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Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet
Foods & Ingredients
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In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner
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Storm clouds gather
over Table Bay
In this
week’s MENU:
What
is in a glass?
Langtafel
at Mooiplaas
Overture
Taste
of Cape Town
Plum
crumble recipe
On
Line Shop
This
week’s Product menu
Our
market activities - Neighbourgoods, Long Beach
Wine
and Food Events
Wine
courses & cooking classes
To take a look at our Main Ingredient blogs, follow the link: http://adamastorbacchus.blogspot.com/ because to tell our whole story here would take too
much space and you can also read earlier blogs. Click on Bold words in
the text of this edition to open links
to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information. Follow us on
Twitter: @mainingmenu
Main Ingredient's On Line Shop is performing very well. We
are continuing to update it with new products and with photographs of products.
Please do not
pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you. When you
make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the
website to email us your order and we will send you the final invoice once
we’ve made sure stock is available. Click here to see the shop.
This week’s Product menu In our Recipe this week, Lynne has used Verjuice. This is the
unfermented juice of unripe grapes and it can be used in sweet or savoury
dishes, it can be used in salad dressings, gravies, stocks, soups and to
deglaze pans and we find that if a dish, like a pot of winter soup, is simply
not working, a good glug of Verjuice will bring it all together. We sell
it in wine bottle size and we have stocked it for a long time. She has ordinary
grape juice as an alternative, but it is much sweeter and does not have the
acidity which is ideal in this dish.
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 ingredients and
delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email
or phone, or through our website.
We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa.
Our market activities Come and visit us at the Old
Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods
Market, as always, this
Saturday and every Saturday between
09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to
find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows
where we park. We will be back at the market in Long Beach Mall, Sun Valley,
Fish Hoek tomorrow,
Friday April 18th.
What is in a glass? Do you notice that good coffee out of a nice thin cup
tastes much better than out of a thick edged mug? Does the glass you drink from
have an effect on what you are drinking? Have you noticed that drinking out of
something thick and solid like one of those French cheapie tumblers that bounce
when you drop them does absolutely nothing for the taste of wine. And do Paris
Goblets give you any wine aromas at all? Champagne is now served in tall flutes
as they tend to show the bubbly much better than those Marie Antoinette boob-shaped
saucers our parents and grandparents loved. Yes, apparently her perfect breasts
were the inspiration for these glasses..
We think that drinking out of delicate and generous
glasses with ground edges helps enormously and the tasting with Riedel’s specially
crafted wine glasses at Creation wines in Hemel and Aarde valley really
confirmed to us that the correct glass makes wine taste superb. Organised by the
Platter Wine Guide, who hold these interesting tastings once a year (last year
it was a lunar cycle tasting), Philip van Zyl, the Platter Editor, told us what
we would be doing. Michael Crossley of Reciprocal Trading took us through the
tasting and told us the history of Riedel glasses. Caroline Martin of Creation
took us through the wines and her husband JC took us through the cellar.
OK, these glasses are expensive and so they should be.
Years of scientific investigation have gone into designing the shape of a glass
to direct the wine to the right areas of the mouth to bring out the best
flavour and to concentrate the aroma in a wine. Riedel is an Austrian company,
established 260 years ago and still owned and run by the family. Not many of us
may be able to afford the full range of these glasses but they do recommend
that if your favourite drink is a good Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Noir and you
drink these regularly that you might like to buy one of these special glasses
for your own delight and pleasure. We hear that in certain restaurants in
Johannesburg, they carry a set of 24 of each glass and if a customer purchases
an expensive bottle of wine (over R1000) they automatically serve this wine in
the appropriate Riedel glass. We do hope to see this replicated in Cape Town’s
finest soon.
