not many people leaving the market with purchases. We believe that the organisers are interested in making a space for a produce/grocery market and we would be interested in that.
This week, you will find us at The Place at Cavendish (Woolworths underground entrance to Cavendish Square) tomorrow, Friday 29th July, from 10h00 to 17h00, where we will have our great selection of delicious treats and ingredients for you. We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s Neighbourgoods Market, as always, on Saturday between 9am and 2pm. Next Wednesday, we will be back at the Dean St Arcade in Newlands from 09h30 to 14h30. We expect to be back at Long Beach on Friday 19th August. We’ll confirm this nearer the time.
Good food and wine continues to grow as a focal point for many people in the Western Cape and, to an extent, in other parts of the country. As a result, our list of Interesting Food and Wine Events has grown so much that it was making MENU too long for some of our readers. So we’ve taken it online. Click here to access it. You will need to be connected to the internet.
Our list of Winter restaurant special offers continues to grow. Click here to access it. These 2011 Winter Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. we’ve been sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants.
4th August 2011
Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our product list for details and prices.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
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