MENU
Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet
Foods & Ingredients
Eat
In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner
+27
21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172
The view from our
B&B at Cherac
In this
week’s MENU:
Flying
from Cape Town to Bordeaux
Chérac
and Cognac
Ile
d’Oléron
La
Rochelle
Bordeaux, here we
come This week’s MENU has a different format. We are back
from France and thought you would like to hear some of what we did while there.
Most of it is links to blogs, where we will let the pictures tell the story.
Click on the links to see it or just catch them at www.adamastorbacchus.blogspot.com or follow
us on Twitter, @mainingmenu
On Sunday
night 9th of June, we flew out of Cape Town to Bordeaux, via a short
stopover at Schipol airport, Amsterdam. It was very tiring; the seats were extremely
uncomfortable in the Boeing 777, better in the smaller second-leg plane. We
picked up our hire car, a diesel Renault Kangoo estate. Highly recommended, it was
in the cheapest category - an up-specced van - and had loads of space and all
the mod cons we needed: a TomTom (invaluable for finding new places) cruise
control, air conditioning, very comfortable seats and it was amazingly quiet
and very economical. Diesel in France is cheaper than petrol at about €1.27 a
litre. We just had to get used to using a clutch again. We had a two hour drive
through lovely green countryside with roses everywhere and arrived at about
7.30 at our first B&B, 2 Route du Puits des Brousses in Cherac
with hosts Claudy and Alain Caillaud, between the towns of Saintes and Cognac.
After supper in a local restaurant, we retired to a much needed bed after being
up for more than 37 hours as neither of us could do more than doze on the
plane. See more here.
Cognac Next
day, we drove down the road to a small local producer of Cognac and Pineau des
Charentes, a sweet fortified wine. After a tasting, we drove through to Cognac,
where we visited a couple of markets. The quality of the produce is so much
better than anything we see. Everything is fresh and immaculately presented. More
here.
Then the highlight of our day, a
visit to Cognac producer H.Mounier, where we
were privileged to have a detailed tour of the establishment and to taste some
very old and special cognacs from the barrel. They have three websites: www.hmounier.fr www.polignac.fr www.reynac.fr . Then via
a brief look at Remy Martin, back to Cherac for an al fresco supper of delicious
things we bought in the markets.
Saintes is a very pretty town on
the River Charente. We visited a very innovative small negociant who buys
cognacs of different ages from small producers, bottles and markets them.
Guilhem Grosperrin took over his father’s business ten years
ago, when he was 23. His father had multiple sclerosis and the business was
failing. He is very entrepreneurial and has revived and grown the business. We
tasted some superb single vineyard, varietal and very old cognacs. More
here.
After this visit, we drove west
to the Ile D’Oleron, a largish island linked by a causeway to the mainland
where we planned to have a real holiday. More
here.
Next day, we explored more of the
island and you
can see what we saw here.
One day we drove to La Rochelle,
an ancient town about an hour to the north, which John visited in 1971. We knew
that prices in the restaurants round the harbour would be scary – they were –
so Lynne made baguette sandwiches for us, which we enjoyed with a beer on the
harbour’s edge. After a few hours’ walking round La Rochelle, we returned for a
long walk on the beach on the Atlantic side of the island. Pictures
here.
Internet access was sporadic in
Oléron and in Cherac, we were able to receive emails, but had difficulty in
sending them, so we apologise for any lack of response while we were away. We
wanted to send the first part of this edition of MENU, but our mailing software
is linked to our South African mail service so, unless you saw it when we
posted it as a blog, you’re getting it now.
On Sunday we headed back to
Bordeaux, quite early, to be at the start of Vinexpo,
which lasted five days. And wonderful, exhausting days they were, walking
several miles every day to taste some superb, some OK and frankly just a few really
shocking wines. We sampled wines, champagnes and cognacs from France,
wines from all over Europe, North and South America, New Zealand and one from
Australia (who did not have official representation), and some South African.
Our conclusion: You do need to taste wines from all over the world to get wine
into perspective but we know that we produce really good wines in South Africa
and this visit confirmed it.