At Creation, they only serve their wines for tasting
in Riedel glasses and, after our long trip out there last Thursday, we were
rewarded with a tasting of Creation’s wines in these specifically designed
glasses. We tasted four wines in the appropriate glasses and a standard Bohemia
tasting glass (also in a polystyrene cup!) and, when they were tasted in the
correct glass, they shone, but lost flavour and aroma in the wrong glasses. The
polystyrene cup showed no aroma and very little of the flavour. The standard
glass was not bad, but the wines lacked the vivacity they showed in the Riedel
glasses. We also had a food pairing and then charcuterie boards. Creation have
a really good range of wines. We particularly liked the 2012 Reserve Pinot Noir,
which fills the nose with roses and violets and the mouth with liquorice,
toffee, cinnamon, forest floor and sweet berries. The easy to drink Syrah
Grenache has Rhubarb and umami aromas on top of beautiful sweet fruit with a
long warm juicy end. Click here to see the photographs.
Creation hold tailored tastings regularly using these glasses; contact them on www.creationwines.com
Langtafel at Mooiplaas This was an event organised by Lynne for our Wine Club,
the Oenophiles. We have attended a Langtafel lunch previously and we knew how
superb they were. Mooiplaas means Beautiful farm and is in Bottelary, near
Stellenbosch, on the highest hill in the Peninsula. It has magnificent views of
almost the whole peninsula from the top of their hill, with views to False Bay
and Table Bay. It was established in 1700 as part of Hazendal estate,
subdivided as a separate property in 1806 and the current farm house was built
in 1832. It is owned by the Roos family. Louis Roos is the winemaker, his
brother Tielman Roos is the Viticulturalist. Dirk Roos, their cousin, does the
marketing and the Langtafel lunches, which are held approximately every six to
eight weeks through the year. Dirk is a
keen cook and the food was absolutely delicious. Mooiplaas is a conservation
area; they have a mountain bike trail and lovely flower walks in the Spring.
We met in the historic tasting room. It was built as a
kraal early in the farm’s history. Some
time later, probably about 1806, the walls were built higher and given a roof,
which turned it into a stable for the farm’s draught horses. It was attached to
the first small, humble house. We were given a taste of their current Sauvignon
Blanc and small canapés of smoked snoek. When all our members had arrived, we
moved to the lawn in front of the Mooiplaas farm house, now a national
monument, where we tasted their MCC Mooiplaas Duel NV, which Louis opened by sabrage.
This is one of the best Cape Classique bubblies we have tasted in a long time;
a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, it is very French in style with brioche
on the nose and crisp clean and long flavours and a bargain at R127 on the
farm.
We then proceeded into the farmhouse, where the long
table seating 27 stretches through the voorkamer (parlour) into the lounge
beyond. This farmhouse is still occupied by the Roos elders, who generously
give up their main rooms for the lunch. Click here to see the photos. We
had a marvellous time and many of us went home with some wine. If you want to
take part in one of these lunches you need to contact Dirk Roos at www.mooiplaas.co.za
The tasting room is a good place to start and is open from 9 to 4 Mondays to
Fridays and 9 to 2 on Saturdays.
Overture John
was hired to take a Belgian couple on a wine tour last Saturday. After a brief
history lesson at Groot Constantia (it was too early for them to
taste wine, they said, we visited Jeremy Walker at Grangehurst for a taste of his great wines.
They were very pleased to hear about his upcoming trip to the Netherlands and
are looking forward to meeting him there. Then a taste of Hempies du Toit’s
rare and delicious reds in his historic cellar at Annandale. This brought us to lunch
time, so we drove up the road to Overture at Hidden Valley. The
first thing that impressed our guests was the near perfect silence. Hidden
Valley is up the hill from most other farms on the Annandale Road near
Stellenbosch. It has panoramic views over the valley and the Cape Flats to
Table Bay.
We were greeted with a complimentary glass of Hidden
Valley MCC to enjoy while we perused the short but well designed menu, which
changes daily. All the dishes are matched to wines by the chef, Bertus Basson.
Our starters were a parcel of braised buffalo and pig’s trotter (rich and full
of flavour. The menu suggested Hidden Valley pinotage, but Walter wanted a
white wine, and the sommelier recommended Bouchard Finlayson sans barrique
chardonnay, which was a delicious match) and thin slices of raw trout served
with angelfish croquettes and accompaniments. This was well-matched by the
fresh, lively Kanu chardonnay pinot noir. You can see the menu and photographs here.
