Thursday, June 05, 2014

Main Ingredient's MENU - Morgenhof, Kyoto Garden, GF&W Show, Port Awards, Steakhouse champs, Nutty Banting bread

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Cormorants flying home ahead of a cold front
In this week’s MENU:
* The Tradition of Morgenhof
* KWV Classic Wines go with Japanese
* Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC
* Any Port in this storm?
* Shiraz and Charcuterie Festival
* Angala Packages
* The Wolftrap Steakhouse Championships
* Old Mutual Trophy public tasting
* Nutty Banting bread
This week’s Product menu – Winter is with us and we all want something warm. The Portuguese live with a similar climate to ours (apart from the North-West corner of Portugal) and their cuisine is very popular here. We are told that June 10th will be National Portuguese Day. We have written about South African Ports lower down, but the warm spices of the Iberian peninsula will also help to spice up the spirit. We are investigating some interesting chilli products but can offer you a great idea. Smoked Paprika is a wonderful spice to use in many Portuguese and Spanish recipes. Try it with stir fried prawns... See them here.
If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find.... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.
The Tradition of Morgenhof       It has been a while since we visited this beautiful farm in Stellenbosch and it was delightful to be asked to come for lunch and taste their new vintages last Thursday. Owner Madame Anne Cointreau was there to welcome us and, despite it being another chilly grey day, the fires were lit and we had a good tasting followed by an excellent lunch. She was at pains to tell us that she is NOT trying to produce French style wines here in South Africa but, working with viticulturist Pieter Haasbroek (who has been there since 1998) and winemaker Andries de Klerk (since 2012), they are trying to express the best their dry land terroir can give them. It certainly shows in the wines. Morgenhof has always produced excellent Chenin blanc from really old bush vines and the vintage we tasted, 2011, was full of lovely tropical fruits with the richness nicely balanced by good acidity. Their reds do need time, as they have both structure and elegance and we enjoyed drinking them with food very much, particularly the Cabernet Franc, which is drinking beautifully and is a lovely food pairing wine. Which led us on to a great lunch prepared by chef Thys Esterhuizen. MORE.....
KWV Classic Wines go with Japanese     at Kyoto Garden restaurant, off Kloof Nek Road last Thursday, where KWV presented their Classic range to the media and we ate our second multi-course meal of the day. Luckily, the beautiful food at Kyoto Gardens is light and has barely any carbohydrates, so we managed. Yes, we did crumble at the four pieces of Wild Alaskan King Crab sushi. The wines are aimed at the middle market and sell very well, as they are competitively priced at R40/42 for the whites and R57 for reds - KWV Cellar Door prices. MORE.....
Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC     We spent the morning at this exhibition and were amazed to see the absence of the large food conglomerates and supermarkets, the increased presence of small, good producers and so much charcuterie. We tasted lots of it, all good apart from some really dodgy looking red hot dogs and frankfurters which we saw being sold. We avoided all the sinful pastries and confectionery and spent some time and some money in the wine area. We were delighted to find that Baleia Bay, whose Chardonnay won the trophy for the Discovery of the Show last week at the Old mutual Trophy Awards, had a stand. We tasted and immediately bought a case. It is very lean and crisp and entirely to our taste. We also tasted their Pinot Noir and so another case was purchased. This has to wait a while but is full of red berries and elegance. We enjoyed the show this year. MORE.....
Any Port in this storm?     Yes, there was - at the Third Annual Port Awards, held at Muratie on Tuesday. We drove there at the start of a big storm and it was lovely to sit near the wood burning stove in the cellar and taste... first, lots of different wines made from Port varietals, and then some beautiful award-winning ports. Everyone was hoping the famous Muratie Lamb shanks would be on the menu and we were delighted that they were. If you want to see the full list of the Cappa Port & Wine Awards click on this link. Some of the wines and ports were available during lunch and we particularly enjoyed the Boplaas Portuguese Connection 2012, which you will find on sale in Woolworths. Axehill’s Distinta was also a great food match. Both were in the top 10 table wines. We drank some of Peter Bayly’s Cape Vintage 2004 port which got a gold medal in the museum class and it was so smooth and full of Christmas fruit. We are off to the Calitzdorp Port Festival soon and will write up the ports and wines in more detail then. We love good Port and encourage all of you to try it, if you have not had the opportunity. In blind tasted international competitions, many of our best Ports have proved to be a very good match for the European equivalent!  MORE.....
The Shiraz and Charcuterie Festival is being held on Hartenberg this Saturday; we hope to see lots of you there. What else are you going to do in bad weather? Not sit at home feeling miserable, but drinking great Shirazes and eating wonderful charcuterie, surely.
Angala Packages      You may remember that we stayed at this wonderful Guest House in April. They have some super packages at the moment and we think you should investigate Click on http://www.angala.co.za/packages
The Wolftrap Steakhouse Championships 2014     The final five steakhouses for 2014 (in alphabetical order) are: HQ (Cape Town). Fahrenheit (Edenvale), Johannesburg. The Godfather (Centurion), Pretoria (Finalist in 2013). The Local Grill (Parktown North), Johannesburg (2013 Champion). Theo’s (Mouille Point), Cape Town.
In the next few weeks the Final Five will be visited by a select group of South Africa’s food experts and chefs to select this year’s winner, and the 2014 Steakhouse Champion will be announced on 24th June at The Local Grill in Parktown North, Johannesburg (the inaugural 2013 Champion Steakhouse). Follow on their website www.steakhunter.co.za where you can also win a prize for predicting the winner.
The Old Mutual Trophy public tastings     Last week, we attended the Awards ceremony and reported on it. There are many wonderful wines to be found among the winners. Tomorrow, Friday, D Day, 6th of June, Capetonians will have an opportunity to taste the best of them at the CTICC and our many Johannesburg readers will be able to share the experience at Sandton Convention Centre, Bill Gallagher Rooms on Thursday, 12th June. Click here for more information and to book.
This week’s Recipe...
...is a wheat free ‘loaf’ recipe which was in last week’s Sunday Times and is so easy to make and so good to eat, that we thought we should reprint this in case you missed it. It makes a small rich loaf, but you could double up the quantities should you need more. It does keep, if wrapped in cling film and put in the fridge. Lynne might experiment with adding some mixed seeds to this to make a more complex and toothsome loaf next time.
Nutty Banting bread
2 ½ cups almond flour – ½ tsp salt ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda – 3 extra large eggs – 15 ml runny honey – ½ tsp apple cider vinegar
Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl mix the honey with the eggs and vinegar. Stir into the dry ingredients. Oil a small loaf pan or line it with buttered baking paper (this has quite a cakey consistency) and bake at 160°C for 45 to 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Turn out, and cool.
Buying from us On Line    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 and drives the wheels that enable us to produce MENU possible. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. 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. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.
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. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.
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. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen 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 Thursday evenings and she has decided to introduce LCHF (Banting classes). The Kitchen Confidence classes, which focus on essential cooking skills and methods, have been expanded and are now taught over 2 evenings. She continues to host private dining and culinary team building events at her home. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

5th June 2014
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 online shop for details and prices.
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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 and standard 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.
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