Following Vinexpo we had three further days in Bordeaux of
which we took one day to motor to St Émilion and the next up to the Médoc and taste some wines
there. It has not been a good start to summer in the areas we visited and we
experienced a very damp, cold and wet France. We had exactly one and a half
days of sunshine and we feel for them. As we left we saw that the rivers have
started to flood: the Loire, the Gironde and Dordogne. They were extremely full
with all the heavy rain we have had. Another issue was the prices which for
South Africans are heavy at R13.40 to the Euro. We only had one dinner and
three lunches out, the food at the level we could afford was not great and in
fact the best surprise was a simple lunch in a place we thought would be a
terrible rip-off, and that was in St Émilion. The supermarkets and street
markets are amazing – if only we could have that level of freshness and quality,
and it was universal. Gleaming tomatoes, superb vegetables and seasonal fruit,
gorgeous cheeses and patés, super fresh fish with shining eyes and seafood
displays to amaze and excite. We bought sparingly but we did sample as much of
it as we could. Lynne cooked at home after the first few days, as we needed
real food. Although the cheeses and charcuterie are fantastic, you can overdose
on bread and pastries and one needs freshly cooked, hot food, vegetables and
salads. We were saddened to see the results of the recession with so many shops
closed and boarded up, even local bakers in Bordeaux seem to have disappeared
and the rise of the dreaded Pizza place and hamburger joint can be seen
everywhere.
We do have a recommendation. We
booked our accommodation mainly through Booking.com and they are worldwide. The
descriptions are very detailed and mostly very accurate and they back them up
with lots of reviews. We had a sensational apartment in the historic centre of Bordeaux,
in the square with the original Cathedral. It was booked through Homelidays.
It was spacious and comfortable and we even had a terrace and a garden full of
flowers and birds; we just didn’t have the weather to take full advantage of it,
sadly. It belongs to an advocate whose chambers are next door, so we had access
to her wifi. We can give you her details if we need them. We paid less that we
would have had to pay for an inferior hotel at “exhibition prices”. The
difficult part about Bordeaux is the parking. It is all either pay or
residential so you have to be out of it by 9 every morning and only back after
7 pm unless you want to pay a Euro per half an hour. Only on Sundays is it
free.
This week’s recipe is a classic
fish soup we had while on Ile d’Oléron. Lovely for this cold time of year, this
is a substantial main course. It looks like a fiddle to make but actually once
you have all the ingredients assembled, it is not. The shellfish trimmings and
the alcohol are not essential but they do add lots of extra flavour. Next time
you are peeling prawns or eating crayfish or crab, freeze the shells
French
Fish Soup
5 T olive
oil - 3 onions - 3 leeks - 1 fennel bulb – 1 stick of celery – 3 garlic cloves
– 500g ripe jam tomatoes or a tin of chopped tomatoes - ¼ t fennel seed - a good
pinch saffron, soaked in 2 T warm water - a 3cm wide strip orange peel - 1 T
tomato purée - 8 black peppercorns - 1kg fish trimmings and bones, including
heads (use white, not oily or smoked fish) - shellfish trimmings such as prawn
shells, or crayfish shells (we freeze ours for soup) - 450g skinless white fish
fillets (such as hake, monkfish, yellowtail, angelfish, kob, gurnard), cut into
chunks (you can mix the fish) – 1 tot of Pernod, Ricard or brandy
Rouille
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 2 egg yolks - ½ tsp cayenne pepper - 150ml olive oil - 4 tsp tomato purée -
lemon juice
Grated Gruyère cheese – French baguette
slices, toasted
In a frying pan, fry your shellfish trimmings in some olive oil till they
are beginning to take on colour and they start to give off a lovely caramelised
smell. Chop up all the vegetables and, in a large heavy-based pan, fry them
gently in the olive oil until they are soft but not coloured. Then add the
garlic and the tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are
soft. Add the fennel, saffron, orange zest, tomato puree, pepper and fish bones
and trimmings and shellfish trimmings. Add 2 litres of water and bring to a
boil. Let this simmer gently for 45 minutes, stirring often.
Strain off the liquid through a fine sieve, pressing the bones and
vegetables well to extract the maximum flavour. Discard the solids. Bring the
fish liquid to a simmer and poach the fish fillets in it for about four
minutes. Add the tot of Pernod and then blitz the soup in a blender and season
to taste.
For the Rouille: In a blender blitz the garlic with the yolks and the
cayenne then add the oil drop by drop until you have a garlic mayonnaise
consistency. Add the tomato puree and then lemon juice to taste then season.
You can cheat and use good ready-made mayonnaise to which you add the garlic,
tomato puree, cayenne and lemon
Serve the soup hot with toasted French bread slices topped with rouille
and gruyère which you then float in the soup.
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. It
needs updating and we’ll do that tomorrow. 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. We plan to visit their French establishment after
Vinexpo. 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). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel
cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking
classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with
Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info
here
27th June 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! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least
daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
This
electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed
to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded
it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person
or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. We own
our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. If you
wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if
you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