We all chose the springbok rump as a main course. It was served thickly sliced,
just medium rare and was tender, juicy and a delicious match for the Hidden
Valley Secret blend of shiraz and tannat. Desserts followed: chocolate fondant
(rich, dark with a properly runny centre, made with Callebaut 70%) with fennel
ice cream, and a platter of local cheeses. Our service was efficient, friendly
and attentive without being intrusive and the bill for three with wine came to
R1280 plus a tip. Overture has an excellent reputation; it is richly deserved.
Taste of Cape Town This annual event was held last weekend at
the best venue it has had, the Cricket Club on the Green Point Common. There
were fewer top chefs exhibiting this year, sadly, but there did seem to be many
more stalls than before. There were certainly lots of booze stands with free
tastings and some interesting stands with smaller producers showing and selling
their wares. We did a fun tasting at the Jack Daniels stand which set us up for
the evening. However, it is a concern that, with so many different sorts of
alcohol to taste, that people would watch their consumption and not drive afterwards.
It was good to see the chauffeur companies well represented.
We were given media passes with some pre-selected free
tastings, so we did not buy any crowns. This was a mistake; the restaurant
dishes we tasted on a media pass appeared to be less sensational than others
tasted by our friends and customers at some of the other stands. We had been to
an event lunch that day, so were not very hungry and, sadly, we had no other
opportunity to revisit later in the weekend. We thoroughly enjoyed the two dishes that we
were treated to by the staff at the Twelve Apostles Azure stand and the salmon
with lemon verbena foam on Thursday’s Pop-up restaurant La Colombe’s stand was
terrific, if a bit small to share.
We did find it rather strange that most of the dishes
we tasted had polenta as their starch. We suppose that it is because it is
something that can be made in bulk and served throughout the day, without it
going off and needing a great deal of attention. However we find it intensely
boring.
Long may this festival continue to captivate the
foodies of Cape Town. We have had several really enthusiastic reports from
customers and winners of free tickets in our three competitions. Click here to see our photographs.
This week’s recipe came as an idea from one of
the Masterchef programmes, where the contestant was criticised for making a
plum crumble because plums were tasteless. Huh!? Use sour plums, not prune
plums. Local plums are certainly not tasteless and we have had a couple of plum
tarts recently which have been delightfully sour, with good flavour. We had
some plums in the fridge the other night, meant for a dinner that didn’t happen,
so Lynne decided to use them to make a crumble, as she was using our oven to
roast a chicken and this is an economical way to make a pudding. You can apply
this recipe to any autumn fruit, just taste and add flavour to your own
satisfaction.
Plum crumble
500g blue plums, cut in half,
stones discarded – 4 T of verjuice or grape juice – 250g white sugar – 1 t
almond or vanilla extract – ½ ground allspice
½ cup plain flour – 30 g of
butter – half a cup of dark brown sugar – ½ t ground allspice - a good grating
of nutmeg - a pinch of salt
Put the plums in an oven-proof bowl and stir in the
verjuice, sugar, spice and extract. Cover with cling film, punch four holes in
the cling film and microwave for 2 minutes at full power. Stir and cook another
2 minutes until they are soft and falling apart. Discard the cling film. You
may have to remove some of the juice to serve with the crumble later. The plums
should not be swimming in juice. You can do this in a pan on top of the stove,
but it will take longer.
To make the crumble: With your fingertips rub the
butter into the flour until you have large crumbs. Stir in the sugar, salt and
spice and put on the top of the warm fruit. Bake for 30 minutes or until the
crumble is crisp. Serve with the extra juice and some cream or thick yoghurt.
There is a huge and rapidly growing
variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western
Cape. There
are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have
made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of
food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit
our Events Calendar.
All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of
exciting events to entertain you right through the year.
Learn about wine and cooking
We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine
education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see
details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here.
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of
cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
Pete Ayub, who makes our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his
catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed
his seafood course. Check
his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking
classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma
Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her
home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being
run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite
Groote Schuur hospital).
18th April 2013
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 and our
blogs 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! ®
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