Thursday, November 06, 2014

Main Ingredient's MENU - DeWetshof Chardonnay Celebration, Chandani, Breedekloof, Rhebokskloof

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South Africa's national floral emblem, the King Protea, protea cynaroides
In this week’s MENU:
* This week’s products: Rose & Orange blossom water, Masa Harina
* Thali at Chandani
* A Generous Celebration of Chardonnay
* Art in the Heart of the Breedekloof
* Rhebokskloof – The Evolution of an Icon
* Santa Shoe Box
* This week’s recipe: Easy Aioli
* Tastings and Festivals
* Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy
* Learn about wine and cooking
To get the whole of our story, please click onREAD ON.....” at the end of each paragraph, which will lead you to the related blog, with pictures and more words. At the end of each blog, click on RETURN TO MENU to come back to the blog version of MENU.
This week’s Product menu     Real Rose water and Orange Blossom Water. Jenny Morris, the Giggling Gourmet, said this afternoon on Cape Talk radio that she can’t find this in Cape Town. We have stocked both of these real extracts from the flowers for years. In fact, we have two different brands for both, the excellent Nielsen Massey concentrates and ready to use local products from a good local spice merchant. Wonderfully aromatic and flavourful, these are for culinary purposes, they are not fake coloured essences, not aromatherapy extracts nor for putting in your bath. Although you could... See them here
And a new product     We have been asked, mainly by American expats, if we can find real masa harina corn flour for them. The answer has always been in the negative, until now. We can now supply real Mexican masa harina, but there is a caveat. It is a fresh product without preservatives and MUST be refrigerated. It comes in 2 Kg packs. No other quantities are available. You need to order and we will deliver locally or you can collect from us. It is not suitable for posting or for delivery to destinations outside Cape Town See it here
Thali at Chandani     This was the second restaurant we booked for during Restaurant Week and, this time, we went with two friends who were also fans of the restaurant. We didn’t know what we would be eating before hand as they didn’t publish their Restaurant Week Menu on line, which was a pity as it might have attracted more guests. The dinner cost R175 per person for 3 courses and what we got was not what we expected. Read On.....
A Generous Celebration of Chardonnay     Every two years, De Wetshof in Robertson holds this very prestigious tasting. It is, to quote Danie de Wet: “to pay homage to South African wine producers whose passion for Chardonnay is displayed in the quality of their wines currently in the market ... we believe that, as a wine nation, South Africa can now be recognized as a global force in the production of site-specific wines expressing their place of origin to the degree of excellence this variety deserves”. Visiting wine journalist Andrew Jefford was the guest speaker and he made an impassioned plea for growers to look more closely at growing site specific wines. See his address here
Two marquees were erected, one for the tasting of three Methode Cap Classique wines and 16 Chardonnays , two each from different region of the Cape winelands selected by a panel lead by David Hughes, British Wine Master Richard Kershaw and winemaker Hannes Storm. The wines were tasted blind and they were magnificent.
The other was for lunch prepared by Chef Garth Stroebel and his team. They have catered for this even since its inception in 2004. Lunch was five courses and we were served the wines that did not quite make it into the top 16 plus two Chardonnays from France and the Laborie Alambic Brandy. All of them were superb, as was lunch.
What impressed us most was the unstinting generosity of spirit shown by the De Wet family in promoting all South African Chardonnays in this way. Read on.....
Art in the Heart of the Breedekloof: an Art and Cultural Experience     So it was up and at ‘em bright and early again to get to this country function. We were in the area almost a year ago and vowed to return so this was the perfect opportunity. It was a day packed full of art, fun experiences, wine and some kids’ party food. We absolutely loved the experience, tried not to drink too much, drooped with a little exhaustion at the final 8th destination Slanghoek Cellar. Lynne bought a painting that really spoke to her, which brought back memories of a past event. It is a lovely area to visit, with so much more to offer than we ever believed and the wines have improved by leaps and bounds. We should also mention that the prices are very reasonable. Go and see for yourself. Read on.....
Rhebokskloof – The Evolution of an Icon     We just had one and a half hours, after our day in Breedekloof, to change into something more suited to an evening function (we did that in our car, as all the places in Breedekloof had closed) and then drive via the magnificent Bain’s Kloof Pass to get to this event held at the northern end of Paarl. Rhebokskloof has appointed Executive chef Alicia Giliomee to run the restaurant and we were also introduced to two new wines: Black Marble Hill Syrah and The Rhebok, a blend of Syrah, Pinotage and Mourvedre, which has a new label. The evening was amusingly and ably steered by Master of Ceremonies and Wine Manager Francois Naudé. Read On.....
Santa Shoe Box     We are so delighted to hear that this annual initiative received over 120,000 shoeboxes, filled with educational goodies, toys, sweets and outfits of clothing, which will go to needy and forgotten children all over the country. If you didn’t get involved this year, do try to join next year. Check out their website here. We downloaded the list of things to go in the box and bought the items through the year, so it wasn’t such a huge outlay at the end.

This week’s recipe: Easy Aioli (garlic mayonnaise-like sauce)
Most of us have stick blenders nowadays and, with this marvellous piece of equipment, you can now whip up a mayonnaise, rouille or aioli in seconds. You can adjust seasonings or quantities, but this recipe works.
100 ml extra virgin olive oil – 100 ml canola oil – 1 raw egg - 1 T Dijon mustard – 2 t white wine vinegar – 1 clove of garlic, crushed – flake salt – ¼ t cayenne pepper
Put all the ingredients into a narrow jug or container that will take your stick blender. Turn on and move it up and down several times until you have thick cream. Vary the quantity of salt, garlic and or cayenne or chilli according to your taste. You can also add fresh herbs like basil or tarragon, or a mix of others to make a green mayonnaise. Experiment and enjoy. Lovely with summer salads and seafood.
Tastings and Festivals     Bosman Release Celebration on Lelienfontein estate on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th November. Bosman Wine Club members each receive two complimentary tickets. Tickets can be booked online through Webtickets. Additional tickets for family and friends can also be booked at R150pp. Ticket includes access to both days, a wine glass and a R50 voucher redeemable with your first purchase of six bottles of wine on the day. Tasting journey through the 250 year old cellar. Children under 12 enter free of charge. Food is sold at an additional cost of R50 per station. Live entertainment.
Wine Concepts will celebrate their thirteenth year of staging their “Finer Things in Life” Champagne Festival with the theme of Ebony & Ivory on Friday 21st November. They will be offering more than 30 cuvees for tasting from premium and boutique Champagne Houses to tantalize your taste buds. Expect names like Taittinger, Piper Heidsieck, Drappier, Mumm, Ruinart, Montaudon, Jacquart, Philipponat and many more. Tickets cost R380.00 if purchased from Wine Concepts stores or online on www.webtickets.co.za Tickets will be on sale for R400 at the door on the evening.
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 type of event 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 list of wine and food pairing dinners, list of Special events with wine and/or food connections, list of Wine Shows and Tastings and list of special dinner events. All the events are listed in date order and we 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
The Hurst Campus, an accredited school for people who want to become professional chefs, has a variety of courses. See the details here
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
In addition to the new Sense of Taste Culinary Arts School, Chef Peter Ayub runs a four module course for keen home cooks at his Maitland complex. Details here
Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has French cooking classes in Noordhoek 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.
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






7th November 2014
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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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